Wayne Gretzky
By: Tyler
Wayne's Hockey Life!
Wayne's life as a Kid
One Of His Not So Good Games
The loss to the lowly L.A Kings
The defeat of the Oilers against the lowly favored L.A Kings. Here is a little piece of the story on that.
The expectation, come the start of the playoffs, was that Gretzky and Co. were due to collect their first of many championships. A few cursory matters of business needed tending to, starting with an opening playoff series against the lowly Los Angeles Kings. Most great, pantheon-type teams have some crippling moment of shame that they need to put behind them, before establishing their dynasty, or some Olympus to surmount, but no one thought that Gretzky's Oilers would ever have to exorcise the memory of the 1982 LA Kings. The Kings won twenty-four games to the Oilers' 48 that season, and lost 41, finishing 48 points back in the standings. Their goalie, Mario Lessard, was, as hockey parlance goes, a "sieve," allowing 4.36 goals a game.