This Day in Hockey History – December 20, 1985 and 1986 – Royal Oil Embroil Again

Dec 20, 2019

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For three years in a row, the Los Angeles Kings and Edmonton Oilers played each other in high-scoring games at this time in December. After losing to the Oilers 7-3 on December 19, 1984, the Kings lost 9-4 on December 20, 1985. Finally, the teams tied at 8-8 on December 20, 1986.

Both December 20th meetings were held at Edmonton’s Northlands Coliseum. The crowd slightly decreased from 17,114 spectators in 1985 to 16,927 in 1986. The hometown fans also had their enjoyment of the game lowered between the two years as the Oilers blew the Kings away in 1985 and let them have a huge comeback to tie the following season.

1985

After the 1985 matchup, the Edmonton Journal remarked that the Oilers “played with Los Angeles Kings, scoring whenever they felt like it,” while the Los Angeles Times commented that “in keeping with the Christmas spirit,” the Kings gave the Oilers “three gift-wrapped, shorthanded goals.”

As with just about everything else that night, the shorties could be laid at the feet of Jari Kurri (4G, 2A), Paul Coffey (3G, 2A), and Wayne Gretzky (6A). The three of them combined had 17 points and 25 of the Oilers’ 41 shots on goal. Kurri told the press, “Wayne and I had a special feeling out there tonight. We had a lot of fun tonight.” As for Gretzky, he commented, “The three of us know exactly where we’re going and what we’re doing. We play a lot on instinct.” Their coach, Glen Sather, noted, “They were throwing the puck around and skating as well as I’ve ever seen them.”

Two of Kurri’s four goals were scored during penalty kills. This was the first time he had scored four times in the same game and was tied with Chicago’s Rick Paterson for the record. “I just had a special feeling out there.” Kurri added, “I think this (video) tape will go to my father back home. He’s been asking for some.” This game continued Kurri’s 18-game scoring streak.

The third short-handed goal was claimed by Coffey, who earned his fourth career hat trick. He made the three goals in 13 shots prompting him to exclaim, “That’s the most shots I’ve ever had. I remember I had 11 one night (three years ago) in Minnesota.” Apparently, the assistant coach, Bob McCammon looked at it differently. According to Coffey, he “told me I should go home and be upset. Thirteen shots? And only three goals?” McCammon explained, “He could have scored six or seven times.” Regardless, he continued with a 13-game scoring streak.

And there was Gretzky assisting them both. Coach Sather commented, “He seems to be passing the puck like crazy and not shooting for some reason.” It was the 11th time Gretzky had tallied six points in a game, and they put him into a tie for tenth place in the all-time scorers list.

Poor Darren Eliot, the rookie from the 1984 game, was again the victim of the Oilers’ onslaught. Coach Pat Quinn bemoaned, “It’s been a whole fall of frustration. We could play our best and still lose to this club. But to come in here and play like we did is unacceptable. The score could have been a lot worse.” He went still further, “They were awesome but out team looked like they had never seen them play. We gave the puck away all night long. It was a terrible display without the puck. It was the worst exhibition I’ve seen since I’ve been in L.A.”

It wasn’t all doom and gloom as Kings’ center Bernie Nicholls managed two goals and two assists while teammate Marcel Dionne had a power-play goal. And to put things more in perspective, Edmonton had the best record in the NHL (24-6-4) while Los Angeles had the second-worst (8-20-4). In the five games played against each other, the Oilers had won three and tied two.

1986

Almost all of the same characters also played a part in the 1986 matchup. The outcome was different enough for the Los Angeles Times to crow, “Behold the transformation Saturday night as the 98-pound weaklings turned Charles Atlas and sprayed a good portion of beach into the smug faces of the Edmonton Oilers.” Naturally, they told the story of the great comeback while the Edmonton Journal reported the pitiful giving up of the 8-4 lead in the final ten minutes of the game.

The scoring began right away with the first period ending in Edmonton’s favor 4-3. Gretzky and Kurri left their mark on the second period with only a sole Dionne goal for the Kings to bring the score to 7-4. Thanks to the assistance of Gretzky and Kurri, the Oilers added another goal about three minutes into the third period. Gretzky had two goals and three assists to bring his scoring streak to 19 games, the longest in the NHL that season.

As the third period tipped into its final half, along came Bernie Nicholls, the Kings’ hero of the night. He began and ended a four-goal spree that led to the tied score. After Nicholls’ goal at 10:46, Morris Lukowich notched one at 14:56. After another 84 seconds, Dionne found the net for the second time that night. Kings rookie Luc Robitaille commented, “I kind of thought they were embarrassing us, laughing at us … now we’re laughing.” Whereas Gretzky lamented, “We blew it. We played horrendous in the last 10 minutes. We were trying to get the ninth goal and gave up the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth instead.”

With 1:09 remaining in regulation, the Kings pulled Eliot from the net. According to Dionne, “After I got my second goal, I knew we were in it. We pulled our goalie and we were confident.” However, the Kings had yet to have any success upon pulling the goalie, which they had done 11 times already that season. This time would be different. Coach Quinn admitted, “We’ve pulled our goalie a ton of times this year and this is the first it’s worked for us.”

As per the Times recap, “Dionne won the draw in the Oiler zone, and he subsequently took a hard shot that Edmonton goaltender Grant Fuhr stopped. The rebound bounced around the crease, and Nicholls backhanded it in at 19:26 amid a pile of players in the goalmouth.” The Journal reported goalie Grant Fuhr’s fury that the referee did not blow the whistle, claiming that he had the puck. “The crease may as well have been a Christmas decoration,” he fumed. In Nicholls view, “The puck was bouncing around and I was on the right post. I shoved it in, goalie and all.” He added, “It wasn’t pretty, but we got the point.”

The five-minute overtime session failed to change the score. Goalies Fuhr and Elliot had allowed 16 goals in 65 shots on net throughout the match. “These are no fun for coaches, even less fun for goalies,” Coach Quinn explained. “We did a lot to convince the Oilers the Kings hadn’t come to play in the early going. I was as displeased as I could possibly be. We’ve been grinding away for two years not to be like this; there was no excuse for the type of performance we had. I’m happy with the point but not the way we played.” However, he confessed, “I’d be less happy to be in the other room, to let a point slip away is certainly worse.” Coach Sather merely said, “It wasn’t spectacular. … It looked like one of those summer league games. I can’t get upset right now, it’s not going to do any good.”

This season, both the Oilers (22-11-2) and the Kings (14-17-3) led the goal-scoring. When the two met, it was “one high-scoring offensive show after another” as they tallied 45 goals in their four meetings.