The Coast's Crazy Dreamers

Irvine, a 6'2", 195-pound left wing with great promise, could be an important factor in the playoffs. His fortunes throughout his rookie year have closely paralleled those of his team. He started fast, suffered through a terrible midseason slump, then began scoring again in the final weeks. "My legs started to feel weak after the first few months," he says. "Then I got depressed and everything seemed to go wrong. I guess that happened to a lot of us, but we finally snapped out of it. I think there's a great feeling on this club now, because we all have to do our part. There are no superstars except Ukey, and he doesn't act like one."

No matter how he acts, "Ukey"—Terrance Gordon Sawchuk, who may be the greatest goalie in NHL history—is the key to Los Angeles' hopes. The Kings' offense, led by Eddie Joyal and Bill Flett, is the best in the West, but the defense has given up more goals than any other expansion team. Even if they play fairly well, the defensemen will make mistakes. Sawchuk will have to make up for most of them.

Terry has had a spotty season. Drafted from Toronto and signed to a huge contract, he was expected to be the mainstay of his young team. But he ran into a series of injuries that often plague 38-year-old men trying to play a boy's game and lost the first-string job to rookie Wayne Rutledge. Not a public-relations genius to begin with, Sawchuk also managed to alienate almost everyone he met in his new home city. He snapped short answers at journalists and coldly refused interviews at a time when the Kings needed all the publicity they could get. In Toronto his friends were attuned to his low-key sense of humor and his fiery moods; in Los Angeles people thought he was nastier than he was droll, and few were heartbroken when Rutledge took over the goaltending.

But Kelly, who played with Sawchuk on championship clubs in Detroit and Toronto, knew what his goalie was undergoing. Terry has no special fondness for hockey; he is in it for the money. But he is too proud to accept a bad season—or even a bad game—with resignation. Kelly understood this; he also knew that Sawchuk would do everything possible to be at his best, mentally and physically, when the most money was on the line. Ukey played only 25 of the Kings' first 60 games, but through the final weeks he has played all but two of 14 and has gotten sharper with each game. In the recent 4-3 victory over New York—a game that might have been the biggest of the season for Los Angeles—Sawchuk stopped 34 shots and left Ranger Coach Emile Francis, an ex-goalie himself, shaking his head. "He's still amazing," Emile said after the game. "He may have been as good tonight as he was last spring."

"Goaltending can be the whole story in the playoffs," says Punch Imlach. "I don't think L.A. can give Ukey enough help to go all the way, but I've seen a lot crazier things happen than that."

Sawchuk himself laughed when someone suggested that he was coming up to the playoffs the way he did a year ago. "I haven't even thought of that," he said. "The fact is, I'm finally in good shape. That's all there is to it."

To even approach the wild possibility of a Stanley Cup, the Kings must get past Minnesota in the first round. This will not be easy; the North Stars have troubled Los Angeles all year. The Kings were not pleased when St. Louis swept the season's last two games from Minnesota to take over third place. If they had held third, the North Stars would have been forced to meet Philadelphia in the first series. They won only three of 10 games with the Flyers this season; against the Kings they were 6-2-2.

Coach Wren Blair has done a fine job with the North Stars, holding the club together after the crushing death of Bill Masterton and a series of injuries. Blair did not succeed by coddling his men. "I drove the hell out of this team," he says. His discipline helped make Cesare Maniago into a good goalie and Wayne Connelly into the West's top goal-scorer. It also enabled Blair to reclaim high-liver Parker MacDonald, 34, whose lack of attention to hockey had apparently finished his NHL career. But the Kings can beat the North Stars—if they skate tirelessly and shoot often.

Philadelphia enters the playoffs after a remarkable late-season performance. When part of the roof blew off the Spectrum on March 1, the team management lost seven expected sellouts that would have kept the franchise healthy, and the players lost the home-ice advantage that could have kept them in a comfortable lead. The Flyers transferred "home" games to New York and Toronto, then settled on Quebec City, where their top farm team plays. The move to Quebec may have saved first place. Eight of the 18 Flyers had once played for the Quebec Aces; a few, like rookie Andre Lacroix, were local heroes. "Morale was pretty low," said one player. "But the fans in Quebec gave us a lift." However, the Flyers joined in the general slump of top teams last week and edged the Kings for the title by just one point.

The Flyers are back in the Spectrum for the playoffs, and they should have little trouble with St. Louis. The Blues are a close-checking, well-drilled team with a tremendous goalie, Glenn Hall. Under most circumstances, they would be a team that could excel in playoff games. But they have drawn the wrong opponent; the Blues have not beaten Philadelphia all season, and probably won't begin now.