en route to the Conference Finals. In all, the Kings faced either the Oilers or the Flames in the playoffs four times during the 1980s. The Gretzky era (1988–1995) In 1987, coin collector Bruce McNall purchased the Kings from Buss and turned the team into a Stanley Cup contender almost overnight. After changing the team colors to silver and black, McNall acquired the league's best player, Wayne Gretzky, in a blockbuster trade with the Edmonton Oilers on August 9, 1988. The trade rocked the hockey world, especially north of the border, where Canadians mourned the loss of a player they considered a national treasure. Gretzky's arrival generated much excitement about hockey and the NHL in Southern California, and the ensuing popularity of the Kings is credited for the arrival of another team in the region (the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, renamed the Anaheim Ducks in 2006), as well as the arrival of a new team in Northern California (the San Jose Sharks) and the NHL's expanding or moving into other Sun Belt cities such as Dallas, Phoenix, Tampa, Miami, Nashville, and Las Vegas. In Gretzky's first season with the Kings, he led the team in scoring with 168 points on 54 goals and 114 assists, and won his ninth Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's Most Valuable Player. The fourth overall Kings eliminated Gretzky's old team, the Oilers, in the first round of the 1989 playoffs before being swept out in the second round by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Flames. Clashes between Gretzky and head coach Robbie Ftorek led to Ftorek's dismissal, and he was replaced by Tom Webster. The next season, where Gretzky became the league's all-time leading scorer, was the inverse of its predecessor, with the Kings eliminating the defending champion Flames before falling to the eventual champion Oilers. Gretzky spearheaded the Kings to their first regular season division title in franchise history in the 1990–91 season, but the heavily favored Kings lost a close series against Edmonton in the second round that saw four games go into overtime. After a third straight elimination by the Oilers in 1992, Webster was fired. General manager Rogie Vachon was moved to a different position in the organization and named Nick Beverley as his successor, and Beverley hired Barry Melrose, then with the American Hockey League's Adirondack Red Wings, as head coach. Melrose would help the Kings reach new heights