LOS ANGELES -- The formula, as conceived in 1988, made perfect sense.

Take a sheet of ice, add Wayne Gretzky, the world's greatest hockey player, sit back and watch Los Angeles fall in love with the sport.

To some extent, it worked. Gretzky's arrival sparked a hockey boom that carried the Kings into the spotlight, but it's been 10 years since Gretzky packed up and left for St.Louis, and the Kings' organization is once again striving for relevancy in a crowded Southern California sports market.

The state of hockey in LosAngeles is tepid at best. Staples Center is regularly sold out, but television ratings continue to lag, media attention is dwindling and the team's fan base, while fiercely loyal, is small in size and scope compared to other local pro teams.

And the Kings haven't made the playoffs since 2002.

With the organization seemingly at a crossroads, changes are being made. The front office and coaching staff have been almost entirely flushed since the end of the past season, and the Kings have altered their philosophy in terms of how to more effectively market the team and increase its fan base.

"The investments we're making today will have some immediate impact," said Shawn Hunter, the Kings' president of business operations, "but it's really about long-term growth."

Next year, the Kings will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their inception, but in many ways they retain an expansion feel, an organization still trying to become a significant part of its city's sports landscape.

On one hand, the Kings came out of the nightmare lockout year strong. They made money last season, for the first time during the 11-year reign of owner Philip Anschutz, played their home games in front of 99.7 percent capacity and had a 90-percent renewal rate this summer for season-ticket holders.

But what about the big picture? Does anyone ever hear water-cooler talk about the Kings?

Los Angeles still squarely belongs to the Lakers, Dodgers, USC football and UCLA basketball, and if NHL brass would like to see more from its second-largest market, league officials aren't letting on.

"Absolutely," said commissioner Gary Bettman, asked if the Kings were as healthy as they should be. "I'm not even sure why there's a question questioning it, although you're entitled to ask it. It's fair game. We have no concerns about either franchise in L.A. It's a great market. The teams are well supported."

Bettman added that the league doesn't "play favorites. We don't root for markets."

But new Kings coach Marc Crawford, who previously coached in hockey-mad Vancouver, said that a healthy Kings team, both in terms of on-ice success and off-ice attention, is good for both the franchise and the league.

"You see how positive it is in Canada when the big-market teams are good there," Crawford said. "The numbers for the TV ratings, the numbers that kind of create the buzz, create the excitement, they're just real positive. We want to be a big part of that here in Los Angeles."

Which is why the Kings see the need to expand their fan base by winning and working. During the summer, the Kings doubled -- from two to four -- the employees in their fan-development staff and launched a new grassroots marketing strategy designed to target kids who might not otherwise be exposed to hockey.

For the first time, the Kings will significantly cut back their advertising, particularly in terms of newspaper ads and billboards, and divert their resources to more hands-on endeavors, including clinics at local rinks and donation of equipment. The goal is simple: to make hockey fans out of the area's youth, and by extension get their parents involved in the sport and make all of them into Kings fans.

"Some teams create a fan-development program but they simply dip their toe in, and don't invest enough to make it work," Hunter said. "This is a great sport, but there aren't enough kids playing it.

"What we're trying to do, in terms of marketing, is shoot with a laser. It's a more measured return. You get more out of your marketing dollars if you reach out directly to people, and that's what we're trying to do. It's more effective, in the long run, than running an ad every day in the newspaper."

That might also be a product of how newspapers are treating the Kings. At the start of last season, the Kings had two traveling beat writers. This season, there are none, a testament to the cutbacks the newspaper industry is facing but also the relative lack of interest, compared to other area teams.

It's a vast difference from cities such as Vancouver, where the average morning practice attracts more reporters and television crews than a month's worth of Kings practices.

Still, the Kings have high hopes. A winning product is a must, and there is optimism about the staff assembled by new team president and general manager Dean Lombardi, so much that team officials insist that a long-term goal of being as popular as the Dodgers or Lakers in Los Angeles isn't out of reach.

"We're always a company that shoots for the moon," Hunter said. "With a strong organization and a championship team, I'm not sure there are any limitations to what we can do."