Familiar Face on Hand as the Kings Gear Up

The Kings took their first plunge into hockey’s new world order on Monday by retaining an old familiar face.

While vowing to achieve lasting success by building around youngsters they have nurtured in their farm system, club executives found room in their hearts and under their salary cap to keep Luc Robitaille, the most prolific left wing in NHL history and the team’s top scorer in 2003-04.

Robitaille, who will be 40 in February, agreed to a one-year contract that guarantees him $1 million and can be supplemented by up to $300,000 in bonuses based on his goals and points.

General Manager Dave Taylor said the salary and bonuses will count against the league-wide payroll limit of $39 million this season. As a senior veteran player who signed a one-year deal after the age of 35, Robitaille is among the few allowed to earn performance bonuses under the new collective bargaining agreement.

For Robitaille, who was drafted by the Kings in 1984 and has recorded his best seasons with them, the decision was based more on sentiment than finances.

“I like the system here, and the new rules are going to work well for us,” he said at a news conference at Staples Center.

“I’m going to take this like it could be my last year, because that way I’ll enjoy every moment. I’ll make a decision at the end of the season, just like I did two years ago.”

If that seems like a long time ago, it was.

In 2003-04, before the NHL locked players out in order to gain cost controls, Robitaille led the Kings with 51 points, for a career total of 1,370. He scored 22 goals, second to Alexander Frolov’s 24, and increased his career total to 653.

He also ran afoul of Coach Andy Murray, who benched him for two games in January to rest him. Robitaille said he has since talked about it with Murray. “He knows what I can bring to the team,” Robitaille said. “I haven’t changed. If anything, physically I feel better.”

Murray said he didn’t regret telling Robitaille to take time off. “We’d had a hectic schedule, and to me there was a fatigue element,” Murray said. “He’s such a competitive guy, and I don’t know where we would have been without Luc.”

Robitaille might get some help this season, which will begin when players report to El Segundo for physicals on Sept. 13 and go on the ice on Sept. 14.

Club President Tim Leiweke, a vocal proponent of narrowing the gap between high- and low-spending clubs, offered apologies to fans for “the disruption we caused” but said the Kings will “be able to take advantage of the dramatic changes” in the new agreement.

“If we’re not profitable, it’s our fault, not the system’s fault,” said Leiweke, who said the Kings had lost $12 million in 2003-04 with a $52-million payroll. “We’re self-reliant now.”

The Kings will soon roll out a marketing campaign and began their efforts with a theme of access, affordability and winning. They plan to cut season-ticket prices, increase interaction between fans and players, and be a buyer when the period for signing unrestricted free agents begins next Monday.

“In the next 30 days we will be challenged but committed to going out and finding key players we can add to this roster in order to give the Kings not only a competitive team going forward, but a competitive team for the next 10 years,” Leiweke said.

Taylor listed center Mike Cammalleri, left wing Dustin Brown, defensemen Tim Gleason and Denis Grebeshkov and goaltender Mathieu Garon as the most likely to make the jump from the American Hockey League to the Kings next season. He said that a couple of top-six forwards, a defense-minded defenseman and a goaltender to complement Garon are on the Kings’ shopping list. He also said the club won’t buyout any existing contracts.

Winger Ziggy Palffy, whose contract expired, “is one of the players we’ll talk to on Aug. 1,” Taylor said. “He’s a great competitor.”

The club’s plans don’t include Adam Deadmarsh, still recovering from the effects of repeated head injuries, or Jason Allison. “We’ll probably go in a different direction” regarding Allison, Taylor said of the veteran center who sat out the entire 2003-04 season because of head injuries.

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USA Hockey plans today to announce its coaching and management staff for the men’s Olympic hockey team for the Turin Winter Games in February.

Provisions allowing NHL players to represent their homelands at Turin and at the 2010 Vancouver Games were included in the labor deal that was ratified last week, but final details were worked out between the union and the International Ice Hockey Federation only in the last few days. That freed the NHL to release its schedule on Wednesday and incorporate an Olympic break in February, but no All-Star game.

All 30 teams will play on the opening night of the season, Oct. 5, with the Kings at Dallas and the Mighty Ducks at Chicago.