SOUL OF SUCCESS : Canadiens’ Robinson, Owner of Six Stanley Cup Rings, Imbues Winning Spirit

The Montreal mystique, the Canadien tradition itself, poses no real threat to the Calgary Flames. Reputation won’t score any goals. Those banners hanging from the rafters of the Forum won’t stop any shots.

In fact, Flame Coach Terry Crisp said as the Stanley Cup finals moved from Calgary to Montreal for the third game tonight: “I’m not afraid of no ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

But there is a bit of Canadien tradition still skating around in the bleu, blanc et rouge sweater, alive and in person:

Larry Robinson.

For 17 years, Robinson has been upholding the Canadiens’ tradition of strong defensive play. Along the way, Robinson has won six Stanley Cup rings. Tonight, he will play in his 200th playoff game. No other player has ever done that.

With his fourth playoff game of this season, Robinson broke the record of 185 that was held by Denis Potvin of the New York Islanders.

“When I got the record, that was special,” Robinson said. “But 200? To me, it’s a playoff game we need to win another Stanley Cup.”

Another Stanley Cup. As if it’s all in a day’s work.

Will one more be enough? If the Montreal Canadiens win this series, will the 37-year-old defenseman with the laugh lines around his eyes hang up his skates?

“Whether we win the Cup never has been or never will be what makes my decision,” he said. “If that were the case, I would have retired in ’86. If I were waiting to go out a winner, that would have been the year to do it, when we won it in a year nobody expected us to.”

The time to retire, says the 6-foot-3, 220-pound man they call Big Bird, will be obvious to him. He will know when it’s time. When he is no longer having fun. When he no longer has to debate whether it’s time.

He will reach the end of a season, ask himself the question, and get no argument from himself. That time has not come.

For now, he is still having fun and still keeping up with the youngsters--even if he does have to take better care of himself than he used to.

“If you want to think that you’re old, you’ll act it and you’ll feel it,” Robinson said. “I’m with a bunch of kids all the time. I’m playing a kids’ game and I’m having a good time.

“All I wanted to do when I came in was to last 10 years in the league. I’ve been here (nearly) twice that long.”

Serge Savard, once Robinson’s roommate on the road and now the Canadiens’ general manager, jokes that Robinson is a late bloomer.

When Robinson started in professional hockey, playing for the Kitchener Rangers in 1970, he was making $150 a week. Life got easier after he was drafted by Montreal in 1971. Now he’s making more than $400,000 a year. And pretty regular playoff money.

He earns it by playing defense the Canadiens’ way, strong and steady. The way Savard played it. He helps to keep the puck out of the Canadiens’ end and to keep the area in front of the net clear for goalie Patrick Roy.

Scoring is not his forte. If he scores, fine. If he doesn’t, fine. As long as the team wins.

Robinson scored the Canadiens’ first goal in their 4-2 victory Wednesday night that evened the series at one game apiece. But later, as he was preparing for the charter flight to Montreal, Robinson was showing no outward sign of being too impressed with himself over that goal.

Montreal Coach Pat Burns, asked earlier in the playoffs by the New York Times to comment on Robinson and 35-year-old winger Bob Gainey, said: “Those guys are true Montreal Canadiens. They’re what it means now to be a Canadien, and they shed that down to the rest.

“We don’t care who scores, it’s how well the team does together. They have that tattooed in their hearts, and they make the young guys feel that way, too. Without them, we have no solid foundation in the playoffs.”

Stanley Cup Notes

During the ’89 playoffs, the home team has won 45 of 77 games, 58.4%, almost exactly the winning percentage of home teams during the regular season, 58.3%. Overall, Calgary has a 5-2 road record in the playoffs, including four straight victories. . . . Montreal won both of its regular-season games at Calgary, and Calgary won its only game at Montreal. . . . Montreal Coach Pat Burns keeps saying that there is no such thing as home-ice advantage during the playoffs.

Calgary’s Theoren Fleury on playing at Montreal: “We’re a good road team, maybe the best in the league. We feel comfortable out there, confident. Nobody expects us to dazzle ‘em. Spectacular is for the home team. L.A.’s a tough building, right? We won two in there. And Chicago. The loudest, most intimidating rink in hockey. And we won two in there. So why can’t we win in the Forum?”

Montreal’s Guy Carbonneau has let Calgary’s Doug Gilmour know that he’s not going to put up with cheap shots. After Game 2, Carbonneau said: “The referee blew the whistle for an offside and about 10 seconds later Gilmour tried to take my knee out. We knew we didn’t have any friends around here. And I know it’s a tough game and you’re going to get hit. But he really tried to injure me.

“I’m not going to go out of my way to deliberately hit him, but if I get half a chance, I’m going to. I don’t mind getting hit hard when it’s a clean check, but if they want to start that kind of thing, we can play that way, too.”