Robitaille Tops NHL All-Star Balloting

The Kings’ Luc Robitaille outpolled teammate Wayne Gretzky for the second consecutive season to lead all vote-getters Wednesday in balloting for the Campbell Conference All-Star team.

Robitaille, a left wing who leads the Kings with 31 goals, received 298,914 votes in fan balloting for the Jan. 21 NHL All-Star game at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. He had more than three times the votes received by the left wing runner-up, Gerard Gallant of Detroit.

“I’m pretty happy,” Robitaille said. “It’s always a surprise. I guess I picked the right position as a kid, left wing. It’s always fun to be there.”

Gretzky had 276,980 votes, more than twice as many as Detroit center Steve Yzerman.

Also voted as starters were Calgary’s goaltender Mike Vernon and defenseman Al MacInnis, St. Louis right wing Brett Hull and Edmonton defenseman Kevin Lowe. MacInnis led defensemen with 218,000 votes. Lowe had 187,091. The Kings’ Steve Duchesne was fewer than 5,300 votes behind Lowe.