Oilers Showed No Respect for Elder

Larry Robinson did not play very good playoff hockey Wednesday night. None of the Kings did. And Robinson knows a thing or two about the difference between good playoff hockey and bad playoff hockey, having played in more NHL playoff games--210 of them--than anybody in the world, alive or dead.

Nobody feels any worse about the Kings’ dismal, abysmal effort in Game 1 of the Smythe Division finals against the Edmonton Oilers than their old iceberg of a defensemen Robinson does--not even Coach Tom Webster, who pronounced himself “thoroughly disgusted.” The King forecheckers in particular should have paid the price of admission to the Oilers. About all they did was watch a good game.

“We were just mesmerized by the way they were flying around the ice,” Robinson said.

Five weeks from his 39th birthday, Robinson still has a chance to do something extraordinary--win his seventh Stanley Cup. Los Angeles has never even been to a Cup final, but Robinson already owns so many championship rings that he might someday have to fit one on his thumb. He’s been in more hand-shaking reception lines than Prince Charles. The man’s hair has permanent champagne damage.

And yet, with the wonder years of the Montreal Canadiens permanently behind him, nobody needs to remind Larry Robinson that only one of his NHL titles has come since 1979. Which should provide some idea of how long he has been around. When Robinson scored his first NHL goal, Richard Nixon was still in the White House, and the goalie who gave up the score was a rugged little Los Angeles player in his prime, Rogie Vachon.

Robinson isn’t plotting his retirement. Matter of fact, he wants to be with the Kings as long as the Kings want to be with him. He and his family are house-hunting near Los Angeles. They still intend to spend part of their summers in familiar Montreal, but otherwise, California life has a definite appeal for Robinson, who, after a lifetime in Ontario and Quebec, takes a practical viewpoint: “I’m tired of shoveling snow.” He finally found out that ice is better when it’s only indoors.

Yes, Larry Robinson wouldn’t mind sticking around. The question is: Will he be invited to?

“Los Angeles is a tough city to live in,” Robinson conceded, “if you don’t have a job.”

Sad to think of a hockey world that no longer would have a place for someone this illustrious, yet anybody who could get one eye open this season could see that Robinson was merely a shell of his former self. Whatever speed he once had was long gone--that broken leg in 1987 didn’t help--and opponents whizzed by so easily, at one point Robinson himself acknowledged that it appeared the other team was using 15 players to L.A.’s five. About all No. 19 could do was “muck around in the corners,” as he put it, and bring the Kings the considerable benefit of his experience and wisdom.

Then, something sweet happened. Against the Cup-holding Calgary Flames in Round 1 of the playoffs, the real Larry Robinson stood up, the Robinson of a decade ago who won Norris trophies and made All-Star game starting lineups and did an awful lot more out there than just muck around. He was alert and aggressive and even lit up Calgary for a goal in Game 2.

That cheered him up.

“Not so much the personal satisfaction as the team satisfaction,” he said. “Some places, we were 100-1 shots to take the Cup. Then we knocked off the champs. Now we’re--what, 8-1?”

Something like that. Of course, 8-1 nearly turned out to be Wednesday’s final score. Los Angeles took a seven-goal skunking from the Oilers, who skated circles around Robinson and his brother defensemen all night. The Kings weren’t exactly dancing the lambada out there. They gave Edmonton too much room to maneuver, too much freedom, too much respect.

“It’s imperative that we get a game plan and stick to it,” Robinson said. “We weren’t anywhere near as physical as we were against Calgary. We were tentative. It’s great to have respect for the team you’re playing, but you can respect somebody too much. Too much respect equals fear.

“Calgary is more methodical than this Edmonton team. The (Flames) knock it around, muck it up in the corners with you, wait for an opening. Edmonton is more of a free-flow style of team. The Oilers come at you from all directions. Sometimes you wonder if they’ve got too many men on the ice.”

The entire Smythe Division, Robinson has noticed, plays a much faster brand of hockey than anyone did in his former habitat with the Habs, the Adams Division. “This is not the easiest division to play in,” he said. “There’s a lot of speed here.”

Can a grand old man of hockey keep up? Are we seeing the last of Larry Robinson?

“My attitude hasn’t really changed,” he said. “A lot depends on my health, and a lot depends on whether I can still make a contribution. My biggest problem most of the season was that I tried to do too much. One of the reasons this team brought me in was to shoulder some of the burden on defense, and I probably set out to do more than I should.

“But I don’t think of playing hockey in terms of trying to play at age 38. Everybody else makes a big issue of the age factor, but you’re only as old as you feel. If you can still contribute at age 38, then contribute. There are a number of guys out there who can’t contribute at age 24.”

Take it from the man who’s been there:

“And some of them never will.”