Since Returning to the Kings, Robitaille is Enjoying Role as an Elder Statesman

By LONNIE WHITE

Dec. 24, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Luc Robitaille was the last player to leave the King dressing room after a recent practice.

“I had to get treatment to help with some of my aches and pains,” he said with a laugh after a 30-minute session with massage therapist Dan Garcia. “I have to do this now, it really helps.”

Robitaille, who will turn 32 in February, might not be the same player who set NHL records for a left wing with 63 goals and 125 points when he played for the Kings during the team’s Stanley Cup run in 1992-93, but he is just as valuable in another role.

Instead of being counted on to lead the Kings in goals, as he once did, Robitaille has become one of the team’s elder statesmen.

The trademark Forum chants of “Luuuuuuc!” are still there whenever he scores, but Robitaille knows that Dave Taylor, the Kings’ general manager and a former linemate, brought him back for more than that.

“The main thing is that [Taylor] wanted to add some leadership to the team,” said Robitaille, who scored his 400th goal as a King last month. “He knows how much I want to win. That’s the bottom line. . . . Being positive and winning. That’s why I was happy to come back.”

Robitaille has helped the Kings into second place in the Pacific Division and, including Tuesday’s game at Colorado, has played in all 36 games. His 13 goals, six of which are game-winners, were second on the team to Yanic Perreault’s 17.

“I think that he’s grown up to the game more,” said Rob Blake, who played with Robitaille during his first stint with the Kings. “When he was here before, he was still a kid scoring goals. Now, he has a different outlook. He wants to help guys on this team and he wants us to win. He’s always been a competitor but now he’s helping the other guys.

“[But] he still has everything that he had when he played [with the Kings before]. Taking shots, scoring goals. He’s been doing that for so long. . . . The only thing now is that he likes to sleep a little bit more.”

Added goaltender Stephane Fiset, “He’s always positive. When things are not going well, he’s there working hard and encouraging everyone. . . . Have you ever seen him not with a smile on his face? When you see him smiling when things are tough, you can’t help but go on the ice feeling good too. He brings so much to the team. It’s just great to have him here.”

When Robitaille met with reporters at a news conference last August after being traded by the New York Rangers for Kevin Stevens, it was like a holiday homecoming.

Robitaille, his wife, Stacia, and their two sons, Steven and Jesse, were treated like a family returning from vacation.

That was in sharp contrast to July 1994, when Robitaille was part of the controversial trade with Pittsburgh for Rick Tocchet.

“Let me be very clear: I was the one who pursued [the trade],” then-general manager Sam McMaster said at the time. “We had a lot of finesse players, but we were lacking that Rick Tocchet style.

“I hope we win the Cup out of this.”

As history shows, the Kings didn’t come close with Tocchet, who played 80 games, scoring 31 goals and 71 points in two seasons before being dealt to Boston for Stevens.

Robitaille’s three seasons away from Los Angeles were not great for him either. He did not come close to the 50-goal seasons he’d had with the Kings as he struggled to get consistent ice time. He scored 23 goals in 46 games with the Penguins before being traded to New York in August 1995.

With the Rangers, he had two more roller coaster seasons before he was traded back to the Kings, ironically for Stevens.

Robitaille says he is not bitter about his experiences away from the Kings because the rough times have made him better on and off the ice.

“I see myself as a guy that’s lucky, who’s doing his dream,” he said. “I don’t see myself as anyone special. As a kid, I wouldn’t have said this but my ultimate dream would have been to play in the NHL. I try to never forget that. . . . I know that I may still take some things for granted but I try not to.”

Robitaille has long been involved in charitable ventures--the Ronald McDonald House and the Star Light Foundation are two of them--but he also gives his time in other ways.

Earlier this season, Mike Altieri, the Kings’ director of media relations, got a letter from Geoff Gill, whose wife, Bing, had cancer. Gill wrote how Robitaille had met his wife at a team promotion and become her favorite player.

Robitaille was asked to visit her in the hospital and spent two hours with her in early November. Gill said Robitaille’s visit helped cheer his wife before she died Nov. 28.

“I was worried that she wouldn’t be awake when he came because she had been sleeping so much,” Gill said. “But she was up when he came and when she saw him, all she said was, ‘Oh, my God!’ over and over again. . . . Luc was great. He was so friendly and his kindness was genuine. That’s why my wife liked him so much.”

Growing up in the suburbs of Montreal, Robitaille played hockey outside until his feet were almost frozen.

“You could just see how much he enjoyed the game,” said Robitaille’s father, Claude. “After playing all day, he would come inside and start crying and run around the house because his feet hurt. But he would go out there and play again the next day. He just never would let go of the game.”

Robitaille put up good numbers as a junior but he wasn’t considered a blue-chip player in the NHL draft. Most scouts thought him too slow to make the jump to the professional level.

“But I was never worried about him because I knew that once you put him on the rink and in a game, he’d come up with the puck every time,” said his father, who has either attended or watched on television every one of his son’s games in his 12-year NHL career. “Because of his passion for the game, I just knew that he’d make it.”

When the Kings finally drafted him with the 171st pick, Robitaille made sure they got their money’s worth. He was a seven-time, first-team all-star and helped the Kings into the playoffs seven of his first eight seasons.

Now, in his second tour in Los Angeles, Robitaille says the Kings are close to becoming a Stanley Cup contender and he’s willing to help any way he can.

Whether it’s giving a teammate advice on a difficult play or preventing one from picking up an ill-advised penalty, Robitaille enjoys his role as mentor.

“I saw him play a lot when I was young, 5 or 6 years old,” joked Perreault, 26, who grew up in the Montreal area but did not meet Robitaille until training camp this season. “I may not have been that young, but I did used to watch him on [television] growing up.

“The knock on me when I was in juniors was that . . . I couldn’t skate. It’s the same knock [Robitaille] had. So, when you see guys like him make it and do so well in the NHL, it encourages you.”

A chance at another Stanley Cup run keeps Robitaille motivated and he says this season’s Kings could surprise people.

“I remember when I first came in the league, all I wanted to do was just prove to everyone that I belonged in the [NHL],” Robitaille said. “But after a few years, you realize that the chance of winning the Stanley Cup does not happen often. I know that people doubt us but I feel that we have a better team now than we had when we made it to the finals [in 1993]. With our size and our defense, I really believe that we can go all of the way. We’re building an identity as a team, as a group that plays hard and has fun.”

Robitaille, who has never been short of optimism, would love to prove King critics as wrong as he has proved his own critics over his 475-goal career.

“That’s what makes it fun,” he said. “You always want to do more when people don’t believe in you. The important thing is that we believe.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

An Ice King

How Luc Robitaille ranks in team history. Through Tuesday:

GAMES

1. Dave Taylor: 1,111

4. Robitaille: 676

GOALS

1. Marcel Dionne: 550

3. Robitaille: 405

ASSISTS

1. Marcel Dionne: 757