Coaching Decision Could Be Easy for Kings

The first major move of the Kings’ fast-approaching off-season might not be their move at all.

Coach Larry Robinson said Wednesday he might make it for them by choosing to become their former coach and that he had talked with Dave Taylor, the team’s senior vice president and general manager, about a job working with the organization’s younger players on farm clubs or in junior hockey.

“I don’t know,” Robinson answered to a question about whether he wants to continue behind the King bench. “It’s been a tough year. Even my wife is finding it tough.”

It’s an oft-asked question that has been answered in varying degrees of affirmation until Wednesday, when Robinson acknowledged the team’s 28-43-5 season has gotten him down.

“It starts to bother you mentally,” he said. “It wears you to the point . . . where I talk to some of my friends back home and they want to know how I am, and I ask, ‘Why?’ And they say, ‘Because you look awful.’ ”

Things began to focus March 3 when his mother died.

” . . . This Christmas, when I phoned home and talked to my mom, that was the first thing she said: ‘When are you coming home?’ ” he said. “It’s kind of sad knowing that the last Christmas she had that I wasn’t there to spend it with her.”

The Kings started the season with high hopes after finishing fifth in the Western Conference in 1997-98 before being dispatched in the playoffs by St. Louis in four games. Talk was that satisfaction would come only upon advancing in the playoffs, and Robinson was offered an extension of his four-year contract that pays him $700,000 this season and runs out April 18.

The Kings wanted him to re-up for three years, but he spurned the offer, saying that he wanted to wait.

Since then injury has been piled upon injury. Little has worked, and the Kings are seven points behind Calgary for the last spot in the Western Conference playoffs.

Should Robinson decide to step down, it could ease some public relations problems for a team that has struggled with them through the ‘90s. Word has drifted from the front office that Robinson and his staff would not be retained if the Kings did not make the playoffs.

Taylor was out of town and not available for comment Wednesday. He has said that any decision on Robinson would be made after the season.

“Maybe my choice is going to be easy, but there has been no indication [that he would not be rehired],” Robinson said, smiling.

For Robinson, a Hall of Fame defenseman from the old school, joy comes in working with young players, but he has occasionally struggled in his relationships with high-priced veterans in an ever-changing league in which ice time translates to money.

“I don’t have anything to lose, but some of these guys are playing for their contracts, for their jobs next year,” Robinson added to his assessment that some of the Kings had packed in the season during a 4-1 loss at Colorado on Monday.

“Why should I be sick and worry? They’re the ones that are losing jobs, losing money. If they don’t care to play on the ice, why should I care?”

To a man, players have shied from commenting on Robinson’s situation.

“That’s a front-office decision,” captain Rob Blake said.

Maybe not.

It could be a decision Robinson makes after the season, after a trip to Hawaii and time on his Florida farm spent in reflection. In deciding to jump before he is pushed.

“I’m not doing this because I’m frustrated or anything else,” he said. “There is frustration in not winning, but I don’t make decisions [on that basis]. That’s why I won’t make a decision right at the end of the season. I think you’ve got to have time away.”