Up Close, He Was Something to See

Tony Granato sleeps better now.

He didn’t during his rookie season, 1988-89 in New York, when Ranger coach Michel Bergeron gave him his assignment for the next night’s game at Los Angeles.

“ ‘You cover Wayne Gretzky,’ ” Granato, now a San Jose Shark, said Friday, imitating Bergeron. “ ‘You shadow him, go everywhere he goes.’ ”

Added Granato, “I didn’t sleep that night.”

The next day worked out fine for Granato.

“I had a goal and an assist,” he said. “I don’t know what he did. I sure didn’t shut him down, but we won.”

It became easier for Granato when he was traded by the Rangers to the Kings a year later. But it was no more restful.

“The first time they put me on a line with Wayne, I didn’t sleep the night before,” he said. “I was scared, excited. I didn’t want to blow the opportunity. You can’t play to his level. Everything you do seems to have slowed up when compared to what he does. You do everything you can to make the situation work.”

When it worked, you got the puck in position to score.

It worked 1,962 times for the retiring Gretzky, 672 times as a King. No other NHL player has more assists, and only Marcel Dionne had more as a King.

No other player has more goals that Gretzky’s 894, 246 of them as a King.

The tributes rolled in for Gretzky on Friday, ranging from effusive to maudlin, from institutional to individual.

“He’s meant more to the game than any one player,” said Dave Taylor, the Kings’ senior vice president and general manager. “I don’t think the franchises in Florida, Tampa Bay, San Jose would be there if he hadn’t played for the Kings.”

But leave that for the officials who run hockey.

Before his Kings’ sweater became a jacket and tie, Taylor was Gretzky’s teammate, and with teammates, the tributes were more personal.

“I just wish I had gotten to play with him when I was 24 or 25,” Taylor said, somewhat wistfully. “I don’t think I realized how good he was until he came to the Kings and I got a chance to see him play every night.”

Luc Robitaille seconded the emotion.

“He had a will to always do more,” he said. “If it was 7-2, he wanted the goal or the assist to make it 8-2. But if it was 2-2 or you were a goal down, he wanted the puck then too. Nobody was better in that situation.”

It was a day for testimony, not for criticism from Robitaille, who was traded by the Kings to Pittsburgh in 1995, and by the Rangers to the Kings in 1997, and in both cases rightfully accused Gretzky of having a hand in the moves.

But Robitaille insisted there was no better teammate.

So, too, did Bernie Nicholls, who was traded by the Kings to the New York Rangers for Granato and Tomas Sandstrom in 1990.

Nicholls was critical then, less so now.

“I don’t blame Wayne, I blame the owner then [Bruce McNall] because he told me I wouldn’t be traded,” said Nicholls, now an assistant with San Jose. “But if I was the team owner and had the greatest player in the world in the locker room and didn’t know much about hockey, I’d listen to him too.”

Granato is glad McNall, now in prison in Lompoc, Calif., listened.

“The first person who talked with me was Bruce McNall,” Granato said. “And the first thing he said was, ‘Now you can play with Wayne.’ I found out that he had told Bruce that the Kings should trade with the Rangers and get me.”

Gretzky went from target to teammate when he was traded to the Kings by Edmonton with Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, three No. 1 draft choices and $15 million in 1988.

But it was tough to hit the bull’s-eye.

“I thought I had him lined up a couple of times, but he’s so agile and so adept at rolling off a check that I didn’t get him,” Taylor said.

Said Robitaille: “Look at his records. To have that kind of impact in basketball, you’d have to average 45 points a game. Mark McGwire would have had to hit 85 homers.

“Nobody will break his records. No matter what, he was the greatest to ever play the game.”