Also Say Goodbye to Robinson

As farewells go, it wasn’t quite the great one.

The only tears shed at the Forum’s last regular season NHL game Sunday were from those poor fans who were recipients of the Kings’ odoriferous game jerseys.

The only reminiscing was by those longing for the days when other fan appreciation gifts did not include Staples Center bathrobes.

And the most sincere goodbye was given to someone the crowd had just met.

His name is Jason Blake. He is about as tall as a hockey stick. He was plucked from an Orlando minor-league team on Friday. He played his first NHL game on Sunday.

And he was cheered louder than Wayne Gretzky on the scoreboard, or Larry Robinson behind the bench, or a faded building in its final days.

Why? Because he scored a goal for the Kings, that’s why.

Because he hustled while doing it.

Because he looked like it mattered.

This area’s longest suffering fans proved again Sunday that they won’t stand on ceremony or sit for silliness.

It’s not about the building, it’s about the banners in that building.

It’s not about the guys in the suits, it’s about the ones in the sweat.

No matter how many fancy trinkets the Kings have ordered for their new home, their fans care more about what’s under the hood.

Good thing the Kings’ management paused from packing and preparing Robinson’s walking papers Sunday long enough to notice.

“You hear that? You hear that?” shouted Tim Leiweke, team president, over the roar that accompanied Blake’s goal in the Kings’ 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues.

“Those fans are smart,” Leiweke said. “They know what is important.”

And they deserve better than what he and the Kings have been giving them.

On Sunday it was more of the same, smoke and mirrors and anything to make them forget that they will spend the next couple of weeks watching the Mighty Ducks in the playoffs.

“It’s terrible,” said that other Blake--Rob, is it?--and while he was talking about the season, he could have been talking about the day.

It began with a meeting between season-ticket holders and Kings’ management, a civil affair during which the penalty box surprisingly remained empty.

It continued with a scoreboard video broadcast of Gretzky’s retirement ceremonies, which went well until Gretzky called New York “the greatest place to play as a pro athlete.”

He was booed off the screen.

Afterward came the game, another sad affair at the end of a sad winter, with the Kings being chased down by a team just out for a pre-playoff jog.

Finally, it ended with Robinson deciding that, yes, hours before today’s scheduled firing, he does have a last wish.

Don’t fire me!

“I’d still like to remain. . . .” he said, setting up an ugly fight with a legend.

Dave Taylor will win and Robinson will be gone, victimized by a perception that he could not control his players the way he once controlled the ice.

This may not be the right move. But given that they finished 18 points worse than last year with a similar team, it is probably a necessary one.

To which those 8,000 King loyalists will shake their heads and ask, “What now?”

They deserve an answer. And for once, it should be a good one.

The end of Robinson and Gretzky also marked the end of something that hasn’t lasted quite so long: The honeymoon for the Kings’ bosses.

They took over in the fall of 1995 when an out-of-towner named Philip Anschutz--no, I’ve never seen or heard him speak either--bought the majority of the club.

Leiweke became president six months later, Taylor became general manager a year after that. Together they have built a nice new arena and one four-game playoff sweep by the Blues.

Their real-estate dealings have proven to be great for the city. Their proclamations that the Kings will get better with age have not.

With their unwillingness to sign a high-priced free agent or trade prospects for stars, their fans are left with the hope that next year will be better simply because everyone will act more grown up.

This might work in Nashville, but not here, where the Kings’ sins were magnified Sunday on the back of their jerseys.

That is, the jerseys worn by so many of the alleged 16,005 fans.

Only one out of every five fans wore a jersey with the name of a current King.

There were Hrudeys, and McSorleys, and Sandstroms.

There were an obvious lack of Jokinens or Rosas or Murrays.

“We need some of our kids to become stars in the next year or so, definitely,” said Leiweke, and that’s only the start of it.

They first need a head coach with previous NHL head-coaching experience, and behind-the-bench toughness.

Somebody who can make sure that the slacking that was so evident this year does not happen again.

“I’m not going to point fingers, but, when you have success, sometimes guys forget how hard they had to work to achieve it,” said Ray Ferraro, looking around the dressing room.

They also need a better year out of boss Taylor, whose playing heroics can only carry him through so many bad signings of Steve Duchesne.

The Kings are built for size and toughness in a league suddenly dominated with finesse and speed. In this manner, Taylor needs to see the ice better.

“We need to get smarter and head in that direction,” Leiweke said.

Finally--and this may be tantamount to blasphemy--but it seems the Kings also need more from the player who for nine years has seemingly given everything.

Rob Blake is a captain and Norris Trophy winner who at times this year played like neither.

Late in the season, for the first time in his career, he started taking control in the dressing room. It’s a start, but will work only if he continues to do the same on the ice.

“This wasn’t the year I wanted to have,” he acknowledged, and so have his teammates, and so has the organization, 32 years old and moving to its new home with next to nothing.

Moving with two banners, to be exact. None of them containing the words “Stanley Cup.”

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com