After years of service to the L.A. franchise, Blake doesn’t deserve the reception he gets from the fans, even if he’s playing for a playoff opponent.

For 12 years he played here, lived here, shined here.

On Monday, he learned what that was worth.

“Rob Blake [bleeps],” the neighbors chanted.

He spent his best years as a star on a team that had few, as a sports role model in a town that needed more.

On Monday, the townspeople gave a final grade.

“Boooo,” it read.

Every time Rob Blake touched the puck. Every time he appeared on the scoreboard.

Every time he was featured on an ice he hoped to always call home, playing against a team he never wanted to leave.

On a night that belonged to the Colorado Avalanche, the nightmares surely belonged to Blake, the former captain who received the homecoming welcome of a traitor.

The Avalanche outmaneuvered and outlucked the Kings in a 4-3 victory at Staples Center in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, taking a two-games-to-one lead.

Yet the best hits were by King fans on their former hero, playing in his first game here since being traded Feb. 21 after a contract dispute.

“Management did a great job making the bad guy out of me,” Blake said afterward, shrugging. “They painted the picture they wanted to paint. The people reacted.”

While not illegal or immoral, it was a reaction that made one wonder.

A town that gives Gary Sheffield a curtain call after a spring of disruptions would boo Rob Blake after more than a decade of dignity?

Blake, who scored the Avalanche’s first goal and played well throughout, would not boo back.

“I look back at the time I had here,” he said. “One game getting booed compared to 12 years not getting booed? I’ll take that.”

It wasn’t so easy before and during the game.

He had trouble sleeping this week, he acknowledged, thinking about facing the Kings as an opponent after years as their biggest advocate.

“It’s hard,” he said. “The whole series has been hard, and it’s not getting any easier.”

Then the game began, and the boos showered down like an unexpected heavy rain. They were the sort of boos that were not heard by former Avalanche players Adam Deadmarsh and Aaron Miller when they returned to Colorado last week.

Nobody expected him to get the sort of loud cheers that accompanied a video tribute the Kings gave the injured Blake on March 31 during his first trip here after the trade.

But few expected these kind of boos.

“They were saying, ‘Luuuuc,’ ” Blake said, attempting a joke.

“It felt weird,” said former teammate Ian Laperriere.

Is it any wonder, then, that after Blake scored the game’s first goal on a 65-foot shot that rolled through Felix Potvin’s legs just 4:33 into the game, he also looked weird?

Dramatic revenge, and yet Blake didn’t even cheer. He just smiled and shrugged.

“There were so many emotions going through my head,” he said. “At the time, I didn’t even know what was going on.”

After the first period, in a luxury suite that Blake will contractually possess through next season, his wife Brandy perhaps showed some of those emotions.

“It’s kind of disappointing to hear this,” she said. “After 12 years, and this how they treat them? I’m surprised. I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t expect this.”

Fittingly, the community-minded Blakes usually give the suite to children sponsored by the United Way charities. Next season, it will be filled almost entirely with those children.

There obviously weren’t many of those children in the stands Monday night.

“Maybe it’s only L.A.,” Brandy said. “I don’t think every other team does this sort of thing. I know Colorado fans didn’t do this to Adam Deadmarsh.”

Of course, the perception is that Deadmarsh and Miller left the Avalanche against their wishes, while Blake forced the Kings to trade him.

Blake, who will be a free agent for the first time in his career this summer, was hoping for a deal of about $9.5 million a year. The Kings were offering about $8 million a year.

Blake was trying to take advantage of the market price in his only big free-market chance in the most restricted pro sport. Yet some apparently see him only as someone who turned down $8 million to go elsewhere.

Blake was stunned by management’s take-it-or-leave-it theme throughout negotiations, a posture that angered many of the team’s players. Yet some fans apparently only see him as greedy.

Management arguably got lucky when goalie Felix Potvin, acquired from the Vancouver scrap heap, led the Kings to the playoffs after Blake’s departure.

Yet some apparently think that Blake’s departure--and with it, all those distractions--was the sole reason for that late run.

No matter what anyone believes, one truth has become evident no matter what anybody says.

You can’t always go home again.

“This is a difficult time,” Blake said. “People go through tough times. You make the most of it. It’s a challenge.”

He had just scored a goal and won a playoff game. He was not smiling.

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