Detroit Has All the Luc

Both teams got multiple-point games from their leading scorers.

Both got great goaltending.

The only difference between the Kings and Detroit Red Wings on Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena was Luc Robitaille.

The Red Wings have him.

The Kings didn’t want him.

Robitaille’s second-period goal, scored on a deflection of a shot by Brendan Shanahan, provided the winning margin in the Red Wings’ 3-2 victory.

In front of a sellout crowd of 20,058 that included his wife, Stacia, and their two sons, Steven and Jesse, who flew in from Los Angeles to surprise him, Robitaille got his stick in front of a 40-foot slap shot and deflected the puck past goaltender Felix Potvin to break a 2-2 tie with 4:19 to play in the second period.

The goal, Robitaille’s fifth in as many games, stood up the rest of the way as the Red Wings extended their winning streak to five games.

“I just stood in front of the net and I was ready for it,” said Robitaille, whose goal left him five short of 600 for his career. “I thought it was going to go a little higher, but I kind of moved my stick in the way and went top shelf.

“They say you’ve got to go in front of the net to score goals.”

The Kings know all about that. Robitaille scored all but 75 of his goals for them, averaging more than 37 over the last three seasons and helping them upset the heavily favored Red Wings in a first-round playoff series last April.

But when it came time to re-sign him last summer, the Kings’ only offer was for one season at $2.5 million, a $1-million pay cut from last season.

Robitaille, his pride wounded, signed with the Red Wings, whose offer guaranteed him $9 million over two seasons and a shot at the Stanley Cup.

And Saturday night, his family looking on, brought the sweetest revenge.

“It’s pretty special,” Robitaille said. “It was a little weird there at the start, but I just wanted to win so bad. I’m really happy we won.”

King Coach Andy Murray wasn’t surprised to see Robitaille in the middle of the winning play, stepping in front of a whistling blast.

“That’s what Luc does,” Murray said. “He deflects pucks into the net. He’s very good at that and we know that. Our concern is that we gave them a shot from the blue line that they shouldn’t have had and it allowed Luc to get his stick on the puck.”

As King winger Glen Murray said, “He doesn’t miss those.”

Murray, continuing his strong start to the season, scored the Kings’ first goal and assisted on the second to run his team-leading point total to 10, helping the Kings overcome an early 2-0 deficit.

The Red Wings, taking advantage of sloppy play by the Kings, scored on the game’s first shift, only 41 seconds after the opening faceoff, then added a second goal less than four minutes later to make the score 2-0.

Shanahan, the NHL scoring leader with 14 points, assisted on the first goal, feeding a nice pass into the lower slot to Sergei Fedorov, who charged down the middle unimpeded as Shanahan chased down a rebound of his own shot.

On the second goal, Steve Yzerman intercepted a soft pass from Mathieu Schneider and passed to Brett Hull, who scored from the slot.

“We’ve done that before in this building, for whatever reason,” Andy Murray said. “We know they always start strong. We just shouldn’t let that happen.”

It took the Kings only nine minutes to pull even, Murray scoring his fifth goal of the season on a rebound at 4:53 of the first period and Craig Johnson scoring his first on a shot from the left circle after taking a pass from Murray.

After that, though, Potvin and Red Wing goaltender Dominik Hasek clamped down, only Robitaille managing to put the puck into the net.

Hasek, a six-time Vezina Trophy winner acquired by the Red Wings in an off-season trade with the Buffalo Sabres, made 28 saves. Potvin made 25.

“We had our chances,” Glen Murray said. “We have to bury them.”

Robitaille did.

“I thought I could have had the original shot,” Potvin said of the game-winning play, “but he just stuck his stick in front of it at the last second and tipped it by me. “He’s scored a lot of goals like that in his career.”

But none more telling.