Robitaille still hopes this isn’t his last banner night

As a player, Luc Robitaille had a knack for finding the right spot to rifle the puck past helpless goaltenders.

On the night his jersey was retired by the Kings, he found the right mix of humor and humility to generate laughter and tears from the fans who first heard of him as a bad-skate, good-hands, longshot draft pick and came to know him as a marvelous player and equally fine man.

“I lived the dream. I heard your chants,” Robitaille told the crowd that filled Staples Center and turned his name into a hockey hymn.

“Every time I touched the puck I heard you. I will take this to the day I die.”

His arm entwined in his father’s, his wife, Stacia, at his side, Robitaille watched as his sons Steven and Jesse gently launched a rolled-up banner toward the roof. When it unfurled and his name became visible above his familiar No. 20, he joined Wayne Gretzky, Marcel Dionne, Dave Taylor and Rogie Vachon in knowing that all future Kings will measure their careers by the standards he set.

“I didn’t start for this. It wasn’t about money,” he said, the inflections of his native French still audible in his voice. “I just wanted to play hockey. I wanted to play in the NHL.”

He didn’t merely play. He excelled.

“He had a hunger in front of the net that was unbelievable. No one made more out of less chances to put the puck in the net than Luc,” said Hall of Fame defenseman Larry Robinson, who played beside Robitaille and later coached him.

“Maybe he wasn’t the greatest skater in the world, but he had tremendous balance. He was hard to knock off his feet. And as I say, he didn’t need that many chances.”

In a climate more hospitable to palm trees than ice rinks, he sold the game with his smile, his personality and his refusal to give anything less than his best throughout 19 seasons.

He spanned all three eras of Kings uniforms -- the Forum blue and gold, the silver and black and the current silver-accented purple -- and several eras in the club’s history. He played and lived with Dionne as a rookie. He filled in for the injured Gretzky as the team’s captain during the 1992-93 season, recording career-bests of 63 goals and 125 points as the Kings made their only trip to the Stanley Cup finals.

Now, as an executive of AEG, the Kings’ parent company, he’s trying to accomplish what he could not do as a player and bring the Stanley Cup here. When he insisted that the foundation for success is in place, an unhappy fan yelled, “Get a goalie!” If he could, he probably would.

“I always had total respect for Luc, not just in the sense of a hockey player but as a person,” said former defenseman Garry Galley, who flew to Los Angeles from his home in Ottawa because he felt compelled to be part of Saturday’s tribute.

“It’s impossible to say how much he means to this area, as far as hockey. Not just in L.A., but the NHL in general is lucky to have guys like Luc that played here for so long and were great ambassadors for the game. And that goes on before we talk about his goals and his production.”

He scored 557 goals in 14 seasons as a King and a total of 668, 10th in NHL history. He scored a bigger place in fans’ hearts for his charity work and for never leaving a fan without an autograph or word of encouragement.

But he also enjoyed a joke, even if he was the victim. Among the invitees Saturday was former teammate Larry Playfair, who once cemented Robitaille’s shoes to the ceiling. Robitaille thanked Bernie Nicholls because “in my first fight he jumped in to save me,” as well as Vachon, who drafted him in 1984 and introduced him to golf. “He took all my money,” Robitaille said, smiling.

He also invited Peter Millar, who was dismissed as the club’s equipment manager before this season, and former trainer Peter Demers, who was bought out. He made sure to thank Bob Kudelski, a former Yale and Kings player who was “the first guy I ever saw read a book on the bus.”

Broadcaster Jim Fox, among several dozen former Kings lined up at center ice for Saturday’s pregame ceremony, spoke of Robitaille’s soft hands, great shot and blazing speed before turning to a grinning Robitaille to say, “Luc, two out of three isn’t bad.”

Robitaille took it well. “I guess you know by now I wasn’t the fastest,” he said, drawing laughter. “I had a few flaws. But I was a student of the game ... and every day I’m so thankful I got to live my dream for 35 years.”

Barry Melrose, the Kings’ coach during their run to the 1993 Cup finals, was surprisingly emotional. Others might look at Robitaille’s retired jersey and think of goals or points, he said as his voice broke, “but I’ll be thinking that every time I watched Luc Robitaille play, he reminded me of why I loved the game.”

Robitaille reminded a lot of people about the good things in hockey and sports and human nature. “I can come back here and bring my grandkids one day and see my name at the top of the building in a city the size of L.A.,” he said. “With all the stars in this town and have my name in Staples Center, it wasn’t what I set out to do, but it’s the greatest honor I’ve ever gotten.”

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