Luc Robitaille

"Lucky" Luc Robitaille (born February 17, 1966 in Montréal, Québec, Canada) is a retired professional ice hockey player. In a 20-year NHL career from 1986 to 2006, he played for the Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins. Robitaille retired as the all-time highest-scoring left winger in National Hockey League history and the holder of the Kings franchise record for goals.

Playing career

Robitaille starred in junior hockey for the Hull Olympiques of the QMJHL, scoring an amazing 191 points in 1985-86, and being named the CHL Player of the Year that season. However, due to perceived skating deficiencies, Luc was not drafted until the 9th round (171st overall) by the Los Angeles Kings in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft; five rounds earlier, the Kings had drafted Tom Glavine, who would become a star pitcher in Major League Baseball. Somewhat ironically, only Robitaille's former teammate Dave Taylor has ever had as many as one thousand career points after being drafted so low.

Despite such an inauspicious start, Robitaille burst onto the NHL scene in 1986, garnering the Calder Memorial Trophy for rookie of the year honors after scoring 45 goals and 39 assists in his first year. He would never look back, scoring more than forty goals in each of his first eight seasons for Los Angeles (a string broken only by the shortened strike year of 1994-95), registering three seasons exceeding fifty goals in that time. In the 1992-93 season, holding the team's captaincy in place of injured captain Wayne Gretzky, he broke Steve Shutt's record for goals by a left winger with a team leading 63 and John Bucyk's mark for points by a left winger with a team leading 125, marks which both still stand. He followed that up with being the third leading scorer (behind Gretzky and Tomas Sandstrom) for the Kings in their run to the Stanley Cup finals that season, making him the only person to ever dethrone Wayne Gretzky as his team's leading scorer during a season.

Somewhat astonishingly, Robitaille was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins after the 1993-94 NHL season for Rick Tocchet and a draft choice. After a single season in Pittsburgh, he was traded to the New York Rangers, where he spent two seasons before being traded back to Los Angeles for winger Kevin Stevens.

His return to Los Angeles was not immediately triumphant. In an injury plagued 1997-98 season he had the lowest point total of his career to that time, but the next three years proved otherwise, as Robitaille returned to form as one of the great left wingers of hockey. However, wishing for a shot at the Stanley Cup, which playing for Los Angeles was unlikely to grant, he signed as a free agent in 2001 with the star-studded, veteran Detroit Red Wings. Robitaille scored thirty goals that year and was a key component to the Red Wings Cup win.

After a mediocre following season, the worst of his career, Robitaille, hoping to finish his career back in Los Angeles, signed as a free agent in the fall of 2003 with the Kings. He led the team in scoring the next season at the age of 38.

On the night of Thursday, January 19 2006 during a game against the Atlanta Thrashers, Robitaille broke the Kings' all time franchise scoring record with his second goal of the night, his five-hundred and fifty-first (551st) goal in total. He went on to score a hat-trick third goal on an empty net in the final seconds of the 3rd period, embossing the new record, at least temporarily, at five-hundred and fifty two (552) goals. His record breaking goal was met with several minutes of a stadium-wide standing ovation and a video-congratulation reel was run on the in-house monitors for fans to watch.

On Monday, April 10, 2006, the Kings announced Robitaille's intention to retire at the conclusion of the 2005-06 NHL season. Robitaille officially confirmed this the next day, Tuesday, April 11, in a press conference held at the Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo, California.

Luc Robitaille played his final NHL home game as a Los Angeles King against the Calgary Flames on Saturday, April 15, 2006. He also wore the Captain's 'C' that normally belongs to Mattias Norstrom. Although he was held without a point in the game, he logged 18:37 of ice time, and had 4 shots on goal. He was also the second shooter in the shootout, but his shot towards the upper-right corner of the net was stopped by the glove of Flames goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff. The Kings went on to steal this game 2-1 off of a shootout goal by Pavol Demitra, and three shootout saves by the Kings' Jason LaBarbera. The Kings held a curtain call for Robitaille after the game, where he was given a standing ovation by the sell-out crowd of 18,118 fans in attendance. After chants of his name died down, he gave a short speech and did one final lap of the rink at STAPLES Center.

Luc Robitaille finished his playing career on Monday, April 17 at the HP Pavilion in a game against the playoff-bound San Jose Sharks. The Kings won this game 4-0, with Jason LaBarbera earning the shutout. He received applause and chants of his name throughout the night by the 17,496 fans in attendance, as well as good wishes from many of the opposing players of the Sharks. After the game ended, the Kings players came out and gathered around him first, rather than the traditional congratulation of the goaltender. The players of the Sharks team then came onto the ice to shake hands with Robitaille before they headed off into their locker room.

Robitaille finished his legendary career with 668 goals, and 726 assists for a total of 1,394 points in 1,431 games played over the course of 19 NHL seasons (1986-87 to 2005-06). His final NHL goal and point was scored in typical Luc Robitaille fashion, one-timing a pass from Jeremy Roenick while at the center of the right wing faceoff circle past the Phoenix Coyotes' Curtis Joseph during a power play on the March 14, 2006 6-2 loss to the Coyotes.

On July 6, 2006 Robitaille was named president of the Omaha Lancers hockey team of the United States Hockey League (USHL). ^*

Acting career

Luc had a cameo in the Van Damme action-thriller "Sudden Death".
Luc played himself in "D2: The Mighty Ducks" (aka "The Mighty Ducks 2") – 1994

Awards

Calder Memorial Trophy - 1987
Named to the NHL All-Rookie Team - 1987
Played in 8 NHL All-Star Games - 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2001
Lifetime Achievement Award from the Aquatic Foundation of Metropolitan Los Angeles 6/8/06

Records

Rankings are correct as of 18 April 2006

Ranks 10th in all-time NHL goals and first amongst left wingers (653)
Ranks 40th in all-time NHL assists and second to John Bucyk amongst left wingers (717)
Ranks 19th in all-time NHL points and first amongst left wingers (1370)
Ranks 28th in all-time NHL games (1366)
Los Angeles Kings franchise record for career goals (552)

Career statistics

			Regular Season					Playoffs
Season	Team	League	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
1983-84	Hull Olympiques	QMJHL	70	32	53	85	48	--	--	--	--	--
1984-85	Hull Olympiques	QMJHL	64	55	93	148	115	5	4	2	6	27
1985-86	Hull Olympiques	QMJHL	63	68	123	191	93	--	--	--	--	--
1986-87	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	79	45	39	84	28	5	1	4	5	2
1987-88	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	80	53	58	111	82	5	2	5	7	18
1988-89	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	78	46	52	98	65	11	2	6	8	10
1989-90	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	80	52	49	101	38	10	5	5	10	12
1990-91	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	76	45	46	91	68	12	12	4	16	22
1991-92	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	80	44	63	107	95	6	3	4	7	12
1992-93	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	84	63	62	125	100	24	9	13	22	28
1993-94	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	83	44	42	86	86	--	--	--	--	--
1994-95	Pittsburgh Penguins	NHL	46	23	19	42	37	12	7	4	11	26
1995-96	New York Rangers	NHL	77	23	46	69	80	11	1	5	6	8
1996-97	New York Rangers	NHL	69	24	24	48	48	15	4	7	11	4
1997-98	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	57	16	24	40	66	4	1	2	3	6
1998-99	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	82	39	35	74	54	--	--	--	--	--
1999-00	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	71	36	38	74	68	4	2	2	4	6
2000-01	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	82	37	51	88	66	13	4	3	7	10
2001-02	Detroit Red Wings	NHL	81	30	20	50	38	23	4	5	9	10
2002-03	Detroit Red Wings	NHL	81	11	20	31	50	4	1	0	1	0
2003-04	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	80	22	29	51	56	--	--	--	--	--
2005-06	Los Angeles Kings	NHL	65	15	9	24	52	--	--	--	--	--
NHL Totals			1431	668	726	1394	1177	159	58	69	127	174

International play

Played for Canada in:

1986 World Junior Championships
1992 World Championships
1994 World Championships (won gold medal)

External links

Kings fans bid a fond farewell to Robitaille

''Note: Robitaille served as captain in 1992-93 season, while Gretzky was injured & out of line-up.