As his jersey goes to rafters, Robitaille works to bring the Cup to his L.A. fans

The walls of Luc Robitaille’s office are bare and, except for a flat-screen TV, devoid of signs that its occupant is the most prolific left wing who ever skated on NHL rinks.

His standard-issue desk and shelves are nearly empty too. They display no sticks or pucks from his 668 goals, 10th-most in league history. No evidence that he was the rookie of the year in 1987 or a first-team All Star five times, just a family photo and three laptop computers.

Chatting with some visitors recently, he was startled when one of the computers beeped loudly to alert him to an appointment.

“It looks like I’m this computer genius,” he said, laughing. “Meanwhile, I don’t know how to turn it on.”

After a splendid career that encompassed 19 seasons, 14 with the Kings, Robitaille has become a rookie business executive. But it would be as foolish to doubt his prospects now as it was in 1984, when he was passed over 170 times before the Kings claimed him in the ninth round of the entry draft.

The kid who supposedly couldn’t skate, whose junior statistics were disparaged as inflated by the Quebec League’s undisciplined style, will become the fifth Kings player to have his jersey retired, tonight at Staples Center. In 2009, after the requisite three-season waiting period, he will be voted into hockey’s Hall of Fame.

But for now he’s immersing himself in his new job with AEG -- the Kings’ parent company -- and projects that include luring a tenant to the AEG-operated Sprint Center in Kansas City and developing a new arena in Ontario, near the 10 Freeway. He also has been trying to find the words to thank the fans who will get one last chance to serenade him with cries of “Luuuuuc.”

Robitaille’s bond with Kings fans is like no other. They revered Wayne Gretzky, but his talent was too otherworldly to relate to. They cherished Robitaille as one of their own, the kid who grew up here and became a star but never forgot them on his way up.

“He was embraced by the people of California. He was truly the people’s favorite,” said Gretzky, who will coach the Phoenix Coyotes against the Kings tonight. “He not only played for the Kings, he tried to sell the Kings and the sport of hockey.”

Barry Melrose coached the Kings to the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals and saw Robitaille at his finest.

“He loved L.A., and the fans loved him back. He was Mr. King,” Melrose said. “He was a very young player when he got to L.A. and they had some good, young players, but no one took them seriously about winning anything. He was ready for a change in that regard. He lost very hard. People don’t realize that.”

It’s partly because he never won the Cup here, because he had to go to Detroit to win it in 2002, that he is working for the Kings as an alternate governor and consultant to AEG Sports. He knows he will be judged not by goals or points but by his ability to make deals and find ways to invigorate a club that hasn’t won a championship in its 40-year existence.

He doesn’t take it lightly.

He had owned ice rinks and a junior team and was involved in real estate deals but didn’t deeply ponder his future until the 2004-05 season was canceled by a lockout. Some of his ventures intersected with AEG’s interests, giving its president, Tim Leiweke, opportunities to assess his potential. They continued to talk last season, and Leiweke liked Robitaille’s passion and diligence.

“People are traditionally used to seeing ex-players get a token appointment and there’s people that might at first underestimate him,” Leiweke said. “It’s not the glad-hander type of job that he’s got. He comes in early and leaves late and he travels. It’s very important to him that it’s not a token job, not a PR move.”

William “Boots” Del Biaggio III, a Bay Area venture capitalist, has a lease with the Sprint Center to own and operate an NHL team if one becomes available through expansion or relocation. He has worked with Robitaille on that and on real estate deals and believes Robitaille is no lightweight in a boardroom.

“My impressions are that he’s going to be an awesome businessman,” Del Biaggio said. “He’s got so much energy, and when you come out of a 20-year career in professional sports, you come out with a team mentality that will help in business.

“He has great business acumen.”

Between attending Kings sales and marketing meetings, wooing prospective Sprint Center tenants and helping shape a vision for enhancing minor-league hockey on the West Coast, Robitaille has been in constant motion. His next assignment will take him to Dallas to represent the Kings at meetings before Wednesday’s All-Star game.

No wonder he has had no time to decorate his office.

“I had been thinking that one day when he retires, it’s like we’ll be a normal family,” said his wife of 14 years, Stacia, a Los Angeles native. “And in the end, it hasn’t changed much.”

Robitaille, who will be 41 next month, hasn’t changed much either. As in his playing days, he focuses on goals. Only now, they don’t trigger a red light.

“This town, they’re great hockey fans,” he said. “For the deserving fans, I want to put something on the map that will be greater than anything we’ve seen.”

By the end of last season, Robitaille was ready to move on, to begin “not a new chapter but a new book,” Stacia Robitaille said. His production had waned, and he had been benched repeatedly by then-coach Andy Murray. The league was getting faster and younger, and he was not.

“He is very much at peace with himself,” Stacia Robitaille said, “and that makes it wonderful.”

He says he has not been tempted to lace up his skates again.

“It’s a very selfish life when you want to play at the level that I always wanted to play. I felt like I kind of gave it all,” Luc Robitaille said. “Every game, the night before the game I was always taking care of myself, so everything I did was for hockey. So, when it was time to retire, it was over.

“I don’t watch a game and think, ‘Man, I could play and do this.’ I never do. I haven’t watched one game and thought that.”

Robitaille retired as the Kings’ top goal scorer with 557, passing Marcel Dionne last season. It was a fitting flourish: Robitaille had idolized Dionne, a fellow French-Canadian, and as a rookie he lived in Dionne’s home and skated on Dionne’s left side.

Dionne, who will miss tonight’s ceremony because of a long-standing family commitment, noticed Robitaille during the kid’s first Kings training camp, in 1984. He wasn’t surprised when Robitaille made the team in 1986.

“He has the passion for the game, and it was the first time in a long time I’d seen someone so young with so much passion,” Dionne said. “And he was care-giving. I knew when he was at an early age that he was going to be a kind person. He was so much ahead of me than I was at that stage.

“I also told him, ‘There are 20 guys here, and I love all these guys. If you hang with these 10 guys, you’re going to learn about the game. If you hang with these 10, you’re going to learn about the beach.’ I told him you have to make a commitment.”

Robitaille took that advice. He also took skating lessons and scored 45 goals and 84 points in his first season, the first of eight straight seasons in which he scored 40 goals or more.

“I take pride in this thing where I think I can be an example for a lot of kids, always believing in what you are,” Robitaille said.

After he was drafted, “I clearly remember just thinking, ‘My name is on the list and they’re going to see me.’ I was going to get one chance, and that chance was going to be minimal. I tried to play it up to give myself a really good chance, but it was easy to forget me. It’s a little harder to forget a first-round pick. I made sure when my chance was there, I was ready and everything was done. I had no regrets. I was never going to say, ‘I wish I would have done this.’ ”

He peaked at 63 goals and 125 points in the 1992-93 season, carrying the Kings while Gretzky was idled by a back injury and Melrose brought in a group of pluggers and grinders. It was a revelation to Melrose, who said he had been told Robitaille would reject his ideas and cause trouble in the locker room.

“It was the exact opposite. He took to it and worked as hard as anyone,” Melrose said. “But it wasn’t just the numbers. It seemed when I made him the captain he became a different player. He worked so hard, he killed penalties, he did everything. You could see him enjoy the responsibility.”

Defenseman Rob Blake recalled Robitaille’s goal against Toronto in Game 6 of the conference final, which helped the Kings avert elimination. “He liked that pressure. That wasn’t a problem for him. He was big that year and carried us through,” said Blake, who also left Los Angeles to win the Cup, in 2001 with Colorado.

“Some of his goals look so easy, it looks like anyone can do it. But to be the only guy scoring that many goals, there’s a reason. He battled hard in front. He knew where he had to be and where to put the puck. He wanted to score.”

He wanted it badly enough to absorb serious punishment while jostling for position to unleash his remarkably quick shot.

“He would pay a price to score. That’s another thing that people don’t realize,” Melrose said. “In the ‘80s and early ‘90s, when Luc was in his prime, defensemen were hacking and whacking people in front of the net and getting away with it. This is a guy that scored 26 power-play goals [in 1991-92] and I guarantee you 20 of them were from in front.”

Robitaille was traded to Pittsburgh in 1994, a move he implied was orchestrated by Gretzky. “Whenever anybody gets traded, it’s not a fun situation,” Gretzky said. “At the time, he probably thought I was the guy making the deals, which wasn’t the case.

“We ended up playing together in New York and had a wonderful time as teammates and linemates.”

Robitaille spent one season with the Penguins and two with the Rangers before the Kings reacquired him in 1997. He left as a free agent for Detroit in 2001 when the Kings proposed to cut his pay by $1 million after a 37-goal season.

He scored 30 goals in 2001-02 and only 11 the next season, but the Kings brought him back in 2003, and he scored 22 goals. With Murray cutting his ice time and his scoring droughts lengthening, he had 15 goals in 65 games last season.

He shouldn’t be remembered by those last unhappy days, when he struggled to find the net. He was a singular presence and he deserves to have his jersey placed alongside those worn by Gretzky, Dionne, Rogie Vachon and Dave Taylor, even if he can’t quite believe it.

“I was a little kid wanting to play a game,” he said. “I remember coming into the Forum for the first time and looking at the ceiling and everything and thinking, ‘Wow.’ Now my name and number will be there for as long as” Staples Center exists.

“It’s not something you set out to play for, when it happens and you see that, to me, it’s an amazing accomplishment. I can take my grandkids and show them that.”

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Elite company

Luc Robitaille is the fifth King to have his number (20) retired, after Rogie Vachon (30), Marcel Dionne (16), Dave Taylor (18) and Wayne Gretzky (99). Robitaille had three stints with the Kings. Average goals and points for each Kings stint, Kings career and NHL career:

*--* SEASON AVERAGES Seasons Goals Points Kings 1986-94 8 49.0 100.4 Kings 1997-2001 4 32.0 69.0 Kings 2003-06 2 18.5 37.5 KINGS CAREER 14 39.8 82.4 NHL CAREER 19 35.1 73.4

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*--* ALL-TIME KINGS GOAL SCORERS Games Goals 1. Luc Robitaille 1,074 557 2. Marcel Dionne 921 550 3. Dave Taylor 1,111 431 4. Bernie Nicholls 602 327 5. Butch Goring 736 275

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Los Angeles Times