Red Wings remember Luc Robitaille

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Luc Robitaille has made a lasting impression on the Kings, first during a career that on Monday will be commemorated with his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and now as the club’s president of business operations.

But he also had an impact on the Detroit Red Wings, with whom he won his only Stanley Cup title in 2002.

Forward Tomas Holmstrom told Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press about the effect Robitaille had on him when Robitaille played in Detroit.

‘Luc wanted to put a big, big curve in my stick, so I tried it one game and I almost got benched the first period because I was coughing up pucks left and right,’ Holmstrom said. ‘So I told him, ‘I can’t do it, Luc,’ and he kept telling me to stay with it. I didn’t.”

Defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom remembers the line of Robitaille, Igor Larionov and Holmstrom as being key to the team’s success.

‘Luc wasn’t the best skater out there, but he knew when to be in the spots and how to get there, and he was always finding ways to score,” Lidstrom told the Free Press. ‘He was a pure goal scorer on probably the best fourth line that’s ever been.’

More from -- and about -- Robitaille later at www.latimes.com/sports.

-- Helene Elliott in Toronto