Also Say Goodbye to Robinson

Today is Black Monday, called thus by the King players, but the darkness is expected to envelop their coach, Larry Robinson.

By day’s end, he is expected to be their former coach.

Robinson will meet with Dave Taylor, the team’s senior vice president and general manager, this morning and a source close to the situation said Robinson, who is in the final year of a four-year contract, will not be re-signed.

He has an afternoon appointment with the dentist.

“I’d rather face the dentist,” he said, smiling wanly.

His assistants apparently have not received the same summons, “though I guess there’s a pecking order,” goalie coach Don Edwards said. “We’ll be by the phone.”

It’s expected that they will be released too.

Robinson had expressed reservations about continuing as the Kings’ coach, but on Sunday, after a 3-2 loss to St. Louis finished a 32-45-5 season, said, “I’d like to, but it’s not up to me.”

In large part, it was up to the King players, who expressed sadness at Robinson’s plight and regret that they were the cause.

“I respect Larry,” Luc Robitaille said. “He’s a good person. Sometimes he was too nice. When a guy wasn’t producing, he always gave them an extra chance. Unfortunately, the guys didn’t realize how lucky they were.

“I don’t have any doubts about Larry’s coaching ability. We had a bunch of guys who didn’t play the way they should have played. . . . You can have the best system in the league, and if guys don’t put out, you’re not going to win.”

The opinion was widely shared.

“I’ve played for a lot of nice guys, but I’ve never played for a nicer one,” center Ray Ferraro said. “If he’s not going to be back, the wear and tear you can see in his face through this season, I feel bad for him. He’s such a nice guy and we didn’t play very well.

“You can always question moves the coach makes, and there were probably some things that would be done differently if he were to do it again.”

No, there wouldn’t.

“There’s a lot of great and positive things that have happened over the four years,” Robinson said. “I think we have done a good job under the circumstances, what’s gone on with the injuries and everything else. And I wouldn’t do anything differently.”

He cites as evidence the Kings’ 335 man-days lost because of injury or illness, and that Sunday’s game was the 25th they have lost by one goal or by a goal, plus another into an empty net.

“You can’t judge by this year, only because I think it’s misleading,” he said of the state of the team at the end of the season.

“We started off, we didn’t have our top guys for the first month or month and a half, so we missed prime time there. Then through this whole year, we’ve lost [25] one-goal games. If you look back and say ‘if we had won half of those games, we’re sitting in fourth or fifth place.’ ”

If the players who were available had played, they might have been there anyway.

“You had one guy here who had a decent year and that was Luc,” said Rob Blake, the team captain. “Not decent, he had a great year, but the rest of us were down. You could bring anybody you want in here to coach this team and if the guys have the same kind of year, we’re not going to make the playoffs.

“To put the whole responsibility on him is totally wrong.”

And the whole responsibility won’t fall on Robinson, though he will pay the ultimate price.

Black Monday will be followed by Black Tuesday, the day the players are summoned to Taylor’s office and told what kind of season they had.

The numbers they know: goals, assists, points, penalty minutes. What they mean is something else and are subject to Taylor’s interpretation.

The Kings’ bottom line is this: 32-45-5, and all other numbers are subordinate to that.

“I fully expected that we would be playing beyond today,” team President Tim Leiweke told season-ticket holders Sunday morning.

Anything offered to mitigate the damage was branded an excuse.

Some players will hear Taylor say words to the effect that “we could have been 32-45-5 without you,” followed by “we’ll see what we can be next season without you.”

But Robinson apparently will be first in line. It’s that way with coaches.

“I’m going to relish this day and think about the players I have and the staff I have and the friends I have around me and think about the happy things,” Robinson said Sunday.

The day before Black Monday.

NHL Roundup

In other games Sunday, Miroslav Satan scored his 40th goal and Dominik Hasek made 25 saves for his ninth shutout as the Buffalo Sabres defeated the Washington Capitals, 3-0, on the final day of the regular season at Buffalo.

The victory means the Sabres finished with 91 points, giving them the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference and a first-round series with the Ottawa Senators.

John LeClair had a goal and an assist as the Philadelphia Flyers clinched fifth place in the Eastern Conference playoffs with a 3-1 victory over the Boston Bruins at Philadelphia.

Theo Fleury scored on a rebound with 12 seconds remaining to give the Colorado Avalanche a 2-1 victory over the Dallas Stars at Denver in a matchup of the Western Conference’s two top teams.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LARRY ROBINSON, YEAR-BY-YEAR

1995-96

24-40-186th place

1996-97

28-43-116th place

1997-98

38-33-112nd place

1998-99

32-45-55th place

PLAYOFFS

1997-980-4

Lost to St. Louis