Canadiens passed up chance to land Robinson
The San Jose Sharks are headed to the Stanley Cup final for the first time in franchise history with Larry Robinson as their director of player development.
Two Sharks defencemen — Brent Burns and Marc-Édouard Vlasic — will also be part of Team Canada at the World Cup of Hockey, which starts Sept. 17 in Toronto, and Burns is one of three finalists for the Norris Trophy. Coincidence? Robinson won six Stanley Cups as a defenceman with the Canadiens and three more with the New Jersey Devils as a head coach, assistant coach and consultant. The Hall of Famer, 64, was signed by the Sharks in July 2012 as an associate coach and spent three seasons working behind the bench with the team’s blueliners before reducing his role this season — tired of the travel and wanting to spend more time at home with his family in Florida. Robinson is in more of a consultant role, but his fingerprints are still on the Sharks — and especially their defencemen.
Donny Cape, Robinson’s longtime friend and business manager, says the Canadiens could have hired the Hall of Famer instead of the Sharks, but chose not to.
Cape says he spoke with Marc Bergevin after he was hired as the Canadiens’ general manager in May 2012 and the GM had hired Michel Therrien as his head coach on June 5 of that year.
Robinson had already decided he didn’t want to return to New Jersey the next season and Cape says a meeting was set up with Bergevin when Robinson was going to be in Montreal July 6. But before that meeting was held, Cape says Bergevin called him back to say the meeting was off because he had already hired someone else (J.J. Daigneault) as an assistant coach to work with the defence. Daigneault and Bergevin grew up together in Montreal and were minorhockey teammates — along with Mario Lemieux — during the late 1970s for the Ville-Émard Hurricanes.
Cape says Bergevin asked him to let Robinson know he had hired someone else and that the meeting was off. An upset Cape responded: “You call him.” Bergevin did. Cape, who has represented Robinson since the early 1970s, said he is still shocked that the Hall of Famer wasn’t at least granted an interview with the Canadiens.
“OK, they don’t want us,” Cape figured.
On July 1 of that year, Cape says Sharks GM Doug Wilson — who was Robinson’s teammate at the 1984 Canada Cup — called Cape to discuss bringing Robinson to San Jose and three days later a deal was done.
Robinson has enjoyed a lot of success since leaving the Canadiens at the end of the 1988-89 season to join the Los Angeles Kings at the request of Wayne Gretzky. While Robinson’s best days were behind him, The Great One knew what leadership skills the two-time Norris Trophy winner still had.
Robinson spent three seasons on the Kings’ blue-line and the season after he retired Los Angeles advanced to the Stanley Cup final before losing to the Canadiens.
While with the Devils, Robinson helped groom Norris Trophy winner Scott Niedermayer. And he might have another Norris candidate in Burns, a former first-round draft pick (20th overall in 2003) who was acquired by the Sharks in a trade with the Minnesota Wild in June 2011. Vlasic, who was selected by the Sharks in the second round (35th overall) at the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, has developed into one of the best and most consistent defensive defencemen in the NHL.
“When he signed with the Sharks, I was very excited, but my wife kept hitting me on the shoulder, going: ‘Do you know who that is? Do you know who that is? Do you know who that is?’” Vlasic told TSN Radio 690’s Mitch Melnick on Thursday afternoon. “He’s a legend.
“Down behind the bench ... that was unbelievable,” Vlasic added about having Robinson as a coach. “Teaching me how to shoot the puck, teaching me how to do certain things, it meant a lot to me and I think it’s helped me since he’s been with the club.”
Vlasic, who won a gold medal with Team Canada at the Sochi Olympics, also has a strong Montreal connection. He grew up in Pointe-Claire on the West Island and his father, Ed, spent five seasons as a defenceman with the McGill Redmen. Ed met his future wife — and Marc-Édouard’s mother, Marie-Josée Lord — when he was coaching her intramural hockey team at the university.
Robinson’s link to Montreal remains strong. He is the only living member of the Canadiens’ all-time dream team as voted by fans during the club’s 75th anniversary season in 1985. The other members of the dream team were goalie Jacques Plante, defenceman Doug Harvey, centre Jean Béliveau, right-winger Maurice Richard, left-winger Dickie Moore and coach Toe Blake.
You have to wonder how much better some of the Canadiens’ young defencemen — including P.K. Subban, who was left off Team Canada when the final World Cup roster was announced Friday — would be if they had been coached by Robinson. You also have to wonder if Robinson might have been able to help develop former first-round draft pick Jarred Tinordi into a regular NHL defenceman instead of having Bergevin dump him in a head-shaking trade for Victor Bartley and John Scott. Maybe the Hall of Famer could have found a solution for the Canadiens’ power play, which has been brutal for the last three seasons.
We’ll never know the answer to those questions.
But we do know that the San Jose Sharks are in the Stanley Cup final.