Robinson a hit in Canadiens debut 45 years ago

It was in the first days of 1973 when
Larry Robinson
was summoned to his coach's office at the Halifax Forum, leaving a post-game team meal to make the short walk alone to the arena.
There, Nova Scotia Voyageurs coach Al MacNeil had some news and advice for his American Hockey League defenseman. With injuries depleting the defense of the Voyageurs' parent Montreal Canadiens, Robinson was to catch a flight to Montreal the next morning.

"I remember what Al told me," Robinson said Sunday from his home in Bradenton, Florida. "He said, 'If you want to get into the game right off the bat, find somebody and hammer him the first shift.' It just happened to be poor Bobby Nevin. That's pretty much all I remember of that game."

Robinson's road to his 1995 Hall of Fame induction began 45 years ago, on Jan. 8, 1973, a 3-3 tie between the Canadiens and Minnesota North Stars before 18,261 fans at the Montreal Forum. Over the next two decades he would play another 1,610 regular-season and Stanley Cup Playoff games, with the Canadiens for 17 seasons and the Los Angeles Kings for his final three.
Nevin, 34, a veteran forward 13 years older than Robinson who was playing for his third of four NHL teams, was the first of many to be hit by a freight train wearing the CH-crested No. 19. More famously, Robinson would become known for breaking the Forum boards with Philadelphia Flyers forward Gary Dornhoefer, and he himself vividly recalls hip-checking one of the Quebec Nordiques' Stastny brothers -- he doesn't remember which one -- during a Stanley Cup Playoff game.
"There was a picture in the paper the next day of Stastny's body almost completely wrapped around my rear end," Robinson said. "That one I remember pretty well."

Apart from the Nevin check, Robinson recalls very little of his first NHL game. The same can't be said for Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden, who through the rest of the 1970s would enjoy having Robinson and fellow "Big Three" defensemen Serge Savard and Guy Lapointe doing the heavy lifting in Montreal's end of the ice.
"When I walked into the dressing room before the game, there he was, already half-dressed, looking taller, more rawboned, more angular than he does now," Dryden wrote of Robinson's debut in his 1983 book, "The Game."
"He played a remarkable game -- poised, in solid control defensively, moving surprisingly well with only a hint of lanky awkwardness. And what I recall most vividly is that he blocked shots."
Robinson will have to take Dryden's word for all of it.
"I was like a sixth defenseman that night, and I didn't play anywhere near what I did [later] in the 1970s," he said. "I might have played 10 minutes against Minnesota, which was a big change for me. I was playing probably 25 minutes a night in Halifax."
Robinson does remember a few family members being in the Forum for his NHL debut, with tickets he guesses he paid for himself.
"If I had the money I spent on tickets throughout my career, I'd probably be a rich man," he joked.

And he laughs about his first team portraits, with a handlebar moustache, sideburns that reach his jawline and wild hair that looks like it was combed with a leaf-blower.
"I wasn't making much money in those days," he said. "I couldn't afford a shave and a haircut."
Robinson had seen the North Stars on opening night of the 1972-73 season, a 3-0 Dryden-led shutout victory, from the Montreal Forum press box. He was returned to Halifax the next day.
"I was disappointed being sent back," he said. "I thought I'd had a pretty good training camp. We had a few exhibition games, a couple brawls, and I thought I'd handled myself pretty well. But I'm the type of person who won't listen if you tell me I can't do something. I just went down [to Halifax] and worked my butt off. I think at the time they called me back up, I was fifth or sixth in AHL scoring. If I'd gone down there and sulked, they might never have called."
Surely the Canadiens had taken notice of their 6-foot-4 tank Dec. 12, 1972, when he and a handful of other Halifax players beefed up a team of Junior Canadiens and college players for a 3-3 Forum tie against the visiting Moscow Selects.
Forty seconds into the game, Robinson caught forward Evgeny Kotlov with his head down, ending his night and leaving the Soviets hearing footsteps the rest of the game.
"I hit that poor kid so hard," said Robinson, who had watched the historic eight-game Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union that September.
In the morning newspaper following the tie, Robinson said, "I noticed during the Canada-Russia series that a lot of the Soviets like to take a pass behind their backs. So I figured if I could stay up and catch them before things got going …"

The January summons from Halifax meant Robinson had played his last game in the minors. His father and sister-in-law drove east to Halifax not long after his NHL debut to help move his wife, Jeannette, and the couple's 2-year-old son, Jeffery, to a rented apartment in the Montreal suburb of Lachine.
But Robinson wasn't a regular yet. He played 36 games through the end of the 1972-73 season, though when the Canadiens advanced to the playoffs he was a healthy scratch for the six-game First Round against the Buffalo Sabres, skating with the practice squad.
But he was in the lineup for Game 1 of the Second Round against the Philadelphia Flyers, and scored in overtime in Game 2.
The future two-time Norris Trophy winner as the NHL's best defenseman played the rest of the way, helping the Canadiens winning the Stanley Cup for the 18th time by defeating the Flyers in five games and then the Chicago Blackhawks in a six-game Final.
Never again in his career would Robinson be a healthy scratch; in 20 NHL seasons, he never missed the playoffs, and in 1978 he won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the postseason.
Robinson won six Stanley Cup championships with the Canadiens, and then three more as coach and executive with the New Jersey Devils. He's now in his first season as senior consultant to hockey operations for the St. Louis Blues, arriving after five seasons as associate coach and director of player development for the San Jose Sharks, for whom he mentored 2017 Norris Trophy winner Brent Burns.

Robinson, 66, spent Sunday at home in Florida watching the Blues lose 4-3 in overtime against the Washington Capitals, taking mental notes for discussion with coach Mike Yeo and general manager Doug Armstrong.
He loves his work, scouting and analyzing Blues games from his Florida home and regularly flying to St. Louis for meetings, hands-on work and to share his experience and wisdom with the roster.
Monday was circled on his calendar, "not for the anniversary, but for a different reason," Robinson said.
"I'll celebrate [Monday] by working my polo horses in Sarasota, who usually get Mondays off," Robinson said. "It's been so cold down here, they've worked maybe once in the past four, five days.
"Forty-five years since my first game. It seems like only yesterday."
His laugh about that was almost under his breath.