Dave Taylor

No player in the long history of the Los Angeles Kings has worn the uniform with most class than Dave Taylor. For 17 seasons Taylor gave his all on and off the ice and is regarded as one of Hollywood's greatest, albeit quietest, sporting heroes.

Taylor turned out to be the steal of the 1975 entry draft as he was drafted in the 15th round. He was relatively unknown as he played with little known Clarkson University (he still holds all the scoring records there) in a time when it was very rare for university players to make the NHL. Oh, and he successfully earned his bachelor of science in industrial management in 1977, by the way.

Through hard work and gritty effort, Taylor never needed to fall back on his education as he managed to make the Kings and became the ultimate compliment to the greatest King ever, Marcel Dionne. With Dionne's incredibly wizardry, Taylor's career blossomed from a regular player to a first line star. Combined with left winger Charlie Simmer, the trio was known as the Triple Crown line.

A fearsome body checker, Taylor became an almost as fearsome scorer, though highly underrated. Most people tend to pass off Taylor's offensive record as by-product of playing with Marcel Dionne, but in reality Taylor was a gift offensive player in his own right.

He was an excellent skater, agile for a big man and making up whatever he lacked in breakout speed with his incredible balance that made him almost impossible to knock down. He had great anticipation and opportunistic hands, able to work with Dionne as if the two were born to play with one another. In fact, Taylor was as much of an influence on Dionne's success as Dionne was on his.

The heart of his game was grinding up and down the right wall and in the corners. He would do the dirty work for his linemates, and often also act as their defensive conscience. He patrolled his wing with great strength and tenacity. Though big and strong, he was not much of a fighter. Though he dropped the gloves when he had to, he is probably best remembered for flattening Wayne Gretzky when he was still with the Oilers.

No hard feelings would linger from that incident. Of course Gretzky would leave Edmonton and come to Los Angeles in 1998. Taylor showed what a great leader and a selfless team player he was. It was Taylor who insisted that Gretzky wear the "C" of the team captain on his jersey.

Though he was generally underrated by observers around the league, the L.A. fans adored Taylor. He took home many team awards, including team MVP and most popular player, and represented the Kings in 5 NHL all star games. He was given the ultimate sporting thank you when he had his number 18 retired to the rafters of the Great Western Forum along side Marcel Dionne and Rogie Vachon.

He also won the Bill Masterton and King Clancy awards in 1991, after years of tirelessly working towards charity and community endevors. The highly respected Taylor was very proud of these two significant NHL honors.

In his career he tallied 431 goals and 1069 points. He played in 1,111 career games, all with the Kings. Needless to say that is a team record he is very proud of.

Taylor retired and stepped into management, serving as the long time Kings GM (1997-2006) before moving on to the Dallas Stars organization.

Marty McSorley

Marty McSorley worked hard to rid himself of his reputation as a goon early in his career. He worked hard to improve himself as a player, and became very well respected throughout the entire league, both for his on ice play and off ice class.

However that all changed on February 21, 2000.

With less than five seconds left in regulation time and the Canucks cruising to a 5-2 victory over the McSorley's Boston Bruins, the hulking defenseman closed in on fellow tough guy Donald Brashear and took a two-handed swing at the Vancouver forward's head, connecting with his right temple. Brashear dropped like a rock, hit his head on the ice and lay twitching on the ice. Brashear, who was then carried off on a stretched with blood flowing from his nose, suffered a severe concussion but could have suffered much worse.

McSorley, who has a short fuse and a history of violence, crossed the line of what is considered to be "acceptable" acts of violence in a hockey game. The Vancouver RCMP continue to look into assault charges.

McSorley was genuinely apologetic following the game, though that was not enough.

"I'm in shock with what I did," said a contrite McSorley. "That's not the way I want to be remembered as a hockey player.

"I have to reflect upon what I did. I have to come to terms with what I did.

"I've done that with so many guys, so many times, but I don't know what happened," he said. "There's no excuse. I got way too carried away. It was a real dumb play."

McSorley's act was probably the worst act of violence at the NHL level since Rocket Richard attacked Hal Laycoe and a linesmen back in the '50s. For his despicable act, Richard was suspended for the remainder of the regular season and the entire playoffs, sparking the now infamous Richard Riots in Montreal.

No one will be rioting now, but McSorley too got kicked out for the rest of the year. He was banned officially for 23 games plus the playoffs, the harshest penalty handed out by the NHL for an on ice incident to that point in history.

Its an unfortunate exclamation mark at the end of McSorley's career. No one should ever condone what he did, but it is important to tell the story of the rest of McSorley's career as well.

Marty McSorley went undrafted after playing junior hockey with the Belleville Bulls. The Hamilton, Ontario native signed as a free agent with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1982 and made the team in 1983-84 as simply a goon. He record 224 penalty minutes. However Marty would spend most of the next season in the minors.

In 1985 he was then traded to the Edmonton Oilers with Tim Hrynewich and later Craig Muni in exchange for goaltender Gilles Meloche. McSorley was brought into Edmonton with the idea that he could be Dave Semenko's eventual replacement as Wayne Gretzky's "bodyguard."

The move to Edmonton proved to be a great move for Marty as he would be part of back to back Stanley Cup championships in 1987 and 1988.

Then came "the trade." Wayne Gretzky, Mike Krushelnyski and McSorley were shipped to Los Angeles for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas and $15 million. McSorley was supposedly a throw in in the deal but some sources say that Wayne Gretzky insisted that his good friend Marty be included.

McSorley brought his bruising physical style to Los Angeles where he became an instant fan favorite. He racked up a 350 penalty minutes his first year and 322 in the following year. But Marty also became a really good player while in Los Angeles. He scored 15 goals and 36 points in 1989-90. 1990-91 saw McSorley tie Theo Fleury with a +48 rating, tops in the NHL. Marty even recorded a six point game against the Vancouver Canucks.

In 19 92-93 McSorley set the Kings record for penalty minutes with 399. It was also the season of the Kings Cinderella run into the Cup Finals. It was the franchises first time in the Finals. Though Marty had a great year and incredible playoffs, McSorley may most be remembered for happened in Game Two of the Finals. With the Kings in position to win and go up 2-0. Montreal coach Jacques Demers took a gamble and won big by asking the referee to check if McSorley was using an illegal curve on his stick. The move paid off for Demers, as the curve was indeed illegal. On the ensuing power play, Montreal scored to send the game into overtime, where they would win the game and tied the series at 1 game apiece.. The call turned the series in Montreal's favor, who would eventually down the upstart Kings to win the Stanley Cup.

Before the 19 93-94 season began, McSorley was traded back to Pittsburgh. Marty had earned a big pay raise and the Kings didn't want to pay the bill, so they sent him packing. It signaled the start of the downfall for LA as the Kings lost their emotional leader.

He played 47 games in Pittsburgh, but struggled. Much to Marty's relief he was traded back to Los Angeles later in the year. Oddly enough Shawn McEacheran was also involved in both trades. Upon his return to La-la-land he set the Kings franchise record for career penalty minutes. He also made a nice pass to Wayne Gretzky on Gretzky's NHL record breaking 802nd NHL goal.

McSorley was traded by the Kings again, this time March 1996 to the New York Rangers. McSorley was a free agent at season's end, so the Rangers were effectively using him as a rental player for the playoff run. As it turned out McSorley would only play 13 games for New York, including just 4 playoff contests.

After that, he signed on with San Jose as a free agent, but was used sparingly due to his lack of foot speed and defensive blunders. McSorley returned to the Edmonton Oilers in 1998-99, and signed with Boston for the 1999-2000 season.

TH will be remembered for his hideous assault on Donald Brasher, which is unfortunate. Marty McSorley was more than a goon. He started out as a goon in Pittsburgh who went on to become Dave Semenko's replacement as Gretzky's bodyguard in Edmonton and later Los Angeles. But a funny thing happened a long the way - McSorley worked his butt off and he turned himself into a fine player, especially during his first tenure with the Kings. In fact, in my opinion, McSorley was the second most dominant LA King in the 1993 Cup run, after of course Wayne Gretzky.

Though he was an awkward skater, Marty learned to play within his limitations, and as soon as he did that he thrived. Originally a winger, Marty is best known for playing defense where he cleared creases and intimidate attacking opponents on a nightly basis. He did possess a heavy shot.

Marty earned great respect around the league for his hard work, his fine team play, and his articulate intelligence off the ice. That all changed because of a sick stick swinging incident that even left McSorley shocked.

"He'll have to live with this for the rest of his life" said Canucks GM Brian Burke. "That's quite a burden."

Bert Wilson

A colleague recently shared their views on a former Los Angeles Kings tough guy named Bert Wilson:

"Bert Wilson had only one talent - flapping his sharp elbows into the opposition's ribcage. He was the worst stickhandler I ever saw in the NHL. On the rare occasions that Wilson scored a goal it was by one of two ways: The first one was an occasional goal mouth scramble. The second (usual) way was because the opposition refused to check him. In this scenario, the puck would be deep in the opposition's end. Each opposing defenseman (usually with the help of a back- checking forward) would drape themselves over Wilson's line mates the moment they touched the puck until they passed it back to Beltin' Bert. The remaining opposing forwards would harass the King's D men at the points should the puck come to the D men. If the Kings had the puck, the opposition wanted Wilson to have it! Wilson would be left all alone with the puck without being harassed. Under those conditions, even Wilson had more than enough time to skate in alone with the puck and have just as much time to get a point blank shot on goal - and a few went in!

"However, I give Wilson some credit. At least the effort was there even if the talent wasn't. I'm sure it was there since he probably realized that if he didn't go all out for a game, it may be his last one in the NHL."

Wilson did last 7 full NHL seasons and 478 games. In that time he scored just 37 times, while setting up 44 others. He was drafted by the Rangers and played in their minor league system for the first 5 years of his career before finally catching on in New York. Best known as a King, he also played with St. Louis and Calgary before rounding out his career with two seasons with the Salt Lake Golden Eagles of the CHL.

So there you have it. Another player in a long list of forgotten about players who survived by playing as physical as they could, despite having few tangible hockey skills.

Here's a YouTube highlight of Bert Wilson dropping the gloves with Behn Wilson:

Rogie Vachon

Rogie Vachon started his career in Montreal where he was on course to become one of yet another in a long list of great Habs netminders. His highest goals-against average with Montreal was a miniscule 2.87. He played a major role in upsetting the Bruins in the 1969 playoffs, as the Canadiens eliminated Bobby Or and the heavily favored Bruins in the semi-finals en route to the second of three Stanley Cup championships Vachon would enjoy while with Montreal.

Vachon looked like he was en route for hockey immortality - tending the nets for the legendary Canadiens, succeeding Gump Worsley and winning Stanley Cups. Then, late in the 1970-71 season, the Canadiens decided to give Rogie a bit of a rest right before the playoffs would start. They called up a promising young goalie to give him some apprentice time with established Vachon. The name of this prospect was Ken Dryden.

Dryden impressed the coaching staff so much that he played in all of the remaining 6 regular season games, only giving up 9 goals. However everyone expected Vachon to be between the pipes for the first playoff game. Much to everyone's surprise, head coach Al MacNeil decided to go with his hot hand, playing a hunch that the rookie wouldn't fold under pressure and at the same time give the Habs a huge advantage as no one had ever seen Dryden before. Dryden would lead the team to the Stanley Cup. Despite helping the Habs to previous championships, Vachon sat on the bench, and the next season was traded to Los Angeles.

Rogie became and still is a hero in Los Angeles, although his California zip code somewhat distanced him from the status of legend he probably should enjoy. He brought instant credibility to a struggling franchise with little fan support. His number 30 hangs high in the rafters along with names like Dave Taylor and Marcel Dionne. For 6 and 1/2 seasons he was the Kings workhorse, posting very respectable statistics and in hind-sight being one of the most valuable players to any one team. Playing in relative obscurity in the new, isolated hockey market, people often forgot about the great goalie named Rogie.

A classic stand up goalie, Vachon made the Kings respectable while becoming the most popular player in the Sunshine State. His best season came in 1974-75, finishing a close second to Bobby Clarke as the league's most valuable player. The Hockey News did name the big hearted competitor as player of the year.

Cursed by the obscurity of playing with the Kings, the lasting Vachon legacy for many Canadians will forever be his play in the 1976 Canada Cup. With Bernie Parent and Ken Dryden not playing, Vachon backstopped the Canadian team to the inaugural championship. In the first 6 games he let in only 6 goals, and he was a standout in the best of three final against Czechoslovakia. Vachon was named as Canada's MVP, no small feat considering this team featured 16 eventual Hockey Hall of Famers.

While in Los Angeles Rogie almost became the first goalie to be credited with scoring a goal in the NHL. On Feb 15, 1977 the Kings were playing the NY Islanders. In the second period Vachon made a save and appeared to clear the puck to center ice. The Islanders regrouped and one of the Kings committed a penalty -- setting up a delayed-penalty situation. As the Islanders regrouped with possession of the puck (and the ref's arm raised) they pulled goalie Chico Resch, then sent the puck in deep Trottier picked up the puck by the side of the Kings' goal and attempted a pass to the defensemen at the point. The puck went between the two defensemen and all the way into the Islanders' empty net. After a moment of confusion, the goal was awarded to Rogie Vachon!

However, after the game the official scorers looked at the videotape and realized Kings' forward Vic Venasky cleared the puck after Vachon's earlier save that preceded the penalty -- so the goal was credited to Venasky.

Rogie Vachon would wind up his career with Detroit and then Boston, but is best known for his days with L.A. He would return to California and take over the General Manager role for many years.