Marcel Dionne Still Looks Good In A Kings Jersey

Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty had a chance to talk with Hall of Famer and Los Angeles Kings great Marcel Dionne at Hockey Fest ’09 last weekend. Here’s his latest article on HockeyTalk.biz.

LOS ANGELES — Despite the fact that he is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, making him one of the all-time greatest players to have ever played the game, former Los Angeles Kings superstar center Marcel Dionne is not exactly a household name in Southern California.

Dionne was acquired by the Kings on June 23, 1975, along with Bart Crashley, from the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for Terry Harper, Dan Maloney and a second round draft choice (later transferred to the Minnesota North Stars) in the 1976 National Hockey League Entry Draft.

From that day forward, the Kings finally had that elite, superstar forward they had lacked since they joined the NHL in 1967.

Dionne made a huge and immediate impact. In the 1975-76 season, his first with the Kings, Dionne scored forty goals and tallied 54 assists for 94 points in eighty games.

Dionne never looked back after that, scoring 550 goals and contributing 757 assists for 1,307 points in 921 regular season games with the Kings. He still leads the team on their all-time assists list (757), ranks second all-time in goals (550), and to top it all off, he was part of the famed Triple Crown Line, along with Charlie Simmer and Dave Taylor, that was so dominant for six seasons.

Dionne played in twenty NHL seasons with the Red Wings, Kings and Rangers, scoring 731 regular season goals and adding 1,040 assists for 1,771 points. He ranks fourth all-time in the NHL in goals, ninth in assists, fifth in points, second in goals by a center and ranks fourth all-time in points by a center.

Perhaps more eye-opening is that Dionne scored forty or more goals in ten seasons and scored fifty or more in five straight seasons. He also scored 100 or more points in eight seasons (ranked third all-time in the NHL)…

Read the rest on HockeyTalk.biz.