Lafleur Wants to Come to Camp : Former Canadien Star Seeks an Invitation From Kings

Is there no end to Wayne Gretzky’s drawing power?

Guy Lafleur has asked the Kings for an invitation to training camp next month at Victoria, Canada.

Lafleur, who led the Montreal Canadiens to four consecutive Stanley Cup championships in the late 1970s, is the Canadiens’ all-time leading scorer, a two-time National Hockey League most valuable player, a three-time NHL scoring champion and the No. 10 scorer in NHL history.

And he’s a right winger, of which the Kings are in short supply.

But he’s also 36, and he will be 37 by the start of the season. He retired in 1984, 19 games into his 14th NHL season.

Is he serious?

“If I wasn’t in good enough shape, I wouldn’t waste anybody’s time,” Lafleur said Monday from his agent’s office in Montreal.

He said he has been thinking for a couple of months about attempting a comeback.

“L.A. was my first phone call,” Lafleur said. “It’s a good place to play, especially now that Wayne is there.”

Rogie Vachon, general manager of the Kings, said he is intrigued by Lafleur’s proposal.

Still, “I don’t know if we’re ready to commit ourselves,” Vachon said. “A guy like this would be expensive, and we can only go so far, budget-wise. We’ll talk to them later this week.”

Lafleur, the No. 1 pick in the 1971 draft, when former King Marcel Dionne was the No. 2 pick, said he weighs about 5 pounds less than when he played.

Lafleur, who had 30 goals and 40 assists in 80 games in the 1983-84 season, retired two months into the 1984-85 season in a dispute over playing time with then-coach Jacques Lemaire.

Lafleur never tried to catch on with another team “because of the way it ended with the Canadiens,” said his agent, Yves Trembley. “He was very disturbed. He was still able to play. They got him to retire too soon.”

For the last two years, Lafleur has played for a team that tours Canada in the winter months, playing about 70 exhibitions a year against junior and senior teams.

He owns a hockey stick distributorship and a sports marketing business in Quebec and is also involved in charity work.

He said that in considering a comeback, “I said to myself, ‘I have two or three years left where I could maybe help a team. I’m capable of doing it, so why not do it before it’s too late?’ ”

And when the Kings landed Gretzky last week . . .

“I think that, marketing-wise, this would be a hell of an idea,” Trembley said. “I think it would be really good for hockey in the States. Can you imagine Guy with Wayne on the same ice, the way they can pass and shoot the puck? That would be something special, I think.”

Vachon, who isn’t so sure, said he expects to hear from other former players, too.

“I assume there will be other guys who want to come out of retirement now,” he said. “It’s amazing how things change.”