The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. In each issue, you'll find news, features and opinions about the NHL and leagues across North America and the world.

March 9, 1979

The Hockey News March 9, 1979

<div class="byline">BY VIRG FOSS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02269/4343682-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="560" height="634"><figcaption class="caption-body">KEN BERRY&hellip;Denver Hat Trick</figcaption></div>GRAND FORKS&mdash;University of Minnesota hockey coach Herb Brooks nearly crashed his car into the ditch late Saturday night when he heard that Michigan State had beaten the University of North Dakota hockey team 6-5, keeping the Gophers alive in their battle for first place in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.Brooks&rsquo; hockey team steered a straight course earlier that night in beating Michigan Tech 7-3 to complete a weekend sweep and remain within striking distance of the Sioux. The Gophers won 6-2 Friday night.North Dakota&rsquo;s loss to Michigan State was a shocker. The Sioux, who carried a five-game winning streak into the game after manhandling Michigan State 7-2 the first night, got stung by third period goals by Joe Omiccioli and Darryl DiPace and a 39 save performance by freshman goalie Doug Belland as the Spartans stalled North Dakota&rsquo;s drive to its first WCHA championship in 12 years.The Sioux could have wrapped up the championship by winning that second game. A crowd of 5,640 fans, just over capacity, was disappointed when they didn&rsquo;t.The title now goes dpwn to the final weekend, when North Dakota need a tie or a win in the iwo-game series with Minnesota in Minneapolis to win its first league championship since 1967.The teams have met twice this year, splitting in Grand Forks. The Sioux won the first meeting 4-1 and Minnesota prevailed in the second 6-3.MICHIGAN TECH AT MINNESOTA: Steve Christoff and Don Micheletti each scored twice for the Gophers in the 6-2 win as the Gophers rolled to a 4-0 Jead. Christoff&rsquo;s two goals gave him 31 for the season and 70 for his career, tying him for third on the Minnesota all-time list.The next night, Micheletti got the hat trick and Christoff and freshman ace Neal Broten each had three assists as the Gophers again jumped to a quick 4-0 lead. Broten also had a goal for a four-point night.That set up the Gophers for a run for the title the final weekend of regular season play. The series will also be televised live throughout a tri-state area, so thousands of viewers can watch it on TV besides the sellout crowd of nearly 8,000 that will jam Williams Arena to overflowing.MICHIGAN STATE AT NORTH DAKOTA: Senior center Mike Burggraf got his second hat trick of the season as the nation&rsquo;s top-ranked hockey team, North Dakota steamrolled over State 7-2 in the opener. Bob Iwabuchi, the top goaltender in the WCHA, held State at bay as he allowed just his third and fourth goals in his last three starts. The next night, though, Michigan State battled back from 2-0, 3-1 and 4-2 deficits to win it on the goals by Omiccioli and DiPace. Belland was brilliant in the nets for State while Iwabuchi struggled with just 28 saves. That left it up to the Sioux to get a win or a tie in Minneapolis in order to claim the crown.NOTRE DAME AT DENVER: Notre Dame, which had moved into a tie for second place in the WCHA with back-to-back sweeps over Minnesota-Duluth and Minnesota, got a taste of a sweep again. Only this time it was Denver that did the sweeping, as coach Marshall Johnston&rsquo;s Pioneers took 6-5 and 7-4 wins from the Irish to dump Notre Dame into fifth place in the scrambled league race.Ken Berry had three goals for the defending league champs in the opener and Alex Belcourt came back with two goals the second night to spark Denver&rsquo;s win. The sweep assured Denver being in the eight-team playoffs starting March 6-7 at the home ice of the top four regular season top finishers.MICHIGAN AT DULUTH: Coach Gus Hendrickson&rsquo;s Bulldogs rolled out the big guns to sink last-place Michigan 12-3 in the opener. Scott Carlston had the hat trick and Dan Lempe scored twice as Duluth broke open a close game with seven goals in the third period, including three in 46 seconds.The next night, Michigan got bettei goaltending and Duluth needed John Harrington&rsquo;s goal in the third period tc gain a 3-3 tie. Neither team could score in the 10-minute sudden death overtime period. That left Duluth in a tie witf Wisconsin for third place with fain hope of still finishing second, should the Gophers falter.WISCONSIN AT COLORADO COLLEGE: Wisconsin moved into a tie for third place by downing the Colorado College Tigers twice. Mark Johnson paced the Badgers with two goals in the opener and Ron Vincent potted two goals the second night as Wisconsin rolled to 4-1 and 9-6 victories. Bruce Aikens had the hat trick for CC in the second game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-03173/4343675-1-eng-US/f0029-032.jpg" title="f0029-03" width="534" height="615"><figcaption class="caption-body">STEVE CHRISTOFF&hellip;Sparked Gophers</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

Minnesota. North Dakota Head For Showdown

1. Alberta2. Toronto3. St. Mary&rsquo;s4. Calgary5. Guelph6. Manitoba7. Regina8. Dalhousie9. Concordia10. Laurentian &#9632;

Canada’s Top 10 Colleges

<div class="image-hero"><img title="Cover-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover-01710/4344350-1-eng-US/cover-012.jpg"></div>&mdash;Page 13 &#9632;

Cover-01

BOSSY HOTTEST SCORER IN NHL HISTORY

<div class="byline">BY AL SMITH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-06439/4342071-1-eng-US/f0004-062.jpg" title="f0004-06" width="529" height="868"><figcaption class="caption-body">BOB MacMILLAN&hellip;Club Scoring Record</figcaption></div>ATLANTA&mdash;When Cliff Fletcher predicted the Atlanta Flames would have to play 10 percent better this season just to maintain their position in the tough Patrick Division, he knew what he was talking about.The Atlanta Flames&rsquo; general manager knew the Flames were in for their roughest schedule since joining the National Hockey League. Due to a schedule revision, each team would be playing the other teams in its own division eight times during the year. That meant, the Flames would be facing the New York Islanders, New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers more times than ever before.And more importantly it meant the Flames would be facing the No. 2 (Islanders), No. 4 (Rangers), and No. 6 (Flyers), teams in the league 24 times.That&rsquo;s why, even though the Flames were nine points better after 58 games in the &lsquo;78-79 season than they were in 7778, they were still in third place in the Patrick Division, the same position they held the year before. They had improved their record to 31-22-5 compared to 22-22-14 but still trailed the Islanders and Rangers and were only three points ahead of the Flyers.&ldquo;I said at the beginning of the season we would have to improve by at least ten percent just to maintain our position of last year,&rdquo; Fletcher said. &ldquo;Not only is it tougher playing each team in our division eight times, but the poorer teams of last year have also improved. There doesn&rsquo;t seem to be any easy games anymore. And going down the stretch of the regular season, Fletcher was still concerned about the number of goals the Flames were giving up.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to improve on our goals against,&rdquo; Fletcher said. &ldquo;Especially going into the playoffs when games get more defense oriented. Defense seems to be the area where we break down more than any other and I&rsquo;m not just talking about our defensemen.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s our overall play defensively that has me concerned, back checking and everything. And I&rsquo;m sure not faulting Dan Bouchard. He&rsquo;s played some great hockey for us this season. He&rsquo;s got more wins than anyone in the league and there have been times he hasn&rsquo;t had much help.Offensively the only area that had Fletcher concerned was the Flames&rsquo; power play. But after the All Star break the Flames improved slightly in that area with newly-acquired defenseman Bob Murdoch playing the point.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been very happy with the play of Murdoch,&rdquo; Fletcher said. &ldquo;He moves the puck out of our end very well and he&rsquo;s proved to be a valuable asset to the team.&rdquo;&ldquo;Overall I&rsquo;d have to say I&rsquo;m happy with the way we&rsquo;ve played this season, except for a stretch right after our winning streak. But we seem to be coming out of it and playing more consistently.&ldquo;We always want to win more games, but I think we can end up with over 90 points, more than we&rsquo;ve ever had before. And with the tougher schedule and improvement of the weaker teams, I&rsquo;d have to say I&rsquo;m happy with our progress.&rdquo;FLAMES NOTES: Bob MacMillan became Flames&rsquo; single season scoring leader with two assists against St. Louis Blues on Feb. 17. It gave MacMillan 83 points for season surpassing Tom Lysiak&rsquo;s team record 82 which he set in 1975-76 season&hellip;Guy Chouinard also surpassed another Lysiak team record with his 32nd goal, also coming against the Blues. Chouinard now holds record for most goals scored by a center in one season&hellip;Lysiak, one of the Flames&rsquo; most durable players, missing only seven games in first five years, has been hampered by a groin injury this season. He missed nine games before the All Star break and was then reinjured in a practice and was still out of action four games later&hellip;Bill Clement, who has been out of the lineup for almost five weeks, is expected back any game now. &#9632;

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Rise For Atlanta Means 10 Percent Play Improvement

NEW YORK&mdash;Mike Bossy, the electrifying young right winger of the N.Y. Islanders, turned in some fancy scoring exploits this past week.Besides tieing the consecutive game scoring mark at 10 and becoming the first player to register the quickest 100 goals in a two-year starting period. Bossy also won the distinction of being pro hockey&rsquo;s first 50-goal scorer of the 1978-79 season.The Islander ace had the advantage of a Saturday afternoon game to notch his 49th and 50th goals against Detroit. His closest pursuer, Real Cloutier of Quebec Nordiques also got his 50th on the same day but he scored it in a night game while playing New England.<h2>Injuries Riddle Rangers&rsquo; Roster</h2>NEW YORK&mdash;The Rangers were buckling under a heavy injury load that threatened to blow them out of the Patrick Division unless Fred Shero can improvise.After losing defenseman Ron Greschner with a shoulder separation for at least a month, the team saw goaler John Davidson go down with a pulled hamstring that will likely sideline him for six weeks. Then came the big blow&mdash;center Ulf Nilsson suffered a fractured ankle after being boarded by defenseman Denis Potvin of the Islanders.Nilsson will be gone at least six weeks.<h2>Rockies Decide To Stay In Denver</h2>DENVER&mdash;The downtrodden Colorado Rockies are losing their shirts but they are not about to throw in the towel in Denver.Club president Armand Pohan has already announced the Rockies will remain in Denver for the 1979-80 season despite the fact the team stands to lose close to $2 million.Pohan said that owner Arthur Imperatore intends to operate again next season in Denver and plans to take out newspaper ads to inform the public of his plans. Pohan said he wanted the air cleared for the off-season in order to eliminate speculation the Rockies might fold or be moved elsewhere.<h2>Calgary Wants NHL Franchise</h2>CALGARY&mdash;The NHL is not aware that a group is attempting to get a major league franchise for the city of Calgary.President John Ziegler said the NHL is not presently entertaining any thoughts of expansion for next season and he said he has not been in touch with Calgary people regarding a franchise.But a Calgary group held a press conference to announce it would seek an NHL team. Called the Calgary National Hockey League Establishment Association, the group decJared through spokesman Robert Vakov that it was serious about an NHL team. Calgary is supposed to build a new 20,000-seat Coliseum If the city gets an NHL franchise. &#9632;

Bossy First 50-Goal Scorer

<div class="byline">BY BOB VERDI</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0002-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011077/4341816-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">STAN MIKITA&hellip;Manned Lobby Autograph Booth</figcaption></div>CHICAGO&mdash;For all these years, the Black Hawks have marketed hockey with the zeal of a cigar store Indian.After all, they play on Madison Street, not Madison Avenue. But that was last half century. Now the Black Hawks are making at least a few attempts at selling the sport, not only selling tickets.Starting with their Feb. 18th home contest against the Colorado Rockies&mdash;one of four Sunday matinees at the Stadium&mdash;the Black Hawks instigated a series of extracurricular activities designed to titillate their dwindling roster of customers.On the 18th, there was an autograph booth set up in the lobby of the Stadium where three players&mdash;Stan Mikita, Cliff Koroll and Ivan Boldirev&mdash;signed pictures, scorecards, programs from 1:30 to 2 p.m. before the 3:05 faceoff.Between the second and third periods, there was a new/old idea&mdash;Scoreboard. Bring fans down from the stands and shoot pucks on the ice for prizes. Big hole, $100; little hole, $1,000. Miss everything you get five cases of 7-Up anyway. The contest was emceed by Captain Keith Magnuson, the Hawks&rsquo; ailing defenseman who was a prime mover in the promotions and is a fulltime employee of the 7-Up company in Chicago (Joyce Beverages).On March 18, another matinee, the first 5,000 kids under 14 will get free miniature hockey sticks from Victoriaville, courtesy of Bobby Orr.On March 25, Orr, the assistant general manager, plus other Hawks will hold a pre-game clinic for youth hockey.Then on April 8, the last day of the regular season, there will be a Fan Appreciation Day wherein prizes of all sorts and varieties will be doled out to spectators.For all games on the remainder of the home schedule, there will be Scoreboard, a gimmick which many other teams in the NHL employ.One veteran scribe in Chicago purused the news release of the promotions and remarked sarcastically, &ldquo;I feel like I&rsquo;m back covering the Cougars.&rdquo;But the crowds in Chicago have been so lean that something had to be done. On Feb. 14, a Wednesday night when there was little else going on in Chicago besides &ldquo;From Here to Eternity&rdquo; on the tube, only 7,674 showed up to watch the Hawks play the Atlanta Flames.There have been worse numbers than that, too. So bad that on some nights, the Hawks are outdrawn by their farm club in Moncton, New Brunswick (population 80,000).&ldquo;The way we&rsquo;ve been playing, maybe you can&rsquo;t blame the fans,&rdquo; said Mikita, &ldquo;but it sure is a difference from the old days.&rdquo;The weather has been cold in Chicago, yes, but so has the team. And in a city where the White Sox and Cubs have drawn 1.5 million customers each summer for mediocre to poor clubs, the Black Hawks struggle along at half capacity or less in a good hockey town that has been turned off and needs to be turned on again.&ldquo;One of the reasons is the security in the Stadium&hellip;bad,&rdquo; said goalie Tony Esposito. &ldquo;But there are other reasons, too, I guess.&rdquo;At any rate, the word promotion around the Stadium no longer means a player is coming up from the minors. It means there are games to be played&mdash;before, during and after the game.Who would have ever thought it possible?&ldquo;It&rsquo;s about time,&rdquo; said an opposing owner. &ldquo;The Black Hawks have become one of the sad cases in the NHL. When they won, they filled the building. That&rsquo;s still the answer&mdash;winning. But even when you&rsquo;re not, you have to beat the drums. They haven&rsquo;t got a club.&rdquo;HAWK TALK: Mike Veisor, back up Hawks&rsquo; goalie, is a father. Donna Veisor gave birth to Jonathan, an 8-pound baby boy&hellip;Mike Walton, a 34-year-old forward who has been around the globe, was promoted to the Hawks from their New Brunswick farm club in the American League Feb. 17. Assignment: help a needy cause, the Black Hawks&rsquo; power play. &ldquo;I know his history,&rdquo; said GM-coach Bob Pulford, &ldquo;but that doesn&rsquo;t bother me.&rdquo; Walton is close friends with Pulford and Orr. &#9632;

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Black Hawks Attempt Promotions To Turn Hockey Town On Again

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0002-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-02961/4341847-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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NHL Scoring Leaders

<h2>THE NHL&hellip;</h2>Atlanta&hellip;&hellip;4Boston&hellip;&hellip;12Buffalo&hellip;&hellip;17Chicago&hellip;&hellip;2Colorado&hellip;&hellip;11Detroit&hellip;&hellip;7Los Angeles&hellip;&hellip;3Minnesota&hellip;&hellip;10Montreal&hellip;&hellip;20N.Y. Islanders&hellip;&hellip;6N.Y. Rangers&hellip;&hellip;5Philadelphia&hellip;&hellip;9Pittsburgh&hellip;&hellip;3St. Louis&hellip;&hellip;18Toronto&hellip;&hellip;15Vancouver&hellip;&hellip;19Washington&hellip;&hellip;8<h2>THE WHA&hellip;</h2>Birmingham&hellip;&hellip;24Cincinnati&hellip;&hellip;27Edmonton&hellip;&hellip;27New England&hellip;&hellip;24Quebec&hellip;&hellip;24Winnipeg&hellip;&hellip;25<h2>OTHER LEAGUES&hellip;</h2>Colleges&hellip;&hellip;29American&hellip;&hellip;32Central&hellip;&hellip;33International&hellip;&hellip;34Ontario Major&hellip;&hellip;36North Eastern&hellip;&hellip;35WHL&hellip;&hellip;37Quebec Major&hellip;&hellip;39COLUMNISTS&hellip;Ken McKenzie&hellip;&hellip;4Bob Verdi&hellip;&hellip;6Bill Libby&hellip;&hellip;8Bill Fleischman&hellip;&hellip;12<h2>FEATURES&hellip;</h2>Player Movements&hellip;&hellip;5Fan Forum&hellip;&hellip;10Hockey People&hellip;&hellip;14NHL Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;22Minor Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;35Amateur Scoreboard&hellip;&hellip;39 &#9632;

Where To Find It…

Do you want an opportunity to pick your own NHL and WHA All Star teams? Well, next week in THE HOCKEY NEWS you can select the 1978-79 teams for both leagues on the first of two ballots. Second ballot will appear in the March 23 issue. Be sure to get in on the voting. Don&rsquo;t miss it! &#9632;

FANS ALL STAR BALLOTS

<div class="byline">BY BILL LIBBY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011085/4341926-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Despite a bad back, Goring is still within reach of breaking personal best season for goals mark of 37, set last year. (Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;As he approaches the age of 30 and completes his milestone 10th season in the National Hockey League, Butch Goring should be at the peak of his career but this has been an uneven campaign for the little King.A fast start with 13 goals in his first 15 games helped. After a midseason stretch of 13 games without a goal, the shifty center still had 26 goals after 55 games and had a shot at his personal record of 37, set last season.He ended his slump with four goals in four games, but now has gone another five games without a goal.His hallmark always has been hustle. He does a little of everything&mdash;forechecks, steals the puck, kills penalties, makes plays, and is the best in the business at breakaways, although he hasn&rsquo;t been quite as active this season.A bad back slowed him down for awhile. Injuries sidelining linemate Mike Murphy for 16 games hurt.&ldquo;I missed Mike,&rdquo; admits Butch. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been together a long time and work well together. When Steve Jensen joined the line he gave it a lift with a bunch of goals, but he doesn&rsquo;t make plays with me the way Mike does. With Mike, we&rsquo;re an honest line.&ldquo;The back bothered me, no doubt about it. It looks like it was just a bruised tailbone, but for awhile they thought it was a cyst and it does act up for awhile just about every season. However, I feel fine now and I feel certain I won&rsquo;t have surgery.&ldquo;I seem to go into a slump the middle of every season. I don&rsquo;t know if I get tired or what. I seem to lose something. But then I snap out of it. We&rsquo;re in the homestretch now, headed for the playoffs, and I&rsquo;m hoping for a fast finish.&rdquo;Last season lifted the long underrated Goring into international prominence. He not only was voted the Kings&rsquo; Most Valuable, Most Inspirational, and Most Popular Player, but was the first in the NHL to sweep the Lady Byng and Bill Masterton trophies.He well might have won the Byng, for gentlemanly excellence several seasons in the past, but may not win it this season. He has 12 minutes in penalties, while the more effective Guy Lafleur has only a few more. Goring was a surprise winner of the Masterton for dedication to his sport, but a new winner is sought every year here.&ldquo;Winning the two trophies was a thrill for me and meant a lot to me, but I can&rsquo;t say it has changed my life much,&rdquo; Butch says. &ldquo;Maybe I&rsquo;m more well known around the league, but I really haven&rsquo;t seen any difference in the way I&rsquo;m received.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t consciously go for the Byng, but I&rsquo;m just not a player who fouls much or fights. A lot of calls are judgment calls and you&rsquo;ll get some fouls called on you some seasons that you won&rsquo;t other seasons.&rdquo;1 think I&rsquo;m playing about the same as I have for some seasons now,&rdquo; Goring concludes.The Kings are counting on it. They lost free agents Rogie Vachon, Gary Sargent, and Dave Hutchison to other teams last summer, but saved Goring at the last minute with an offer of five years and an option year at $200,000 a year.&ldquo;I wanted to stay, but I was ready to go to the other league for more money. When I got the kind of contract that gave me and my family financial security for the foreseeable future, I was happy to stay here,&rdquo; says the team&rsquo;s veteran at the age of 29.Personally, he has matured enormously over the years. He and his wife Cathy have been married almost eight years now. He adores their three-year-old daughter Shannon and is hoping for a son in March. He still owns race-horses, but has curtailed his time at the track so he can concentrate on hockey.KINGS THINGS: For the first time this season, the Kings drew even with last season&rsquo;s pace. After 55 games, they had 55 points. Following the 10-day All Star break, they won their third straight game to return to the .500 level for the first time in five weeks&hellip;Bob Berry&rsquo;s bunch hopes to finish better than the 9-12-4 record compiled by Ron Stewart&rsquo;s team which left the Kings three games below .500 at season&rsquo;s end last season.The Kings have been on the road 30 out of 40 nights and hope to take advantage of favorable scheduling at home the last part of the season&hellip;Brian Glennie was due to have surgerv on a slipped spinal disc in mid-February and was finished for the season&hellip;Doug Halward returned to action after a prolonged absence with a strep throat and Rick Hampton was ready to return from a knee injury. &#9632;

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Gorina Lookina Forward To Fast Finish

LOS ANGELES&mdash;Butch Goring had thought he&rsquo;d seen it all during his decade with the Los Angeles Kings, but recently he was the unwilling recipient of a professional hockey first, for him.Goring got a glove in the mouth from defenseman Thommie Bergman in Detroit and it cost him the first tooth he&rsquo;s lost in 10 years. &#9632;

Butch Loses First Tooth

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK MOODY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-02926/4341981-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="547" height="1100"><figcaption class="caption-body">ROD SCHUTT&hellip;20-Goal Man</figcaption></div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;In years to come, Pittsburgh Penguin left wing Rod Schutt&rsquo;s name may become the answer to a hockey trivia questions. Which National Hockey League rookie belonged to three NHL clubs prior to the start of a season, before he played a single game?Schutt&rsquo;s crazy season began this way: He was traded by the Montreal Canadiens to the Washington Capitals in exchange for defenseman Pierre Bouchard. But, NHL president John Ziegler disallowed the deal. He ruled Bouchard couldn&rsquo;t be traded until he cleared waivers. Bouchard had been picked up by the Capitals earlier in the NHL waiver draft.&ldquo;For about 10 days or two weeks when I did get traded, I didn&rsquo;t know who I belonged to,&rdquo; recalled Schutt. &ldquo;Washington said that I was their property, and Montreal said that you&rsquo;re traded. But, the league said that the trade was illegal, and that I couldn&rsquo;t play with Washington.&ldquo;I was still practising in Washington. The Canadiens told me to come back to Montreal, because the trade&rsquo;s illegal. Washington in the meantime had tried to trade for me, but Montreal wouldn&rsquo;t trade. Then when I was on my way back to Montreal, when I was at the airport, they called me and paged me, and told me, &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t bother to come back to Montreal. Go to Pittsburgh, you&rsquo;ve been traded there.&rdquo;&ldquo;I was bouncing around for quite a while, and I was a little disappointed. I think I wasn&rsquo;t quite sure who I was or where I was going.&rdquo;Schutt, 22, wasn&rsquo;t disappointed that he was traded to Pittsburgh, however.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t mind the trade to Pittsburgh,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was disappointed I wasn&rsquo;t getting to play anywhere, or that I couldn&rsquo;t get myself established on a team. I just wished I could have started with the Penguins from the first of the year, and I wouldn&rsquo;t have missed the four games that I did.&ldquo;I think those 10 days that I was in limbo really hurt me. When you come off of training camp, you start a gradual pace to get into shape. Those days when I was In Washington, I practiced twice. Any edge that I got in training camp, I just lost because of the layoffs. Washington was hesitant to let me practices because I really didnt&rsquo;t belong to them.&ldquo;When I came here, after a few games, I picked up. I think when you make a change, you always try a little bit harder. It turned out I got six goals in 13 games. I&rsquo;m quite satisfied here.&rdquo;Schutt went on to score his 20th goal of the season in his 49th game with the Penguins. He has been working on a line with ex-Canadien Peter Lee at right wing, and Greg Malone at center. All three have tallied over 20 goals this year, to become the club&rsquo;s most consistent scoring line.&ldquo;I think our line is expected to score,&rdquo; said Schutt. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if they expect me to score as much as the other two, being a first year guy and everything. I think management&rsquo;s plans for the future is to build on guys like myself, Lee, Malone, Blair Chapman, and the other younger guys. Hopefully I can help the team. We&rsquo;re a young club, and we can build from there.&ldquo;We have a club where we have to work hard. If we don&rsquo;t work hard, we&rsquo;re not going to be successful. It&rsquo;s not a team of super stars. I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s one super star. If we all work together as a unit, we&rsquo;ll go somewhere.&rdquo;Schutt was a 1976 first round amateur draft choice by Montreal. He was acquired from the Canadiens by Pittsburgh for a first round choice in the 1981-amateur draft. Schutt was the American Hockey League&rsquo;s rookie of the year in 1976-77 with Nova Scotia, where he scored 33 goals and 51 assists. Last year, with the Voyageurs, he tallied 36 goals and added 44 assists. He played two games with the Canadiens last year.&ldquo;I was disappointed I never really got a shot in Montreal,&rdquo; Schutt said. &ldquo;You always want to play with a winner. You want to play with the best, and I think Montreal the last couple of years has been the best. I would like to have had a shot there, and possibly play on a Stanley Cup team.&ldquo;Personally, I think I&rsquo;m better at certain things than players that they kept, but maybe lesser in other things. Maybe the things that I&rsquo;m weaker in, if I&rsquo;d worked on them, I could have been equal if not better than some of the players they&rsquo;ve kept.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Schutt Finds Home With Penguins

<div class="byline">Ken McKenzie&#x2019;s</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011136/4342040-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="379" height="450"></div>LOOK FOR some surprises later this month as the NHL trading deadline draws near. Several well-known names have been bandied about as trade material&hellip;Colorado Rockies and Chicago Black Hawks at? said to De readying a deal that would send Paul Gardner from the Rockies to the Hawks in exchange for Grant Mulvey and Alain Daigle&hellip;Ray Miron, hard-working general manager of Colorado, is doing everything possible to strengthen his club&hellip;Most European sports papers criticized the play of Team i NHL in the series against the Russians. The publications across the sea knocked the NHL&rsquo;s system of shooting the puck into the opposing zone and chasing after it as old-fashioned and outdated. They also pointed out the fact that the Soviets were in better physical condition and were better skaters&hellip;With the rough weather that has been hitting many parts of the United States lately some of the NHL clubs have been experiencing some nervous time aloft. There are a few players still around who detest flying and would do almost anything to avoid it&hellip;Office equipment of the defunct Indianapolis Racers was sold by the Internal Revenue Service the other day to satisfy a tax lien but it brought little more than 10 percent of the total bill. Desks, chairs, filing cabinets and other items were offered for sale.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021089/4342033-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="289" height="483"><figcaption class="caption-body">Paul Gardner</figcaption></div>PETER POCKLINGTON, owner of the WHA Edmonton Oilers, is determined to bring a North American Soccer League franchise to Edmonton. He has offered $2.5 million to buy the Oakland Stompers and move the team to the Alberta capital. Edmonton rates as one of the best sports cities in North America. Pocklington&rsquo;s Oilers average 11,000 a game, by far the best attendance record in the World Hockey Association, and the Grey Cup champion Edmonton Eskimos play before 43,000 fans at the spanking new Commonwealth Stadium&hellip;John Hewig, outstanding public relations director of the WHA, has replaced Dennis Randall as P.R. Director of the New England Whalers. He will also do some work for the WHA as well&hellip;Defenseman Al Hamilton is the only member of the Edmonton Oilers who has been with the team since it&rsquo;s inception seven years ago&hellip;Owner Peter Pocklington has promised his Oiler players round-trip tickets to Morocco if the club ends the season in first place. No other professional sports club has ever received such an offer&hellip;Bobby Kromm, one of the most dedicated coaches in hockey, is very disappointed with the showing of his Detroit Red Wings this season. After a phenomenal season a year ago, the Red Wings have slipped into last place in their division and have the third worst record in the National Hockey League. When Ted Linebay took over the. Red Wings as general manager two years ago his motto was: &ldquo;Aggressive hockey is back in town.&rdquo; The other night when Toronto downed the Wings, 6-2, banners hanging in the Olympia read: &ldquo;Amateur hockey is back in town.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-03983/4342026-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="289" height="418"><figcaption class="caption-body">Peter Pocklington</figcaption></div>THE TEN BIGGEST goons in the NHL according to Al Strachan, sports editor of the Montreal Gazette, are: Dave Hutchison, Steve Durbano. Nick Fotiu, Gary Risling, Dennis Polonich, Randy Holt, Dave Hoyda, Dave Williams, Dave Schultz and Paul Holmgren. The 10 goons mentioned by Strachan had a total among them of 48 goals and 74 assists, but listen to this&hellip;1,556 penalty minutes. This is an incredible figure, something the NHL doesn&rsquo;t need, and especially so right now&hellip;Minnesota North Stars are playing exceptionally fine hockey these days and rate as one of the most improved teams in the National League. As the North Stars have shown improvement on the ice, so have they at the box office and the crowds are back to their great days in the late 1960&rsquo;s and early 70&rsquo;s&hellip;Jan Starsi, coach of the Czech national team, wants the hockey world to know that his team has beaten the super Soviets no less than three times for the world championship&hellip;John McCauley, NHL referee, was standby referee for game three of the Challenge Cup series. He didn&rsquo;t work but after the game he was in a New York restaurant and was saying some nice things about the play of the Soviets when he was slugged by a fan and received a severe eye injury. It is still too early to tell if his vision will be impaired but he recently underwent surgery to repair a fracture of the orbital margin.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-04881/4342019-1-eng-US/f0004-042.jpg" title="f0004-04" width="290" height="424"><figcaption class="caption-body">John McCauley</figcaption></div>OLDEST TEAM in the NHL is Boston. The Bruins average 28 years per player. The youngest teams are the Vancouver Canucks and the Buffalo Sabres. Average age for each player is an even 25&hellip;Punch Imlach is rumored to be the next general manager pf Vancouver. That&rsquo;s only a rumor, however, as a younger man would be a wiser choice for a team such as the Canucks&hellip;The job Imlach would most like to have is general manager of his old club, the Toronto Maple Leafs&hellip;Behn Wilson, one of the best of the NHL rookies, is the youngest player in the league at 20. The Philadelphia defenseman plays with the poise of a 10-year veteran&hellip;The Jersey Jr. Rockets, the Junior B champions, are having another successful season in the Atlantic Hockey League the top ranked Junior B League by the AHA of U.S&hellip;.The Moon Radio Network Inc. has been granted rights to nationally broadcast any and all games of the WHA&rsquo;s Avco World Trophy playoff games&hellip;Moon Radio will syndicate these games to any interested radio stations in the U.S&hellip;.The Vancouver and Los Angeles teams are still displeased with their schedules and trust that their skeds will be better next season. Coaches Harry Neale and Bob Berry plan to say plenty about this during the summer&hellip;Did you know Guy Lafleur is the only player other than Phil Esposito to be selected as THE HOCKEY NEWS Player of the Year in successive years. The Flower was named the last two seasons while Espo was picked in 1970-71 and 1971-72 when he was setting all kinds of scoring records with Boston.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-05742/4342012-1-eng-US/f0004-052.jpg" title="f0004-05" width="283" height="415"><figcaption class="caption-body">Guy Lafleur</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0004-01

PASSING THE PUCK

Following are the latest player movements in hockey:NATIONAL LEAGUEBOSTON&mdash;Dick Redmond, D, returned to lineup from injury list.BUFFALO&mdash;Ken Breitenbach, D, and Mike Boland, D, recalled from Hershey of AHL. Tony McKegney, LW, assigned to Hershey.CHICAGO&mdash;Jean Savard, C, recalled from New Brunswick of AHL. Bob Kelly, LW, assigned to New Brunswick as replacement. J.P. Bordeleau, RW, returned to lineup from injury list.COLORADO&mdash;Michel Lachance, D, recalled from Tulsa of CHL. Mike Dwyer, LW, recalled from Philadelphia of AHL.DETROIT&mdash;Lorry Gloeckner, D, returned to Kansas City of CHL. Greg Joly, D, returned to lineup from injury list.MONTREAL&mdash;Doug Risebrough, D, and Larry Robinson, D, returned to lineup from injury list.N.Y. ISLANDERS&mdash;Alex McKendry, LW, recalled from Fort Worth of CHL. Richie Hansen, C, assigned to Fort Worth as replacement.N.Y. RANGERS&mdash;Lucien DeBlois, RW, assigned to New Haven of AHL. Frank Beaton, D, and Dean Turner, D, recalled from New Haven. Ulf Nilsson, C, placed on disabled list for rest of season with fractured ankle. John Davidson, G, placed on disabled list for at least six weeks with pulled hamstring in left leg. Mike Korney, D, recalled from New Haven of AHL and reassigned to Tulsa of CHL.PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Bernie Parent, G, placed on disabled list for rest of the season with eye injury.PITTSBURGH&mdash;Tom Cassidy, C, returned by Rochester for reassignment after being placed on suspended list by AHL club. Wayne Bianchin, LW, placed on disabled list with injury.ST. LOUIS&mdash;Neil Labatte, D, returned to Salt Lake of CHL. Steve Harrison, D, and Garry Murphy, C, recalled from Port Huron of 1HL and reassigned to Salt Lake. Harvey Bennett, C, placed on waivers. Steve Durbano, D, placed on suspended list for six games.VANCOUVER&mdash;Jack Mclllhargey, D, returned to lineup from injury list. Rob Tudor, RW, recalled from Dallas of CHL. Rob Flockhart, RW, returned to Dallas.WASHINGTON&mdash;Paul Mulvey, LW, recalled from Hershey of AHL. Gary Rissling, LW, returned to Hersehy.WORLD HOCKEY ASSN.BIRMINGHAM&mdash;Brant Hughes, D, and Tony Cassolato, RW, assigned to Binghamton of AHL.CINCINNATI&mdash;Claude St. Sauveur, C, signed as free agent from defunct Indianapolis team.NEW ENGLAND&mdash;Larry Pleau, LW, and Jordy Douglas, RW, recalled from Springfield of AHL.WINNIPEG&mdash;Gary Smith, G, signed as free agent from defunct Indianapolis team. Steve West, C, recalled from Rochester of AHI. &#9632;

Hockey Players On The Move

<div class="byline">BY TOM MURRAY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-01987/4342150-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="549" height="733"><figcaption class="caption-body">DOUG SOETAERT&hellip;Sensational Return</figcaption></div>NEW YORK&mdash;After playing well over the first half of the season without any players incurring serious injuries, the Rangers&rsquo; major injury list grew to three players when Ulf Nilsson&mdash;whom Dave Maloney calls &ldquo;the heart of the Rangers&rdquo;&mdash;suffered a fractured right ankle in the Rangers&rsquo; recent 3-2 victory over the Islanders.The injury, the third for the Rangers in the last two weeks, occurred after Nilsson was checked heavily&mdash;but cleanly&mdash;into the boards by the Isles&rsquo; Denis Potvin, and will keep the brilliant Swedish center, and the Rangers&rsquo; leading scorer, in a cast for six weeks and on the sidelines for at least eight. Taking into account the fact that doctors&rsquo; predictions are invariably pessimistic, Nilsson might be back in time for the playoffs&hellip;but don&rsquo;t bet on it.The injury put a damper on what was undoubtedly the best week the Rangers have had all season long. And it means that the team is suffereing great losses in that area where they most need strength&mdash;right up the middle. In addition to Nilsson, Ron Greschner, the best rushing defenseman on the squad, is out for at least a few more weeks with a separated shoulder. And goaltender John Davidson, who has led the Rangers to 19 of their 34 victories to date, is out with a severely pulled hamstring muscle.But back to the good news. The week started with a 7-3 victory over the St. Louis Blues, a game which was marred by an ugly stick-swinging brawl that cleared both benches in the third period of the game. The two main combatants were Nick Fotiu and the Blues&rsquo; Steve Durbano, and without going too much into the gory details, what basically happened was a nearriot that started with Durbano taking a swipe at Fotiu with his stick after Nick intentionally bumped him. The culmination of all of this occurred beneath the stands, in the runway between the two locker rooms, when Fotiu tried to get at Durbano and had to be restrained by three or four over-sized stickboys and security people. This was after Durbano had triumphantly exited the Garden, first raising his srms over his head and then bending over, grabbing his ankles with his hands and, as one reporter delicately wrote, &ldquo;raising his derriere&rdquo; to the crowd.It was a disgusting display by a person who is fast losing favor in the NHL. But after seeing the way the league handled the situation when the time came to dole out fines and suspensions, you&rsquo;ve got to wonder whether the NHL really is as adamantly opposed to violence as it claims to&rsquo; be. To wit: Durbano, who picked up a near-record 45 penalty minutes in the contest, was suspended for a paltry five games and fined $450. And Fotiu was fined $150 for a 10minute misconduct and a game misconduct and another $300 for being the &ldquo;instigator&rdquo; of the brawl.After the St. Louis fiasco, the Rangers traveled to Toronto prepared for a war. They brought along Frank (Seldom) Beaton and Dean Turner, two bellicose types from the New Haven farm team, in case things got nasty. They never did, though. Ian Turnbull and Don Maloney got into a little scrap, but the rest of the game was devoted to hockey, and the Rangers prevailed, 4-2, thanks largely to the efforts of the Murdoch-Esposito-Maloney line, which accounted for three goals and four assists, and increased their totals to 13 goals and 18 assists in the six games they had been together. Maloney has been especially sensational since coming up from New Haven, fearlessly going into the corners, digging the puck out like a 10-year veteran, and hitting his teammates with passes that seem to have eyes.&ldquo;What can I say about the kid?&rdquo; Esposito said. &ldquo;With him around, I I might play until I&rsquo;m 50.&rdquo;Back at Madison Square Garden on the following night, it was the Islanders who looked like they were all 50 years old, however, as the Rangers pul together their best effort of the season, skating, hustling, and inspiring the I capacity crowd to roar endlessly as the peppered Islander goalie Chico Resch with a barrage of shots-34 in all. For the second time in less than two weeks, the Rangers held an opponent to no shot: on goal. The first time they achievec this nearly impossible feat was in their 5-1 win over the Bruins on Valentine&rsquo;s Day. They did it again in the secone period against the Islanders, out f shooting them, 13-0.&rsquo; The Rangers also not only stopper Mike Bossy&rsquo;s 10-game goal-scoring streak&mdash;thus preventing the 22-year-old I sensation from breaking the record he shares with Bobby Hull and Andy Bathgate&mdash;but didn&rsquo;t even allow him: shot on goal.Doug Soetart, making his first star since January 15, when he was bombed out on national television by th it Minnesota North Stars, was sensationa when he had to be; granted he faced only 16 shots, but practically all of them were extremely tough, and two were clear breakaways by Potvin and Bryan Trottier. This quiet, proud, and capable young goalie has proved for the umpteenth time, already, that he deserves more playing time.For the Rangers, the win was their third consecutive against the Islanders, and it gave them 74 points&mdash;one more than they had at the end of the 1977-78 season&mdash;with 21 games to go.They&rsquo;re in the groove, these Rangers are, and they&rsquo;re playing outstanding hockey. But remember; Ulf Nilsson is out for the duration; Ron Greschner is out for another few weeks; John Davidson is flat on his back in the hospital.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re just gonna have to regroup,&rdquo; said Dave Maloney. &ldquo;Good teams don&rsquo;t let these kinds of things affect them.&rdquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt that the Rangers are a good team. But time will only tell how much they will be affected by these injuries.BLUE CHIPS: Fred Shero admitted last week that he was ready to unload &ldquo;three or four players and a couple of million dollars&rdquo; for the Colorado Rockies&rsquo; Barry Beck. Deal fizzled out, however, when Rockies&rsquo; GM Ray Miron denied ever even talking to Shero and threatened to sue the Rangers for tampering&hellip;A couple of mistakes have appeared in these pages about two of the Rangers which should be cleared up. First, in the HOCKEY PEOPLE section of the Feb. 16 issue, we ran a picture of Ron Duguay with a caption which said that his two black eyes were the result of a punch thrown by the Atlanta Flames Brad Marsh. We were wrong. The shiners were the result of a severe cut Doogie suffered in a game against the Colorado Rockies. Duguay did fight with Marsh in the game following that Colorado contest, but his eyes were already black and blue&hellip;Second, in the Feb. 23 issue, it was reported that Mike McEwen went to Mexico with teammates Don Murdock and Dave Maloney. Wrong again. Mike informs us that he did go to Mexico, but not with Maloney and Murdoch. Instead, he went with his girlfriend and &ldquo;went swimming and did a lot of relaxing&rdquo; for a week. Sorry, Mike&hellip;Quote of the week had to be this one from Dave Maloney, when asked if he&rsquo;d be throwing Murdoch out of his house to make room for his brother, Don. &ldquo;Nope, no way,&rdquo; Maloney said, laughing, &ldquo;my rehabilitation program is just kicking into its final stages.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0005-01

Rangers’ Most Satisfying Stretch Dampened By Three Major Injuries

<div class="byline">&#x2014;BY BOB VERDI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011167/4342181-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="305" height="448"></div><h2>The Fans Always Write</h2>WENT TO SLEEP the other night and had a dream that I finally got a few letters from Hockey News readers who didn&rsquo;t want to lynch me. Then I woke up and discovered it wasn&rsquo;t a dream at all. How do I get ahold of Ripley?Dear Mr. Verdi:I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the check sent to me by the Philadelphia Flyers for Christmas. I am having my 11-year-old son write this letter, because I can&rsquo;t, but God bless the i hockey team that took time to think of my family.Mrs. Lizzie Malone, Chicago, III.Mrs. Malone&rsquo;s needy situation&mdash;she&rsquo;s confined to a wheelchair and is the mother of six&mdash;was noticed by the Flyers in a Chicago Tribune story published during the holidays. The Flyers, led as always by Captain Bobby Clarke, forked over $250 cash and designated it for her. The Flyers will not finish in first place this season, but they always will be winners.I attended Bobby Orr night and your column captured the scene in super fashion. I only wish that Chicago hadn&rsquo;t captured Orr himself from Boston. Is there any chance we&rsquo;ll get Number Faw back?Barry Toole, Nottingham, Mass,Orr, as the folks in The Hub know, is not one to back down from challenges. But staying around the Black Hawks too long can tend to be hazardous to one&rsquo;s health. Orr said it himself: if he ever leaves Chicago, there&rsquo;s only one place he&rsquo;s going. Boston.<h2>Didn&rsquo;t See The Sleeper</h2>I DIDN&rsquo;T AGREE with what John Ziegler did to Don Murdoch until I read your column. Apparently, missing 40 games and having I that time to think about what he did has made Murdoch a better man. Also, it has warned other players to be careful. Ziegler indeed did the game a favor.Jack Rothstein, Bayside, N.Y.I wonder if you still think that the Pete Mahovlich-Pierre Larouche deal was a dumb move by the Pittsburgh Penguins management? A straight Larouche-Mahovlich trade might not have i been the brightest move (although Pete has been playing pretty well) but I can&rsquo;t understand why a big-time expert like you couldn&rsquo;t see I the sleeper in the transaction, Peter Lee. He&rsquo;s terrific.Charles Sords, Pittsburgh, PA.Not too much the Pittsburgh management has done lately has turned out poorly, and you merely cite another example of the Penguins&rsquo; acumen. Their franchise, hopefully, has turned the corner, artistically and fiscally.<h2>Hawks Hard On The Eyes</h2>YOU DON&rsquo;T WRITE much about the World Hockey Association, but at least you realize a good player when you see one. Your mention of how hard Robbie Ftorek works is right on. Now that I Pete Rose has left us, he&rsquo;s the next best thing.Diane Weisen,Cincinnati, O.Yes, but can Ftorek play third base?Why are you so hard on the Black Hawks?John Tadel, Lake Forest, III.Because I see them for 80 games, and they&rsquo;re very hard on my eyes,You are just like the rest of the front-runners in your business, si You write about how wonderful the Challenge Cup series will be, you write about what a great substitute it is for the nothing All Star game between the Campbell Soups and the Wales Tails, you build up I the three games as the smartest thing the NHL ever did, then when the Russians win, you cut the whole thing up as a humiliation, an I embassassment, an evil for North American Hockey.I What you should say is that playing the Soviet Union is like engaging in a cultural exchange program, with hockey the subject. The scores don&rsquo;t matter. The hockey does. Maybe we can learn from them. Yet you suggest we ignor them. Certainly, we&rsquo;H learn more from them than from reading your column.Philip McIntyre,Ottawa, Ont.Like I said. All those nice letters must have been a dream. &#9632;

f0006-01

HOCKEY TALK

<div class="byline">BY NORM MacLEAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-02894/4342212-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">BOB NYSTROM&hellip;Regains Goal-Scoring Touch (Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div>LONG ISLAND&mdash;The New York Islanders&rsquo; almost total reliance on the Bryan Trottier-Clark Gillies-Mike Bossy line ended suddenly.At Los Angeles, bn the Isles&rsquo; last West Coast trip of 1978-79, coach Al Arbour put the pieces of the jig saw puzzle together again.Bob Bourne, converted three years ago from center to left wing, was moved back to center. He was given John Tonelli on the left, and Billy Harris on the right. Previously, these wingers had been the almost exclusive property of Wayne Merrick.Merrick was asked to work with Garry Howatt and Bob Nystrom, in the spot vacated by Andre St. Laurent when he was traded to Detroit early on in 1977-78.Mike Kaszycki centered for Lorne Henning and Ed Westfall on the fourth line.The result was a three goal first period and an 8-3 blowout of the Kings. More important, Merrick scored twice, and added an assist on a goal by Nystrom.Gillies chipped in with two goals&mdash;and Bossy scored his 100th NHL goal in just 129 games.Three nights later, in a 6-1 win against St. Louis, Bourne got a pair of goals, Nystrom scored again, and Bossy got his 48th, with a lucky carom off the glass backboards of the Nassau Coliseum.We played well in Los Angeles, and I think it is important we got together on the road,&rdquo; said Arbour. &ldquo;Against St. Louis, we slept for two periods, then put it together and worked in the third. I hope these three wins in a row (Vancouver, 5-3, before L.A.) don&rsquo;t lull us into a false sense of security.&ldquo;In Los Angeles we wanted to prove something. Against St. Louis, we played just well enough to win (6-1). We play better against the better clubs. Nystrom is out of his slump and coming&mdash;and Bourne made things happen at center,&rdquo; continued Al.Nystrom, after eight goals in 49 games, racked up five in five. In Los Angeles, Harris got his first goal in 27 games, and then got key assists on both of Bourne&rsquo;s scores against the Blues.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t worried,&rdquo; said Billy. &ldquo;If I was a psychological person, it would have gotten to me a long time ago. It was beginning to be a joke to me. The only reason, it could have gotten to me is that I wanted to contribute to the team more than I have been doing.&rdquo;Billy had been worrying too much about defense, and hesitating when presented with offensive opportunities, sometimes passing when he might have shot. Harris&rsquo; two assists gave him 400 NHL career points.Bourne, who has filled a versatile role this year, killing penalties, working the point on the power play and taking a regular shift, emphasized, &ldquo;I just want to play. But, I think I get more imvolved when I play center. I have to make things happen. I&rsquo;m more experienced now than when I played center a few years ago.&rdquo;The six-foot-two, 200-pound, 24-year-old forward also got off the schneid with his two goals. They were numbers 20 and 21.When told he had gone 10 games without scoring, Bobby grinned, and said, &ldquo;If I had known that, I might have started to worry.&rdquo;The Islanders still have a chance to catch Montreal&mdash;and Boston&rsquo;s slump has put some daylight between them and the Bruins. But, second place overall is not good enough.&ldquo;Our goal is first place,&rdquo; said Bourne. &ldquo;I mean first place, overall, in the entire NHL. That is a must.&rdquo;Island Sounds: John Tonelli&rsquo;s contract that he signed with the Toronto Marlboros when he was 17 has been ruled null and void and the Marlies&rsquo; claim for $64,000 or 20 percent of Tonelli&rsquo;s contract with the defunct Houston WHA team&hellip;Islanders are now 21-2-5 at home and 16-9-5 on the road&hellip;Ed Westfall played his 1,207th NHL game against St. Louis, passing Marcel Pronovost and giving him 17th place career wise&hellip;Islanders play Bruins twice more, March 11 in Boston, and March 13 at home. They play Montreal March 22 at the Forum. &#9632;

f0006-02

Islanders’ Line Shuffling Works Offensive Wonders

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011039/4342243-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">WILLIE HUBER&hellip; Willing To Work, Learn (Photo by Stove Babineau)</figcaption></div>DETROIT&mdash;All the good things that have happened this season to the Detroit Red Wings you can count on one hand. Even one finger.Willie Huber.Everything that could go wrong has for the Wings. But there has been one extremely bright spot&mdash;Huber, the six-foot-five, 228-pound rookie defenseman who is on the brink of an outstanding National Hockey League career.Huber was the Wing&rsquo;s No. 1 amateur draft choice last summer, the ninth overall. He&rsquo;s one guy general manager Ted Lindsay wanted very much but was surprised&mdash;and pleased&mdash;to land.The Wings had a second first round pick (from Toronto in the Dan Maloney deal) and selected forward Brent Peterson. Typical of the kind of luck the Wings have had, Peterson broke a leg in the fifth game and was lost for the season.Huber is mature beyond his 21 years. At one point early in the season, coach Bobby Kromm went so far as to say the youngster was his best defenseman.&ldquo;Willie is an intelligent hockey player,&rdquo; Kromm said. &ldquo;He knows when to hang onto the puck; he knows when to pass the puck. He&rsquo;s the best passer on the team other than (Vaclav) Nedoman-sky.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s played exceptionally well for us. He&rsquo;s really coming.&rdquo;Huber stands out in several areas, but his poise and hockey sense shine above all else.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a great shot,&rdquo; Kromm continued. &ldquo;Willie&rsquo;s got a shot comparable to (Dale) McCourt: very low, very accurate. The deficiency we thought he had earlier was maybe not having the right approach, being in the National Hockey League, driving a big car, you know. That&rsquo;s why I always feel it&rsquo;s good to send kids down and let &lsquo;em find out what it&rsquo;s like, that they don&rsquo;t want to play down in the minors.&rdquo;The Wings knew all along that if Huber couldn&rsquo;t play in the NHL in his first season, they would be in trouble. The youngster who prepped with the Hamilton Fincups got off to an ordinary start. To enable him to get his feet on the ground, he was sent down to the Wings&rsquo; main farm team in Kansas City of the Central Hockey League. Huber was disappointed with the demotion, not so much that it happened, but by the fact that while he was with the Wings he didn&rsquo;t have the opportunity to display his talents.He had that chance in Kansas City and responded in a big way. Before long he was back in the NHL and playing very well.Huber, who was a late starter in hockey at age 10, recognizes the fad that currently he is merely serving an apprenticeship as a NHL defenseman. He realizes it takes time to learn the trade, and he&rsquo;s a willing student.He is a pleasant and friendly younj man who knows his role better thar most. It has been said that he has the potential of Montreal&rsquo;s super star defenseman, Larry Robinson, and accepts the comparison graciously.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an honor that anybody would say that about me,&rdquo; Huber said. Huber added he &ldquo;worked an awful lot&rdquo; on his shot but as for his passing, &ldquo;It always came kind of natural; I just had the knack.&rdquo;He&rsquo;s considered more in the mold of a defensive defenseman but as a result of his excellent shot plays the point on the power play. And he can skate. His solo dashes are coming more frequently as he gains confidence. He&rsquo;s gone end-to-end to score a couple of his goals and before he&rsquo;s through, he&rsquo;ll score plenty more. But for Huber, defense has priority.Naturally, a guy as big as he is isn&rsquo;t going to find himself in many fights.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t go looking for it,&rdquo; Huber said. &ldquo;But if somebody starts something, I won&rsquo;t back down. And if somebody goes after some of our other players I&rsquo;ll be there, too.&rdquo;The Wings have been a timid team this season&mdash;in fisticuffs and body checks. There have been games where the entire team hasn&rsquo;t had more than 10. solid hits, with Huber registering more than half. The young man, born in Strasskirchen, Germany, is making his presence felt in more ways than one.But it was left to Kromm to have the final say. One day when the conversation turned to Huber, who had played another strong game, Kromm puffed on that cigar of his and said: &ldquo;Imagine what he&rsquo;s going to be like two years from now.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s a pleasant thought for the Red Wings and their fans.MOTOR CITY SHORTS: The Wings acquired Bill Hogaboam as a free agent from Minnesota and gave up Bill Lochead to Colorado on waivers&hellip;Nedomansky was tied for fifth in the league in power play goals with 11 and McCourt was tied for seventh with 10&hellip;Huber had two goals and four assists in a four-game stretch&hellip; Thommie Bergman notched five goals and three assists in eight games. &#9632;

f0007-01

Rookie Huber Displaying Star Ice Qualities

<div class="byline">-BY BILL LIBBY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011158/4342281-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="334" height="446"></div><h2>It Takes Time&hellip;</h2>THE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE All Stars lost the last two games of their Challenge Cup series with the Soviets, but when they won the first game, one of the highlights was that Scotty i Bowman, coach of the Canadiens, went with only four defensemen and one was Barry Beck, who was only in his second season in the league.Beck was sensational as a rookie with the Colorado Rockies last season, but has had difficulties this season. The young giant hasn&rsquo;t been hitting as hard as he did. A fine skater, stickhandler, and shooter, he set league records for rookie i defensemen with 22 goals and 60 points last season, but looks like he&rsquo;ll fall short of those totals this season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021042/4342274-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="781" height="1070"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pressures on the shoulders of young hockey players are heavy, even when your shoulders are as broad as those of 6&rsquo;3, 215-pound Barry Beck. But Beck is one of the most mature players to enter the league in recent years and has shown the ability to withstand the burden of leading a team.</figcaption></div>The Colorado club came on a little last season and even made the playoffs for the first time in their brief history, but have fallen back this season. They&rsquo;re not drawing in Denver, and when you&rsquo;re the kind of kid they build a franchise around, as several said Beck was, you&rsquo;re bound to be blamed.&ldquo;Maybe they expect too much of me. Maybe I&rsquo;m trying too hard not to make mistakes,&rdquo; he admits.Bowman says, &ldquo;I knew what the kid was capable of. He&rsquo;s as mature as a player years older and I didn&rsquo;t hesitate to let him have a lot of responsibility in the big game. He certainly came through for us.&rdquo; Beck says, &ldquo;It was satisfying, to say the least. I know I can be one of the best, but I think I&rsquo;m years away from it. I just wish people would see it that way and give me time to become the player I can be.&rdquo;BECK WAS BORN in Vancouver in June of 1957. He was reared in the shadow of the Canucks&rsquo; Coliseum. A great all-around athlete, he excelled at baseball, basketball, and football, as well as hockey. A powerful linebacker, his hero remains the Bears&rsquo; Dick Butkus and he was nicknamed &ldquo;Bubba&rdquo; after the Colts&rsquo; Bubba Smith. He turned down college scholarship offers from football coaches because he could make the majors immediately in hockey.An awesome youngster, he scored almost 100 points and drew 325 minutes in penalties his next-to-last season as a junior and was Most Valuable Player of the playoffs as he led New Westminster to the Memorial Cup his last season as an amateur. Following Detroit&rsquo;s pick of Dale McCourt, Colorado made Beck the second choice of the pro draft.The six-foot-three, 215-pound left-hander lifted his side almost single-handedly. He cleared attackers out of the defensive zone and after he punched out Paul Holmgren, the Flyers bad guy, few would fight with him. Teammate Wilf Paiement, who knows about these things, said, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s no goon, but he&rsquo;s mean and strong as a bull, when he hits &lsquo;em, they stay hit, and no one is gonna&rsquo; mess with him.&rdquo;He also directed the team&rsquo;s offense and defense, controlled the puck, and at one point scored goals in six straight games. Another teammate, John Van Boxmeer, said, &ldquo;I played with Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe, and Larry Robinson with Montreal, but Beck&rsquo;s the best partner I&rsquo;ve had.&rdquo; Pat Kelly, coach at the time, said, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s our quarterback. He&rsquo;s just taken charge.&rdquo; Manager Ray Miron said, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the most mature young player to enter the league since Bobby Orr.&rdquo;THAT WOULD HAVE made him better than the Islanders&rsquo; Denis Potvin. At the finish, Beck finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting only to the Islanders&rsquo; Mike Bossy. Islander coach Al Arbour admitted, &ldquo;While I think Bossy deserved the award this season because of his unusual scoring, I also think Beck is the best defenseman to break in since Potvin and he is going to be one of the great players.&rdquo; Detroit&rsquo;s Ted Lindsay, who passed up Beck for McCourt, conceded,. &ldquo;No rookie controlled play like Beck.&rdquo;The big, good-looking guy, who looks and acts a lot older than he is, smiled and said, &ldquo;No one&rsquo;s asked me my age in bars for awhile, eh? I hope I am mature for my age and it helps me with my teammates. But I still have to go out and play well. I have a lot to learn and I&rsquo;m looking for consistency. I just hope others aren&rsquo;t looking for too much from me too soon.&rdquo;A bachelor, he liked his new life. He bought a house in Denver, a Ferrari, and went to dinner and dancing with the ladies. Asked if there weren&rsquo;t a lot of good-looking ladies in Denver, he smiled and said, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of good-looking ladies everywhere.&rdquo; During the off-season, he returned home hailed as a hero by his parents, hard-working people, and two older brothers, one of whom, Murray, played pro briefly.But he admits he doesn&rsquo;t take defeat too well and this has been a season of defeat in Denver. Instead of having a beer with his buddies or doing the discos with dates, he has been alone a lot, holed up in his house, listening to music, brooding a bit. On the ice, his intensity has been frightening. Some think he would be better with a winner where he wouldn&rsquo;t have to bear such heavy burdens so earlv in his career. He is only 21 years old and he will be the best if the pressure doesn&rsquo;t destroy his spirit. &#9632;

f0008-01

Hockey Ad Lib

<div class="byline">BY RUSS WHITE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-03877/4342312-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">TOM ROWE &hellip;Improvement Right On Schedule</figcaption></div>WASHINGTON&mdash;As we round the corner and head into the month of March, guess which National Hockey League team has more goals than the Philadelphia Flyers, Buffalo Sabres, Toronto Maple Leafs, Minnesota North Stars, Pittsburgh Penguins, Detroit Red Wings and all four teams in the Smythe Division?Give yourself a gold star if you picked the Washington Capitals.So far, the Capitals have scored 200 goals in 59 games to rank seventh in the league. Last week, they picked up 21 of those goals in five games, including nine in a 9-3 rout of the Colorado Rockies.&ldquo;You have to try and gear your offense around 260-270 goals a season to play .500 hockey in the NHL these days,&rdquo; notes general manager Max McNab, the architect of the revived offense. &ldquo;The league is now averaging a total of almost seven goals in every game played.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s up from an historic level of around 6.3. What it means is that if your offense isn&rsquo;t productive you won&rsquo;t be able to keep pace.&rdquo;Last year&rsquo;s Capitals were a case in point. They scored only 197 goals in 80 games, ranking them dead last offensively with St. Louis among the-then 18 teams.This year, the Capitals have produced a much more balanced attack, spearheaded by a quintet of twenty-goal scorers: Ryan Walter (24), Bob Sirois (23), Dennis Maruk (23), Guy Charron (21) and Tom Rowe (20).No Capitals&rsquo; team in the previous four seasons ended the year with more than three 20-goal men.Credit must go to McNab, who plucked Guy Charron from Colorado for Nelson Pyatt (since retired), Dennis Maruk from Minnesota for a first-round draft pick and then grabbed both Rowe (a third-rounder in 1976) and Walter (the second player chosen this past summer) in the draft. Only Bob Sirois came in the pre-McNab era.Last week, it was Maruk&rsquo;s turn to shine. The agile centerman popped in five goals on the week and now has 24 points in his last 19 games (13-11-24).Two of those came in a 4-3 loss to Detroit, in which he converted a super cross-ice feed from Guy Charron and then beat Rogie Vachon again just 35 seconds later with a careful backhander that eluded the prone goalie&rsquo;s outstretched grasp.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re certainly pleased with Dennis&rsquo; performance,&rdquo; says McNab. &ldquo;Right now, it looks like we&rsquo;ll be sending Minnesota the draft pick we acquired from Pittsburgh (the Capitals had two first round selections in 1979) and I doubt we&rsquo;d get a team leading scorer with a pick that far down.&rdquo;What&rsquo;s just as amazing is that rookie Ryan Walter leads the team in goal scoring. The poised youngster was forced to miss all of training camp and the first two weeks of the season with a knee injury, and later was sidelined for six games with a pulled ribcage muscle.Yet, despite playing fewer games than any of the other Capitals&rsquo; forwards, he was the first Capital to crack the 70-goal mark, making it on January 27 in a 4-1 win over Chicago.Rowe, who picked up 13 goals his rookie season, has fulfilled expectations as well.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s right on schedule.&rdquo; said McNab. &ldquo;Once he gets some more experience and gets all the elements of his game refined, he&rsquo;s going to be even more productive.&rdquo;Perennial favorites Guy Charron and Bob Sirois round out the list. The two Montreal natives are ranked one-two on the club&rsquo;s career scoring list and carried the lead alone for several seasons before Maruk and friends showed up.McNab feels it would be remiss not to point out that improvements on the blueline have benefitted the offense as well.&ldquo;A good offense often starts with your defensemen,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Robert Picard and Leif Svensson have made a substantial contribution.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0008-03

Scoring Balance Making Capitals Playoff Threats

<div class="byline">BY BILL FLEISCHMAN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011115/4342343-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="522" height="872"><figcaption class="caption-body">MEL BRIDGMAN&hellip;Now Untouchable</figcaption></div>The visiting hockey writer shook his head in dismay, glanced at his notes, and then said to the Philadelphia scribe, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just listened to Mel Bridgman for 10 minutes, but I don&rsquo;t think he said anything.&rdquo;The Philadelphia writer, who has known Bridgman since the Flyers made him the No. 1 choice in the 1975 NHL amateur draft, smiled sympathetically. Bridgman is a pleasant young man with a good sense of humor, but if a writer is expecting snappy quotes, don&rsquo;t linger at Bridgman&rsquo;s locker.There is hope for Bridgman as a talker. Philadelphia writers recall that during Bobby Clarke&rsquo;s first few seasons in the NHL, he wasn&rsquo;t exactly Mr. Clever Quotes. Clarke, in fact, led the league in &ldquo;Yup, nope&rdquo; and &ldquo;Gee&rsquo; I was just lucky.&rdquo; But look at him now&hellip;Like the younger Clarke, Bridgman lets his hockey speak for him. And, to illustrate the kind of outstanding second half Bridgman is having, if he continues at his current high level he&rsquo;ll be a strong candidate for MVF (Most Valuable Flyer). With Rick MacLeish&rsquo;s slump extending to alarming lengths, Bridgman and Clarke have been carrying the Flyers&rsquo; at center.Since the New Year, Bridgman has been anchoring Philadelphia&rsquo;s most offensive line. Clarke, Bill Barber and Reg Leach were still contributing, but the KGB line was smokin&rsquo;. Through a 17-game stretch since Jan. 1, Bridgman had 5-9-14 totals, Bob Kelly was 2-9-11, and Tom Gorence&rsquo;s eight goals led the club.Neither Bridgman nor the Flyers ever boasted he would be a top-ten NHL scorer. What Flyers&rsquo; scouts saw, and what they&rsquo;ve got, is a tough, effective checker who is a capable playmaker and very bullish in the corners. Bridgman&rsquo;s lack of flamboyance allows many so-called experts to overlook him when people discuss the top young players in hockey. But of all the players drafted since Bridgeman&rsquo;s class of &lsquo;75, the only two with better credentials are the Islanders&rsquo; Mike Bossy and Montreal&rsquo;s Pierre Mondou.It&rsquo;s no surprise that Bridgman is Pat Quinn&rsquo;s kind of player.&ldquo;I always liked Mel,&rdquo; said Philadelphia&rsquo;s new coach. &ldquo;All the rumors last year, about him going, I thought the front office would be making a mistake. You aren&rsquo;t going to find too many athletes like him. We&rsquo;d better hold onto him.&ldquo;Not everybody who is going to help a hockey team is geared to score 40 goals,&rdquo; said Quinn. &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s a good forechecker, a strong kid and he&rsquo;s respected all through the league for his courage.&rdquo;One major need of the rebuilding Flyers is finding some young players who will emerge as leaders. Bridgman is a logical candidate, but it&rsquo;s unlikely he&rsquo;ll be a Jim Watson-type enthusiast.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve learned a lot,&rdquo; the Victoria, B.C., product said. &ldquo;A lot of the guys that are gone&mdash;Van Impe, Joe Watson, Dorny (Gary Dornhoefer)&mdash;taught me a lot, and it was mostly just about winning.Bridgman is willing to speak up when the situation demands. For instance, following one of the Flyers&rsquo; storm-the-gates rallies for a tie, he was asked how the team would react taking a big lead into the final period for a change.&ldquo;The way we&rsquo;re going, we&rsquo;d probably give up 10 goals, fall behind, 11-9, and then tie it in the final seconds. This is playing the hard way and we&rsquo;d better stop. We&rsquo;re already overdoing it.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0009-01

Flyers Look To Bridgman As Club’s Future Leader

<div class="byline">&#x2014;FLEISCHMAN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-02915/4342374-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="438" height="538"><figcaption class="caption-body">BERNIE PARENT&hellip;Hospitalized</figcaption></div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;The Flyers and Bernie Parent fans are crossing their fingers that the great goaltender&rsquo;s career isn&rsquo;t over.Parent was hospitalized following a bizarre injury that left him with two small conjunctival tears in his right eye. The million-to-one injury occurred when defenseman Jim Watson tied up Rangers&rsquo; rookie Don Maloney near Parent and a stickblade point poked through the unprotected eye space of the goalie&rsquo;s mask.In obvious anguish, the two-time Vezina Trophy winner immediately skated toward the Flyers&rsquo; bench, dropped his mask, and covered his eye with his hands. Parent was taken to Philadelphia&rsquo;s renowned Wills Eye Hospital, then transferred to Pennsylvania Hospital where he was to spend at least one week.To replace Parent, the Flyers recalled Rick St. Croix, the prospect who had played seven NHL games last season. St. Croix had been on loan to the AHL Philadelphia Firebirds. &#9632;

f0009-02

Parent Sustains Freak Eye Injury

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011145/4342405-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"></div>DO YOU HAVE I ANOPINION ON HOCKEY?Write to: FAN FORUM,The Hockey News,1434 St. Catherine St., W., Montreal, Canada H3G 1R7<h2>Plus-Minus Stats Considered Meaningless</h2>I have reached the conclusion that the NHL Plus-Minus statistics are without meaning. If they meant anything, the Montreal Canadiens would be lucky to reach the playoffs, and anyone knows that their failure to do that is a most unlikely propostion.There is common agreement that Canadiens have three of the league&rsquo;s best defensemen and at least six of the best defensive forwards, but the stats show that this group has a collective rating of less than zero. What sense does this make in view of the fact that Montreal consistently allows the fewest goals?It stands to reason that Jarvis, Gainey, Chartraw, Lambert, Tremblay and Risebrough are going to be on the ice against the best offensive the opposing team can muster, and thus are overexposed to the possibility of a goal against. They score when the opportunity occurs, but less frequently than the well-known high scoring stars. These defensive specialists can never compile a high plus rating, but I challenge anyone to name a team that would not be delighted to have them.Similarly, the Montreal scoring stars are on the ice for goals against, because they are always whizzing around the enemy net, and occasionally get caught up ice at the wrong time. According to the stats, Canadiens should be willing to trade Lafleur and Shutt for Koroll and Harrison. Preposterous? Of course. Then how about Larry Robinson for Dennis O&rsquo;Brien? Same answer.I am unable to see any relevance between the statistics and the top flight players, and I think the stats in question might best be consigned to the waste basket.CHARLES E. GOULD, Kennebunkport, Me.<h2>Goalers&rsquo; Ratings On Per Shot Basis</h2>I am concerned about the format in which goaltenders&rsquo; &ldquo;goals against&rdquo; averages are represented; or shall I say misrepresented?For the shooters, I see the scoring races and the plus-minus averages and shooting percentage ratings which are so important. Why not list a column of &ldquo;stops per shots&rdquo; ratio for the pro netminders as well as the goals against averages?EARLE GIBSON, Nanaimo, B.C.<h2>More Practices Less Time For Games</h2>The Russian hockey team has once again revealed the fact that North American hockey is woefully lacking in the basic fundamentals of the sport. The sport is speed: speed in skating, speed in passing, and speed in shooting. In North American youth hockey, there is a misplaced emphasis on playing games instead of practicing these fundamentals. It is impossible for a coach to teach and a player to learn during a game.Rochester is proof of the deficiency of this system. The Amerks are stocked with players one step away from the major league, and we are told that youth and inexperience excuses their poor performance. I submit that if they had been properly coached and had received more practice time than game time, they would possess the skills they should have by now.As the Russians noted, the NHL series maybe wasn&rsquo;t too important because the team they really have to worry about is the Czechs in the World Championships. How long will North America settle for third best? And how long will North Americans settle for third best? And how long will North American fans continue to pay exhorbitant ticket prices to support the unwarranted salaries of the also rans?RICHARD S. RISCHER, Rochester, N.Y.<h2>Berates CBS For Poor Performance</h2>I would like to congratulate the CBS television network for the worst airing of an international sports competition in the past three decades. After sitting through a week-old track meet, a week-old boxing match, and a meaningless surfing exhibition, we hockey fans were treated to a whole 15 minutes of a quality hockey contest.Apart from mostly seeing commercials, ankles, and a delayed telecast, it was a good game.CBS, let the experts like Gene Hart and WTAF-TV (Philadelphia) do hockey the right way.STEVE CAPUTO, New Castle, Del.<h2>Ease Money Woes By Redistributing Receipts</h2>I feel that hockey gate receipts should be distributed like they do in baseball. The home team receives 60 percent, while thevisitors&rsquo;share would be 40 percent.I really don&rsquo;t know if this would be the answer to some of the blubs&rsquo; financial problems, but it might be a start.John Lodor,Logan, W.Va.<h2>NHL Played Series With Class</h2>Some comments are in order concerning the &ldquo;Series of the Century,&rdquo; the Challenge Cup. The NHL should in no way be ashamed of the outcome. They played all three games with class, even beating the Soviets in Game One at their own game of stickhandling and pinpoint passing. Unfortunately the NHL didn&rsquo;t have time to form a definite system while the Soviets were practicing weeks ahead of time in Sweden.Howard Cosell states that the prestige of the Stanley Cup has been diminished because the &lsquo;world champion&rsquo; will not be the true one. First of all I contend that any of the top NHL clubs (Canadiens, Islanders or Bruins) could have defeated the Soviets. Second, several months ago a man set out to take Major League Baseball to court because the Yankees weren&rsquo;t the true &lsquo;worl&rsquo;s champs&rsquo; because they never played a foreign team. Does the World Series have any less meaning? No.The same goes for the Stanley Cup. This prized trophy is the oldest sought after in North America and nothing can remove the pride of owning this heralded award.The NHL, in the hearts and minds of all its fans, will always be No. 1.MAX GOTTFRIED, Sunrise, Fl.<h2>Why Wasn&rsquo;t Esposito In Goal?</h2>In view of the recent Challenge Cup in which the Russians came back to win the last two games after dropping the first to the NHL Stars, one question I have for Scotty Bowman is why he didn&rsquo;t use Tony Esposito in goal at all?After all, wasn&rsquo;t the team supposed to be similar to the Baseball All Star teams, one chosen by fan balloting? And didn&rsquo;t the Chicago Black Hawks&rsquo; goalie receive more votes than any other netm nder in the league?But nowhere did I read or hear an explanation as to why Esposito didn&rsquo;t see any action in goal during the three-game series.I&rsquo;m not taking anything away from Ken Dryden or Gerry Cheevers, who are both great goalies as their records will indicate, but why wasn&rsquo;t the Fans&rsquo; choice given the opportunity to play in this prestigious series?He could&rsquo;ve given up six goals in the third game as well as any other goalie, although I doubt he would&rsquo;ve. Playing for the Black Hawks, Esposito is used to being left alone on defense. And besides, he&rsquo;s not all that bad a goalie in his own right, although Bowman must feel differently.EDWARD A. PONESSA, Lebanon, PA. &#9632;

f0010-01

FAN FORUM

<h2>Return To Basics To Save Our Hockey</h2>I am one of those hockey enthusiasts who marveled at and fully appreciated the finesse and artistry of the Soviets as they taught the NHL All Stars how the game should be played. I now wonder if this great game on this continent can recover. Will we ever again see the skilled puckmasters of the 30&rsquo;s, 40&rsquo;s and early 50&rsquo;s?All of us in hockey have contributed to the degeneration of the game. Serge Savard is correct when he stated that we have been developing goons while the Russian&rsquo;s have been developing hockey players. Juniors feel the only way they will be noticed by the scouts is to fight and spend time in the penalty box. Fans applaud the goon and boo the Orrs and Hulls.Those responsible for player development at all levels must wake up and go back to the basic skills of skating, stickhandling, passing and a good, quick wrist shot. Curved sticks and errant slap shots have been a regression. Neither the youngsters, nor the pros can make or take a good back hand pass or score on a backhand shot.Smarten up, hockey moguls, or you&rsquo;ll never again fill your house or put your game into the North American living room.W.P.CHISHOLM Tariffville, Ct. &#9632;

LETTER OF THE WEEK

<div class="byline">BY PAT THOMPSON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-02916/4342460-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="413" height="747"><figcaption class="caption-body">GREG SMITH&hellip;Underrated Defender</figcaption></div>BLOOMINGTON&mdash;Hey, there&rsquo;s another rising star named Smith to keep track of in the National Hockey League. Mention the Minnesota North Stars this season, and Smith&rsquo;s name naturally comes up&hellip;Bobby Smith that is.And the NHL rookie-of-the-year candidate has deserved the attention he has received well into his first pro season, what with leading the North Stars in scoring and making some remarkable moves on opposing goalies.But what about the other guy named Smith? There are two guys with Smith on their Minnesota sweaters.Greg Smith, the six-foot defenseman who is no relation, has escaped attention most of the year, yet has probably played as big a role as Bobby Smith in the team&rsquo;s midseason turnaround.&ldquo;Underrated,&rdquo; said coach Glen Sonmor. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the first word that comes to mind when I think of Greg Smith. He&rsquo;s the most underrated player we have. He i very much a. quality defenseman and I don&rsquo;t think a lot of people realize it yet.&rdquo; Greg Smith, 23, came to the North Stars in this summer&rsquo;s merger with Cleveland, and was one of the 10 skaters from the two rosters protected for the dispersal draft during the NHL meetings in June.While Bobby Smith was brought to Montreal in fanfare for his selection as the No. 1 amateur in Canada and announcement of his signing with the North Stars during those meetings, Greg Smith was tending to his farm home in Ponoka, Alberta.&ldquo;You could say I was pleasantly surprised to hear about the merger,&rdquo; Greg said. &ldquo;I was anxious to see where I would fit in, but my feelings were put somewhat at ease when I was protected.&rdquo;When the North Stars prepared to start the season last October, Bobby Smith&rsquo;s likeness was already on local billboards, Greg Smith was leaving imprints on boards, too..in the arena.And it did not take general manager Lou Nanne to recognize the talent. &ldquo;Gary Sargent and Greg Smith will be the best pair of defensemen this club has ever had,&rdquo; proclaimed Nanne, who recently signed Smith to a new multi-year contract.That is quite an achievement for a player who did not even consider hockey as a profession a few years ago. Smith was playing Tier II hockey when Jeff Sauer recruited him to attend Colorado College.&ldquo;The reason I went to college was that I thought I was too small to play in the Western Canada Junior League.&rdquo; said Smith. &ldquo;I was five-foot-eight and 140-pounds soaking wet. I didn&rsquo;t really start growing until after I went to college.&rdquo;By the time Smith filled out to six-foot, 195-pounts, pro scouts were aroused. He was a fourth round draft choice in 1975 by the old California Seals and became a regular when that team moved to Cleveland for the 1976-77 season.Now, the North Stars consider him one of the important players in their scheme of building a winning team.Smith led the team in penalties, 116 minutes in 52 games, and added five goals and 15 assists. One of his most spectacular defensive plays came against Buffalo a few weeks ago when he took Gil Perreault out on a 2-on-1 rush, forcing a pass, and then slid over to block the shot.&ldquo;What we&rsquo;re seeing is a team of young pros emerging with a very professional approach to the game,&rdquo; said Sonmor, &ldquo;Greg fits right in. He is surprisingly mature for his age. Greg moves the puck out of our zone with the best. He&rsquo;s a gangly looking guy who moves away from you much quicker than people realize. He&rsquo;s a tough kid, too and an excellent scrapper.&rdquo;The play of Smith and his defensive buddies has caused the biggest improvement in the Minnesota play.Sonmor took pride in pointing out an interesting statistic after the Stars returned from the All Star break to defeat Vancouver, 8-1. &ldquo;We reached a big milestone in that game,&rdquo; said Sonmor. &ldquo;That left us with 176 goals for and 176 against. The Minnesota team scored 218 goals last season and gave up 325. The team is going to take one giant hunk off that total this year.&rdquo;Smith, Greg Smith that is, is one of the big reasons.STAR DUST: Goalie Meloche has recorded only two shutouts this season but has a number of one-goal games to lower his goals-against average to 2.97 with a record of 1714-3 in Minnesota&rsquo;s first 53 games&hellip; Left winger Ole Brasar missed three straight games with an ankle injury&hellip;right winger Kent Andersson has resumed skating, but his broken left arm remains in a cast&hellip;Torrid Mike Fidler had eight goals in 14 games since his Oklahoma City recall in Jaruary&hellip;Bobby Smith has 30 points in a 27-game stretch with 15 goals 15 assists. &#9632;

f0010-02

The Other Smith’ Building Quality In Stars’ Defense

<div class="byline">BY FRED PIETILA</div>DENVER&mdash;The explosion which followed the Colorado Rockies&rsquo; 9-3 home-ice loss to the Washington Capitals on Feb. 15 was not a sonic boom, nor was it the result of a much-feared slip-up at the nearby Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.It was merely Rockies&rsquo; general manager Ray Miron letting off enough steam to drive a locomotive from the Mile High City all the way to Edmonton or Houston.Miron, the third-year general manager of the third-year Rockies, has just seen his club lose their fourth straight game after a five-game unbeaten streak.And the six-goal loss marked the second time in just over a month that the Rockies had been buried by the Capitals. They lost 8-1 in the Capital Center on Jan. 12.Miron was livid. The small crowd of 4,658 at McNichols Sports Arena voiced similar disapproval at the Rockies&rsquo; lackluster play throughout the game, turning their taunts at defensemen John Van Boxmeer and Mike Christie to virtually everyone in a Rockies&rsquo; uniform and even the players&rsquo; wives in a fashion show between periods.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011091/4342498-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="532" height="735"><figcaption class="caption-body">RAY MIRON&hellip;Blames Immaturity</figcaption></div>Team president Armand Pohan and Colorado&rsquo;s first female LieutenantGovernor, Nancy Dick, were even booed between periods as Mrs. Dick was the entry in a celebrity puck-shoot contest.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m surprised it wasn&rsquo;t worse,&rdquo; Miron said of the booing which accompanied the Rockies&rsquo; 3 th loss in 55 games.Miron was still exasperated the next day as he wondered what was wrong with a club, which has survived a coaching change, a rash of injuries and a bad early-season schedule to post the worst record in the National Hockey League.&ldquo;These guys can&rsquo;t get motivated to go out and control a game at home. How many times have we really gone out and controlled a game in the early going at home?&rdquo; Miron asked. The answer was three times, but two of those games resulted in losses, nevertheless.&ldquo;And you&rsquo;d think after they got beat so bad by Washington the last time, that they&rsquo;d be ready for them this time,&rdquo; Miron continued. But the Caps&rsquo; Dennis Maruk scored 26 seconds into the game and the die was cast. &ldquo;The reasoning behind their thinking escapes me.&rdquo;&ldquo;We&rsquo;re in last place (in the slovenly Smythe Division). Have we won two games in a row this year?&rdquo; Another no.They haven&rsquo;t got the dedication to go out and win, not one, but two, three or four. How many are willing to make the necessary sacrifices it takes? How are we going to sell season tickets to guarantee guys a job if we don&rsquo;t do something before the end of the season?&ldquo;There&rsquo;s one thing, you&rsquo;re only as good as the last game you play and some of &lsquo;em are living on last year&rsquo;s reputation or glory (when the Rockies make a late-season rush to overtake Vancouver and gain a playoff spot). Nellie Pyatt&rsquo;s a good example. He was put on waivers for $100 and nobody claimed him. It was the biggest shock of his life.&rdquo; Pyatt has since retired.Miron turned his attention to Bill Lochead, who was picked up on waivers from Detroit a week earlier. Lochead scored a goal and had six of the team&rsquo;s 29 shots at Washington goalie Gary Inness.&ldquo;How much value does that put on the other guys?&rdquo; Miron asked. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a guy that was let go by Detroit and he comes in here and he&rsquo;s our best forward in his first home game.&ldquo;They all blamed Pat Kelly. They think Aldo Guidolin&rsquo;s great. Whose fault is it now?&rdquo; Miron asked, again putting the blame back on the players&rsquo; back.&ldquo;All they have to do is come to a game prepared to play 60 minutes of hockey and some of them apparently can&rsquo;t do it,&rdquo; Miron said. &ldquo;I think Aldo&rsquo;s doing a good job, trying to show &lsquo;em, reason with &lsquo;em. But apparently some of them are too immature.&ldquo;Early in the season, they complained about Kelly. Well what&rsquo;s the matter now? They can&rsquo;t complain about the schedule any more or about the injuries,&rdquo; Miron said.&ldquo;For some reason, I still have confidence in them. But&rsquo;s it&rsquo;s a case where 19 guys have to go out and try to do their best and give 100 percent all the time. We&rsquo;ve got six guys giving 100 percent, five giving 80 percent and the rest giving 40 percent. You&rsquo;re not going to win that way.&ldquo;I still think we can put it together, but the guys are going to have to do it. These players are pro athletes. All they need is a little more pride, dedication and maturity,&rdquo; Miron concluded. &ldquo;But that is easier said than done.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-02888/4342491-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="554" height="736"><figcaption class="caption-body">BILL LOCHEAD&hellip;Best Rockie</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Miron Puzzled By The Lack Of Motivation

<div class="byline">Bill Fleischman&#x2019;s</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011118/4342529-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="330" height="468"></div><h2>Flyers&rsquo; Showing Cracks?</h2>ARE CRACKS SHOWING in the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; organization?Only three years ago the Flyers had just finished appearing in their third consecutive Stanley Cup final. The NHL&rsquo;s establishment had finally cured the jealousy it felt over an expansion team winning a Stanley Cup and admiration for the Flyers&rsquo; success swept into almost every corner of the league, where provincial owners and general managers weren&rsquo;t still huddled. Frequently you heard comments III from executives like, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re doing it this way because Philadelphia did it.&rdquo;But now, as this season heads into its homestretch, the Flyers are struggling to remain respectable. Last place in the Patrick Division has been their address. Although the Flyers continue to have a winning record, the certainty of qualifying for a wild-card playoff berth isn&rsquo;t such a sure bet anymore.On the ice the club still has a talented nucleus, starting with Bobby Clarke, Jimmy Watson, Bill Barber, Rick MacLeish, Bob Dailey and Mel Bridgman. The problem is, none of these players is having an outstanding season. And some&mdash;MacLeish, Barber and Dailey to name a few&mdash;have been inconsistent. Although Philadelphia&rsquo;s II goaltending remains among the league leaders statistically, neither Bernie Parent nor Wayne Stephenson have provided streak-creating work in the nets.<h2>Allen Still In Charge</h2>AMONG THE YOUNG players, only Behn Wilson has displayed superior NHL talent. Most observers believe Ken Linseman, the II draft choice acquired from the New York Rangers for Fred Shero&rsquo;s services, will be a capable NHL player, but he&rsquo;s spent most of the II season with the AHL Maine Mariners. Danny Lucas, the Flyers&rsquo; I other first-round pick, made the team in training camp, but regressed to the point where he will probably finish the season in Maine.After only 50 games, Bob McCammon&rsquo;s rookie season as coach III ended&mdash;despite a winning record. Pat Quinn inherited the headache of trying to satisfy the front office and fans. The guess here is Quinn will do the job. If anyone can convince the Flyers&rsquo; front office to let him run the team, it&rsquo;s Quinn.Keith Allen is still very much in charge of the Flyers&rsquo; hockey operation, but don&rsquo;t let anyone tell you Ed Snider didn&rsquo;t influence Alien&rsquo;s decision to give McCammon the hook. The Flyers&rsquo;s board chairman is a very persuasive gentleman. As one person close to the Flyers said, &ldquo;Ed doesn&rsquo;t interfere with Keith in hockey matters, but nothing happens here without Ed&rsquo;s approval.&rdquo;When Gil Stein headed for New York to work as an NHL vice president, his deputy job with the Flyers remained vacant. Recently, however, Snider found a replacement in Bob Butera, a former leader in the Pennsylvania legislature. Butera&rsquo;s only connection with hockey had been as a fan, but it&rsquo;s said that in just a few weeks on the job he&rsquo;s discovered areas where the club&rsquo;s administrative efficiency can be improved.The duties of Butera, whose brother, Dick, owned the World Team Tennis-Philadelphia Freedoms, don&rsquo;t overlap into Alien&rsquo;s responsibility, which is good. Allen is still one of hockey&rsquo;s most respected executives, but his record lately hasn&rsquo;t been Stanley Cup-caliber.<h2>Trades Haven&rsquo;t Helped</h2>MCCAMMON WAS ALLEN&rsquo;S choice to succeed Fred Shero, based largely on McCammon&rsquo;s minor-league coaching experience. Publicly, Quinn was considered too inexperienced behind the bench. Privately, some Flyers&rsquo; executives worried about Quinn&rsquo;s outspoken nature. In retrospect, Quinn&rsquo;s lack of bench work wasn&rsquo;t as important as Allen seemed to think. Also, Quinn&rsquo;s imposing stature and leadership were needed more than the Flyers thought.Three recent deals haven&rsquo;t helped the Flyers as much as expected. Two draft choices weren&rsquo;t enough for the Dave Schultz of &lsquo;76, and the Flyers have missed Schultz&rsquo; presence. The four-for two deal that brought Rick LaPointe to Philadelphia didn&rsquo;t cost the Flyers any top quality players, but LaPointe has yet to show he is serious about winning. It&rsquo;s too soon to pronounce the Dennis Ververgaert trade a mistake, but early returns indicate Ververgaert may not be the inspired 35-to-4O-goal scorer Allen sought.Ah, maybe Keith&rsquo;s just in a slump. Didn&rsquo;t Sam Pollock make Ray Martyniuk a first-round draft choice? Dealing from the top is a skill only a few, including Pollock, have mastered. Allen is one of the few GMs I&rsquo;d want handling my sinking team. &#9632;

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HOCKEY WORLD

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-02951/4342560-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">GILLES GILBERT&hellip;Doesn&rsquo;t Have To Impress Anymore (Photo by Stevo Babineau)</figcaption></div>BOSTON&mdash;The Coach and the Goaltender, Chapter Two. Or is it three or four?When last we looked in on Gilles Gilbert, the blithe spirit who sometimes tends goal for the Boston Bruins had just about vanished without a trace into coach Don Cherry&rsquo;s doghouse, which is no place for an ambitious young hockey player to be. Ask Ken Hodge and Matti Hagman.Well, this is to report that Gilbert, like the groundhog of Pucksatawney, came out in broad daylight one day in February and stiffed the Vancouver Canucks, 6-1, in his first start in two months. Whether or not he saw his shadow and went back in has yet to be determined.&ldquo;I thought Gillie played terrific,&rdquo; said Cherry.Did that mean he was out of the doghouse at long last?&ldquo;I have 10 days to think it over,&rdquo; said Cherry, perhaps grateful that Gilbert&rsquo;s 29-save performance came on the eve of the All Star break.It&rsquo;s been a strange, up and down, in and out, year for Gilbert. He was magnificent leading the Bruins to a 7-2-3 record while Gerry Cheevers was recuperating from knee surgery. Then things fell apart.He was bombed for two goals in the first four shots in a 5-5 tie with Washington Nov. 25. Cherry yanked him for Cheevers. He had to be pulled again after giving up six goals in a 9-2 rout in Philadelphia Dec. 9. That was the last time he played until Feb. 4.&ldquo;I used to worry about it,&rdquo; said Gilbert after the game. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t anymore. If I let myself get depressed I&rsquo;ll just be miserable in front of everybody. I don&rsquo;t want to do that. I&rsquo;m the type of guy I love everybody.&rdquo;&ldquo;Everybody seems to think I&rsquo;ve got something against him,&rdquo; said Cherry. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got nothing against the guy. If he stops pucks for me he&rsquo;s in there. If he doesn&rsquo;t he isn&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s just that simple. &ldquo;When Gillie puts his mind to it he can be the best goaltender in the league. Singhandedly, he got us our big lead over Buffalo in the first month of the season. He could have been our No. 1 goalie for the rest of the year.&ldquo;His problem is he can&rsquo;t stand prosperity. Once things get going good for him his mind seems to wander. His whole concentration left him. He was letting in pucks all over. The name of the game for a goaltender is to stop pucks.&ldquo;For these last two mmonnt he&rsquo;s worked very hard in practice. He could have made things easy for me by not working but that wasn&rsquo;t the case. He always seems to play best under the gun. When he comes to play like he did tonight there is none better.&rdquo;Gilbert came to Boston for the 1973-74 season after the Bruins had lost their Stanley Cuppers, Cheevers to the World Hockey Association and Eddie Johnston through unhappiness and trade. Gilbert immediately took the club to the &lsquo;74 Stanley Cup finals.&ldquo;I remember saying to somebody, &lsquo;Gillie is only 23 years old. We don&rsquo;t have to worry about a goalie for the next 10 years,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Boston general manager Harry Sinden. &ldquo;Since then he hasn&rsquo;t played consistently. Maybe it&rsquo;s because he can&rsquo;t bounce back from giving up a bad goal.&rdquo;It was back on Jan. 6 in Minneapolis that Cherry told Gilbert that he was going to go with Cheevers and Jim Pettie in goal as long as they played well.&ldquo;I said, &lsquo;Well, here we go,&rdquo;&rsquo; said Gilbert. &ldquo;But Don said, &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t get yourself down. You&rsquo;re going to have a chance to play.&rsquo; So every time I get a chance to play I get hurt. Twice in a row. Before the Russian game (Jan. 9) and the Islanders game (Jan.25).&ldquo;Things like that used to bother me but not anymore. I think I&rsquo;ve shown for years and years what kind of a goaltender I am. I&rsquo;m not here to impress anybodv. I know I can do the job. I can go all the way. It depends on the coach, what he wants to do.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think Cheesy is going to play forever. I&rsquo;m going to be 30 in March and I wish I can play another five or six years. Hopefully here. It&rsquo;s a hockey town and I like the people here. The crowds, they&rsquo;ve been great to me.&rdquo;Gilbert stopped and looked at the circle of writers around him in the Bruins&rsquo; dressing room.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to see you guys again,&rdquo; he said, a grin spreading across his boyish face.Exit Gilbert, laughing.Temporarily. &#9632;

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Prosperity Worst Enemy For Goaltender Gilbert

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011072/4342612-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="494" height="620"><figcaption class="caption-body">ULF NILSSON&hellip;He&rsquo;s No. 1</figcaption></div>MONTREAL&mdash;The NHL&rsquo;s most accurate shooter during the first half of the 1978-79 season was Ulf Nilsson of New York Rangers. Nilsson scored 18 golas on 61 shots for 29.5 per cent accuracy which compares to the best halfway mark of 35.5 per cent by Wayne Bianchin of Pittsburgh Penguins in 1977-78. He scored 11 goals on 31 shots.Following are shooting percentage leaders, among players with 10 goals or more:<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-02855/4342605-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="530" height="397"></div>Marcel Dionne of Los Angeles Kings led all players with 177 shots on goal. Darryl Sittler of Toronto Maple Leafs was second with 170 while teammate Lanny McDonald was third with 155.Following are the leading shooters among NHL forwards:<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-03716/4342598-1-eng-US/f0013-032.jpg" title="f0013-03" width="525" height="386"></div>Barry Beck of Colorado Rockies was the only defenseman to lead his team in total shots on goal, with 118, which ranked him 15th over-all. Nine other defensemen in the NHL had at least 100 shots on goal. Denis Potvin of Islanders led the way with 134 while Guy Lapointe of Montreal was next with 119 followed by Beck&rsquo;s 118.Following are the leading shooters among NHL defensemen:<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-04630/4342591-1-eng-US/f0013-042.jpg" title="f0013-04" width="526" height="381"></div> &#9632;

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Nilsson Accurate Shooter

MONTREAL&mdash;New York Islander sophomore right winger Mike Bossy is only the third player in 57 years to score at least one goal in each of 10 straight National Hockey League games.During that streak&mdash;which ended abruptly Feb. 25 in Madison Square Garden, when the Rangers prevented him from getting a shot on goal during their 3-2 victory&mdash;Bossy became the first player in NHL history to score 100 goals in his first two seasons.The 22-year-old native of Montreal, Islanders&rsquo; first choice and 15th over-all in the 1977 amateur draft, brought his season&rsquo;s total to 50 goals on Feb. 24 as he scored twice to extend his consecutive scoring streak to 10 games. That equals the streaks of former Ranger great, Andy Bathgate in 1962-63, and former Chicago Black Hawk great, Bobby Hull in 1968-69. Prior to Bathgate, no player had scored in 10 straight games since Harry (Punch) Broadbent had at least one goal in 16 consecutive games while with Ottawa Senators in 1921-22. That is the all-time record and that same season, Babe Dye of Toronto St. Pats had an 11-game streak for the second straight season. Other players who had longer treaks than the one Bossy just finished are Joe Malone of Montreal Canadiens in 1917-18, 14 games; Newsy Lalonde of Canadiens in 1920-21, 13 games; and Cy Denneny of Ottawa in 1917-18, 12 games.Bossy, who last season became the first rookie to score at least 50 goals&mdash;he had 53&mdash;recorded the 100th goal of his brief career Feb. 19 during an 8-3 win at Los Angeles. It was his 129th regularseason game, which meant he scored 100 goals in fewer games than anyone since 1920-21. The closest to that performance was Maurice Richard of Montreal Canadiens, who scored his 100th goal in his 134th game. Rick Martin of Buffalo Sabres, who held the rookie record of 44 goals prior to Bossy, scored his 100th goal in his 174th game. The fewest number of games for any player in NHL history&mdash;since 1917-18&mdash;to score 100 goals was 59 by Malone but that was over three seasons when the schedule was only 18 and 22 games in length. Denneny required 83 games and Dye 89.Only three players have scored 50 goals in a season in fewer games than Bossy has done this season. Maurice Richard scored his 50th goal in the 50th and final game of 1944-45. Bobby Hull scored a 50th goal in 1965-66 in his 52nd game and Phil Esposito, with Boston, had 50th goals in the 54th (1974-75) and 56th (1973-74) games. Esposito also scored the 50th goal of his 1970-71 season in the 58th game. &#9632;

Bossy Becomes First NHL Player To Score 100 In Just Two Seasons

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011099/4342688-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"></div><h2>Covetous Look</h2>Bill Torrey, the GM of the N.Y. Islanders must be feeling a little frustrated these days. Here he stares enviously at the third place trophy which team NHL won in their Moscow Tournament against all the world powers including the Soviets. Torrey was also GM of Team NHL for the recent Challenge Cup series and came away empty handed. However, Torrey will more than settle for the Stanley Cup if his Islanders can pull it off this year.<h2>To The Victors Go The Spoils</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-02905/4342681-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="1188" height="927"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photos by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div>Two of the star members of the Soviet National team, defenseman Valeri Vasilyev, left, and team captain Boris Mikhailov, hold the Challenge Cup high after winning it from the NHL All Stars at Madison Square Garden. It was the first year of the competition, which will become an annual event. Both Vasilyev, who is 29, and Mikhailov, who is the granddaddy of the team at age 34, played outstanding hockey in the three-game series, which the Soviets won 2-1.<h2>High Man In Numbers Game</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03667/4342674-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="580" height="454"></div>When the New York Rangers started the high number vogue a few years back they apparently didn&rsquo;t go high enough. Phil Esposito took No. 77 and Ken Hodge was No. 88. Now Wayne Gretzky of the Edmonton Oilers has come along to top them all with No. 99, the highest numerals worn on the back of any hockey jersey. Here&rsquo;s the 17-year-old Gretzky showing off his new Oiler jersey after signing a lucrative long-term contract with the WHA club. That&rsquo;s Edmonton vice-president Larry Gordon, in center, officiating at the signing ceremony which guaranteed Gretzky $2,600,000.<h2>The Honorary Chairman</h2>Left winger Clark Gillies of the Islanders accepts proclamation from Nassau County executive Francis Purcell after the National Conference Of Christians And Jews made Gillies the honorary chairman for their Brotherhood Week Feb. 1824 in the Long Island area. Theme of the Brotherhood week this year focused on the International Year of the Child.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04469/4342667-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="1139" height="1344"></div> &#9632;

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HOCKEY PEOPLE

<div class="byline">BY FRANK ORR</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0015-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011052/4342719-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">MIKE PALMATEER&hellip;Best When Under Pressure</figcaption></div>TORONTO&mdash;While the 1978-79 National Hockey League season has not been one of special brilliance for the Toronto Maple Leafs, the club looks ahead to the stretch-run portion of the schedule and the playoffs as the chance to salvage something from a year when they failed to realize some bright promise.&ldquo;I think we have the potential to be a tough club in the playoffs,&rdquo; said Leaf winger Lanny McDonald. &ldquo;We have the experience, players who have been through pressure situations before and can handle it.&ldquo;And it&rsquo;s difficult to name a goalie who&rsquo;s been better this season than Mike Palmateer. He&rsquo;s a guy who&rsquo;s at his best under pressure and everyone knows what a great goalie can do in the playoffs.&ldquo;Late in the season and in the playoffs, the games tend to be lowscoring and I feel we can be one of the best checking teams in the league.&rdquo;A rival general manager echoed McDonald&rsquo;s view&mdash;that the Leafs could be a rough playoff opponent.&ldquo;The Leafs are at their best when they&rsquo;re playing tough, grinder hockey,&rdquo; the man said. &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s a difficult style to employ over an 80-game schedule. But in a short playoff series, when they&rsquo;re all cranked up, they can do it.&ldquo;A key to that is the fact that their two big gunners&mdash;Sittler (Darryl) and McDonald&mdash;set the style of play for the whole team. They&rsquo;re a pair of rather ornery customers when they decide to do a little hunting. I&rsquo;d prefer to avoid the Leafs in the playoffs if possible. Another reason is that little Palmateer. If he gets hot, he can kill you by himself.&rdquo;For Leaf coach Roger Neilson, who has maintained his cool through his club&rsquo;s sporadic season, the club&rsquo;s defensive mark has been the most encouraging aspect of &lsquo;78-79. At the start of the season, Neilson&rsquo;s major goal was for the Leafs to reduce their goals against total for 80 games to below 200, an average of less than 2.50 per game.However, that goal now appears to have been unrealistic. Goals are more prevalent in the NHL this season and it appears likely that only one team&mdash;Montreal Canadiens&mdash;will end below the 2.50 mark. In fact, at the All Star break, only Canadiens and New York Islanders were below 3.00 goals against per game.&ldquo;It appears that I&rsquo;ll have to adjust my defensive target slightly,&rdquo; Neilson said. &ldquo;I think if we can be among the top I four teams in goals against, we&rsquo;ll have achieved something positive.&rdquo;Because he&rsquo;s a strong believer in defensive hockey, Neilson had some high words of praise for his checking specialists&mdash;the forward line of Jimmy Jones, Pat Boutette and Jerry Butler.&ldquo;Through our first 55 games of the season, all three players on that line had plus figures,&rdquo; Neilson said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s I mighty good considering the fact that they face the top lines in the league an the time.&ldquo;Sometimes, though, we don&rsquo;t take advantage of it. For instance, in our second game after the All Star break, our checkers shut down the Bobby ClarkeBill Barber-Reggie Leach line of the Philadelphia Flyers.&ldquo;When you&rsquo;re able to do that, you should be able to beat the Flyers. But we made a couple of mistakes and had to settle for a tie.&rdquo;Barring injuries, Neilson, who likes to juggle his personnel and line combinations, appears to have settled into a lineup on which the Leaf fortunes will rise and fall. Unlike many coaches, he prefers to use only five defensemen&mdash;Borje Salming, Ian Turnbull, Dave Burrows, Dave Hutchison and rookie Joel Quenneville.Sittler and McDonald will work with left winger Tiger Williams while the Walt McKechnie-Ron Ellis-Dan Maloney line continues as an effective unit. The Jones line is a constant factor and Neilson can build a fourth line from Garry Monahan, John Anderson, Ron Wilson and Lome Stamler.&ldquo;Having a young player like Anderson improve steadily as the season goes along is a plus for us,&rdquo; Neilson said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve spotted him on different lines quite a bit and one of these days, he&rsquo;s going to find a regular job.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll also be giving Wilson more work because he&rsquo;s one of the best puckhandlers on the club. He&rsquo;s been limited to point duty on the power-play but he looks ready for much more than that.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Leaf Checkers Excel At Grinding-Type Game

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-01902/4342764-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="737" height="545"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-02747/4342757-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="726" height="3596"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03597/4342750-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="2160" height="3047"></div> &#9632;

f0016-01

NHL POINT SCORING AND PENALITY STATISTICS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-01794/4342795-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="600" height="759"></div> &#9632;

f0017-01

Top 20 Rookie Scorers

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0017-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02667/4342826-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0017-02

Where NHL Teams Play

<div class="byline">BY DICK JOHNSTON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03514/4342857-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="550" height="1101"><figcaption class="caption-body">DAVE SCHULTZ&hellip;Disciplines Play (Photo by Robert Shaver)</figcaption></div>BUFFALO&mdash;The Buffalo Sabres, a goon team?That was the reaction of many in the hockey world during the National Hockey League&rsquo;s recess for the Challenge Cup series against the Soviets when it was learned that the Sabres had acquired Dave Schultz and Rick Dudley.They reacquired Dudley, actually. The rugged winger played for Buffalo for two seasons, then departed for higher wages in the World Hockey Association.After three and one-half years with the Cincinnati Stingers, the Sabres got Dudley back, presumably for a sizeable hunk of cash, which the struggling Stingers admitted they needed.Dudley was known as an aggressive, hard-hitting forward, who liked to mix it in the corners, when he was with the Sabres on their Stanley Cup finalist team of 1974-75.Schultz, well, he was known as The Hammer when he played for the Philadelphia team that beat Buffalo in that 1975 final. He played on two Stanley Cup teams for the Flyers, then departed for Los Angeles and subsequently Pittsburgh, from whom he was obtained by Buffalo for winger Gary McAdam.Schultz professed bewilderment when he learned of his trade to Buffalo. &ldquo;I must be doing something wrong,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They keep trading me. I don&rsquo;t know what they want.&rdquo;Billy Inglis, coach of the Sabres, told Schultz all he wants is for the rugged left winger to play his usual aggressive type of hockey and discipline himself so that he doesn&rsquo;t take foolish penalties.Both Schultz and Dudley played well as the Sabres knocked off two teams higher than they in the NHL standing on successive nights when play resumed.Dudley made a spectacular come back.He was on the ice just 19 seconds of his first shift in his first game back when he scored a goal to start the Sabres or their way to a 2-1 victory over the Nev York Islanders.Danny Gare, who scored just seconds after he took the ice in hi: rookie season with the Sabres, set uf Dudley&rsquo;s goal. Gare got a pass from GilPerreault and took a hard wrist shot a goalie Billy Smith.Smith gloved the shot but couldn&rsquo; hold it. The puck popped into the air and on its way down, Dudly deflected i into the net.The next night, Schultz passed to Terry Martin for the first goal that started the Sabres on their way to a 4-3 triumph over the New York Rangers.Schultz leveled Denis Potvin with a clean check in the Islander game and he sent Ron Greschner to a hospital when they collided in the Ranger game but he received no penalties either night and, while he played aggressivelv, he certainly was not goonlike.The collision with Greschner occurred because, apparently, neither saw the other coming as they pursued the puck. Greschner suffered a severely sprained right shoulder.Inglis said he was happy about how Dudley and Schultz had added to his club. &ldquo;They both are aggressive hockey players,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and they tend to make the entire club more aggressive. But the important thing is, both of them are players. They are not just aggressive; they can play hockey.&rdquo;The addition of the two new wingers sort of overshadowed the comeback of an old Sabre standby, Don Luce.Luce suffered a severe cut on his face from the skate of his linemate, Ric Seiling, in the last game before the Challenge Cup break. The skate missed his right eye by a fraction of an inch and cut a deep hole in his nose.Doctors took muscle tissue from over his eye and tied it over the hole in his face.Not only was Luce back in action for the first two games after the break, he had a big hand in winning them both.The lanky center wore a mask over his face as he returned between his regulai wingers. Craig Ramsay and Seiling.Seiling got the puck from Luce for the winning goal against the Islanders and Luce scored the winner against the Rangers himself. He flipped in his owr rebound after a pass from Ramsay, who had skated in to divert goalie Johi Davidson&rsquo;s attention. &#9632;

f0017-03

Muscular Additions Spark Sabres, But Club Downplays ‘Goon Images’

LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY. LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg. Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY. LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg. Ontario Sold in U.S. and Canada<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-01812/4342888-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="618" height="1908"></div> &#9632;

f0018-01

Looking At NHL Goalers

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02647/4342919-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="574" height="644"></div> &#9632;

f0018-02

Team Penalties

<div class="byline">BY DONALD BERNS</div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;The St. Louis Blues, headed toward what may be the worst season record in their 12-year history, began a splurge of winning before the All Star break.The Blues had won only twice in 15 games when they beat the Boston Bruins, 5-2, and St. Louis coach Barclay Plager said, &ldquo;I guess we&rsquo;ve learned by our mistakes.&rdquo;The victory over the Bruins was the third game for the line of Garry Unger, Harvey Bennett and Tony Currie. The line has been an instant success with 12 goals and 12 assists in its first 12 games.&ldquo;Tony can make the plays,&rdquo; Unger said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to be a good hockey player in this league. And Harvey has been playing really well in the corners.&rdquo;The Bruins beat the Blues two nights later in Boston, 4-0, but the Blues went back home and edged the New York Rangers, 3-2. Goalie John Davidson, who had not lost in more than a month, was faked out of position by Larry Patey for the winning goal.Then the Blues worried the Montreal Canadiens by scoring three goals in nine minutes before falling short in a 6-3 loss. Goalie Ken Dryden muttered about his teammates&rsquo; defensive mistakes and said, &ldquo;At times we kid ourselves. This is a recurrent problem.&rdquo;The Blues lost to the Canucks in Vancouver, 4-1, then went to Chicago and embarrassed the Black Hawks, 7-2. The victory was the Blues&rsquo; first on the road in 14 games during a period of more than two months.When the Blues bombarded the Los Angeles Kings, 7-1, for their first back-to-back wins of the season and moved out of the basement in the Smythe Division, Bernie Federko started talking about the playoffs.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s still time to make the playoffs,&rdquo; Federko said. &ldquo;The way we&rsquo;re working, things are starting to go 5 together for us. I think we&rsquo;ve put it into 3 our minds we really have to get going.&rdquo;Against Los Angeles Ed Staniowski was 29 seconds away from his first shutout in the National Hockey League when a puck shot by the Kings&rsquo; Charlie Simmer hit St. Louis defenseman Larry Giroux, then hit Marcel Dionne, then hit Staniowski&rsquo;s facemask and bounced into the net.&ldquo;I looked at the clock with one minute 38 seconds to go and thought about getting my first shutout,&rdquo; Staniowski said. &ldquo;But we came for two points, and that&rsquo;s what we got.&rdquo;No St. Louis goalie has shut out the Kings since Jacques Caron in 1972.Unger, playing in his 855th consecutive game, scored two goals within a span of 63 seconds and was jubilant about the newly found success of his line and the team.&ldquo;Tony and I do things together automatically and react to one another naturally,&rdquo; Unger said. &ldquo;There are quite a few examples of top scorers in twos. Toronto has Darryl Sittler and Lanny McDonald on a line; Buffalo has Gil Perreault and Rick Martin.&rdquo;Referring to his second goal against the Kings. Unger said, &ldquo;I was checked, and Tony shouldn&rsquo;t have been able to give me the puck; but he did, and I scored.&rdquo;Currie says: &ldquo;Unger is such a strong guy. If I can get the puck to him any way at all, he can do something with it.&rdquo;Bennett said: &ldquo;Tony is playing really well. We&rsquo;ve had times when we could have scored even more goals.&rdquo;Plager said, &ldquo;Those three are playing very well together. They&rsquo;re a good combination.&rdquo;The Blues, lost a 5-1 decision in Toronto but finished January with their best one-month record of the season, 47-2, for 18 points. The Blues came home to beat the Colorado Rockies, 6-3, and finished the period before the All Star break with a 3-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres.Plager said, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re playing together now. Everybody is giving as good an effort as he can.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03477/4342950-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="533" height="606"><figcaption class="caption-body">TONY CURRIE&hellip;Fits With Unger</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0018-03

Currie Changes Blues’ Complexion

Islanders&rsquo; super scorer Mike Bossy began the week setting one record, tied another along the way and closed it by becoming the first National Hockey League player to reach the 50-goal mark as he produced four goals in four games.In a victory over Vancouver Bossy scored his 47th goal of the season, giving him 100 career NHL goals after only 129 games, the fastest any player has reached that milestone.Bossy scored again in his next contest in Los Angeles and then had a pair of goals in a 3-1 win over Detroit, tying the NHL record of having scored goals in 10 consecutive contests, set by Andy Bathgate and equalled by Bobby Hull. His chance to set a new record was taken away in his next game, a 3-2 loss to the Rangers who managed to keep him off the scoresheet.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-04333/4342981-1-eng-US/f0018-042.jpg" title="f0018-04" width="458" height="611"><figcaption class="caption-body">MIKE BOSSY &hellip;New York Islanders</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0018-04

NHL’s… Player of the Week

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div>VANCOUVER&mdash;A reputation for horse trading is a fragile commodity.Jake Milford may be about to gas his good name unless he can get National Hockey League president John Ziegler to intervene in his recent trade with the Philadelphia Flyers, in which Philadelphia general manager Keith Allen stiffed the Vancouver Canucks but good.The deal that sent Dennis Ververgaert to the Flyers in exchange for defenseman Kevin McCarthy and right winger Drew Callander is looking extremely grim at present for Vancouver.Callander, who was likely a throw-in by the Flyers to balance the difference in salary between McCarthy and Ververgaert, has already been dispatched to Dallas of the Central League. On his play with the Canucks, it appears that is exactly where the 21-year-old belongs. The bone is centered around the 21-year-old McCarthy, the man Canucks were hoping would bail them out on their power play, the anemic part of their game which is consistently unable to produce a goal when the team needs it most.McCarthy has played only one game for the Canucks since the Christmas deal that brought him west. He has been plagued by what was first believed to be a groin injury which has now developed into a serious hip problem. It is not expected that he will be back in the Vancouver lineup this year, which means Milford all but gave away Ververgaert.Milford is furious. He claims that Allen stiffed him by not telling the Vancouver GM that McCarthy was hurt.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01776/4343019-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="501" height="952"><figcaption class="caption-body">DREW CALLANDER&hellip;Not Ready Yet</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02623/4343012-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="514" height="922"><figcaption class="caption-body">KEVIN MCCARTHY&hellip;Definitely Wanted</figcaption></div>Allen says he didn&rsquo;t know that McCarthy was hurt while with the Flyers, though the Canucks say they have a letter from the Flyers&rsquo; training staff describing McCarthy&rsquo;s problems and how they were being treated.&ldquo;Yes, you might say that Keith Allen might have tried to stiff us,&rdquo; said Milford. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not that we&rsquo;re unhappy with the deal from the standpoint of the players. We&rsquo;re happy with McCarthy and we definitely want the boy. We think he&rsquo;s just what we need for the future. But we weren&rsquo;t told that he was injured, and he definitely had the injury before he came to us. We&rsquo;ve sent a letter of protest to John Ziegler and we&rsquo;re hoping for some compensation.&rdquo;Canucks are rather hoping for the Flyers&rsquo; second round draft choice, but any decision made is unlikely to favor the Canucks. If it did, it would be a first.Further, it may be a little bit much to ask for a second round choice, when the traditional approach to North American marketing goes something like this: &lsquo;Let the buyer beware.&rsquo; In this case, the buyer happens to be the Canucks.McCarthy played in a 4-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings and then sat out for what was supposed to be a week to let his pulled groin muscles heal. That was the last the Canucks have seen of him. What Allen did was not exactly ethical, but chances are it will be ruled legal by the brass.Meanwhile, Canucks have plenty more to whine about, what with all their injuries. They are at least back to three centers with the return to the lineup of Don Lever after the Challenge Cup break.Don Kozak also returned from Dallas to join the club, which allowed coach Harry Neale to put together three respectable forward lines. But Jack Mcllhargey had to go to Dallas to play himself into shape and outstanding rookies Glen Hanlon and Bill Derlago remain on the&lsquo;shelf.The Rick Blight scenario took another turn when Blight returned from a four-day stay at his home near Brandon to say it was the media&rsquo;s fault for blowing out of proportion the fact that he wanted to be traded. Canucks promptly placed Blight on waivers without recall, and the takers were not exactly beating down the door. The right winger, who has five goals to date this season, signed a three-year contract with an option at the beginning of this year for a reported figure of $125,000, which is enough to scare most teams away. The club could now send the three-year veteran to Dallas for as long as it takes for him to either play himself into the form he should be showing to earn his money or until a trade can be worked out.Meanwhile, Canucks have 16 of their remaining 26 games after the break at home, but that may not be such great news on closer examination. They have one of the worst home records in the league, and there are some tough ones at home still left. &#9632;

f0019-01

Canucks Seek Compensation For ‘Damaged Goods’

<div class="byline">BY MIKE DENNIS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0020-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01610/4343057-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">JACQUES LEMAIRE &hellip;Started Slaughter (Photo by Steve Babineau)</figcaption></div>MONTREAL&mdash;Way to go Penguins. Thanks alot.You couldn&rsquo;t leave well enough alone, could you. You know&hellip;let sleeping dogs lie&hellip;like maybe roll over and settle for a tie.But no&hellip;no. Not the Penguins. They had to go and spoil everything by snapping the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; unbeaten streak at 14 games with a 3-1 home ice victory.It was those same Penguins who were the last National Hockey League team to defeat the Canadiens back on Jan. 10 in a 3-2 contest in the Igloo.Canadiens answered that setback (even though it was their third in five 1979 games) with their unbeaten skein which featured a 4-1 Jan. 31 victory in Pittsburgh. It looked like the Penguins had learned their lesson.But they hadn&rsquo;t.They became the fourth team to inflict a pair of losses on the mighty Habs this year when they outworked the Canadiens for a 3-1 decision in Pittsburgh on Feb. 21, but if they could have foreseen the consequences of their transgression against the defending Stanley Cup titlists, then they&rsquo;d have surely let Montreal off with a win or a tie at the least.Less than 24 hours after &ldquo;the streak snapper,&rdquo; the Canadiens revenged their tenth loss of the season with the-worst defeat in Penguin history, a 12-0 landslide, which among other things, served to send notice to the rest of the NHL that the Canadiens when they have their lineup intact are still THE force to reckon with.Jacques Lemaire had the hop back in his stride after missing 27 games with a shoulder separation, Larry Robinson was back at his defense post after missing a few post-Challenge Cup games with niggling injuries, and Doug Risebrough was there, too, on the first night of his second comeback of the season after 46 days away from game action, a total of 17 games.It was Lemaire, who was to pick up a goal and an assist on the evening, his third and fourth points in the five games he has played since returning, who started the river of goals flowing early in the opening period.The Penguins were 40 seconds away from a power play with each side a man short and the Canadiens&rsquo; Mario Tremblay banished to the penalty box for four minutes as compared to two minutes for Randy Carlyle. But Russ Anderson was sent off for tripping and it was the Canadiens who got the first crack at a man advantage situation.Lemaire won the draw to Guy Lapointe in the Penguins&rsquo; zone to start the play and scooted out to the left point while Lapointe waited and then fed him a pass. Lemaire threw it in to Yvon Lambert stationed on one side of the Penguins goal, and Lambert put it on Guy Lafleur&rsquo;s stick on the opposite side of the crease and a flick of the wrists later is was 1-0 and the beginning of the end.The power play goal took all of 11 seconds.Lemaire was to convert a Steve Shutt pass-out early in the second period to increase Montreal&rsquo;s lead to 4-0 as you could almost hear the pfffft go out of the Pens&rsquo; efforts.Later Lemaire was to talk about the game and his road to recovery: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s (my shoulder) coming back, I&rsquo;m happy with the way things are going, especially after a game like tonight. I did exercises for about a month to strengthen the shoulder and I even did a couple of flips tonight and it feels fine.&rdquo;Was their any soul-searching going on after the team had lost the previous night. Any pep talks?&rdquo; Lemaire was asked.&ldquo;We just said, &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s be ready,&rsquo; Lemaire explained. &ldquo;We knew we couldn&rsquo;t afford two losses in a row at this stage of the game.&ldquo;We figured we had too many men in front of the net, sometimes three guys the night before on our power plays, so we tried to spread out more, move the puck around for better shots,&rdquo; said Lemaire.The strategy worked to perfection. On nine of the 12 goals, two anadiens earned assists. In fact, all 17 skaters dressed had at least one point and on several goals the entire line and often the defense handled the puck without the Penguins coming close.&ldquo;We had a lot of good plays, the puck was moving all around and all their goaltenders could do was watch,&rdquo; Lemaire remarked moving his head from side to side for emphasis. &ldquo;When you let up four or five goals, it&rsquo;s normal to get down and we just kept working for the entire 60 minutes.&rdquo;Risebrough, one of three Canadiens I to score two goals in the game (Tremblay and Lambert were the others) commented: &ldquo;With everybody working so hard, it was easy to follow the pace.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02431/4343050-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="490" height="660"><figcaption class="caption-body">DOUG RISEBROUGH&hellip;Followed Pace</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0020-01

Canadiens Avenge Broken Streak By Displaying Awesome Offensive

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0021-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01456/4343088-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0021-01

The Hockey News

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-07140/4343213-1-eng-US/f0022-072.jpg" title="f0022-07" width="606" height="2397"></div> &#9632;

f0022-07

The NHL Scoreboard

ATLANTA: MacMillan 29.30, Houston 12,13,14, Chouinard 33,34, Vail 26,27, Lalonde 20, Laurence 12, Phiilipoff 8, Plett 20.BOSTON: McNab 28,29, Middleton 25,26,27,28, O&rsquo;Reilly 18,19, RateUe 22 ,23.BUFFALO: R. Martin 14,15, Guevremonl 3, T. Martin 6, Perreault 18,19, Gare 18, Seiling 15, Robert 13,14.CHICAGO: Walton 12, Bulley 20, Kerr 10, Murray 14,15, Koroli 11, Mulvey 11, Boldirev 26,27, Rota 13.COLORADO: Paiement 18,19, Lochead 6, Delorme 13,14, Malinowski 3, Croteau 20.DETROIT: Thompson 16, Hogaboam 23, Bolduc 11,12, McCourt 22, Labraaten 10,11, Nedomansky 27,28,29, St. Laurent 10,11,12, Libett 14.LOS ANGELES: Simmer 6, Taylor 33, Hampton 3, Venasky 3,4, Palmer 4, Jensen 17, Murphy 11, Halward 1.MINNESOTA: MacAdam 17, Young 21, Payne 11,12, B. Smith 24,25,36, Younghans 7, Fidler 14, Maxwell 8.MONTREAL: Lemaire 10,11,12, Lafleur 43,44,45, Napier 9, Lambert 18,19,20,31,32, Tremblay 20,21,22,33, Risebrough 6,7, Larouche 7, Chartraw 5, Mondou 21, Robinson 13,14,15, Engblom 3, Gainey 14, Shutt 26.ISLANDERS: Gillies 25,36,27, Merrick 14,15, Harris 10, Bossy 47,48,49,50, Nystrom 12,13, Bourne 20,21,32, Lewis 4, Westfall 5, Tonelli 14, Trottier 39.RANGERS: Don Maloney 23, McEwen 15, Marois 4, Dave Maloney 8, Vadnais 8, Esposito 31,32, Talafous 10,11, Murdoch 8,9, Hedberg 25,26.PHILADELPHIA: MacLeish 19,20,21, Leach 24,2536, Barber 21, Holmgren 8, Hill 2, Gorence 9,10, Bridgman 16.PITTSBURGH: Malone 21,32, Kehoe 17, Ferguson 13, Sheppard 8, Campbell 2, Lonsberry 19, Anderson 2, Mahovlich 12, Carlyle 9.ST. LOUIS: Sutter 28,29,30,31, Federko 25, Paley 7, Hammarstrom 5, Unger 26.TORONTO: McDonald 24,35,26, Monahan 23, Sittler 26,27, Maloney 12, Williams 16.VANCOUVER: Snepsls 5, Fraser 12, Gillis 12, Sedlbauer 34, Smyl 11,12, Lindgren 2, Gradin 16, Lever 16.WASHINGTON: Girard 8, Maruk 21,22,33, Lofthouse 11, Rowe 20,31,22,33, Sirois 24,35, Polis 12,13, Picard 16, Charron 22. &#9632;

NHL’s Scorers …This Week

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01499/4343182-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="597" height="1749"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02391/4343175-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="622" height="3344"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03317/4343168-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="597" height="2713"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-04238/4343161-1-eng-US/f0022-042.jpg" title="f0022-04" width="621" height="3326"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-05197/4343154-1-eng-US/f0022-052.jpg" title="f0022-05" width="571" height="535"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-06160/4343147-1-eng-US/f0022-062.jpg" title="f0022-06" width="545" height="492"><figcaption class="caption-body">YVON LAMBERT&hellip;Five-Goal Week</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01470/4343140-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="627" height="3497"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02354/4343133-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="1206" height="1623"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-03261/4343126-1-eng-US/f0023-032.jpg" title="f0023-03" width="597" height="493"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-04201/4343119-1-eng-US/f0023-042.jpg" title="f0023-04" width="581" height="278"></div> &#9632;

f0022-01

NATIONAL LEAGUE SUMMARIES

C-Captain * - Rookie<h2>ATLANTA</h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-05171/4343268-1-eng-US/f0023-052.jpg" title="f0023-05" width="148" height="155"></div>GOALDan BouchardRejean LemelinDEFENSEGreg FoxEd Kea*Brad MarshBob MurdochPat RibbleRod SeilingDave ShandCENTERSGene CarrGuy Chouinard*Red LaurenceR. WINGSJohn GouldKen HoustonBobby LalondeBob MacMillanJean PronovostWilli PlettL. WINGSHarold PhillipoffEric Vail</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h2>BOSTON</h2>GOALGerry CheeversGilles Gilbert*Jim PettieDEFENSEGary DoakMike MilburyDennis O&rsquo;BrienBrad ParkDick RedmondAl SimsRick SmithCENTERSPeter McNabBob MillerJean RatelleR. WINGSDwight FosterRick MiddletonTerry O&rsquo;ReillyBobby SchmautzL. WINGSWayne Cashman CStan JonathanDon Marcotte*AI SecordJohn Wensink<h2>BUFFALO</h2>GOALDon Edwards*Bob SauveDEFENSE*Mike BolandKen BreitenbachLee FogolinJocelyn GuevremontBill HajtJerry Korab*Larry PlayfairJim Schoenfeld*Bill StewartCENTERSDon LuceGilles PerreaultAndre SavardR. WINGSDanny Gare CJacques RichardReni RobertRic SeilingL. WINGSRick DudleyRichard MartinTerry MarlinCraig RamsayDave Schultz<h2>CHICAGO</h2>GOALTony EspositoMikeVeisorDEFENSEDave LoganMike O&rsquo;ConnellBob MurrayPhil RussellDoug WilsonCENTERSIvan BoldirevAlain DaigleStan MikitaJean SavardMike WaltonR. WINGSJ.P. Bordeleau*Tim HigginsCliff KorollGrant MulveyL. WINGSTed Bulley*Reg KerrJohn MarksDarcy Rota<h2>COLORADO</h2>GOALBill OleschukMichel PlasseDEFENSEDon AwreyBarry BeckNick BeverleyMiko ChristieMiko KitchenMichel LachanceDennis OwcharJohn VanBoxmoorCENTERSRoy ComeauPaul Gardner*Merlin Malinowski*Paul MossierJack ValiquetteR. WINGSRon Dolormo*Paul MessierWilf PaiementRandy PierceL. WINGSGary Croteau*Mike Dwyer*Mike GillisRalph KlassenBill LocheadAndy Spruce<h2>DETROIT</h2>GOALJim RutherfordRogie VachonDEFENSEThommie BergmanJoan HamelTerry Harper*Willie HuberGreg JolyRood LarsonPony MillerCENTERS*Dan Bolduc*Grog CarrollBill HogaboamDale McCourtAndre St. LaurentR. WINGSDan LabraatenVaclac NedomanskyDennis PolonichL. WINGSNick LibettErrol ThompsonPaul Woods C<h2>LOS ANGELES</h2>GOALRon Grahame*Mario LessardDEFENSEDarryl EdestrandDoug HalwardRick HamptonRandy HoltRandy ManeryRichard MulhemRob PalmerCENTERSSyl AppsMarcel DionneButch GoringVic VenaskyR. WINGSMark HeaslipMike Murphy CDave TaylorL. WINGSDanny GrantStove JonsonCharlie SimmerTom WilliamsBert Wilson<h2>MINNESOTA</h2>GOALGary EdwardsGillos MelocheDEFENSEFred Barrett*Bill Butters*Don JacksonBrad MaxwellJoan PotvinGary SargentGrog SmithCENTERS*Kris ManeryGlen Sharpley*Bob SmithTim YoungR. WINGSAl MacAdamDan ChicoineMike FidlerTom YoughansRon ZanussiL. WINGSPor-Olov Brasar*Jack carlsonJoan-Paul Parise C*Stove Payne*Miko Polich<h2>MONTREAL</h2>GOALKen DrydenMichel LarocqueDEFENSERick ChartrawBrian EngblomGuy LapointeGilles LupienLarry RobinsonSergo SavardCENTERSDoug JarvisPierro LaroucheJacques LemairePierre MondouDoug RisebroughR. WINGSCam Connor*Pat HughesGuy LafleurMario TremblayL. WINGSBob GaineyRejoan HouleYvon LambertMark NapierDan NewmanStove Shutt<h2>ISLANDERS</h2>GOALChico ReschBilly SmithDEFENSEGerry HartDave Lewis*Bob LorimerBert MarshallDenis PotvinStefan PerssonPat PriceCENTERSLome HenningMike KaszyckiWayne MerrickBryan TrottierR. WINGSMike BossyBilly HarrisBob NystromEd WestfallL. WINGSBob BourneClarke Gillies CGarry HowattAlex McKendryJohn Tonelli<h2>RANGERS</h2>GOALDoug SoetaertWayne ThomasDEFENSEFrank BeatonDave FairishDave Maloney CMario MaroisMike McEwen*Dean TurnerCarol VadnaisCENTERSRon DuguayPhil EspositoWalter TkaczukR. WINGSAnders HedbergEddie JohnstoneDon MurdochPierre PlanteDean TalafousL. WINGSNick FotiuPat Hickey*Don MaloneySteve Vickers<h2>PHILADELPHIA</h2>GOAL*Rich St. CroixWayne StephensonDEFENSE*Norm Barnes*Frank BatheBob DaileyAndre DupontRick LaPointeJim Watson*Behn WilsonCENTERSMel BridgmanBobby Clarke CBlake DunlopR. WINGS*Tom Gorence*Al HillPaul HolmgrenReggie LeachDon SaleskiDennis VervergaertL. WINGSBill Barber*Dave HoydaBob KellyRick MacLeish<h2>PITTSBURGH</h2>GOALDenis Herron*Greg MillenDEFENSERuss AndersonTom BladonColin CampoellRandy CarlyleRon StackhouseDale TallonCENTERSPetr MahovlichGreg MaloneGregg SheppardR. WINGSBlair ChapmanJacques CossetteGeorge FergusonRick KehoePeter LeeL. WINGSOrest Kindrachuk CRoss LonsberryGary McAdam* Rod Schutt<h2>ST. LOUIS</h2>GOALPhil MyreEd StaniowskiDEFENSEJack BrownschidleSteve DurbanoBarry Gibbs CLarry GirouxNeil Komadoski *Bob StewartCENTERSBemie FederkoLarry PateyGarry UngerR. WINGS*Wayne BabychBob MurdochMike Crombeen*Tony CurrieJohn SmrkeL. WINGSCurt BonnettInge HammarstromBrian SuttlorMike Zuke<h2>TORONTA</h2>GOALPaul HarrisonMike PalmateerDEFENSEDave BurrowsDave Hutchisor.* Joel QuennevilleBorja SalmingIan TurnbullCENTERSJimmy JonesGarry MonahanWalt McKechnieDarryl Slttler CRon WilsonR. WINGS**John AndersonJerry ButlerRon EllisLanny McDonaldL. WINGSPat BoutetteDan MaloneyLome StamlerDave Williams<h2>VANCOUVER</h2>GOALGary BromleyDune WilsonDEFENSEJohn GrisdaleLarry GoodenoughDennis Keams*Lars LindgrenBob MannoHarold SnepstsCENTERS*Thomas GradinDon LeverChris OddleifsonR. WINGSHilliard GravesDon Kozak*Stan SmylRob TudorL. WINGS*Curt FraserBrad GassoffJere GillisRon Sodlbauer<h2>WASHINGTON</h2>GOALGary InnessBemle WolfeDEFENSERick GreenYvon Labre CGord LaneJack LynchRobert Picard*Leif SvenssonCENTERSGuy Charron*Rolf EdbergDennis HextallDennis MarukR. WINGS*Mark LofthouseTom RoweBlair StewartL. WINGSBob Girard*Paul MulveyGreg PolisBob Sirois*Ryan Walter<h2>INJURED PLAYERS</h2>ATLANTABill ClementTom Lysiak CBUFFALODerek SmithCHICAGOKeith Magnuson CCOLORADO*Dave WatsonJoe Watson CDETROIT*Brent PetersonLOS ANGELESBrian GlennieGlenn GoidupMurray WilsonMINNESOTAK-Erik AnderssonMONTREALYvan CoumoyerCPITTSBURGHWayne BianchinPHILADELPHIABemie ParentRANGERSRon GreschnorJohn DavidsonUlf NilssonVANCOUVER*Bill Deriago*Glen HanlonPH MartinKevin McCarthyWASHINGTON*Tim CoulisPeto Scamurva &#9632;

f0023-05

NHL Team Rosters

In Morris Lukowich&rsquo;s final junior year he scored 65 goals and was well known to all of the Western Hockey League goalers who tried to stop him. Now he&rsquo;s become almost as notorious in the World Hockey Association where he is giving Real Cloutier a run for the goal-scoring title. And he may pass 65 goals.Lukowich pumped in six goals last week, including a hat trick in a 7-5 victory over New England. Winnipeg split its four games on the week and both wins came against the Whalers. Lukowich produced two goals and an assist in the other victory.The six goals gave him 50 on the season to tie Cloutier, who has held the lead since the beginning of the season. Last season Lukowich had 40 goals for Houston so his output comes as no surprise.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03266/4343337-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg" title="f0024-03" width="484" height="570"><figcaption class="caption-body">MORRIS LUKOWICH &hellip;Winnipeg Jets</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0024-03

WHA’S… Player of the Week

<div class="byline">BY WAYNE WARRINER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0024-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01487/4343306-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">JOHN STEWART&hellip;Spurred Bull&rsquo;s Comeback Win</figcaption></div>LOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY. LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg. Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLE HOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY. LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg. Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaBIRMINGHAM&mdash;Sparked by a shorthanded goal from Rick Adduono, Birmingham came from behind to capsize the New England Whalers, 7-4 in Springfield, Mass. After the Whalers bounced back to open up a two-goal lead, John C. Stewart rammed a pair of goals home in a span of 21 seconds to spur the Bulls efforts.Then, half-way through the third period, the Bulls took advantage of a four-on-four situation. Dave Gorman, Paul Henderson, Gaston Gingras and Craig Hartsburg quickly combined for two goals to ice the game for Birmingham.Returning to the Magic City, the Bulls delighted the home folks with a 2-1 squeaker over Winnipeg. Stewart tied the game in the third period and young Michel Goulet fired his 18th of the season to win it. Although the Jets peppered goalie Pat Riggin with 39 shots, the rookie netminder held the fort for the win. The winning streak came to a halt at two, however, when the red hot Edmonton Oilers came into town and corralled the Bulls, 6-3.Captain Brent Hughes and Tony Cassolato were sent to Binghamton of the AHL as GM Gilles Leger and coach Brophy tried to muster up more firepower among the young guys. Said Leger: &ldquo;Our biggest problem right now is that we&rsquo;re weak up the middle. This team misses Peter Marrin more than anything.&rdquo; Marrin is not due back until early April.The Bulls offered Claude Larose a 10-game tryout, but the refugee from the defunct Indy Racers opted to report to the New York Rangers for work with their New Haven farm club&hellip;l9-year-old defenseman Rob Ramage played in all of the Bulls first 50 games and led the team in the plus/minus percentage with a plus .06&hellip;GM Leger explained that Louis Sleigher&rsquo;s production has been hindered by illness&mdash;first with the flu and then a bout with mononucleosis.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been an up and down season,&rdquo; said coach Bill Dineen after his New England Whalers had lost their third game in a row (for the third time this year). Back-to-back home losses to Birmingham and Edmonton served to tighten up the league standings considerably but it didn&rsquo;t make Dineen happy&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not playing 60 minutes of hockey, said Dineen. &ldquo;Prior to these three games we were prohably playing our best hockey of the season and all of a sudden it comes apart&mdash;and it&rsquo;s not the first time it&rsquo;s happened. This slump, we&rsquo;re losing our concentration for short periods of time,&rdquo; said Dineen, &ldquo;whereas before we were totally broken down.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02385/4343299-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="490" height="665"><figcaption class="caption-body">JOHN GARRETT&hellip;Held Off Quebec</figcaption></div>In a 4-2 loss to Edmonton the Whalers had one of those mental lapses. It lasted only four minutes but the Oilers took advantage and scored three quick goals to steal the momentum&mdash;and the game from the Whalers.Two nights earlier the Whalers had jumped to a quick two-goal lead over Birmingham and the game took on the look of a Whaler runaway. Suddenly the Bulls scored while the Whalers were working a power play&mdash;the first time this season that a WHA team had scored a shorthanded goal against them. It changed the complexion of the game and the Bulls ultimately won 7-4.After the loss to Edmonton, the Whalers apparently decided to get back on the stick, and the next night they bopped the Quebec Nordiques, 4-1. The win featured some sparkling goaltending by John Garrett, and a pair of goals by Mark Howe&mdash;the first for him in six games. &ldquo;They were two of the worst shots I took all week, but they went in,&rdquo; said the star left winger.Mike Antonovich got what turned out to be the winning goal&mdash;his 20th of the season. For Anton it was the seventh year in a row that he&rsquo;s notched at least 20 goals in the WHA&hellip;Larry Pleau was being spotted by coach Dineen as he worked himself back into playing condition after coming out of retirement. Pleausy got one of the seven goals against Winnipeg as the Whalers began an important foray into western Canada with a 7-1 trouncing of the Jets. It was the first win New England had managed in Winnipeg&rsquo;s rink in a season and a half.QUEBEC: The Quebec Nordiques suddenly took a nosedive from the top of the heap in the WHA to a position where they were being challenged by the fifth place Cincinnati Stingers. On a lengthy road trip, the Nordiques were shutout by the Oilers in Edmonton, 3-0. Hoping for revenge, they hung around for a few days, but the Oilers were streaking and there was no way that they&rsquo;d knuckle under to the Quebeckers. Result? Another humiliating loss, 6-1. Mark Tardif was the sole marksman for the Nordiques.Next stop was New England. The results were the same, however, as the Whalers scored four goals while Marc Tardif again got the only goal for the Nordiques. In this one, though, the Quebec City crew mustered more of an offense as coach Jacques Demers combined his three top shooters&mdash;Real Cloutier, Serge Bernier, and Tardif into one unit. Although New England won the game 4-1, the Nordiques applied considerable pressure and only the spectacular work of goalie John Garrett kept them from further scoring.Then it was on to Cincy for a crucial game for both&lsquo;teams. Having lost seven of their last eight games(and scoring a total of two goals in three games), the Nords were not perilously close to being caught by the fifth place Singers.Cincinnati outshot Quebec 16 to 6 in the first period but Richie Leduc matched Robbie Ftorek for the only goals of the period. At the end of two it was 2-1 Cincy. (The shots were 33-11 at that point). But in the Tinal stanza Cloutier, Tardif, and Paulin Bordeleau capitalized even though their team was outshot 12 to 7. Goalie Richard Brodeur allowed only two goals out of the 45 shots he faced while his mates were four for only 18 shots. It was a big victory.Lack of depth, a common problem in the WHA, was hurting the Nordiques. Curt Brackenbury (torn muscles) and Richard David (knee) continued to be out for an extended period, while Wally Weir was due to return before the end of February. J.C. Tremblay&rsquo;s back (pinched nerve) acted up and it was undetermined how long the veteran defenseman would be sidelined. &#9632;

f0024-01

Bulls Look To Strengthen Middle; Whalers, Nordiques Fight Slumps

WINNIPEG&mdash;The saga of the Winnipeg Jets continues. Playing in streaks since the new year, the Jets currently find themselves in their third major tailspin of the season.Just when it appeared the Jets were ready to break open the World Hockey Association race with a four-game win streak, they fell upon hard times on an eight day road trip which saw them emerge with a 1-4-0 record. Unfortunately, the problems didn&rsquo;t stop there. They came home and before a near sell-out crowd, they were handed a 7-1 setback by the New England Whalers and two days later in Cincinnati, the Stingers outscored the travel weary Jets 5-2.All is not lost for Winnipeg fans and it was so aptly explained by winger, John Gray. &ldquo;Nobody is going to blame our record on travel per se,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The thing is that when you&rsquo;re on the road as long as we have been and things aren&rsquo;t going well, you never get the chance to practice and work out the wrinkles. I&rsquo;ll tell you something,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;in three days we&rsquo;ll have the worst of our travelling behind us and we&rsquo;Ii be playing 14 of our last 20 games at home. We are going to treat our fans to some great winning hockey,&rdquo; Gray added, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re a good team and no one is lowering their sights. We want first place.&rdquo;Gray, who was out of the line-up with a badly sprained hand, spoke those words on a between period broadcast as Winnipeg was hosting the Whalers for the second time in three nights.The Jets came out in the third period as if they had the broadcast piped right into the dressing room. Playing with the inspiration that had been their trademark before the skid, the Jets came out in the last two periods and outmuscled the Whalers on their way to a 5-2 win.Steve West, who had been recalled from Rochester of the AHL one game earlier, scored two goals in his home ice debut and helped pace Winnipeg to their long awaited victory. &ldquo;I intend on playing hard and earning myself a spot on this team,&rdquo; said West after his auspicious debut. West could have had the hat trick later in the game when he was awarded a penalty shot after being dragged down by a Whaler defenseman on a breakaway. However, Al Smith foiled the attempt with a last second stick check just as West was trying to lift the puck over the sprawling Whaler goaltender.In the same game, Morris Lukowich scored his 46th and 47th goals of the season as the speedy left winger continued his assault on the WHA scoring leaders. Almost certain to reach the 50 goal plateau, Lukowich can become only the third player in Jets&rsquo; history to hit that milestone.With their 5-2 win, Winnipeg showed signs that they were ready to break out of their slump and one of the indications was the play of Joe Daley. Daley, who has been out off and on all season with a variety of ailments, looked sharp in the Jets win over New England. Even in the games he lost, it looked as if the WHA original was regaining his form as one of the premier goaltenders in the league. As the Jets head down the home stretch, he could turn out to be a key factor.JET STREAMS: Rookie defenseman, Bill Davis, who was recalled fromthe Philadelphia Firebirds, picked up his first WHA career point when he assisted on the second Jets&rsquo; goal in a 5-2 win over New England&hellip;Daley celebrated his 36th birthday on Feb. 20, but Cincinnati ruined the party by upending Daley and the Jets by a score of 5-2&hellip;Gary Smith has been signed to a contract covering the balance of the 1978-79 season&hellip;Peter Sullivan, the Jets second leading goal scorer, is trying to break a six game scoring slump.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02314/4343368-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="579" height="687"><figcaption class="caption-body">STEVE WEST&hellip;Paced Jets</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0025-02

Closing Schedule Looks Favorable For Jets

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01423/4343399-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="612" height="1042"></div> &#9632;

f0025-01

WHA Leaders

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01436/4343458-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="581" height="2317"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02340/4343451-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="1176" height="1489"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-03291/4343444-1-eng-US/f0026-032.jpg" title="f0026-03" width="608" height="1816"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02296/4343437-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="589" height="983"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-03227/4343430-1-eng-US/f0028-032.jpg" title="f0028-03" width="590" height="1100"></div> &#9632;

f0026-01

WORLD HOCKEY ASSN. SUMMARIES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-04" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-04228/4343489-1-eng-US/f0026-042.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0026-04

Where WHA Teams Play

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-05189/4343520-1-eng-US/f0026-052.jpg" title="f0026-05" width="575" height="707"></div> &#9632;

f0026-05

The WHA Scoreboard

BIRMINGHAM: Dillon 11, Gorman 11,12, Sleigher 22,23,24, Stephenson 11, Valve 20, Henderson 18,19,20, Hanson 4, Adduono 13, Hartsburg 6,7, Stewart 14.CINCINNATI: Melrose 2, Clark 3, Baltimore 4, Forbes 4, Ftorek 31, Thomas 21, Gilligan 13.EDMONTON: Hamilton 5, Carlson 9,10, Chipperfield 22,23, Callighen 12, Langevin 5, MacDonald 25,26, Hunter 5, Sobchuk 20,21, Gretzky 30,31, Weir 17,18.NEW ENGLAND: Rogers 17,18,19, Marty Howe 9, Lacroix 28,29, McKenzie 14, Roberts 9, Hangsleben 6,7, Miller 18, Mark Howe 35,36, Stoughton 17.QUEBEC: Bernier 27,28,29,30, Tardif 33,34,35, Leduc 20,21, Baxter 7, Tremblay 6. Bordeleau 11, Cloutier 48,49,50, Bilodeau 2, Cote 8,9.WINNIPEG: Lukowich 45,46,47,48,49,50, Nilsson 27, West 2,3, Moffat 10, Davis 1, Lindstrom 19, Sullivan 34,35, Lesuk 14. &#9632;

WHA’s Scorers …This Week

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01417/4343582-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="245" height="246"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02310/4343575-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="2270" height="1520"></div> &#9632;

f0027-01

WHA’S POINT SCORING AND PENALTY STATISTICS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-03204/4343613-1-eng-US/f0027-032.jpg" title="f0027-03" width="566" height="538"></div> &#9632;

f0027-03

WHA Goaling

SAN DIEGO&mdash;The San Diego Hawks are running third in the Pacific Hockey League&rsquo;s four-team race but it hasn&rsquo;t stopped Kevin Devine of the Hawks from projecting himself as the league&rsquo;s top offensive player during last week&rsquo;s action.The Hawk winger scored a hat trick to cap a five-goal week to gain the league&rsquo;s &ldquo;player of the week&rdquo; honors.Nicknamed &ldquo;Spuddy&rdquo; by his teammates, the hard-working Devine moved into a tie for 10th in the PHL&rsquo;s scoring race with 24 goals and 23 assists. Centering the line of Devine and Don Burgess is scoring leader Joe Noris, who has 54 assists and 72 points.The 25-year-old Devine is in his fifth pro season, the last three and one-half in the World Hockey Association. He scored 74 goals and 81 assists in 283 WHA games, his best season being 30 goals and 20 assists with the San Diego Mariners in 1976-77.He scored 55 of his goals and 58 assists with the Mariners.Devine notched his hat trick in the Hawks&rsquo; 5-1 win over Tucson. Devine edged teammate Clay Hebenton for the PHL honor. Hebenton lowered his league-leading goals against average to 2.90 with a 3-3 overtime tie against Phoenix and a one-goal effort in the Hawks&rsquo; win over Tucson. Hebenton also leads the PHL in wins by a goaltender (16), games played (31) and minutes played (1801).PHL NOTES: Due to an unbalanced schedule caused by its mid-season consolidation, the final Pacific Hockey League standings will be based on percentage and not points. The percentage will be figured by dividing total points possible (number of games played multiplied by two) into the points scored. Phoenix will play 58 games, San Diego and Tucson 57 each and Spokane 55. Only those games played against other PHL teams will count in the standings.Spokane has won three of four exhibitions against former WIHL foes. The Flyers swept Trail, 7-5, 5-3, and split with Cranbrook, winning 7-1 and losing 5-3&hellip;Phoenix will play three games against WIHL teams this week, visiting Kimberley Feb. 20, Trail Feb. 21 and Cranbrook Feb. 22. Spokane will be at Kimberley Feb. 23 before the Roadrunners and Flyers resume their rivalry with a weekend set in Washington.Phoenix&rsquo; Jim Boyd recently scored his 250th point in a Roadrunner uniform in the 5-3 win over San Diego. He did it in typical Boyd fashion, his fifth short-handed goal of the season being the game-winning goal. Most of Boyd&rsquo;s points came when the Runners were in the WHA&hellip;Who is the all-time leading PHL scorer? Frank Hughes, now with Tucson. He led the league with 33 goals and 41 assists last year and ranks second this year with 25 goals and 32 assists&hellip;Last year&rsquo;s No. 2 PHL scorer, Jim Montgomery, has joined Tucson&hellip;Bob Sauve is having a year against his old San Diego mates. Last year Sauve tied for fourth in PHL scoring with 57 points while with San Diego. This year he has had a five-point game and a hat-trick game against the Hawks. He is the PHL&rsquo;s second all-time leading scorer with 89 points.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01402/4343644-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="544" height="651"><figcaption class="caption-body">KEVIN DEVINE &hellip;Notched Hat Trick</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0028-01

Devine Hot Scorer For San Diego

<h2>ECAC Conference</h2>Tue. Feb. 27Cornell at St. LawrenceProvidence at RPINortheastern at YaleBoston University at Boston CollegeBrown at New HampshireWed. Feb. 28Dartmouth at HarvardMARCHFri. Mar. 2St. Lawrence at ClarksonBoston College at PrincetonSat. Mar. 3Boston University at VermontRPI at ColgateNortheastern at ProvidenceCornell at PrincetonHarvard at YaleDartmouth at Brown<h2>WCHA CONFERENCE</h2>MARCHMar. 12Notre Dame at WisconsinMar. 2Colorado College at DenverMichigan State at MichiganMar. 2-3Micnigan tech at Minnesota-DuluthNorth Dakota at MinnesotaMar. 3Denver at Colorado CollegeMichigan at Michigan StateMar. 6-7WCHA Play-Offs (First Round)Mar. 10-11WCHA Play-offs (Second Round)Mar. 14-17WCHA Play-offs (Third Round)<h2>CCHA Conference</h2>Mar. 2-3CCHA Playoffs (Semi-Finals)Mar. 9-10CCHA Playoffs (Finals)Mar. 16-17NCAA Regional PlayoffsMar. 23-24NCAA Finals at Detroit &#9632;

Where The Colleges Play…

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-04118/4343737-1-eng-US/f0029-042.jpg" title="f0029-04" width="571" height="476"></div> &#9632;

f0029-04

The Top 10 U.S. Colleges

<div class="byline">BY TOM BURKE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01396/4343768-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="542" height="875"><figcaption class="caption-body">DON BOYD&hellip;All America Possible</figcaption></div>TROY&mdash;It was the second annual &ldquo;Big Red Freakout&rdquo; night at RPI&rsquo;s Houston Field House. Fans came dressed all in red, a la Wisconsin. They gave out free red and white crepe paper shakers. There was a poster contest among the fraternities, and a showing of the film &ldquo;Slap Shot&rdquo; offered for a post game treat.Though the atmosphere was unusually festive, RPI&rsquo;s beleaguered coach Jim Salfi&rsquo;s smile was rueful. His Engineers, seeded fourth in last year&rsquo;s ECAC Division One race, had already dropped out of playoff contention.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be so happy next Saturday. This season will be over, and I can just put it out of my mind completely. I just can&rsquo;t imagine anything else that could go wrong for us.&rdquo;Usually a stretch-running team, the Engineers started off fairly well, going 4-5-1 but with close losses to BU, Clarkson, and Providence. The offense was young but the defense had experience and goalies Ian Harrison and Kevin Constantine looked like a couple of the league&rsquo;s best.But after the first semester, Salfi found that he had to fill the varsity roster with nine new faces, what with injuries, flunkouts, and a transfer. Though not too many of the hurts were major, the lineup&rsquo;s fluctuations and inconsistent goaltending were the main causes of a streak when RPI lost seven of nine Division One games. Larry Landon, John Emerson, Mike McPhee, and Don Boyd all pitched in to help Steve Stoyanovich with the scoring, but somehow RPI couldn&rsquo;t muster that February reserve. As of press time, with a week to go in the season, it&rsquo;s &ldquo;Wait&rsquo;ll Next Year&rdquo; for them, Boston College, Colgate, Harvard, Princeton, and St. Lawrence.Freakout Night was productive, however, in that Loris Muzzati doubled his seasonal scoring output via a hat trick, offsetting Joe Mullen&rsquo;s four scores, and RPI downed Boston College 9-7. The loss eliminated BC from the playoff picture, duplicating their feat of the night before when they dumped Colgate from the running, 4-2, in Hamilton.On the other end of the standings, Boston University, New Hampshire, and Cornell are assured of home ice. The Terriers and Wildcats had a delightful dog-cat fight on the televised game of the week that ended in a 3-3 overtime tie. Bob Francis put UNH ahead with 5:03 to play, but Dave Silk got it back at 19:00. Neither team could do much in the extra period. UNH had beaten Vermont and tied Providence earlier in the week to move close to clinching second spot, but Cornell kept pace with home ice pummelings of Harvard, 11-3, and Northeastern, 8-4. Brook Tredway scored three goals against the Johns, who once again went through the chickens-on-the-ice routine. Rob Gemmell had three against NU.After the top trio, seven teams jam into a range of 125 percentage points in search of the five remaining spots. Dartmouth&rsquo;s 5-0 whitewash of Brown makes them 12-7-1 and assured at least a playoff slot. Likewise for Clarkson, with a 4-2 nipping of Princeton to give them a 12-9 slate. With two and one games remaining, respectively, these teams have a slight edge for fourth and fifth. Then it&rsquo;s a virtual toss up among Brown (10-9), Northeastern (10-9), Providence (11-9-2), Yale (10-9-1), and Vermont (10-10).Because Northeastern lost to both BU and Cornell last week they elected to replay the suspended Colgate game. It will be held in its entirety, at RPI on March 1. The Huskies must win at least one and probably two of their remaining tilts to achieve their first playoff berth since 1967.Provindence improved its position last week with three cliff hangers. They first nipped Cornell 4-3 on four power play goals, the last coming from Colin Ahern with 50 seconds to play. Then they battled through a season contest with New Hampshire to a 6-6 tie, Ahern scoring two goals and Ralph Cox of UNH three to become New England&rsquo;s all-time leader in that department. Then it was Yale falling victim, in overtime, 4-3 with Bruce Garber knocking home the winner. Gary Lawrence had tied the score for Yale with 20 seconds to play and goalie Keith Allain pulled in favor of an extra skater.Vermont lost a non-divisional game to Maine, 6-3 in Burlington. The Catamounts could still squeeze into the top eight if they can beat Boston University on the season&rsquo;s final night. UVM actually led the division at one time but has slipped since goalie Sylvain Turcotte was put out with an injury. The third period blues have settled in at Gutterson Field House after a promising early showing.Before getting into playoff madness, yours correspondent sends along these hints for All-America selections. Personally witnessed performances supplemented by scouting reports are the basis for these choices. Consider the following candidates: Goal&mdash;Terry McSweeney, Colgate and Gary Laskoski, St. Lawrence; Defense&mdash;John Slonim Brown; Lou Cote, Vermont; and Don Boyd, RPI. Forwards&mdash;Brock Tredway, Cornell; Ralph Cox and Bob Francis, UNH; Joe Mullen, BC; Dennis Murphy, Dartmouth; Craig Laughlin, Clarkson; and Marc Hetnik, BU.Coach of the Year in the East? How about Charlie Holt or George Crowe? UNH is one of those always-gotta-be-in-there teams, but nobody figures them for second with their anonymous defense and untested goalies. We all overlooked Dartmouth, a team that just got better with age. The Greenies survived a 1-5-1 stretch in late January and were still good prospects for home playoff ice. &#9632;

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‘Freakout’ Can’t Save RPI’s Season; Seven Others Battle For Last Spots

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02307/4343799-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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The College Scoreboard

<div class="byline">BY JIM SCHNEIDER</div>COLUMBUS&mdash;Two goals in the final eight minutes of the game gave Ohio State a 3-1 win over Central Collegiate Hockey Association champions Bowling Green on a busy mid-week night.While the second place OSU squad was getting its first win of the season over the Falcons, Northern Michigan was getting its first win of the year against Lake Superior to break the third place tie with the Lakers.The loss by LSSC sets up an interesting final weekend series against St. Louis University. The Billikens will be trying to continue the program on a week-by-week basis as it has already been announced that this will be the final SLU hockey team.Goaltenders Steve Jones (OSU) and Wally Charko (BG) were the top two stars in the Buckeye win with Jones making 44 saves and Charko 33.The first period in the packed OSU Ice Rink was scoreless and so was the second period until the final minute when BG freshman Brian MacLellan netted his 29th goal of the season assisted by John Markell at 19:01. OSU&rsquo;s Mark Freeman tied the game at 19:35 assisted by Paul Tilley and Dan Mandich.Greg Kostenko scored the winner at 13:18 and Steve Amoruso collected an insurance marker at 15:54.The Buckeyes will host the third place finisher in the CCHA in the first round of the playoffs, the first time in OSU history that OSU has gained home ice in the playoffs.Third place is still up for grabs, but Northern Michigan has the inside edge after the 6-2 win over Lake Superior. The win snappea a seven-game nonwinning streak for NMU coach Rick Comley against his former Lakers.NMU jumped ahead with three goals in the first period with Steve Bozek, Terry Houck and Dann McKeraghan getting the scores.The score was 4-1 after two periods as Bill Joyce and LSSC&rsquo;s Mike Ryman exchanged goals.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01362/4343837-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="475" height="625"><figcaption class="caption-body">BERNIE SAUNDERS&hellip;2nd All-Time Scorer</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02272/4343830-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="521" height="551"><figcaption class="caption-body">LARRY MARSON&hellip;5-Goal Weekend</figcaption></div>Bozek and Tim Sherry scored third period goals for the hosts, while Jamie McDonald scored for LSSC. The Lakers were frustrated by NMU&rsquo;s Steve Weeks. Weeks made 37 saves with 33 coming in the final two periods.In the other mid-week contest Western Michigan topped Ferris State 84 as Dave Berthelsen and Kelly Mitchell each had four points and Steve Banonis had two goals and two assists for the visiting Bulldogs.In weekend action in the CCHA Bowling Green became the first team in division I to reach the 30-win mark with a 6-1, 4-3 sweep at Lake Superior, Ohio State clinched second place and home ice in the playoffs with a 7-4, 6-4 sweep over St. Louis and Northern Michigan eliminated Western Michigan from the playoff picture with 8-6 and 7-6 (overtime) wins over the Broncos. In a nonleague series Ferris State swept Illinois Chicago-Circle, 7-3 and 7-6.Freshman scoring ace George McPhee scored two goals in the opener to tie the BGSU record for goals by a freshman (34) and paced BG to the win.OSU goalie Jones had a hot weekend in the OSU sweep of St. Louis collecting 70 saves and assisting on an empty net goal to clinch the second game. Jones made a save in the opener that drew a 30-second standing ovation when he kicked the puck &ldquo;Soccer style&rdquo; over his head and into the corner while he was falling into the net.Freshmen Jim Mroszak and Larry Marson were the offensive stars for Ohio State in the series with Mroszak collecting seven points (3 goals, 4 assists) on the first nine OSU goals of the weekend.Marson had three goals in the opener and added two more in the second game to end up the weekend with five goals and an assist.In the second game OSU fell behind at the start of the third period as St. Louis exploded for three goals in the first 8:06 of the frame. Rick Gazzola scored his second goal of the game at 2:18, Chris Valentine hit on a shorthanded goal at 6:39 to give SLU a 3-2 lead and Don MacNeil made it 4-2 at 8:06.Freshmen Steve Amoruso and Marson each scored twice for the final 6-4 margin with Marson taking a pass from goalie Jones for the empty netter at 19:36.In Kalamazoo the visiting NMU wildcats grabbed a 5-2 lead in the first period and never trailed. Mike Brown scored a pair of goals for WMU in a rally that cut NMU&rsquo;s lead from 7-3 to 7-6, but Steve Cloutier scored at 16:59 of the third period from Bill Joyce and Mike Mielke to insure the win.Mielke earned CCHA player-of-the-week honors with a five-goal weekend and his scoring talents proved to be the key to the sweep.Jeff Toombs paced the Ferris State sweep collecting seven points against Chicago-Circle. The Sweep avenged an earlier series between the schools in which the Chikas took a pair of 7-6 games from Ferris State in Chicago.The only team eliminated from playoff consideration heading into the final week of the season is Western Michigan (Ferris State does not qualify for post-season play in the CCHA this year.)WMU captain Bernie Saunders will not be able to advance his second place career scoring totals for the Broncos with the aid of the playoffs, the second straight year of no playoffs for the senior from Ajax, Ont.Saunders, a black, has led the Broncos in scoring all season and earlier in the season had a 10-game scoring streak which was stopped mainly by nagging injuries.Both Saunders and OSU&rsquo;s Marson, the brothers of one-time Washington Caps&rsquo; first round selection Mike Marson, have been key figures in the offense of their teams. Marson currently ranks second on his team and seventh in the league in scoring and in the early season had a 13-game scoring string. In fact, heading into the final week of action Marson had scored at least one point in 28 of the 33 games he had played in. &#9632;

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NMU Holds Inside Track For Third; Black Stars Making Offensive Mark

<div class="byline">BY RICHARD JABLONSKI</div>HAMILTON&mdash;McMaster University may well be located on the outskirts of Hamilton, Ontario, but you couldn&rsquo;t convince the Toronto Blues that the Central Division champion Marlins were not straight from Hollywood.In an upset better suited to the direction of Decil B. DeMille than to the staid Ontario Association playoffs, the prohibitive underdog Marlins rose up and eliminated Tom Watt&rsquo;s Blues with a startling 4-3 overtime victory in OUAA quarterfinal play.When Jim Wilson pulled the trigger on a 40-foot screen shot which eluded Toronto goal tender Dave Jenner 12 minutes into the sudden death tiebreaker, university coaches across Canada breathed a collective sigh of relief. Now their clubs would not gave the giant task of defeating the powerful Blues in order to capture this season&rsquo;s Canadian championship.While it was Wilson who put the finishing touches to the McMaster script, a cast of thousands, or more accurately three, set the stage for his heroics.It all started with just six seconds remaining in the first period of play, when Jack McMaster netted a key goal to match Geoff Shaw&rsquo;s earlier tally and pull Bill Mahoney&rsquo;s Marlins into a 1-1 tie at the end of one stanza.Following an Elex Jeans goal, Marlin defenseman Ray Hanske took over the show. Hanske, shunting aside the effects of a sprained wrist, evened things up on a power play goal midway through the second period. Then, after Doug Caines seemingly had won the game early in the third, Hanski scored again, this time with his goaltending teammate Jim Britton on the bench in favor of a fifth attacker, with only 15 seconds remaining.Speaking of netminder Britton, the McMaster backstop was nothing less than brilliant all night, stopping over 40 Toronto drives including clean breakaways by Shane Pearsall and Rick Tarasuk in regulation and point blank shots by Pearsall and Dan D&rsquo;Alvise in overtime.For McMaster coach Bill Mahoney, the victory may well have been the biggest thrill since he played for the Canadian champion Marlin team of 1962-63 vintage. Following the game, Mahoney was further honored, this time by his peers, when he was named OUAA coach of the year. What a way to cap off a season.McMaster now advances to play Laurentian, victorious in quarterfinal play by a 4-3 margin over the York Yeomen. Charles Hamilton with a pair of goals, Tim Stortini, and Robin Laking did the damage for the Voyageurs in that game. Roger Doree, Brian Burtchand Tony Robinson responded for York.In the west, semi-final play will match the Guelph Gryphons against the Western Mustangs. Guelph had little trouble in disposing of the Windsor Lancers 7-1, as Mike McParland broke the ice only five seconds into the game and the Gryphons never looked back.Western overcame somewhat more competitive opposition in downing Wilfrid Laurier 7-4. Jamie Conroy and Bill Smith each netted a pair of goals in the winning cause.Not surprisingly, the four semifinalists were well-represented in the coaches&rsquo; selection of divisional All Stat squads. Two Laurentian players, goaltender Lou O&rsquo;Hara and forward Lou Clements, were named to the East Division team. They were joined by defenseman Joe Grant and forward Dan D&rsquo;Alvise of Toronto, blueliner Chris Kostka of York, and forward Ron Davidson of Queen&rsquo;s.McMaster dominated the selections in the Central Division, with four All Stars: goaltender Britton, defenseman Wilson, and forwards McMaster and Tom Jaxzenkv,. Windsor defenseman Scott Hunter and forward Len Chittie rounded out the team.Out west, the cellar-dwelling Waterloo Warriors placed three men on the All Star unit: goaltender Rick Nicklechok, defenseman John Campbell, and forward Dan Langlois. Defenseman Brad Pirie and highscoring Mike McParland, both of&rsquo;Guelph, were also honoured, along with Western&rsquo;s Bill Smith.QUEBEC ASSOCIATION: Playoff action began in Quebec, with Concordia and Laval grabbing an edge in their respective semi-final series.First place Concordia came up with three goals in the final 14 minutes of play to narrowly edge McGill 7-6. The game-winner was chalked up by seldom-used forward Mike Elwood, who converted a Kim Elliott centering pass with a quick drive past Redman goaltender Mike Farmer.The Stingers were led by rookie forward Raoul Boudreau, a native of Moncton, New Brunswick. Boudreau scored a pair of goals, and threatened several times to register the hat trick.Standouts for McGill were the center ice duo of Bill Hozack and John Swan. Each scored two goals, including a shorthanded tally by Hozack.The other semi-final opener was not nearly as close, as host Laval destroyed Chicoutimi 8-0. Michel Ouellet notched the shutout for the Rouge et Or, who avenged an earlier 5-4 loss at the hands of the Inuks in the final week of regular season play.ATLANTIC ASSOCIATION: A battle is still going on in the Maritimes to determine the winner of the fourth playoff spot, with the first three slots going to Saint Mary&rsquo;s, Dalhousie, and (surprise) Moncton.It was a red-letter week for Moncton fans, as their Aigles Bleus swept a trio of games and clinched a playoff berth with a 10-8-2 record. Moncton began the week with a 14-7 drubbing of New Brunswick, led by the league&rsquo;s topscoring defenseman Michel Bechard who scored twice and added five assists for good measure.Victory number two came at the expense of the Prince Edward Island Panthers, 8-3. Francois Bessetts drew five assists in the winning cause, giving him an astounding total of 39 points in 12 regular season games.The Blue Eagles made it a six point week with a 3-1 win over Mount Allison. Guy Castilloux, Denis Rochon and John Schnob scored for Moncton, while rookie sensation Kevin Foran responded for Mount A.The three teams battling for fourth place, Acadia, Saint Francis Xavier, and UPEI, all have 17 points. Acadia dropped a pair of games: to Saint Mary&rsquo;s 6-2 and to Dalhousie 6-4. Saint FX lost its lone game of the week, 4-3 to SMU, while UPEI was stung by Moncton.The remaining schedule favors UPEI, which has a pair of games coming up against last place New Brunswick. Saint FX and Acadia face each other twice, after which the X-Men will play Dalhousie. Any deadlock between UPEI and Saint FX will go to the Panthers, as they took both regular season games between the two teams.CANADA WEST ASSOCIATION: There were no surprises in the western part of the nation this week, unless you call an overtime victory for the Alberta Golden Bears a surprise.The Bears were pushed to the limit by Saskatchewan in a 4-3 OT decision, but nonetheless came away with the two points. Dave Hindmarch was the hero for the Bears in that one, notching a hat trick including the overtime marker.Earlier, Alberta had played more to form in drubbing Saskatchewan 9-3. Forward Jim Causgrove, with three goals and two assists led the Golden Bears in the rout.Elsewhere, second place Calgaty decisioned British Columbia twice, 11-4 and 7-4. Defenseman Rick Williams did his Bobby Orr imitiation in the first game with four goals and two assists. Forwards Jim Nill and Derek Spring each scored a pair in the second game. &#9632;

McMaster Stuns Toronto With Early Elimination

LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and Canada<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02286/4343916-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="590" height="937"></div> &#9632;

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Where AHL Teams Play

<div class="byline">BY JIM LEAHY</div>NEW HAVEN&mdash;The hottest team in the American Hockey League, the New Haven Nighthawks has been sold to Michael Schiavone and Sons of North Haven, CT. for a reported $250,000. The new owner has negotiated a lease with the Veterans Memorial Coliseum which will run through 1983. Schiavone is a well-respected figure in local hockey circles and has purchased a team that has the best record in the AHL along with a solid working agreement with the New York Rangers.New Haven continued to roar through the rest of the league. They have won six of their last seven and went undefeated during the week. The Nighthawks beat Rochester and Binghamton twice, Hershey and Philadelphia once, and lost to the Dusters 7-3 in Binghamton. In between they skated to a 4-4 tie with the parent New York Rangers before a SRO crowd in Hawthorne, New York.Three players were deleted from the New Haven roster during the week. Goaltender Doug Soetaert went back to the Rangers, as did winger Don Maloney, who joined his brother, Dave, the team&rsquo;s captain. Bobby Sheehan is still out with a broken hand.NEW BRUNSWICK: The Hawks received some much needed help recently when Bob &ldquo;Battleship&rdquo; Kelly was sent to them by the parent Chicago Black Hawks. Winger Jean Savard was brought up to the NHL club at the same time.Kelly will provide New Brunswick with the muscle they need to protect their small but speedy wingers. The Hawks are perhaps the best skating club in the AHL but have been taking their lumps in the corners and in front of the net. Bob Kelly may change all of that.Due to a strange quirk in the schedule, New Brunswick was only in action three times during the last two weeks. They skated to a 3-3 tie with Nova Scotia in Moncton, beat Maine 32 also at home and tied the Mariners 6-6 in another game played at the Moncton Coliseum. Maine still held on to their slim two-point lead over the Hawks in the battle for the Northern division top spot, but New Brunswick is gearing up for a wild finish.SPRINGFIELD: Coach Pete Stemkowski&rsquo;s Indians are mounting a serious challenge to third place Nova Scotia and they could soon overtake the Voyageurs with the four games they have in hand. Springfield has only lost one of their last seven games and are only six points out of a playoff berth.During the week the Tribe lost 3-2 to arch-rival Nova Scotia, beat Hershey 62, edged the Bears 5-3 back in Springfield, skated to a 4-4 tie with Rochester and blanked Philadelphia 40.The club signed defensemen Peter Brown and Bob Sunderland to contracts for the balance of the season.In recent games, the Indians have been getting some excellent goaltending from Lome Molleken and Maurice Barrette and clutch scoring from Hartland Monahan. Andre Peloffy and Monahan pace the Springfield offense, while Molleken has a 3.13 GAA to lead the goaltending corps.ROCHESTER: Coach Pat Kelly&rsquo;s Amerks are winless in their last seven games, but amazingly are still tied with Hershey for third place in the Southern Division. They lost to Binghamton, Philadelphia and New Haven during the week, a 4-4 tie at Springfield being the only bright spot.Right winger Tom Songin did return from the Bruins which should add some offense. However, the Amerks have given up 232 goals in 54 games which clearly points out their major problem.Bobby Orr will make a personal appearance at the Rochester War Memorial on March 30 when the New Brunswick Hawks skate into the auditorium. His appearance will help a fund-raising drive for the International Special Olympics to be held at Brockport, New York this summer.Peter Smits, International Special Olympics director, announced that veteran defenseman Brian Watson may also be in Rochester with Bobby Orr on March 30.MAINE: Goldtender Rick St. Croix was sent to Tulsa of the Central Hockey League and center Dave Baulkner is on the injured list, but the Mariners are still tops in the Northern division. Center Bernie Johnston leads the AHL in scoring and the Mariners have the best defensive record in the league. Only New Haven has a better overall record.During the week the Mariners lost 3-2 in New Brunswick. 2-1 in Nova Scotia and skated to a 6-6 tie with the Hawks back in Moncton.The club will conduct their second annual Maine Mariners Wive&rsquo;s Carnival next week. The proceeds will go to the Pine Tree Society for Crippled Children to support their summer camp. Last year more than $4,500 was raised in such events as the Mariner Dunk Tank, the pie-throwing booth and Beat the Goalie.PHILADELPHIA: The Firebirds are 2-4-1 over the last two weeks but are still in last place in the Sourthern division. Last week they dropped three of four, a 2-1 win over Rochester at the Civic Center being the only ray of light in an otherwise bleak picture.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03189/4343954-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="548" height="663"><figcaption class="caption-body">LORNE MOLLEKEN&hellip;Backstopping Indians</figcaption></div>Left winger Paul Stewart is once again back with Cincinnati of the WHA and the Firebirds have signed Hank Nowak and Terry West to AHL contracts after both successfully passed their trial period.Gordie Brooks and Bob Collyard pace the Firebird scoring attack and Peter Jack has 186 penalty minutes, but the &lsquo;Birds have not been able to keep up with the rest of the AHL this season.NOVA SCOTIA: Center Gary MacGregor has been signed to a pro try out contract by the Voyageurs and the Vees also got winger Dave Lumley back from Montreal. Unfortunately, defenseman Jean Lemieux is injured.The Vees beat Philadelphia 4-3, Springfield 3-2 and Binghamton 6-5. Maine handed them a 2-1 defeat in Halifax in an overtime contest, but the club is still struggling to keep above the .500 mark This season after being an AHL powerhouse for several years.HERSHEY: A I-4-1 record during the last two weeks has prevented the Bears from moving closer to second place Binghamton. They have four games in hand on the Dusters, but trail by seven points at this writing.The Bears also have a new interim coach in Fred Stanfield, who replaced Chuck Hamilton after the club decided it was time for a coaching change.BINGHAMTON: Left wingers Jim Hamilton and Tony Cassolato have been added from Pittsburgh and Birmingham, and the Dusters also received defenseman Brent Hughes from the Bulls.The new players did not help too much as the Dusters lost three of four. They beat Rochester easily 8-3 on home ice but lost 5-4 in New Haven, by the same score back in Binghamton to the Nighthawks and were edged 6-5 in Nova Scotia.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-04109/4343947-1-eng-US/f0032-042.jpg" title="f0032-04" width="517" height="661"><figcaption class="caption-body">BOB COLLYARD&hellip;Can&rsquo;t Lift &lsquo;Birds</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0032-03

New Owner Purchases Nighthawks, Rink Lease

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-02251/4343985-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="523" height="626"></div> &#9632;

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Where CHL Teams Play

<div class="byline">BY TOM LOBAUGH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01341/4344016-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="485" height="719"><figcaption class="caption-body">DANNYGRUEN&hellip;Scored Every Game</figcaption></div>KANSAS CITY&mdash;Mai Davis waited only 10 seconds of the overtime period to clinch his hat trick and give the rallying Red Wings a 5-4 verdict over the Tulsa Oilers, as the Kansas Citians fought back from a four-goal deficit.The speedy 22-year-old right wing had ignited the KC comeback early in the third period, after Tulsa had forged a 40 lead in the first two frames. Rick Vasko and Danny Gruen had further narrowed the deficit, then Davis fired the tying tally at 12:25 of the third, setting up his overtime winner. The three goals gave Mai 31, regaining the league lead in that department.Davis, a Lockeport, Nova Scotia product who played for the University of Alberta, was invited to the Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; rookie camp last fall, and impressed the brass with his speed and shooting. He was signed to a pro contract, and sent to Kansas City to open the season. The parent club called him up for a three-game look in December.&ldquo;Mai had been struggling for a while&rdquo;, KC coach Larry Wilson observed. &ldquo;When he was on a line with Bjorn Skaare, they were really going great. Those two controlled the puck most of the time they were on the ice.&ldquo;But after Skaare broke his nose, for the second time this season, Davis was having trouble. I put him on a line with Larry Wright at center, and in the third period they finally got going.&ldquo;Tulsa played two periods and we played the last one,&rdquo; Wilson said of the comeback victory. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s been our trouble so often this year, we haven&rsquo;t put three good periods together.&rdquo;That was evident in the Wings&rsquo; play earlier in the week. They had a 3-1 lead after one period in Dallas, then succumbed, 10-3. They came back from a 4-1 deficit against Fort Worth at home, but eventually lost, 5-4.Gruen, Ted Nolan and Vasko did the early scoring against Dallas. But the Hawks then took complete charge behind Steve Hazlett&rsquo;s four-goal performance.Against Fort Worth, Gruen scored in the first period; Fern LeBlanc, Sylvain Locas and Steve Short in the second, then John Taft managed a short-lived tie in the third.The Saturday victory enabled Kansas City to stay tied with Dallas for second place, three points ahead of Fort Worth, but 17 back of front-running Salt Lake.Detroit returned defenseman Lorry Gloeckner. But Skaare, the Norwegian import, headed back to Europe after suffereing a broken nose for the second time in two months.SALT LAKE: Terry Richardson&rsquo;s record-breaking streak of shutout goaltending came to an end when Oklahoma City&rsquo;s Peter Shier scored at 14:46 of the second period in the Salt Palace, Feb. 16. The string had encompassed 239 minutes, 48 seconds, interrupted by a 13-day layoff with a sprained knee. The old CHL record was 192.56 by Roy Edwards for Fort Worth in 1967-68.Chuck Arnason of the OC Stars who had been the last to score on Richardson, late in the first period of a 4-1 Eagle victory, Jan. 20. Since then, Terry had shut out Kansas City (4-0) and Fort Worth (3-0), and had worked 41 scoreless minutes against Tulsa before having to leave because of his injury. The Eagles went on to win that one, 71.Floyd Thomson had personally built a 3-0 lead before Richardson&rsquo;s shutout string was ended, and the Birds had no difficulty winning the game, 5-1. They completed the sweep with a 9-2 rout of the Stars the next night, with Bob Hess providing a hat trick. The victories expanded Salt Lake&rsquo;s first-place margin to 17 points over Dallas and Kansas City, who were tied for second.Thomson scored at 1:01 and 15:53 of the first period, and clinched the hat trick 51 seconds into the middle period of the Friday victory. Rick Bourbonnais and Gordie McTavish completed the Eagle scoring in the third.The victories gave the Eagles five straight at home and eight games without defeat, but they were to embark on a four-game road swing. Richardson ran his unbeaten streak to 10 games (90-1), breaking a franchise record set by Ray Martyniuk in 1974-75 and led the league&rsquo;s goaltenders on a 2.34 average. Doug Grant, who worked the second game against OC, was runnerup at 2.51.OKLAHOMA CITY: It was all bad news for Ted Hampson&rsquo;s Stars. After losing a pair, 5-1 and 9-2, in Salt Lake, they came home to drop an overtime game to Fort Worth, 4-3. With four straight losses, the OC crew dropped to fifth place, one point behind Fort Worth in the battle for the last playoff spot.Personnel shortages continued. Goalie Jim Warden hurried to California for his sister&rsquo;s funeral, leaving the Stars with no backup for Pete LoPresti. Rookie center Mike Eaves missed the whole week with a bruised shoulder, and fell out of the league scoring leadership. And defenseman Jim McKenny was still out with a sprained wrist.Angie Moretto was the only experienced center. Coach Ted Hampson moved himself and winger Chuck Arnason to that spot.TULSA: Kurt Walker&rsquo;s four-goal spree enabled the Oilers to post their third straight home victory, something they hadn&rsquo;t achieved all season. Kurt sparked a 9-4 triumph over Dallas, following a 7-4 romp over Fort Worth.The Oilers then charged into Kansas City Saturday, and took a 4-0 lead in the first two periods. But they forgot to play that kind of hockey in the third, and the Wings prevailed in overtime, 54.The Oilers just couldn&rsquo;t stop scoring in the two previous games. They gave Fort Worth a two-goal led in the first period, then roared back with four of their own in the second. Rick Hodgson, Craig Patrick, Mike Penasse and Walker did the damage. Jim MacRae had a goal in the third, and Guy Lash added the last two.Walker, who used to consider three goals a season&rsquo;s production, counted two in the first period and two more early in the second, wrapping up his &ldquo;Texas hat trick&rdquo; in barely 25 minutes. Before the second period was over, Patrick had scored two shorthanded goals on the same Oiler penalty. MacRae had two goals in the last period, around one by Brian Hill. The torrid line of Lash at center, MacRae at left wing and Walker at right wing, had 10 goals in two nights.DALLAS: The Black Hawks would like to rent an apartment for Steve Hazlett&rsquo;s parents to stay in Dallas the rest of the season. Steve&rsquo;s folks came down from Stony Creek, Ont., in time to see him get a hat trick against Kansas City in November. And they were in Fair Park Coliseum again to watch the young left wing collect four goals in a 10-3 rout of those same Red Wings, Feb. 15.Things didn&rsquo;t go as well on the road, as the Hawks bowed, 9-4, in Tulsa the next night. But they came home to beat Fort Worth, 4-0, as Curt Ridley posted the club&rsquo;s second shutout of the campaign.&ldquo;Stumpy&rdquo; Hazlett had power play goals in the first and second periods against KC, as the Hawks fought back from a 3-1 deficit. He scored an evenstrength goal 17 seconds after his second tally, and capped the big night with a shorthanded goal before the second period closed.It was the Hawks&rsquo; second straight 10-goal performance, as they had manhandled Tulsa, 10-5, four nights earlier. But the Oilers got revenge, 9-4, when coach John Muckier and the Hawks invaded the Assembly Center, Feb. 16.The parent Canucks also called up right wing Don Kozak, but sent down forwards Callender, Rick Blight and Rob Flockhart. Edmonton of the WHA returned defenseman Cal Sandbeck, giving Muckier four blueliners for the first time in a month.FORT WORTH: The Texans welcomed back center Richie Hansen, their 30-goal and 25-goal scorer the past two seasons, from the New York Islanders, and were notified veteran defenseman Neil Nicholson would come to Fort Worth on his return from Europe at the end of February.Billy MacMillan&rsquo;s men managed a break-even week on the road, losing in Tulsa (7-4), winning in Kansas City (65), losing in Dallas (4-0) and winning in Oklahoma City (4-3 in overtime). &#9632;

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Consistency Still Wings’ Problem; Hat Tricks Common Occurrence

LOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and CanadaLOUISVILLEHOCKEY STICKSMade in Canada by HILLERICH & BRADSBY, LTD Arnold Street, Wallaceburg, Ontario Sold in U.S. and Canada<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01372/4344047-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="544" height="803"></div> &#9632;

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Where IHL Teams Play

<div class="byline">BY BUD GALLMEIER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02304/4344078-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="483" height="877"><figcaption class="caption-body">DAN MCCARTHY&hellip;Two-Goal Game</figcaption></div>FLINT&mdash;The All Star break didn&rsquo;t rob the high-flying Grand Rapids Owls of any momentum. Nor did it break the winning continuity of the streaking Flint Generals. Both teams are undefeated since the league took a couple of days off for the 25th All Star game in Saginaw.For the Owls, the streak has opened up a 12-point bulge over second-place Fort Wayne in the South Division race. For Flint, it has stamped them as contenders again in the North.The Generals actually are the hottest club in the nine-team circuit at this juncture. Two straight victories since the All Star game has boosted their current undefeated string to seven games. When the recent surge began, Flint was a distant 19 points behind first-place Saginaw. That margin has shrunk to 13. Third-place Kalamazoo is just seven points away and second-place Port Huron has a nine-point bulge on the Generals.Flint can cut deeper into Saginaw&rsquo;s lead in the immediate future as a key game with the Gears at home is next on the agenda. Then follows a two-week road trip embracing six games. Coach Marc Boileau believes his club will be ready for that difficult challenge.Flint has played with confidence and discipline during the streak and Boileau is confident the trend will continue.The unbeaten streak hit seven with victories over Milwaukee, 6-2, and Fort Wayne, 6-3. Gerry Leroux and Dan McCarthy each bagged a pair of goals in the Milwaukee triumph. Pierre Giroux led the attack against Fort Wayne with five points. Brian Ellacot hit for two goals and now has gone 12 straight games picking up points, including 13 goals over the last 11 games.Grand Rapids marked its return to action by ending a season-long jinx in Kalamazoo with a 6-3 triumph. It marked the first points the Owls had gathered in Wing Stadium this season.Victories over Muskegon, 4-2, and Milwaukee, 5-0, followed. Gordie Laxton performed in the nets for all three wins and the shutout&mdash;his second&mdash;lowered his league-leading average to 2.99. The Owls have eight of their next 10 games at hand&mdash;a schedule which could see the current margin over Fort Wayne grow considerably. The Komets are one of the teams the Owls will entertain during the home stand. A sellout is already assured. Elsewhere:SAGINAW: The Gears are facing &ldquo;a very important part of their schedule,&rdquo; according to coach Don Perry. The balance of the February schedule has the Gears meeting all North Division rivals. Their current lead over second place Port Huron is just four points.The Gears managed to hang on to their slim lead despite a disappointing week. They dropped a pair including a 6-3 decision to Muskegon at home which was the Mohawks&rsquo; first road victory of the season.Saginaw also took a 10-2 bombing at Port Huron while squeezing out a 5-4 victory over Fort Wayne on the second of Marcel Comeau&rsquo;s two goals.PORT HURON: An 18-goal explosion featured consecutive home victories over North Division rivals Saginaw and Kalamazoo to highlight a 2-1-0 week for the Flags. In the lone loss, the Flags were mistreated by the K-Wings in a return match, 6-3.Wes Jarvis, Larry Gould, Qennis Houle and Jim Gustafson each had two-goal games in the 10-2 romp over the Gears. Serge Menard scored the hat trick as the Flags whipped Kalamazoo, 8-2.KALAMAZOO: The K-Wings did better at the box office than on the ice. The season&rsquo;s largest crowd, 4,593, showed up as the K-Wings entertained North Division power Grand Rapids. Kalamazoo played the perfect host, dropping a 6-3 verdict.The week wasn&rsquo;t a total loss however. After dropping an 8-2 decision in Port Huron, the K-Wings got even in a rematch at home, 6-3. Port Huron had 12 power play opportunities but could convert just two. There were 40 penalties in the game for a total of 120 minutes.MUSKEGON: There was good news and bad news for the Mohawk fans.First, the good news. The Mohawks ended a season of frustration on the road by upsetting North Division leader Saginaw, 6-3. And while it was the lone win of the week, the Mohawks&rsquo; performance in the other two reflected promise of better days ahead.Grand Rapids had to go all out to edge the Mohawks,4-2, and Milwaukee needed a late goal for an 8-7 triumph.The bad news? Randy Wyrozub, a veteran of 100 NHL games with Buffalo, was ruled ineligible for IHL play by commissioner Frank Gallagher after scoring four goals in three games. He was responsible for the win at Saginaw with the hat trick.Wyrozub was a reinstated pro&mdash;or an exemption player by IHL rules. And the Mohawks already had their allotment of exemptions.FORT WAYNE: The Komets dropped a pair of games on the road and slipped 12 points behind Grand Rapids. The two losses on the road followed a loss to Toledo at home which gives the Komets a three-game losing streak&mdash;longest of the season.Coach Moose Lallo, who lost promising rookie Gerry Minor to Dallas of the Central League, welcomed the return of Dave Morrow, a defenseman-forward. Morrow was with the Komets earlier but left to join Indianapolis.Lallo hopes a favorable schedule, five of the next seven games are at home, will propel the Komets back on GrandRapids&rsquo; heels in the South Division chase.TOLEDO: A rare schedule quirk had the Diggers in action just once during the week&mdash;and idle on the weekend. The lone assignment was a road trip at Milwaukee and the Diggers came off with a 5-5 tie. The stalemate preserved the Diggers&rsquo; recent near-perfect record on the road. They have lost just once in the last nine games.MILWAUKEE: The Admirals returned from a two-game road trip to squeeze out an 8-7 triumph over hapless Muskegon. The road trip was fruitless, the Admirals losing at Flint, 6-2, and at Grand Rapids 5-0. A 5-5 tie with Toledo at home opened the week. Milwaukee has slipped 16 points behind third-place Toledo in the South Division race with its 14-29-9 record. &#9632;

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