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.

May 18, 1984

The Hockey News May 16, 1984

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IN THIS ISSUE

FINAL OHL THREE-STAR STANDINGS

<h2>June</h2>In our next issue, which will be out in the first week of June, we&rsquo;ll wrap up coverage on this spring&rsquo;s Stanley Cup playoffs, giving you some insights as to why one team won and one team lost. We&rsquo;ll also have The Terrific Trivia contest, a chance for our readers to test their hockey knowledge and win a cash prize in the process. And it&rsquo;ll be time to announce the two finalists in each of the eight HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; awards categories. Last, but not least, we&rsquo;ll have a special section on the Molson-NHL Slo-Pitch Challenge, an annual event that shows another side of pro hockey players and helps charity, too. Don&rsquo;t miss it.<h2>July 1</h2>This issue, which will be out in the last week of June, will chronicle the ins and outs of the NHL entry draft. We&rsquo;ll have complete coverage, including a full rundown on each team&rsquo;s draft selections. Don&rsquo;t miss it. &#9632;

COMING SOON IN THN

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011043/4930990-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="286" height="337"></div><h2>The Intriguing Ones</h2>ONE OF THE most fascinating aspects of the National Hockey League topography is its flora and fauna; mostly the fauna, those characters who people the ice menagerie.We have some whackos and some winners; a handful of geniuses and an equal number of jerks. So, without further ado let us get on with Fischler&rsquo;s Most Intriguing Hockey People Of 1984.BILL SMITH: Because the Islander goalie intimidates more writers than anyone in hockey, they have grown to resent him and never come to know or understand one of the most honest people in the business.&ldquo;Smitty is very gracious,&rdquo; says sportscaster Bill Mazer, who has known the netminder since he broke in.He is one of the best at diagnosing the game and takes second place to no one in the candor department. Compared to Smith, Ken Dryden is a three-dollar bill.TIGER WILIAMS: Anyone who is so dedicated he&rsquo;ll do a radio show from a telephone booth outside the Queens-Midtown Tunnel has to be special. Like him or not, Tiger&rsquo;s old-time values (women should stay out of dressing rooms), give him the deliciously antique stamp of the 1940s. He would have fit in perfectly with the 1947 Toronto Maple Leaf Cup-winners. 1 also like the fact that he worships Harold Ballard.WAYNE GRETZKY: I wonder whether Wayne Gretzky will ever permit us to see into the real Wayne Gretzky. Until then we must be content with occasional slips of the tongue (&ldquo;The Mickey Mouse Devils&rdquo;) and basic banal comments. That, however, is overshadowed by his relentless pursuit of bigger and better goals and assists, not to mention a fascinating immunity to headhunters, shadows and assorted other hazards.One of his detractors, Joe Fitzgerald of the Boston Globe, says Gretzky couldn&rsquo;t hold Bobby Orr&rsquo;s stick.&ldquo;Gretzky,&rdquo; says Fitz, &ldquo;is 1980&rsquo;s plastic.&rdquo;HAROLD BALLARD: If baseball can have a Steinbrenner, hockey should have a Ballard. Considering that he&rsquo;s a diabetic who consumes vast amounts of chocolates and is an 80-year-old who acts 18, Pal Hal has some very interesting secrets locked in that orange-covered head. Of course, none of them are on how to win hockey games and that explains why the Maple Leafs have set major league hockey back light years in Toronto.SCOTTY MORRISON: One thing the boss of referees does well is smile a lot. If I was pulling in $100,000 a year I&rsquo;d grin and bear it too. What makes this cat so fascinating is his ability to remain caretaker of the zebras for umpteen years as the quality of officiating descends from subterranean to Red Chinese. Apart from explaining what a terrific job the refs do, what else does Scotty Morrison do?HERB BROOKS: A money machine. A super-bazooka salesman. A plotter. A professor of puckmanship. A motivator. Ah, but is he a genius? If he is so smart and sharp and sensational, how come his Rangers keep finishing fourth and Herbie winds up without the cigar? The statute of limitations will be running out on Herbie-as-a-hero next spring. Until then, he remains one of the most challenging undefinable figures in the NHL.BOBBY CLARKE: Behind the All-Canadian-American man-boy exterior lurks an exceptionally intelligent and influential personality, particularly when it comes to influencing the course of the Philadelphia Flyers. It is said that Clarke will ultimately become general manager of the Broad Street Bunch and until then will remain a minister-with-a-stick-but-without-portfolio. In any event, if you have any business with the Flyers, don&rsquo;t cross Clarke.SCOTTY BOWMAN: There are few so amiable (to me) hockey figures I know who are so intensely reviled by others in the business. The man clearly grates players and certain members of the media more than any I know.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see him that much,&rdquo; says Buffalo News sports editor Larry Felser, &ldquo;but most people find him brusque, rude and a bully. When a fellow acts that way and he&rsquo;s a manager, he&rsquo;d better win a helluva lot.&rdquo;Curiously, Bowman usually favors out-of-town writers rather than his Buffalo media. It is all part of the Bowman psyche that has not been clearly defined by anyone, not even Tony McKegney, possibly his worst enemy.BILL WIRTZ: In no other major sport is there a league leader with more power yet less visibility than the boss of the Black Hawks and the even-bigger-boss of the NHL board room. Bill Wirtz inherited the throne from his father, Arthur Wirtz, and has orchestrated the governors corps adroitly and with aplomb. He has arranged a contented co-existence with unior leader Al Eagleson and his employee, NHL president John Ziegler. His father helped save the NHL in the early &lsquo;50s and he helped ressurrect the Black Hawks in the &lsquo;80s and these facts have not gone unnoticed by his less mighty colleagues.CHICO RESCH: For sheer volume and common sense, the Resch monologues are the best around. Chico could give you a half-hour&rsquo;s worth on the meaning of the Vancouver Canuck uniforms. Resch is on both ends of a tragic-comic pointcounterpoint. He is one of hockey&rsquo;s best goalies of his time, playing in front of one of the NHL&rsquo;s worst team of all time and in that sense is a sorrowful figure and one who might curtail his career before its time. Until then, he remains a tonic for the ice game.DON CHERRY: Grapes has been rumored as coach of more NHL teams than he has money in the bank, which is considerable. Rumors, schumors. Cherry laughs at them. There aren&rsquo;t enough hours for his television work, commercials and speaking engagements, placing him among the most visible Canadian personalities. And you know why?&ldquo;He hasn&rsquo;t changed,&rdquo; says his guru Gerry Patterson. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the same on-camera as he is off-camera. He&rsquo;s incredibly honest and its shows. Those 526 lines on the screen don&rsquo;t lie. The thing with Don is that when he says something to an audience, he never needs the preamble others use, &lsquo;To tell you the truth.&rsquo;&rdquo;TOM BARRASSO: If this kid gets any better as a goalie, or more arrogant as an interview, he will win the Insufferable Award for the half-century. Nevertheless, his bravado is beautiful and his arrogance&mdash;except when he addresses female New York hockey writers&mdash;is appealing. The pity is that he wasn&rsquo;t given the chance to play all of the Sabres&rsquo; playoff games. Had he dropped three in a row it would have been neat to examine Barrasso under those conditions.LOU VAIRO: Never in hockey history has a coach been booted so fast and so far out of the limelight as the erstwhile leader of the American Olympians. During his year in the sun, Vario was unfailingly a charmer, cooperative and informative. During his devastating demise, he remained a class act. What remains equally interesting is the adventures of Vario from here to 1985. Is he over the hump or over the hill?MARCEL AUBUT: Not since the antideluvian days of the early &lsquo;20s when Leo Dandurand ruled the Canadiens has a French-Canadian amassed such behind-the-scenes power. Au-but, who runs the Nordiques, hammered home the concept of regular season sudden-death overtime and will confront his colleagues on the board of governors with other surprises this spring. Of all the nouveau governors who made the jump from the WHA, Aubut is not only the most powerful but also ranks not far behind Wirtz.GLEN SATHER: Nobody can top Slats when it comes to giving someone a hard time with a heavy dose of arrogance and anger. On the other hand, he is often charming, courteous, kind and considerate. It all depends on how he feels you have treated him. For years I was among those who felt like punching him in the nose twice a month, but in the past year I&rsquo;ve gotten to enjoy his act. Sather not only has co-existed deftly with Gretzky, he has obtained the most possible value from his prime asset.Yet, the anti-Satherites are available to cast the demurrer. I ask some Edmonton writers about Sather and they see a similarity between the Oiler GM and Scotty Bowman: brusque, rude and a bully, they say. Another media type, Ray Turchansky of the Edmonton Journal, puts Sather in another interesting perspective.&ldquo;He treats the media on two levels. Sather&rsquo;s good with the best guys (Jim Matheson, Dick Chubey) but the rest he doesn&rsquo;t have too much time for, they&rsquo;re shuffled off to John Muckier.&rdquo;Adds Journal sports editor Marc Horton: &ldquo;Sather can be fairly candid. He doesn&rsquo;t doubletalk his way around things.&rdquo; The bottom line is not to cross him or you&rsquo;ll be involved in a 50-year war.BERNIE NICHOLLS: Armed with his camel hair coat and movie star sunglasses, Nicholls has made the perfect transition from Haliburton, Ont., hick to Hollywood hotshot. If you don&rsquo;t believe it, ask him.&ldquo;You can go to the beach. The sun is shining. You don&rsquo;t have to worry about your car not starting. When you&rsquo;re young and single, you&rsquo;ve got to have fun. Here you can make up for not winning all the time. You&rsquo;re not playing for the Stanley Cup.&rdquo; No, Bernie baby, you&rsquo;re just playing!AL EAGLESON: Just when it seems as if the Eagle will become a bore, he sizzles into still another controversy, is threatened by a when-will-it-be-published Sports Illustrated expose, masterminds the Canada Cup, blasts away at the eternal critics and proves that he&rsquo;s the longest-running good act the hockey media has had since 1967.AL STRACHAN-BILL HOUSTON: These Toronto Globe and Mail writers are entered as a team. Unlike their mooncalf colleagues on the Starand Sun, Strachan-Houston exhumed the Maple Leaf mess, infuriated Ballard and his flunky, Gerry McNamara, and got themselves booted out of the dressing room, press box, etc. They received no help from the jerks who call themselves colleagues and they suffered through the season until Ballard finally lifted the ban. Now Houston is writing a book about Pal Hal which should be even more intriguing. &#9632;

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ON THE CONTRARY

<div class="byline">BY RICK MAYOH</div>Louisville Hockey<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01516/4931565-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="284" height="203"></div>LONGUEUIL&mdash;If Mario Lemieux and Co. make it to the Memorial Cup, it will have taken a monumental effort. The reason? Because the Chevaliers wanted to be there just as badly and weren&rsquo;t about to surrender without a tough fight.The best-of-seven Quebec Major Junior Hockey League final was tied at two games apiece as this series was going to press.After a 54-16 season, it appeared as though the big, powerful Voisins could book rooms in Kitchener for the Cup before the playoffs began. But the small, speedy Chevaliers refused to give up.As Longueuil coach Mario Bazinet said of his team&rsquo;s performance in the QMJHL: &ldquo;Everybody expected Laval to be in the final but I don&rsquo;t think very many people expected to see us here.&rdquo;Still, the fourth-place Chevaliers faced a much more difficult task upsetting the runaway pennant-winners than it did eliminating last season&rsquo;s regular-season champion Laval in the semi-finals.Without a doubt, the main weapon in the Voisin arsenal is Lemieux, the 6-foot-4, 200-pound offensive machine and the favorite to go first in the National Hockey League entry draft June 9.&ldquo;Lemieux is at least 75 per cent of Laval&rsquo;s team,&rdquo; said Bazinet.The percentages vary among other league coaches but all rate him high.Lemieux averaged more than four points a game while re-writing the league record book, scoring six goals and five assists in the last game of the schedule to wind up with 133 goals and 149 assists for 282 points&mdash;surpassing Guy Lafleur and Pierre Larouche in goals and total points, respectively.The slick center has an excellent shot and achieved a pro and major junior record by scoring at least a point in his fust 61 games. He moved ahead of Mike Bossy into second place on the league&rsquo;s career total points list with 562. Normand Dupont leads with 568.Lemieux led playoff scorers with 21 goals and 20 assists in 12 games, but was limited to six goals and seven assists in the first four games of the final. Laval is one of the biggest teams in the league and has enjoyed great success working the comers.While Lemieux is the big band in the Voisins&rsquo; explosive offense, there are numerous other detonators such as Jacques Goyette (76-93-169), Francois Sills (56-73-129) and Yves Courteau (45-75120), who finished second, sixth and 10th, respectively, in league scoring. Alain Bisson (31-82-113) and Michel Mongeau (45-49-94) likely would have remained in the top 10 but suffered shoulder injuries.Laval&rsquo;s defense is big and physical with Bobby Delias, a first-round pick of Winnipeg in &lsquo;83, Rene Badeau, a second-rounder of Chicago, Steve Woodburn, a 12th-round choice of Edmonton, Michel Caron and Steve Finn. All stand at least six feet and weigh 180 or more. Rich Kokila, possibly the most underrated Voisin, is the smallest at 5-foot-10, 175 pounds.The club has six first-round midget picks in Lemieux, Courteau (Detroit second-rounder traded to Calgary), Dollas, Badeau, Finn and Vincent Dam-phousse.Goaltender Tony Haladuick, 5-foot-10, 167 pounds, has won the Jacques Plante Trophy with the lowest goals-against average the last two seasons. His average from January to the playoffs was 2.98.But the Chevaliers have been able to take advantage of the Voisin penalties and Laval&rsquo;s biggest weakness likely is the lack of mobility on defense, where there is no clear-cut quarterback. Haladuick is a butterfly-style goaltender who can have problems with consistency and rebounds. Backup Carl Parker is inexperienced.Longueuil has gone a long way on hard work, discipline and team play. Their main strength is up the middle with center Guy Rouleau (60-74-134), Santino Pellegrino (52-72-124) and Joe Mercuri. Rouleau and Pellegrino were fifth and eighth, respectively, in league scoring and Bazinet said Pellegrino is the fastest skater in the league.Jean Bourgeois has been a big surprise with his two-way play and Ruggles, Mr. April, has come up with numerous timely goals. Jean Jacques Daigneault, Pellegrino, Rouleau, Ruggles and Bourgeois work a dangerous power play while Mercuri, Bourgeois, Pellegrino and Franco lammatteo are effective penalty-killers.Their defense is slick and quick, anchored by Canadian Olympian Daigneault, who is expected to go in the first round in June. Daigneault has struggled since the Olympics but appeared to have hit his stride in the final.The Chevaliers may lack the leadership provided by Laval&rsquo;s veterans but 5-foot-9, 185-pound defenseman Luc Gauthier, one of the hardest hitters in the league, and captain Alain Tousignant, a 5-foot-11 195-pound right winger, get things going.Defenseman Graham Herring, 18 didn&rsquo;t make the team last year but has two goals and 19 assists in the playoffs. But Longueuil&rsquo;s defense is small enough that it has problems in front of its own net.The Chevaliers don&rsquo;t have the Voisins&rsquo; depth, going with three lines and four defensemen to Laval&rsquo;s four lines and six defensemen, but they make up for it with aggressive checking both ways.There is little playoff experience in net with 18-year-olds Dan Savoie and Marti Plante. Savoie played one period las&rsquo; year when the game was out of reach. But both have been strong in the playoffs and are pretty well interchangeable.Rouleau (8-21-29), Ruggles (12-1521), Pellegrino (10-15-25), Bourgeois&rsquo; (13-10-23), Herring (2-19-21) and Mercuri (7-13-20) give the Chevaliers&rsquo; six players in the top 10 in playoff scoring, though Longueuil has played three games more than Laval.<h2>Memorial Cup Dates</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02384/4931558-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="1195" height="706"></div> &#9632;

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Lemieux Is Key To Laval’s Mighty Offense

<div class="image-hero"><img title="cover" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover29/4932574-1-eng-US/cover2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div>NHL ENTRY DRAFT SPECIALTHE FRANCHISE: Pittsburgh Gears Up For Mario LemieuxTHE FRANCHISE: Denis Potvin Tops List Of No. 1 PicksIt&rsquo;s A Rematch: Oilers Vs. Islanders&mdash;age 13Previewing Kitchener&rsquo;s Memorial Cup&mdash;age 25Win A Trip To The Canada Cup&mdash;age 23 &#9632;

cover

The Hockey News $1.50 64522 THE INTERNATIONAL HOCKEY WEEKLY MAY 18,1984 Vol. 37, No. 33

&ldquo;I do a little bitching about it sometimes, maybe give myself a kick in the ass, but I still think we made the right decision.&rdquo;&mdash;Kitchener Ranger treasurer Jim Malleck, who in 1968 could have purchased the junior team for one dollar but didn&rsquo;t because he thought it should be a community-sponsored club. Story on Page 25. &#9632;

Quote Of The Week

<div class="byline">BY BOB McKENZIE</div>If anyone has ever wondered what it&rsquo;s really like to be at the National Hockey League entry draft, they&rsquo;ll find out on June 9 when the annual event is televised live coast-to-coast in Canada by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a new idea, but it&rsquo;s one whose time has come,&rsquo;&rsquo; says Steve Ryan, NHL vice president, marketing, the man most responsible for bringing the idea to fruition.Beginning at 3 p.m. (EDT), CBC&rsquo;s sports magazine show, SportsWeekend, will carry at least two hours of live draft coverage. The other hour of the show will be filled by coverage of the Belmont Stakes, horseracing&rsquo;s final leg of the Triple Crown, interspersed with live updates from the Montreal Forum, site of the draft.&ldquo;We expect to be going into about 800,000 Canadian households, which is great,&rdquo; says Ryan. &ldquo;This is something very special. It&rsquo;s the first time a professional sport has had something of this nature live on an over-the-air network.&rdquo;Both the National Football League and National Basketball Association have their drafts televised live, but they are on ESPN, the all-sports cable channel in the United States.The CBC telecast will be beamed to a satellite, which will allow regional cable outlets in the United States to pick it up. So, at this point, it isn&rsquo;t known which areas of the U.S. may get coverage.&ldquo;I understand the Penguins (who have three picks in the first round, including No. 1 overall) have set something up in Pittsburgh,&rdquo; says Joel Nixon, NHL vicepresident, broadcasting. &ldquo;I think they&rsquo;re planning on getting their season ticket subscribers together and showing the draft. Beyond that, I can&rsquo;t really say who will see it and who won&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s basically up to the individual clubs.&rdquo;However, Nixon says it&rsquo;s possible the draft package could be sold to a major U.S. cable outlet by as soon as next year.&ldquo;After this draft is over,&rdquo; Nixon says, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll have something concrete, an actual tape of a first-class production, to take to prospective buyers in the U.S.&rdquo;ESPN, which used to have the exclusive national rights to NHL games in the U.S. but lost them to USA Network, may be the most likely candidate since its programming consists entirely of sports. Nixon says the NHL&rsquo;s exclusive contract with the USA network wouldn&rsquo;t include an ancillary telecast such as the draft or the NHL awards ceremony&mdash;entitled A Celebration of Excellence&mdash;which will also be televised live across Canada on June 4 from Toronto.As for the actual draft telecast on June 9, the faces and names of the on-air personalities and backroom producers are familiar.Ralph Mellanby, the Emmy award winning executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada, and Arthur Smith will produce the event, with HNIC&rsquo;s Ron Harrison directing. HNIC hosts Dave Hodge and Dick Irvin will be the coanchors with CBC sportscaster Don Whittman roaming the floor of the Forum, conducting live interviews.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to cover the draft the same as we would a political convention,&rdquo; says Mellanby. &ldquo;In fact, most of the equipment we&rsquo;re using for the draft in Montreal will be taken directly to Ottawa for the Liberal leadership convention.&rdquo;Hodge and Irvin will man a broadcast booth overlooking the Forum floor. They&rsquo;ll introduce and be part of a number of draft-related features and backgrounders, including complete facts and figures on each player drafted. There will be a number of portable camera units on the floor, including those in the normally-restricted club work area.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have a camera and mike right in there to see and hear the draft picks meeting the general manager and scouts,&rdquo; Mellanby says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have interviews with the players, general managers. We&rsquo;U really have to do our homework. For example, we&rsquo;re already expecting at least three trades in the first round. We&rsquo;ve got to flexible. Like a political convention, this is live news. We don&rsquo;t know what will happen. It&rsquo;s our first kick at something like this, but it should be good.&rdquo;The actual draft and its live coverage will begin at 3 p.m. At five, CBC will switch to Belmont for the race and break in with several live updates. At 6 p.m., the telecast will be finished, but the 21 NHL teams won&rsquo;t as the selection process isn&rsquo;t expected to conclude until late in the evening, likely around 11 p.m.&ldquo;The general managers of the 21 teams deserve a lot of credit for getting the draft on television,&rdquo; says Ryan. &ldquo;They had to make more concessions (changing the start time from Wednesday at 9 a.m. to Saturday at 3 p.m. and making themselves available for interviews etc. during the draft) than anyone else involved. Without them, it wouldn&rsquo;t happen. But they want what is best for the game of hockey and getting the draft televised is fantastic from a marketing standpoint.&ldquo;Having the Stanley Cup final, the Celebration of Excellence and the draft on live national television is a fitting way to wrap up the hockey season.&rdquo; &#9632;

Is There A Draft In Your Home?

<h2>Lemieux&rsquo;s No. 1, But It Gets Tricky After That</h2>Picking the top-rated player in the 1984 National Hockey League entry draft re-quires no skill at all. He is, of course, Mario Lemieux, the Laval Voisins scoring machine who is&mdash;barring a surprise of major proportions&mdash;going to become a Pittsburgh Penguin on June 9 (see story on Page 3).After you get past No. 1, however, prognostications get a little sticky, especially if you try to peg who is going where. And because draft day is still a few weeks away, it&rsquo;s that much more difficult to be accurate since several teams are talking of trading to get a more favorable draft position.Therefore, THE HOCKEY NEWS is not going to tell you which team will select which player, at least not in this issue (we&rsquo;ll save that for our June issue, when the picture clears a little). But we are going to tell you who, according to our own survey of scouts and other hockey people in the know, are the top 21 players, a list which includes 10 forwards and 11 defenseman and several sleepers.At this point, we&rsquo;ll rate the forwards and defensemen separately and then, in the June issue which comes out just before the draft, combine the two lists and rank the players according to how they&rsquo;ll be drafted at the Montreal Forum before a national television audience in Canada.It&rsquo;s important to note that these are not the NHL Central Scouting Bureau&rsquo;s ratings list. In fact, as this issue went to press, Central Scouting was still preparing its final list, which would be presented to NHL general managers at the Memorial Cup in Kitchener.Here, then, are THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; top 21 draft prospects, with a short list of six or seven players who could sneak into the bottom half of the first round.<h2>FORWARDS</h2>1. MARIO LEMIEUX: Quite simply, the best. Scouts maintain his statistics are inflated because of the wide-open style of play in the Quebec League&mdash;and they&rsquo;re right&mdash;but he&rsquo;s still at the top of everybody&rsquo;s list. (See story on next page).2. KIRK MULLER: The hard-skating center bounced around like a rubber ball this season. He started in Guelph with the Platers, moved on to the national junior team, then the Canadian Olympic team and back to Guelph. Some scouts were concerned early in the season with his rate of development&mdash;it&rsquo;s his third season of major junior hockey&mdash;but the kid is a blue chipper who can&rsquo;t miss and his Olympic performance emphasized that.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011211/4930109-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="345" height="496"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-02996/4930102-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="337" height="493"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-03737/4930095-1-eng-US/f0002-032.jpg" title="f0002-03" width="342" height="493"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-04509/4930088-1-eng-US/f0002-042.jpg" title="f0002-04" width="345" height="493"><figcaption class="caption-body">After Mario Lemieux, Kirk Muller, top left, and Ed Olczyk, top right, are the best forwards while Craig Redmond, lower left, and Doug Bodger, lower right, are the top two defensemen.</figcaption></div>3. ED OLCZYK: How many kids do you know from suburban Chicago who could jump from an Ontario junior B team to the U.S. Olympic squad in one year? Olczyk did and consider this: He was one of the U.S. team&rsquo;s best players and he was playing left wing for the first time in his life. Scouts figure he a better center. He&rsquo;s strong, skates well and has a devastating shot from the slot. On top of all that, he&rsquo;s enthusiastic, as in kinetic, and he could conceivably challenge Muller for the No. 2 spot behind Lemieux.4. SHAYNE CORSON: This Brantford Alexander center is far from a prolific goal scorer&mdash;25 goals and 46 assists this past season&mdash;but he&rsquo;s a good skater and very aggressive (165 penalty minutes). Because of his physical assets, he impresses scouts who are looking for indications that a young player has the strength to play pro hockey.5. SHAWN BURR: The Kitchener Ranger rookie has a good touch around the net (41 goals and 44 assists) and does all the small things well. An excellent prospect with a good attitude.6. DAVE PASIN: Scouts say he won&rsquo;t win all the foot races, but he&rsquo;s got size and strength and there&rsquo;s no question he&rsquo;s a gifted goal scorer, maybe the best natural scorer other than Lemieux.7. JEFF ROHLICEK: Another Chicago native, his stock has steadily increased over the course of the season. He&rsquo;s small&mdash;5-foot-10, 175 pounds&mdash;but is very quick, has a great touch around the net and works hard every shift. One NHL scout said he wouldn&rsquo;t draft Rohlicek at all&mdash;due to his size&mdash;but fortunately for the kid, not all scouts feel the same way. In fact, many of them were singing his praises heartily.8. RAY PODLOSKI: Another Winter Hawk center, he&rsquo;s a smooth playmaker and scorer who doesn&rsquo;t possess great speed. He&rsquo;s not real aggressive either, which prompted a couple of scouts to question his intensity and heart. But he is big and smart, two desirable qualities.9. GARY ROBERTS: Scouts like good two-way hockey players who are physical, yet smart, and that&rsquo;s what Roberts, an Ottawa 67 left winger is. His 144 penalty minutes attest to his mettle and 57 points in 48 games shows he&rsquo;s adept with the puck, too. Like Rohlicek, he&rsquo;s improved his rating with consistent play and should be a first-rounder instead of a second, which is where he was rated in January.10. ROGER BELANGER: He&rsquo;s got size&mdash;six feet, 188 pounds&mdash;and is a good goal scorer. But since it&rsquo;s his second season of major junior, some scouts wonder if he&rsquo;s developed at the proper rate to be considered a first-round pick. If he doesn&rsquo;t go in the first, then he&rsquo;ll be at the top of the second.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011312/4930081-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="347" height="503"><figcaption class="caption-body">Shayne Corson</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-02957/4930074-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="345" height="505"><figcaption class="caption-body">Shawn Burr</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-03630/4930067-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="343" height="503"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dave Pasin</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-04419/4930060-1-eng-US/f0006-042.jpg" title="f0006-04" width="346" height="502"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jeff Rohlicek</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-05341/4930053-1-eng-US/f0006-052.jpg" title="f0006-05" width="352" height="500"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ray Podloski</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-06245/4930046-1-eng-US/f0006-062.jpg" title="f0006-06" width="344" height="504"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gary Roberts</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-07137/4930039-1-eng-US/f0006-072.jpg" title="f0006-07" width="348" height="503"><figcaption class="caption-body">Roger Belanger</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-0879/4930032-1-eng-US/f0006-082.jpg" title="f0006-08" width="345" height="505"><figcaption class="caption-body">Al lafrete</figcaption></div><h2>DEFENSE</h2>1. CRAIG REDMOND: His performance with the Canadian Olympic team, was impressive and he was probably wise not to play with anyone after returning home from Sarajevo. He received high marks and could only have hurt himself had he played major junior hockey. Has the potential to be a good offensive defenseman and will likely be the first defenseman taken.2. DOUG BODGER: The Kamloops Junior Oiler is the best from the west and his stock is still climbing. If Kamloops gets into the Memorial Cup and he plays well, he could challenge Redmond for top billing. A great offensive talent, he&rsquo;s learning to use his size and strength defensively. Very smart and coachable.3. AL IAFRATE: The Detroit native, who played with the U.S. Olympic team and Belleville Bulls of the OHL, was the top-rated defenseman for most of the season. But he, along with all his teammates faltered at Sarajevo, and he slumped badly upon returning to Belleville. Some scouts say he never should have played in Belleville. Others admire him for living up to his commitment to join the Bulls. Despite his fall from the top, there are some hockey people who still maintain he&rsquo;s the best defenseman available. A great skater.4. J.J. DAIGNEAULT: The Montreal native did not play much for Dave King&rsquo;s Olympic team. When he did, he looked tentative. Even after returning to Longeueil, it took him until the final round of the playoffs to start exhibiting the offensive skills which made him so attractive a year ago in his rookie QMJHL season. A good skater with strong puck skills.5. DAVID QUINN: He&rsquo;s from Cranston, R.I., but he plays hockey at Kent School in Connecticut. He&rsquo;s the best U.S. high school prospect this year. An excellent athlete who captains both the hockey and football teams. He&rsquo;s president of the Student Council. Quality goods, though he may require more seasoning before he&rsquo;s ready for the jump.6. SELMAR ODELEIN: A good defensive defenseman who could improve his lot with a Memorial Cup appearance. His 42 assists indicate he can move the puck up ice and at 6-foot-2, 195 pounds, he&rsquo;s strong. Consistency is his ally.7. KEVIN HATCHER: A strong late-season performance opened many scouts&rsquo; eyes. He&rsquo;s an especially strong skater for such a big defenseman&mdash;6-foot-3, 183 pounds&mdash;and that helped him improve his ranking from the second round (in January) to the first round.8. BRIAN BENNING: Something of an unknown quantity. A broken wrist caused him to miss more than half a season and that could hurt him. He&rsquo;s much more physical than his older brother, Jim, who is a Toronto Maple Leaf, but doesn&rsquo;t have all the offensive skills his brother has. Still, he&rsquo;s a good playmaker.9. SYLVAIN COTE: A good offensive defenseman, not unlike Daigneault. He averaged about a point-a-game with the Quebec Remparts but like so many defenseman coming out of Quebec, his defensive capabilities are suspect.10. TRENT YAWNEY: A second-year player with Saskatoon, the lanky rearguard is better offensively than he is defensively. He&rsquo;s big and because he&rsquo;s a good skater, he likes to carry the puck.11. TERRY CARKNER: The Peterboro Pete likes to stay at home and has the physical tools&mdash;6-foot-3, 197 pounds&mdash;to keep the front of the net clear. He&rsquo;ll appeal to a team that is looking for a steady, if not spectacular, defenseman who concentrates on the defensive side of the game.<h2>SLEEPERS</h2>In reality, the bottom third of the first round and top third of the second are often interchangeable. It&rsquo;s not surprising for players ranked in the second round to slip into the first and vice versa.Among those considered possible first rounders are: Saskatoon&rsquo;s Duncan MacPherson, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound hard-hitting but injury prone defenseman; Scott Mellanby, the son of Hockey Night in Canada executive producer Ralph Mellanby who is a 6-foot-1, 200-pound right winger with Henry Carr Jr. Bs; Steve Leach, a 5-foot-11, 178-pound right winger from Matignon High School in Cambridge, MA.; Toby Duculon, a 6-foot-1, 187-pound hard-shooting left winger from Bellows Free Academy, VT.; Paul Broten of Rouseau, MN., a brother of Neal and Aaron who is awfully small&mdash;5-foot-11, 155 pounds&mdash;but quick and smart; Guelph&rsquo;s Trevor Stienburg, a 6-foot-1, 180-pound right winger with a good scoring touch and the physical assets; Windsor&rsquo;s Todd Gill, a six-foot, 180-pound defenseman and Kitchener&rsquo;s Brian Wilkes, a 5-foot-11, 180-pound center with good offensive skills.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-0956/4930025-1-eng-US/f0006-092.jpg" title="f0006-09" width="1465" height="1477"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1040/4930018-1-eng-US/f0006-102.jpg" title="f0006-10" width="1481" height="1234"><figcaption class="caption-body">Laval captain Mario Lemieux is in a class all by himself at the top of the 1984 crop of National Hockey League entry draft prospects.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1137/4930011-1-eng-US/f0006-112.jpg" title="f0006-11" width="343" height="497"><figcaption class="caption-body">J.J. Daigneault</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1230/4930004-1-eng-US/f0006-122.jpg" title="f0006-12" width="343" height="492"><figcaption class="caption-body">David Quinn</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1321/4929997-1-eng-US/f0006-132.jpg" title="f0006-13" width="346" height="494"><figcaption class="caption-body">Selmar Odelein</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1417/4929990-1-eng-US/f0006-142.jpg" title="f0006-14" width="350" height="503"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kevin Hatcher</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1516/4929983-1-eng-US/f0006-152.jpg" title="f0006-15" width="346" height="503"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brian Benning</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1613/4929976-1-eng-US/f0006-162.jpg" title="f0006-16" width="346" height="503"><figcaption class="caption-body">Sylvain Cote</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1710/4929969-1-eng-US/f0006-172.jpg" title="f0006-17" width="349" height="501"><figcaption class="caption-body">Trent Yawney</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1810/4929962-1-eng-US/f0006-182.jpg" title="f0006-18" width="348" height="501"><figcaption class="caption-body">Terry Carkner</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0002-01

RATING THE PROSPECTS

<div class="byline">BY TOM MacMILLAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011231/4930140-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Laval&rsquo;s Mario Lemieux, who wears No. 66, is expected to be the cornerstone of the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; reconstruction plan. He virtually rewrote the Quebec League record book and is eager to test his talents in the National Hockey League.</figcaption></div>Eddie Johnston was talking fast for Eddie Johnston, no insignificant feat in the history of oral communication.&ldquo;Somegamesthisguy is just awesome,&rsquo;&rsquo; came the words, compressed against their will into one spectacular syllable.Johnston, the general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins, delivers his speech at 78 rpms in normal conversation, but the topic this night was Mario Lemieux, an 18-year-old hockey player with lightning in his wrists. The words arrived in a fast-forward blur.&ldquo;You look at the guys who have been great players out of this league&mdash;Lafleur, Larouche, Bossy&mdash;he&rsquo;s broken every record they have,&rdquo; Johnston was saying between periods one night at the Centre Sportif Laval, home of Lemieux and the Voisins of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. &ldquo;We need that big, dominant guy and this guy&rsquo;s presence is felt. He&rsquo;s got great skills. He&rsquo;s doing things tonight you can&rsquo;t see. It looks like we&rsquo;re going to take him, It&rsquo;s 99.9 per cent. This guy can come in&hellip;it&rsquo;s like bringing in a (Mike) Rozier. He&rsquo;s the best player in the country.&rdquo;The National Hockey League will examine its standings June 9 in Montreal and present the last-place Penguins with the first pick in its entry draft of amateur players. It is at this moment that Johnston is expected to invest his job and the future of his franchise in the Montreal-born Lemieux.Should he fail to accomplish the appointed task, Johnston will return to Pittsburgh and be dipped in the Monongahela River until his face turns blue.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s amazing how many people write you letters&mdash;you got to draft him,&rsquo;&rdquo; says Paul Martha, Penguin vice-president and general counsel. &ldquo;They know who Mario Lemieux is.&rdquo;They know because the Penguins have been serious candidates for the No. 1 pick overall since the first day of training camp in September and because Lemieux set flames to the QMJHL record book with 133 goals and 282 points in 70 games. While editing the record accomplish-ments of Guy Lafleur (130 goals) and Pierre Larouche (251 points), the 6-foot-4, 200-pound center steered the Voisins to a 54-16 record and the QMJHL regular-season championship as well as an appearance in the playoff championship against the Longueuil Chevaliers, which was tied at two apiece as this issue went to press.Still, Johnston must weather trade winds whistling down from the Canadian north, where Montreal and Quebec plot regular Lemieux strategy.&ldquo;Our scouts are unanimous that he&rsquo;s the closest thing to (Wayne) Gretzky,&rdquo; says Marcel Aubut, president of the Quebec Nordiques, fanning the trade rumors.But Johnston is holding on, resisting.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll get some good offers but I&rsquo;m still solid,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;1 will wait until I get to the draft table June 9. But nothing any team&rsquo;s going to give me is going to sway me.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had guys say &lsquo;we&rsquo;ll give you six players.&rsquo; I tell &lsquo;em &lsquo;stick it in your ear.&rsquo;&rdquo;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s obvious we&rsquo;re going to draft him,&rdquo; says Martha. &ldquo;E.J.&rsquo;s been up there several times and he&rsquo;s met with Mario&rsquo;s family and his agent (Gus Badali, who also represents Gretzky). We feel confident we can sign him.&rdquo;The Penguins cannot afford not to sign him. For 17 of the most undistinguished seasons since grown men began chasing little black discs across frozen ponds, they have been Team Mediocre, playing generic hockey, testing Pittsburgh&rsquo;s sports sanity.This year, their second straight in 21st place in a 21-team league, the city&rsquo;s hockey fans rebelled. The Penguins averaged a league-low 6,839 customers for their 40 home games and owner Ed DeBartolo spilled $5 million worth of red ink on his three-piece suit.&ldquo;If we don&rsquo;t soon get a winning team,&rdquo; Martha told David Fink of the Pittsburgh PostGazette in early April, &ldquo;the question becomes whether to sell or move the franchise. We&rsquo;re operating at a tremendous debt already. At some point, that has to change.&rdquo;Enter Lemieux, the property deemed most valuable among North American amateurs by National Hockey League Central Scouting. He cannot become the singular salvation of the franchise&mdash;to expect this from one so young is beyond reason&mdash;but the Penguins view him as a start, a marvelous foundation.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re very, very happy to have the opportunity for perhaps the first time in the history of the franchise to draft a player the calibre of Mario Lemieux,&rdquo; Martha says.The Penguins also have two other selections in the first round, an accomplishment that very nearly compensates for the trade that dispatched their No. 1 pick in 1979 to Washington for Hartland Monahan and the trade that sent their No. 1 pick in 1981 to Montreal for Rod Schutt. And the absolutely stupendous trade that shipped last year&rsquo;s No. 1 pick&mdash;eventually No. 1 overall&mdash;and George Ferguson to Minnesota for Anders Hakansson, Ron Meighan and the North Stars&rsquo; No. 1 selection.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s over with,&rdquo; Johnston says of the Penguin fascination for dealing number ones. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not doing that stuff no more. Clubs get better on first-rounders. Look, if we didn&rsquo;t trade away our first pick last year, we&rsquo;d be sitting on (Pat) LaFontaine and Lemieux right now.&rdquo;It was on the night of March 26, following Laval&rsquo;s 3-1 playoff victory over Granby, that Lemieux first encountered Johnston in the flesh.&ldquo;He said, &lsquo;You will love Pittsburgh,&rsquo; and he told me he&rsquo;s not going to exchange his pick,&rdquo; Lemieux remembers.Lemieux is asked, in the wake of previous reports, if he is disappointed.&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;because it is an NHL team. It&rsquo;s hard, you know, to start with a team that is last, but they have young guys on the team. I see in the paper they (drew) 3,000 people against the (New Jersey) Devils. We have to build this team. I prepare myself to go there.&ldquo;Is that a nice city?&rdquo;Pittsburgh waits, the way Laval waited in 1981, when the Voisins were dead last in the QMJHL and Lemieux was the top midget draft choice in the province. Pittsburgh has heard the tales, the legends. It thirsts for such a hockey hero.&ldquo;He controls the tempo of a game,&rdquo; says Jim Gregory, the director of NHL Central Scouting, enlarging Pittsburgh&rsquo;s dreams. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s such a good passer. When he&rsquo;s got the puck, he makes things happen. He doesn&rsquo;t normally play aggressively, but if someone challenges him, he&rsquo;ll let them have it.&rdquo;Still, Lemieux has detractors, among them NHL scouts, who jab him for his lack of skating speed, for his poor defense, for the quick temper that costs him needless penalties.&ldquo;I see two things that have to be improved,&rdquo; says Bob Pemo, who is the right-hand man of Gus Badali, Lemieux&rsquo;s agent, in Montreal. &ldquo;One is his defensive game. We&rsquo;re not hiding anything. Most super scorers have weaknesses on defense. We&rsquo;re sure the team that drafts Mario will have competent coaches to teach him the defensive aspects of the game.&ldquo;Two is control of his temper. He&rsquo;s extremely, extremely proud. That pride sometimes costs him with regard to penalties. He hates to lose. Sometimes the crowd thinks he&rsquo;s spoiled because of temper tantrums. He&rsquo;s not spoiled. He just hates to lose. In the pros, he&rsquo;ll have to adjust. It won&rsquo;t be easy the first few years.&rdquo;Lemieux: &ldquo;It will be tough in the beginning, but I will control myself.&rdquo;The defense, the skating, the other negatives real and imagined do not puncture Johnston&rsquo;s enthusiasm.&ldquo;The one thing you can teach in this game is defense,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t teach offense. I&rsquo;ve seen him in 2-1 games where he&rsquo;s done his job. As for the skating, did you see him catch guys? He goes by some. Any time you&rsquo;ve got a guy 6-foot-4, 6-foot-5 on skates, he doesn&rsquo;t look fast. The little guys are going this way and that way. But he gets there.&rdquo;Claude Foumel knows. Fournel is the Laval owner and three seasons ago his team lived its life in last place, struggling, drawing crowds below 1,000. This year, in a playoff against Granby, Fournel and his wife, Suzanne, had to turn folks away from the Centre Sportif Laval for the first time.&ldquo;Mario&rsquo;s not a fast skater, he&rsquo;s a smart skater,&rdquo; Foumel says. &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s what they say about Gretzky. He&rsquo;s not a goal-scorer. That&rsquo;s not his biggest asset. But yet he can score more goals than anybody else. That&rsquo;s what everybody said about Gretzky. It&rsquo;s unbelievable. He&rsquo;s complete.&ldquo;If DeBartolo wants to know what Mario&rsquo;s worth, you tell him to call me.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0003-01

And The Penguins Hope He Can Work Miracles In Pittsburgh

<h2>First Round</h2>1. Pittsburgh2. New Jersey3. Los Angeles4. Toronto5. Montreal (From Har)6. Chicago7. Detroit8. St. Louis9. Pittsburgh (From Wpg)10. Vancouver11. Hartford (From Mtl)12. Calgary13. Minnesota14. NY Rangers15. Quebec16. Pittsburgh (From Pha)17. Washington18. Buffalo19. Boston20. NY Islanders21. Edmonton<h2>Second Round</h2>22. Philadelphia (From Pit)23. New Jersey24. Los Angeles25. Toronto26. Montreal (From Har)27. Philadelphia (From Chi)28. Detroit29. St. Louis30. Winnipeg31. Vancouver32. Montreal33. Calgary34. Washington (From Min)35. NY Rangers36. Quebec37. Philadelphia38. Calgary (From Was)39. Buffalo40. Boston41. NY Islanders42. Edmonton &#9632;

Order Of Selection

For some, it&rsquo;s the first step to an illustrious professional hockey career. For others, it&rsquo;s the beginning of the end, the day when their career starts to take a nosedive. Some would call it an honor. Others would simply say it&rsquo;s a curse. Whichever way you perceive it, being selected No. 1 overall in the National Hockey League entry draft changes your life forever.Being No. 1, the top of your graduating class, means you&rsquo;ll play out your career under a microscope, your every move monitored and evaluated by an unyielding public, critical media and expectant club management. Maybe your middle name should have been Moses.Because constant scrutiny comes with the turf&mdash;what did you think that signing bonus was really for?&mdash;THE HOCKEY NEWS figures it&rsquo;s time to grade the class of 1973-82.So we assembled a blue-ribbon panel of draft pick critics. The eightman panel included: USA Today hockey writer Rod Beaton; Hockey Night in Canada commentator and ex-NHL coach Don Cherry; THN contributing editor Stan Fischler; Montreal Gazette sports editor Red Fisher; Philadelphia Daily News hockey writer Jay Greenberg; Play-by-play broadcaster (KMOX radio, USA Network) Dan Kelly; Toronto Star hockey writer Frank Orr and Toronto Globe and Mail hockey writer Al Strachan.These draft critics were asked to grade 10 years&rsquo; worth of No. 1 picks, starting with Denis Potvin in 1973 and ending with Gord Kluzak in 1982. In between were; Greg Joly (1974); Mel Bridgman (1975); Rick Green (1976); Dale McCourt (1977); Bobby Smith (1978); Rob Ramage (1979); Doug Wickenheiser (1980); and Dale Hawerchuk (1981). The No. 1 pick in 1983, Minnesota&rsquo;s Brian Lawton, wasn&rsquo;t included since it isn&rsquo;t fair to judge a player on only one year&rsquo;s performance.The No. 1 picks were rated in four categories&mdash;on-ice performance, leadership, consistency and untapped potential&mdash;each one representing the most desirable qualities in a No. 1 pick. The first three categories are self-explanatory, but the fourth, untapped potential, requires a little explanation.This category was included as an equalizer of sorts. Because the most recent draft picks&mdash;Kluzak, Hawerchuk etc.&mdash;haven&rsquo;t had as much time to establish themselves (in terms of performance, leadership and consistency), it would be expected that they&rsquo;d have more untapped potential than the older No. 1 picks and, therefore, would be compensated in the final ratings compilation.Each panelist was asked to grade the 10 players on a scale of 0-10 in the four categories. The overall results were tallied and converted to a percentage figure, giving us the winners and losers from 1973-82. In cases of ties, the edge was given to the player with the most seniority and all percentages were rounded off to the nearest non-fractional number.Actually, there were few winners. For whatever reason, be it unrealistic expectations or what, the No. 1 picks did not fare well. Only five of the 10 received a passing grade (50 per cent) and of those five, only two (Potvin, 77 per cent, and Hawerchuk, 72 per cent) recorded marks over 70.Potvin was the big winner, a classic No. 1 pick who has lived up to expectations. He led the field in performance, leadership and consistency. At the other end of the scale, Greg Joly, Washington&rsquo;s ill-fated first pick in 1974, was the big loser, finishing dead last in every category.The final overall averages were as follows: Potvin (77); Hawerchuk (72); Ramage (66); Smith (65); Kluzak (65); Bridgman (55); Green (54); Wick-enheiser (40); McCourt (34) and Joly (20).The overall average of this 10-year class was a paltry 55 per cent, scoring 59 per cent in performance; 51 per cent in leadership, 54 per cent in consistency and 55 per cent in untapped potential.Each player&rsquo;s individual ratings from the eight panel members are included in the boxes opposite this story. In addition, we have a sampling of remarks from the panelists, who were given the opportunity to make editorial comments. Only Cherry declined to make additional comments.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll let my ratings speak for themselves,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Like, if I give Rick Green a five for performance, a four for leadership, a three for consistency and a 10 for untapped potential, what does that tell you? You can draw your own conclusions.&rdquo;The following list breaks down each player&rsquo;s (percentage) marks in the four categories:PERFORMANCE: Potvin (94); Smith (73); Hawerchuk(73); Ramage(66); Bridgman (61); Kluzak (61); Green (55); McCourt (49); Wick-enheiser (34) and Joly (19).LEADERSHIP: Potvin (80); Ramage (70); Bridgman (64); Hawerchuk (64); Smith (56); Kluzak (55); Green (43); McCourt (30); Wickenheiser (30) and Joly (20).CONSISTENCY: Potvin (80); Smith (73); Hawerchuk(65); Ramage(60); Bridgman (58); Kluzak (58); Green (53); Wickenheiser (40); McCourt (31) and Joly (26).UNTAPPED POTENTIAL: Hawerchuk (86); Kluzak (85); Ramage (69); Green (65); Smith (58); Wickenheiser (58); Potvin (54); Bridgman (38); McCourt (26) and Joly (14).<h2>1 DENIS POTVIN</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011266/4930328-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="829" height="353"></div>By far the best of the bunch. Just compare his Team Canada selections with the others.&mdash;Al StrachanA &ldquo;franchise&rdquo; draft&hellip; the player the Islanders could least do without&hellip;could have been thrust in &ldquo;Moses&rdquo; role but Al Arbour was there to help him develop slowly into a great player.&mdash;Frank OrrTurned out to be the best, but I don&rsquo;t think he has been as consistent as he&rsquo;s capable. In other words, could have been even better.&mdash;Dan KellyA genuine superstar&hellip;one of the top defensemen I&rsquo;ve ever seen, particularly in pressure situations such as the playoffs.&mdash;Red FisherHe&rsquo;s been the NHL&rsquo;s best defenseman over the last decade, with only a couple of off seasons.&mdash;Rod Beaton<h2>2 DALE HAWERCHUK</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021181/4930321-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="827" height="342"></div>A little erratic and perhaps too meddlesome (ask Tom Watt), but he should be a center in the Savard-Pederson class&mdash;if he wants to. I wonder.&mdash;Rod BeatonCertainly one of the league&rsquo;s top scoring threats, but his lack of skating speed will keep him one step below greatness.&mdash;Jay GreenbergHas really done a large amount in three seasons. Fought off early 83-84 doldrums to have fine second half. Still has great potential because he can improve defensively and be-come an all-star.&mdash;Frank OrrHe has tremendous moves. If he starts to show those moves consistently, as often happens after three or four years in the league, he&rsquo;ll become a genuine superstar.&mdash;Al Strachan<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-031015/4930314-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="320" height="539"><figcaption class="caption-body">Potvin</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-04896/4930307-1-eng-US/f0004-042.jpg" title="f0004-04" width="319" height="540"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joly</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-05752/4930300-1-eng-US/f0004-052.jpg" title="f0004-05" width="323" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bridgman</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-06446/4930293-1-eng-US/f0004-062.jpg" title="f0004-06" width="319" height="540"><figcaption class="caption-body">McCourt</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-07281/4930286-1-eng-US/f0004-072.jpg" title="f0004-07" width="323" height="544"><figcaption class="caption-body">Green</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-08192/4930279-1-eng-US/f0004-082.jpg" title="f0004-08" width="319" height="545"><figcaption class="caption-body">Smith</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-09167/4930272-1-eng-US/f0004-092.jpg" title="f0004-09" width="317" height="539"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ramage</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-10119/4930265-1-eng-US/f0004-102.jpg" title="f0004-10" width="323" height="543"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wickenheiser</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-1171/4930258-1-eng-US/f0004-112.jpg" title="f0004-11" width="317" height="541"><figcaption class="caption-body">Hawerchuk</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-1240/4930251-1-eng-US/f0004-122.jpg" title="f0004-12" width="323" height="537"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kluzak</figcaption></div><h2>3 ROB RAMAGE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011131/4930244-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="703" height="346"></div>He finally began to find himself this year. A lot of better players were picked after him, but he has definitely become one of the top Campbell Conference defensemen, but was not worth two first-round picks St. Louis gave up for him.&mdash;Rod BeatonAfter several disappointing seasons, he has emerged as a leader and potential Norris Trophy candidate in years to come.&mdash;Stan FischlerUp and down, but his performances have become more consistent. Is certainly one of the league&rsquo;s 10 best defensemen.&mdash;Jay GreenbergGood tough, two defenseman who only seems to have scratched the surface of his potential. Seemed to be getting there earlier this season but had an erratic second half. Another player stuck in Moses thing when he really needed time to develop. If he had been drafted by the Isles, probably would have been another Potvin.&mdash;Frank Orr<h2>4 BOBBY SMITH</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-02827/4930237-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="705" height="347"></div>Another player whose junior record meant that he needed to be a superstar just not to be a disappointment. Tends to be hot and cold. Doesn&rsquo;t seem to use the players on the ice with him as effectively as he could. Maybe leader role just wasn&rsquo;t his bad, despite his intelligence and style.&mdash;Frank OrrNever quite reached status as a certain superstar. Rightly or wrongly, opposing players regard him as something substantially less than the leader he was supposed to be and the North Stars management endorsed that view by trading him. Has Lou Nanne ever lied to you before?&mdash;Red FisherI once thought he would be better than Wayne Gretzky and I still like some of his moves. I can&rsquo;t figure out why he isn&rsquo;t better than he is.&mdash;Stan FischlerA good center, but great only in one-120-point season. If he was not smart, sensible and pleasant, but mean and dumb, he&rsquo;d probably be greater.&mdash;Rod Beaton<h2>5. GORD KLUZAK</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-03576/4930230-1-eng-US/f0005-032.jpg" title="f0005-03" width="703" height="342"></div>Brian Bellows should have gone first, but Kluzak has shown he will be a topnotch pro defenseman. No Larry Robinson perhaps, but a future star.&mdash;Rod BeatonThe Kluzak experience proves that a couple of good seasons in the minors can be more educational for a young defenseman than a quick rush to the majors from junior hockey.&mdash;Stan FischlerComing on strong and has great potential.&mdash;Dan KellyImproved immensely in his sophomore season and will continue to improve as a player and a leader in the years ahead.&mdash;Red FisherHas it all to be another Potvin&mdash;splendid attitude, size, toughness, agility, good with the puck&mdash;and is on a team where he didn&rsquo;t have to do it big in the first week, a large plus for a young player. Should be an all-star.&mdash;Frank Orr<h2>6 MEL BRIDGMAN</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-04385/4930223-1-eng-US/f0005-042.jpg" title="f0005-04" width="695" height="344"></div>Has been a good third-line center, no better. Twice a captain, he is still not a leader of men. He is consistent except when he thinks he&rsquo;s a goal scorer. On the downhill side.&mdash;Rod BeatonThe Flyers touted him as the next Bryan Trottier. Instead, he turned out to be the next Walter Tkaczuk.&mdash;Stan FischlerA competent big league player who has worked hard much of his career. &ldquo;New Bobby Orr&rsquo;&rsquo; tag didn&rsquo;t help him much in Philly because it created unrealistic expectations.. He was picked first in a mediocre draft crop because of heavy underage raids in 1974. Perhaps he really wasn&rsquo;t a No. 1.&mdash;Frank OrrWhen one considers all the good players were cleaned out of the 1974 draft already, Bridgman wasn&rsquo;t a bad pick. Some confusion about his roles in Philadelphia held him back somewhat. Miscast as a leader in Philly.&mdash;Jay Greenberg<h2>7 RICK &ndash; GREEN</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-05259/4930216-1-eng-US/f0005-052.jpg" title="f0005-05" width="697" height="342"></div>A superb defensive defenseman when he&rsquo;s healthy. May yet prove to be the second best of these 10.&mdash;Al StrachanAnother Washington washout. A plodder, he was never meant for stardom. Consistently so-so, hampered by injuries. Added stigma of being in Langway deal hurt, too.&mdash;Rod BeatonWere it not for injuries and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he might have been another Rod Lang-way&mdash;and he still might under Jacques Lemaire.&mdash;Stan FischlerInjuries have really hurt, but he never looked like a No. I.&mdash;Dan KellyInjuries have held him back but his performance in this year&rsquo;s playoff might say that the Langway deal wasn&rsquo;t such a steal after all. Irving Grundman, come back, the Canadiens might still forgive you.&mdash;Jay Greenberg<h2>8 DOUG WICKENHEISER</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-06146/4930209-1-eng-US/f0005-062.jpg" title="f0005-06" width="702" height="342"></div>May have been unfortunate in that he was bom a few years too late. He came into the NHL just when speed was developing into the most important requirement.&mdash;Al StrachanHow could so many scouts be so wrong. Don&rsquo;t give up on him, they say, but he reminds me of Jack Valiquette. A disastrous pick, certain to be haunted by Denis Savard forever.&mdash;Rod BeatonUnquestionably, he was mishandled by the Habs right from the outset, starting with his first game as a pro&mdash;when he wasn&rsquo;t even dressed. He was, however, given a number of chances later and came up short.&mdash;Red FisherPlaced in enormous pressure cooker&mdash;new Beliveau, picked ahead of French-Canadian hero. Big player like Espo who maybe needed time to develop but never got it. Could Gretzky have made it under the same conditions? If he makes it in St. Lou, it will be as the No. 3 center.&mdash;Frank Orr<h2>9 DALE McCOURT</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-0784/4930202-1-eng-US/f0005-072.jpg" title="f0005-07" width="701" height="341"></div>As a rookie, he looked like a sure star. Under-motivated, he squandered a lot of talent. His lack of speed ultimately hurt, too. Considering some later picks, a real washout.&mdash;Rod BeatonA victim of super hype and a controversial court case, McCourt was hampered unlike many other players. He&rsquo;s paying the price today.&mdash;Stan FischlerNot a good enough skater.&mdash;Dan KellyA splendid junior who made a tough act for himself to follow in the NHL because he never quite lived up to his billing, which was very high. Smarts with the puck made up for a lack of quickness in junior but that didn&rsquo;t work in the NHL. Always seemed he could have been in better condition.&mdash;Frank OrrA lot of talent, very little motivation.&mdash;Jay Greenberg<h2>10. GREG JOLY</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-0857/4930195-1-eng-US/f0005-082.jpg" title="f0005-08" width="701" height="339"></div>No bigger washout. Washington blundered badly. He wasn&rsquo;t even the the best player on his junior team.&mdash;Rod BeatonHe had only one thing going for him. His name was easy to spell. After that, he was as big a bust as we&rsquo;ve seen in years.&mdash;Stan FischlerObviously never should have been a No. 1 pick. Fooled the Caps with his great performance in the Memorial Cup that year, but was in over his head as a pro.&mdash;Jay GreenbergSome of his teammates said that his downfall was arriving at his first pro camp out of shape. He lost confidence and never achieved his potential.&mdash;Al StrachanWith complete respect for an old friend like Bryan Watson, somebody made the wrong choice when, two years after Joly was the No. 1 pick, he was traded to Detroit for Bryan.&mdash;Red Fisher &#9632;

f0004-01

RATING THE CLASS OF 1973-1982

THE INTERNATIONAL HOCKEY WEEKLYFounded in 1947 by Kenneth W. McKenziePUBLISHERDean HeineCONTROLLERTony DobranowskiEDITOR LN CHIEFBob McKenzieEDITORIAL DIRECTORCharlie HalpinASSISTANT EDITORPerry LefkoCONTRIBUTING EDITORSStan Fischler. Frank OnADVERTISING SALES MANAGERRandy GreenADVERTISING SERVICES MANAGEREsther SumkaADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVESCanadian Consumer Product Sales:CCMC. Cliff Kivell, 287 MacPherson Ave.Toronto. Ontario M4V 1A4(416) 928-2909SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES MANAGERPaula HeardNEWSSTAND SERVICES MANAGEREsther SumkaCIRCULATION DEPARTMENTKathy NiklcsRosanne TaninoACCOUNTING DEPARTMENTTom MoffatMary CarubiaSPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGERHughes Marketing Hockey News Bookshelf(416) 499-8227ADVERTISING AND EDITORIAL OFFICES85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100Toronto. Ontario. Canada M3B 2R2(416) 445-5702EXECUTIVE OFFICE850 Thiid Avenue New York. New York10022NEWSSTAND DISTRIBUTORDistributed nationally by Disticor101 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite L4Don Mills. Ont., M3B 1Z3(416) 449-6430THE HOCKEY NEWS, (ISSN 0018-3016) is published weekly except monthly June and bimonthly July and August by W.C.C. Publishing Ltd., 85 Scarsdale Road #100, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3B 2R2 (416) 445-5702. In U.S. do W.C.C. Publishing Corp., 850 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10022.40 ISSUE SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $22.95 in the U.S.A. $22.95 in Canada. $49.95 in Foreign Countries. Send all Canadian and Foreign subscription orders to THE HOCKEY NEWS. P.O. Box 13055, Postal Station &lsquo;A&rsquo;. Toronto. Ont. M5W 1V7. U.S. subscription requests should be mailed to Box 904, Buffalo, N.Y. 14240. Please allow 4-6 weeks for processing.SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO THE HOCKEY NEWS, 85 Scarsdale Road #100. Toronto. Ontario. Canada M3B 2R2. Second Class mail Registration No. 1327. All inquiries pertaining to subscriptions should be addressed to Subscription Dept., The Hockey News. 85 Scarsdale Road. #100, Toronto. Ontario. Canada M3B 2R2.IN THE UNITED STATES: Second class post age paid at New York. N.Y and at additional mailing offices. U.S. POSTMASTER send address change to: The Hockey News. P.O. Box 904. Buffalo. N.Y. 14240.Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations &#9632;

The Hockey News

<div class="byline">BY BOB McKENZIE</div>For the second consecutive year, the top-rated goaltender among NHL entry draft prospects may be a New England high schooler.His name is Alan Perry and he&rsquo;s a junior at Mt. St. Charles Academy, the same school in Woonsocket, R.I., that produced last year&rsquo;s No. 1 overall pick, Brian Lawton.Although the NHL&rsquo;s Central Scouting list wasn&rsquo;t finalized as this issue went to press, sources indicate that Perry will be at or near the top of the ratings list.But that doesn&rsquo;t mean you should expect Perry to follow in the footsteps of last year&rsquo;s New England high school phenom grad, Tom Barrasso of the Buffalo Sabres, who is an excellent bet to win rookie-of-the-year honors in the NHL.They possess similarities, but there are also striking differences.&ldquo;Barrasso is more than six feet tall,&rdquo; says one scout. &ldquo;Perry is only 5-foot-8 and 155 pounds. Barrasso surprised everyone by being able to make the jump directly to the NHL. I don&rsquo;t think Perry will be able to do the same thing, although he&rsquo;s an excellent prospect.&rdquo;Perry, who has been an all-state allstar the past two seasons, impressed the scouts when he played for Team USA in the world junior championships at Sweden last Christmas. It was there that he was voted as the all-star goalie, ahead of such solid performers as Ken Wregget and Allan Bester, two top-rated Toronto Maple Leaf prospects.&ldquo;He showed what he could do against the big shooters in that tournament,&rdquo; adds the scout. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s extremely quick, handles the puck well and he&rsquo;s got great mobility.&rdquo;Jack Belisle, the coach at Mt. St. Charles, has no doubts that Perry will one day be an NHL goalie.&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll make it,&rdquo; says Belisle, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s for sure. He&rsquo;s a very coachable kid and you can tell he&rsquo;s got what it takes. Whether he can make the jump immediately like Barrasso did, I don&rsquo;t know. I think Alan is quicker than Tom is, but Barrasso is a lot stronger. They both handle the puck very well.&rdquo;Another top goaltending prospect is Kamloop Junior Oiler rookie Daryl Reaugh, a 6-foot-5, 200-pounder from Prince George, B.C.&ldquo;He really uses his size to his advantage,&rdquo; the scout says. &ldquo;His attitude is just excellent and he&rsquo;s a really good athlete. Either him or Perry should be the first goalie taken.&rdquo;If Kamloops makes it to the Memorial Cup, Reaugh&rsquo;s stock could either rise or fall, depending upon his performance.Rounding out the other top goalie prospects are two netminders from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and three from the Ontario Hockey League.Daniel Berthiaune and Jude Labil-lois, who both play with the Drum-mondville Voltigeurs, are drawing long looks from NHL scouts as are London Knight Jeff Reese, Belleville Bull Craig Billington and Oshawa General Kirk MacLean.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011170/4930383-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="562" height="665"><figcaption class="caption-body">Daryl Reaugh</figcaption></div>Both Berthiaune and Labillois are small and quick, comparing favorably to Bester, who played so well for the Maple Leafs at the end of the NHL season. Labillois saw more action than Berthiaune and may go higher.Reese&rsquo;s strength, the scouting reports say, is his ability to play the angles well. He was rated higher early in the season but his performance trailed off slightly in the latter stages of the season.Billington saw a lot of action for the Bulls and was consistent so his ranking is of no surprise.But MacLean&rsquo;s inclusion among the top goalies is something of a surprise. He did not see much action with the Generals, playing behind No. 1 man Peter Sidorkiewicz all season long.&ldquo;He&rsquo;sabig, strong kid who is confident and plays a stand-up style,&rdquo; a scout says. &ldquo;Even though he didn&rsquo;t play much, he looks like me may be a good prospect. Maybe if he played more, we&rsquo;d be exposed to more of his weaknesses, but he&rsquo;s the kind of kid worth taking a chance on.&rdquo;None of these goalies is expected to be drafted in the first round, although nothing is carved in stone.&ldquo;With Barrasso making it like he did,&rdquo; the scout says, &ldquo;some team the really needs goaltending help might take a chance on someone like Perry or Reaugh. But it&rsquo;s doubtful. There really isn&rsquo;t a Tom Barrasso in this draft.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0007-01

High School Goalie Rates High

The International Hockey WeeklyFounded in 1947Published by W.C.C. Publishing Ltd.85 Scarsdale Road, #100, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3B 2R2.<h2>Justice For All</h2>NOW THAT A Salem (MA) Superior Court has sentenced Boston Bruin forward Craig MacTavish, who pleaded guilty to a vehicular homicide charge, to one year in jail with no possibility of parole, it raises a serious question concerning the way NHL discipline is meted out.Specifically, will the NHL take further disciplinary action against MacTavish, the 25-year-old London, Ont., native who entered the guilty plea in connection with an early-morning car accident last Jan. 25 in which Kim Radley, 26, was seriously injured and died four days later?Now, one might question why the NHL need be involved at all. MacTavish obviously made a critical mistake which resulted in the death of a young girl and one can only try to imagine the mental anguish which haunts him. A court of law opted to sentence him to the mandatory minimum&mdash;one year with no chance for parole&mdash;and whether that is a suitable punishment for the crime is not for THE HOCKEY NEWS to debate.But what is of interest to THE HOCKEY NEWS is NHL president John Ziegler&rsquo;s next move.Based on past experiences with NHL players who have committed crimes, such as drug convictions, MacTavish can expect to be suspended from hockey for a period of time well in excess of whatever the court sentenced him to. But will he?It is a question only John Ziegler can answer. Last year, when Montreal Canadien defenseman Ric Nattress was convicted of possession of miniscule amounts of marijuana and hashish, and fined $150 by a Brantford, Ont., court, Ziegler saw fit to hit Nattress with a one-year suspension, subject to review at the midway point (it was commuted). Ziegler said his approach had to be tough to show other hockey players that there is no place for drugs in the sport.Now Ziegler is faced with an NHL player who has not committed a drug offense, but has been convicted of vehicular homicide, which was originally a drunken driving charge. Wire service reports say that MacTavish had been drinking at a Boston area night club, was described by club employees as being drunk and loud and had stopped being served liquor.Unfortunately, this tragic incident raises the question of which crime was most heinous. Did Ric Nattress, with his drug offense and $150 fine, tarnish the image of the NHL more than Craig MacTavish, with his vehicular homicide conviction and one-year sentence, not to mention the fact that MacTavish&rsquo;s actions resulted in the loss of a young girl&rsquo;s life?This is not an attempt to minimize the serious problem of drugs in sports or to say that Nattress should not have been punished. Nor is it an attempt to saddle MacTavish with more grief than he already has or to say he should be hit with a hefty suspension on top of his one-year stint in jail.Rather, it is to point out that if the NHL, and John Ziegler in particular, is going to act as a supplementary judge and jury in incidents involving the reputation of the league, then it had better be prepared to deal with every judicial aberration performed by an NHL player, not just those involving drugs.It&rsquo;s an uneviable situation to be in. Nevertheless, if Ziegler takes action against MacTavish, it will signal that it&rsquo;s his intention to accept that challenge. If, however, Ziegler chooses not to take action against MacTavish, then the next time he passes judgment on a drug offender, he had better be prepared for the furor that will ensue, amid legitimate complaints of inconsistency in meting out NHL discipline.<h2>Three Cheers</h2>THREE CHEERS to the folks who run the Memorial Cup for disposing of the stupidest rule ever in hockey. Before this year, each team entering the Memorial Cup tournament was permitted to pick up a goalie of their choice from any team in their own league. Inevitably, these &ldquo;pick-up&rdquo; goalies played key roles in determining many Cup finals.The rule, which was tossed out this year, made about as much sense as the New York Islanders being allowed to pick up Washington Cap defenseman Rod Langway for the Stanley Cup final.We&rsquo;re glad the Cup organizers finally saw the light. &#9632;

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>I had made up my mind to keep my mouth shut on the subject of the impossibly miserable state of National Hockey League officiating until two things happened a week apart. The first was a phone call.Not long after the Quebec Nordiques had been eliminated by the Montreal Canadiens in the infamous Forum bloodbath, my pal Bert Corwin was on the line. To put Corwin in perspective, let me just say that if Bert Corwin had been a Canadian he would have been as good as Gordie Howe. And, secondly, Corwin is one of only six people whose opinions on hockey I respect more than my own. When Bert calls, Stan listens.&ldquo;I feel bad as a hockey fan,&rdquo; said Corwin, &ldquo;not because of all the fighting in that game but because of the refereeing (by Bruce Hood). I am a Ranger fan and I was totally impartial watching that game but what Hood did was inexcusable.&rdquo;Corwin said a lot more, but we&rsquo;ll get to that later. I filed Bert&rsquo;s comments in the back of my brain and decided that discussing the putrid refereeing performances is as useful as talking about oil spills. But the second event moved it out of the mind and onto the typewriter.A week after Bert had phoned I learned that NHL president John Ziegler had fined the Quebec Nordiques $3,000 for anti-officiating remarks uttered after that contest.Very interesting. The Nordiques can criticize Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau with impunity and Bryan Murray can put the rap on president Ronald Reagan without fear of reprisal but say something revealing about the Grade-Z zebras masquerading as Grade-A refs and your bankbook gets a hernia.The Nordiques&rsquo; sin was because they delivered statements considered &ldquo;prejudicial to the league.&rdquo; And therein lies Ziegler&rsquo;s basic mistake: it isn&rsquo;t the Nordiques who should be fined, it is the official(s) for the conduct that truly is &ldquo;prejudicial to the league.&rdquo;Let us examine the game in question. At the end of the second period, a mass brawl erupted. When the dust had cleared Hood had ejected Peter Stastny and Louis Sleigher of Quebec along with Richard Sevigny and Mario Tremblay of Montreal.&ldquo;How,&rdquo; demanded Bert Corwin, &ldquo;do you throw a man like Peter Stastny out of the game?&rdquo;Ah, a good question.The ejection of Stastny stunk to high heaven then and the smell lingers on in Quebec where they are still suffering fatigability of the olifactory nerves. The reason is elementary: Peter Stastny is the Wayne Gretzky of Quebec. He is not a fighter, he is an artist. His nose was busted and nearly his jaw, too.&ldquo;You can bet,&rdquo; says Quebec Soleil sports editor Claude Larochelle, &ldquo;that in a similar situation Gretzky would never have been thrown out of a game.&rdquo;Damn right. But it was more than that. At the start of the third period, Randy Moller and Dale Hunter were suckered into fights by Sevigny and Tremblay, and were later ejected. Montreal lost Tremblay, Sevigny and Mike McPhee. The Canadiens exchanged chrome for gold and got away with it.In the third period, traditionally-clean Michel Goulet was hit with a two-minute penalty for tripping at 6:46, after a half-dozen conspicuously more serious infractions, most committed by the Canadiens, were ignored. Under the circumstances, how can a Nordique official in his right mind not question the intelligence, the integrity and the insipidity of the officiating?The Nordique-Canadien mess, tragically is not an isolated one but rather symbolic of officiating that drives people up walls and through ceilings. A similar episode happened in the seventh game of the Oiler-Flame series. Calgary led 4-3 when Mark Messier jumped Jim Peplinski from behind. Both were given two-minute penalties; Edmonton scored twice and went on to win.I have discussed the NHL&rsquo;s refereeing mess three times for several hours with Scotty Morrison and other league officials. They&rsquo;re terrific across a table when it comes to articulating the wonders of their zebras.The NHL&rsquo;s rationales for officiating don&rsquo;t impress me a bit, not when I hear Herb Brooks, Bryan Murray and a cast of dozens tell me over and over again that there is something wrong in the state of refereeing. Inconsistency is the major problem and it goes on from there.As Edmonton Journal columnist John Short says in an open letter to Ziegler: &ldquo;A good place to start would be by levelling to the fans and the media when one of your zebras does a lousy job.&rdquo;Ziegler can fine the Nordiques til the cows come home for spotlighting the problem and call it conduct prejudicial to hockey. Where I come from that&rsquo;s known as sweeping dirt under the rug. What the NHL should realize is that anyone who takes the game seriously can see right through the rug. &#9632;

Poor Officiating Isn’t Fine And Dandy

Want to voice your opinion on an issue? Send your letters to: FAN FORUM, THE HOCKEY NEWS, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont., M3B 2R2.<h2>PLAYOFF PUZZLEMENT</h2>I have been an avid subscriber to THE HOCKEY NEWS for 10 years or more and I consider myself more than an avid hockey fan. I would like to voice my opinion about the playoff structure! To paraphrase an American expression&hellip;it stinks.Can you explain to me what individual team records mean? Can anyone explain to me why the Islanders&rsquo; home-ice advantage situation should be determined by what six other teams in the Patrick Division record did against the Adams Division? Can anyone explain to me why a team such as Montreal should even be considered for the playoffs, let alone compete in the playoffs? How can Montreal or any other team with a sub-.500 mark be considered for a playoff berth? And last, but not least, why do the Islanders, who finished the season with over 100 points, have to lose home ice to a team with only 76 points, especially with so much at stake with the Islanders trying to win five Stanley Cups?Can anyone tell me why Montreal during their glory years always had home ice and why it isn&rsquo;t the same for the Islanders? Can anyone explain to me why the Islanders have had to play three of the four Stanley Cup finals without home-ice advantage?Instead of asking where&rsquo;s the beef, I say, where&rsquo;s the brains? This is one reason why hockey isn&rsquo;t catching on in the U.S. I think the fairest and most equitable playoff system would be for the division winner to draw a bye in the first round&hellip;and then the teams and home ice should be determined by the total points during the season, not because one conference had home-ice one year so the following year home ice is determined on which conference last had home ice. I think something smells awful fishy.Anthony Branco Philadelphia, PA<h2>AHL DESERVES BETTER</h2>In the April 13th issue, you dealt with how the National Hockey League picks its playoff officials. This system of taking-the-best-and-leaving-the-rest proves the NHL wants the best, most consistent officiating possible for the playoffs.This is fine for the NHL. but lousy for the American League. We get the rest.Even while the NHL is in the conference finals and using fewer officials, the AHL is still at the mercy of these inadequate referees.If these officials do not rate in the NHL playoffs, should we have to be the victims of their handywork?Russ Shaffer Rochester, NY<h2>TRUE BLUE CREW</h2>For a team that was not supposed to be here last August, the St. Louis Blues showed what the word upset really means. Though they lost to Minnesota in the Norris Division finals, I have the utmost respect for their staff.Owner Harry Omest&rsquo;s quote after the North Star loss&mdash;&ldquo;From adversity comes success&rdquo;&mdash;fits no team better than the Blues.Terry Bohn St. Louis, MI &#9632;

FAN FORUM

Before the 1983-84 National Hockey League season started, many people predicted it would be the New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup finals. And that&rsquo;s what has happened.The Oilers beat Minnesota in a four-game sweep to win the Campbell Conference championship while the Islanders, after losing the first two games to a spirited Montreal team, got their engines going to win the Wales Conference four games to two.This year&rsquo;s Cup will feature the Islanders hosting the first two games of the best-of-seven final, then the series will switch to Edmonton for the next three and then will go back to the Island if necessary.The Islanders and the Oilers, it will be a replay of last year&rsquo;s final which the Isles won in a four-game sweep. The Isles have another Cup to strive for and the Oilers are looking for their first. It should be an exiting end to another exiting season.<h2>MONTREAL VS. ISLANDERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011290/4930500-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="589" height="153"></div>Game Four: The Islanders continued on the road back in their Wales Conference final against the Montreal Canadiens as they scored a goal in each period to defeat the Habs 3-1 and square the best-of-seven playoff series 2-2.Just as they did in the third game on home ice, the defending Cup champs outplayed, outscored and outhustled the Canadiens throughout the game while once more taking the game away from them along the boards and in the comers.Mike Bossy decided the issue with his sixth playoff goal at 16:40 of the second period to put the Islanders ahead to stay. It turned out to be the game winner. The rest of the New York scoring was handled by the defense. Tomas Jonsson and rookie Gord Dineen, with his first of the playoffs, both scored single goals.Steve Shutt, Montreal&rsquo;s born-again scorer in the playoffs, connected for the lone Canadiens&rsquo; goal at 12:31 of the first period to knot the score after Jonsson had opened the game with his third at 4:18. It was Shutt&rsquo;s sixth of the playoffs.The Islanders backed up Billy Smith in goal with another solid defensive performance. It was Smith&rsquo;s 81st playoff victory and tied him with Ken Dryden for most wins by a goalie in Stanley Cup playoff history.Steve Penney, who had been the talk of the playoffs before the cunent series moved from Montreal to New York, was again the victim of the Islander onslaught. He suffered his second straight defeat and only his fourth in 13 games.Game Five: The Montreal Canadiens might have thought they were hit by the Long Island Express after the Islanders steamed past them 3-1 to grab a one-game lead in their Wales Conference final series.The Islanders, down 2-0 in their best-of-seven series with the Habs, continued their roll back as they stopped the Canadiens for the third straight game and nothing was more decisive than winning it on Montreal ice. It was as if the Habs had gasped their last breath with game six back at the Nassau County Coliseum, where the Islanders are generally invincible at this time of year.Some brilliant goaltending by veteran Billy Smith and a determined closechecking effort by the Islanders put the Canadiens on the ropes in the series.A pair of first-period goals by Bryan Trottier, the villain in game four, and Brent Sutter did in the Canadiens in early. They never recovered despite a mid third-period score by Pierre Mondou on an Islander giveaway. Rookie Pat Flatley, with his seventh playoff goal, iced the game for New York when he scored at 15:21 with the Canadiens dominating the Islanders in an attempt to tie the score. It never came as Smith stood tall with some key saves before Flatley put the game out of reach with his goal.The Islanders tore a page from their playoff style book that has helped them win four straight Cups and the tactics, harassing the opposition, forechecking at every opportunity and bumping the Habs off the puck, were simply too much for Montreal to handle.Islander coach Al Arbour was elated with his team&rsquo;s effort. He said they&rsquo;re now playing their best hockey of the playoffs.&ldquo;That was more our style of play,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t played that way in a while. We did all the things necessary to win. We hung tough. There were times when perhaps we laid back when he shouldn&rsquo;t have but we held them off without too many good shots.&rdquo;Smith was at his customary best in this clutch game. He hood-winked referee Bob Myers into a costly first-period penalty to Ryan Walter of Montreal after doing one of his patented swan dives when Walter skated past him. While Walter was in the penalty box, the Islanders struck for the first goal with Trottier the trigger man. Smith handled 26 shots to record his 82nd playoff victory.The play that deflated the Canadiens most was Sutter&rsquo;s shorthanded goal, a classic one-man effort at 9:36 with the Canadiens pressing for the equalizer.Game Six: The remarkable New York Islanders advanced to the Cup finals for the fifth successive season when they eliminated the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 in the sixth game of the the Wales Conference championship series to culminate another amazing playoff comeback.Hanging precariously on the ropes after losing the first two games of the series in Montreal, the determined Islanders put it all together to sweep the next four and win the best-of-seven conference final 4-2.How good were the Islanders in the series? Montreal coach Jacques Lemaire was emphatic after the game.&ldquo;To me, they&rsquo;re the best team in North America,&rdquo; saidLemaire. &ldquo;I think they&rsquo;ll win the Cup.&rdquo;Lemaire&rsquo;s tribute to Al Arbour&rsquo;s Islanders came after the defending Cup champs displayed all their usual poise in knocking the upstart Canadiens out of the playoffs. It wasn&rsquo;t any easy task but the experienced Islanders simply had too much offense, a solid defense anchored by goalie Billy Smith, and the confidence that only comes with winning four previous Stanley Cups.While Smith turned in another superb goaltending job stopping 21 of 22 Montreal shots, sharpshooting Mike Bossy provided the scoring punch with two goals, his seventh and eighth of the playoffs. Bossy also triggered the eventual game-winning goal, his third of the six-game series.The Islanders broke down the stubborn Montreal defense that had carried the Cinderella Canadiens all the way to an unexpected berth in the Cup semi-finals. The Islanders built up an early 2-0 first-period lead as they had done in most of the earlier games of the series, then went into a defensive shell around Smith that the Canadiens found impregnable.Clark Gillies with his seventh and rookie Pat Flatley with his eighth of the playoffs, were the other New York scorers. Mario Tremblay notched his sixth playoff goal but it was all the resistance the Canadiens could offer and it simply wasn-t enough.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021001/4930493-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="1163" height="789"><figcaption class="caption-body">Billy Smith broke Ken Dryden&rsquo;s record for career playoff wins by a qoalie when he got his 82nd in the series with Montreal. (Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div>Arbour admitted he was skeptical after his team lost the first two games.&ldquo;We had guys out there blocking shots that never blocked them before in their lives. Everyone seemed to dig in a little deeper as the series progressed,&rdquo; said Arbour.It was the Islanders&rsquo; 19th consecutive playoff series victory. The Canadiens, after upsetting both Boston and Quebec in the first two rounds, seemed ready to do it to the Islanders before they were caught up in the overpowering New York turnabout. The Islanders scored 15 times in the final four games while holding the Habs to only five goals, a good indication of their superiority in the series.<h2>EDMONTON VS. MINNESOTA</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-03663/4930486-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg" title="f0010-03" width="582" height="198"></div>Game Four: The Edmonton Oilers had too much of everything for the Minnesota North Stars as they wound up their Campbell Conference final series by sweeping the Stars in four straight with a 3-1 win.Unlike the other wide-open, freewheeling games, this game was highlighted by closer checking on both sides of the ice. The Oilers outshot the Stars 33-25 and might have run up a higher score had it not been for the heroics of veteran Gilles Meloche, who took over the starting assignment from Don Beaupre in a bid by Minnesota to avoid playoff elimination.Don Jackson, Ken Linseman and Jari Kurri were the Edmonton scorers. Linseman got the winner, his ninth of the playoffs, on a power play. Kurri, the Stanley Cup playoff goal-scoring leader, raised his production to 13 in 14 games when he counted into an empty Minnesota goal in the final minute.Dino Ciccarelli scored the lone Minnesota goal at 10:35 of the final period to reduce Edmonton&rsquo;s margin to 2-0. But the Stars couldn&rsquo;t get the puck past Grant Fuhr, who returned to the Oilers&rsquo; goal after missing the third game with an injury. &#9632;

f0010-01

Oilers Trving To Stall Isles’ Drive For Five

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-04" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-04483/4930545-1-eng-US/f0010-042.jpg"></div><h2>RECORD FOR REGULAR SEASON</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-05368/4930538-1-eng-US/f0010-052.jpg" title="f0010-05" width="1078" height="188"></div><h2>1983 STANLEY CUP FINALS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-06279/4930531-1-eng-US/f0010-062.jpg" title="f0010-06" width="1086" height="186"></div> &#9632;

f0010-04

Stanley Cup Finals

<h2>PLAYOFF STANDINGS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-07204/4930653-1-eng-US/f0010-072.jpg" title="f0010-07" width="572" height="500"></div><h2>WALES CONFERENCE</h2><h3>FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-08154/4930646-1-eng-US/f0010-082.jpg" title="f0010-08" width="540" height="124"></div>Game scores: NYI 0 at Mtl 3; NYI 2 at Mtl 4; Mtl 2 at NYI 5; Mtl 1 at NYI 3; NYI 3 at Mtl 1; Mtl 1 at NYI 4.Top goal scorers: NYI: Bossy 4, Gillies 3, Jonsson, Gilbert, Flatley 2. Mtl: Shutt, Naslund, Mondou 3.Overtime winners: none.<h3>ADAMS DIVISION FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-09118/4930639-1-eng-US/f0010-092.jpg" title="f0010-09" width="546" height="128"></div><h3>SEMI-FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-1099/4930632-1-eng-US/f0010-102.jpg" title="f0010-10" width="502" height="262"></div><h3>PATRICK DIVISION FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-1178/4930625-1-eng-US/f0010-112.jpg" title="f0010-11" width="584" height="134"></div><h3>SEMI-FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-1258/4930618-1-eng-US/f0010-122.jpg" title="f0010-12" width="510" height="272"></div><h2>CAMPBELL CONFERENCE</h2><h3>FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-1342/4930611-1-eng-US/f0010-132.jpg" title="f0010-13" width="542" height="122"></div>Game scores: Min 1 at Edm 7; Min 3 at Edm 4; Edm 8 at Min 5; Edm 3 at Min 1.Top goal scorers: Edm: Kurri 5, Gretzky, Linseman 4. Min: Broten 3, Napier 2.Overtime winners: none<h3>NORRIS DIVISION FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-1433/4930604-1-eng-US/f0010-142.jpg" title="f0010-14" width="564" height="114"></div><h3>SEMI-FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-1530/4930597-1-eng-US/f0010-152.jpg" title="f0010-15" width="526" height="238"></div><h3>SMYTHE DIVISION FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-1622/4930590-1-eng-US/f0010-162.jpg" title="f0010-16" width="534" height="120"></div><h3>SEMI-FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-1717/4930583-1-eng-US/f0010-172.jpg" title="f0010-17" width="504" height="229"></div><h3>LEADING PLAYOFF SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-1815/4930576-1-eng-US/f0010-182.jpg" title="f0010-18" width="558" height="301"></div> &#9632;

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Stanley Cup Playoff Picture

<h2>BUFFEY SEEKS CHANGES</h2>TORONTO&mdash;Vem Buffey, a former National Hockey League referee and now the technical director for referees with Hockey Ontario, recently said last year he asked for changes in penalties for charging, boarding, high-sticking and crosschecking after reading a study on neck injuries.Testifying at a public hearing on hockey safety and development, Buffey said he wanted the rule book to tell referees they &ldquo;must assess&rdquo; the penalties when the infractions occur, rather than using an element of judgment.Buffey was not then part of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, so he sent copies of his suggestions to the Thunder Bay and Ottawa Branches of the Ontario Hockey Association and the Northern Ontario Hockey Association to ask them to raise the issue in CAHA rule meetings.&ldquo;But nothing has been done,&rdquo; Buffey said. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t even heard back from the CAHA. 1 think the referees have too much opportunity to use their discretion. The wording has to be made explicit and, in those cases, especially when a man is hit from behind or blind-sided, it should be a major penalty.&rdquo;The three-day hearing also heard testimony from former NHL players Carl Brewer and Andy Bathgate. Brewer, who led the NHL in penalty minutes three times, said he thinks there is less violence in hockey today than 10 years ago.&ldquo;There have been 50 or 60 playoff games in the past few weeks, but all anyone seems to highlight is the brawl in the Quebec-Montreal series. Hockey referees have historically been more lenient than officials in other sports, but now they&rsquo;re tougher than they&rsquo;ve ever been.&rdquo;Bathgate, who won the Hart Trophy in 1958-59 with the New York Rangers, said he felt the full-face cages used by minor-hockey players today are responsible for some serious injuries. He referred to a recent study that showed more than 40 amateur hockey players in Ontario received spinal and neck injuries between 1976-83&mdash;injuries he felt were rare in his bare-headed and bare-faced era.&ldquo;I would love to see them get rid of the mask,&rdquo; he said afterwards. &ldquo;1 would go as far as to say get rid of the helmet. Try a league like that and see how skillful these boys would be.&rdquo;<h2>LEAF GOVERNOR DIES</h2>TORONTO&mdash;Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; lawyer and alternate governor Robert Sedgewick died of a heart attack on May 5. He was 62.Sedgewick also worked as vice-chairman of the NHL board of governors and when Clarence Campbell left his job as president, Sedgewick was one of the men who was a serious candidate to take over.&ldquo;Few if any men have made a bigger contribution to the league and the board of governors in the past few years than Bob Sedgewick,&rdquo; NHL president John Ziegler said. &ldquo;He was a man of wit, wisdom and superb legal skill who was a very special friend and advisor to me and the other governors.&rdquo;<h2>BIG NED, EAGLE IN COURT</h2>TORONTO&mdash;Former National Hockey League player Vaclav Nedo-mansky is currently suing his former agent Alan Eagleson and Eagleson&rsquo;s company, Sports Management Ltd., for more than $1 million in lost benefits, claiming negligence and breach of contract.Nedomansky alleges negligence in the June 29, 1979, contract with Detroit which was to have given him $1.4 million over five years plus a 10-year job with the Wings as scout or hockey consultant when he retired.However, because the contract was never signed, Nedomansky charges that he has lost benefits he should have received had the contract been signed.Bill Watters, a player agent who worked for Sports Management Ltd. and negotiated the contract, said he struck the original deal with Ted Lindsay, the general manager of the Wings at the time, and later telephoned Eagleson, who then sent a telex to Lindsay outlining terms of the contract.Less than a week later, Watters and Eagleson attended a press conference in Detroit to announce the signing.Nedomansky&rsquo;s lawyer, Morton Greenglass, said the contract also guaranteed the club could not buy out the Czechoslovak player&rsquo;s contract at less than its total salary.But the contract eventually signed on Sept. 9, 1980, contained a standard National Hockey League buyout clause which allowed the Wings to buyout Nedomansky&rsquo;s contract at one-third its value.Nedomansky, 40, has not played hockey for a year and is unemployed.<h2>CSN-NHL TO GO TO COURT</h2>CHICAGO&mdash;A judge in an Illinois court has ordered a trial in the National Hockey League&rsquo;s dispute with Canadian Sports Network over the validity of the league&rsquo;s trans-border broadcast agreement.The NHL wants the matter settled in court so its U.S. teams can proceed with an agreement with Carling O&rsquo;Keefe to televise U.S.-based games back to Canada next season.CSN moved to dismiss the case on grounds that Illinois court had no jurisdiction over the Canadian network. Circuit Judge Arthur Dunne denied the motion and ordered the case to proceed to trial in Chicago. &#9632;

SLAPSHOTS

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SCHULTZ</div>Quick now, name all the National Hockey League teams that former defenseman Larry Hillman didn&rsquo;t play for.Although the number of teams that he didn&rsquo;t play for exceed the ones he did play for, Hillman&rsquo;s 19-year career lists time spent with the Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Minnesota North Stars, Montreal Canadiens, Philadelphia Flyers, Los Angeles Kings and Buffalo Sabres.Whew.Of course, you can add three more seasons in the old World Hockey Association with the Cleveland Crusaders and Winnipeg Jets.In all, he played 22 seasons with six Stanley Cup teams and one Avco Cup team.&ldquo;Even though I played on eight NHL teams and two more in the WHL, I really enjoyed myself while I was playing,&rdquo; recalled Hillman, a native of Kirkland Lake, Ont. &ldquo;Of course my father once said that he had a tough time keeping track of where 1 was playing.&ldquo;Of course 1 always told him I couldn&rsquo;t help it if everybody wanted me. I must have been very popular.&ldquo;I will admit it did get a little tough towards the end of my career, especially playing on six different teams during my last six seasons in the NHL.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-02905/4930715-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="565" height="1149"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Hillman is suffering from a rare disease which has left him partially paralyzed.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;But I just accepted it as part of my career and had to put up with it. It was a good life.&rdquo;Hillman considered 1966-67 as his best season in his long hockey career.&ldquo;I never scored that many goals or points in my career, but I was always proud of my defensive abilities as a defenseman,&rdquo; Hillman said. &ldquo;And in the &lsquo;67 playoffs with the Leafs 1 think 1 played some of the best defense of my career.&ldquo;Punch Imlach (Toronto coach) paired Marcel Pronovost and I on defense during the playoffs and in 12 games 1 think we gave up only four goals while we were on the ice.&ldquo;That was something 1 was proud of.&rdquo;Following his playing career Hillman tried his hand at coaching with the Jets. After leading Winnipeg to an Avco Cup title in 1977-78, he was fired by general manager John Ferguson midway through the following season.&ldquo;That sort of left a sour taste in my mouth about ever coaching again,&rdquo; said Hillman. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if I would ever want to get into a battle like that again.&rdquo;Today, Hillman is fighting another battle. He recently returned to Toronto, hospitalized for Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a very rare disease.&ldquo;It has left my legs paralyzed from the knee down and a tingling sensation in my fingers,&rdquo; said Hillman, who resides at a tourist camp he owns on Long Lake, 33 miles from his hometown of Kirkland Lake. &ldquo;I have been told that following treatment the symptoms will be totally reversed after six weeks.&ldquo;Then I will be able to come home again and begin therapy.&ldquo;It may keep me down for awhile. But I plan on coming back from it.&rdquo;<h2>BEAVER TALES</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011180/4930708-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="1853" height="603"></div> &#9632;

f0011-02

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

<div class="byline">BY BOB DUFF</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-03671/4930770-1-eng-US/f0011-032.jpg"></div>that the NHL teams which have won the most consecutive playoff series (excluding the result of the current Islander-Canadien semi-final) are: &#9632;

f0011-03

Did You Know…

1. Which current NHL coach was the MVP in the 1960 and 1962 NCAA tourneys?2. Which New York Islander once played minor league baseball in the Astros&rsquo; chain?3. Name the Flyer defenseman who lost an eye during the 1973-74 playoffs?4. What member of the NFL Seattle Seahawks was a fourth-round draft pick of the Minnesota Fighting Saints in the 1974 WHA draft?5. Which current NHL executive once coached the Montreal Maroons?6. Name the only two NHL teams which have never won a playoff game?7. Who was the first player from an expansion club to make the NHL&rsquo;s first all-star team?8. Name the player who played with Edmonton in last year&rsquo;s Stanley Cup playoffs, despite not having appeared in a single regular season game?9. Which Canadian university recently dropped its hockey program?10. Which NHL club vice president was once a wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers?<h2>Trivia Answers</h2>1. Lou Angotti.2. Clark Gillies.3. Barry Ashbee.4. Don Dufek.5. Frank (King) Clancy.6. New Jersey and Hartford.7. Glenn Hall, St. Louis, 1968-69.8. Ray Cote.9. University of Winnipeg.10. Paul Martha. &#9632;

TRIVIA

<div class="byline">FRANK ORR&#x2019;S</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011263/4930801-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="285" height="342"></div><h2>Not Quite Free</h2>BECAUSE ANY SPECULATION on the matter of a player under contract to a National Hockey League club and the possibility of his changing teams as a free agent can bring punishment for tampering if it&rsquo;s done in public, the general manager of an NHL club could only discuss Rick Vaive anonymously.Vaive is the excellent right winger of the Toronto Maple Leafs, a high quality player who has had 50 or more goals in the past three seasons. He&rsquo;s 24, big, strong and marketable, a player who would decorate any NHL roster.Vaive&rsquo;s contract with the Leafs is heading into its option year and undoubtedly the Leaf captain would like to see some hefty numbers on a new deal, say, $300,000 per season.Recently, Leaf owner Harold Ballard, when asked about Vaive&rsquo;s new contract, bad-mouthed the club&rsquo;s captain, claiming that he was a mediocre player who probably couldn&rsquo;t have played for the team in its glory days of the six-team NHL.Thus, there was a little speculation around the NHL that Vaive might decide that the sad-sack Leafs were a good club to be in the &ldquo;ex&rdquo; category and place himself on the NHL&rsquo;s free agent market. Undoubtedly, some teams would be willing to pay the set price to sign him as a free agent.Or would they?The price for Vaive, in addition to the big long-term contract necessary to lure him away from the Leafs, would be two first-round entry draft choices or one first-rounder and the No. 4 player on the team&rsquo;s roster. That compensation was set down by the agreement signed two years ago between the NHL and its Players&rsquo; Association.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d love to have Rick Vaive on my hockey team,&rdquo; the GM said, &ldquo;but the price would just be a little too high. Maybe we would give two first-rounders for him but a first-rounder and our No. 4 player would be just a little too much.&rdquo;<h2>To a Weak Team</h2>THIS CHAP CLAIMS that a weak NHL team would be wise to sign a free agent player the calibre of Vaive or Mark Messier, who would have become a free agent in June if he had not signed a new pact with the Edmonton Oilers.The man&rsquo;s thinking goes like this. Sure, Vaive or Messier would cost a first-round draft pick&mdash;in the case of a low-ranked team, a good one&mdash;and the fourth player on the roster. But the club would be acquiring an established &ldquo;franchise&rdquo; player, a worker around whom the team could be built, a commodity the draft choice might never become.&ldquo;And if the club&rsquo;s No. 4 player was a good one, then that team probably wouldn&rsquo;t be in the dregs of the league,&rdquo; the GM said. &ldquo;To sign a Vaive or a Messier would be worth it to a bad franchise.&ldquo;In some ways, the fact that we have no movement of free agents because the price is too high is bad for the league. Everyone said that free agency would be the death of baseball and while there has been some really dumb signings of players, it&rsquo;s made the game even stronger.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt that in our league, free agency with no compensation would cause big trouble. A few owners would start throwing the bucks around and in a league where at least a dozen teams lose money now, that would be fatal to a few franchises.&rdquo;<h2>Happy At Home</h2>IS THERE ANY club in the NHL that wouldn&rsquo;t want Messier on its roster? He&rsquo;s a superbly talented player who can be an all-star on left wing as he has for the past two years and then switch to center and excel as he has this spring.An agent once said that Messier was one of the very few players who would be worth the price of compensation as a free agent. But when Messier&rsquo;s contract was running out, did he wait to explore the market for his services?&ldquo;Never even thought about it,&rdquo; said Messier.Didn&rsquo;t his agent suggest it?&ldquo;He and I never even discussed it,&rdquo; Messier added.It seems that Messier is happy in his hometown and with the Oilers. He talks of loyalty to the team that gave him a start at 18 and the pleasures of playing on a contender.&ldquo;They didn&rsquo;t get upset when I did little for a couple of years,&rdquo; Messier said. &ldquo;Our team is good, we all came to Edmonton as teenagers and grew up together. I wouldn&rsquo;t want to play any place but Edmonton. I&rsquo;m happy there.&rdquo;A few agents wish Messier had remembered that happiness isn&rsquo;t everything and trail-blazed as a team-changing free agent. &#9632;

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HOCKEY VIEWPOINT

<div class="byline">BY JOHN GILBERT</div>BLOOMINGTON&mdash;Battered, beaten and with their injured players practically matching their healty ones, the Minnesota North Stars ended their season with pride.When they lost 3-1 in game four to Edmonton, it gave the Oilers a four-game, 4-0 sweep in their Stanley Cup semi-final playoff. It was the first time in their history that the North Stars had gone out 4-0 in a seven-game playoff series. Even when they lost to the Islanders in the Cup final three years ago it was 4-1.But watching that fourth Edmonton game, out of uniform, were Paul Holmgren (shoulder surgery), Lars Lindgren (pulled groin), Brent Ashton (strained knee), in addition to Craig Hartsburg, Dan Mandich, Tom McCarthy, all of whom had gone down before with serious injuries.That all gave general manager Lou Nanne the chance to say, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m less of a believer in the Oilers now than I was before. I&rsquo;m convinced we could have beaten them if we had all our players healthy.&rdquo;That rationalization, spoken by the main man, should make for a satisfactory summer off. That and the realization that the North Stars made it to the semi-finals. for the third time in five years, a feat only matched by the Islanders.But there could be some holes to fill next year. Major holes. In his effort to convince some of the more offensive-minded players to work both ways, coach Bill Mahoney seemed to overlook some of the most dedicated workers.It is ironic that in his effort for all-out team concern, the coach may have slighted some of the best team-men. Curt Giles, always one of the most underrated defenseman in the league&mdash;except by opposing players&mdash;may be gone. He has played out his options and is a free agent with compensation. And he would welcome a change in scenery, even though he is regarded as the team&rsquo;s most valuable player by some teammates.And Lars Lindgren, who came in from Vancouver and played so well on defense, is probably going home to Sweden, to quit the NHL. Others, such as Al MacAdam&mdash;the quiet, heart-and-soul man on the club&mdash;is fed up with being put into a defensive role and then not played in defensive situations. Same with George Ferguson.And there are others. Goaltender Gilles Meloche, started the first two playoff games, then was left out except for one relief appearance while Don Beaupre started 13 consecutive playoff games. Beaupre was hot, but he was played to absolute exhaustion before Meloche played, and played well, in the final game against Edmonton.To their credit, the Stars played well in three of four Edmonton games, good enough to win. After blowing a 5-2 lead to lose 8-5 at home to the Oilers in game three, the Stars came back hard in game four.And, to Mahoney&rsquo;s credit, he did some great coaching in that game. He shifted strategy, so that defenseman Brad Maxwell, or occasionally Gordie Roberts, played wing on a Ferguson-MacAdam line that covered the crisscrossing Mark Messier line. And he had either Keith Acton or Neal Broten stay on Wayne Gretzky man-to-man from the neutral zone back.It was goalless through one period. Then Don Jackson, who grew up within walking distance of the Met Center but who never got a chance to make the club when he was North Star property, scored on a dazzling rush in the second period. It was his first playoff goal ever.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021060/4930832-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="547" height="689"><figcaption class="caption-body">North Star GM Lou Nanne felt his team could have beaten the Oilers if they were healthy.</figcaption></div>When Ken Linseman scored on a third-period power play, it was 2-0. But Dino Ciccarelli scored with a hard shot midway through the final period to give the home fans some spirit.After several minutes of spirited attacking, however, the North Stars&rsquo; hopes were blown out by an open-net goal. And even that one was typical Edmonton. Mark Messier retrieved a blocked Minnesota shot and bunted it ahead to clear the zone.Wayne Gretzky got it, broke up the left side, but instead of shooting for the empty net, he passed to the slot, where Jari Kurri deposited it easily.&ldquo;I probably could have thrown that one in,&rdquo; said Gretzky, &ldquo;but Jari is playing well and he&rsquo;s got a chance to break the goal-scoring record in the playoffs.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Wounded North Stars Leave With Pride

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div>UNIONDALE&mdash;The goal, albeit a milestone, carried precious little consequence at the time.With 1:53 remaining in a National Hockey League game here Dec. 13, Wayne Gretzky slammed the puck home from the side of the New York Islander net, guarded by the despised Billy Smith. There was no jubilation. No skate of glee. No high-five.Gretzky simply bowed his head and skated away. An Edmonton Oiler teammate was left to retrieve the puck that signified Gretzky&rsquo;s 300th NHL goal. When it&rsquo;s an 8-5 loss to the dreaded opponent and ninth conseuctive, personal accomplishments rate alongside good news-bad news tidings&mdash;emphasis heavy on the bad.&ldquo;No satisfaction at all,&rdquo; sighed Gretzky, who had become the fastest NHLer (350 games) to scale the monumental plateau.Now, almost five months later, Gretzky is attaching hope for some special significance to the goal.&ldquo;That goal was my first in seven games (actually eight) against them. Maybe it&rsquo;ll be a good sign,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s hope&hellip;&rdquo;As everyone&mdash;with the possible exception of residents of Seoul, South Korea or east of Calgary&mdash;is fully aware, the Islanders and Oilers are back at it in the Stanley Cup. What we have here is a rematch of last year, when Gretzky failed to register a single goal in the Isles&rsquo; four-game sweep.Abuse from opposition fans has gone hand in hand with this inability to beat the cantankerous Smith. There was a sign displayed during an Oiler seasonal visit to nearby New Jersey after Gretzky had linked the Devils management in the company of a famous cartoon caracter: What do Wayne Gretzky and Mickey Mouse have in common? Neither have scored in the Stanley Cup final.Gretzky is looking to rectify this deficiency, pinning hopes that No. 300 will be the start of something big.Of course, the 23-year-old wasn&rsquo;t the only member of the Oilers who failed to score in last year&rsquo;s final. The line forms to the right. For purposes of conserving space, let us introduce those few who did find the mark&mdash;Jan Kurri (three), Dave Semenko, Glenn Anderson and Mark Messier. Yep, only six. Total!Yet, only one among those on the lengthy role call of AWOL Oilers is capable of accounting for 92 goals in a single season. Hence, when Gretzky doesn&rsquo;t score there&rsquo;s cause for alarm.&ldquo;What good is it if I score two, three, four goals and we lose four games?&rdquo; he reasoned. &ldquo;My responsibility is to score, but it&rsquo;s ridiculous to say that if I score five goals we&rsquo;ll win the Stanley Cup. If we lose, I&rsquo;m the goat, 1 know that. It&rsquo;s as simple as that.&rdquo;Cut the soft violin music, Gretz.It&rsquo;s a plain and simple fact that the Oilers&rsquo; chances of success are enhanced if each individual does his designated job. Seeing that Gretzky isn&rsquo;t a hitter (he couldn&rsquo;t fight his way out of Neal Broten&rsquo;s clutches) and, while his checking has improved, the fact is his scoring prowess is, more often than not, vital to the cause. His job is to score.&ldquo;Of course I have to score,&rdquo; he confessed. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t disagree. And I will score. I&rsquo;ll take the pressure off.&rdquo;Okay, the question is when? As the Islanders have won 10 straight seasonal and playoff encounters with the Oilers&mdash;Gretzky missed No. 10 with a bad shoulder&mdash;the pattern has been strikingly familiar. The Isles have struck in a hurry&mdash;once, twice, three times, even roaring off to a 4-0 lead Dec, 13. Under those circumstances and against such a worthy opponent, recovery has been impossible.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not going to let them get ahead,&rdquo; promised Oiler general manager-coach Glen Sather. &ldquo;They keep picking around in that first few minutes waiting for one mistake. We&rsquo;ve got to be careful not to make that mistake.&ldquo;Look, they&rsquo;re a great team. But, on the other hand, we&rsquo;re a great team, too. We&rsquo;re going to play our skating, shooting game&hellip;and hopefully we won&rsquo;t be down.&ldquo;And I&rsquo;m not only speaking of the first five minutes. We know one thing for sure: You can&rsquo;t come back against that team like we did against Minnesota.&rdquo; &#9632;

Gretzky Knows He Can’t Afford To Go Dry

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>Although Dan Maloney is slated to get the Maple Leaf coaching job, the scenario believed to be mapped out by general manager Gerry McNamara is more complex. Here&rsquo;s how one Maple Leaf Gardens insider views it: McNamara is forced to name Maloney as coach because of pressure from boss Harold Ballard. But McNamara prefers Doug Carpenter, who will be promoted from St. Catharines as Maloney&rsquo;s assistant. The thinking is that Maloney will flub out by December, enabling McNamara to move the man he really thinks should be head coach, Carpenter, into the number one spot&hellip;The NHL moved its New York offices from the tower adjoining Madison Square Garden to less-expensive quarters on Fifth Avenue. One visitor reveals that the size and geography of the new offices gives insight into the league&rsquo;s Manhattan power structure. The boss, John Ziegler, is at the top. The next big office adjoining the prez belongs to super-league attorney Gil Stein. Somewhat of a surprise is the big office awarded to broadcast veep Joel Nixon. Marketing and p.r. veep, Steve Ryan, is situated some distance from Ziegler, which prompts one publicist to quip: &ldquo;Well, Stein won that one!&rdquo;Behind-the-scenes maneuvering is now taking place to save the Central League from extinction. Death of the CHL would be a blow to the NHL&rsquo;s minor-league machine. Currently, the CHL&rsquo;s three viable franchises are Indianapolis, Denver and Salt Lake City. Other locales being considered are Omaha, Louisville, Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Peoria. Omaha, with a rich hockey heritage, would be a natural but insiders report that the Omaha arena manager has thwarted attempts to return pro hockey to Nebraska. The feeling in some NHL quarters is that CHL&rsquo;s only success route can be paved by corporate business leaders uniting behind a franchise in the manner employed by the Whalers in Hartford. Despite the CHL&rsquo;s obvious problems, one NHL owner tells BLUELINES that, with agressive and insightful management, the CHL can compete on a level with the American League&hellip;Despite complaints about officiating reaching new peaks this year, little is expected to be done about refereeing during the offseason. One GM laments that the NHL gave the zebras too cushy a contract and that the officials have become too secure and complacent. &ldquo;We should be able to send them down to the minors just like we do a player who plays poorly,&rdquo; the GM tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;but they worked out a terrific deal and we&rsquo;re stuck with them.&rdquo; An owner says the governors, as a group, are almost indifferent to the refereeing problem. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have enough owners who know enough about officiating,&rdquo; the owner tells BLUELINES. &ldquo;Besides, once the season is over the owners tend to forget about the problem.&rdquo;The NHL has swung a deal with American Express and is so proud of it, packets costing $7 were mailed to various governors, not all of whom are pleased with it. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t even tells us what the NHL got out of the deal,&rdquo; beefs one governor. &ldquo;When the league is unbusinesslike, it&rsquo;s unbusinesslike at the top.&rdquo;&hellip;Sources along television row say that the NHL will never win another network tv contract in the United States until the league establishes franchises in three key sectors: Dallas, Seattle and the Bay Area (San Francisco)&hellip;One reason why the Rangers are reluctant to return with Blaine Stoughton next September is that he suffered the worst scores on the club&rsquo;s stress tests. Ranger rumors: Dave Maloney to the Flames; Nick Fotiu to the Red Wings. Maloney has resumed his Wall Street brokerage job for the summer&hellip;Suggestions that the Penguins might vacate Pittsburgh are not taken terribly seriously by the NHL&rsquo;s inner sanctum since league bylaws require two years notice of transfer by a team if it chooses to move to another city and the Pens, of course, have made no such move&hellip;Several folks close to the Canadiens defend Bob Berry as a coach but say he succumbed to pressures at the Forum. One informant says that in order to preserve his Canadien job, Berry chose to overplay his veterans at the expense of useful youngsters. Berry&rsquo;s successor, Jacques Lemaire, has made good use of the kids. When an interviewer presented him as &ldquo;Jacques Le Miracle,&rdquo; Lemaire demurred. &ldquo;The team did it,&rdquo; Lemaire insists, &ldquo;not me.&rdquo;&hellip;Scribes who covered the Nordiques-Canadiens series are still talking about the intense competition between Quebec and Montreal hosts to outdo the other in the hospitality department&hellip;Canadien GM Serge Savard has won friends among foes because of his straight talk. &ldquo;I like him,&rdquo; says one who has held trade talks with Savard, &ldquo;because he&rsquo;s honest.&rdquo;&hellip;One of the most lucrative businesses involving the NHL is hockey litigation. A legal eagle reports that some lawyers handling NHL cases are receiving more than $200-an-hour attorney fees and in other instances the fees are a lot higher&hellip;People magazine scrapped its Reijo Ruotsalainen story and sent a &ldquo;thank you&rdquo; note to the flying Finn.The Bruins will have at least four new faces in the lineup next fall and very likely will intensify coaching. A whisper heard around Boston Garden is that sophomore defenseman Gord Kluzak would have benefitted from more personal instruction the way Jacques Laperriere has helped American Olympian Chris Chelios. Based on his dreadful performance at Sarajevo, Chelios was given a mediocre rating when he arrived in Montreal. &ldquo;One problem,&rdquo; reveals coach Jacques Lemaire, &ldquo;was that Chris had hurt his ankle.&rdquo; Laperriere has been very attentive to Chelios, instructing him after many shifts. &#9632;

BLUELINES

<div class="byline">BY TIM MORIARTY</div>LONG ISLAND&mdash;The New York Islanders were pounding nails into the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; coffin in the Wales Conference championship series when the Nassau Coliseum fans started chanting, &ldquo;We Want Gretzky&hellip;We Want Gretzky.&rdquo;Now they have him.The Islanders earned the right to oppose Wayne Gretzky and his Edmonton teammates in the Stanley Cup finals by eliminating the Canadiens in a six-game series. It wasn&rsquo;t easy. The Islan-ders spotted the Canadiens the first two games, then bounced back to win the next four contests.That set up a rematch between the Islanders and the Oilers. In last year&rsquo;s Cup finals, the Islanders swept Edmonton in four games, holding hockey&rsquo;s highest-scoring team to six goals and limiting Gretzky to four assists.Now the Islanders hope to wrap up their fifth consecutive Cup championship, which would match the playoff record established by the Canadiens (circa 1956-60).Two members of the current Canadiens wished the Islanders good luck.&ldquo;I hope the Islanders win,&rdquo; Guy Laf-leur said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve come this far&hellip;they deserve it.&rdquo;Mark Hunter, Montreal&rsquo;s feisty winger, picked the Islanders to win, &ldquo;because they are more disciplined.&rdquo; That was an interesting prediction. Hunter&rsquo;s brother, Dave, plays for the Oilers.<blockquote class="pullQuote">The Islanders clinched the series with five regulars on the injury list.</blockquote>The Islanders scored their climactic 4-1 victory over the Canadiens with five players sidelined by injuries&mdash;Dave Langevin, Stefan Persson, Mats Hallin, Bob Bourne and Bobby Nystrom. Yet they persevered, even perspired.The Islanders now have won more consecutive series than any pro sports team&mdash;a total of 19. The Boston Celtics won 18 straight when they captured eight straight National Basketball Association titles from 1959-1966.If the Islanders make it 20 in a row, their dynasty will be certified.&ldquo;I think it would be the greatest achievement ever,&rdquo; team captain Denis Potvin said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had to win 19 series to be in this position and to win with all the pressure of a fifth Cup would be something.&rdquo;Added Bryan Trottier: &ldquo;With all the injuries we&rsquo;ve had and the adversity we&rsquo;ve faced, you have to think we&rsquo;re a superb team. What keeps us going is we enjoy winning and we have a fear of losing. We don&rsquo;t like to lose.&rdquo;The Islanders had many heroes in their conquest of the Canadiens. They included:&bull; Bill Smith. He limited the Canadiens to 12 goals in six games, only five in the last four games. Along the way, he broke Ken Dryden&rsquo;s record for most playoff victories (80) and two records held by Glenn Hall&mdash;most games (115) and most minutes (6,899) played in the playoffs.&bull; Mike Bossy. He had three gamewinning goals to increase his career playoff total to 17, one less than the record set by Maurice (Rocket) Richard.&bull; Pat Flatley. He scored the clinching goals in the Isles&rsquo; last two victories, raising his playoff total to eight.&bull; Potvin. His two assists in the clincher against Montreal gave him 98 for his playoff career, surpassing Jean Beliveau&rsquo;s all-time record.Other Islanders were making strong contributions in the Drive for Five campaign. They included Butch Goring, John Tonelli, Greg Gilbert, Clark Gillies and Brent Sutter up front and youngsters Paul Boutilier and Gord Dineen on the back line.The remarkable thing about the Islanders is that they are changing a championship team on the fly. The have inserted five youngsters who are first- or second-year players into their lineup.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s something we&rsquo;ve been trying to do all year&mdash;gradually work them in,&rdquo; general manager Bill Torrey said. &ldquo;Any transition is difficult, but it&rsquo;s more so if you&rsquo;re trying to accomplish something else. Every healthy body we&rsquo;ve got is playing well, young and old alike.&rdquo;ON THE ISLE&mdash;The Islanders rash of injuries continued when Dave Langevin suffered further damage to his separated left shoulder, Bobby Nystrom banged up his right knee, and Anders Kallur suffered a bruised cheek&hellip;Pat LaFontaine returned for the seriesclincher against Montreal after missing the first five games with a sprained ank-le&hellip;Assistant coach Lome Henning has been contacted about replacing Bob McCammon as coach of Philadelphia. Henning, 32, was an original Islander and still holds several team penaltykilling records. &#9632;

Isles Prepared To Sweat To Create Sports Dynasty

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0015-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011173/4930959-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Hab captain Bob Gainey suffered a separated shoulder against the Isles after dislocating his other shoulder against Quebec.</figcaption></div>MONTREAL&mdash;The Canadiens&rsquo; playoffs ended the same way their regular season began&mdash;with a loss to the New York Islanders.Yet, it was generally agreed that the team which lost to the Islanders in the sixth game of the Prince of Wales Conference final series had come a long way from the club which dropped a 7-4 opening-night decision Oct. 6.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m proud we went this far,&rdquo; said coach Jacques Lemaire, who took over the team with 17 games remaining in the regular season. &ldquo;A lot of people thought we wouldn&rsquo;t play more than three playoff games. We won two series, against Boston and Quebec, and played 15 games.&rdquo;But it is obvious the Canadiens have some improving to do during the summer if they are going to be legitimate contenders for the Stanley Cup in future years. What hurt them more than anything against the Islanders was a lack of goal scoring.Guy Lafleur, who finished the season with a 15-game goalless drought, did not score in 12 games in the playoffs. Lafleur had 10 shots, few of them dangerous, on Islander goalie Billy Smith in the six games against the Islanders. Ryan Walter, acquired by Montreal from Washington last season, was goalless on seven shots, while Bobby Smith, who was picked up from Minnesota this year, failed to score on six shots.While there were some negatives as the final siren ended the Canadiens&rsquo; uphill climb, there is hope for the future for the organization which hasn&rsquo;t come close to a Stanley Cup since winning four straight from 1976-79. There have been those who have doubted the leadership ability and the effectiveness of team captain Bob Gainey recently, but only skeptics could doubt his value to the club following his performance in post-season playThere was some speculation that before the sixth game against the Islanders, Gainey wouldn&rsquo;t play because of a damaged shoulder. What wasn&rsquo;t known was that Gainey had suffered a dislocated shoulder in the second game of the Adams Division final against Quebec and then separated the other shoulder when charged into the boards by Bryan Trotter in the fourth game of the Islander series.&ldquo;A lot of players play with bruises and bumps,&rdquo; said Gainey. &ldquo;I was sore but if 1 couldn&rsquo;t have played, I wouldn&rsquo;t have played.&rdquo;The Canadiens&rsquo; management was also delighted with the goaltending work of Steve Penney and the strong defensive performance of rookie Chris Chelios, who was also the Canadiens&rsquo; point leader against the Islanders with six assists.However, as usual, controversy surrounded Lafleur, the one-time superstai who found himself spending much of his time watching rather than participating in the series.&ldquo;I have no reason to walk with my head between my legs, because 1 didn&rsquo;t play much,&rdquo; Lafleur said. &ldquo;I never asked why I wasn&rsquo;t playing. Maybe they thought the system was too complicated for me. 1 don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;For the first time in his career, Lafleur found himself without the support of the influential Montreal media in his apparent dispute with Lemaire. The media had gone along with Lafleur&rsquo;s charges in the past that Claude Ruel and Bob Berry had mishandled him, that he needed a better playmaking center than Keith Acton and that he also wanted a big left winger. He was provided with all of his demands but still didn&rsquo;t produce.It is highly unlikely that Lafleur will be traded and managing director Serge Savard noted Lafleur &ldquo;isn&rsquo;t going to solve his problems by blaming everybody else.&rdquo;Lafleur played on the power play, but his service on the regular line was limited as Lemaire decided to go with the players he felt could produce. Lafleur said that he has no plans for retirement because he has a year and an option left on his contract with the hockey club.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m proud of the way I played,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Maybe I didn&rsquo;t score goals but I jumped on the ice and 1 did my best when I was out there.&rdquo;The series may have shifted in the Habs&rsquo; favor had Mats Naslund scored on a penalty shot on Smith at 15:03 of the second period in the fourth game. Naslund, the Canadiens&rsquo; best player in the playoffs, tried to stuff the puck between Smith&rsquo;s legs but wasn&rsquo;t quick enough and the veteran Islander goalie came up with the save. The score was tied 1-1 at the time and a minute and a half later Mike Bossy shot the Isles into a 2-1 lead enroute to a 3-1 victory.The Canadiens never came close to taking a lead in the series, falling behind in the fifth and sixth games and not having enough offense to catch up.&ldquo;They are an excellent hockey team,&rdquo; said right winger Mark Hunter. &ldquo;I thought before the series we cold beat them because of their injuries and the fact we were playing so well. Maybe we don&rsquo;t have enough goal scorers and we have too many plumbers. We just didn&rsquo;t get the goals at the right time.&rdquo;However, at least the Canadiens were in the final four for the first time since 1979 and as Gainey mentioned, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s much nicer to be playing in May than it is to be watching.&ldquo;We gave them a good series. I think we proved we had a good team when we played together. If we want to be the best, we just have to be better.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Canadiens Are Victimized By Lack Of Goal Scoring

<div class="byline">BY RICH FRIEDMAN</div>NEW YORK&mdash;One wonderful legacy of the remarkable Ranger-Islander confrontation of last month is that it gave hockey fans from Manhattan&rsquo;s Seventh Avenue to Uniondale&rsquo;s Hempstead Turnpike another year to decide whether or not the Rangers have indeed &ldquo;closed the gap&rdquo; between themselves and the Islanders.The intensity of this urban-suburban rivalry was brought to mind one morning during the recent Wales Conference finals when several thousand accountants, of all people, gathered in the exhibition hall of Nassau Coliseum to take their Certified Public Accountant exams and were greeted as follows: &ldquo;Welcome to Nassau Coliseum, home of the Stanley Cup champion Islanders.&rdquo;Half of the accountants cheered loudly while the other half&mdash;and remember, this is supposedly Islander territory&mdash;booed passionately.The night before, the Islanders&rsquo; Butch Goring had been asked to compare the series against the Rangers compared to the one against the Montreal Canadiens, with whom the Islanders were then tied at two games in the Wales finals.&ldquo;It was tougher against the Rangers because first of all we had to win one game in their building and they&rsquo;re no slouches at home,&rdquo; said Goring, recalling how the Islanders breathed life into their Drive For Five little more than 20 minutes from elimination at Madison Square Garden.&ldquo;Against the Rangers, we had our backs against the wall. Here, we could at least afford to lose a game.&rdquo;Whether or not you buy the argument that against the Rangers the Islanders put on a sub-par performance, the fact remains the Rangers had them on the brink of elimination after three games and took them to five games before losing in overtime in one of the best hockey games ever played.Deficiencies that had been obvious all season remained and helped nail their coffin shut, including an inability to close in for the kill around their opponent&rsquo;s net. They will play a part in any activities in which Ranger general manager Craig Patrick engages this summer in the trade market and in the competition for the jobs next fall in training camp.But a look at a few statistics sheds some light on just how far the Rangers have progressed in competing with the league as a whole as well as their suburban rivals.From the start, coach Herb Brooks&rsquo; stated goal was to have the team finish in the top third of the league. They finished eighth overall, but for most of the first 29 games of the season they held onto first place in the competitive Patrick Division and for most of the next 27 they hovered around second place (the previous season, they had struggled to a third-place finish in the division).They won more than 25 games at home and for the third time in 11 years won more than 40 games overall and, for a change, were relatively injury-free. &#9632;

Ranger Rooters Still In Mood For Battling

<div class="byline">BY CHUCK MOODY</div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;Moe Mantha has been confirmed as the future considerations owed to the Penguins in the March trade that sent Randy Carlyle to Winnipeg for the Jets&rsquo; first-round draft choice in next month&rsquo;s NHL entry draft.But there almost was an even bigger deal involved.&ldquo;It was a combination of options,&rdquo; said Penguin general manager Eddie Johnston after acquiring Mantha. &ldquo;There was a chance for awhile that it might have come up a much bigger deal with more players.&ldquo;The Mantha deal was in the original Carlyle trade for the first-round draft choice. Another part of the deal, which we were trying to work out and add some other things to it, never worked out during the season and after the playoffs. So it really wasn&rsquo;t finalized until recently.&rdquo;Johnston appears to have come out of the trade smelling like a rose. Pittsburgh has Winnipeg&rsquo;s draft choice, which is the ninth pick overall, and a right-handed defenseman, who is coming off his best season in the NHL.The 6-foot-2, 200-pounder scored 16 goals and 38 assists this season for the Jets. The 23-year-old Mantha was Winnipeg&rsquo;s second choice and the 23rd player chosen overall in the 1980 entry draft from Toronto of the Ontario Hockey League.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re extremely pleased to have him,&rdquo; Johnston said., &ldquo;We feel that his credentials this year have really improved and he&rsquo;s still a young kid. He&rsquo;s the type of defenseman, the way the game is played today, that should add a little bit more offense to our defense and also help our power play.&rdquo;Johnston denied Mantha is coming to Pittsburgh with a termination contract.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no way he has a termination contract,&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;Anytime you make a deal like that you check and make sure. First of all, the other team has to tell you what&rsquo;s in his contract.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s playing his option. All we&rsquo;ve got to do is make him an offer and that protects us for a first-round or a second-round or whatever we want.&rdquo;Ferguson apparently was willing to part with his first-round draft choice and Mantha to get Carlyle because of an injury to defenseman Dave Babych. In addition, four other clubs were in hot pursuit of Carlyle, a former Norris Trophy winner as the NHL&rsquo;s top defenseman.Johnston believes Mantha will help the Penguins on the power play, which finished 16th of 21 NHL clubs this season.&ldquo;On the power play, he goes in the hole very good,&rdquo; said Johnston about Mantha, who was third in shots for Winnipeg and scored three power-play goals. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s almost a cocky-type player. He&rsquo;ll go in the hole for the puck. This is what I look for in him&mdash;to give us that little thing we lacked before.&rdquo;PENGUIN TRACKS&mdash;Eddie Johnston said the team would again be the sole operators of its Baltimore franchise in the American Hockey League. The Skipjacks won the AHL&rsquo;s Southern Division regular-season title before being eliminated in the Division finals by Rochester.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-01943/4931045-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="545" height="593"><figcaption class="caption-body">Moe Mantha is expected to bolster the Pens&rsquo; defense with his offensive talent.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Pens Take Mantha As Compensation…

<div class="byline">BY REYN DAVIS</div>WINNIPEG&mdash;The inevitable was happening. Only minutes after being told he was traded, Moe Mantha was bracing himself for a storm that had devastated other parts of the country.Already, the winds were threatening to topple the tall timbers which surround his cottage near Sturgeon Falls, Ont. Like a trade, you can&rsquo;t stop a storm.The Jets had tried to keep Mantha but, in the end, they were forced to surrender him to the Pittsburgh Penguins as the player to be named later in the deal for Randy Carlyle.The Penguins had already received the Jets&rsquo; first-round draft choice in June.&ldquo;Pittsburgh wanted Moe Mantha,&rdquo; said Jet general manager Ferguson, implying that others had been offered but refused by Eddie Johnston, the Penguins&rsquo; GM.&ldquo;According to the terms of the trade, we had to come up with a good young player, plus a first-round draft choice. That&rsquo;s what it took to out-bid five other teams who wanted Carlyle. Alone, the Calgary Hames had made 10 different offers for Carlyle.&rdquo;The Jets are losing one of the quickest, hardest-shooting righthand defensemen in the National Hockey League. He had 16 goals and 38 assists in 72 games. Among Winnipeg defensemen, only Dave Babych had more (18 and 39).&ldquo;He will always have the offensive talents to play in the NHL,&rdquo; said Ferguson, who, privately, felt Mantha lacked the physical strength to be an all-around defenseman.The news was not entirely unexpected by the 23-year-old Mantha, who had complained loudly that the Jets would not square with him when a report out of Pittsburgh in March named him as the player who would ultimately be going to the Penguins.In an attempt to placate him, Ferguson said the Jets had three options of settlement&mdash;a player, money or another draft choice. But the real option obviously belonged to the Penguins.&ldquo;I could be negative and talk about the favorite players the Jets seem to have, but I won&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Mantha. &ldquo;The truth is, I&rsquo;ll miss everyone&mdash;the guys in Winnipeg, the guys in the minors and the guys who have retired. I think all of them helped me mature.&rdquo;Ferguson spoke to him of the seasons past, the day in 1980 when the Jets drafted him (23rd overall), the good times and the man Eddie Johnston is.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;I feel good now, knowing where I&rsquo;m going. I belong to Pittsburgh, a team that needs me.&rsquo;</blockquote>&ldquo;I feel good now, knowing where I&rsquo;m going,&rdquo; said Mantha. &ldquo;I belong to Pittsbugh, a team that needs me and a team I&rsquo;ll help in the future. But I still don&rsquo;t have a contract. I wish that was settled.&rdquo;Mantha left an indelible impression on a few Pittsburgh fans last Jan. 18 when, with two seconds left in regulation time, and the Winnipeg net empty, he skated into the slot to drill a shot through Michel Dion&rsquo;s legs to force overtime. Paul MacLean followed with a goal a few minutes later for a 5-4 win.&ldquo;My fondest memory will be wearing a Jets&rsquo; uniform for 72 games this past year,&rdquo; said Mantha. &ldquo;It was a great thrill after being tossed around for a couple of years.&rdquo;A folksy, friendly sort of guy, Mantha was popular among his Jet teammates. Leaving the Jets frightened him but he grew to accept the fact it could happen.Through it all, he has found some saving grace.&ldquo;It is nice to know you&rsquo;ve been traded for a Norris Trophy winner,&rdquo; he said.BENCH BITS&mdash;The Jets took a rather aloof stand when Kirk McCaskill, a forward under contract, appeared in the lineup of Edmonton Trappers of the Pacific Coast (baseball) League. A pitcher whose baseball rights are owned by California Angels, he opted for hockey last summer when he signed a three-year, guaranteed contract with the Jets. Although general manager John Ferguson expressed displeasure with the lack of ice-time McCaskill received in Sherbrooke, he still regards him as a NHL prospect. &ldquo;The only advice I can offer is this: Don&rsquo;t get hurt,&rdquo; said Ferguson. &ldquo;If he is injured playing baseball, he could breach his contract with us.&rdquo; Ferguson is somewhat sympathetic, too&hellip;The Jets are selling season tickets for as low as $299 in the balconies. Fans responded with a rush. &#9632;

…Because Fergy Didn’t Have Much Choice

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0019-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01884/4931100-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div>The New York Islanders, disposing of a tough Montreal Canadien team, are back in the Stanley Cup finals again and while all of the Isles can take a bow, winger Mike Bossy deserves a little extra recognition.Bossy, who had been slumping throughout the playoffs, erupted against the Canadiens and scored four goals, including three game winners (Games Four, Five and Six) to push the Isles into the finals against the Edmonton Oilers.That&rsquo;s why Bossy is the THE HOCKEY NEWS&rsquo; Player of the Week for the period ending May 6. Heading into the finals, Bossy had eight goals and seven assists in 16 games. &#9632;

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Player Of The Week

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div>DETROIT&mdash;The Red Wings&rsquo; big trade of the summer of &lsquo;83 was designed to bolster the right side. That done, most of the attention was diverted to a major problem area: left wing.But when all the results were in after 80 games and the playoffs, the left side, surprisingly, proved the more productive.&ldquo;And that&rsquo;s where we appear to be stronger for the future, too,&rdquo; coach Nick Polano said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got some good kids coming up.&rdquo;The Wings acquired Ron Duguay and Ed Johnstone (along with goaltender Ed Mio) in the trade with the New York Rangers and immediately put them at the top of the depth chart, next to Danny Gare.Duguay enjoyed a banner season, his best in the NHL, with 33 goals and 47 assists. But injuries denied Johnstone and Gare full seasons and their production suffered.Gare, assigned to the checking line, scored 13 goals while Johnstone, in just over half a season, had 12. Rookie Lane Lambert picked up a bit of the slack with a 20-goal season.Meanwhile, over on left wing, Polano found some answers early in the season when he converted Ivan Boldirev, a 14-year veteran at center, and Bob Manno, formerly a defenseman.Boldirev responded with his best season, 35 goals and 83 points. Manno enjoyed a fine season on the checking line and killing penalties. He chipped in with nine goals and 13 assists.Add those totals to all-star John Ogrodnick&rsquo;s 41-goal season and the production from the left side was nothing to be sneered at.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got three players in junior, all left wingers, who had excellent seasons and Gerard Gallant came along well at Adirondack,&rdquo; Polano said.The junior players are Bob Probert, Mike Stem and Murray Craven, who are expected to provide the Wings with size, strength and talent at left wing in the years to come.&ldquo;We like to think of Probert as a young Clark Gillies,&rdquo; Polano said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got that kind of potential; he&rsquo;s big and strong.&rdquo;In addition, the Wings acquired left winger Pierre Aubry from Quebec in a late-season deal. Aubry, who previously played for Nick Polano in the Eastern Hockey League, showed signs that he might be able to contribute if given the opportunity.With the three junior prospects. Gallant and Aubry, that&rsquo;s five left wingers who&rsquo;ll be vying for spots in training camp.Clearly, there is no such surplus at right wing, a position general manager Jimmy Devellano will try to bolster again during the summer of &lsquo;84, through a trade and/or the entry draft.He&rsquo;ll also be looking for help at center, where a couple of rookies, Steve Yzerman and Kelly Kisio, emerged to give the Wings a huge lift. They provided the offense at the position, Yzerman scoring 39 goals and 67 points and Kisio adding 23 goals and 60 points.The other center, Dwight Foster and Blake Dunlop, specialized in preventing goals rather than scoring them. Foster centered the checking line while Dunlop, signed as a free agent after being cut by St. Louis early in the season, became a valuable utility man. He was the Wings&rsquo; best faceoff man and found himself taking all the important draws.Dunlop said his transition from a point producer&mdash;87 points in 1980-82, the season he won the Masterton Trophy&mdash;to a role player wasn&rsquo;t always easy.&ldquo;In my role in St. Louis, I was expected to score goals and set up my wingers,&rdquo; Dunlop said. &ldquo;One of the disappointing things is that 1 haven&rsquo;t shown that here or played that role. It&rsquo;s a mental adjustment, to look at the scoring totals and see that I&rsquo;ve got just seven goals and 14 assists. But, then, I haven&rsquo;t created anything offensively.&ldquo;I still feel I can help offensively but that&rsquo;s not been asked of me. I try to fulfill my role and it&rsquo;s a very important role on a team like this. I always felt I&rsquo;ve been good on the faceoffs. I was used in St. Louis in that role but it was never as pronounced as it&rsquo;s been here.&rdquo;WING WIRE&mdash;Junior goaltender Chris Pusey of Hamilton (Brantford last season), a 1983 draft, signed a NHL contract with Detroit. He&rsquo;s considered a top prospect.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01742/4931131-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="550" height="655"><figcaption class="caption-body">Blake Dunlop admits it&rsquo;s been a hard thing going from goalscorer to role player.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Wings Are Strong On Left Side

<div class="byline">BY JOE FALLS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02502/4931162-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="286" height="333"></div><h2>I Don&rsquo;t Like Fighting</h2>IT WAS MY pleasure recently to meet Mr. Frank Tampone, director of the Long Island City (New York) YMCA roller hockey league.This is what I told him: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done many things in my life, covered many sports in many parts of the world&mdash;the World Series, the Super Bowl, Indy 500, Kentucky Derby, U.S. Open Golf, U.S. Open Tennis, the Stanley Cup, the Olympics and even the Stone Skipping tournament on Mackinac Island&mdash;but I never did anything as worthy as winning the 1944-45 YMCA roller hockey championship of Long Island City.He looked at me across the table, this man who has been running these leagues for 40 years of his life, and said: &ldquo;You mean that, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;I told him, &ldquo;I never meant anything more. Winning that medal was the greatest achievement of my life&mdash;my proudest moment.&rdquo; By the way, the score was: Woodside Rangers 5, Woodside Americans 3. Guess who got the second goal for the Rangers?The smile on Mr. Tampone&rsquo;s face was as big as the Queensborough Bridge.That&rsquo;s where it all started&mdash;this crazy love of hockey. On roller skates, in the streets, in the park, under the bridge at night. They were the most marvellous days of my life&mdash;greater than being in Augusta in April, Louisville in May, Pebble Beach in June&hellip;or even Fenway Park for a day game in the middle of the summer.<h2>I Love The Game</h2>I LOVED HOCKEY so much as a youngster that the affair has never really cooled. That&rsquo;s why I write for THE HOCKEY NEWS. Not for money (though they do pay me), not for attention (though I&rsquo;m sure some people think it&rsquo;s neat to get your picture in the paper). I do it because 1 love the game and want to be a part of it, even on a twice-a-month basis.I love the color of hockey. I love the speed. I love the intensity. 1 love the game when it is played well and that brings me around to the subject of this column, which is fighting.I don&rsquo;t care much for the fighting.I&rsquo;m not upset by it as some of the purists are. I know there will always be fights. It is part of the game. It&rsquo;s just that as far as I&rsquo;m concerned, it&rsquo;s not the best part. Or even close to it.Whenever a fight breaks out at a game I&rsquo;m covering, I kind of sigh a little because I know things are going to be held up for awhile.I don&rsquo;t care how hot or heavy the fight might get, it doesn&rsquo;t turn me on. Sometimes it even repulses me, especially when somebody gets in a cheap shot&mdash;like if one player is being restrained by the officials and the other works an arm free and tosses an unsuspecting punch.<h2>Around In Circles</h2>I REMEMBER NOTHING of any of the fights I&rsquo;ve seen, even the bench-clearing brawls. They just blend together in a lot of sticks and gloves on the ice, jerseys pulled over the head, suspenders showing and guys holding onto each other and going around and around in circles.I accept it because I know I can&rsquo;t do anything about it. It is part of the scene, unfortunately. I never had a fight in a roller hockey game. Not that I was afraid. I had them in back alleys, schoolyards and under the street lights at night. It just didn&rsquo;t fit into my game. I loved to check, especially with my stick, and didn&rsquo;t mind mixing it up. I took some heavy shots and more than once I had to leave the rink, bent over with pain. One time a guy hit me in the big toe with his stick and I thought I would die. We didn&rsquo;t have much equipment in those days.Fighting didn&rsquo;t seem to be a necessary part of the game. It seemed to disrupt everything. The teams would forget about playing and think of fighting.I do admit that sometimes it made the teams play better. It got their emotions going. I suppose you could call that a good point.To me, though, hockey is at its best when everybody is flying up and down the ice&mdash;first one team, then the other, and, occasionally, when both are flying at the same time. I love it when it&rsquo;s quick and I love it when they set up around the net by passing the puck around.That&rsquo;s when the game is most delicious. That&rsquo;s how I played it for Tampone in the YMCA a lifetime ago. &#9632;

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HOCKEY CORNER

<div class="byline">BY RON COBB</div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;Last fall, early in his tenure as owner of the Blues, Harry Ornest spoke proudly of the cost-cutting measures he had adopted in an effort to avoid the kinds of heavy losses incurred by the team&rsquo;s previous ownership.In 1982-83, Ralston-Purina&rsquo;s last season as owner of the Blues, the franchise lost a reported $3 million. That brought to $20 million the amount lost in six seasons under Ralston-Purina.The 1983-84 season was barely underway when Ornest boasted of having trimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars off the payroll. Pink slips had been sent out to all sorts of personnel that he considered expendable.As the season wore on, other measures to save money were undertaken. The Blues complained long and loud about their difficult schedule, but in truth they made matters worse for themselves by cutting comers on travel costs (they made only three chartered flights all season).A handful of players carrying big contracts were weeded out through the course of the season, although Ornest assured that money was not an issue in their departure. He said they were unloaded only after it was determined that they didn&rsquo;t fit into the club&rsquo;s plans.In fact, Ornest vowed that money would never be a factor when it came to putting the best possible team on the ice. But the franchise&rsquo;s belt was tightened in most places where it could be tightened and some of the people who felt the pinch let out an occasional whimper.Ornest&rsquo;s frugal spending policy did not endear him to some of his players and employees and as word of his gift for thrift spread around the league, he became an easy target. By the end of the season, Ornest felt like a pin cushion.During the Norris Division final against the North Stars, he was jabbed by columnists from both newspapers in the Twin Cities.This was the price Ornest paid for striving to put the Blues on sound financial footing. Maybe he strove a bit too hard in some areas, but after all was said and done, his objective was honorable and honest. From what had been a sea of red ink he wanted to produce black ink, even if it was only enough to fill a puddle.In mid-season, Ornest said that the Blues might break even if they finished the season with an average attendance of 13,500. They fell short of that, averaging 12,987 for 40 home games, but they nearly made up for it with five playoff games at the Arena. They needed full houses for those five games to turn a profit, but only had one sellout. &#9632;

Ornest Paid The Price For Saving

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div>EAST RUTHERFORD&mdash;If there is one lesson Tom McVie learned during his coaching reigns in Washington and Win-nipeg, it is that no matter how improved a team may be, it is not at all improved until the National Hockey League standings say so.For those who watched the New Jersey Devils become a competitive team in the final weeks of last season, there is no denying improvement. But for realists who remember that the Rangers, Flyers, Capitals and Islanders are miles ahead in the Patrick Division and that the Penguins are likely to show a vast improvement on the basis of a strong skeleton and a super draft, New Jersey&rsquo;s improvement is more like standing still at best.&ldquo;You look at these other teams,&rdquo; said chairman John J. McMullen with a monstrous sigh, &ldquo;and we have a long way to go.&rdquo;McVie, superscout and coaching candidate more than a month after the regular season concluded, agreed.&ldquo;I can sit here and tell you how well we did, but all you have to do is look at the papers,&rdquo; noted McVie. &ldquo;At least there is a foundation. I did more than I thought was possible to do.&rdquo;But is that anywhere near enough?When the Devils&rsquo; second season in New Jersey ended, the disappointments outweighed the bright spots. The dis-appointments included:&bull; The failure of young forwards Aaron Broten and Paul Gagne to develop into quality players.Broten, 23, came within 3:26 of finishing the season without scoring a goal in his last 24 games. His goal at 16:34 of the third period in the season finale was his first since Feb. 9 and only No. 13 in 80 games. He scored just two goals in his last 35 matches and finished with 19 fewer points in seven more games. Gagne (14-18-32 in 66 games) enjoyed only short stretches of success.&bull; The slumps of veteran forward Bobby MacMillan and Don Lever. MacMillan, who endured the final days of brother Billy&rsquo;s regime as general-coach and never fully bounced back, scored two goals and six assists less than the previous season in the same amount of games. Lever, who was stripped of his captaincy by McVie and suffered from constant trade rumors and injuries, scored nine fewer goals and 11 fewer assists than last season.&bull; The bust of No. 1 draft pick John MacLean on the NHL level and the realization that Bruce Driver and John Johannson may not cut it. GM Max McNab is hoping MacLean will bounce back while Rocky Trottier and Shawn Evans threaten for NHL jobs.&ldquo;Everybody talks about Pittsburgh&rsquo;s three first-round picks,&rdquo; said McNab. &ldquo;We have three first-rounders ready to come into the league&mdash;Ken Daneyko (18th overall in 1982), MacLean (1st in &lsquo;83), Rocky Trottier (1st in &lsquo;82) and Shawn Evans is close (24th overall in &lsquo;83). Three first-rounders should fill some holes if, in fact, they were first-rounders.&rdquo;&bull; Finally, there is the club&rsquo;s financial status off the ice. Although McMullen provides stable backing, he voiced concern over attendance which dropped from an average of 13,614 per game in 1982-83 to 13,301 this past season. The falloff was only an average of 313 per night, not bad at all considering the team was out of the Patrick Division race before it ever started, but McMullen was bothered by dropoffs&mdash;of any number&mdash;and alarmed by the increase of paying no-shows.&ldquo;We are trying to change some things. We have to get our attendance up, no question about it,&rdquo; explained McMullen. &ldquo;And we&rsquo;ve got to get our expenditure down. We spent a fortune on advertising and promotional work over the last two years. At a certain point in time you&rsquo;ve got to start tightening those strings and running the place as effectively and efficiently as you can.&rdquo;What is New Jersey&rsquo;s overall plan on the ice?&ldquo;At this point,&rdquo; said McNab, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s not our objective to tear the team apart individually.&rdquo;That will come in stages.HOT STUFF&mdash;The resignation of Bob McCammon in Philadelphia made him another candidate for the Devil job, although Bob Butera insisted McCammon is not a favorite. &ldquo;Has he (McCammon) ever been considered? No. Will he be? I honestly don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo; &#9632;

Devil Foundation Shaky, But Not Set To Crumble

<div class="byline">BY PERRY LEFKO</div>TORONTO&mdash;Doug Carpenter has a theory about making it to the National Hockey League as a coach.&ldquo;For some it comes fast, for some it comes slow, and for some it never comes at all.&rdquo;Carpenter is presently trying to figure into which of these three categories he fits.Carpenter, back home in Cornwall, Ont., is in a state and involved with &ldquo;non-hockey&rdquo; matters of limbo after his contract expired as head coach of the St. Catharines Saints, the Leafs&rsquo; American League farm team. He could return to the Saints where he&rsquo;s made improvement in the two seasons he&rsquo;s coached there, but Carpenter, who coached the Cornwall Royals to a Memorial Cup before advancing to the pros, makes no bones about the fact he&rsquo;d like to climb the coaching ladder to the NHL.Is there any opportunity, specifically with the Leafs, who are without a coach following the dismissal of Mike Nykoluk at the end of the regular season?&ldquo;Who knows?&rdquo; Carpenter asks.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01601/4931241-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="536" height="695"><figcaption class="caption-body">Doug Carpenter is back home in a state of limbo after his contract expired in St. Kitts.</figcaption></div>There have been reports in Toronto that the Leafs will make Dan Maloney head coach&mdash;one Leaf spokesman said the team would prefer to have a head coach by the NHL entry draft June 9&mdash;with Carpenter earning a promotion from St. Kitts as Maloney&rsquo;s assistant.Another report goes one step further and suggests the Leafs will give Maloney the head-coaching job, but if he can&rsquo;t handle it, Carpenter will take over the reins.However, before Carpenter can go to point B, he has to go to point A.&ldquo;Like anything else, we all want to advance,&rdquo; Carpenter says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s one reason we set goals. We strive for that and when the opportunity comes, if it comes, that&rsquo;s another story.&rdquo;Last season, the Saints were a pleasant surprise as they finished third overall in the Southern Division, following a sixthplace finish in 1983, their first season in the league.&ldquo;I think if we would have had a better start, we could have ended up in second and maybe we could have challenged for first,&rdquo; Carpenter says, noting it took the additions of goalie Tim Bernhardt and defenseman Garry Lariviere to drastically change the team for the better at about the first-quarter mark of the season.The Saints gave defending Calder Cup champion Rochester Amerks a good fight in the playoffs, before bowing out in six games.Carpenter insists a better team attitude was another reason for the team&rsquo;s positive turnaround.&ldquo;The first year, we seemed to have disgruntled players, that was a problem,&rdquo; Carpenter says. &ldquo;Last year, players were in St. Catharines knowing they had to prove themselves because their contracts expired.&rdquo;Looking at the Saints&rsquo; roster, Carpenter believes Ken Strong, a center from Peterborough whom the Leafs drafted with a pick from the Darryl Sittler trade, and Greg Britz, a winger from U.S. college, are two players who should get a good look with the Leafs in training camp.The question is what will happen to Carpenter? He insists that he won&rsquo;t go stale in the minors, because &ldquo;there&rsquo;s been people coaching a lot longer than I have and they haven&rsquo;t gotten stale.&rdquo;But as Carpenter says, &ldquo;Who knows?&rdquo;LEAFLETS&mdash;Here&rsquo;s something to consider: The Leafs acquired Dan Daoust from Montreal because the Habs preferred Guy Carbonneau. Daoug started strongly for the Leafs, then faded, while Carbonneau went from mediocrity to a defensive ace in the playoffs. &#9632;

f0024-01

Carnpenter Looking For Promotion To NHL

<div class="byline">BY STEVE SIMMONS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02428/4931272-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="278" height="332"></div><h2>Kevin Lowe Factor</h2>ON THE EVE of the Stanley Cup finals, a flaw has been discovered.It is not a playoff system that sees Montreal win and Boston lose. It is not the referee who sees the same infraction in the first and third periods but calls it only in the first.There is a flaw in the Stanley Cup coverage, more specifcally in the flaw of the Edmonton Oilers, more specifically those of us who write about such matters.I plead as guilty as anyone. We in this business are no different than many. If we can, we take the easy way out. Through 37 days of Stanley Cup coverage, the easy way out has meant the KEVIN LOWE FACTOR has been omnipresent.Confused?Don&rsquo;t be.Kevin Lowe is a pleasant, well-spoken slow-skating defenseman who happens to wear number four for the Oilers. He&rsquo;s a quality player, not a great one. Never confused with Paul Coffey, never mentioned in the same breath as Jari Kurri or Mark Messier, never mentioned as the Great Gretzky (with the exception of this one), Lowe, nonetheless, leads all playoff participants in one category: most interviews granted.Lowe is the unofficial official spokesman of the Edmonton Oilers. That title had come not from management, nor from his teammates. We have dubbed him as such. He is Mr. Congeniality, a Jim Peplinski who could play.<h2>Newsmen Follow Him</h2>THROUGHOUT THE PLAYOFFS, it seems that everywhere Lowe goes, a newsman is sure to follow. Thus far we have heard his opinion on how the Oilers will fare against Winnipeg; why there isn&rsquo;t a rivalry with Calgary; how the Flames improved; why there is now a rivalry with the Flames; how scared the Oilers were of losing to the Flames; how they learned not to be overconfident against Minnesota. Are we missing anything?Oh, yes, Lowe compared Calgary&rsquo;s success to Montreal; compared the Paul&rsquo;s, Coffey and Reinhart; compared the coaches, Johnson and Sather; said if the Oilers don&rsquo;t beat themselves they&rsquo;ll win the Stanley Cup; he doesn&rsquo;t care who the Oilers play in the finals; would prefer to play Montreal in the finals; would prefer to play New York in the finals; would prefer to have a walkover in the finals.Once, in a moment of weakness, he even talked about how he, as a solid non-offensive defenseman, fits in on a speedy, non-defenseive team.He is unlike Joe Theismann of football fame. While it&rsquo;s true Lowe never met a microphone he didn&rsquo;t like, he doesn&rsquo;t outwardly grope for publicity. He just has the gift&mdash;and word travels quickly in the word communications business. Lowe isn&rsquo;t limited to English interviews only. Being the only French-speaking member of the Oilers, he has become a favorite of the bilingual sect.<h2>The Great Cliche</h2>TALK TO WAYNE Gretzky and he&rsquo;s always pleasant, cooperative. But quite often he sounds like a sports encyclopedia of cliches.Talk to Glenn Anderson and you wonder what planet you&rsquo;re on. They call him Mork From Ork. They may not be far off.Talk to Randy Gregg and he sounds like your old family doctor offering a prescription. It&rsquo;s interesting, it just doesn&rsquo;t make a good story.Talk to Glenn Sather and he&rsquo;ll sneer at you. If you can stand his sneering, or even stand him, occasionally he says something.To Grant Fuhr? Very few do. Fuhr speaks softly and carries a large goalie stick (as opposed to Billy Smith, who speaks loudly and carries a big stick). Fuhr doesn&rsquo;t speak in sentences; he speak in syllables. Under the word shy in the dictionary, you might find his picture.Eventually, looking for someone to say something, you wind up drifting back in the direction of Lowe.Ironically, a Canadian Press dispatch came over the wires the other day. It was a story about the Oilers enjoying their last day off before beginning preparation for the Stanley Cup final.It was about how a similar layoff hurt the Oilers last year, but how they&rsquo;ve learned from it. It was about how the Oilers have matured as a team, how they&rsquo;ve become more balanced.The spokesman: Kevin Lowe.When the playoffs are over, Kevin Lowe will not win the Conn Smythe trophy, but he should get something for putting up with us. &#9632;

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THE WESTERN WORD

<div class="byline">BY BOB McKENZIE</div>To say that the Kitchener Rangers&rsquo; Ontario Hockey League franchise is perhaps the most unique in all of major junior hockey may be something of an understatement.And if you don&rsquo;t mention that the Rangers are also one of the most successful major junior teams ever&mdash;in terms of performance, player development and financial stability&mdash;then you&rsquo;re not only understating your case, you&rsquo;re neglecting the facts.The Kitchener Rangers may just be the Cadillac of major junior hockey today, though you&rsquo;re likely to get arguments from Portland, Ottawa and any other half-dozen cities with strong junior operations, on and off the ice.Still, it&rsquo;s Kitchener which will be in the spotlight as the OHL regular season champion Rangers play host to the 65th Memorial Cup, May 12-19 at the Memorial Auditorium.As this issue went to press, the other finalists for the Cup had not been confirmed. In the Western Hockey League, either the Kamloops Junior Oilers or the Regina Pats would be the representative. In Quebec, one of either the Laval Voisins or Longeueil Chevaliers would advance. In Ontario, meanwhile, the Rangers, by virtue of their regular season title, were guaranteed a berth, but it looked as though the surging Ottawa 67s would win the OHL playoff championship against the Rangers and earn the honor to make the Cup a four-team tournament.Regardless of who makes the Cup tournament, or for that matter, who wins it, 1983-84 has been another banner season for the Rangers.So what is it that makes these Rangers special, unique among their peers?&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the community ownership,&rdquo; says Jim Malleck, who is virtually anonymous in major junior hockey circles outside of Kitchener, but nevertheless is an expert on the Rangers and their history. But then he should be because he&rsquo;s as big a part of it as anyone else.Malleck has been associated with the Rangers since the day in 1963 that the New York Rangers pulled the Biltmores out of Guelph and moved them down the road to Kitchener. In fact, Malleck, along with then arena manager Bob Crosby and the late Joe Mattson, a lawyer, were instrumental in the franchise shift, which saw the Rangers open the 1963-64 season in Kitchener.Since then, Malleck&rsquo;s seen and been part of it all, including the end of NHL sponsorship of junior hockey (1968), two seasons as team president, a continuous run as a director and executive member and he currently holds the position of treasurer. He&rsquo;s seen coaches come and go&mdash;Eddie Bush, Orval Tessier and Joe Crozier, to name just three&mdash;and boys develop into NHL stars&mdash;Ranger alumni in the NHL include Larry Robinson, Doug Riseb-rough, Don Edwards, Bill Barber, Paul Reinhart, Paul Coffey, the Maloney brothers (Dave and Don), Dwight Foster, Brian Bellows, Allan Maclnnis and Scott Stevens.Through it all, he maintains the success is due to the fact the Rangers are a community-sponsored franchise. When NHL sponsorship of junior hockey ended in 1968, the New York Rangers sold the junior Rangers for one dollar to the city of Kitchener. The charter, which Malleck worked on with New York president Emile Francis, laid out several conditions:<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01530/4931303-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="940" height="1536"><figcaption class="caption-body">John Tucker (20) is one of the young stars who hopes to lead the Kitchener Rangers to a Memorial Cup championship. (Photo by Kichener-Waterloo Record)</figcaption></div>&bull; If the city ever decided to sell the team, the New York Rangers would have the option of buying it back for one dollar.&bull; To allow community input, a maximum 40-man board of directors would be set up.&bull; From this group of 40, an eight-man executive would be elected and that executive would be responsible for the operation of the club, including the selection of coaches and general managers.&bull; The club would be run as a non-profit organization.The system has obviously worked well, though it would be foolish to think that 40 hockey people can get together and totally agree on anything. Hence, the board of directors has been referred to, with more than a little sarcasm, as The Fabulous Forty or The Forty Thieves, which is not to say that the directors are crooked. Rather, some observers feel they possess the same demeanor as Ali Baba and his ilk.&ldquo;The Fabulous Forty,&rdquo; says Malleck, chuckling. &ldquo;Actually, there are only 39 right now. It fluctuates up and down. Really, though, there are only 20 that do anything. The other guys are just along for the ride.&ldquo;The general manager-coach is responsible for what happens on the ice. The executive is responsible for making decisions on off-ice matters such as ticket sales and promoting the team. Then the other directors help carry out what the executive decides. None of us get paid a cent. We all do it because we think it&rsquo;s what is best for the club.&rdquo;Sentiments of this nature often ring hollow. After all, no one does something for nothing (monetarily) anymore, do they? The answer to that question is an affirmative and Malleck has the ultimate proof.&ldquo;When sponsorship ended, Eugene George was the president and I was the vice-president,&rdquo; Malleck says. &ldquo;Mr. Francis offered to sell the team to us for one dollar. We turned him down.&ldquo;Eugene, who as far as I&rsquo;m concerned is the one who really put the team on the road to success, and I decided not to take the team. We thought it would be better for the club if it was community sponsored, so that&rsquo;s when the community got it for a dollar.&rdquo;Does he regret not having invested a dollar for what would have made him at least 100,000 times that?&ldquo;I do a little bitching about it sometimes, maybe give myself a kick in the ass,&rdquo; he replies, &ldquo;but 1 still think we made the right decision. It&rsquo;s best for the team the way it&rsquo;s been. All the people who have contributed to the Rangers wouldn&rsquo;t have been so interested if there were private owners. Our season ticket subscribers are the real owners.&rdquo;Malleck, a real estate broker who jokingly describes his job as being &ldquo;really broke,&rdquo; is proud of the Ranger accomplishments over the years, but doesn&rsquo;t necessarily agree with everything about the operation of the team.For example, even though the Rangers are technically a nonprofit organization, they have a healthy sum stashed away and are reticent to distribute it. Malleck refused to say exactly how much they have, but conservative estimates peg it at about $500,000.&ldquo;That money is supposed to be used to promote minor sports in Kitchener,&rdquo; Malleck says, his voice betraying a touch of bitterness. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve never given very much of it away. I realize we have to keep a large amount back because if you have a couple of bad seasons, you need that cushion.&ldquo;But it should be used to help minor sports in Kitchener. I can&rsquo;t see sitting on that much money.&rdquo;Most of the Rangers&rsquo; non-profit profits come from NHL development payments. Malleck says the team operates on an annual budget of $400,000 and usually manages to exceed that figure.&ldquo;We bleep a lot of money away on our everyday operation because we go first class all the way,&rdquo; he adds.While Malleck enjoys reflecting on the past&mdash;Risebrough is his favorite Ranger of all time and Joe Crozier&rsquo;s Memorial Cup win in 1982 is his biggest thrill&mdash;he never strays too far from the present, when another bright young star, John Tucker, dedicated coach and GM, Tom Barrett, and solid Ranger team is in the Cup hunt for the third time in the past four years.&ldquo;Yeah, it&rsquo;s been a good year,&rdquo; Malleck admits. &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be a lot better if we start playing better against Ottawa and win the Memorial Cup.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0025-01

Kitchener Community Franchise Thrives

<div class="byline">BY PERRY LEFKO</div>&ldquo;A lot of fans in the league said,&rdquo; Why don&rsquo;t you go back to Buffalo.&rsquo; My response to that is, &lsquo;I would if I could.&rsquo;&rdquo;&mdash;Kitchener Ranger center John Tucker recalling some of the comments directed at him by opposition fans after he returned to junior following two trials with Buffalo of the National Hockey League.John Tucker knows the route from Kitchener, Ont., to Buffalo, NY, as well as any trucker. While he might not be able to give you any tips on restaurants, he can tell you what it&rsquo;s like going from junior hockey to the NHL.Tucker made the trip twice this season, going from the Rangers of the Ontario Hockey League to the Sabres of the National Hockey League, and he figures the time he spent with the Sabres was good for both him and the Rangers.&ldquo;I think it was a learning experience for myself for next year and for the team this year,&rdquo; Tucker says. &ldquo;I think it was made up that they (the Rangers) had to rely on me to win and they proved that they didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;The Rangers had a 38-1-0 record with Tucker in die lineup and only a 14-15-2 slate when he was playing with the Sabres. To those who haven&rsquo;t followed the Rangers this season, that statistic would suggest the Rangers need Tucker to win. But Ranger coach Tom Barrett insists that isn&rsquo;t so.&ldquo;The first time he went up there (Nov. 7), that certainly hurt us,&rdquo; Barrett says, &ldquo;but all of a sudden we ran into some tremendous injuries. We lost six of seven regulars over a period of four to six weeks weeks and everybody overlooked that.&rdquo;Ironically, the Rangers returned to full strength around the time Tucker returned from Buffalo. They subsequently started winning again, and even though their star center returned to the Sabres on Mar. 8 and missed the balance of the OHL season, the Rangers finished first overall in the league and earned the right to play host to the Memorial Cup.But what about Tucker? What does he really mean to the Rangers?If you ask Barrett, he&rsquo;ll tell you Tucker is the &ldquo;finest offensive player in the league.&rdquo; But don&rsquo;t take Barrett&rsquo;s word. Ask any other coach in the league, because they selected him as the OHL Player of the Year. If you need further evidence, ask the beat reporters or broadcasters because they selected him as the league&rsquo;s Most Valuable Player. He&rsquo;s also the OHL&rsquo;s nominee as Canadian Major Junior Player of the Year, competing against Quebec&rsquo;s Mario Lemieux and the Western League&rsquo;s Ray Ferraro.Tucker earned all these honors despite playing in only 39 games. Still, he produced 40 goals and 60 assists.It&rsquo;s enough to swell a guy&rsquo;s ego, but Tucker insists &ldquo;you have to think of the team aspect, to be a team player in the first and most important thing.&rdquo;Inasmuch as the Rangers welcomed him after he returned from Buffalo following the Sabres&rsquo; early exit in the playoffs, Tucker initially had &ldquo;mixed emotions.&rdquo;&ldquo;I was a little disappointed when we (Buffalo) got knocked out and I had to go back to junior,&rdquo; Tucker says. &ldquo;Everyone in Buffalo was on kind of a downer because we were supposed to do so well and then to come here where everyone is on such an upper, it was kind of a difficult thing to adapt to.&rdquo;Barrett, however, says it really didn&rsquo;t take that long.&ldquo;In 48 hours he blended right in,&rdquo; Barrett says. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s quite capable of adapting.&rdquo;Perhaps that&rsquo;s because this has been a season of adaptation for Tucker. It&rsquo;s not easy going from junior hockey to the NHL, especially when it means going from a star to a nobody. It&rsquo;s the old saying about being a big fish in a little pond.&ldquo;I knew I was a rookie, but I didn&rsquo;t cock off,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I knew my place. It&rsquo;s just like when you&rsquo;re a rookie in junior. You have to realize what you are.&rdquo;Just to make sure, Tucker had a little assistance from Lindy Ruff and Mike Ramsey, two Sabre veterans who took him &ldquo;under their wing.&rdquo;&ldquo;You can go wrong early, we just wanted to keep him on the right track,&rdquo; says Ruff, who five years ago was in the same situation when the Sabres plucked him as an underage player from the Leth-bridge Broncos of the Western League.Much ado is made about the ences between the NHL and junior hockey. Often players will talk of the difference in size of the players and speed and tempo of the game, but Tucker found a difference in anticipation.When you come back to junior, it&rsquo;s not that you&rsquo;re way ahead of the other guys, it&rsquo;s just that you&rsquo;re thinking two thoughts ahead of what you used to think,&rdquo; Tucker says.Ruff says the knock against Tucker in Buffalo was his skating, though he found him to be &ldquo;deceptively fast.&rdquo; But if that was a problem, playing at the pro level certainly helped to improve it, because Barrett says he noticed an improvement in Tucker&rsquo;s skating when he returned the second time from Buffalo.Tucker says he gained confidence playing with the Sabres, both in terms of getting to know the league and getting to know some of the Sabre veterans, and that should help him next season when he aims to become a full-time Sabre. But for now he&rsquo;s thinking about the Memorial Cup. &#9632;

Tucker Chalks It All Up To Experience

KITCHENER&mdash;There were 13 new winners among the 15 Ontario Hockey League teams in the Molson Cup three-star voting this season and one of the new faces belongs to high-scoring Wayne Presley of the Kitchener Rangers.The 19-year-old right winger capped an extremely successful year in the OHL by winning the Kitchener segment of the Molson Cup balloting. He scored 63 goals for the Rangers this season, missed the league point scoring title by six points and wound up as a first-team All-Star.Here&rsquo;s how the voting finished in the other OHL cities:BELLEVILLE&mdash;Dune MacIntyre, with 115 points, closed with a flurry to edge Dave MacLean, who had 100.BRANTFORD&mdash;Goaltender Chris Pusey came on strong to fend off Mike Millar, 75 to 70.CORNWALL&mdash;Mike Tomlak won both the final segment and the overall title with 75 points. Steve Driscoll was second with 60.GUELPH&mdash;Kirk Muller edged Scott Mosey for his second straight Cup win. Both had 60 points but Muller had more first-place votes.KINGSTON&mdash;OHL scoring champion Tim Salmon won three segments of the three-star voting and topped runner-up Chris Clifford 100 to 85.LONDON&mdash;Scott Morrison won it with 140 points, the most in the league. Brian Bradley, who edged out Morrison in 1983, was second with 80.NORTH BAY&mdash;Goalie Peter Arbic played in more than half his team&rsquo;s games and won his team&rsquo;s Cup race with 90 points. Rob Nichols was runner-up with 70.OSHAWA&mdash;Dave Gans, last year&rsquo;s winner, scored 115 points to repeat. Don Biggs, with 60, was second.OTTAWA&mdash;Top team scorer Don McLaren picked up 105 points to narrowly edge out Brad Shaw, the OHL&rsquo;s best defenseman, by five points.PETERBOROUGH&mdash;Doug Evans, who led the Petes in total points this season, collected 85 points to beat out Shawn Evans and Dave Reid, who both tied with 60.S.S. MARIE&mdash;Center Wayne Groulx, the No. 3 point leader in the OHL this year, won the voting among the Greyhounds with 75 points.SUDBURY&mdash;Jim Koudys finished atop with 75 points, 20 more than Dan Longe.TORONTO&mdash;Center Peter Zezel turned six first-place selections into victory with 85 points. Goalie Dave Meszaros was second with 75.WINDSOR&mdash;Despite a stint in the NHL with Hartford, Paul Lawless managed to log enough ice time and votes among the Spitfires to win the Molson Cup. He had 65 points. &#9632;

Kitchener Ace Caps Bio Year

<div class="byline">BY PERRY LEFKO</div>The National Hockey League and the Canadian Major Junior Hockey League, who have been haggling for more than a year over a new agreement on the development of players, appear to be closing in on something that may finally satisfy both their needs.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to say anything right now,&rdquo; said CMJHL president Ed Chy-noweth, &ldquo;but I think something will happen (with regards to a satisfactory agreement) before the (NHL entry) draft (June 9 in Montreal).&rdquo;While all the terms of the existing agreement&mdash;which was extended last summer because no new plan could be agreed upon by the two factions&mdash;have been subject to intense scrutiny over the past year, the most contentious issue is NHL teams calling up junior players during the course of the season.Brian O&rsquo;Neill, NHL executive vicepresident, confirmed that there&rsquo;s a &ldquo;good possibility&rdquo; the call-up rule will be changed, but refused to elaborate.&ldquo;Our (the NHL&rsquo;s) objective is to bring up as few players as possible,&rdquo; he said.If that is indeed the case, it&rsquo;s good news for the junior operators, who equate a new and satisfactory working agreement with survival.The deadline for calling up junior players, other than first-rounders, is Jan. 10. However, NHL teams can promote juniors at any time under emergency conditions. Buffalo Sabres, for example, called up John Tucker, the star center of the Kitchener Rangers and a second-round pick in 1984, on Mar. 8 when Gil Perreault was sidelined with a back injury.Chynoweth said the call-up rule was &ldquo;flagrantly violated&rdquo; when the Toronto Maple Leafs tried to promote goalie Ken Wregget from the Western Hockey League&rsquo;s Lethbridge Broncos under emergency conditions. Chynoweth protested on behalf of the Broncos to O&rsquo;Neill, who ruled the Leafs were out of order and could not use Wregget.Whether the call-up was contrived by the NHL club&mdash;as was the case with the Leafs&mdash;or was a legitimate emergency&mdash;as was the case with the Sabres&mdash;the result is the same. Junior hockey loses its big names at a crucial time. That, in turn, results in falling attendance and, of course, decreasing revenue, which helps to explain why junior hockey is experiencing its version of Hard Times.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s been a lot of complaining about it (the call-up rule),&rdquo; Chynoweth said. &ldquo;We think it was abused.&rdquo;&ldquo;We did not know what some of the implications would be,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Neill added. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve gone through trial and error.&rdquo;Chynoweth said junior operators are particularly sensitive to NHL teams calling up their players because of the overall affect it has on hockey.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re the first to suffer and then them,&rdquo; Chynoweth said.Hamilton (formerly Brantford) general manager-coach Dave Draper said &ldquo;no matter how many players you have, it (calling up players) affects all levels.&rdquo;This fact is best illustrated by the WHL&rsquo;s Portland Winter Hawks, who won the Memorial Cup a year ago and entered the 1983-84 season with a good chance of repeating. But the Winter Hawks lost as many as six key players&mdash;including Alfie Turcotte, Richard Kromm and Cam Neely&mdash;at one time to call ups and was forced to dip into its system and elevate 15 and 16-year-old players.&ldquo;We had depth in our system, but we almost missed the playoffs,&rdquo; said Portland owner Brian Shaw.The Hawks made it to the playoffs, but were ousted in a five-game sweep in their best-of-nine semi-final series against Kamloops.Shaw said the Winter Hawk fans became &ldquo;infuriated&rdquo; when the top players were taken away by the NHL and they showed their disgust by boycotting home games. The Hawks were averaging more than 7,000 early in the season, but by Christmas dropped to less than 5,000.Shaw, who figured he had the top junior club in the country at the start of the season, said his team lost $300,000-400,000 as a result.&ldquo;Had this happened anywhere but Portland, (the franchise) probably would have gone out of business,&rdquo; Shaw said.Junior owners claim they&rsquo;re not only worried about the losses to their own pockets. They&rsquo;re also concerned about the damage done to a player who&rsquo;s called up before he&rsquo;s ready.Oshawa Generals&rsquo; general manager Sherry Bassin stresses the importance of the word &ldquo;development&rdquo; when discussing problems caused by promoting a player too soon.&ldquo;Some people develop earlier than others, but our intention is not to deter kids who are ready, it&rsquo;s to deter the ones who aren&rsquo;t ready,&rdquo; he said.&rdquo;Bassin speaks from experience. He watched the Colorado Rockies (now the New Jersey Devils) take 18-year-old defenseman Joe Cirella, who played 65 games in the 1981-82 NHL season only to be returned to Oshawa late in that campaign. The following season (82-83) he was left in Oshawa, polished his skills and captained the Generals to a Memorial Cup appearance.&ldquo;He developed his skills, then he was ready,&rdquo; Bassin said of Cirella, who was the Devils&rsquo; representative at the NHL All-Star game this season.The situation repeated itself again this season, as John MacLean, a good forward with the Generals, started the season in Jersey but was returned after a couple of months to Oshawa because he, too, was not ready.Bob McGill is another example. A second-round pick of Toronto in 1981, he played one and a half seasons with the Leafs before they demoted him to St. Catharines of the American League. Many felt he wasn&rsquo;t ready to play for the Leafs in his first tour of duty with them, but now, bouyed by some confidence he gained playing in the minor leagues and some games he played for the Leafs late last season, he feels he&rsquo;s ready to start anew in the NHL.&ldquo;A lot of players are ready to play when they&rsquo;re 18 or 19,&rdquo; said McGilk who was 19 when he first played in the NHL. &ldquo;When I look back. I don&rsquo;t regret playing but I think maybe if 1 had played that extra year, it would have helped me along.&rdquo;The junior operators are also con-&rsquo; cemed when a player goes to the NHL but sees little game time.&ldquo;My beef is if he can go up there and play on the first three lines, that&rsquo;s great,&rdquo; said Kitchener coach Tom Barrett. &ldquo;If he goes up there to warm the bench or be an extra, he should be here.&rdquo;Bassin said junior operators &ldquo;only want what&rsquo;s best for the kid.&rdquo; If the two factions are as close to an agreement as Chynoweth and O&rsquo;Neill intimated, that would be the &ldquo;best&rdquo; thing for everyone. &#9632;

Call-Up Rule For Juniors Could Be Altered

<div class="byline">BY MORRIS DALLA COSTA</div>Louisville Hockey<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01529/4931465-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="277" height="208"></div>TORONTO&mdash;The Ontario Hockey League will be represented by at least one team in the Memorial Cup Tournament.But it&rsquo;s quite likely it could wind up with two.Kitchener Rangers, by virtue of finishing first overall in the OHL, are the host team. But they may be joined by the Ottawa 67s, who were leading the OHL eight-point final 5-1.The Rangers were forced to play the first two games of the series in Ottawa because the Memorial Auditorium was booked for a home show. The Rangers tied the first game in Ottawa 5-5, but lost the next two 13-4 in Ottawa and 6-5 in Kitchener.The 67s were an unknown quantity when the season opened, but garnered respect as the season progressed. They finished first in a tough Leyden Division, with only two fewer wins than the Emms Division champion Rangers, and gave up the fewest goals in the league and didn&rsquo;t lose a game in the first two rounds of the playoffs.They got excellent performances from their returning players and general manager-coach Brian Kilrea made key deals which filled up the gaps in the team&rsquo;s lineup.It didn&rsquo;t hurt that Brad Shaw won the award as the league&rsquo;s most valuable defenseman and whose play combines everything anyone would want in a hockey player.&ldquo;If anyone would have told me we would be in the OHL final, I wouldn&rsquo;t have believed it,&rdquo; said Kilrea. &ldquo;Everything has come together and we played tremendous. Everyone did more than we expected them to.&rdquo;Throughout the playoffs, the defense of Mark Paterson, Shaw, Bruce Cassidy, Roy Myllari and rookies Todd Clarke and Bob Giffin have shined. Goalie Darren Pang, who had the OHL&rsquo;s lowest goal-against average, has blossomed with a heavy playoff workload.During the playoffs, Adam Creighton caught fire as did Phil Patterson, Don McLaren, Gary Roberts and most of the other 67s. Kilrea calls Creighton&rsquo;s play &ldquo;dynamic.&rdquo;&ldquo;He is playing so well up front that he&rsquo;s making everyone else play better,&rdquo; said Kilrea.But it may not have come together for the 67s without several deals Kilrea made during the season.Getting Myllari from the Cornwall Royals solidified an already strong defense, giving the 67s a good stay-at-home defenseman. It wasn&rsquo;t coincidence that the 67s took charge in the Leyden Division after the acquisition of Myllari.The addition of Richard Adolfi from the Belleville Bulls gave Kilrea an aggressive forward who provides toughness and leadership.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s tremendous in the dressing room,&rdquo; said Kilrea. &ldquo;He gets everyone going, gets us ready to play.&rdquo;To add some depth to his hockey club, Kilrea traded for North Bay Centennial center Tim Helmer.The Rangers&rsquo; story is like a kid&rsquo;s novel everyone would like to live. The 25-game undefeated streak and the fact they are hosting the Memorial Cup tournament didn&rsquo;t come easy to the Rangers. The Rangers played all but 39 games without the OHL&rsquo;s most valuable player, John Tucker. He was up and down with the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League. The Rangers had a number of key players injured during the season and through the playoffs. They missed captain Jim Quinn, David Bruce, Greg Puhalski and Carmine Vani.&ldquo;This team has had the most injuries of any team I have coached,&rdquo; said Ranger coach Tom Barrett. &ldquo;But this team doesn&rsquo;t quit. They have a lot of pride and no one is going to accuse us of going in any back door.&rdquo;While Tucker and Wayne Presley get a lot of ink, it&rsquo;s the Rangers&rsquo; supporting cast which makes them successfill. It includes Garnet McKechney, perhaps the league&rsquo;s most underrated player, Rookie of the Year Shawn Burr, and Quinn, the heart and soul of the defense. An outstanding season by defenseman Dave Shaw was another plus. Goaltender Ray Leblanc, the guy who wasn&rsquo;t supposed to be able to stop a puck and did, has done the job.The Rangers pit their top line of Tucker, Puhalski and Presley against Creighton, McLaren and Patterson, six of the most talented offensive players in the league. Shaw, Quinn and Kent Paynter rival the 67s&rsquo; defense.If depth is something which you can equate with success, then both the Rangers and the 67s have plenty.NOTES&mdash;The Alexanders are leaving Brantford and moving back to Hamilton, the city they moved from six years ago.The OHL has approved the transfer.The reason for the move was economics. The Alexanders average attendance was about 1,600 fans, not enough to justify remaining in Brantford.&ldquo;Even with 1,600 fans you have a long way to go to break even and Mr. Robillard (Alexander owner Jack Robillard) couldn&rsquo;t see where those other 600 fans were going to come from,&rdquo; said Alexander general manager-coach Dave Draper, who will remain with the club when it moves to Hamilton.&ldquo;Mr. Robillard is a shrewd businessman and he made a shrewd decision. Enough is enough.&rdquo;The Hamilton franchise will play the 1984-85 season at the Mountain Arena in Hamilton. The arena seats 2,200 and holds another 1,000 standing room. They are committed to play in the new trade centre arena, which seats 18,000, the following years.&ldquo;Hamilton has such a history of supporting junior hockey. It is a major population area, excellent from a marketing standpoint and media center,&rdquo; said OHL commissioner David Branch. &ldquo;You need that from a corporate sponsors and spectator standpoint.&rdquo;Jack Calbeck, who was the governor and president of the Alexanders&rsquo; franchise and will remain in the same capacity with the new Hamilton franchise, said the move from Brantford was going to be felt in the community.&ldquo;Everyone concerned about the city of Brantford is disappointed about the move,&rdquo; said Calbeck. &ldquo;Businessmen like me feel a sense of loss. It was good publicity for the city. The big thing is who&rsquo;s ever going to take a chance on the city again? My God, we couldn&rsquo;t put 2,200 people in the building.&rdquo;Robillard threatened to move the team last year when his five-year lease with the Brantford Civic Centre expired. He said he would keep the team in Brantford if 1,000 season tickets were sold by the end of last May. The Alexanders sold 875 but only because Robillard purchased 200 himself.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02370/4931458-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="547" height="764"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ottawa&rsquo;s Brad Shaw has the kind of qualities that make him an attractive NHL prospect.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have an owner who wants to make money. He just wanted to break even,&rdquo; said Calbeck.The Hamilton franchise has no name yet.At the league meeting to approve the franchise shift, the governors turned down an application by Robillard for purchase of the Windsor Spitfires from owner John McHale. McHale had accepted the offer, but the league voted it down based on a constitution ruling which allows no one to own interest in more than one OHL club.<h2>Ontario All-Stars</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-03268/4931451-1-eng-US/f0028-032.jpg" title="f0028-03" width="1109" height="754"></div><h2>Quebec All-Stars</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-04196/4931444-1-eng-US/f0028-042.jpg" title="f0028-04" width="1106" height="580"></div><h2>Western All-Stars</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-05169/4931437-1-eng-US/f0028-052.jpg" title="f0028-05" width="1114" height="1502"></div> &#9632;

f0028-01

Depth Explains Success Of OHL Teams

<div class="byline">BY BEN KUZMA</div>Louisville Hockey<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01456/4931503-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="284" height="200"></div>KAMLOOPS&mdash;In the battle for Western Hockey League bragging rights, the Oilhrs are willing to let their balance do the talking.They finished first in the Western Division and were the top team in the 14-Jeam league with a 50-22 regular-season record. They decided the best way to get good mileage was by running on all cylinders.The results have been impressive.In facing Eastern Division champion Regina Pats in the best-of-seven league final, Kamloops can point to depth as the reason they figure a championship pendant is not some far-fetched notion. Kamloops has religiously played four lines and six defenseman all season.As with any team harbouring Memorial Cup aspirations, there has to be a unit capable of scoring on any given shift. That&rsquo;s where the veteran line of center Dean Evason, left winger Jim Camazzola and right winger Doug Saunders has proved valuable.Although they weren&rsquo;t together all season, the trio started to roll down the stretch drive and continued its dominance in the playoffs. Evason, a fifthground 1982 draft pick of the Washington Capitals, has been the catalyst all season. The 5-foot-10, 170-pound playmaker finished sixth in regular-season scoring with 49 goals and 88 assists for 137 points in just 57 games. The 19-year-old captain was also a member of the Canadian national junior team this season and was named a first-team all-star in the Western Division. Last season, Evason was the WHL&rsquo;s Player of the Year.Camazzola, a rugged 6-foot-1, 195-pound winger taken by the Chicago Black Hawks in the 10th round of the 1982 draft, played only 32 regularseason games this season but still totalled 52 points. The 20-year-old was traded away earlier in the season and then sat on the sidelines contemplating his future in the game. Once reacquired, Camazzola proved to be one of the league&rsquo;s most complete forwards.Saunders, a6-foot-1, 195-pound overage winger, is the line&rsquo;s mucker and grinder who complements Camazzola and Evason. He had 60 points in 48 games.Aside from the first unit, the other three combinations get as much work and as much credit for getting the Oilers to the league final.Kamloops did not possess a 50-goal scorer this season, rare for a team which led the league in scoring with 467 goals. Evason finished with 49 goals while second-team all-star rookie left winger Mike Nottingham had 48 and veteran center Tony Vogel 41.Kamloops had 10 20-goal marksmen this season, two shy of the league record. And it&rsquo;s that kind of depth up front which has general manager-coach Bill LaForge smiling. He knows by the third period his charges have a lot left while the opposition is often left huffing and puffing.Behind the blueline, Ken Daneyko has been a settling influence while Doug Bodger, Mark Femer, Gord Mark and rookies Todd Carnelley, Rob Brown, Rudy Poeschek and Greg Hawgood have all steadily improved. Bodger is expected to be first WHL pick in the 1984 NHL entry draft.In goal, second-team all-star Daryl Reaugh (4.34 average) improved as the season wore on. Reaugh, a 6-foot-4 rookie, is backed up by 6-foot-5 Rex Grant, giving the Oilers the biggest goalie tandem in hockey.Regina general manager-coach Bob Strumm has depth, too, and also possesses a line capable of scoring on any shift.Record-setting center Dale Derkatch and wingers Lyndon Byers and Taylor Hall are a destructive force. Although only 5-foot-5, 140-pounds, Derkatch has been a one-man wrecking crew for the Pats. He finished third in league scoring with 159 points, including 72 goals. The speedster, a seventh-round draft pick of Edmonton in &lsquo;84, is expected to play in Europe next season.Byers, a rugged 6-foot-2, 200-pounder, had 89 points in 58 games and finished with a flourish after spending part of the season with the Boston Bruins. The Nipawin, Sask., native was taken in second round of the 1982 draft.Hall, a sixth-round 1982 draft of the Vancouver Canucks and first-team division all-star, was fourth in league scoring with 142 points including 63 goals. The 5-foot-11, 190-pound Regina native had a brief stint this season in the NHL.Other Pats to watch are highly-rated second-team all-star winger Doug Trapp and grinders Kurt Wickenheiser and Allan Acton. Stars of the future up front include Tim lannone, Brent Fedyk and Len Nielsen.On the blueline, Jason Meyer (injured) and second-team all-star John Miner anchor the defense.Jamie Reeve has carried the bulk of the goaltending load.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02317/4931496-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="555" height="596"><figcaption class="caption-body">Center Dean Evason was the catalyst for the Oilers this season with his offense.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0029-01

Junior Oilers Run On All Cylinders

<div class="byline">BY BEN KUZMA</div>Ray Ferraro has nothing to prove&mdash;at least not in the WHL.The Brandon Wheat King center capped off an amazing Cinderella story this season when he was named the league&rsquo;s most valuable player in voting by WHL coaches.Ferraro, who was deemed expendable by the Portland Winter Hawks in a preseason transaction and questioned whether he&rsquo;d even suit up for the Wheat Kings, led the league in scoring with 108 goals and 84 assists for 192 points. He also established new league standards for most goals, most hat tricks and most power-play markers in a season. So much for doubting Ferraro&rsquo;s offensive ability.&ldquo;It really went beyond all expectations,&rdquo; said the 5-foot-10, 175-pound native of Trail, B.C. &ldquo;It was quite a turnaround. This time last year I was getting ready to go to a Memorial Cup with Portland. Then in the summer I got traded to a team that didn&rsquo;t even know if it would last a season.&rdquo;Ferraro, taken in the fifth round of the 1982 National Hockey League entry draft by the Hartford Whalers, is looking to graduate into the professional ranks after earning high marks in the WHL.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been told they (Whalers) are going to give me a good look at camp,&rdquo; said the 19-year-old. &ldquo;If they want me to go to Binghamton (American Hockey League) that&rsquo;s their choice. I really wouldn&rsquo;t be too happy if they asked me to have another year of junior&mdash;I&rsquo;ve done all I can at the junior level. I think if they feel I&rsquo;m not ready for the big time I think it will do me better to play in the AHL than the WHL.&rdquo;Despite being disappointed when the Wheat Kings were eliminated from the Eastern Division playoff run by Regina Pats, Ferraro said it really was a season to remember in Brandon.&ldquo;A lot of guys were disappointed because in the regular season we beat Regina more times than they beat us,&rdquo; said Ferraro, looking at the 2-1 best-of-three mini-series setback to the Pats. &ldquo;We were one game away from going to the division final against Medicine Hat but we hit a rut in the playoffs and we really didn&rsquo;t play well.&ldquo;But going to Brandon turned out to be the best thing for me. I wanted to be traded closer to home but getting away and concentrating on hockey worked out well. Jack Sangster (coach) did an excellent job and Les Jackson (GM) got him the players to work with. Jack&rsquo;s a great motivator&mdash;if we weren&rsquo;t ready to play he got us ready. I know the players had a lot of respect for him.&rdquo; &#9632;

Ferraro Wants To Go To Pros

<h2>ONTARIO LEAGUE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-03264/4931617-1-eng-US/f0030-032.jpg" title="f0030-03" width="558" height="770"></div><h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-04180/4931610-1-eng-US/f0030-042.jpg" title="f0030-04" width="558" height="480"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-05118/4931603-1-eng-US/f0030-052.jpg" title="f0030-05" width="564" height="382"></div><h2>QUEBEC LEAGUE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-0691/4931596-1-eng-US/f0030-062.jpg" title="f0030-06" width="556" height="940"></div> &#9632;

f0030-03

Top Junior Scorers

<div class="byline">BY BOB DONNELLY</div>Louisville Hockey<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01491/4931655-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="276" height="205"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02359/4931648-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="554" height="499"><figcaption class="caption-body">Nord president Marcel Aubut paid the fine but wasn&rsquo;t about to apologize for his comments.</figcaption></div>QUEBEC&mdash;The Nordiques have learned there&rsquo;s no such thing as free speech in the National Hockey League&mdash;at least when it comes to voicing an opinion on the integrity of refereeing.The Nordiques have been slapped with a $3,000 fine for comments general manager Maurice Filion made about the officiating after his team was eliminated by Montreal.On the eve of the Canadien-New York Islander series, Filion said in an openline radio show that &ldquo;the league wanted a big show in the final between the winner of the five Stanley Cups and the team that&rsquo;s after its fifth.&rdquo;However, when NHL president John Ziegler was alerted to the caustic comments, he issued the fine and assessed a similar one to the Islanders who, ironically, made comments of a comparable nature after the second game of their series with Montreal.The Nordiques have agreed to pay the fine but are not apologizing.&ldquo;It was worthwhile to pay the $3,000 if it makes the league do something about the inconsistency in the refereeing,&rdquo; Nordique president Marcel Aubut told the Journal de Quebec.Aubut made a presentation to the league about the discrepancies made during the series with the Habs. However, little has been said on the results of that presentation.Coach Michel Bergeron of the Nordiques had little to say in the days following the series. He did invite all the media reps to his office where he showed a video of the final game played April 20. His intention was to have everyone remember the irregularities in calls made by referee Bruce Hood.The Nordique-Hab rivalry, which diminished somewhat late in the regular season, is now in full swing again. However, Bergeron can now discuss the series with a little more rational.&ldquo;I would have to say that the play of Steve Penney and Larry Robinson probably made the difference in our series, said Bergeron in a radio interview. &ldquo;We had a lot of tight games in the series with lots of close checking.&ldquo;It was pretty hard for us in the last game, even with a 1-0 lead, because our best players were stuck in the dressing room. Montreal impressed me again the Islanders. As it was in our series, it was very important who gets the first goal.&rdquo;Bergeron and his coaching staff had many meetings recently, going over the season and the playoffs once again in their minds. It is too early yet perhaps speculate on possible changes, b&rsquo;^ rumors have already started. The Norques are expected to make a serious effort to land Laval Voisin scoring ace Mario Lemieux from Pittsburgh, which owns the first pick in the NHL entry draft June 9 and are expected to select Lemieue unless they&rsquo;re offered a package too good to turn down.Dan Bouchard&rsquo;s future with the Nordiques remains in doubt. Filion has already said he will try to add some size and aggressiveness up front. The Nordiques are no longer rebuilding; now it is a question of fine tuning what is needed, starting probably ith Mario Gosselin, the Olympic goaltender who started off well in his NHL debut before suffering a knee injury, and Dave Shaw, an all-star defenseman with Kitchener of the Ontario League and the Nordiques&rsquo; first choice in the &rsquo;82 entry draft.Filion is in the process of making a new deal with the club. No one is pressing and Aubut will surely give him a new contract. Filion has earned one with his good trades in recent years. An offer made to Filion by Hab general manager Serge Savard to join Montreal was not really taken seriously by many people in Quebec. But it just goes to show you once again how deep the rivalry goes. No one can escape it in either organization. &#9632;

f0032-01

Nordiques Fined For Caustic Comments

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div>LANDOVER&mdash;Few people will admit it now, but when Bryan Murray was hired as coach of the Washington Capitals in November 1981, there was a groundswell of complaint from the team&rsquo;s season-ticket holders.The other major candidate at the time was Don Cherry and when owner Abe Pollin selected Murray instead, the fans felt Pollin was picking a minor-league coach to save money. But Pollin passed up on Cherry because he had a &ldquo;gut feeling&rdquo; about Murray. With a 112-80-34 record, Murray has turned around a franchise that had never come close to a winning season and has justified Pollin&rsquo;s decision.&ldquo;I received dozens of letters, with people listing section and seat number, that were very uncomplimentary,&rdquo; Murray recalled. &ldquo;They hurt my feelings badly at the time. I just tore them up.&ldquo;I realized that the club had never been a winner and these fans just wanted to win. I was a rookie on the block and they wanted somebody who was a proven winner.&ldquo;Certainly, my record couldn&rsquo;t match Don Cherry&rsquo;s in the NHL. But in everything else&mdash;ersonality, work habits, achievement&mdash;I think I matched up. I always believe that you have to prove yourself and I hope I&rsquo;m doing it.&rdquo;Although Murray still receives an oc-casionial complaint about his power play, most of the response to his efforts is favorable. Certainly, the club&rsquo;s management is satisfied. After Washington was eliminated by the New York Islanders in the Patrick Division final, Murray&rsquo;s contract was extended through June, 1987.Murray took over a 1-13 team in 1981 and made it a playoff contender by season&rsquo;s end. In his first full season, the Capitals fought the Islanders for second place in the Patrick Division, then became the only club to win a playoff game in Nassau Coliseum.This year, the Capitals finished fifth overall in the league with 101 points, swept through Philadelphia in the minimum three games and came closer to unseating the Islanders than the five-game result would indicate.A year ago, Murray was runner-up to Chicago&rsquo;s Orval Tessier in the broadcasters&rsquo; voting for the Jack Adams Award as Coach of the Year. When the NHL stages its awards ceremony in Toronto on June 4, Murray again will be one of the two finalists, along with Buffalo&rsquo;s Scotty Bowman, and this time he must be considered the favorite.It is a remarkable success story for a man who decided in 1978, at age 35, to abandon hockey and settle down as a businessman in his hometown of Shaw-vilte. Que.As a tier two coach at Rockland and Pembroke, two small Ontario cities near Ottawa, Murray earned four league titles in five years. Three times his clubs went to the Canadian provincial championship, the Centennial Cup, and once he won it with the Rockland Nationals.All this was accomplished while moonlighting. During the day, he was a high school physical education instructor in Shawville. When he also became involved financially in a sporting goods store and a hotel, he decided it was time to give up the coaching life.&ldquo;I had been very successful in tier two hockey and I&rsquo;d been under the impression that if you did well with kids, you&rsquo;d get a chance at a higher level, but I never got a call from one of the OHL (Ontario Hockey League) teams,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;We built the sporting goods store and 1 worked their full-time while I was coaching. Then one year, I didn&rsquo;t coach because I thought business was the way to go.&ldquo;I bought the hotel with mv sister and brother-in-law and planned my future around the town. I was involved enough to keep me occupied.&rdquo;Belatedly, Murray was contacted by Peterborough, which was searching for a successor to Gary Green. But Murray lost out to Mike Keenan and gave up hope. Then came a call from Bob Strumm, the new general manager at Regina. It changed Murray&rsquo;s life and, eventually, Washington&rsquo;s hockey future.&ldquo;I wanted to stay in coaching, because I enjoyed it, but there were my family and my business commitments to think about,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;We finally decided that my wife would stay in Shawville with our daughter and help run the hotel. With my brother Bill running the store, I could get away.&ldquo;I must say, it was the toughest year I ever put in. I was thousands of miles away from my family and some nights I&rsquo;d be sitting in the apartment in Regina wondering what I was doing.&ldquo;We had a successful year, though. The franchise turned around and we had three top NHL drafts, so the NHL scouts followed us closely, and I got to know Jack Button and Roger Crozier. The following year, they asked me to come to Hershey. It was a difficult decision, but I wanted to coach and eventually things ended up pretty good.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03237/4931686-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="554" height="684"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bryan Murray quitcoaching once because he didn&rsquo;t feel it was leading anywhere.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0032-03

Cap Coach Has Come A Long Way

JOIN THE BEST WITH THE HOCKEY NEWSIn four big issues in August and September. THE HOCKEY NEWS will provide extensive coverage of the biggest international hockey event of the 1980 s&mdash;THE CANADA CUP SERIES OF 1984Even as the Stanley Cup playoffs wind down towards their own thrilling conclusion, the excitement builds for this bigger-than-life confrontation when the top European and Soviet national teams face-off against the best in North America-Canada and the United States-in late summer 1984 These are not just games between the best hockey teams, but something more than that; a global championship that gives the winner the undisputed right to say that it is truly No 1 in the world of hockey.We re planning to print thousands of extra copies of these issues to make certain there are plenty available on newsstands and for collectors to meet the great demand. It&rsquo;s sure to be a great reading experience. These issues also offer a superlative marketing opportunity for companies that want to become involved with this spectacular hockey event.Whether you are a reader or represent a company, be sure to get your special ticket to Canada Cup 84 in THE HOCKEY NEWS.The Issues AUG. 31, SEPT. 14, 21 and 28.The Place THE HOCKEY NEWSBE A PART OF THE BIG ONE!The Hockey News &#9632;

CANADA CUP 1984

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div>CALGARY&mdash;Cliff Fletcher would prefer if Paul Reinhart and Kent Nilsson did not play in September&rsquo;s Canada Cup.Accordingly, Fletcher, the Flames&rsquo; general manager, will demand that the pair receive medical clearance from the Flames before they will permit them to play in the tournament.Reinhart, the team&rsquo;s top defenseman, injured his back in the season&rsquo;s final game against the Edmonton Oilers. Nilsson, the team&rsquo;s scoring leader, broke his leg three games before the end of the Regular season.Together, they represent a large chunk of the team&rsquo;s future. Hence, Fletcher&rsquo;s unwillingness to risk them in the Canada Cup, an exhibition tournament to be played here in early September.&ldquo;As general manager, I&rsquo;m concerned about any involvement they might have the Canada Cup,&rdquo; said Fletcher. &ldquo;fore they receive any approval, they will both have to be cleared medically by our doctors.&ldquo;The Swedish team intends to open training camp by the end of July. Canada will open Aug. 6. Our NHL camps won&rsquo;t open until Sept. 18. That&rsquo;s almost a month and a half of additional recuperative time they would miss. &ldquo;Physically, if they were 100 per cent, that would be different. But their livelihoods are derived from playing professional hockey for the Calgary Flames, not for Sweden or Canada. They can&rsquo;t afford to jeopardize the future earning power that playing in the NHL provides.&rdquo;Reinhart and Nilsson would prefer to play in the tournament&mdash;if their injuries heal.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I can be ready,&rdquo; said Nilsson, &ldquo;but I hope so.&rdquo;&ldquo;The Canada Cup? It depends on if I&rsquo;m asked,&rdquo; said Reinhart. &ldquo;I really like that type of hockey. I&rsquo;d love to play if 1 get asked and if my back feels okay.&rdquo;Four Flame players&mdash;Reinhart, Nilsson, Jamie Hislop and Dave Hindmarch&mdash;all face long summers of rehabilitation following serious injuries suffered over the course of the season.Reinhart underwent an operation to shrink a disc in his back in January and missed 51 games. Although he returned in the playoffs, the healing process is far from complete.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t knock his performance in the playoffs,&rdquo; said Fletcher. &ldquo;He gave us everything. The question is: Did the injection dissolve the disc to the point where no further attention for his back&mdash;other than a couple months rest&mdash;is needed.&rdquo;Nilsson, who missed half the 1981-82 season with a separated shoulder, will remain in Calgary until the end of May when doctors expect to remove the pins they implanted in his leg. Nilsson has already arranged a physiotherapy program in Sweden for June and July.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll have the whole summer to get back into shape,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When you get injured in the season, you get rushed sometimes back in the lineup. Will 1 lose a step? Maybe. I don&rsquo;t know. We&rsquo;ll have to wait and see.&rdquo;Hindmarch tore the ligaments in both his knees in a Dec. 16 game against the Vancouver Canucks and had to undergo two operations. He spent a month in a wheelchair and has been walking with the help of two canes ever since.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s like having a car accident,&rdquo; said Hindmarch. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no set program. I do physio in the morning to get my range of motion back and weight training in the afternoon to strengthen my legs.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve pushed it a little farther every time and I feel really positive. At the same time, it needs to be stronger. It will be a summer of quite a bit of therapy.&rdquo;Hindmarch said it will be July before he starts to skate again.&ldquo;The ligament heals 10 per cent per month. It&rsquo;s four months, so it&rsquo;s 40 per cent now. They tell me July, but I&rsquo;d like to think I can get on skates in June,&rdquo; he said.Perhaps the most serious of the Flame casualties is the eye injury suffered by Jamie Hislop in a Dec. 1 game against the New York Islanders. The injury could spell the end of his career.Hislop faces therapy of a different kind&mdash;he will play more hockey and more sports that require eye-to-hand coordination in the summer.Once the season begins, he can play just nine more games and then must decide between collecting compensation and retiring or continuing his career.&ldquo;Jamie&rsquo;s injury may be a careerending one,&rdquo; said Fletcher. &ldquo;The doctors will make a final determination over the summer. The doctors advise me Nilsson will recover 100 per cent. They do not anticipate any trouble. Hindmarch, they say, will be fine medically. We won&rsquo;t know until next fall if he can play at the level he was playing at before he got hurt. Reinhart, I&rsquo;m not sure we re out of the woods yet as far as he&rsquo;s concerned.&rdquo;Altogether, the Flames lost 272 games to injuries in the regular season and another 36 in the playoffs. In addition, a number of players played with injuries that would have kept them out of the lineup earlier in the year.&ldquo;We had broken bones and bad backs and the injuries happened to key players, not fourth-liners,&rdquo; said coach Bob John-son. &ldquo;We lived through a lot of adversity. Some teams didn&rsquo;t. They just fizzled away.&rdquo; &#9632;

Flames Need Clearance To Play in Tourney

<div class="byline">BY DICK JOHNSTON</div>BUFFALO&mdash;Tom Barrasso is a selfassured, confident, poised, cool customer, mature beyond his 19 years. But even he had to admit he was surprised to find himself a finalist for two league trophies this year.When the National Hockey League awards are presented in a glittering cere-oniony in Toronto June 4, Barrasso, who just a year ago was getting ready to graduate from high school, will be one of only two players up for a pair of trophies.When the two finalists are called up for each award, Barrasso will be there for the Calder Trophy as outstanding rookie and, also the Vezina Trophy as the top goaltender in the league.Only Rod Langway, Washington&rsquo;s veteran defenseman, is also a finalist for two awards.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m really, really happy about it,&rdquo; said Barrasso, upon hearing of the vote.&ldquo;Going into the season I never expected so much.&rdquo;When he was picked by the Sabres as their first choice in the 1983 draft, right out of Acton-Boxboro High School in MA, Barrasso never doubted he would make the NHL. Sometime.He had wanted to tend goal in the NHL &ldquo;since he was eight years old and had worked toward that ever since.But when Sabre general managercoach Scotty Bowman signed him, Barrasso figured he would spend at least part of the season in Rochester, with Buffalo&rsquo;s American Hockey League farm club.As it turned out, the youngster started the Sabres&rsquo; first exhibition game, in the Montreal Forum, and the first regular-season game (which he won). He then alternated all season with veteran netminder Bob Sauve and finished with the second-best goals-against average in the league.When he started the Sabres&rsquo; opener, Barrasso, at 18, was the youngest to tend goal in an NHL game since Harry Lumley had a two-game tryout with the Detroit Red Wings in 1943.Barrasso surprised just about everyone with his performance after that, including Bowman.&ldquo;Barrasso has exceeded our expectations,&rdquo; Bowman said, late in the season. &ldquo;He has a lot of confidence, that&rsquo;s the big factor. He&rsquo;s an imposing-looking goalie. And the way he handles the puck, he&rsquo;s like a third defenseman.&rdquo;Because he has the size of a Ken Dryden (6-foot-3), who played for Bowman on his Stanley Cup teams in Montreal, Barrasso often is compared to the Hall of Famer.Barrasso, who says he never tried to fashion himself after any NHL netminder, points out that his style of play differs from that of Dryden.&ldquo;Dryden tended to stay in his net,&rdquo; Barrasso explained. &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t handle the puck very often.&rdquo;Barrasso moved out of his net frequently, passing the puck to defensemen and, often, to forwards. He does this with remarkable poise for a rookie who didn&rsquo;t reach his 19th birthday until the final week of the season. &#9632;

Sabres’ Brash Netminder Is A Double Candidate

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div>BOSTON&mdash;Craig MacTavish, who will be incarcerated for one year beginning May 14, has been issued a $10 million suit charging negligence in the death of Kim Radley, whose car was in collision with MacTavish&rsquo;s auto Jan. 25.Radley&rsquo;s husband, Michael A. Radley, has filed the suit, claiming MacTavish was driving &ldquo;negligently, carelessly and recklessly.&rdquo;MacTavish, 25, pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and and was sentenced to a year in prison. He will begin serving his one-year sentence with no parole May 14 at the minimum security Essex County (MA) House of Correction.MacTavish called the accident &ldquo;a big mistake&rdquo; and added he could &ldquo;only imagine the agony&rdquo; that he caused the Radley family.&rdquo;&ldquo;If I could retract the accident, I&rsquo;d do it a second,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;After I do my debt, then maybe I can put the pieces of my life back together.&rdquo;Radley&rsquo;s father, Ronald Foote, said &ldquo;it definitely has affected her family and friends and we hope it also affects Mr. MacTavish. We, the family, feel Kim would want this young man to pick up the pieces a lot wiser and make something of himself.&rdquo;A Bruin spokesman said the team will &ldquo;make every effort to assist Craig in renewing his hockey career once he has fulfilled his obligation in this matter.&rdquo;When asked if MacTavish would be welcomed back following his sentence, the spokesman said, &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want to get into it. That&rsquo;s all there is to say.&rdquo;Assistant district attorney Kevin Mitchell said there had been some conflicting viewpoints on the sentencing because MacTavish is a &ldquo;celebrity.&rdquo;&ldquo;Some people are going to think we were too heavy and some are going to say we were too light,&rdquo; Mitchell said. &ldquo;Some defendants in similar cases have not received similar sentences.&rdquo;MacTavish was first charged with drunken driving but the charges were upgraded to vehicular homicide when Radley died.MacTavish had been drinking at the Golden Banana Club before the accident. Club workers reported him drunk and loud before leaving and had stopped serving him liqour.He left the club and his car ran into the rear end of Radley&rsquo;s car about a mile down the road. Police estimated he was travelling between 60 and 85 mph when he struck Radley&rsquo;s auto, knocking it into a nearby parking lot where it stopped on its side against two parked cars.At the trial, a state trooper said MacTavish refused a breathalyzer and Mitchell said doctors were prepared to testify the Bruin player was under the influence of alcohol.When MacTavish was informed of this, he told the judge: &ldquo;I have no objections to the facts presented.&rdquo;WHAT&rsquo;S BRUIN&mdash;Bruin general manager Harry Sinden on Brad Park: &ldquo;We missed him a lot, an awful lot. He was a producer on offense and he played very well in this building. He had another year or two left in him and when he walked out of here it really hurt us. Nobody&rsquo;s going to make up for Brad Park anyway. Brad was, I would say, one of at least the top half dozen defenseman ever to play hockey. Maybe the top three or four. If you lose a guy like Park, who are you going to make up for him?&rdquo;On goalie Pete Peeters: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have any reservations about Pete Peeters and his future here. Pete had a lot of injuries this year, but, in our estimation, he is, along with Billy Smith and maybe one other, the best goalie in hockey.&rdquo; &#9632;

MacTavish Could Face More Punishment

<div class="byline">BY NEIL MILBERT</div>CHICAGO&mdash;Bill Gardner, who was expected to be bartered back in September, is still with the Black Hawks.During the course of the season, his market value climbed steadily. Yet he has the feeling that as long as he stays in Chicago he will be going up the down staircase.This was the best of Gardner&rsquo;s three seasons in the National Hockey League. He wound up the season with 27 goals and 21 assists.Although these statistics aren&rsquo;t awesome, only two Hawk forwards have better numbers, Denis Savard and Steve Larmer. What&rsquo;s more, Gardner&rsquo;s shooting percentage of 23.7 was by far the best on the team and his four game-tying goals tied him with Quebec&rsquo;s Peter Stastny for the league lead.Gardner is young&mdash;he turned 24 on March 19&mdash;and has abundant speed. He is a proven, high-quality penalty-killer and he&rsquo;s versatile. In mid-January, Gardner was switched from center, his natural position, to left wing on Savard&rsquo;s line and adapted readily, adding zest to an attack that left a lot to be desired.But six weeks later he was back at center on the fourth line and that&rsquo;s where he stayed during the opening-round play-off series with Minnesota that brought an end to the hockey season in Chicago.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a shame that Bill doesn&rsquo;t get the chance to play more because he definitely can play,&rdquo; said Savard. &ldquo;He knows right where the openings are. When he&rsquo;s carrying the puck, you just be there and you&rsquo;ll get it. And it&rsquo;s the same way when he doesn&rsquo;t have it. He&rsquo;ll find the opening; you just get him the puck when he gets there.&rdquo;The successful stint with Savard testifies to Gardner&rsquo;s ability to adapt. In the 1982-83 season he also played the role of the splendid sub. When Tom Lysiak was hurt, Gardner scored seven goals, assisted on 12 and stood out defensively while centering for wingers Darryl Sutter and Rich Preston.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen Gardner a lot and I&rsquo;m impressed,&rdquo; said Mike Corrigan, Pittsburgh&rsquo;s assistant coach. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter if he&rsquo;s out there for three shifts or 30, he always fits right in.&rdquo;But where does Gardner fit in with the Hawks?<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01505/4931813-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="557" height="951"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bill Gardner sometimes gets the feeling that he isn&rsquo;t appreciated in Chicago.</figcaption></div>Look at the high command&rsquo;s table of organization for the troops and it would appear that he&rsquo;s in limbo.Savard is the No. 1 center and Lysiak, who turned 31 on April 22, is expected to be No. 2. Lysiak&rsquo;s age is an impediment to a trade and the 20-game suspension he received for dumping linesman Ron Foyt plus a nagging back injury took away some of his gusto.The incumbent third-line center is defensive specialist Troy Murray. General Manager Bob Pulford is sky-high on both Murray and Ken Yaremchuk, the rookie with many talents but few points. And coach Orval Tessier is keen on Steve Ludzik.Both Ludzik and Yaremchuk were shifted from center to the wings during the course of the season but neither made the transition as impressively as Gardner.Unfortunately for Gardner, there probably won&rsquo;t be any openings on left wing either when training camp opens and ailing Hawks are back in good health. To play regularly on the left side, Gardner would have to beat out either Al Secord, Curt Fraser or captain Darryl Sutter.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care where they play me; I just want to be a regular,&rdquo; said Gardner. &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ve earned it. But sometimes I get feeling they don&rsquo;t appreciate me here.&rdquo;If Gardner is traded and becomes an adversary instead of an ally, the Hawk honchos might come to appreciate him. It&rsquo;s called the learning the hard way. &#9632;

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Hawk Super Sub Looks For Regular Employment

<div class="byline">BY JAY GREENBERG</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01478/4931844-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Flyer captain Bobby Clarke says he wants to play another year and isn&rsquo;t sure if he wants to coach once his career is over.</figcaption></div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;After a week-long search of his soul, Gary Darling has found his ambition. The Flyers&rsquo; assistant general manager has informed team president Jay Snider that he wants to be the sub&rsquo;s next GM.Darling originally felt he was caught in an awkward situation by Bob McCammon&rsquo;s resignation. It was McCammon who hired him away from Boston a year ago and he wondered about Snider&rsquo;s resolve to start fresh. An opportunity to become a GM had never come before and Darling also wondered if, already in plain view of Snider, he should have to come forward. But several friends and associates, including his former boss in Boston, Harry Sinden, urged Gary to go after the job.Now Darling will be weighed against the other candidates on executive vicepresident Keith Allen&rsquo;s list. That list is extensive enough to include former Jami drivers, but, in reality, Allen and Snider are being reminded that there are not a great number of top-flight people available.The Flyers, it has been learned, are interested in talking to Lou Lamoriello, the athletic director at Providence College and the new commissioner of Hockey East, the new premiere college loop, but there are, at this stage, no other top Candidates. Two of the NHL&rsquo;s most reputable talent judges, Edmonton superscout Barry Fraser and New York Islanders&rsquo; Gerry Ehman, remain much more distant possibilities. Snider recently said he is uncovinced that Ehman&rsquo;s and Fraser&rsquo;s drafting record is any more impressive than Darling&rsquo;s was when he performed as the Bruins&rsquo; chief scout.Snider did say, however, that administrative experience would be an important consideration in his deliberations. Darling has performed those functions, both in Boston and as McCammon&rsquo;s righthand man this season.Darling, of course, is not actively involved in the GM search, but he has done some leg work in drawing up a list of coaching candidates. Should Darling get the job, Ted Sator, the Flyers&rsquo; incumbent assistant coach, will be weighed against a short list that includes Canadian Olympic coach Dave King and Kamloops junior coach Bill LaForge.&ldquo;There are a few good candidates out there,&rdquo; Allen said, &ldquo;who are in the running for other jobs. We&rsquo;re not offering the job, not until we settle on a GM, but we do want these people to know we&rsquo;re interested so they can weigh that before accepting anything.&rdquo;Lamoriello, a confidant of Allen&rsquo;s for years, apparently would be very closely considered if he indicates an interest. One other candidate contacted by Allen, Western League president Ed Chynoweth, has already removed himself from consideration.Bobby Clarke says he is not a candidate for either job, nor has any attempt been made by Snider to talk him out of playing another year.&ldquo;I want to play,&rdquo; Clarke said. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t been asked and I don&rsquo;t think I would be interested if they did. I&rsquo;m not sure I&rsquo;m interested in coaching eventually, anyway.&rdquo;Snider said he is anxious to get the GM job resolved before the June draft, but it is not absolutely essential. Allen, who says he has no interest in returning to the post he held for 13 seasons, will function as GM in the interim and will continue to negotiate any trading possibilities that evolve around the draft.ICEBERGS&mdash;Dave Poulin has signed a new contract that probably doubles his rookie pay to the neighborhood of $100,000 per year&hellip;Keith Allen, in addition to his GM screening duties, faces a busy summer of negotiating. Tim Kerr, Bob Froese, Thomas Eriksson, Doug Crossman and Brad McCrimmon are all headed into their option seasons. Kerr, coming off a 54-goal season, figures to be the toughest. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve sent them (Kerr and agent Frank Milne) a proposal,&rdquo; Keith said. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t heard back from them yet.&rsquo;&rsquo;&hellip;The Flyers announced the signing of Darren Jensen, the leading goalie in the International League last season. Jensen, who played at Fort Wayne, was drafted in the fifth round in 1980 by Hartford, but was not offered a contract. He signed to play at Fort Wayne after completing his eligibility at the University of North Dakota&hellip;The Flyers terminated their one-year working agreement with Chicago at Springfield and will work with Boston at Hershey next season. Hershey&rsquo;s proximity to Philadelphia (a two-hour drive) always made sense, but when presidentgeneral manager Frank Mathers didn&rsquo;t show much interest in working with the Flyers in their early years, they established their own team at Maine. They sold the Mariners to the New Jersey Devils last summer to cut their minor-league costs. But with Washington then working with Hershey, they then entered into the agreement at Springfield. &#9632;

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Darling Throws His Hat Into Fluor GM Job Ring

This issue marks the last in our weekly publication schedule, therefore, when you don&rsquo;t receive a copy next week, you won&rsquo;t have to call our subscription department to find out why.Our next issue will be dated June and should be in the mail by the first week of that month.After that, the next issue published will be July 1 and it will be in the mail the last week of June, followed by the July 15 issue, Aug. 1 issue and Aug. 31 issue. &#9632;

A Note To Our Subscribers

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0036-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01455/4931899-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Anders Hakansson didn&rsquo;t feel very important playing for Pittsburgh, but the Kings have given him a new lease on life.</figcaption></div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;He only collected 15 goals and 17 assists in 80 games&mdash;all career highs&mdash;yet 27-year-old Anders Hakansson proved to be one of the most productive and valuable members of the Kings this sorry season.&ldquo;He showed a lot of heart and desire. He wants to win,&rdquo; general manager Rogie Vachon said. &ldquo;There are some guys on this team who should take a look and follow his example.&rdquo;Obviously pleased with the performance of the free agent-to-be, Vachon rewarded Hakansson with a new one-year contract (plus an option) as the regular season wound down.For the first time in over a year, the swift-skating Swede knows how it feels to be wanted.&ldquo;I know next September where I&rsquo;ll be and that&rsquo;s a nice feeling for a change,&rdquo; Hakansson said before departing for his homeland.&ldquo;Last year at this time I had no idea where I&rsquo;d be going, if anywhere. It could have been North America, Italy, Africa or Sweden.&rdquo;Africa?&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; Hakansson said with a smile, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s just say it&rsquo;s tough to prepare for a season when there&rsquo;s no goal to look forward to, when you don&rsquo;t know where you&rsquo;re going to end up.&rdquo;It seems incomprehensible the Pittsburgh Penguins couldn&rsquo;t find room for this fellow on their roster. Aside from his rather obvious skating ability, Hakansson can check.Plus, as Vachon said, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good team man. He&rsquo;s a good guy to have in the (dressing) room.&rdquo;But new Penguin coach Lou Angotti wanted no part of him, according to Hakansson, something he says was made crystal clear before training camp opened back in September.&ldquo;Last year was tough all the way around,&rdquo; Hakansson said. &ldquo;Pittsburgh didn&rsquo;t offer me anything. It was hard just to get an invitation to camp.&ldquo;And then when I showed up, the coach&mdash;whom I had never even seen before&mdash;gave me a hard time the first time we met. I don&rsquo;t know if it was because I was European or because he was having trouble with my agent (Boston-based Mark Perrone) or what, but he just came out and said there was no way I would fit into his system.&rdquo;Fortunately for Hakansson, he was traded to the Kings only a few hours after that meeting in exchange for the rights to a high school center named Kevin Stevens, one of two sixth-round picks the Kings selected in last June&rsquo;s entry draft.Even after that, though, it was tough.During the exhibition season which saw half the team tour Canada, Hakansson was left behind in Los Angeles to practice with a contingent of minor leaguers.&ldquo;I just worked and worked and worked,&rdquo; he recalled (the description pretty much sums up his whole season). &ldquo;Finally, after they had played for a week, they called me up and told me go to Calgary (for a pre-season game) and I&rsquo;ve been here ever since.&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s been by far my best year in the NHL. I wanted to prove that I b^ longed here, to prove they (the Penguins) were wrong about me, so I feel very, very good about the new contract.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to move again, I&rsquo;ve had enough of that,&rdquo; said Hakansson, who played two seasons with the Swedish national team before signing with Minne sota in 1981.He&rsquo;s one of a handful of Kings who doesn&rsquo;t have to worry about relocating this season. Hakansson has found a home and he couldn&rsquo;t be happier.KING NOTEBOOK&mdash;General manager Rogie Vachon is expected to meet soon with his scouting staff and assistant coach Mike Murphy to discuss possible off-season deals and the draft&hellip;Unless center Kirk Muller is available when the Kings draft&mdash;they own the No. 3 pick&mdash;they&rsquo;re almost certain to take a defenseman. &#9632;

f0036-01

Hakansson Happy To Be On Kings’ Wanted List

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div>HARTFORD&mdash;If there&rsquo;s one thing that Emile Francis has failed to master in 36 years, it&rsquo;s how to relax.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been to Maine, Quebec, Kitchener, Brandon and a half-dozen other places,&rdquo; said the Hartford Whalers&rsquo; president-general manager. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m leaving again tomorrow.&rdquo;Possessing just one draft pick in the first five rounds&mdash;the Whalers will pick 11th overall and then must wait until the sixth round to draft again&mdash;Francis continues to bang the bushes.He&rsquo;s good at it.&ldquo;Not having the picks hurts, but it&rsquo;s not like we&rsquo;re without young players,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;A guy like Mark Fusco helps. A guy like Dave Tippett helps. Scot Kleinendorst is young and we&rsquo;ve got (David) Jensen, too.&rdquo;Jensen, a left winger from the U.S. Olympic team, is one of those who will help right away, according to Francis.&ldquo;If you&rsquo;re looking for immediate help in the draft, you&rsquo;re probably going to be disappointed,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;Aside from the top five or six, who probably can step in, what you&rsquo;re drafting are prospects. I don&rsquo;t put Jensen in that category. With his speed and versatility, we think he can play right away.&rdquo;After one year in Hartford, Francis admits that, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ve made good progress, but we&rsquo;ve got to keep going.&rdquo;Asked if the inspired play of the Montreal Canadiens in the playoffs disturbed him at all, Francis laughed.&ldquo;Hell, no,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not building to catch one team, we&rsquo;re building to catch all teams. At the beginning of last year, I wasn&rsquo;t sure which team would be the easiest for us to catch in our division. But I&rsquo;ll be honest. I didn&rsquo;t think it would be Montreal.&rdquo;The Whalers haven&rsquo;t progressed to the point that they can make one position their most immediate concern, but Francis does have some answers.Greg Millen in net, for example.&ldquo;Greg is always looking to play,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;He wants to be in there for 55 or 60 games.&rdquo;Ed Staniowski served as Millen&rsquo;s backup last year, but Francis said &ldquo;goaltenders are going to be available.&rdquo;&ldquo;Look at the two New York teams alone,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Each of them has three goaltenders and they can only protect two.&rdquo;Risto Siltanen, Chris Kotsopoulos and Joel Quenneville provide strength along the blueline.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you who might be able to fit right in, Jack Brownschidle,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t see what he can do this year.&rdquo;Francis also listed Mark Paterson, Kleinendorst and Ulf Samuelson, a big Swede who is expected to sign this summer, as other leading candidates.Up front, the Mark Johnson line, with Sylvain Turgeon and Ray Neufeld, returns intact. Next comes Ronnie Francis, who doesn&rsquo;t have a line.&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll have one next year,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to find people who can play with Ronnie.&rdquo;That shouldn&rsquo;t be difficult.Greg Malone&rsquo;s line, including sniper Bobby Crawford and hard-trying Torrie Robertson, also returns.&ldquo;You know, we brought Samuelson over here to have him take a look at the NHL,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;After one game in Boston, Ulf said, &lsquo;I love that Torrie Robertson.&rsquo; Torrie&rsquo;s the kind of guy we want on our team. Same with Malone. I&rsquo;ll tell you something about Crawford. We were lucky to get him in the waiver draft. I don&rsquo;t think the people in St. Louis quite knew how good he was.&rdquo;Will Mike Zuke return, Francis was asked.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a tough one,&rdquo; he said.If anything, the Whalers will have improved depth next season, one reason that they failed to reach the playoffs this season, according to Francis.&ldquo;When we were struggling in December and January, we brought up everybody we could&mdash;the (Ross) Yateses and the (Reid) Baileys&mdash;and nothing seemed to help. Francis said, &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll definitely have more depth next year.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02343/4931930-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="555" height="1002"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Whalers feel fortunate to have landed sniper Bob Crawford from the Blues.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0036-02

Francis On Search For Tomorrow

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div>VANCOUVER&mdash;A popular sport around here lately is guessing who will be the next Canuck coach.Harry Neale, the Canuck general manager who also has a hold on the coaching reins until he finds a suitable successor, wouldn&rsquo;t have it any other way. He and the Griffiths family, the owners of the Canucks, knew full well the game would be a six-month process back when they fired Roger Neilson in January when the team was &ldquo;underachieving.&rdquo;Now the guessing is reaching a crescendo, though the players themselves have begun something of an underground lobby for assistant Ron Smith.Smith, who came to Vancouver from Buffalo with Neilson three years ago, is probably too closely aligned with Neilson and the regime of the past to be taken seriously by Neale. But many of the players feel this to be unfortunate and that the 40-year-old associate of Neilson deserves a chance.Their reasoning is relatively simple. They consider him extremely competent and his knowledge of the players is bound to be greater than that of any new coach.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to see Ron Smith get the job because I think he&rsquo;s the best man for it,&rdquo; says Dave (Tiger) Williams. &ldquo;He was the guy who instituted the power play which has worked so well for us the past couple of years and it was his defensive system which took us to the finals two years ago. I&rsquo;d like to see him get the chance.&rdquo;Harold Snepsts, the senior Canuck player, feels much the same way.&ldquo;Lots of assistants get moved up and I think Ron is the kind of guy who deserves a shot at it,&rdquo; Snepsts said.So while visions of Pat Quinn, Dave King and Lome Henning dance around most people&rsquo;s minds, the players feel strongly towards a man they figure has already demonstrated competence.&ldquo;Ron will get careful consideration,&rdquo; said Neale. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t want to be going out and getting somebody else I didn&rsquo;t think could do a better job with a better man right under our nose. He&rsquo;ll be one of the finalists.&rdquo;There is a bit of a sticky situation possible if Smith doesn&rsquo;t get the position and the odds are he won&rsquo;t. He is under contract for another year as an associate&mdash;to whomever is head coach presumably&mdash;and his presence could be troublesome.It&rsquo;s entirely likely the new man will want his own assistants. This is particularly likely if a candidate such as Quinn was to take the job. Quinn has gone on record as saying he would like to have some management input wherever he goes. It would be tough for him to have made such statements, then come in and be saddled with an assistant he didn&rsquo;t know.But if Ted Sator, with his little experience at the NHL level, could be seriously considered for the head job at a high profile post such as Philadelphia, it&rsquo;s fair for Vancouver to consider Smith, who doesn&rsquo;t have a big name and head coaching experience elsewhere.But no matter who Neale picks, Canuck fans aren&rsquo;t going to be happy unless Don Cherry is selected. In a recent radio survey, Cherry, who has made enough comments about Canuck players to turn off half the roster, topped the list of the men the fans want to take over as coach. &#9632;

Canuck Players Feel Smith Deserves A Shot

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KANE</div>Louisville Hockey<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01402/4931992-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="278" height="204"></div>PORTLAND&mdash;They are longshots for sure, these Maine Mariners. By most any reasonable measure they should be on the golf courses, not playing for the Calder Cup championship. Yet here they are back in the familiar position of being the Northern Division finalist with a chance to make amends for their shoddy performance of a year ago.The Mariners continued their improbable march toward the Calder Cup title by winning their Northern Division championship series with the Nova Scotia Voyageurs four games to one. Larry Floyd&rsquo;s three goals provided the bulk of the offense for the Mariners in the fifth game as they finished off the Vees 5-2 and earned a rematch with the Rochester Americans, the team that swept them out of the finals in four games last year.The victory over the Vees followed an opening-round triumph over the Adirondack Red Wings in seven games and put the Mariners in the Calder Cup finals for the fifth time in their seven-year history. It also pushed back the memory of a forgettable regular season in which the Mariners finished under.500 for the first time and appeared, in mid-February any-way, unsure of making the playoffs.But a late-season run, bolstered by the addition of players from the parent New Jersey Devils, pushed the Mariners into third place and set the stage for this Cinderella story.&ldquo;I think somebody said we were as far back as 11 points from a playoff spot in January or February, so it certainly is surprising from that perspective,&rdquo; Maine coach John Paddock said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think anybody, us included, at that time of the year thought we&rsquo;d be sitting where we are now.&ldquo;I really believed when our roster got settled, I wasn&rsquo;t sure we were going to be here but I believed we had a chance to be here if we got the team together and believed in ourselves.&ldquo;We went through some tough times and we had some self doubts that continued over into the third period of games when we had a better club. That carried over from what happened earlier in the year and losing so many one-goal games. I believed that if we could cure that we had a chance to be this far.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">Maine had some problems early in the series with Adirondack, but ousted the second-place Wings.</blockquote>Maine had some problems early in its series with Adirondack, but came on strong in the final four games and ousted the second-place Wings. That momentum carried into the series with Nova Scotia, the team that finished fourth in the division and knocked off the champion Fredericton Express in the first round. Glenn Merkosky, Bud Stefanski and Kevin Maxwell continued to score and veterans Paul Evans and Mike Antonovich found the range and started contributing some points. Sam St. Laurent, who has started the last nine playoffs games, sports a 2.33 goals-against average and a 91.5 save percentage. St. Laurent has a 5-0 record at home and a 2-2 road record.With a good balance of offense and defense, Paddock feels the Mariners are up for the challenge presented by the defending champion Amerks.&ldquo;Last year, we had a tougher second series with Fredericton and for some reason we had struggled with Rochester during the year, not that that means anything because we did that with Adirondack this year and came back and won it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But we may have had ourselves believing that for some reason we couldn&rsquo;t compete with them. It was very embarrassing to be beaten four straight. I don&rsquo;t think they were a four-straight better team than us, but they certainly were a better team.&ldquo;Maybe we were tired out, but I don&rsquo;t think we&rsquo;re tired out now. We&rsquo;ve had lots of rest and the guys have come together&mdash;not just playing together but feeling-wise&mdash;and I think that&rsquo;s more important.&ldquo;Last year, I don&rsquo;t think we had that closeness, feeling-wise, in the dressing room that we do now, just in believing that we can win. Everbody believes wecan win, no matter what the situation, that we have as good a chance as the other team. Last year, I don&rsquo;t think we had that.&rdquo;&ldquo;It was a younger team and they didn&rsquo;t have that feeling. This is a veteran team and it&rsquo;s gotten stronger as we&rsquo;ve gone along and we believe we can win.&rdquo;PLAYOFF NOTES&mdash;John Paddock is one of four men who played for Maine in the final series a year ago. Paddock was named to replace Tom McVie as coach in November when McVie was promoted to the head coaching job at New Jersey. With the strong showing at the end of the season and in the playoffs. Paddock may have earned himself an opportunity to return as the coach at Maine next year. The other holdovers are St. Laurent and defensemen Mike Stothers and Mike Busniuk. Paddock has been in the finals of the playoffs in six of the last seven years. He has been with Maine in each of its visits and was a player for the Philadelphia Flyers when they reached the Stanley Cup finals in 1980&hellip;Glenn Merkosky leads the Mariners with 10 goals and 14 points in the playoffs, Bud Stefanski has seven goals and 12 points, Kevin Maxwell is third with four goals and seven assists, while Al Hill has chipped in with three goals and 10 points&hellip;During the playoffs, Maine has converted on 17 of 51 power-play chances, a 33.3 percent success rate, while limiting its opponents to 11 goals in 48 tries, a 23 per cent rate.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-02287/4931985-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg" title="f0037-02" width="557" height="807"><figcaption class="caption-body">Glenn Merkosky&rsquo;s goal scoring contributed to Maine&rsquo;s advancing to the finals.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Cinderella Mariners Craving Cup More Than The Glass Slipper

<div class="byline">BY BILL PICKETT</div>Louisville Hockey<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01467/4932030-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="284" height="204"></div>INDIANAPOLIS&mdash;The Oilers may have nowhere to display it, but they own the Adams Cup.The former Tulsa team, whose members have been living out of suitcases since mid-February. completed a four-game sweep of the defending champion Indianapolis Checkers April 27 to claim the Central Hockey League championship with a 3-2 triumph in the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel.Coach Tom Webster&rsquo;s squad completed a rather topsy-turvy season which saw the league and the parent New York Rangers keep the Oilers alive after local ownership in Tulsa went under.But the Oilers apparently got used to life on the road and they won eight of nine playoff games on foreign ice. They eliminated Salt Lake City 4-1 in the semifinal round, then breezed past the Checkers in four straight.Ranger boss Craig Patrick said the Adams Cup will probably go on display in Madison Square Garden.The Oilers, as they had done most of the final series, got excellent goaltending in the championship game. Ron Scott got the victory, his second against Indianapolis in the series.Webster&rsquo;s squad also got off to another fast start, with Mike Backman putting them out front 1-0 just 35 seconds into the game. Graeme Nicolson made it 2-0 less than two minutes into the second period before Neal Coulter closed the gap to 2-1.Then Grant Ledyard&mdash;who led an aggressive Oiler defensive effort during the playoffs&mdash;fired the game-winner midway through the third period. Ledyard, who was sixth in post-season scoring with five goals and four assists, was selected Most Valuable Player in the playoffs.The Checkers&rsquo; Red Laurence, who led all playoff scorers with 13 points in 10 games, drew Indianapolis to within one goal wit his ninth tally 15 seconds before the end of the championship contest. But the Checkers were unable to come up with another goal in the time remaining despite going with six attackers.About 1,000 fans were able to crowd into the small rink at Carmel, but those who stayed for the presentation of the Cup to the Oilers stood and cheered as the visitors toured the ice with their trophy. The next day it finally was &ldquo;going home&rdquo; time for the Oilers players.And they didn&rsquo;t go empty-handed.NOTES&mdash;The rocky 1983-84 season was over for CHL president Bud Poile, who heaved a relieved sigh and noted, &ldquo;We finished the season with the same number of teams (five) we started with.&rdquo;It wasn&rsquo;t easy, what with the ownership problems in Tulsa and Billings, home of the Montana Magic.&ldquo;We will have at least six teams next season,&rdquo; Poile vowed, &ldquo;or as far as I&rsquo;m concerned there will be no league.&rdquo;Poile had scheduled a conference call involving the league governors May 4, during which some direction for the next season was to be determined.Possible franchise cities weren&rsquo;t so much a problem. According to Poile, Indianapolis, Salt Lake, Denver and, most likely, Billings, were fairly solid for another season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been talking with people in Cincinnati,&rdquo; Poile related, &ldquo;and there still is interest in Tulsa by local people. Bill and Debbie Boman (who tried to salvage the Oilers in February) are interested in putting a team in Tulsa next year or in Wichita.&rdquo;The cities of Louisville and Omaha also have been mentioned, Poile admitted, &ldquo;but those locations couldn&rsquo;t materialize in time for next season.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02371/4932023-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg" title="f0038-02" width="548" height="520"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Scott was in net for the Oilers when they clinced the championship.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Oilers End Season By Taking Adams Cup

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div>ROCHESTER&mdash;Let the record show that in seven previous seasons as an American Hockey League head coach, Joe Crozier reached the Calder Cup finals four times and copped three Cups.There were fruitless seasons, the ones with Cincinnati in 1971-72 and New Brunswick in 1978-79, but from 196368, the sly guy Rochester Amerk fans call &ldquo;Crow&rdquo; saw nothing but success from behind the War Memorial bench.This season, he&rsquo;s at it again. After taking over from Mike Keenan, who led the Amerks to a Cup last season, Crozier is back again in the AHL finals. The Amerks won three straight games to knock off the favored Baltimore Skipjacks, four games to two, and advance to the finals against the surprising Maine Mariners.The Amerks, behind the stellar goaltending of Jacques Cloutier, the inspired play of two-way center Bob Mongrain, the defensive excellence of left winger Yvon Lambert and the clutch contribution from the unheralded forward trio line of left winger Lou Crawford, center Gates Orlando and right winger Steve Patrick, shocked the Southern Divisionwinner Skipjacks by taking two of three games in the Baltimore Civic Center.You&rsquo;d have to go back to the &lsquo;70s to find the last time Rochester won at Baltimore before these playoffs. The Skipjacks were 8-0-1 lifetime vs. the Amerks in two seasons.That mattered little, though, when the Amerks erased a two-games-to-one deficit by winning 5-4 in overtime at home. 7-3 in Baltimore and 3-2 in double OT at home to clinch it.&ldquo;We were really prepared for them,&rdquo; said Cloutier, who has played all 13 playoff games. &ldquo;We had a really tough first series against St. Catharines and that prepared us for Baltimore.&rdquo;The &lsquo;Jacks, who sat idle for 12 days after an easy first-round sweep of Springfield. never recovered.&ldquo;It seemed we never got the intensity back we had before,&rdquo; said Skipjack coach Gene Ubriaco. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what we could have done about that. We only took three days off, but it&rsquo;s not the same. When you practice, they&rsquo;re not games.&rdquo;The layoff showed, specifically in games four, five and six. The Amerks outskated Baltimore in both overtime wins and grabbed game five with four third-period goals.In game four. Mongrain converted a two-on-one feed from Mal Davis and lifted a short shot past goalie Roberto Romano at 2:12 of the five-minute first extra session.In game five, defenseman Jim Wiemer scored a pair of third-period tallies and the line of Crawford, Orlando and Pat-rick scored three goals.In game six, the Amerks pelted a spectacular Romano with 70 shots and finally won the series on defenseman Dan Naud&rsquo;s power-play marker from the top of the slot.Referee Bob Hall charged Dave Hannan for high-sticking a minute earlier, an infraction you don&rsquo;t normally see in the middle of a sudden-death playoff game.&ldquo;Hannan felt Mongrain took a run at him first,&rdquo; Ubriaco said. &ldquo;He deserved the penalty, but maybe at that point in the game you&rsquo;d call it on both of them.&rdquo;Crozier felt he had a better-conditioned team. The results back him up.&ldquo;In January, February and March, we&rsquo;d skate a half-hour before we started practice,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;In OT, we just went away from them. As the games progressed, we got stronger.&rdquo;Said Ubriaco: &ldquo;They just outskated us. They were a little quicker, especially in the two overtime games.&rdquo;So the Amerks march into the finals against the Mariners, who finished third in the North but ousted Adirondack and Nova Scotia. The Amerks, who swept Maine four straight in last season&rsquo;s finals, are looking to become the first team since the 1977-79 Mariners to win two straight Cups.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know much about them, but if they&rsquo;re in the final, they&rsquo;re a good club,&rdquo; Cloutier said. &ldquo;But if we play the way we did against Baltimore, I think we should bring back the Cup to Rochester.&rdquo;CALDER QUIPS&mdash;The Mariners and Amerks split four games during the regular season, going 1-1 in each building&hellip;The Mariners were owned by Phi-&laquo; ladelphia Flyers last season before being purchased by New Jersey, so a majority of Maine players were not part of last season&rsquo;s series. Goalie Sam St. Laurent, however, faced Jacques Cloutier in all of the playoff games&hellip;Cloutier and Bob Mongrain are the Amerk favorites 4 for the Jack Butterfield Trophy, to be awarded to the playoff Most Valuable Player&hellip;Although Baltimore was extremely disappointed not having reached the finals after finishing first overall during the regular season, they were thrilled with their overall improvement as a Pittsburgh Penguin farm team. The privately owned &lsquo;Jacks and Penguins have one more year on their contractual affiliation. Gene Ubriaco, with a year and an option left on his contract, will be back. &#9632;

Amerks Go On As The Crow Flies

<div class="byline">BY BUD GALLMEIER</div>Louisville Hockey<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01438/4932085-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="284" height="204"></div>FLINT&mdash;In the stretch run of the International Hockey League season, the Generals trailed only front-running Fort Wayne Un posting the best record in the league. But General coach Dennis Desrosiers said the best was yet to come.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s wait and see what happens in the playoffs,&rdquo; he said following a close Hoss to Fort Wayne late in the season. &ldquo;The playoffs are a new season.&rdquo;After two games in the Turner Cup final, Desrosiers appears to be a prophet. The Generals led Toledo 2-0, after a 6-4 victory in the first game in Flint and a 7-5 win in Toledo, and if the Generals continue their winning ways, they&rsquo;ll celebrate their first championship since they won the North Division title in 1973.The victory was Flint&rsquo;s third in the last four in Toledo and their 17th in the last 21 games (17-2-2 in that span). They are 13-0-1 at home over the last 14 games and have won nine in a row.A four-goal explosion in the final period was the deciding factor in game two. Sparkplugs were Dave Nichols and Jeff Pyle, each of whom scored two goals, including one each in an explosive third period.Desrosiers wasn&rsquo;t a very popular person in Flint during the holidays as he made some unpopular changes in personnel. The fact the Generals weren&rsquo;t winning compounded matters.The Generals were in sixth place as the IHL season moved closer to the halfway point and prospects for a higher standing appeared slim.But Desrosiers stuck to his game plan. He had confidence in his ability to pick the best players available and turn them into winners.Around the start of the new year, the Generals started to make their move. aided by the return of players who were sidelined with injuries.Desrosiers was so confident of his team&rsquo;s playoff potential he made a determined effort to bring his team home in third place even though it meant losing the home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs. The fourth-place team earned home-ice advantage against the fifth-place team in a three-game miniseries.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like a short series,&rdquo; Desrosiers said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t have much time to recover from a loss. Two losses and it&rsquo;s over. Besides, I want to finish as high as I can. I think it will build our condidence for the playoffs.&rdquo;Desrosiers got his wish. Flint finished with a rush to shade Toledo for third place. That matched the Generals with second-place Milwaukee in a best-of-seven semi-final series. It lasted just four games, as Flint won the first two in Mil-waukee and completed the sweep at home.That put Flint in the finals for the first time in the club&rsquo;s 15-year history. The Generals had to wait a week, however, before Toledo beat Fort Wayne for the second year in a row in the semis. &#9632;

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General Coach Could Qualify As A Prophet

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-02304/4932137-1-eng-US/f0039-022.jpg" title="f0039-02" width="307" height="409"></div><h2>MISCELLANEOUS</h2>WIHL FINALISTS: Nelson Senior Maple Leafs require player-coach and other players for 1984-85. Some scholarships and employment available. Apply soon to Nelson Maple Leafs, P.O. Box 311, Nelson, B.C.<h2>DEFUNCT SPORTS PRICELISTS</h2>35 pages of media guides, yearbooks. photos, programs, pennants, decals, cards, game Jerseys and more. Includes WHA (world Hockey Association). WFl (world FootBaH league), ABA (American Basketball), NL (National lacrosse) and more send cheque or m/o for 54.99 to: EMPIRE SPORTS, 1947 Avenue Road.Sulu 201, Toronto. Ont. M5M 4A2. NCCA Dealer.* Free gift and $2.50 credit on first order.<h2>WHA-NHL-AHL-IHL-MINOR HOCKIY</h2>65 page pricelist of photos, media guides, cards, yearbooks, programs, pennants, pucks, game used Jerseys, equipment and much more send cheque or m/o for $5.50 with this ad to: CANADA U.S. SPORTS HNTIRFRISHS99 Katherine Rd. Downtvlew, OntCanada M3K 1J5* Free gift valued at $3.00 with this ad.<h2>MERCHANDISE</h2>SPORTS JERSEY UNLIMITEDComplete 18 page pricelist of game worn Jerseys Leagues Include Baseball, CFL-NFL-WFL-NHL-WHA-NASL-NBAand more. Over 150C satisfied customers. For complete list send cheque or m/o for $5.00 payable to:EMPIRE SPORTS, 1947 Avenufi Road, suite 201, Toronto. Ont. M5M 4A2 NCCA Dealer* Free gift and $2.50 credit on first order.<h2>MISCELLANEOUS</h2>USFL &bull; USFL &bull; USFLMedia guides, lapel pins, yearbooks, pennants, buttons, photos, skeds, jerseys, sweat-shirts, decals, programs and more. Get them while they&rsquo;re hot. 10-page price list includes 1983 and 1984 teams. Send $4.50 (includes free defunct Boston Breaker program and 2 skeds) to:Canada U.S. Sports Enterprises, 99 Katherine Road, Downsview, Ont., M3K 1J5, CanadaSend this ad for Free &lsquo;83 SN Guide.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-03216/4932130-1-eng-US/f0039-032.jpg" title="f0039-03" width="581" height="524"></div><h2>MERCHANDISE</h2>CLOSE-UP PHOTOS, postcards. NHL, CHL players. For sample send SASE. Madeloni, 3501 E. 10, Denver, CO. 80206.<h2>MISCELLANEOUS</h2>RARE WHA PENNANTS12&rdquo; &times; 30&rdquo; New York Golden Blades and New Jersey Knights. Very RARE WHA teams. $8.75 each or both for $16.00. Send payments to: Canada U.S. Sports Enterprises, 99 Katherine Road, Downsview, Ont., M3K 1J5, Canada* FREE gift with all orders.<h2>COLLECTIONS</h2>MARKHAM III&ldquo;The Toronto Extravaganza&rdquo;CANADA&rsquo;S LARGEST SPORT COLLECTIBLES show 8 & sale Sunday, June 3rd. 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Thornhill Community Centre (Bayview Ave. at John St). SPECIAL GUEST: Darryl Sittier. First 100 people receive 1984 Blue Jay Team card set-Free! Valuable door prizes throughout day. Don&rsquo;t miss the country&rsquo;s finest show. Information: Markham Sport Collectibles, 10063 Yonge St., Unit 2, Richmond Hill. Ont., L4C 1T7 (416) 8834625.<h2>BOOKS</h2>HOCKEY BOOKS, GUIDES, programs. New, used, scarce. Free list. BOOK, Box 547, Streetsville, Ont., L5M 2C1.<h2>NOVELTIES</h2>BE THE STAR on your own bubble gum cards. Write: Big League Cards, 2424 McDonald St. Regina, Sask. S4N 2Z3.<h2>TORONTO HOCKEY REPAIR</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-04182/4932123-1-eng-US/f0039-042.jpg" title="f0039-04" width="262" height="470"></div>We specialize in the repairs of goalie pads, blockers, catchers, pants, restrip hockey pants, repalming hockey gloves, hockey bags, add more protection to hockey equipment, baseball gloves, tennis nets, wind screens, and more.All work done by specialists with craftmanship work. We also extend goalie pads, and reface goalie pads any colour leather design. We assess team repairs at reasonable prices.TORONTO HOCKEY REPAIR15 Perth Avenue, Toronto, Ont., M6R 2C1 (416) 533-1791<h2>TOURNAMENTS</h2>SUMMER MINOR HOCKEY Tournament. June 29,30, July 1 (Novice-Mite to Junior) Write: METRO SUMMER HOCKEY LEAGUE, 40 Gerrard St. E. Suite 1505, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2E8 or phone (416) 597-1346.FLORIDA HOCKEY: Enjoy a sunshine holiday plus exhibition games arranged with Senior A or Oldtimers teams. For more information contact: Rosaire Paiement, Cor: al Plaza Hotel, 2701 North Federal Hwy., Ft. Lauderdale, FL, 33306. (305) 565-6658.EQUIPMENT<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-05147/4932116-1-eng-US/f0039-052.jpg" title="f0039-05" width="1828" height="1129"></div> &#9632;

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The Classified

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1022/4932304-1-eng-US/f0040-102.jpg" title="f0040-10" width="534" height="442"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1121/4932297-1-eng-US/f0040-112.jpg" title="f0040-11" width="540" height="449"></div> &#9632;

f0040-10

Top Rookies In The Playoffs

<h2>CONFERENCE RNALS</h2>EDMONTON&mdash;Semenko 4, Gretzky 6, 7, 8, 9, Hughes 1, 2, Kurri 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, McClelland 3, Hunter 5, Linseman 6, 7, 8, 9, Lumley 1, Coffey 6, Anderson 5, Messier 5, Jackson 1. Winning goals-Gretzky, Linseman 2.MINNESOTA&mdash;Payne 3, Broten 3, 4, 5, Plett 6, Bellows 2, Maxwell 2, Napier 2,3, Ciccarelli 4. Winning goals-none.MONTREAL&mdash; Carbonneau 4, Naslund 4, 5, 6, Shutt 5, 6, 7, Mondou 4, 5, 6, Hunter 2, Tremblay 6. Winning goals-Carbonneau, Shutt.NY ISLANDERS&mdash;Gillies 5, 6, 7, Potvin 1, Jonsson 2, 3, Gilbert 3, 4, Bossy 5, 6, 7, 8, Dineen 1, Trottier 6, B. Sutter 3, Flatley 7, 8. Winning goals-Bossy 3, B. Sutter 1.Penalty shot goals&mdash;Gretzky (Edm) 1. &#9632;

NHL PLAYOFF SCORERS

<h2>WALES CONFERENCE</h2><h3>FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1219/4932450-1-eng-US/f0040-122.jpg" title="f0040-12" width="529" height="119"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Tue. Apr. 25NY Islanders 0 at Montreal 3Thu. Apr. 27NY Islanders 2 at Montreal 4Sat Apr. 29Montreal 2 at NY Islanders 5Tue. May 1Montreal 1 at NY Islanders 3Thu. May 3NY Islanders 3 at Montreal 1Sat. May 5Montreal 1 at NY Islanders 4<h3>ADAMS DIVISION FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1317/4932443-1-eng-US/f0040-132.jpg" title="f0040-13" width="492" height="120"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Thu. Apr. 12Montreal 2 at Quebec 4Fri. Apr. 13Montreal 4 at Quebec 1Sun. Apr. 15Quebec 1 at Montreal 2Mon. Apr. 16Quebec 4 at Montreal 3Wed. Apr. 18Montreal 4 at Quebec 0Fri. Apr. 20Quebec 3 at Montreal 5<h3>DIVISION SEMI FINALS ADAMS DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1413/4932436-1-eng-US/f0040-142.jpg" title="f0040-14" width="525" height="120"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Wed. Apr. 4Montreal 2 at Boston 1Thu. Apr. 5Montreal 3 at Boston 1Sat. Apr. 7Boston 0 at Montreal 5<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1513/4932429-1-eng-US/f0040-152.jpg" title="f0040-15" width="530" height="120"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Wed. Apr. 4Quebec 3 at Buffalo 2Thu. Apr. 5Quebec 6 at Buffalo 2Sat. Apr. 7Buffalo 1 at Quebec 4<h3>PATRICK DIVISION FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1612/4932422-1-eng-US/f0040-162.jpg" title="f0040-16" width="514" height="121"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Thu. Apr. 12Washington 3 at NY Islanders 2Fri. Apr. 13Washington 4 at NY Islanders 5Sun. Apr. 15NY Islanders 3 at Washington 1Mon. Apr. 16NY Islanders 5 at Washington 2Wed. Apr. 18Washington 3 at NY Islanders 5<h3>DIVISION SEMI-FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1710/4932415-1-eng-US/f0040-172.jpg" title="f0040-17" width="492" height="127"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Wed. Apr. 4Rangers 1 at Islanders 4Thu. Apr. 5Rangers 3 at Islanders 0Sat. Apr. 7Islanders 2 at Rangers 7Sun. Apr. 8Islanders 4 at Rangers 1Tue. Apr. 10Rangers 2 at Islanders 3<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-188/4932408-1-eng-US/f0040-182.jpg" title="f0040-18" width="528" height="124"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Wed. Apr. 4Philadelphia 2 at Washington 4Thu. Apr. 5Philadelphia 2 at Washington 6Sat. Apr. 7Washington 5 at Philadelphia 1<h2>CAMPBELL CONFERENCE</h2><h3>FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-196/4932401-1-eng-US/f0040-192.jpg" title="f0040-19" width="532" height="121"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Tue. Apr. 25Minnesota 1 at Edmonton 7Thu. Apr. 27Minnesota 3 at Edmonton 4Sat. Apr. 29Edmonton 8 at Minnesota 5Tue. May 1Edmonton 3 at Minnesota 1<h3>NORRIS DIVISION FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-206/4932394-1-eng-US/f0040-202.jpg" title="f0040-20" width="500" height="120"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Thu. Apr. 12St. Louts 1 at Minnesota 2Fri. Apr. 13St. Louis 4 at Minnesota 3Sun. Apr. 15Minnesota 1 at St. Louis 3Mon. Apr. 16Minnesota 3 at St. Louis 2Wed. Apr. 18St. Louis 0 at Minnesota 6Fri. Apr. 20Minnesota 0 at St. Louis 4Sun. Apr. 22St. Louis 3 at Minnesota 4<h3>DIVISION SEMI-FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-216/4932387-1-eng-US/f0040-212.jpg" title="f0040-21" width="492" height="122"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Wed. Apr. 4Chicago 3 at Minnesota 1Thu. Apr. 5Chicago 5 at Minnesota 6Sat. Apr. 7Minnesota 4 at Chicago 1Sun. Apr. 8Minnesota 3 at Chicago 4Tue. Apr. 10Chicago 1 at Minnesota 4<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-226/4932380-1-eng-US/f0040-222.jpg" title="f0040-22" width="528" height="124"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Wed. Apr. 4Detroit 2 at St. Louis 3Thu. Apr. 5Detroit 5 at St. Louis 3Sat. Apr. 7St. Louis 4 at Detroit 3 (OT)Sun. Apr. 8St. Louis 3 at Detroit 2 (OT)<h3>SMYTHE DIVISION FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-235/4932373-1-eng-US/f0040-232.jpg" title="f0040-23" width="498" height="123"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Thu. Apr. 12Calgary 2 at Edmonton 5Fri. Apr. 13Calgay 6 at Edmonton 5Sun. Apr. 15Edmonton 3 at Calgay 2Mon. Apr. 16Edmonton 5 at Calgary 3Wed. Apr. 18Calgary 5 at Edmonton 4Fri. Apr. 20Edmonton 4 at Calgay 5Sun. Apr. 22Calgary 4 at Edmonton 7<h3>DIVISION SEMI-FINALS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-245/4932366-1-eng-US/f0040-242.jpg" title="f0040-24" width="529" height="123"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Wed. Apr. 4Winnipeg 2 at Edmonton 9Thu. Apr. 5Winnipeg 4 at Edmonton 5 (OT)Sat. Apr. 7Edmonton 4 at Winnipeg 1<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-254/4932359-1-eng-US/f0040-252.jpg" title="f0040-25" width="530" height="127"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>Wed. Apr. 4Vancouver 3 at Calgary 5Thu. Apr. 5Vancouver 2 at Calgary 4Sat. Apr. 7Calgary 0 at Vancouver 7Sun. Apr. 8Calgary 5 at Vancouver 1 &#9632;

f0040-12

STANLEY CUP SCOREBOARD

<h2>All-Time Playoff Leaders</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01194/4932266-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="543" height="1428"></div><h2>Sat. Apr. 28 MONTREAL 2, ISLANDERS 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02120/4932259-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg" title="f0040-02" width="557" height="930"></div><h2>EDMONTON 8, MINNESOTA 5</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0378/4932252-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="535" height="534"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0456/4932245-1-eng-US/f0040-042.jpg" title="f0040-04" width="534" height="649"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0541/4932238-1-eng-US/f0040-052.jpg" title="f0040-05" width="534" height="180"></div><h2>Tue. May 1 MONTREAL 1, ISLANDERS 3</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0634/4932231-1-eng-US/f0040-062.jpg" title="f0040-06" width="533" height="380"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0729/4932224-1-eng-US/f0040-072.jpg" title="f0040-07" width="531" height="413"></div><h2>EDMONTON 3, MINNESOTA 1</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0825/4932217-1-eng-US/f0040-082.jpg" title="f0040-08" width="538" height="765"></div><h2>Thu. May 3 ISLANDERS 3, MONTREAL 1</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0922/4932210-1-eng-US/f0040-092.jpg" title="f0040-09" width="534" height="352"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01160/4932203-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="535" height="359"></div><h2>Sat. May 5 MONTREAL 1, ISLANDERS 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0294/4932196-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="534" height="355"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0368/4932189-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="524" height="92"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0454/4932182-1-eng-US/f0041-042.jpg" title="f0041-04" width="536" height="94"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0544/4932175-1-eng-US/f0041-052.jpg" title="f0041-05" width="539" height="97"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0638/4932168-1-eng-US/f0041-062.jpg" title="f0041-06" width="531" height="94"></div> &#9632;

f0040-01

STANLEY CUP PLAYOFF SUMMARIES

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0735/4932481-1-eng-US/f0041-072.jpg" title="f0041-07" width="530" height="1231"></div>When the NHL season started and top rookies were mentioned, Steve Penney was not one of them. But then why should he have been? He wasn&rsquo;t even given a chance to make the Nova Scotia Voyageurs.But here it is eight months later and Penney, a native of Ste. Foy, Que., is the story of the playoffs.The unheralded rookie played all 15 playoff games for the equally surprising Montreal Canadiens and came up with a 9-6 record. His 2.20 goals-against average was the lowest in the playoffs and when the rookie talk begins next fall, Penney&rsquo;s name will be mentioned since he&rsquo;s still technically a rookie. &#9632;

f0041-07

Chrysler Rookie Award

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0042-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01161/4932512-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0042-01

MINOR SCOREBOARD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01160/4932543-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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May 18, 1984

FINAL OHL THREE-STAR STANDINGS

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ON THE CONTRARY

Lemieux Is Key To Laval’s Mighty Offense