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

March 6, 1987

The Hockey News March 6, 1987

<div class="byline">Frank Orr</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011152/5432214-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="368" height="416"></div>CREDIBILITY IS STRETCHED some what when you consider that no place exists in the game of hockey for Fred Shero, other than being analyst on the radio broadcasts of New Jersey Devils&rsquo; games.Now, that&rsquo;s not intended as a putdown of color men and analysts, a noble enough profession. But at a time in employment history when applicants for jobs often are told they&rsquo;re overtrained for a particular position and wouldn&rsquo;t be happy for long, Shero certainly fits that description.Okay, Shero is 61. So what? All that means is that he&rsquo;s had more time to soak up knowledge and lore of the game. Shero was a student of Russian hockey at a time when most men in the game figured that meant having your defensemen carry the puck up ice.Okay, so he coached Philadelphia Flyers, the Broad Street Bullies, to acouple of Stanley Cup championships, the team that changed the game and established penalty records that haven&rsquo;t been challenged. The Flyers also were the best-coached and disciplined team in their era.What should make Shero appealing to an NHL team is that the style of hockey he advocated with the Flyers is what is winning in the NHL these days. In fact, it&rsquo;s a throwback to the way the game was played long before Shero.&ldquo;Last year&rsquo;s playoffs were interesting because the teams that played in the final (Montreal Canadiens and Calgary Flames) used the basic game that was the style of the &rsquo;30s and &rsquo;40s,&rdquo; Shero said.&ldquo;They shoot the puck in and run after it, just like the old clubs did. But it&rsquo;s the only game to play now.&rdquo;Shero adds his voice to the many who feel that a larger ice surface is a must if the NHL is to thrive and grow as a sport.&ldquo;Something has to be done, even if it&rsquo;s just another six inches of ice all the way around,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The pipes (for making ice) are there for that. We have bigger, stronger, faster players than ever and they need room to work.&rdquo;Shero was an avid viewer of Rendez-vous &rsquo;87. Shero was one of the first NHL coaches to study closely the Soviet approach after the 1972 Summit Series. He has detected some changes in the comrades&rsquo; approach.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re using the slap shot more and they don&rsquo;t know how to do it very well,&rdquo; Shero said. &ldquo;A lot of their slappers are blocked. They don&rsquo;t flood a zone when they forecheck. They used to send all three forwards and one defenseman into a comer in the attacking zone after the puck.&rdquo;Shero also liked the NHL effort but had a few suggestions.&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t forecheck as strongly as we might have,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When NHL teams are forechecking against the Soviets, they should always remember to get the puck into the Russian zone and eat it there, forcing faceoffs.&ldquo;Our faceoff men are always so much better than theirs that it&rsquo;s one way to control the puck and the play.&ldquo;There was talk that this Soviet team was more physical than any previous clubs. I didn&rsquo;t see that. I don&rsquo;t think they went into dragon territory (the comers) or the butcher block (front of the net) very often.&rdquo;Shero is one man who figures he should be involved actively in the game with more than his tonsils.&ldquo;Sure, I&rsquo;d like to go back,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I like to think I have some insight to offer the game.&rdquo;Unfortunately, though, the NHL likely will waste this natural resource the way it has so many others. &#9632;

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Departments

Some Club Should Make Use Of Shero’s Smarts

<div class="byline">BY RICHARD BEALES Copy Editor</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01635/5432794-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">&ldquo;HE CALLED ME A HUMAN ZAMBONI! &ldquo;</figcaption></div>Midgets in name only, North America&rsquo;s best 16- and 17-year-olds will soon be facing off for national championships.Canadian and American tournaments are set for April, in Gloucester, Ont., and Lewiston, Maine, respectively.First up is the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States&rsquo; championships. The best teams from eight geograpical regions will trek to Lewiston, where they&rsquo;ll do battle from April 3 to 5.The series, always hard-fought, was won last year by the Chicago Young Americans. Teams are divided into two groups of four; each plays a roundrobin series in its own division, with the winners playing off for the championship and the runners-up for the bronze.Famous alumni of past national midget tournaments include Mark Howe, Al lafrate and Kevin Hatcher.The Air Canada Cup&mdash;which, in past years has featured National Hockey Leaguers Tony Tanti, Al Maclnnis, James Patrick, Steve Yzerman, Ron Francis, Russ Courtnall. Wendel Clark and Patrick Roy&mdash;will run from April 14 to 18 in the Ottawa suburb of Gloucester.Five teams, each representative of a region in Canada, will face off for the national midget hockey title against a team from the host town.&ldquo;Gloucester has been a great hockey host in the past,&rdquo; said Jim Kinkley, chairman of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association minor council, &ldquo;and we sincerely believe that this year&rsquo;s championship will receive strong, favorable support from the area&rsquo;s many fans of minor hockey.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">Mark Howe, Al lafrate and Steve Yzerman are among the NHL alumni of national midget championships.</blockquote>The Gloucester Rangers will compete in a round-robin format against teams from the Pacific, the West, the Central region, Quebec and the Atlantic. Teams finishing first through fourth will play semi-final games, with the two winners squaring off for the Cup.The Pacific region title will be contested by teams from British Columbia and Alberta; the Western region title by teams from Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Thunder Bay; the Central title by the Ontario and Ottawa and District clubs; and the Atlantic by clubs from Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.The Quebec champion will automatically advance to the tournament.Winners of each division will not be known until &ldquo;about a week&rdquo; before the meet begins, said CAHA spokesman Doug Philpott.The Canadian national midget tournament concept started in 1974, with the Wrigley chewing gum company sponsoring it.The Air Canada Cup, a true end-of-season national championship, has been played since 1979, when the winning team was the Ste-Foy (Que.) Gouveneurs. The famous Notre Dame College Hounds of Wilcox, Sask., who won the Cup last year, are one of only two teams to have taken the trophy twice.Montreal&rsquo;s Lac St-Louis Lions were also repeat winners.The six teams will face a gruelling schedule during the round-robin portion of the tournament&mdash;each club plays five teams in three days.<h2>The Snowbirds &#9632;</h2>

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IN THIS ISSUE

Midgets Face Off For National Championships

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01711/5432611-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="592" height="2435"></div> &#9632;

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NHL Games To Come

<div class="byline">BY RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-02352/5433339-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg" title="f0037-02" width="598" height="1138"><figcaption class="caption-body">Sean Evoy decided to return to the OHL as an overager, and is enjoying his best season.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01485/5433346-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="181" height="137"></div>TORONTO&mdash;Call it The Year of the Overager.With just five weeks left in the Ontario League regular season, no fewer than five overage players were leading their respective teams in scoring.A sixth had the best won-lost record, goals-against average and save percentage, while several other 20-year-olds were making major contributions.Team scoring leaders included Mike Richard of Toronto Marlboros (46-4389 in 55 games), Jean-Marc Mackenzie of London Knights (37-47-84 in 52 games), Mike Maurice of Kingston Canadians (37-32-69 in 45 games), Bill Bennett of Cornwall Royals (2148-69 in 49 games) and Todd Hawkins of Belleville Bulls (33-29-62 in 45 games).And Sean Evoy has been having an outstanding season in goal for the Oshawa Generals. Through midFebruary, the big puckstopper had a 21-2-1 record, 3.03 goals-against average and .898 save percentage, all tops in the OHL.Meanwhile, three other overagers who started the season in the minor pro ranks were having a big impact on the league.North Bay Centennials&rsquo; winger Nick Kypreos had counted 33 goals and 27 assists in just 31 games, Oshawa&rsquo;s Barry Burkholder had 29 goals and 24 assists in 44 games, and Peterborough&rsquo;s Kris King had 19 goals and 26 assists in just 33 games.Richard, MacKenzie, Maurice, Bennett, and Burkholder are all professional free agents. Kypreos is under contract to the Philadelphia Flyers and King to the Washington Capitals. Hawkins and Evoy were drafted as 19-year-olds in 1986 by the Vancouver Canucks and Hartford Whalers, respectively, though neither has yet to sign a pro contract.Other overagers signed by the National Hockey League but playing in the OHL are Kingston&rsquo;s Chris Clifford (Chicago), Belleville goalie Alan Perry (St. Louis), Toronto right winger Vito Cramarossa (Washington) and Hamilton forward Brian Martin (Los Angeles).Most NHL teams share operation of their American League farm clubs and are committed to sending a few more players to International League affiliates. With just so many pro jobs available, more players are returning to the OHL rather than report to the IHL or sit on the bench in the AHL.Previously, each team could have only one overager, but that number was increased to two last season.&ldquo;I think the two-overage rule has been a big success,&rdquo; said OHL spokesman John Sop. &ldquo;Just look at the number of overagers in our league and the big contributions they&rsquo;re making.&rdquo;Fourteen of the 15 OHL teams are using the maximum two overagers allowed. Only the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds are without one. meaning 28 of the 30 overage spots in the league have been filled.Evoy stumbled through two seasons with the lowly Sudbury Wolves, before being traded to Cornwall midway through last season. He was drafted from the Royals&rsquo; roster by Hartford last June, but his overage rights were traded to Oshawa once Cornwall made a commitment to take goalie Rick Tabaracci in the first round of the OHL draft.Evoy lasted a month at Hartford&rsquo;s camp last fall, but when decision time came, he opted to report to Oshawa rather than try the IHL.His agent, Keith Lefave of Sault Ste. Marie, said his client had specific reasons for choosing a final year of junior with the Generals.<blockquote class="pullQuote">Playing overage for the Memorial Cup-winning Guelph Platers launched pro careers for Steve Guenette and Paul Brydges.</blockquote>&ldquo;One, he knew (Oshawa coach) Paul Theriault really wanted him,&rdquo; said Lefave. &ldquo;And of course, there was Oshawa&rsquo;s goalie coach, Ian Young, and the fact that the Generals have sent so many goal ies to the pros.&rdquo;In the six seasons he&rsquo;s been with Oshawa, Theriault (with assistance from Young) has helped develop NHL goalies Roland Melanson (Los Angeles) and Greg Stefan (Detroit), plus two outstanding prospects who are in the AHL&mdash;Peter Sidorkiewicz of Binghamton and Kirk McLean of Maine.Playing overage last season paid off. literally, for two members of the Memorial Cup-champion Guelph Platers&mdash;goalie Steve Guenette and right winger Paul Brydges.Having failed to land NHL tryouts two autumns ago, both turned down offers to play in the IHL and returned to Guelph. Both had outstanding seasons as overagers and were keys to the Platers&rsquo; national championship. After the season, they signed lucrative freeagent contracts&mdash;Guenette with Pittsburgh Penguins and Brydges with Buffalo Sabres.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think either would be where he is now (the NHL team&rsquo;s American League affiliates) without that big last season of junior,&rdquo; said Guelph coach/general manager Rob Holody. &ldquo;Some players develop later than others. The overage rule is definitely a good one.&rdquo;Richard, Burkholder, and King were all selected by Theriault to play for the OHL all-stars, as an overage line. The Oshawa coach said he expects all three to be playing pro in the fall.&ldquo;I understand Kris is still very much in Washington&rsquo;s plans,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and if some team doesn&rsquo;t give both Mike and Barry a good shot at a contract, something just isn&rsquo;t right.&ldquo;If those three&mdash;and guys like Kypreos, Maurice, Hawkins, Perry and Evoy&mdash;are not pros, I miss my bet.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK&mdash;Oshawa&rsquo;s Derek King became the first OHLer to hit the 50-goal mark. King, a first-round pick of the New York Islanders in 1985, potted No. 50 on Feb. 15 against Kingston&hellip;Journeyman defenseman Shane Doyle is back with the Generals after being suspended by coach Paul Theriault for Office discipline problems. Theriault said he left it to the players to decide whether Doyle should be welcomed back. The vote was unanimous&hellip;Guelph has established an OHL record with six shutouts this season. Veteran Andy Helmuth and rookie sensation Scott Luce had three apiece. &#9632;

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The Juniors

Extra Seasoning Helps Overagers

In next week&rsquo;s March 13 issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS, don&rsquo;t miss our annual National Hockey League trade ratings&mdash;the final word on the wheeling and dealing that has transpired over the past two seasons.The trades have been many, so it&rsquo;s time we examine the important deals and the impact they have had on the teams involved.We name winners and losers in all trades of consequence, as this year&rsquo;s March 10 deadline comes upon us.Also, THN offers a look at the world of agents and where they are one year after laying the groundwork for the formation of an association.Plus, keep an eye out for the regular Numbers Game feature, that supplements THN&rsquo;s une-qualled weekly package of statistics.Don&rsquo;t miss any of it in next week&rsquo;s Mar. 13 issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS. &#9632;

NEXT WEEK

<div class="byline">Steve Dryden</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011350/5431635-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="340" height="467"></div>Mike McEwen could be forgiven for holding his breath as the National Hockey League&rsquo;s March 10th trade deadline approached.Especially with another shot at the Stanley Cup on the line.But the most-traded player in the NHL has learned there&rsquo;s no point in concerning himself with something over which he has no control.The Hartford Whaler defenseman has had lots of practice.Five times he&rsquo;s been shuffled from one NHL team to another. Only once has he left a team on his own accord, signing with Detroit Red Wings as a free agent in the summer of &rsquo;85. Since then, he&rsquo;s been traded to his first team (New York Rangers) and seventh (Hartford).Such has been life in the NHL for McEwen, the moving man&rsquo;s best friend.&ldquo;For somebody who wanted stability, it&rsquo;s tough,&rdquo; admits McEwen, who has played for, in order, the Rangers, Colorado, New York Islanders, Los Angeles, Washington, Detroit, Rangers and Hartford.It&rsquo;s been even tougher for his wife, Diane.&ldquo;When I get traded, I leave the next day,&rdquo; says McEwen, an 11-year pro. &ldquo;She has to stay behind for the next month to do all the packing and close up the house. And she has to go out to a new place where she doesn&rsquo;t know anybody.&rdquo;One calendar year, the couple lived in nine different places.This guy is on more &lsquo;Most Wanted&rsquo; posters BANK ROBBER&ldquo;I think what I am, an offensive defenseman, is a marketable product in the NHL,&rdquo; said McEwen, who scored a career-high 20 goals and 38 assists with the Rangers in 1978-79. Apparently, his shot and usefulness on the power play make him attractive. His defensive inadequacies don&rsquo;t.McEwen&rsquo;s longest stay with one club was his first stint with the Rangers&mdash;three years and nine games. The shortest was his second debut with the Rangers&mdash;all of 16 games last year, during a brief stop-over en route from Detroit to Hartford. And the most successful&mdash;easily his two years plus parts of two others with the Islanders, during which time he played on three Stanley Cup winners.&ldquo;I have friends in a lot of places,&rdquo; chuckles McEwen, 30. And high places, too. He&rsquo;s made the acquaintance of more GMs than a General Motors assembly line inspector.The Homepayne, Ont., native has accepted the moves as part of his profession but likely won&rsquo;t be so anxious to move around in the future. He and Diane have two young children.Another series of moves like last year would not only put him in line for exceeding the league record of playing for eight NHL teams (co-held by Wait McKechnie, Chuck Amason and Bill Collins, all retired) but place an enormous burden on the family.Still, the excessive trading has not diminished his enjoyment of a favorite leisure activity. He lists travelling as his most preferred pastime.Naturally.<h2>Female Gretzky&mdash;Angela James</h2>The best woman hockey player in Canada&mdash;and maybe the world&mdash;has never earned a penny from the game men play for enormous stakes.Angela James makes her living distributing sports equipment at Seneca College in Toronto&rsquo;s north end.&ldquo;You could call Angela the Gretzky of women&rsquo;s hockey,&rdquo; says Fran Rider, president of the Ontario Women&rsquo;s Hockey Association.Income, sex, ability and a personal preference&mdash;her favorite player is Mark Messier&mdash;differentiate James from Gretzky but both share top billing in their games.&ldquo;She&rsquo;s about as good as there is in the world,&rdquo; says Northeastern University coach Don MacLeod, who tried to recruit James last year for the Boston school. &ldquo;The top women&rsquo;s teams are here in North America. Europe&rsquo;s way behind. And she&rsquo;s about as good as I&rsquo;ve seen.&rdquo;Remarkably versatile, the 22-year-old plays defense and center equally well for Mississauga Warriors in suburban Toronto.James has been to the Canadian women&rsquo;s national championships five times since beginning to play top-level (Sr. A) hockey at the age of 15. Only once has her team qualified. The other four times, she has been chosen as a pick-up.&ldquo;She has outstanding hockey sense,&rdquo; says Warriors&rsquo; coach Lee Trempe, who compares &lsquo;A.J.&rsquo; to a top-calibre midget boys&rsquo; player.The 5-foot-6, 150-pound Toronto native can play it every which way&mdash;dizzying the opposition with finesse or overwhelming them with a resounding power game.&ldquo;Whenever she goes a break Lucie Valois, &ldquo;she never misses.&rdquo;Two years ago, she led Seneca to an undefeated season with 50 goals in 14 games&mdash;numbers of which even 99 and 66 would be proud.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021096/5431628-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="718" height="1023"><figcaption class="caption-body">Highly-touted Angela James is an all-star both at defense and center.</figcaption></div>James&rsquo; intensity, almost as much as her talent, separates her from most peers. She plays an aggressive game.&ldquo;Sometimes, too aggressive,&rdquo; admits James, who notes some people think she&rsquo;s out to hurt opponents in the body-contact game. That&rsquo;s not the case, she says.&ldquo;If they can&rsquo;t take a hit, they shouldn&rsquo;t be out there,&rdquo; says James, who hopes to become a policewoman someday.One thing is for sure, when James is out there chances are she will&ldquo;She would be one of the best ever,&rdquo; says Rider, who acknowledges there are some top players in Quebec and Alberta, but &ldquo;Angela stands alone.&rdquo;James, genuinely uncomfortable talking about herself, mulls over the point-blank question, &ldquo;Are you the best player?&rdquo;&ldquo;At times,&rdquo; she says finally. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t say always.&rdquo;Often enough.<h2>Southern Shinny&mdash;Young Program</h2>In Huntsville, Ala., high-tech hockey isn&rsquo;t so much a statement about the game&rsquo;s evolution as it is a reflection of the surrounding community, which is heavily into the aerospace industry.Huntsville represents the heart of Alabama&rsquo;s high-tech industry and is, according to former Governor George Wallace, the Hockey Capital of the South.On Nov. 6, in one of his last (and least significant) acts as governor, Wallace made the declaration. He even attended a hockey game at University of Alabama at Huntsville, in the northern part of the state, a few years back.Up to 4,000 others watch coach Doug Ross&rsquo; Chargers at the spiffy 7,200-seat Von Braun Civic Center on a more regular basis.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03708/5431621-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="1491" height="1774"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike McEwen, right, cringes as New York Islander defenseman Ken Morrow steps into him. Hartford&rsquo;s is the seventh NHL uniform McEwen has worn.</figcaption></div>The second-year Division II program has been gaining popularity and recruits, who like the climate south of the Mason-Dixon Line and high job placement rate for graduating classes made up largely of engineers.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no team in the South that can beat us,&rdquo; boasts Ross, a Bowling Green graduate who played for 1976 U.S. Olympic team. Some of the northern teams can&rsquo;t either. Playing an independent schedule, the Chargers had a record of 16-10 after 26 games this season, status to varsity sport level.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to see the program move up to Division I because I&rsquo;d like to play in a championship one day,&rdquo; said Ross, who would also like, eventually, to play in a league. Preliminary talks have already taken place with the Central Collegiate Hockey Association and Great West Conference.Going from Division II to I would enable Huntsville to offer 20 (rather than 10) scholarships to recruits from as far away as British Columbia and Ontario. There are eight Canadians on this year&rsquo;s team which has played such teams as Air Force, Colgate and Quebec-Trois-Rivieres.More scholarships and more talented players just may be the thing to help the South rise again&hellip;in hockey.<h2>&lsquo;Get Ticked Off&rsquo;&mdash;Willie Plett</h2>Quote of the week:&ldquo;&hellip; it&rsquo;s hard to play tough if you&rsquo;re sitting at the end of the bench most of the period. To play that way, you literally have to get ticked and if you sit on the bench, you do get ticked off, but not at the other team.&rdquo;&mdash;Willi Plett, page 22. &#9632;

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A Tradesman Like No Other

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div>DETROIT&mdash;Dirty Harry helped to bring them this far. Now, it&rsquo;s up to the Detroit Red Wings to go ahead and make their own day.Harold Snepsts, who suffered a third-degree separation of his left shoulder during a 6-2 loss to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 17, underwent surgery and was lost to the Wings for the remainder of the season.That&rsquo;s the official prognosis, not Snepsts&rsquo;.&ldquo;I should have movement in my shoulder in three weeks,&rdquo; said Snepsts, who injured himself falling into the boards. &ldquo;If I can get back and play the last two or three games of the regular season, it would be just an unbelievable bonus for the playoffs. I have to keep hope.&rdquo;So do the Wings, who were hanging on to first place in the Norris Division.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011373/5431666-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="181" height="136"></div><h2>DETROIT RED WINGS</h2>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s one of our key leaders,&rdquo; coach Jacques Demers said, &ldquo;a tremendously important part of what we&rsquo;ve done this year. It&rsquo;s a tremendous loss, no question about it. He understands what we&rsquo;re trying to do. It&rsquo;s his kind of game.&rdquo;Demers promised a search for a defenseman to replace Snepsts and suggested that a trade might be necessary. Veterans Lee Norwood (stomach muscle pull) and Doug Halward (knee) also were sidelined, leaving the Wings precariously thin on the left side.But even with a trade, it&rsquo;s unlikely anybody can step right in to do the things Snepsts did, on and off the ice.Demers said what he&rsquo;ll miss most about Snepsts is &ldquo;his leadership. Silent in the room, tremendous leadership on the ice. One thing about Harold&mdash;he never took a night off.&rdquo;Arguably, the 32-year-old defenseman has been the Wings&rsquo; third-best player this season, after Steve Yzer-man and Gerard Gallant&hellip;or Gerard Gallant and Steve Yzerman.&ldquo;In this year, finally, in this uniform, I was playing so well,&rdquo; Snepsts said. &ldquo;And having fun. Everything was going the way I wanted it, and then this happens. The biggest disappointment would be if I didn&rsquo;t make it back for the playoffs. This has been one of my best seasons. This and the year we went to the finals in Vancouver.&rdquo;The Wings rebounded from the double loss in New York&mdash;the game and Snepsts&mdash;to defeat the Winnipeg Jets 5-2 the next night at Joe Louis Arena.Gilbert Delorme, hurt in his first game as a Red Wing last month, returned to take up some of the slack on defense. Darren Veitch, another defenseman enjoying an outstanding season, scored a goal and set up two others.&ldquo;One plus was having Gil back,&rdquo; Veitch said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to help us. He&rsquo;s a good, solid defenseman.&rdquo;Delorme came over in the six-player trade with Quebec.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;He is one of our key leaders&hellip;It is a tremendous loss.&rdquo; &mdash;Demers</blockquote>Demers acknowledged the emotional factor of not having the initimidating Snepsts back along the blue line.&ldquo;The heads were down a little,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;We told the players that it was very important, with Snepstsy out, to prove that we were still a team. Snepstsy was a big part of this team, but we have to go on. We just said, &lsquo;He&rsquo;s gone, we can&rsquo;t do anything about it. Let&rsquo;s just go out and win the game.&rsquo;&rdquo;The victory over the Jets ran the Wings&rsquo; record, in the second game of back-to-back contests, to 12-5-1.Demers said. &ldquo;I know we&rsquo;re a well-conditioned team, but I can&rsquo;t pretend I expected anything like that.&rdquo;WING WIRE&mdash;Petr Klima was awarded his first NHL penalty shot in the loss to the Rangers. It was stopped by John Vanbiesbrouck. Klima said it&rsquo;s the first time he&rsquo;s been denied on a penalty shot, estimating that he&rsquo;d had some 15 chances previously. &ldquo;The puck bounced,&rdquo; he said. Klima didn&rsquo;t solicit advice from his teammates. &ldquo;I did what I think is best. Maybe I went too slow.&rdquo;&hellip;Jacques Demers said a work-release program might be available for Bob Probert, enabling him to practice and play with the Wings while he continues treatment for a drinking problem. Probert re-entered an alcohol rehabilitation center in Windsor during the Rendez-vous break, at the insistence of the Wings. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll have to understand that he has to go back there after practice and after the games,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;Somebody (from the center) will be with him at all times. They indicated it would be good for his morale. They feel he&rsquo;s improving and is responding to the treatment.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Shoulder Problems Blow Away Dirty Harry

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div>UNIONDALE&mdash;With six weeks left in the 1986-87 regular season, the New York Islanders were scrapping with the hated New York Rangers for second, fending off the Washington Capitals in fourth, peeking at the Pittsburgh Penguins in fifth and trying to keep their heads above .500.It never should have been this difficult.What happened to the pleasantly surprising young team under rookie coach Terry Simpson, which was 1913-2 at Christmas and firmly cemented into second place in the Patrick Division?Goals, my friends, goals. The Islanders can&rsquo;t score them. In their first 24 games after Christmas, they were outscored 75-60. Sixty goals in 24 games computes to 2.5 per outing. That&rsquo;s 1960s hockey.There&rsquo;s still time, however, for the Islanders to avoid finishing under .500 for the first time since 1973-74. There&rsquo;s time for them to solidify second place and home-ice advantage in the Stanley Cup&rsquo;s opening round for the first time since 1983-84.Just follow these three simple steps, Terry Simpson:1) PLAY THREE LINES: Conditioning has not been a problem. The Islanders are an excellent third-period team. When they play poorly, the first and second periods are the bigger obstacles.There are not, however, enough goal-scorers at the bottom half of the depth chart. The main men have to play more.The lines: Patrick Flatley-Brent Sutter-Mikko Makela; Rich Kromm-Bryan Trottier-Duane Sutter; Greg Gilbert or Brad Lauer (take your pick)-Pat LaFontaine-Alan Kerr.2) SAVE MIKE BOSSY FOR POWER PLAYS: You noticed Bossy wasn&rsquo;t one of the nine forwards, didn&rsquo;t you? Hard to believe? Not if you&rsquo;ve seen him play. The Hall of Fame right winger has been heroic the last few weeks, skating with a bad back that is so obviously debilitating it is sad.The Islanders are going to make the playoffs, with or without Bossy. What they need is for Bossy to be as fit as he can be in April. Every time his back pain seems to subside, some behemoth reams him from behind and sets him back three weeks. Or he tries to make a Bossian move and finds himself pivoting as smoothly as Harold Snepsts and feeling as old as Harold Ballard.Bossy hasn&rsquo;t scored a power-play goal since Jan. 6. That&rsquo;s 18 games. Blame it on the fact that he&rsquo;s asking himself to do too much. His quest for a 10th straight 50-goal season and desire to help his team dig itself out of a two-month long slump is why he&rsquo;s taking a regular shift, although hurt.He needs a rest.3) PLAY KELLY HRUDEY: The goaltending battle has been won. Hrudey has outplayed Billy Smith this season. Simpson&rsquo;s irregular rotation and his manner of not naming his starter until the night before the game helped neither guy.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011255/5431697-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="180" height="139"></div><h2>NEW YORK ISLANDERS</h2>Hrudey is the most underrated young goalie in the game today. Soon people will learn. Of the Islanders&rsquo; last 22 games, only six fall on consecutive nights. Sixteen starts should belong to the guy who&rsquo;ll start Game One of the Patrick Division quarter-finals.ON THE ISLE&mdash;Assistant coach Bob Nystrom&rsquo;s date in East Rutherford Municipal Court on an assault charge and counter-charge, filed in the wake of a Dec. 11 brush in the stands with a Meadowlands Arena fan, has been postponed until March 11. Mike Bossy is not as close to retirement as a Montreal story, widely circulated in Canada, indicated. He is quoted as saying, &ldquo;if the back is still a problem, I don&rsquo;t think I can take another season like this.&rdquo; He&rsquo;s made similar remarks in the past, but it would be very surprising if he didn&rsquo;t fulfill the final year (1987-88) of his contract&hellip;Ken Morrow was to be out approximately two weeks with bruised ribs suffered at Montreal. John Kordic rammed him into boards, cleanly&hellip;Patrick Flatley (knee) and Brian Curran (leg infection) were close to returning&hellip;Isles re-called defenseman Randy Boyd and left winger Dale Henry from Springfield (AHL)&hellip;MikkoMakela broke a 14-game goal-scoring slump at Montreal. &#9632;

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Three Easy Steps For Islanders’ Simpson

<div class="byline">BY REYN DAVIS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011437/5431735-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Nobody, not even Mike Bossy, fazes Winnipeg goaltender Pokey Reddick, who has emerged from the International League to play strongly for the Jets. His partner, Daniel Berthiaume, is the more high-strung of the duo.</figcaption></div>After finishing his meal, Pokey Reddick dropped five quarters on the table and walked out of the coffee shop at the Hilton Hotel in Quebec City.&ldquo;Excusez, monsieur,&rdquo; said the curious waitress, to one of Reddick&rsquo;s companions. &ldquo;Is he a hockey player, too?&rdquo;People are aware that more black players are performing in the National Hockey League these days&mdash;but how long, they ask, have midgets been playing?Reddick, 5-foot-8, is sensitive about his size, but he can take sweet solace in the fact he&rsquo;s bigger, if not taller, than his 5-foot-9, 147-pound teammate&mdash;fellow goaltender Daniel Berthiaume.They are Pokey and the Bandit.Together, the two rookies have jealously guarded the nets in the Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; rise from obscurity to prominence.&ldquo;People keep waiting for us to fall on our faces,&rdquo; said Reddick. &ldquo;They say we&rsquo;ll break because we&rsquo;re rookies. I&rsquo;m a rookie but I don&rsquo;t feel like one. I&rsquo;m 22 and I&rsquo;ve done my time in the minors.&rdquo;While Pokey and the Bandit have been the big story in Winnipeg, there are other reasons why the Jets were 11 games (31-20-5) over .500 at the Rendez-vous break.Consider:&bull; A commitment, by all, to the drudgery of defensive hockey. The Jets are scoring less and winning more. At the 58-game mark, they had given up 82 fewer goals than a year ago.&bull; The emergence of a quality defense, stabilized by veterans Mario Marois and Randy Carlyle, enriched by Dave Ellett, invigorated by Fredrik Olausson and secured by Jim Kyte, a formidable fighter who can play.&bull; A penalty-killing unit that gives up fewer than two goals a week.&bull; Size and strength along the boards, as provided by Jim Nill, Steve Rooney, Ray Neufeld, Perry Turnbull, Andrew McBain and Paul Mac Lean.&bull; The discipline of a new coach, Dan Maloney, who has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that his way works.&bull; A much-needed dash of scoring punch on the left side as provided by Gilles Hamel, acquired from Buffalo, where his talents were wasted.&bull; The continuing rise of Dale Hawerchuk as the NHL&rsquo;s most obscure star. Forced to share the same division with Wayne Gretzky, he is closing in on his fifth 100-point season and shows signs that he intends to take this act far in the playoffs.&bull; MacLean&rsquo;s return from a disappointing season when he hurt himself and the team, trying to play through a nerve disorder in his lower stomach.Two years ago, people wanted saliva tests conducted when the Jets went 43-27-10, going 14-3-3 in their final 20.They were branded as overachievers. Seven players had 30 or more goals, a NHL record. Magazines clamored for their attention. John Ferguson, the general manager, was named executive of the year.&ldquo;It was nothing more than a bunch of guys having their career seasons, all at the same time,&rdquo; said one knocker.Perhaps too much was expected of them. Whatever the case, the team plummeted to 17th place in the overall standing in 1985-86, lending credence to the arguments of their skeptics.Now this, basically the same team, is even ahead of its 1984-85 pace.&ldquo;This is what it&rsquo;s taken to show people that what you saw two years ago was the real us,&rdquo; said MacLean. &ldquo;We just happen to be an even better team now.&rdquo;How does he explain the sudden dip to the depths of despair?&ldquo;Office matters pre-occupied our minds,&rdquo; he said, alluding to the trade of Dave Babych and the ultimate firing of a protesting coach, Barry Long.Why should the trade of one player be so upsetting? For five years, the Jets had advertised Babych as the franchise. A gentle man of enormous strength and dormant talent, he was the heart if not the soul of the team.Trading him was like shooting Bambi.The tears have dried. Babych is frustrating Hartford Whaler fans now, and there is peace in the Red River Valley. No one questions Ferguson&rsquo;s sanity over every lunch. As Roy Orbison once sang, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Over.&rdquo;Neufeld, acquired in the trade for Babych, is a popular and valued member of the team who drives hot-line callers crazy with his lumbering style and stone hands around the net.All the parts are once more in place.But, said MacLean, it all comes down to good goaltending.&ldquo;They give us the big, timely saves that allow us to stay close or keep us ahead.&rdquo;Pokey&rsquo;s real name is Eldon, and his home is Toronto. He got his nickname from his father, who said he &ldquo;moved around the house like a slow-poke.&rdquo;He has a brother named Smokey, who tends goal for Weybum Red Wings of the Saskatchewan Junior League.Built close to the ice&mdash;not unlike his idol, Rogie Vachon&mdash;Pokey is a self-taught netmin-der who refined his skills by playing with a. series of bad teams in the Western League.Selected by Peterborough Petes in the Ontario League midget draft, he refused to go there for reasons he prefers not to discuss. Instead, he asked to be traded. When the Petes didn&rsquo;t honor his request, he opted to play Tier II hockey until the Billings Bighorns of the Western League called.He was only 16 when he headed west to face a blizzard of shots.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d be a rich man if I had a dollar for every shot I stopped,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I would do it all over again. It helped me become a better goaltender.&rdquo;Reddick was with the Brandon Wheat Kings by the time he started attracting attention.&ldquo;One night I happened to be in the area,&rdquo; said Bobby Clarke, general manager of Philadelphia Flyers, &ldquo;so I went down to Brandon to see a kid we were thinking of drafting.&ldquo;Well, the Wheat Kings started the game with only 13 players. In the first period, a brawl broke out and the referee threw out four of them.&ldquo;Pokey must have seen over 80 shots and he stopped most of them. They lost but the score was respectable.&rdquo;Reddick was never drafted, but the Jets listened to scout Charlie Hodge&mdash;a former Vezina Trophy winner&mdash;and signed him as a free agent in 1985.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t have any fixed opinions,&rdquo; Ferguson said, &ldquo;but Charlie said he would pay his way to camp if I wouldn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;Assigned to Fort Wayne of the International League, he posted a 15-11-0 record and goals-against average of 3.00.&ldquo;I know they shooter harder in the NHL,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I actually think it&rsquo;s easier up here. I don&rsquo;t see as many shots and my defensemen take a lot of the rebounds.&rdquo;Rapidly, he has become the darling of Winnipeg fans who chant &ldquo;Pokey, Pokey&rdquo; when he&rsquo;s left another shooter empty-handed.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been a find for us,&rdquo; said Dan Maloney. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a tremendous temperament for a goaltender. You can see the competitiveness in him, the way he challenges shooters.&rdquo;After stopping Mike Bossy on a 25-footer from the right wing, then poke-checking Bryan Trottier on a breakaway, he was asked what he was thinking as he made the saves.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t even know who they were,&rdquo; he said.Unlike his undaunted peer, the Bandit is high-strung. Berthiaume fidgets. He worries about when the coaches will give him his next start.He represents the highest draft choice&mdash;third-round&mdash;the Jets have ever invested in a goaltender.Berthiaume&mdash;whose ultra-quick style reminded scouts of Quebec&rsquo;s Mario Gosselin&mdash;was taken from the Chicoutimi Sagueneens, for whom he had won 74 games in two seasons.Recently, Reddick stretched a tendon in his right ankle, in the act of making a save against Hartford Whalers.Off the bench came Berthiaume, who promptly blanked the Whalers and reeled off six more wins in a row and nine in an 11-game span.Berthiaume grew up 10 minutes from the Forum, in the Montreal suburb of Longueuil. His father, a goaltender in local amateur leagues, taught him the fine art of netminding.Despite a yearning to play forward as a boy, he soon realized his lack of size would present a severe handicap unless he switched positions.Last summer, however, he went into a tournament with some friends and played as a forward. He scored 14 goals in four games and won the scoring championship.He was 15, playing at the AAA midget allstar level, when he played in the Forum for the first time.His fifth-round selection in the Quebec midget draft caused some disillusionment in the Berthiaume household, but he dutifully went to Drummondville and spent what he described as a wasted winter.He was traded to Chicoutimi, where he excelled.He said legwork is the key to his success as a goaltender.&ldquo;I skip a lot wearing Kodiak (work) boots,&rdquo; he said.Assistant coach Rick BownesS is more interested in Berthiaume&rsquo;s on-ice composure than his Office conditioning quirks. Big names and bigger shots scare neither he nor Reddick.&ldquo;They are in awe of nothing,&rdquo; said Bowness.Meanwhile, Steve Penney, an experienced goaltender pried out of Montreal for Brian Hayward, sits and tries to cope.He&rsquo;s had six starts, but the kids have all of the wins save one. They have hoarded everything this season, much to the Jets&rsquo; delight.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011282/5431728-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="1468" height="1366"><figcaption class="caption-body">Daniel Berthiaume represents the highest draft choice&mdash;a third-rounder&mdash;ever invested by the Jets in a goaltender. He was picked 60th overall in 1985.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Columnists

Jets’ Rookie Goaltenders Save The Day

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Reyn Davis</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-02901/5431766-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dale Hawerchuk, scoring leader and team captain, is the Jets&rsquo; ticket to the top. He is their game-breaker, says assistant coach Rick Bowness.</figcaption></div>Is Dale Hawerchuk leading Winnipeg Jets to the Promised Land?&ldquo;You bet he is,&rdquo; says Rick Bowness, an assistant coach of the Winnipeg Jets. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a game-breaker and every team needs one to go that far.&rdquo;The 23-year-old center is the Jets&rsquo; ticket to the top. But he knows what a Herculean task lies ahead.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a tough division, the Smythe is,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But if we ever got past Edmonton and Calgary, our confidence level would be so high we would be awfully hard to stop.&rdquo;This is Hawerchuk&rsquo;s sixth National Hockey League and he should crack the 100-point barrier for the fifth time. A careful balance of goals and assists and a steady flow of points all but assures him of a return to the select circle.But, more importantly, he feels excited about the prospects of this team.&ldquo;We had a good one two years ago, but this one is a lot stronger,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got size and talent.&rdquo;People have described the Jets as a one-line hockey club. It&rsquo;s a sore issue with the team.Thomas Steen, Gilles Hamel and Andrew McBain try to take the heat off, but it generally comes down to the accomplishments of Hawerchuk and his wingers, Paul MacLean and, usually, Brian Mullen, whether the team wins or loses.Mullen, the younger brother of Calgary&rsquo;s Joe Mullen, has enjoyed a blissful existence in the NHL playing beside Hawerchuk. He approaches the comers, boards and front of the net tentatively, but, to his credit, he&rsquo;s a sniper, has a touch of speed and is a creator of penalties by his opponents.&ldquo;Up in Edmonton, the Oilers spent years trying to find the right left winger for (Wayne) Gretzky and (Jari) Kurri,&rdquo; said Hawerchuk. &ldquo;Lately, they seem to have found the right guy in (Esa) Tikkanen.&ldquo;Our situation is like theirs. Sometimes the coaches are not totally satisfied with our arrangement. But there is nothing wrong with switches.&rdquo;Nicknamed the Life Line, for obvious reasons, the unit has given the Jets a pile of points over the years.&ldquo;We still keep it as simple as we can,&rdquo; said MacLean. &ldquo;We have produced consistently in games we&rsquo;ve played together. We can be very effective.&rdquo;Since cracking the Jets&rsquo; lineup as an 18-year-old, the first overall draft choice in 1981, Hawerchuk has won the Calder Cup as the NHL&rsquo;s rookie of the year, finished runner-up to Gretzky for the Hart Trophy as the league&rsquo;s most valuable player (1985) and won selection to the NHL&rsquo;s second all-star team (also 1985).&ldquo;When I was a rookie, I felt a lot of pressure,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You were afraid to make a mistake. If I make a mistake now, I don&rsquo;t fall apart. I just know I won&rsquo;t make the same mistake again.&rdquo;Hawerchuk lives in his country home on acreage outside of Winnipeg, a city he has come to enjoy.But what happens on the ice determines his frame of mind.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy when the team is doing well,&rdquo; said the Jets&rsquo; captain. &ldquo;People say you can&rsquo;t take the game home with you. But I take it home. When we&rsquo;re winning, then my life is going well.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Winnipeg Superstar Key To Club Fortunes

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011370/5431797-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"></div>I WAS SURPRISED that THE HOCKEY NEWS (Feb. 6) would stoop so low on the Lemieux-Gretzky all-star controversy. Printing such an obnoxious cartoon is an insult to every hockey fan in the United States. (Ed. Note&mdash;It depicted a fan who voted for Mario Lemieux in all-star balloting, as not knowing the difference between football and hockey.)The article by Jay Greenberg (Democracy? Phooey! Just Plain Vindictiveness, Feb. 6) was even worse. Wayne Gretzky has more awards than he knows what to do with. He has earned every one of them but to say that the loss of one all-star starting role is a conspiracy is nonsense.I doubt that Mario Lemieux&rsquo;s vote had anything to do with beer-bellied American football fans as in the Elston cartoon or anti-Gretzky French Canadians as in the Greenberg article. Mario received the starting role because hockey fans all over North America recognize how important he has been to hockey. He almost single-handedly saved hockey in Pittsburgh. Attendance has increased to the point where the Penguins aren&rsquo;t likely to leave the city of Pittsburgh.Mario Lemieux, bad knee and all, had Pittsburgh in contention at the beginning of the season. Even now, with time lost to injury, he is still one of the top scorers in the NHL. If Pittsburgh had players like Mark Messier. Jari Kurri and Glenn Amderson. Mario Lemieux would be free to score as well as Mr. Gretzky. Pittsburgh may still make the playoffs with only Mario Lemieux.Wayne Gretzky is a truly great hockey player but so is Mario Lemieux. Mario won the award because the fans who know the difference between touchdowns and hockey pucks put him there on his ability. Fan selection of the all-stars is a good idea despite sneering cartoonists like Elston and sour-grapes writers like Jay Greenberg.Ed Mulrenan, Naugatuck. CT<h2>GREENBERG BASHING</h2>Come on Jay Greenberg, give Us a break will ya?<h2>FAN FORUM</h2>I don&rsquo;t know what arena you were describing in your article &ldquo;Some Places Have Class, Garden Has Crass&rdquo; (THN, Jan. 23), it certainly wasn&rsquo;t Madison Square Garden! Sure it&rsquo;s loud but it&rsquo;s a hockey game not a funeral. Your article makes the Garden sound like a home for drunken bums with no manners. That&rsquo;s not how it is at all. I have a suggestion for you, Jay&mdash;maybe you should know about the subject of your articles before you write them.Seana Mathews, Greenwich Village, NY<h2>IN PRAISE OF JAY</h2>Thank you, Jay Greenberg, for your excellent article on the fan vote for the all-star series. Your words mirrored my feelings of outrage at the selections to disgust over the reasons behind those selections.Thank you, too, for your reiteration of Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s greatness both on and off the ice. No one should need to be reminded, even though this has been a season during which media and fans alike want to reduce him to being &ldquo;just another hockey player.&rdquo;My co-workers and friends are also grateful to you. Now that all my frustration on this subject has been expressed publicly and so eloquently by you, I have stopped my extemporaneous lectures of unfairness, put my soapbox away and become my hard-working self again.After Wayne, you are the greatest!Judy Welty, Alexandria, PALet your voice be heard. Send your comments to Fan Forum, THE HOCKEY NEWS, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 2R2. THN reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

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Our Man Jay Greenberg Attracts Mixed Reviews

<div class="byline">Bob McKenzie</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021126/5431828-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="388" height="442"></div>HE DOES NOT qualify as one of the National Hockey League&rsquo;s best-kept secrets, but Mark Messier turned out to be a revelation nonetheless.At least he was to Team NHL all-star teammate Rod Lang way.&ldquo;To be honest,&rdquo; the Washington Capital captain said after Game One of Rendez-vous &rsquo;87, &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t aware of what a really great leader Mark Messier is. I know now, though.&rdquo;Messier, the Edmonton Oiler forward who is the one NHLer who combines speed, strength and skill on par with any player in the world, was selected Team NHL&rsquo;s most valuable player in the opening-game 4-3 win over the Soviets.It was a selection that met with some disapproval, the consensus being that Philadelphia&rsquo;s Dave Poulin, with his gamewinning goal, or either Montreal&rsquo;s Rick Green or Langway, for their outstanding defensive efforts, should have been chosen.Langway, for one, wasn&rsquo;t among those questioning the media panel&rsquo;s choice. And the basis of his admiration was not so much what Messier had done on the ice that night&mdash;which was to win most faceoffs and play a strong two-way game&mdash;but what he had done hours before game time.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think he (Messier) had really spoken to anyone since arriving (in Quebec City),&rdquo; Langway said. &ldquo;Then, in the room before the pre-game skate, he stood up and said, &lsquo;This is how we&rsquo;re going to do the pre-game skate.&rsquo;&ldquo;He looked at Grant Fuhr and said, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re the starting goalie, is that (pre-game warmup) okay with you?&rsquo; Fuhr just nodded. Then he looked around the room and said, &lsquo;Any objections?&rsquo; I wasn&rsquo;t going to say anything. I was quaking in my skates.&rdquo;An exaggeration, to be sure. But Langway is a man who is something of an authority on leadership. As is Poulin, captain of the Flyers. And he, too, came away from Rendez-vous &rsquo;87 with a healthy respect for Messier.&ldquo;I was impressed with all the Oilers there,&rdquo; Poulin said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;d been through it (the pressure of international hockey) in the Canada Cup and they were able to help those of us who hadn&rsquo;t.&ldquo;Messier was especially impressive. We played a very disciplined, controlled game and he had a lot to do with that. He kept on telling everybody, &lsquo;Discipline over emotion, discipline over emotion.&rsquo; He&rsquo;s very convincing. It worked.&rdquo;It became a catch-phrase for the NHL allstars, repeated often by many, but started by one.And downplayed by one, too.&ldquo;Oh, I think everyone&rsquo;s contributing,&rdquo; Messier said. &ldquo;Everyone is fifting in, exerting their own personality.&ldquo;Some guys have never played (the Soviets) before. Leadership, I don&rsquo;t know, it&rsquo;s not an up-front thing, something you think about.&rdquo;Perhaps not coincidentally, Messier is on course for his best NHL season. After 60 games, he had 27 goals and 55 assists, third in the league scoring race behind teammates Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri. He was on pace for a 36-goaI and 109-point&rsquo; season&mdash;substantially fewer goals than usual but three points better than his previous best of 106 points in 1982-83.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if this is his best season,&rdquo; said Oiler GM-coach Glen Sather, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s certainly looks as if it&rsquo;s going to be his most productive.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a pure talent. I&rsquo;ve always thought of him as a leader since the first day he came here. You could see it back then. Something just emerges from a guy. He has it. He&rsquo;s become stronger in that area since he won the Conn Smythe (playoff MVP) the year we won our first Cup (in 1984). It&rsquo;s called maturity.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s also called dominance and intimidation. On any given night, the Oilers&rsquo; No. 11 can be, and has been, the most dominant and intimidating player in the league.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s certainly in the top five in the league in that area.&rdquo; Sather said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big (expletive deleted). He&rsquo;s got that meanness. I like that in a hockey player.&rdquo;But Sather quickly added that his big, mean center is a misunderstood man off the ice.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a complex guy,&rdquo; Sather said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s not an intimidating human being. He&rsquo;s only an intimidating hockey player. He&rsquo;s a very caring guy. Some of his past actions have been misinterpreted.&rdquo;Not by his Rendez-vous teammates.You can hear THN Editor-in-Chief Bob McKenzie on mid-week Toronto Maple Leaf broadcasts on the Telemedia Maple Leaf radio network. &#9632;

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Messier, The Leader, A Rendez-Vous Revelation

<div class="byline">COMPILED BY RICK BEALES Copy Editor</div>The Canadian national team had a better finish than start to its eight-game European tour.Three third-period goals by Wally Schreiber lifted Canada&rsquo;s national team into a 7-7 tie with Switzerland at Fribourg, Feb. 21, in the final game of its trip.Canada finished its tour with a six-game unbeaten streak, after losing a pair to Sweden, 6-2 and 1-0.Gord Sherven, Vaughn Karpan, Benoit Doucet and Zarley Zalapski scored the other Canadian goals.Schreiber connected twice the night before, in a 5-1 victory over Switzerland in Zurich. Ken Berry, Marc Habscheid and Doucet each added a goal.Other victories came against West Germany (5-1 and 5-1) and Poland (32 and 5-3). The team returned home for a 10-game series with the Moscow Selects, March 25 to April 7.<h2>WILL CHALLENGE</h2>Rod Beaton, who is moving from the hockey beat to baseball at USA Today, has been succeeded as Professional Hockey Writers&rsquo; Association president by Toronto Sun hockey writer Scott Morrison. Morrison was acclaimed to the position during a PHWA meeting in Quebec City during Rendez-vous. His first major duty was to announce that the PHWA is considering legal action against the NHL in its bid to gain &ldquo;total access&rdquo; to the dressing rooms of all 21 clubs.Currently, the media is shut out of the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; dressing room. Leaf owner Harold Ballard is opposed to women reporters in the dressing room and the only way he can keep females out, according to league by-laws, is to ensure that media access is &ldquo;equal&rdquo;.After a unanimous vote, it was announced: &ldquo;The PHWA executive is authorized to investigate the legal avenues available to us to attain full dressing room access&mdash;especially with regard to filing sexual discrimination charges under human rights legislation&mdash;and, should the executive so desire, to instigate such proceedings.&rdquo;<h2>HOCKEY NOTEBOOK</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011328/5431866-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="594" height="815"><figcaption class="caption-body">Washington&rsquo;s John Barrett is out for the season after fracturing his kneecap.</figcaption></div><h2>GEDDES SETS MARK</h2>The University of Calgary&rsquo;s Paul Geddes broke the single-season Canada West Universities Athletic Association scoring record in a Feb. 21 game against Manitoba, when he scored a goal and two assists in a 10-2 Dinosaur romp.The three points gave him 69 points, on 32 goals and 37 assists. The previous record of 67 points was established last year by Brandon Bobcat Tim Lenardon.Fittingly, the record-breaking performance came on Paul Geddes Night at the Calgary Corral. The Dinosaur forward, who graduates this year, was honored before the game for his contributions to the U of C hockey program.<h2>POUZAR RETURNING</h2>Czechoslovak left winger Jaroslav Pouzar has been invited to rejoin the Edmonton Oilers on a tryout basis. He played forthem from 1982-83 to 198485.Pouzar, who has been playing in West Germany for the last two years, scored 32 goals and 45 assists in 174 games as an Oiler.<h2>BARRETT SIDELINED</h2>Washington Capital defenseman John Barrett is expected to be out for the rest of the season, after suffering a fractured kneecap.Barrett injured the knee Feb. 20 in Washington&rsquo;s 6-3 victory over the Vancouver Canucks. He underwent surgery the following day.<h2>BUSKAS SUSPENDED</h2>Pittsburgh Penguin defenseman Rod Buskas was suspended for three games as the result of a match penalty he received in a game against the Chicago Blackhawks Feb. 7.Buskas was assessed the match penalty for striking Blackhawk defenseman Bob Murray with his stick.<h2>FROESE MIKED</h2>New York Ranger goaltender Bob Froese turned on-ice TV color commentator during the Feb. 15 game between the Rangers and Pittsburgh.The goalie was wired for sound before the game, which ended in a 4-1 victory for the Rangers.Among his remarks was a complaint to referee Bob Myers about heavy traffic in his crease. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to call that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t, I&rsquo;m going to start hacking.&rdquo;And to his defenseman James Patrick, Froese recommended, &ldquo;Forget the puck. Take the body.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-02970/5431859-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="588" height="812"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rod Buskas of Pittsburgh was suspended three games after receiving a match penalty.</figcaption></div><h2>TURGEON TOP PLUS</h2>Top NHL draft prospect Pierre Turgeon was one of three Transamerica Life award first-segment winners, for the best plus-minus rankings in junior hockey.Turgeon, a center with the Granby Bisons, won the Quebec League category for his total of plus-34 from Dec. 16 to Jan. 31. The Ontario League&rsquo;s winner was left winger Nick Kypreos of the North Bay Centennials, who posted a plus-26.Co-winners of the Western League category, both with marks of plus-21, were center Rob Brown of the Kamloops Blazers and defenseman Curtis Leschyshyn of the Saskatoon Blades.<h2>LEAF SCOUT DIES</h2>Veteran Toronto Maple Leaf scout Jacques Toupin died Feb. 25 at the age of 73. Toupin, who scouted in Quebec for the Leafs for 30 years, was buried in Trois-Rivieres. &#9632;

f0009-01

Nats Return Home On Six-Game Streak

<div class="byline">Jay Greenberg</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011409/5431897-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="344" height="468"></div>&ldquo;When I got on him for a call, he wheeled around and said. &lsquo;You think I like this job? You get out here and try it.&rsquo;&ldquo;&mdash;Flyers&rsquo; coach Mike KeenanIN THE ENTIRE WORLD, there are only two more disagreeable ways of making a living than officiating hockey games. One is giving enemas to circus elephants. The other is doing public relations for the Toronto Maple Leafs.It is absolutely beyond my comprehension why anyone would want to be a referee. On your absolute best night, the highest praise you can get is begrudging silence. &ldquo;Gee, Fournier worked a great game tonight,&rdquo; is something you&rsquo;re just never going to hear.The referee never has a home game. His only friends in the world are two linesmen. He shares a working area with 12 athletes, most of whom are bigger and moving faster than he is, and risks to life and limb become greater all the time. The referee has to rule and reason with the behavior of wired-up jerks who resent his authority and are looking for a scapegoat for their own failures. Plus, they must listen to the irrational bleatings of myopic coaches, all convinced that the next call against them will lead to their termination.It is without exaggeration I offer that officiating is brought up in at least 40 per cent of post-game interview. The complaints range from a slightly questioned call to abject character assassination. Whatever fines are quietly collected by the league, the challenge to the integrity and competence of the referee goes publicly unanswered.If I were a referee, all these things would bother me a great deal. But if the money was right&mdash;and in the NHL, it is&mdash;I think I could put up with abusive fans, second-guesses, and even occassional guilt at having blown a call that may have cost a team a game.What I could not live with is working at a job that is absolutely impossible to do correctly. I&rsquo;m not talking here about the obvious physical limitations of having only two eyes and no access to replays. We all make mistakes.No, when I say impossible, I mean that a referee cannot possibly apply the rulebook to its full intent. There are so many rules, almost all of them put there for the well-intentioned purpose of keeping the game moving, that to call every infraction would practically grind the game to a halt.There is either holding or interference on practically every rush up ice. Theoretically, that&rsquo;s where the referee comes in. Like a court judge, he is an interpreter of the law. The better referees pick out the infractions that will affect scoring chances, and have a sense for which of the extracurriculars should be sat upon to save bigger problems later. Some, of course, do this better than others.But it strikes me that the referee&rsquo;s docket is so overloaded that real justice is an impossibility.I don&rsquo;t know who to blame for this. Bryan Trottier pins it on the referees themselves. Keenan blames it on the bureaucrats. &ldquo;I think referees are oversupervised,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I think they catch hell between periods or are given directives on the latest area the league considers to be a problem, and as a result they lose their own personality.&ldquo;You used to know how a particular referee operated. A team knew who was working a particular game and had a feel for what it could get away with.&ldquo;Now I think these guys have so many thing going through their heads that they are refereeing nervously. I see a lack of selfconfidence in a lot of them. The one told me he doesn&rsquo;t even like his job.&rdquo;Whether Trottier&rsquo;s decision to hang out the wash in these very pages was the correct method of complaint, he raised a reasonable point. I do believe that the crackdown on high sticking and fight instigation is allowing more clutching and grabbing. The referees know they can&rsquo;t call everything. So they call what will keep them of trouble with their supervisors and try to tiptoe through the rest.Overall, I see some poor referees and some noticeably overweight ones, but no deterioration in the league-wide level of officiating. I&rsquo;m thankful for one huge improvement in the 12 years I&rsquo;ve been covering the NHL: Third-period calls, and not just the standard one-aside, either, are no longer taboo with most refs.But no matter how sincerely and efficiently the NHL moves towards improving the way it officiates its games, I know that 10 years from now we&rsquo;re still going to be arguing the same points.You could add a second referee, but that means more penalties. And if you call anything more than what you&rsquo;re calling now, you&rsquo;re going to make the game a) European sterile, and b) like the final two minutes of a close NBA game, with a stoppage every few seconds.Players complain about &ldquo;consistency&rdquo; but what they really mean is that if the penalties aren&rsquo;t fairly even to both sides, the officiating is poor. In most games, the power-play opportunities for each club wind up within two of each other, frankly, I don&rsquo;t think players really know what they want, but what they get over the course of 80 games is a fairly even break.They can turn the rulebook into a trilogy and Bryan Trottier can write critiques until his hands cramp. And the NHL can listen, fire its incompetents, even put cameras off the ice. Yet the improvement, however obvious to the majority, will still only be somebody&rsquo;s opinion.I don&rsquo;t see any easy answers. But I do know the only thing more boring than a poorly-officiated game is listening to the complaints. &#9632;

f0010-01

There Are No Home Games For NHL Referees

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div>HARTFORD&mdash;Aside from a big, dominant centerman&mdash;something that nearly every team could use&mdash;the Hartford Whalers most need some offensive punch.The goaltending and defense might be good enough to mount a long, hard run at Lord Stanley&rsquo;s Cup, but are the forwards?Playing without Sylvain Turgeon for the first 39 games helped persuade the Whalers to become even more defensive-minded, an approach that has unquestionably paid handsome dividends.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021080/5431928-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="179" height="135"></div><h2>HARTFORD WHALERS</h2>As teams elevate themselves into new, unclouded air, like the Whalers have in the last 12 months, there is often a strong temptation to look for a more complete team. And the burning question is, where is the punch?Turgeon could be one answer. Paul Lawless could be another. Any combination of a Turgeon-Lawless tear somewhere down the line would spell curtains for opponents and might be enough to lift the Whalers to the highest level.Lawless, returning from an 18-game absence due to strained knee ligaments he suffered Jan. 7 in St. Louis, slipped in comfortably alongside Ronnie Francis and Kevin Dineen on the team&rsquo;s top line. The Whalers shaded Chicago 5-4, then whipped New Jersey 6-3, as Lawless scored a goal.Coach Jack Evans liked what he saw.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to leave Paul there for a while,&rdquo; he said.Turgeon was to stay with Dean Evason and Stewart Gavin, and John Anderson moved to the right side with Ray Ferraro. The intention was to produce a deeper and more balanced attack.Lawless does not look out of place with Francis and Dineen.&ldquo;I like playing with him,&rdquo; Dineen said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got all of that speed. It opens up some ice.&rdquo;One game before he was injured, Lawless scored a team-record six points, including two goals, in a win over Toronto.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not like I&rsquo;m coming off an 18-game goalless streak,&rdquo; the fifthyear pro. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m coming back with confidence. I&rsquo;m itching to play something bad. You can go crazy not playing.&rdquo;The significance of his record night against Toronto wasn&rsquo;t lost on Lawless.&ldquo;You figure all the guys who have played for the Whale, and I break the record,&rdquo; he said, smiling softly. &ldquo;I was excited. It felt good after that scoring slump I had. Things suddenly were going my way. Then, this happened.&rdquo;Lawless has always run hot and cold. He had but one goal in 17 games prior to the Toronto show. But with Francis and Dineen, some regular playing time and a few bounces, the Lawless story had always been subtitled: &ldquo;On a clear day, you can see forever.&rdquo;He could be the missing piece.The day after the injury, it was announced by the club that Lawless would be out two to three weeks.&ldquo;When I tried it after two weeks, there was no strength at all,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was like I had hurt it that night. It was awful. I could walk around okay, but I couldn&rsquo;t push off the ligament.&rdquo;Lawless rode the stationary bike and worked on strengthening his knee. When his knee continued to ache, he said he was advised to forego knee strengthening exercises. The knee began to feel better.It was then a matter of going to New York and being fitted for a brace. The morning after it was delivered to Hartford, Lawless was back on ice. In a few days, he felt no discomfort.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to wear the brace the rest of the year,&rdquo; Lawless said. &ldquo;This is the first time I&rsquo;ve ever been out this long. I don&rsquo;t want to take any more chances.&rdquo;Buried in Salt Lake City of the International League two years ago, Lawless has risen like a phoenix. Now if he could just get hot&hellip;WHALER SCUTTLEBUTT&mdash;Ray Ferraro scored a hat trick. his first since he scored two in the same week in March, 1985, in the win at New Jersey&hellip;Joel Quenneville resumed skating Feb. 19. He is recovering from a separated shoulder, and should be back for the playoffs. &#9632;

f0010-02

Whalers Need Scoring Punch From Lawless

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011286/5431966-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Center Tom McCarthy, above, says he&rsquo;s never had as much respect for a coach as he does the Bruins&rsquo; Terry O&rsquo;Reilly.</figcaption></div>BOSTON&mdash;The Boston Bruins have grown accustomed to injuries, having lost better than 1,000 man-games in the last four years, but the latest were particularly tough to take on top of a 7-3 loss to the hated Montreal Canadiens.Late in the first period, Rick Middleton was taken into the boards headfirst by Canadien defenseman Chris Chelios. Middleton was taken to Montreal General Hospital on a stretcher.Early in the second period, Tom McCarthy was lying on the ice entangled with a Montreal player, when a slapshot from the stick of Montreal&rsquo;s Craig Ludwig caught him in the back. He, too, went to the hospital.&ldquo;The doctor scared the daylights out of me,&rdquo; said coach Terry O&rsquo;Reilly. &ldquo;He said Ricky had a fractured skull, then he told me Tommy had broken ribs and his kidney was bleeding. Needless to say, I had a sleepless night.&rdquo;He awoke to read in a local paper that &ldquo;both players are expected to miss most, if not all, of the rest of the season.&rdquo; Fortunately, the situation brightened with the morning sun. Middleton, it turned out, had only a slight concussion. McCarthy&rsquo;s ribs were intact. although he did have some temporary internal bleeding. Both missed one game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-02959/5431959-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="179" height="139"></div><h2>BOSTON BRUINS</h2>The Bruins could ill afford to lose either Middleton or McCarthy as they go down to the wire still battling with Montreal and Hartford for first place in the Adams Division.McCarthy&mdash;whose 24 goals were second-best on the team with 22 games left in the schedule&mdash;has been very effective since coming to the Bruins from Minnesota in May, in exchange for Boston&rsquo;s third-round draft choice last June, and its second pick in 1987.With the North Stars, he was in and out of the lineup with injuries, playing only one full season in the seven years he spent in Minnesota. With the Bruins, he missed only one of the first 58 games.&ldquo;We always knew he had talent.&rdquo; said O&rsquo;Reilly, &ldquo;but his career has been riddled with injuries.&rdquo;McCarthy played mostly left wing with the North Stars, but in Boston he has been primarily a centerman. He was between Cam Neely and Middleton on what may be called Boston&rsquo;s second line, before being hurt in Montreal.&ldquo;His backhand shot and his puck control make him a potent center,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Reilly said. &ldquo;When the puck is on his stick, the play never stops.&rdquo;McCarthy said he&rsquo;s glad of the switch.&ldquo;I love playing center,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A center is more like a quarterback. He handles the puck more. He makes the plays. I love the responsibility.&rdquo;Playing in the intense Adams Division has helped, too.&ldquo;Every game is tough in this division. In another division, you can beat a team 6-2 one night and lose to them 6-2 the next. Here you might win 3-2 one night and lose 3-2 the next. That&rsquo;s tough hockey.&ldquo;Here, you&rsquo;re the Bruins, and teams come in here and want to beat you because you are the Bruins. You don&rsquo;t want to let those other teams come in here thinking they&rsquo;ll have an easy time. You put on the Bruins&rsquo; sweater and you want to overachieve.&ldquo;My focus is on my game. Regardless of who a guy plays with, he has to care for what he does himself. He has his role. There shouldn&rsquo;t be any problem with that.&ldquo;Terry should get a lot of the credit. He&rsquo;ll talk to you and you talk to him and tell him what you think, even though you might not always agree with him. He&rsquo;s the boss, but he bosses you like a friend.&ldquo;He tells you right to your face and pulls no punches. He treats you like an adult. It&rsquo;s an adult talking to an adult. None of this father-to-bad boy stuff. I have never experienced such respect for a coach.&rdquo;WHAT&rsquo;S BRUIN&mdash;New goalie Roberto Romano finally got his lost equipment back, but it took the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to find it at Montreal&rsquo;s Dorval Airport&hellip;It seems like a Montreal-Boston game cannot be played without controversy. General manager Harry Sinden was so upset that Chris Chelios wasn&rsquo;t called for cross-checking on the play Rick Middleton was hurt, that the Bruins were given a bench minor penalty for his between-periods tirade directed at Kerry Fraser. Montreal scored on the power play. Sinden lodged a formal complaint with Brian O&rsquo;Neill, but the NHL vice-president, after watching tapes, decided against any further action. &#9632;

f0011-01

McCarthy Thriving On Intensity Of Adams

<div class="byline">Stan Fischler</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011384/5431997-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="333" height="442"></div>At last we have reached what Lord Stanley of Preston once called &ldquo;The Season of Grave Concern.&rdquo;It is a time when Extra-Strength Bufferin replaces regular Tylenol in the desks of NHL coaches as get-into-the-playoffs pressure climbs to the migraine level.For fans of secure clubs like the Oilers and Flyers, it is a moment for wondering just how the pair of playoff flubs of 1986 will blow the Stanley Cup in 1987.As for the 19 rank-and-file sextets in this season of super-parity, just about everybody thinks his club has at least a wild, far-out chance of doing something unbelievable&mdash;even the Red Wings.Since everyone has a constitutional right to think positive, here is the absolute first of 5,000 Stanley Cup previews; and the only one known to man or beast that includes all 21 teams. Here&rsquo;s how your favorite can advance in the playoffs:EDMONTON OILERS: The foolproof plan for the Oilers is to completely ignore coaches Glen Sather and John Muckier and do as they damn please. There&rsquo;s enough talent on this team to win the Allan and Memorial Cups, let alone the Stanley thing. But Sather and Muckier proved that they couldn&rsquo;t even figure out how to beat the Flames and then they laid the blame on the players.MONTREAL CANADIENS: Coach Jean Perron has to bench Patrick Roy and rely only on Brian Hayward. As Steve Penney and Roy have proven in playoffs past, the Habs go nuts when they have an unknown in net. Besides, Roy is over the hill. Also, Perron must make sure that Petr Svoboda stays somewhere near Serbia and that Claude Lemieux has a bodyguard like Chris Nilan with him on the ice at all times.PHILADELPHIA FLYERS: Every spring the Flyers get garbaged by great goaltending. Which means there&rsquo;s one solution; waste the obstacle. Since Philly has the best goalierunners (Rick Tocchet, Dave Brown) known to the uncivilized world, coach Mike Keenan must do the distasteful and have them neutralize John Vanbiesbrouck and friends. It also would be beneficial if Brad Marsh, the only real defenseman on the Flyers, is rested for the last two weeks of March and J.J. Daigneault is given a sabbatical for the entire month of April.CALGARY FLAMES: Nick Fotiu cannot do it alone. Nor can Mike Vernon. The Flames require a fresh John Tonelli, Lanny McDonald and Doug Risebrough; otherwise forget it. The Oilers are no problem; the trick is to get past the Winnipeg Jets. That will require major efforts from Al Maclnnis, Paul Reinhart and Gary Suter.DETROIT RED WINGS: If the Oilers, Flyers, Canadiens and Rangers are eliminated before the third round, who knows. Look at what the Blues did last year? Demers has a superb defensive system and a seasoned playoff goalie in Glen Hanlon. He also has a mortgage on miracles. If you don&rsquo;t believe it, look at his bankbook.NEW YORK RANGERS: The Blueshirts&rsquo; best hope is the law of averages. If a team hasn&rsquo;t won the Cup for 47 years, it certainly is due. Phil Esposito has playoff goaltenders (John Vanbiesbrouck and Bob Froese) and game-breakers like Bobby Carpenter and Pierre Larouche. If Phiery Phil&rsquo;s charisma holds out, look out!HARTFORD WHALERS: This is the 1987 edition of the 1979 lunchpail finalist Bruins&mdash;minus Don Cherry. They&rsquo;ll muck you into madness, get the odd goal from Ron Francis and Syl Turgeon. The Whale will go as far as Mike Liut&rsquo;s goaltending will take them; and that could be all the way.WINNIPEG JETS: It&rsquo;s a question of whether Pokey Reddick and Dan Berthiaume are ready to become Patrick Roys. Good things can happen if the Jim Nills and Andrew McBains provide enough distraction for Dale Hawerchuk. Here we have a legitimate darkhouse.CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS: I still have fond memories of the Hawks taking Edmonton to six games in 1985. If the Oilers aren&rsquo;t in the way, it would seem that Chi, with basically the same crew as in &rsquo;85, could find itself. Maybe. As long as Murray Bannerman is a spectator.WASHINGTON CAPITALS: It begins and ends with a nucleus of five&mdash;Rod Langway, Scott Stevens, Mike Gartner, Mike Ridley and Kelly Miller. Yes, Kelly Miller. The main man is Stevens, whose time has come. The big problem is soft goaltending, just as it was last year and the year before. Maybe they should put Langway in the nets between shifts.MINNESOTA NORTH STARS: If Bob Brooke and Brian MacLellan rekindle their games as they did last spring when they were Rangers, good things are possible, especially if Don Beaupre is on his game and Frantisek Musil pretends he&rsquo;s in Prague. Between Dino Ciccarelli, Brian Bellows and Neal Broten, lots of goals are possible.BOSTON BRUINS: Terry O&rsquo;Reilly has done something very mysteriously interesting in Beantown. If the B&rsquo;s can get out of their division&mdash;the way the Habs did last year&mdash;and Ken Linseman does what I think he can do, who knows. The Bruins are as good as the 1986 Canadiens; and look what happened to them. And the Habs didn&rsquo;t have Ray Bourque, or Mike Milbury.NEW YORK ISLANDERS: At times Terry Simpson&rsquo;s troops have looked like the Flames of&rsquo;86 when Calgary was losing 11 in a row. On the flip side, the Flames did bottom out and then went to the top of the heap. With Bryan Trottier, Brent Sutter and Pat LaFontaine down the middle and goalies Kelly Hrudey and Bill Smith finding their form, there&rsquo;s some basis for a Flame-type revival. That is. if Mike Bossy&rsquo;s back co-operates and the Isles play like they did in November.LOS ANGELES KINGS: Remember when L.A. upset the Gretzkys in 1982. That was before the Luc Robitaille-Jimmy Carson axis was formed and Rollie Melanson moved to Lotusland. A repeat is not impossible if Mike Murphy can fortify the defense and Tiger Williams drives the enemy crazy. And Dave Taylor-Marcel Dionne enjoy one last hurrah.ST. LOUIS BLUES: Jacques Martin has suffered more walking wounded than anyone. He won&rsquo;t have Brian Sutter but if he gets the rest of the bunch back (Bernie Federko, et. al), they could repeat 1986 and escape the division. Last year they came within a game of reaching the finals. I hate to say this but it all depends on Charlie Bourgeois.PITTSBURGH PENGUINS: Bob Berry will have to go to Central Casting and find four more Mario Lemieuxs.QUEBEC NORDIQUES: Between the Stastnys, John Ogrodnick and Michel Goulet, there&rsquo;s enough firepower to get past the first round. If Clint Malarchuk is as good as the all-star voting indicates, they can break the second round. After that, the defense had better be immense.TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS: Who can forget the sweep of the Blackhawks and the near-win over St. Louis? The same club is a year older and goalies Ken Wregget and Allan Bester are better. Maybe John Brophy can whip them to even bigger and better things.BUFFALO SABRES: They laughed at Ted Sator in Washington and Philadelphia last April. If he gets those Sabres into fourth, they won&rsquo;t laugh anywhere this time around. Then, it&rsquo;s a matter of a hot Tom Barrasso and Sator&rsquo;s computer brain. I wouldn&rsquo;t want to play against that combo.NEW JERSEY DEVILS: They haven&rsquo;t made it in four years. If somehow, they climb to fourth, the Devs will have the young legs and the devil-may-care attitude of the supreme underdog; which isn&rsquo;t bad start.VANCOUVER CANUCKS: You laugh. Stop. Replay the 1982 Canucks highlight film of the semi-finals and finals and you&rsquo;ll know what it means when they say &ldquo;anything can happen in the playoffs.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0012-01

Oilers Should Ignore Sather, Muckier

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN JOHNSTON</div>QUEBEC&mdash;The Detroit Red Wings traded big left winger Basil McRae to the Quebec Nordiques with the hope of getting him back in a few months.This stunning revelation was made by Red Wings&rsquo; general manager Jimmy Devellano and coach Jacques Demers, shortly after the trade that brought McRae, John Ogrodnick and Doug Shedden to Quebec City in return for Brent Ashton, Gilbert Delorme and Mark Kumpel.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve traded Basil McRae to the Nordiques, but we hope to have him back with the Red Wings before the summer is over,&rdquo; Devellano told two Detroit reporters.Jimmy D. may well accomplish that.McRae becomes a free agent without compensation when his current contract expires June 30.A day after the story broke, McRae denied having spoken to Devellano about the whole matter. &ldquo;We never talked contract or money,&rdquo; said McRae. &ldquo;They (the Red Wings) just told me that I would always be welcome in their organization if things didn&rsquo;t go right in Quebec City. Jimmy Devellano never told me he would offer me a contract when I become a free agent.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021154/5432028-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="178" height="138"></div><h2>QUEBEC NORDIQUES</h2>Earlier Devellano was quoted as saying, &ldquo;Basil McRae will be a free agent without compensation in a few months. And you all know which team goes after all the free agents, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;The surprising news has left McRae in an unusual predicament but he&rsquo;s not blaming the Wings.&ldquo;They hired me in 1985 when nobody wanted me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They put me back on the hockey map and they told me they were really sorry to see me go when they traded me to the Nordiques. And on the other hand, I&rsquo;m very happy with the Nordiques. I could even sign a new contract with them before I actually do become a free agent.&rdquo;Quebec general manager Maurice Filion remained calm, but expressed disappointment in Devellano&rsquo;s remarks.&ldquo;Those things can be talked about after a trade is made,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But they are showing a terrible lack of class by talking about it so openly.&rdquo;Coach Michel Bergeron, on the other hand, exploded.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t beleive it&mdash;the Wings talking openly about signing a player that still belongs to us,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s terrible. We&rsquo;re going to lodge a complaint with the NHL&rsquo;s head office. It&rsquo;s worse than the Pat Quinn affair.&ldquo;We were already fined $10,000 for a lot less than that,&rdquo; added Bergeron of the fine imposed on the Nordiques a few years ago when assistant coach Simon Nolet asked Wilf Paiement, then playing for Toronto, if he&rsquo;d be interested in joining the Nordiques.Despite Bergeron&rsquo;s feelings, Filion had no plans to involve the NHL in the matter.Eventually, the only winner in this affair will be McRae, himself. He appears to be in line for a substantial raise next year, regardless of who signs him.NORDIC NOTES&mdash;Bill Derlago was stunned when he was put on waivers and sent down to Fredericton of the American League. At first he refused to report, mainly because his wife and children had just arrived in Quebec City. He acquiesced eventually. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going down to the AHL with a positive attitude,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll get the chance to play a lot more so I&rsquo;ll get my reflexes back. I haven&rsquo;t played that much in the past two years and I need the ice time. It will do me the world of good and I&rsquo;ll be back in the NHL in no time. &ldquo;&hellip; Also sent down was rookie defenseman Jeff Brown. &#9632;

f0012-02

McRae In Middle Of Wing-Nordique Storm

<div class="byline">BY TOM RATSCHUNAS</div>HELSINKI&mdash;Surely, skill exchange was never supposed to work like this.While North American hockey has improved, in part, because of the European speed and finesse game, European hockey has felt the impact, literally, of the more physical North American style.Ten years ago, it was virtually unheard of to have fisticuffs break out during the course of a game in Europe.Times are changing.Recently:&bull; In Sweden, Djurgarden defenseman Tommie Albelin high-sticked Brynas forward Patrik Eriksson, igniting a brawl.&bull; In Switzerland, ex-New York Islander and Minnesota North Star Mats Hallin, a Swede, sparked the biggest brawl ever in Swiss hockey. He was playing in his first game for Lugano and was suspended for five games.&bull; In St. Pierre, a French territory, two former Quebec Leaguers received the harshest suspensions in league history&mdash;Carl Vermette for five games and Michel Couvrette for eight&mdash;after violence broke out during a game.&bull; In Czechoslovakia, the shock waves are still being felt from the infamous Piestany Punch-Up&mdash;the wild bench-clearing brawl between Canada and the Soviet Union at the World Junior Championships. It won&rsquo;t be completely resolved until the 11HF Congress in Vienna this April.&bull; And, in Finland, there is the Ari Lahteen-maki story.Lahteenmaki, a 26-year-old forward with IFK Helsinki of the Finnish Elite League, was suspended for the rest of the regular season (until May 1, 1987) after a seemingly unprovoked stick assault during a game Nov. 27. 1986 against Jokerit.The suspension is the sternest disciplinary action ever handed out in Finnish hockey.The incident left Jokerit&rsquo;s 19-year-old defenseman Petri Lampinen, who was playing in his first game of senior hockey, with a broken jaw.A two-month police investigation resulted in assault charges being laid against Lahteenmaki and assistant coach Harri Linnonmaa, who is alleged to have instructed Lahteenmaki to go after Lampinen. Trial dates have not been set.The incident occurred during a stoppage, with only 30 seconds to play in a game IFK led 8-2. Lahteenmaki had to come off the bench to get at Lampinen.Lahteenmaki denied that the stick foul was pre-meditated.&ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t a player in the league who would deliberately hurt anybody else,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was an accident. Swinging my stick, it bounced off his shoulder and hit his mouth.&rdquo;Outraged by the harsh sentence, IFK general manager Frank Moberg protested by resigning his positions as vice-chairman of the league&rsquo;s board of governors and chairman of the league&rsquo;s executive committee.Moberg argued that Lahteenmaki&rsquo;s punishment was not in keeping with two other similar incidents, both involving ex-Buffalo Sabre Malcolm Davis, who is currently playing with TPS Turku. Earlier this season, Davis&rsquo; high stick broke the nose of Jyvaskyla&rsquo;s Jarmo Raintanen. Davis was assessed a five-minute major.In a game against Lukkow, Davis and opponent Matti Forss were ejected from the game for fighting. On the way to the dressing room, Davis went after Forss in the corridor. He was later suspended for three games.Moberg&rsquo;s protest fell on deaf ears and now Lahteenmaki has threatened to retire from hockey rather than return next season.If it does mark the end of his career, it would be an unfortunate conclusion to what was once a promising hockey future.Lahteenmaki has always been a physical player. Last Aug. 28, in an IFK exhibition game against Canada&rsquo;s national team&mdash;a 2-2 tie in Helsinki&mdash;he failed to play even one shift but still managed to get involved in a fight during a stoppage in play.In 27 games with Finland&rsquo;s national junior team, he recorded 80 penalty minutes. And his career statistics from the Elite League&mdash;79 goals, 133 points and 341 penalty minutes in 291 games&mdash;attest to his physical approach.But his skills were good, too.In fact, six years ago, Lahteenmaki looked to be on his way to the NHL. He was the New York Rangers&rsquo; eighth pick, 156th overall in 1981.The competitive 5-foot-9, 177-pound right winger had finished tied for the tournament scoring lead at the 1981 World Junior Championships.But injuries proved to be his undoing. Any hopes of a career with the Rangers were tom apart by knee injuries. In total, he underwent seven knee operations and had shoulder surgery once.To play, he had to wear bulky braces on both knees.And now, his career may be over. &#9632;

European Hockey Takes It On Chin

<div class="byline">BY HERMAN PEDERGNANA AND TOM RATSCHUNAS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0013-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011305/5432083-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Former New York Ranger Reijo Ruotsalainen will be returning to the NHL with Edmonton Oilers, who obtained his rights in a trade earlier this season.</figcaption></div>Olivier Anken has discovered the pen, is indeed, mightier than the sword.The Swiss national team goalie, who has no problem fending off foes on the ice, wasn&rsquo;t as successful with friends off the ice.Anken was accidentally stabbed in the middle finger by the pen of an overzealous autographhunter, causing him to miss a two-game series with Canada&rsquo;s national team and threatening the rest of his season with playoff-contending Bienne of the Swiss League.A Canadian player, too, missed part of the series&mdash;Canada won 6-1 in Zurich and tied 7-7 in Fribourg&mdash;but not because of an injury. Forward Claude Vilgrain missed the team bus in Zurich and had to take a 150-kilometer cab ride to Fribourg. He didn&rsquo;t arrive until the midway point of the game.Although earning three of a possible four points, the Canadians didn&rsquo;t impress at least one opponent.Jacques Soguel, the only Swiss player ever drafted by an NHL team (St. Louis, 121st, 1976), said, &ldquo;I played Team Canada two years ago at the Spengler Cup and I cannot see that it has made any progress since.&rdquo;Center Jean-Francois Sauve of Fribourg and defenseman Reijo Ruotsalainen of Bem, the league&rsquo;s highest-scoring forward and blueliner, will be returning to the National Hockey League following completion of the Swiss schedule, Mar. 3.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be back with Quebec, March 7,&rdquo; said Sauve, who left the Nordiques earlier this season after six years in the NHL.Ruotosalainen, too, will return&mdash;but to adiffe-rent team than he left. The 26-year-old Finn&rsquo;s rights were traded from the New York Rangers to Edmonton Oilers, after his refusal to play for the Rangers this season led to his joining Bem.&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t signed yet but the papers are here and it is just a formality,&rdquo; said Ruotsalainen. &ldquo;As soon as the season is over, I will join the Oilers.&rdquo;<h2>EURONOTES</h2>Both players made big impressions in the Swiss League. Although neither Fribourg nor Bem are playoff-bound, Sauve and Ruotsalainen helped their mediocre teams avoid relegation to the Second Division.With a week to go in the regular season, Sauve was the league&rsquo;s leading scorer with 28 goals and 50 assists in 29 games for seventh-place Fribourg. Ruotsalainen had 25 goals and 27 assists, 10th in the league and first among defenseman, in 32 games for sixth-place Bem.The top four teams make the playoffs and bottom two are dropped from the 10-team league.&ldquo;It was quite a change coming here,&rdquo; said Sauve, 27. &ldquo;It was not a game I was used to. In Canada, I pass the puck, skated into the open ice and got it back. Here, you never get it back. Although I must say it got better when I was put on a line with centerman Gil Montandon (a member of the Swiss national team). So, I changed my style and became more selfish.&rdquo;His league-leading 50 assists suggest otherwise.Sauve&rsquo;s contract with Fribourg has another year to run.Ruotsalainen said he hasn&rsquo;t made a decision yet about where he&rsquo;ll be playing next year.Elsewhere, scoring leaders have been determined in various national leagues.David Volek of Sparta-Prague, with 24 goals and 21 assists for 45 points, was the top scorer in the Czechoslovakian First Division. Second and third were Dusen Pasek of Slovan-Bratislava (18-26-44) and Vladimir Ruzicka of Litvinov (28-13-419.The top marksman in the West German league was former Pittsburgh Penguin Peter Lee of Dusseldorf, who had 36 goals&mdash;two more than Paul Messier of Mannheim, whose brother, Mark, plays for Edmonton.But both were exceeded by Pavel Richter of Kaufbeuren in the scoring race. The Czechoslovakian winger was tops with 66 points (28-38). Former Washington Capital Chris Valentine of Dusseldorf had 63 points and Edmonton-bound Jaroslav Pouzar, 61.Leading the way in the West German Second Division were Pierre Rioux of Krefeld (72-73145) and Arthur Rutland of Selb (62-75-137).In other news, goalie Jim Corsi is still a going concern in Italy, where he backstopped his team, Varese, to the championship. He allowed just five goals as Varese swept Bolzano, 3-0 in the best-of-five final.In Finland, with only one regular-season game remaining, Karpat&rsquo;s Kari Jalonen had already set a single-season scoring record with 92 points in 43 games. Jalonen exceeded the old mark of 85, set by IFK&rsquo;s Matti Hagman, when he racked up seven points in a 16-4 trouncing of TPS Tappara. Hagman&rsquo;s mark came in the days of the 36-game season.For the first time ever, the 10-team Finnish Elite League surpassed the one million mark in attendance.And speaking of record-breaking performances, ex-Intemational Leaguer Brent Sapergia, who missed the last 12 games of the season because of injury, set a new Finnish League penalty standard.In just 32 games, Sapergia had 117 minutes. With one game left in the season, only Jokerit&rsquo;s Gary Yaremchuk was within striking distance. He had 100 minutes, but in 20 games. The previous penalty record was 116 minutes, held by ex-IFK player Lalli Partinen, who is now the executive director of the Finnish Ice Hockey Federation. One hundred minutes is the benchmark for badness in Finnish hockey.The top-scoring rookie in Finland was exAmerican Leaguer and London Knight grad Wayne Thomson. He scored 22 goals and 30 assists in 43 games, good for ninth place heading into the last game of the season. But since he&rsquo;s a North American, there will be no formal recognition of him as the top rookie. That honor must go to a Finnish-born player, although there were no Finnish freshmen in the top 35 scorers. &#9632;

f0013-01

Swiss Goalie Injured By Autograph-Hunter

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>Scotty Bowman says a problem with the Sabres was the absence of a Doug Risebrough-type player. &ldquo;He&rsquo;d work so hard,&rdquo; adds Bowman, &ldquo;that the talented guys couldn&rsquo;t shirk their responsibilites.&rdquo; But ex-NHLer-turned-broadcaster, Mike Robitaille, tells BLUELINES that Clark Gillies is now filling the role. &ldquo;When Gillies came here, a lot of people thought he&rsquo;d just go through the motions, pick up his money and run,&rdquo; says Robitaille, &ldquo;but Clark has set a terrific example for the kids. It wouldn&rsquo;t surprise me if they invite him back next year.&rdquo; Robitaille tells BLUELINES that Ted Sator has been a revelation to him. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been a joy to work with,&rdquo; adds Robitaille&hellip; Latest &ldquo;Tasmanian Devil&rdquo; in the NHL is the Blues&rsquo; Doug Evans. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s 10 times the pest I am,&rdquo; says Jersey&rsquo;s Pat Verbeek, who knows Evans well.Long before the Canucks approached Pat Quinn about switching jobs, they checked out Jet GM John Ferguson. Fergie discreetly told the Vancouver folks they&rsquo;d better talk to his boss Barry Shenkarow; which they did. Shenkarow, though he didn&rsquo;t want to lose Ferguson, told Big John he could negotiate with the Canucks. Vancouver-native Fergie nixed the offer with a thanks-but-no-thanks and said he enjoyed Winnipeg too much to leave&hellip;Not everyone shares Ferguson&rsquo;s love of Winnipeg. Czech-born Frantisek Musil of the North Stars says, &ldquo;Winnipeg reminds me of Moscow.&rdquo; The Wings&rsquo; Petr Klima warns he&rsquo;ll return to Czechoslovakia rather than play for the Jets.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011361/5432121-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="372" height="592"><figcaption class="caption-body">Frantisek Musil</figcaption></div>One who is close to Herb Brooks figures the enigmatic coach will remain at his St. Cloud State University job until he moves the team into a Division I plateau and then look elsewhere. Alluding to his NHL experience in New York, &ldquo;where some real bullets are,&rdquo; Herb says, &ldquo;I was hurting a few times. But at least I knew I was alive.&rdquo;&hellip;Hall of Famer Gordie Howe deduces that his alma mater, the Red Wings, won the John Ogrodnick-Brent Ashton deal, et. al. deal with one proviso. &ldquo;If they ever invented a magic drink, or something that would keep Ogrodnick awake all the time, to keep his mind on the game, then the Nordiques might get the better of the deal.&rdquo;&hellip;The Swedish-born Rangers, Tomas Sandstrom and Jan Erixon. were playing a sports trivia video game when the question popped up on the screen: &ldquo;When was the last time the Rangers won the Stanley Cup?&rdquo; Sandstrom instantly flicked the answer and then began to mimic the chant of Ranger-needlers: &ldquo;Nineteen-Forty! Nineteen-Forty!&rdquo;&hellip;Fan misbehavior has become a concern of the Blues who have proposed cutting off beer sales early in games. One problem with that plan is that St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch is one of the club&rsquo;s biggest backers&hellip;After 10 straight days on the road and four games in six nights, the Bruins agreed to play a charity intra-squad game in Wilmington, Mass. Proceeds of the Feb. 23rd match will go to Mike Maruzzi. a Saugus High defenseman who was paralyzed from the neck down after a headfirst plunge into the boards&hellip; Mark Pavelich recently returned from a vacation in Montana with his wife, and, according to friends, was due to resume fishing and hunting in Minnesota.The renaissance of Blues&rsquo; Rick Meagher has a lot to do with diet. He trimmed from an offseason 191 to 175, with the help of his date Lynn Kessler, who happens to be a dietician at Barnes Hospital in St. Lou. &ldquo;The trick,&rdquo; says Meagher &ldquo;is no solid foods after 7 p.m.&rdquo;&hellip;Rangers&rsquo; Walt Poddubny and Flames&rsquo; Mike Bullard rank among the more fanatical pro wrestling fans among NHL sharphsooters. Calgary dressing room walls have heard Bullard imitate IV wrestling host Ed Whalen with his, &ldquo;Get away from me, I don&rsquo;t want to talk to you!&rdquo;&hellip;Red Wing goalie Glen (Carrot) Hanlon has a handwritten inscription, &ldquo;Best wishes, Carrot, Brian Sutter,&rdquo; on his designer goalie pads.Toronto&rsquo;s journalistic leaders refuse to challenge Leafs&rsquo; boss Harold Ballard with a coverage boycott of his hockey team. Although Ballard recently tightened restrictions against&mdash;and further infuriated&mdash;the media, editors of the three major Toronto dailies tell BLUELINES they reject the boycott as a counter-attack weapon against the Leafs&rsquo; boss. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we should punish the readers because of Ballard&rsquo;s juvenile behavior,&rdquo; says Toronto Sun editorial director Ed Monteith. &ldquo;We would never consider boycotting the team,&rdquo; Globe and Mail sports editor Murray Campbell says. &ldquo;That would mean putting the reader in the middle of a dispute between Ballard and the media. It&rsquo;s a tough situation and solutions don&rsquo;t come easily.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021064/5432114-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="364" height="588"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Meagher</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0014-01

Gillies’ Work Ethic Example For Sabres

<div class="byline">BY JIM KELLEY</div>BUFFALO&mdash;Buffalo Sabre coach Ted Sator has picked up several nick-names, not all of them flattering, in his brief National Hockey League tenure.Adam Creighton has coined the latest one&mdash;Ted Saviour.You remember Adam Creighton, don&rsquo;t you?The 6-foot 5-inch center scored 44 goals and 90 points in 1983, his final year of junior play. He then led Ottawa to the Memorial Cup championship, highlighted by his memorable head-to-head performance against future Buffalo teammate John Tucker, then with the Kitchener Rangers.Immediately thereafter, he was drafted II th overall by the Buffalo Sabres.And promptly dropped out of sight.&ldquo;I was begining to think my career was over before it even began,&rdquo; said Creighton recently. &ldquo;Then Sator got here and I got a chance to play. He&rsquo;s been my saviour.&rdquo;Sator came to the Sabres with virtually no pre-conceived ideas regarding the talent pool, knowing only that Creighton had been the most dominant player in the Memorial Cup playoffs three years ago. He told Creighton he would play him, a lot, and from then on it was up to him.Creighton has made good on the chance.After scoring just one goal over 11 of the team&rsquo;s first 36 games, Creighton had counted 12 goals and 24 points in 22 games since Dec. 28, the day Sator made him a regular centerman.That ranked him eighth on the team in points (25) and fifth in goals (13). Prior to the 4-3 triumph over the Boston Bruins on Feb. 18 (the Sabres&rsquo; sixth win in seven starts), he had scored at least one point in seven straight games.That&rsquo;s the longest current consecutive point streak on the team, and a career high for the 21-year-old native of nearby Welland, Ont.Creighton said he always felt he could be a scorer at the NHL level, but was beginning to have some doubts.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s pretty tough when you only see spot duty for three years. You don&rsquo;t know if you&rsquo;ve lost it or what. People keep telling you you&rsquo;re all washed up.&rdquo;Creighton said he never really believed that, but it wasn&rsquo;t until Sator came along that he got a chance to prove it&mdash;both to the Sabres and himself.&ldquo;I said to myself, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve heard this before&rsquo; and after I sat a few more games I began to wonder, but then he put me in and he played me a lot. He&rsquo;s been my saviour. I only hope I can keep it going. I feel I owe him something.&ldquo;Before, with (coaches) Scotty (Bowman) or Craig (Ramsay), I didn&rsquo;t have the confidence in myself and they didn&rsquo;t have the confidence in me to put me out there. I don&rsquo;t know what it was, but I don&rsquo;t hold anything against them because they had to run the team&mdash;and I wasn&rsquo;t going, maybe, the way I should have been. I don&rsquo;t know what the situation was.&rdquo;Creighton said Sator&rsquo;s faith in him has renewed his confidence in himself and that has enabled to build up his game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03747/5432152-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="180" height="136"></div><h2>BUFFALO SABRES</h2>&ldquo;For me, a big guy, I need to get out there a lot&mdash;and when Ted came he just kept putting me out there. I was a little nervous at first but, as I went on, I kind of built up my confidence. When you know you can do something, it makes it a lot easier. But when you have doubts about yourself, it&rsquo;s too hard to go out there and perform because your mind is telling you one thing and your body is saying another.&rdquo;Creighton still has some rather large weaknesses in his game. His stamina is still not up to NHL standards and his playmaking often is suspect. Both should improve, however, with the increased ice time.What happens next is still anybody&rsquo;s guess, but Creighton certainly won&rsquo;t be looking longingly at his past.Not when Ted Saviour has done something about his future.SABREPOINTS&mdash;The Sabres hit the 20-win mark with the triumph over Boston&hellip;Sabre captain Lindy Ruff broke his clavicle during a 5-1 triumph over the New York Islanders, the first game after Rendez-vous. He was expected out six to eight weeks&hellip;Goaltender Tom Barrasso was in the nets for the last seven games, allowing just one goal per game in four of those seven starts. &#9632;

f0014-03

Creighton Sheds Cobwebs And Performs For ‘Saviour’

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div>EDMONTON&mdash;Craig Muni finally enjoyed a large guffaw at the expense of his old employers.But, more importantly as far as the Edmonton Oilers are concerned, another member of their defensive corps at long last displayed a preliminary indication of returning to form.First, the tidings involving Paul Coffey.The two-time Norris Trophy winner returned to the Oilers&rsquo; lineup Feb. 15 after his second 10-game stint on the sidelines with recurring back spasms. With five big guns dead-tired after participating in Rendez-vous two nights earlier&mdash;the high-octane two-game set against the Soviet nationals in Quebec City&mdash;the Oilers were abysmal in losing 5-3 to the Washington Capitals in a National Hockey League snoozer.Seeing his first action since Jan. 21, Coffey, understandably, far from excelled.&ldquo;The back didn&rsquo;t bother me,&rdquo; he explained, &ldquo;but it was tough out there because I haven&rsquo;t exactly got my skating legs yet. My timing was off, too.&rdquo;The main point, however, was that Coffey&rsquo;s back passed the initial test.&ldquo;I think I got involved,&rdquo; said the 25-year-old.&rdquo; (Washington&rsquo;s John) Barrett smacked me once and it didn&rsquo;t bother it.&rdquo;Coffey, as is usually the case, was in the thick of things. He was on the ice for six goals&mdash;two four, four against.Two nights later against Toronto he was again at the pulse of the activity, finishing at plus-seven as the Oilers rocked the beleaguered Maple Leafs 9-2. Coffey skated like he hadn&rsquo;t in three months, picked up an assist and un leased a wicked shot off a faceoff for his 11th goal.In short, he looked like the Paul Coffey of old.Muni also enjoyed the Toronto game, picking up two assists and finishing at plus-four.A Toronto reject during the offseason, Muni opted for a new lease on life. He signed with the Oilers as a free agent without compensation and impressed sufficiently during training camp to stick in the NHL. As the season wore on, he became the diamond-in-the-rough NHL outfits constantly seek.It was only understandable Muni wanted so dearly to impress when the Oilers first collided with Toronto Jan. 17 at Maple Leaf Gardens.But, the first time he touched the puck, Muni resembled a pipe-fitter attempting to repair a watch. He muffed a shot at the Toronto blue line and found himself in fruitless pursuit of Leafs&rsquo; Steve Thomas, who passed to Rick Vaive for a tip-in.Goal! And a scant 18 seconds were gone.The snickering had begun early. Another dud sent West.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t nervous at all before the game, I felt great in the warmup,&rdquo; explained Muni, no worse than No. 2 or 3 on the Edmonton blue line in 1986-87.Then he started thinking about playing in the Gardens.&ldquo;Suddenly, I got a little jittery,&rdquo; he said of a developing case of heebie-jeebies. &ldquo;It seemed like I was squeezing my stick and trying to put it (puck) through the boards every time I shot, instead of trying to relax. It seemed like I was stumbling and falling.&rdquo;Then he fanned and the Leafs had a 1-0 lead.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011272/5432183-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="180" height="137"></div><h2>EDMONTON OILERS</h2>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not the way to start a game,&rdquo; he sighed,The Oilers rallied from a 3-1 deficit for a 7-4 triumph.&ldquo;The thing is nobody gave me hell,&rdquo; said Muni of his game-opening faux pas. &ldquo;The coaching staff and the players were joking between periods about my mistake, trying to take the heat off.&rdquo;In Toronto he found the attitude entirely the opposite.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s still that way,&rdquo; said Muni, who leads the Edmonton defensemen with a plus-41 rating. &ldquo;I talked to one of the Leaf players and he told me the guys would have gotten hell if he made a similar mistake with them&hellip;or even sent down. That&rsquo;s a tough atmosphere in which to perform.&ldquo;Look at the atmosphere in this room. Not too many teams have a ping-pong table in their dressing room.&ldquo;Guys are relaxed and they joke around, but they know when to get serious in preparing for a game.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0015-01

Tale Of Two Blueliners—Coffey And Muni

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03709/5432245-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="589" height="750"><figcaption class="caption-body">Talented Bengt Gustafsson hasn&rsquo;t ruled out rejoining the Capitals next season.</figcaption></div>LANDOVER&mdash;The Washington Capitals&rsquo; long, long season is not getting much better.Four days after left winger Greg Adams went down with a collapsed lung in Edmonton, center Bengt Gustafsson sent word from Sweden that he would not return to Washington this season.Adams was skating toward the bench in the first period when he felt a sharp pain in his chest. His immediate thought was that he, like many teammates, was suffering from lack of conditioning in the first game following an eight-day break for Rendez-vous &rsquo;87.When the pain persisted, he was transported to a hospital, where his problem was diagnosed as a partially collapsed lung. Adams was told he should not go above 5,000 feet in altitude, so he passed up the Capitals&rsquo; next game in Los Angeles and drove to Vancouver, where they played five days later.The trip proved so painful that Adams continued onto the B.C. Ferry to Vancouver Island, drove to his hometown of Duncan and checked into the hospital thgre. After further X-rays, he was told his condition was more serious than had been originally believed. He was fitted to a pump apparatus that drained the air from his chest cavity.&ldquo;The doctors don&rsquo;t know and I don&rsquo;t know how it happened. There was a blemish on my lung that may have been present all the time. Why, after 10 years of junior and pro hockey, it just gave out, I don&rsquo;t know.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-02922/5432252-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="179" height="139"></div><h2>WASHINGTON CAPITALS</h2>&ldquo;I was skating back to the bench and all of a sudden the top of my right chest started hurting. I couldn&rsquo;t catch my wind. Then when I took a couple of shifts in the second period, I couldn&rsquo;t do anything. Even the next morning, I got up by the bed and I felt like I &lsquo;d been stabbed.&ldquo;When I suck up my breath, it hurts, so I have to try to breathe normally all the time. Because of the air beside it, the lung can&rsquo;t expand. When I suck it up, it opens up and puts pressure on it. It&rsquo;s scary.&rdquo;Although Adams was expected to be out about three weeks, the ailment was not expected to force him to retire and he said, &ldquo;Every doctor I&rsquo;ve talked to has told me not to give it a second thought.&rdquo;Adams was leading the team with a plus-11 rating and his 28 assists ranked second to Larry Murphy.Gustafsson was the object of an intensive recruiting campaign by the Capitals. In early February owner Abe Pollin, team president Dick Patrick and general manager David Poile met with him in Sweden.Gustafsson promised a decision after his Bofors team concluded its regular season on Feb. 18, so on Feb. 19 he reported his intentions to Poile. Instead of finishing this season in Washington, he will join the Swedish national team for the World Championships in Vienna.Gustafsson, who returned to Sweden this season after seven years with the Capitals, left open the possibility that he might come back toWashington next fall. He said he would make that decision in May, after the World Championships.Washington fans received a further scare in the third period of the Capitals&rsquo; 5-3 victory at Edmonton, Feb. 15. After making back-to-back saves, goaltender Pete Peeters rolled in agony on the ice and had to leave the game.He was bothered only by leg cramps, however, and said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a funny thing. You&rsquo;re rolling around on the ice like you&rsquo;re dead and an hour later you look like there&rsquo;s nothing wrong.&rdquo;Compounding the Capitals&rsquo; predicament that night was the fact that Bob Mason was troubled by stiffness in his lower back. When Mason entered the game, coach Bryan Murray told referee Bob Hall that if Mason could not play, there would be a delay while left winger Gaetan Duchesne put on the goalie&rsquo;s gear.Mason, however, made three big saves with the score 4-3 and Bob Gould&rsquo;s second goal of the game permitted everyone except Adams to breathe easier.CAPSULES&mdash;Mike Gartner collected four goals and two assists in a 6-3 victory at Vancouver, Feb. 20, giving him 19 goals in 15 games. The six points tied a club record. Two of Gartner&rsquo;s goals were shorthanded and Gaetan Duchesne added a third to set a team mark. Washington had managed two shorthanded goals in a game only twice, in 1974 and 1975&hellip;Goaltender Pete Peeters ran his personal winning streak to four games in Vancouver, stopping 28 shots&hellip;Defenseman Garry Galley made his Washington debut in a 7-4 loss to his old team, Los Angeles, and said, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the toughest game I&rsquo;ll play all season. If I can get through that, I can get through anything.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0016-03

Gustafsson Won’t Be Returning This Year

<div class="byline">BY JEFF GORDON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0017-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011009/5432290-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bernie Federko, back from a broken jaw, made good on his return&mdash;contributing two points in a loss against Vancouver.</figcaption></div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;After missing 15 games with a broken jaw, Bernie Federko played as if he&rsquo;d never been away.In his first game back, a 4-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks, the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; all-time leading scorer contributed a goal and assist.He earned both points on the power play, which was significant. Despite having the third-fewest goals in the league upon Federko&rsquo;s return, the Blues still had the National Hockey League&rsquo;s sixth-ranked power play.In a season where little else has gone right, the Blues have really clicked with the man advantage, converting nearly 23 per cent of their opportunities. By maintaining their pace, the Blues would have the third-most efficient power-play unit in their history.The Blues were getting 28 per cent of their goals on the power play, and their three leading scorers&mdash;Doug Gilmour, Mark Hunter and Federko&mdash;had scored 27 of their 63 goals with the man advantage.&ldquo;The power play is not our problem,&rdquo; Hunter said. &ldquo;That hasn&rsquo;t been our problem all year. It&rsquo;s been pretty consistent. We still have to score the even-strength goals. You&rsquo;re not always going to get the power play. We&rsquo;re only getting a couple of evenstrength chances a game.&rdquo;If the Blues can form a couple of effective scoring lines for the stretch run, their effective power play could vault them into the playoffs.&ldquo;What Calgary&rsquo;s power play did to us last year in the playoffs was devastating,&rdquo; said defenseman Rob Ramage. &ldquo;They always had the reputation for that, having a really strong power play. That&rsquo;s something we have to shoot for.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02796/5432283-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="181" height="138"></div><h2>ST. LOUIS BLUES</h2>Blues&rsquo; coach Jacques Martin began getting big dividends from his extraman unit when he started teaming Gilmour and Federko. instead of splitting them over two lines. They work with Hunter on the right wing and, when they doubleshift late in a game, Federko and Gilmour work with Greg Paslawski.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;What Calgary&rsquo;s power play did to us last year in the playoffs was devastating &hellip;That&rsquo;s something we have to shoot for.&rsquo; &mdash;Ramage</blockquote>&ldquo;Both guys are very skilled,&rdquo; Martin said of his centers. &ldquo;They hold the puck so well. Both guys can carry the puck in, which is important. Having Bemie back is a big help.&rdquo;Monumental improvement on the Blues&rsquo; left point has also charged the power play. Rookie Brian Benning had scored six of his nine goals with the man advantage, and added the quickness and puckhandling the Blues lacked on that side of the attack.Bruce Bell has similar skills and, before he strained his shoulder Jan. 27, he was rounding back into his 1985 all-rookie team form.The Blues got Ramage back on the right point after a 21-game absence&mdash;he suffered patella tendinit is early in the season&mdash;and Ric Nattress has been effective offensively all season.The key to the power play, though, is having Gilmour and Federko hold the puck. They direct the attack from behind the net and along the right boards.&ldquo;One of the key factors is making good passes, not rushing it,&rdquo; Ramage said. &ldquo;Bernie and Doug are tremendous playmakers. They are always putting the pressure on when they are in there. They always create good scoring opportunities.&rdquo;BLUENOTES&mdash;Charlie Bourgeois started eating, sleeping and playing reasonably well again, shortly before the Rendez-vous &rsquo;87 break. A virus, insomnia, loss of confidence and depressing family developments left him in a poor frame of mind to play during a stretch when he missed 11 of 12 games. The Blues thought a change of scenery might help him, but attempts to trade him failed. General manager Ron Caron was disappointed not to find a trading partner during the Rendez-vous break. &ldquo;I found out I don&rsquo;t have as much control over player movement as I used to,&rdquo; he said&hellip;Pat Hughes (ankle sprain), Rick Wams-ley (rectal abscess) and Ron Flockhart (body rash) were knocked out of the lineup after Rendez-vous&hellip;Rookie defenseman Michael Dark was sent back to Peoria&hellip;Michael Shanahan, chairman of the Blues, threatened to sue Detroit Red Wing coach Jacques Demers if the two clubs can&rsquo;t agree on compensation from the Red Wings for signing him. &#9632;

f0017-01

Power Play Remains Key For Blues’ Weak Offense

<div class="byline">&#x2014;THN Staff</div>The National Hockey League slapped a gag order on its officials in the wake of a critical THN guest column by Bryan Trottier.The league also turned down an offer by THN to provide equal space and prominence for a rebuttal on behalf of the officials, who were the target of heavy criticism by Trottier in the Feb. 27 edition of THN.NHL president John Ziegler offered no comment but said Trottier&rsquo;s written remarks would be investigated.The New York Islander star, who asked to write the column, lashed out at NHL officials for what he considers extreme leniency in their calling of penalties.&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the best ref?&rdquo; Trottier asked. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re all bad. Kerry Fraser&rsquo;s the best and even he has some bad nights&hellip;&ldquo;You can talk to Fraser, but he gets defensive if you start yelling at him. I don&rsquo;t think Ron Fournier and Denis Morel understand me when I speak to them. Or they pretend they don&rsquo;t understand me.&rdquo;He pleaded with league referees to crack down, in particular, on interference penalties, concluding, &ldquo;Just call the rules as they are&hellip;Please Call everything, no matter what you&rsquo;re told by your bosses.&rdquo;A call by THN to the president of the NHL Officials&rsquo; Association, Dave Newell, drew an apologetic but firm response.&ldquo;To be totally honest with you,&rdquo; said Newell from a Vancouver hotel room, &ldquo;I just got off the phone with our office, and I&rsquo;ve been told to refer all calls to them. Apparently, Mr. Ziegler&rsquo;s office in New York is handling all comment.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011051/5432328-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="600" height="991"><figcaption class="caption-body">Andy van Hellemond, above, wasn&rsquo;t pleased with the form Bryan Trottier&rsquo;s criticisms took.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02796/5432321-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="599" height="993"><figcaption class="caption-body">Referee Dave Newell referred all inquiries to the office of the NHL president.</figcaption></div>Before the gag order was issued, however, THN columnist Barry Meisel did manage to speak with veteran official Andy van Hellemond.The referee called a holding penalty on Trottier in the first game after reading about his remarks.Trottier, who had advocated the calling of penalties on more subtle kinds of interference, said that van Hellemond said, &ldquo;You want me to call everything, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;After the game, van Hellemond expressed his dissatisfaction with the forum Trottier had used for his argument.&ldquo;We respect where he&rsquo;s coming from,&rdquo; van Hellemond said. &ldquo;If he approached it in the right way, it could have been more constructive.&ldquo;Why wasn&rsquo;t this brought up in a meeting in Quebec (at Rendez-vous &rsquo;87), when maybe it could have been discussed? Is this going to change anything? We had a conference call (a regular occurrence, on Feb. 16, before the story appeared)&hellip;If he had done this in a positive way, by notifying us, maybe we could have discussed this. It would have been the perfect time.&rdquo;Ziegler made only a brief statement on the matter.&ldquo;The matter is under investigation,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Therefore I have no comment.&rdquo;Trottier, meanwhile, was besieged by callers who wanted him to expand on his position. When in Montreal for a game against the Canadiens, one day after the story appeared on Feb. 17, he finally had to restrict incoming calls to his hotel room. &#9632;

f0018-01

NHL Mum On Trottier’s Criticism Of Refs

<div class="byline">BY MIKE PERRICONE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02721/5432359-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="586" height="1606"><figcaption class="caption-body">Doug Wilson says the Blackhawks backs are firmly pressed against the wall.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01974/5432366-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="181" height="141"></div>CHICAGO&mdash;Things haven&rsquo;t changed much all season for the Chicago Black-hawks.With about seven weeks remaining in the season, they were still fighting it out with the St. Louis Blues for the last playoff spot in the low-rent Norris Division.&ldquo;I hope wc realize our backs are up against the wall,&rdquo; defenseman Doug Wilson said after returning from Rendez-vous &rsquo;87. &ldquo;We put ourselves in the position we&rsquo;re in.&rdquo;After the six-day all-star break, the Hawks were gasping by the end of their victory over the Quebec Nordiques. Then they were beaten by the Hartford Whalers to end a four-game winning streak on home ice, despite a dazzling two-goal performance by center Denis Savard.Savard liked a lot of what he saw of the Whalers, especially the way they protected a one-goal lead in the third period.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re used to winning games 21, 3-2, 4-3,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;They knew just what they were doing in that third period. I wish we could be like that. They never panicked. We get up by a goal and we go crash.&ldquo;That team is going forward. They&rsquo;re sure not going backwards.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;The division hurts you more than helps you.&rsquo; &mdash;Pulford</blockquote>Since the Hawks seldom keep going forward, the result is a general sliding backward. They are inconsistent from game to game, even from period to period.&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t play at the level of the team we&rsquo;re playing against,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;We have to play at our best. Especially in this rink.&rdquo;The only thing saving the Hawks has been the proximity of the rest of the Norris, which could save them from the embarrassment of missing the playoffs for the first time in 19 years.&ldquo;If we thought we couldn&rsquo;t make the playoffs we&rsquo;d just pack in our equipment,&rdquo; center Troy Murray said. &ldquo;We seem to let down two or three games and draw a blank. We can&rsquo;t afford to do that now. We could find ourselves in the basement and we might not be able to climb out.&rdquo;&ldquo;We could be first as easy as not,&rdquo; coach-general manager Bob Pulford said. But he admitted the low level of competition in the Norris Division was not a plus.&ldquo;The division hurts you more than it helps you,&rdquo; Pulford said.Fighting for a playoff spot this late in the season, the Hawks are running short of explanations.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got the players. There are no excuses, none,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;On paper we&rsquo;re fine, but we have to go out and do it night after night.&rdquo;Given the Norris Division situation, the Hawks are aware of the potential rewards for a good finish.&ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t done much this year,&rdquo; Murray said, &ldquo;so it might sound ludicrous to say it. But we could go far. We can be contenders.&rdquo;HAWK TALK&mdash;A check of the records showed Bob Murray has played more games than any defenseman in Blackhawk history. Murray played his 860th game Feb. 17 against Hartford. Pierre Pilote is second with 821, and Doug Wilson played his 710th game against Hartford&hellip;Everett Sanipass had two assists in a 5-4 loss to Hartford&hellip;Left winger Bill Watson (separated shoulder) and center Steve Ludzik (broken collarbone) remain out of the lineup, but Watson was about a week or two away from returning. &#9632;

f0019-02

Inconsistency Continues To Plague Chicago

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02568/5432397-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="594" height="1172"><figcaption class="caption-body">The addition of Al Jensen brings to four the number of goalies the Kings now have.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01841/5432404-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="183" height="136"></div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;Unless another deal was in the works, why would the Los Angeles Kings trade for a goaltender when they already had three?&ldquo;Having this many isn&rsquo;t the ideal situation, but it gives us more experience and depth for the stretch run,&rdquo; general manager Rogie Vachon said after acquiring Al Jensen from the Washington Capitals in exchange for defenseman Garry Galley.Jensen, 28, joins Rollie Melanson, Darren Eliot and Bob Janecyk, the latter of whom has made only seven starts&mdash;one since Nov. 13&mdash;and who suffered strained ligaments in his right knee while with the New Haven Nighthawks for conditioning purposes.Melanson, 26, had played in 29 of the Kings&rsquo; first 57 games, posting an 11-12-5 record, with one shutout and 3.29 goals-against average. Eliot, the youngest of the four at 25, had played in 22 games and had an 8-12-2 record, with one shutout and 4.33 average.Janecyk, 29, was 4-3 with a 4.86 average and had been plagued by the flu, a pinched nerve in his neck and a viral infection. His career record as a King was 40-40-12, considerably better than the club&rsquo;s record (40-68-17) in games in which he hadn&rsquo;t played.&ldquo;The year&rsquo;s been a total waste,&rdquo; Janecyk said after incurring his latest injury.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;To be honest, I really don&rsquo;t know what happened.&rsquo; &mdash;Jensen</blockquote>Perhaps the Kings were looking for a hard-nosed, defensive-type defenseman after losing Larry Playfair for the year with reconstructive surgery on his left knee.The Kings will only be able to protect two of the four in next year&rsquo;s waiver draft if they&rsquo;re still around.At any rate, Jensen and Galley were pleased to be moving on.Galley, 23, had played in only three of the Kings&rsquo; previous 15 games and had asked to be traded, while Jensen had been banished to the minors for most of the season after winning 28 games for the Caps last year.&ldquo;I just felt it would be best to go somewhere else if I wasn&rsquo;t going to be used here,&rdquo; said Galley, who in two-and-a-half years with the Kings had 26 goals and 55 assists. &ldquo;I appreciate that Rogie was able to make a trade.&rdquo;Jensen still doesn&rsquo;t understand what happened to his promising career with Washington. He left with a 94-49-18 record, eight shutouts and 3.29 career average, but had spent most of the season with the Binghamton Whalers of the American League.&ldquo;To be honest with you, I really don&rsquo;t know what happened,&rdquo; the soft-spoken goaltender said. &ldquo;I was hoping for a trade because I wasn&rsquo;t really in their plans anymore. Why I couldn&rsquo;t tell you. I just know that I wanted to prolong my career and this is the best thing that could have happened.&rdquo;This year, he was 1-3-1 with a 4.94 average for Washington and 6-7 with a 3.68 average for Binghamton. Last year, he went 28-9-3 with two shutouts and a 3.18 average.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question in my mind that I can still do the job,&rdquo; Jensen said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have anything against Washington, though. I was very happy there my first five seasons and it&rsquo;s hard to leave a lot of nice people, but this is part of the business and you have to deal with it.&rdquo;Jensen began to wonder about his situation late last season, when Pete Peeters played in the final four regularseason games and in all nine of Washington&rsquo;s playoff games.&ldquo;Up until then, everything seemed to be fine.&rdquo; Jensen said. &ldquo;Then I became kind of their third goaltender. Playing in the minors was tough, but I still worked. I realized my situation wasn&rsquo;t the greatest so I tried to make the best of it.&rdquo;Jensen&rsquo;s best season came in 198384, when he went 25-13-3 with a 2.91 average, led the league with four shutouts and shared the Jennings Trophy with Pat Riggin for the NHL&rsquo;s best average. He was going to start the AllStar game that year, but hurt his lower back while lifting weights two days before the game and had to pull out.Jensen played in only 14 games the next season, going 10-3-1 with a 2.54 average.KINGS NOTES&mdash;Larry Playfair underwent surgery on his left knee for the third time in less than a year, which included an arthroscope on Jan. 2., Team physician Dr. Steve Lombardo repaired the anterior cruciate ligament and said rehabilitation in these cases normally takes one year&hellip; Defenseman Craig Redmond was out indefinitely with tendinitis in his right knee, which was operated on earlier in the season to remove 50 per cent of the cartilage. He was unable to skate due to what he called &ldquo;excrutiating pain.&rdquo;&hellip;Also out were defenseman Dean Kennedy (hip pointer) and right winger Dave Taylor (sprained right knee)&hellip;Defenseman Ken Hammond was called up from New Haven&hellip;Luc Robitaille tied Steve Bozek&rsquo;s 1981-82 club record for rookies with his 33rd goal of the season, scored against Toronto. &#9632;

f0020-02

Galley Slave To Los Angeles Bench No More

<div class="byline">Steve Simmons</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03394/5432435-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="401" height="452"></div>SLAP SHOTS, CHEAP SHOTS, rumblings, grumblings and stumblings from the only correspondent at THE HOCKEY NEWS who didn&rsquo;t get to feast on Rendez-vous pie. And, in the meantime, it occurred to me that&hellip;There may not be a more underrated player in the National Hockey League than Joey Mullen, the sniper with the Calgary Flames. In a league with Jari Kurri, Mike Bossy, Tim Kerr and Dino Ciccarelli, Mullen deserves all-star recognition. Kurri, Bossy and Ciccarelli all have quality centers as linemates. Mullen does not&hellip;Is Maurice Filion losing it? Once upon a time it looked like the Quebec boss was one of the league&rsquo;s better general managers. But it&rsquo;s hard to figure Maurice these days, having acquired John Ogrodnick, Doug Shedden and Bill Derlago all in the same season. Talk about trouble&hellip;I don&rsquo;t get a vote, but surely Bengt Gustafsson is worthy of some recognition for the Hart Trophy as the NHL&rsquo;s most valuable player. When Gustafsson left the Washington Capitals for Sweden, the Capitals lost their status as one of the league&rsquo;s elite clubs&hellip;Those on the Ron Hextail bandwagon should consider one fact. It hasn&rsquo;t mattered who has played goal for Philadelphia during recent regular seasons. The numbers have all looked alike&hellip;The NHL needs more Phil Espositos and fewer John Zieglers&hellip;The hardest-hitting right winger in hockey may well be my colleague at THE HOCKEY NEWS, Al Strachan&hellip;Scotty Bowman deserves some kind of award for contradiction. Not that long ago, Bowman was in Calgary speaking at a luncheon for the Canadian Olympic hockey program. He praised the Olympic program and no one dared to question him. Someone should have brought up the fact that it was Scotty who signed his No. 1 draft pick, Shawn Anderson, away from the Olympic program. Anderson wasn&rsquo;t ready for the NHL, but Scotty kept him anyway&hellip;When I last checked, Craig Simpson had more points than Wendel Clark, had a far superior plus rating, and was contributing as much, if not more, to Pittsburgh Penguins than Clark has to the Maple Leafs&hellip;Does it mean anything that all three Team NHL goaltenders at Rendez-vous once played in the Western League? In fact, three of the best rookie goaltenders in the league&mdash;Hextall, Mike Vernon and Pokey Reddick&mdash;are all WHL alumni&hellip;Anyone who&rsquo;s had a back problem can sympathize with Mike Bossy&rsquo;s plight. If there has ever been a classier player than Bossy, I can&rsquo;t remember him&hellip;Of all the pre-season predictions we in the predictions business make, the best one I made was that Jacques Demers would have problems with Petr Klima. You get lucky once in a while&hellip;The bottom line in Chicago is still the bottom line. Blackhawk owners only care about keeping costs down, which is why Bob Pulford is still employed. The Hawks, with all their talent, have been a league joke this season&hellip;If Brent Ashton is as good, honest and hard-working as he appears, why is it he gets traded almost every season? You can understand when the Bill Derlagos and Tony McKegneys get traded, but Ashton?&hellip;Don Cherry is sometimes right. The number of unproductive and overpaid Europeans playing the NHL right now is at an all-time high&hellip;Speaking of unproductive and overpaid, Kent Nilsson&rsquo;s phone has been ringing off the hook with offers to return to Sweden next season. Kent may well wind up joining Bengt Gustafsson and Peter Andersson, two former Capitals, on the Swedish Olympic team&hellip;Travel is overrated. When last I looked, the three best road records in the league were owned by Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg, all teams which have dreadful travel schedules&hellip;If Bobby Clarke is seriously interested in winning the Stanley Cup this season, he has to trade for a goaltender. Ron Hextall is too young to rely on solely, and Chico Resch is too old to have faith in&hellip;I should write something nice about the Minnesota North Stars, just to confuse their players and coaching staff&hellip;With all the credit going to Jacques Demers for turning around the Red Wings, some other fine coaching jobs are going unnoticed: In particular, Jack Evans in Hartford, Jacques Martin in St. Louis and Dan Maloney in Winnipeg&hellip;Those who squawked about Rick Green being named to the Team NHL for Rendez-vous obviously didn&rsquo;t watch last year&rsquo;s Stanley Cup finals. Green, not Patrick Roy, was the best player in the final series against Calgary&hellip; &#9632;

f0020-03

Sure He’s In Sweden Now, But Call Gustafsson ‘MVP’

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN Assistant Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01629/5432466-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="587" height="881"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gord Stellick is the most-quoted assistant to the general manager in the NHL.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02350/5432473-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="181" height="149"></div>TORONTO&mdash;Sometimes, when all hell breaks loose, as it periodically does with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Gord Stellick must regret the day he learned to type.For it was that most basic of skills that began Stellick on the path to his present position, assistant to Maple Leaf general manager Gerry McNamara.&ldquo;I started as a typist compiling game notes,&rdquo; remembers the nattily-dressed Stellick, &ldquo;and went from there because of my ability to run the press box.&rdquo;The secret to his success?&ldquo;Speed and good lateral movement,&rdquo; Stellick says wryly.He could add sense of humor, a quality of which there can be no short supply if a person intends on making a career with the Maple Leafs.It helps you to get through the bad times. Which is a majority of the time in Toronto.Stellick, 29, has grown considerably in importance since joining the team on a part-time basis in 1975 and becoming a full-time employee in 1980.He still does statistics for the club, however that is but a small part of a role that is even more all-encompassing than McNamara&rsquo;s distaste for the media.The Toronto native does everything from drawing up Leaf contracts, to handling all correspondence with the league, to acting as travelling secretary, to helping out in the operation of the Newmarket Saints, to&hellip;well, you get the picture.Oh yes, he&rsquo;s something else. Out of circumstance, more than preference, Stellick has become the most quoted assistant to the GM in the National Hockey League.That&rsquo;s because McNamara so seldom deigns to speak with the media.&ldquo;He just says,&rdquo; relates Stellick in explanation of McNamara&rsquo;s behaviour, &ldquo;the media aspect is one part of the job he finds unproductive and detrimental to the team.&rdquo;So, it&rsquo;s most often left to the Bachelor of Arts graduate to explain the motives behind player personnel decisions made by McNamara.As an advisor to the GM, it is a decision process to which Stellick has some input.Perhaps, Stellick&rsquo;s most important function is to act as a stabilizing influence on a team weighed down with extreme personalities&mdash;McNamara&rsquo;s, coach John Brophy&rsquo;s and owner Harold Ballard&rsquo;s.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of kinetic energy bouncing off the walls here,&rdquo; observed one regular at Maple Leaf Gardens rather euphemistically.If McNamara, Brophy and Ballard represent the stormy seas, Stellick, and assistant coach Garry Lariviere, for that matter, are the stuff of Lake Placid.Stellick would like someday to become a GM himself, but recognizes that he first must shore up some shortcomings.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve sort of done it backwards,&rdquo; says Stellick, whose experiences with an autistic brother have led him to serve on the board of directors of the Ontario Society for Autistic Children. &ldquo;Most guys getting into the managerial ranks are ex-players who know the on-ice part and have to work on the administrative details. In my case, I had the administrative part down quickly.&rdquo;That means spending as many nights as possible learning in Newmarket, where the Leafs&rsquo; American League farm team is based.Judging from one-sided losses to Edmonton (9-2) and Calgary (7-2) and another loss to Vancouver (3-2) on the road, Stellick isn&rsquo;t the only member of the sliding Leaf entourage who needs some time in Newmarket.LEAFLETS&mdash;Gord Stellick&rsquo;s brother, Bob, is the team PR director-&hellip;The Leafs had only a 1-1 tie with Los Angeles to show for their four-game western road trip. That dropped the Leafs&rsquo; road record, worst in the league on a percentage basis, to 7-22-1 (.258)&hellip;Toronto was 23-32-6 after 61 games. Last year, they were 18-37-6, the year before, 15-39-7&hellip;Mike Allison&rsquo;s two goals against Edmonton were his first since Dec. 10. He had five on the season, 29 less than Walt Poddubny of the New York Rangers. The Leafs dealt Poddubny to New York for Allison last summer&hellip;Bill Root (hand) and Mirko Frycer (groin) were both sent home from the road trip with injuries&hellip;In five games back from a viral ailment, which sidelined him for 23 games, Tom Fergus had one goal&hellip;Toronto, with a goals-against (per game) average of 3.89, was well off its pre-season goal of 3.00, but well below last year&rsquo;s mark of 4.76&hellip;Goalie Ken Wregget, 7-3-2 on Nov. 16., was 13-20-3 on Feb. 23&hellip;Defenseman Chris Kotsopoulos had missed 15 straight games with a pulled groin. No return date had been set, and the Leafs missed him&hellip;After ending a 17-game goalless streak with two goals against Boston, Russ Courtnail went four more games without a goal before scoring against Vancouver&hellip; Recent NHL player-of-the-week Peter Ihnacak had just one point in five games, after earning 12 in four&hellip; It was Courtnail and Ihnacak who scored during the first 66 seconds of the game against Vancouver. The Canucks rallied for three unanswered goals. &#9632;

f0021-01

Learning The Ropes In Leaf Ring Of Fire

<h2>TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE&hellip;</h2>1. Who won the CFL scoring title in 1957 and scored 14 career NHL goals?2. Name the five coaches in NCAA history with 500 wins.3. Which New York Ranger goes by the nickname &lsquo;Tommy Gun?&rsquo;4. What NHL player recently joined the 800-point club?5. Name Ottawa&rsquo;s two WHA teams.6. Who is the youngest player in the NHL?7. Where did Mike Bossy play his junior hockey?8. Which Boston Bruin recently scored his 200th NHL goal?9. What team won the first World Hockey Association championship?10. Name the first U.S. college player selected in the first round of the NHL entry draft.<h2>ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ</h2>1. Gerry James. 2. John Maclnnes, Len Ceglarski, Jack Riley, Ron Mason, Snooks Kelly. 3. Tomas Sandstrom. 4. Peter McNab. 5. Nationals and Civics. 6. Jim Carson (18, born July 20, 1968). 7. Laval. 8. Reed Larson. 9. New England Whalers. 10. Mike Ramsey (11th overall, Buffalo, 1979).<h2>BONUS QUESTION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-03194/5432504-1-eng-US/f0021-032.jpg" title="f0021-03" width="564" height="925"></div>BONUS: Name this former Ranger who centered New York&rsquo;s famous &lsquo;GAG Line.&rsquo;BONUS ANSWER: Jean Ratelle. &#9632;

f0021-03

THN HOCKEY TRIVIA

<div class="byline">BY JERRY ZGODA</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02514/5432535-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tough guy Willi Plett has reluctantly accepted a bit part role with the Minnesota North Stars this season.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01731/5432542-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="182" height="140"></div>BLOOMINGTON&mdash;For two, the drought had lasted two months. For the third, the entire season.The Minnesota North Stars snapped a four-game losing streak by recording back-to-back, comeback victories over St. Louis and Vancouver during the week after Rendez-vous. And they did so by twice overcoming 2-0 deficits and getting some timely goals from some unlikely heroes:&bull; Right winger Willi Plett. who hadn&rsquo;t scored since Dec. 18, slipped the third-period winner through goalie Greg Millen&rsquo;s legs in a 3-2 victory over the Blues.&bull; Scott Bjugstad&rsquo;s first goal since Dec. 20, and his fourth of the season, started a five-goal outburst that wiped away a 2-0 Canuck lead and led to a 7-3 victory.&bull; And defenseman Bob Rouse&rsquo;s first goal since Feb. 6, 1986. The goal, which ended the scoring against Vancouver, didn&rsquo;t nearly have the impact of Rouse&rsquo;s last goal the winner in an 8-7 overtime victory over Toronto but it was noteworthy if only for its rarity. Rouse had four goals in 190 NHL career games.Plett&rsquo;s goal was the most dramatic. Once a Calder Trophy winner, then a 38-goal scorer, Plett has been little more than a fourth-line right winger expected to play tough this season. After seeing limited action in 52 of the Stars&rsquo; first 53 games, he was banished to the press box for two games before being summoned to play against St. Louis.Plett, who played extensively because Brian Bellows was scratched with sore ribs, responded as he had many times before against the Blues&mdash;with the big play.He scored four goals against St. Louis in 1982, drove a 70-foot blast past Mike Liut that led to a dramatic overtime victory in Game Seven of the division finals three seasons ago and two years ago, he played a key role in the Stars&rsquo; first-round sweep of the Blues.This time, Plett rushed down the right side on a 2-on-1 with Brian Mac-Lellan, slowed as if to pass and then snapped a 25-foot shot through Millen&rsquo;s legs that broke a 2-2 tie with 8:03 left. After the game, he basked in the rare attention accorded him by reporters.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you guys finally came around, I have a lot of good quotes saved up,&rdquo; said Plett, who met with coach Lome Henning the morning of the game and said he needed more playing time.About his sparse playing time and two-game benching, he said, &ldquo;I look at it this way. Do I want to stay or do I want to get traded? I don&rsquo;t want to get traded, so I put up with it. I&rsquo;m not going to make any waves&hellip;But it&rsquo;s hard to play tough if you&rsquo;re sitting at the end of the bench most of the period. To play that way, you literally have to get ticked and if you sit on the bench, you do get ticked off, but not at the other team.&rdquo;Henning was asked if it was a master coaching move to to put Plett back in the lineup. &ldquo;Yeah, I&rsquo;m a real genius,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I must be a dummy for keeping him out of it.&rdquo;Bjugstad&rsquo;s goal ended a frustrating two-month stretch that saw him spend three weeksrin the minors and another three on the injury list because of bruised ribs. He pumped the air with his fist after pouncing on a loose puck and pushing a spinning shot past Vancouver goalie Frank Caprice in the first period, just 16 seconds after the Canucks had taken that 2-0 lead. A year ago, he stunned the league by scoring 43 goals. This year, he had four in 34 games.&ldquo;I just want to get back to playing the way I was last season,&rdquo; Bjugstad said. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s coming.&rdquo;Rouse went into a rare celebratory dance after a Doug Lidster clearing attempt came straight to him in the right circle, and he blew a quick slap shot into the net with 4:10 left.&ldquo;Well, I got the puck, then I moved left, moved right, saw the opening and put the puck exactly where I wanted it,&rdquo; Rouse said, doing his best impression of a television announcer. &ldquo;Actually, it&rsquo;s usually luck any time I score. It&rsquo;s nice to get at least one a year to get that ugly zero off the stat sheet.&rdquo;STARDUST&mdash;Defenseman Jari Gronstrand returned from a two-game stay in the press box and promptly suffered strained knee ligaments against Vancouver. He is expected to miss about three weeks. Defenseman Frantisek Musil missed the game because of recurring dental problems and left winger Steve Payne was benched for both the St. Louis and Vancouver games. Brian Bellows missed both because of sore ribs and back. &#9632;

f0022-02

Slump-Ridden North Star Scorers Deliver

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0023-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01657/5432573-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">After a bad start to his sophomore season, Calder Trophy-winning defenseman Gary Suter has come on for the Calgary Flames.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02439/5432580-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="180" height="136"></div>CALGARY&mdash;First, some pertinent background information.Gary Suter is not: (A) From Viking, Alta.; (B) The seventh NHL son of Louis, patriarch of the famous Sutter clan; and (C) A product of the Lethbridge Broncos.The 22-year-old Suter is: (A) Last year&rsquo;s Calder Trophy winner; (B) Part of the Calgary Flames&rsquo; defensive nucleus; and (C) Struggling.Suter&rsquo;s second season in the National Hockey League isn&rsquo;t going as smoothly and efficiently as the first. Not by a long shot. Everything fell into place for the rookie defenseman from Madison, Wisc. He was steady early and spectacular later, going on a scoring spree to overtake the two early Calder Trophy leaders&mdash;Kjell Dahlin and Wendel Clark&mdash;and become one of a handful of defensemen to capture the prestigious award.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Not another sophomore jinx story.&rsquo; &mdash;Suter</blockquote>Two-thirds of the way through the current campaign, memories of last year&rsquo;s storybook season have been replaced by a different, less desirable storyline.&ldquo;Not another sophomore jinx story,&rdquo; says Suter, grinning, as he sees a reporter approaching. Well, not exactly.Over the past month, things have begun to right themselves for the talented rearguard, as he began to play less tentatively than earlier in the season.In the words of head coach Bob Johnson, he is playing with more &ldquo;aggressive enthusiasm&hellip;and that&rsquo;s the way he has to play. That&rsquo;s what it&rsquo;s all about. Just two words. Forget everything else, just go out and be enthusiastic&mdash;enjoy yourself out there and be aggressive. I also think he&rsquo;s getting back his timing and rhythm.&rdquo;&ldquo;Is it turning around? I hope it is,&rdquo; said Suter. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m working hard. I&rsquo;m trying to make a year of it. It&rsquo;s been a real learning year for me&mdash;how to deal with the pressures. I think in the long run, it&rsquo;s going to be beneficial. You realize that everything&rsquo;s not going to be rosy all the time. You just have to deal with the hard times and learn how to get through them and keep going.&rdquo;It didn&rsquo;t help matters much when Suter twice sprained his left knee in freak accidents. He didn&rsquo;t get hit. He just turned the wrong way trying to get off a slapshot. Altogether, Suter missed 11 games and now must wear a protective brace on his knee. In last season&rsquo;s playoffs, Suter tore a ligament in his right knee in a collision with Mark Messier.&ldquo;It bothered me at first,&rdquo; acknowledged Suter. &ldquo;Now I&rsquo;m getting used to it.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s becoming part of the equipment just like the elbow pads and the shin pads.&rdquo;Suter said the only adjustment he&rsquo;s made to his playing style has been to go back to the things that worked for him last season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m trying to get more involved in the offense,&rdquo; said Suter. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m trying to follow the play more. That was a big key to my success last year.&rdquo;For his part, Johnson says he would rather see Suter try to do less and relax more on the ice.&ldquo;It appears to me, when I watch him out there, that he tries to do too much on a shift at times,&rdquo; said Johnson. &ldquo;There are some shifts when that&rsquo;s not the nature of the game. You just have to play defense. He wants to get involved in every play. He jumps up when he shouldn&rsquo;t jump up. There&rsquo;s a time and a place to do it.&rdquo;So Suter is learning. He learned to adjust to the demands of the NHL schedule a year ago. Now he&rsquo;s learning to adjust to the more defensive orientation of the Flames.IN BRIEF&mdash;Of late, Bob Johnson had been using Gary Suter with rookie Kevan Guy for two periods and then switching to four defensemen for the third. In that alignment, Suter plays with Paul Reinhart. Johnson described Guy, a rookie, as a &ldquo;Steve Konroyd-type. There&rsquo;s nothing wrong with that. He stays at home. He moves the puck. He is where he&rsquo;s supposed to be. He&rsquo;s better than he looks. Some players really look good, but don&rsquo;t accomplish anything. He&rsquo;s not flashy, but he&rsquo;s steady.&rdquo; Konroyd was traded from Calgary to the New York Islanders last season&hellip;A 15-game, nine-year losing streak came to an end when Calgary whipped Philadelphia 5-0 at the Spectrum, Feb. 16. Reggie Lemelin earned the shutout and Joe Mullen scored twice. When last they won on Oct. 22, 1978, the Flames were based in Atlanta. &#9632;

f0023-01

Suter Working To Regain First-Year Form

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02499/5432642-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="179" height="137"></div>EAST RUTHERFORD&mdash;Ever since John McMullen purchased the Colora-do Rockies for approximately $30 million and moved the franchise to his home state of New Jersey back in 1982, the Devils have been fighting the New York Rangers in more ways than just on the ice.Just when the Devils appeared to be gaining on their rivals across the Hudson River, the battle for media attention, fan support and image shifted dramatically in favor of the Rangers when Phil Esposito was installed as general manager.While conservative GM Max McNab, restricted by the Devils&rsquo; financial limitations, stood pat, Espo-sito traded the Rangers out of the Patrick Division cellar, into second place and into the daily headlines of area newspapers.Seeing his team fade in the standings and in the public eye, McMullen opened his books and bared his soul in a meeting with reporters during which he revealed the Devils would suffer an $8.5 million operating loss over their first five years.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s just a plain cash loss exclusive of payment to the NHL and inclusive of payment to the three territorial teams,&rdquo; explained McMullen.When his group acquired the Rockies from Peter Gilbert on June 30, 1982, McMullen, John Whitehead and Brendan Byrne paid an approximate $30 million purchase price; territorial indemnities to the Rangers, Islanders and Flyers; a $5.2 million cash NHL transfer fee (the first and only time a club has had to pay such a fee); $7 million for TV corridor rights to the Rangers ($4 million), Islanders ($2 million) and Flyers ($1 million) and $250,000 to the Winnipeg Jets so that the Devils could move to the Patrick Division. Those financial burdens do not include running the AHL Maine Mariners as a farm club without the aid of another NHL team.&ldquo;It all added up to a hefty amount of money, which would&rsquo;ve been okay if attendance had held up,&rdquo; said McMullen. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve suffered. The economic burden on this franchise is greater than any other in the NHL. Could it have been done differently? I don&rsquo;t think we could&rsquo;ve gotten the team in New Jersey any other way.&ldquo;The thing I kick myself all the time for is I paid money to get into the Patrick Division. That shows you how smart I am. If we were in any other division we would be in the playoffs. &lsquo;&lsquo;Through Jan. 31 the Devils&rsquo; average paid home attendance was 11,831, a drop of 6.6 per cent from the same time last year. That average, which has since risen to about 12,100, is the lowest in the Patrick Division. (Washington is second at 12,875 and the Rangers are highest at 16,985),<blockquote class="pullQuote">New Jersey says it&rsquo;s paying to run Esposito&rsquo;s Rangers.</blockquote>&ldquo;We had the largest fall-off of attendance of any team in the NHL,&rdquo; said McMulen. &ldquo;We have a solid core of fans and the fans we have are terrific. Our attendance is excellent under the circumstances, but with all our debts we have to get up to 17,000 or 18,000 and we need corporate support fom New Jersey. When they finish the new (Madison Square) Garden by 1991 we&rsquo;ll be in trouble because it&rsquo;ll be comparable to the Byrne Arena.&ldquo;Go back to when we bought the franchise and they said all you need is a hockey team in New Jersey and you&rsquo;ll have immediate fan support in the range of 19,000 per game. Surveys were taken and they said it was built-in support. Everything was predicated on that. It looked like a prime place for a hockey team, a pot of gold. Now in hindsight it was an imprudent move.&rdquo;The Devils&rsquo; 20-man roster represents the lowest payroll in the NHL at $2,840,000, but their debts have prevented the team from acquiring players such as Bobby Carpenter, Ron Duguay or numerous others that Esposito brought to the Rangers. When McNab attempts to trade for players such as Bob Froese, Walt Poddubny and Kelly Kisio he is asked for his core of young, talented players.&ldquo;In actuality,&rdquo; said president Bob Butera, &ldquo;every move that Esposito makes, he is making with our money.&rdquo;&ldquo;Espo has done a better job than anyone could&rsquo;ve expected and there is a natural hype with the press,&rdquo; said McMullen. &lsquo;&lsquo;But he is operating under different circumstances than we are. With the territorial fee we paid the Rangers, we&rsquo;re paying him to run that whole team.&ldquo;Economic pressure hasn&rsquo;t stopped us doing what we feel is right. I personally feel the best way to build a franchise is the way we&rsquo;re going. Clearly there is a contrast in the operation of the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils but we want to show our approach is correct and it is almost out of necessity.&ldquo;People talk about trades and we&rsquo;ve had plenty of opportunities to trade, but other teams always ask for our good young players&mdash;Kirk Muller or Craig Wolanin or Pat Verbeek. Should we trade Muller? What would happen?The reason the Capitals made a trade was out of sheer necessity because he (Carpenter) wouldn&rsquo;t play for them and the Rangers picked up the entire $1.65-million contract.&ldquo;We were willing to go to $1.05 million but the Rangers do not have any financial restraints. Phil is doing a great job but he doesn&rsquo;t have any financial restrictions. We have to give our plan at least another year. It&rsquo;s so easy to change now. Once you start down the path you&rsquo;ve got to stay on it. You can&rsquo;t get moral in the middle of an immoral act.&rdquo;HOT STUFF&mdash;John McMullen said he still receives letters criticizing the trade of Chico Resch to Philadelphia (for a third-rounder in 1986, defenseman Marc Laniel) but added he would do it again&hellip;Forward Rich Chernomaz was recalled from Maine. &#9632;

f0024-02

Red Ink Root Of Evils, Claim Devils

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-03270/5432673-1-eng-US/f0025-032.jpg" title="f0025-03" width="558" height="807"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Gartner</figcaption></div>Mike Gartner selected this week&rsquo;s Chrysler-Dodge NHL Player of the WeekDodge-Plymouth is the official sponsor of NHL All-Star Fan Balloting<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01624/5432687-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="187" height="177"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02412/5432680-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="148" height="159"></div>NEW YORK&mdash;Washington Capitals&rsquo; right winger Mike Gartner registered a National Hockey League League-high seven goals and 11 points in four games to earn the Chrysler-Dodge Player of the Week Award for the period ending February 22.Gartner, the first player ever to win the weekly award when it was inaugurated in the 1980-81 season, edged goaltender Tom Barrasso of the Buffalo Sabres and centers Steve Yzerman of the Detroit Red Wings and Bernie Federko of the St. Louis Blues for the honor.On Gartner&rsquo;s behalf, Chrysler-Dodge will donate $500 to the Capitol Boys&rsquo; Hockey League, the youth hockey organization of player&rsquo;s choice. Chrysler-Dodge also sponsors the Player of the Month and the Player of the Year, for which the latter receives the Chrysler Corporation vehicle of his choice.Playing his 600th NHL game, Gartner opened the week with two assists to help Washington past Edmonton 5-3, Feb. 15. After posting two goals in a 7-4 loss to Los Angeles, Feb. 18, he rallied the Capitals to a 6-3 win over Vancouver, Feb. 20, with four goals, including two shor-thanders, and two assists. The six-point effort was a personal high for Gartner and tied a club record, while the hat-trick extended his career total in that category to 11, also a team record. Closing out the week, he recorded one goal in the club&rsquo;s 5-2 victory against Calgary.Barrasso led all goalies with a perfect 4-0-0 record, including a 2.50 goals-against-average in four games. Yzerman posted a 4-5-9 mark in five games, while Federko tallied a 1-6-7 total in three outings. &#9632;

f0025-03

THE CHRYSLER-DODGE REPORT

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINARI</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01662/5432725-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">A recurrence of the bronchial ailment that plagued Mario Lemieux last year, has struck again, much to the Penguins&rsquo; dismay.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02461/5432732-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="179" height="139"></div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;The Pittsburgh Penguins came out of the all-star break desperately seeking salvation, but their best hope for a miracle proved to be a cruel mirage.Two games into the stretch drive, Penguin center Mario Lemieux was diagnosed as having bronchitis, a respiratory ailment.He was expected to miss anywhere from two games to two weeks.The ailment, which Lemieux also contracted in the final month of last season, apparently blossomed from a cold he took to Quebec City for Rendez-vous &rsquo;87.Bronchitis forced Penguin coach Bob Berry to severely limit Lemieux&rsquo;s playing time during the closing weeks of last season, although it never forced him to miss a game. It was hardly coincidental the Penguins missed a playoff berth by two points.When the problem was diagnosed this time, Lemieux was the No. 4 scorer in the NHL, with 76 points on 39 goals and 37 assists.He had played in only 43 games. A sprained right knee had earlier forced him from the lineup for 13 games.Lemieux&rsquo;s importance to the Penguins cannot be overstated. They were 2-8-4 in their first 14 games without him this year.Lemieux&rsquo;s absence inspired one of the most striking ironies of the season. Only when he was stricken from the line up did the Penguins recall a player many consider to be the most gifted in their minor-league system.Oh, brother. It was a guy by the name of Lemieux.Alain Lemieux arrived in town a few hours after his brother&rsquo;s ailment was diagnosed and stepped into a National Hockey League lineup for the first time in nearly a year.He had played sporadically with the Quebec Nordiques last season, then began this year in Europe before signing with the Penguins.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d say there&rsquo;s a lot of pressure right now for me,&rdquo; said Alain Lemieux, the No. 5 scorer in the American League when the Penguins brought him up from Baltimore.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little bit harder for me right now because (Mario) is not here and I&rsquo;m supposed to replace him. It&rsquo;s kind of strange.&rdquo;It would, however, be grossly unfair to expect Alain Lemieux to have much more than a surname in common with his brother, particularly when he has been removed from the NHL for so long.&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ll need a few practices with the boys,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little bit quicker (in the NHL) and you have to get used to it.&ldquo;Everybody is taking the man and they take you out. In the American League, it&rsquo;s not the same. You have lots of time to make the play. That&rsquo;s the big difference.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-03374/5432718-1-eng-US/f0026-032.jpg" title="f0026-03" width="582" height="964"><figcaption class="caption-body">Alain Lemieux, above, was recalled when his brother, Mario, was sidelined.</figcaption></div>The Penguins know what it&rsquo;s like to be pressed for time. With the season about to enter its final quarter, they remained mired in fifth place in the Patrick Division.Still, they contend their playoff hopes are not moribund, even if Mario Lemieux is sidelined indefinitely.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got some good hockey players here,&rdquo; right winger Craig Simpson said. &ldquo;I think everybody&rsquo;s going to pick it up. We&rsquo;re in a playoff race here.&rdquo;And so, surprisingly enough, is Alain Lemieux, whose career in the NHL had long seemed to be nothing more than a distant memory.Not only is he in a playoff race, mind you. He stands to be a pivotal figure in one.&ldquo;If he&rsquo;s half as good as Mario,&rdquo; Baltimore coach Gene Ubriaco said, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s done well.&rdquo;And if Mario gets well soon enough, the Penguins might not be done. &#9632;

f0026-01

Oh, Brother! Alain Lemieux Replaces Mario

<div class="byline">Barry Meisel</div>I HELPED BRYAN TROTTIER write the Guest Shot that appeared in last week&rsquo;s THN, so you can&rsquo;t call me a totally objective reporter.But here are the facts.Trottier approached me on Jan. 20, after the Islanders lost at home to Calgary 3-1. He asked if I&rsquo;d pass along a message to the editor. He wanted to express his dissatisfaction with the state of NHL officiating.He never said he was writing on behalf of the NHL players&rsquo; association, of which he is president. He never said he was writing on behalf of the Islanders, of which he is an alternate captain.He didn&rsquo;t even want to be paid.He was Bryan Trottier, 12-year NHL veteran, disgusted with the quality of the game he loves. And he wanted to say so.I notified my bosses in Toronto of Trottier&rsquo;s request, but suggested we wait a few days. It&rsquo;s been obvious all season that Trottier is frustrated. He&rsquo;s frustrated by the Islanders&rsquo; mediocrity, his own decline, and a back injury that has reduced Mike Bossy, his Siamese linemate, to an ordinary right winger.I believed that a couple of good games, a couple of goals, and Trottier might change his mind. But a week later, Trots was still eager.Of course we said yes. A player of Trottier&rsquo;s stature criticizing the state of NHL officiating? To keep it out of the paper would have been ludicrous. This was news. Readable, controversial, juicy, news.Trottier was instructed to outline some thoughts in a notebook. He keeps a journal, and he said he already had some ideas. He said he&rsquo;d formulate a story.Trottier and I met on Feb. 5, at Edmonton&rsquo;s Four Seasons Hotel during an Islander road trip, while he and Bossy were dining a la room service.Trottier handed me his journal&mdash;I promised not to peek at any other pages-&mdash;and I transcribed. He spoke between bites and I transcribed. Bossy piped in from time to time.I returned the next day and handed Trottier my word processor and he read the final draft of his work. He made minor changes, re-read the piece, and handed me my computer.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s it. Fine,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What do you think?&rdquo;What did I think? It was Trottier at his best: Honest, outspoken, direct. He wasn&rsquo;t happy with something and he took action.Now it was time to cover the reaction.The Islanders played the Flyers on Feb. 17, the day THN came off the press. That day, in the New York Daily News, my bylined story mentioned Trottier&rsquo;s editorial and quoted some of his remarks.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-04278/5432763-1-eng-US/f0026-042.jpg" title="f0026-04" width="383" height="462"></div>Andy van Hellemond read it.That night, at 1:10 of the first period, with the Islanders on a power play, Trottier grabbed Peter Zezel&rsquo;s jersey. It was a subtle hold, the kind of interference Trottier talked about as running rampant in the NHL.Van Hellemond called a penalty. According to Trottier, van Hellemond said: &ldquo;You want me to call everything, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;After the game, van Hellemond questioned Trottier&rsquo;s forum. &ldquo;We respect where he&rsquo;s coming from,&rdquo; Andy Van said. &ldquo;If he approached it in the right way, it could have been more constructive. Why wasn&rsquo;t this brought up in a meeting in Quebec (at Rendez-vous &rsquo;87), when maybe it could have been discussed? Is this going to change anything? We had a conference call (Feb. 16), all the refs. If he had done this in a positive way, by notifying us, maybe we could have discussed this. It would have been the perfect time.&rdquo;Van Hellemond acknowledged Trottier&rsquo;s beef that the game is slower than it was two to four years ago, and said the NHL is breaking some younger officials into its system.Trottier was the subject of a lively discussion on that night&rsquo;s Islander telecast. Commentators Jiggs McDonald and Eddie Westfall wondered aloud if Trottier had considered the ramifications of such a story, of how it might affect their games as they try to make the playoffs.Trottier had become the eye of a storm.&ldquo;You just love this, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; he said to me.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s your show,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;Sure it&rsquo;s great copy, but remember this was all your idea. You came to me.&rdquo;If he hadn&rsquo;t already, Trottier was about to learn that in the writing business your comments stand naked for all to see and react to.You get to take one shot, the first shot. Then the stir flies.Said Islanders&rsquo; GM Bill Torrey, before NHL director of officiating John McCauley read the piece and president John Ziegler considered disciplinary action: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s flying.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0026-04

Trottier Got The First Shot, Now Others Will Get Theirs

Brian Boucher loves playing net. The nine-year-old hails from Woonsocket, R.I., home of the highly-ranked Mt. St. Charles Mounties high school team.Brian, now in his first season with the squirt A Woonsocket North Stars, earned three assists and had a goals-against average of 1.25 last year. He was named No. 1 goalie in the state, in his age group, for his efforts.The 4-foot-6, 76-pounder is an A student in Grade 4 classes at East Woonsocket School. He&rsquo;s in his fifth year of organized hockey, all with teams in the Woonsocket North Stars chain.Brian&rsquo;s coaches are Jeff and John Robitaille.In the off-season, he enjoys baseball, golf and summer hockey for the Central Drywall team.Brian&rsquo;s favorite National Hockey League team is the Montreal Canadiens and his favorite player is their goalie, Patrick Roy.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02450/5432825-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="557" height="1007"><figcaption class="caption-body">BRIAN BOUCHER</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0028-02

PLAYER OF WEEK TITAN JOFA

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-03323/5432856-1-eng-US/f0028-032.jpg" title="f0028-03" width="704" height="1041"><figcaption class="caption-body">Michel Goulet learned to play hockey with his seven brothers, on a pond near the family farm.</figcaption></div>The hero of Scott Young&rsquo;s juvenile classic Scrubs on Skates, a hardworking but awkward high school defenseman, would rise at the crack of dawn every morning to practise skating&mdash;alone&mdash;at the local rink.We don&rsquo;t know if that kind of dedication turned Bill Spunska into a pro, but it sure helped Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; star left winger Michel Goulet.&ldquo;When I was a midget (in Mistassini, Que.),&rdquo; Goulet confesses, &ldquo;I stole the key to the arena and went to skate by myself at 5 or 6 o&rsquo;clock in the morning. I went three or four times a week. I never did get caught.&rdquo;Today, the town fathers are probably glad of his deceit. Goulet has helped put both Mistassini and his birthplace, nearby Peribonqua, on the map.Goulet&rsquo;s roots are strong. Every summer, he visits the family farm and checks up on the progress of his restauranttavern, now in its second year.He&rsquo;s busy in the winters these days, but when he was a junior with the Quebec Remparts, he would get away the odd weekend to join his seven brothers for a game of shinny on the same pond where he learned to skate.&ldquo;I skated at around four years old,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We had a little pond beside our home and, with eight boys in the family, every time we had a chance, we were on the pond to play hockey.&rdquo;Of all the Goulet boys, only Michel and younger brother Eric, an 18-year-old goaltender for Chicoutimi in the Quebec League, followed up on the game.&ldquo;There was no organized hockey in Peribonqua,&rdquo; the four-time NHL 50-goal-scorer recalls. &ldquo;It was just &lsquo;little town against little town,&rsquo; maybe 10 or 12 games a winter.&rdquo;Goulet&rsquo;s formal hockey education didn&rsquo;t start until he was 13, when he started playing in Mistassini.&ldquo;I had very good skills in sports, really,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But in hockey, it was around midget before I started becoming better than the others around home.&rdquo;As a midget, he caught the attention of the Remparts. He started slowly (35 points in his first half-season in the Quebec League), under the tutelage of coach Ron Racette. Racette helped his dedicated pupil with shooting, skating and passing, and was rewarded the next year by Goulet&rsquo;s 72-goal, 135-point campaign.Goulet jumped to the World Hockey Association&rsquo;s Birmingham Bulls as an 18-year-old in 1978, but the league folded at season&rsquo;s end.The Nordiques, in their first NHL year (1979-80), drafted him 20th overall. Now, in 1987, Goulet is the highest-scoring left winger of all active NHLers. &#9632;

f0028-03

Secret Practices Helped Goulet

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01547/5432887-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="182" height="136"></div>VANCOUVER&mdash;Fresh on the heels of their agreement with the Soviets on the potential availability of coaches, camps and clinics, the Vancouver Canucks have even more interesting news from the Russian front.Though they may not be getting any players until the Soviets review their policy after the &rsquo;88 Olympics, Canucks&rsquo; assistant to the chairman Arthur Griffiths has been assured the first Russian players in the National Hockey League will be coming to Vancouver.Meetings in Calgary with Viaches-lav Gavrilin, vice-president of the USSR Olympic Committee and of the State Committee for sport and physical culture, led to a verbal agreement giving Vancouver the first players permitted to play in the NHL.&ldquo;I have been told that we will get the first players out of the Soviet Union to North America,&rdquo; said Griffiths. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t say for sure exactly when that will be. And it may not be (Igor) Larionov and (Vladimir) Krutov. But the door is finally opening. This is the first time in the world of arts, entertainment or sport the door to the Soviet Union has been opened this wide. I met with Mr. (Marat) Gramov (minister for sport and physical culture) in Calgary and his direct superior is (Soviet premier Mikhail) Gorbachev.&rdquo;The verbal assurance came at the same time arrangements were being made for 68-year-old visiting coach Anatoli Tarasov to have surgery in Vancouver in May.&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll be having a hip replacement surgery done here in town,&rdquo; said Griffiths &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll spend two weeks recuperating, then will go back home and come back here in September for training camp and perhaps longer. He has been receiving diet advice both here and at home, but I&rsquo;m sure he&rsquo;s ignored it for the most part. We&rsquo;re very happy with the way the Soviets have been so co-operative.&rdquo;The Canucks may even have a greater choice in guest coaches than the four names first given to coach Tom Watt&mdash;Anatoli Firsov, Alexander Yakushev, Sergei Kapustin and Viktor Shalimov. Former players Vladimir Shadrin and Valeri Vasiliev are also possibilities, but Watt feels they shouldn&rsquo;t be kept on for a full season, just for training camp.&ldquo;I think it was misunderstood when lit first came out about the coaches,&rdquo; said Watt. &ldquo;The Soviets have offered us these people. I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s a good idea for a Soviet to be an assistant in the league for a full year.&rdquo;Watt has a year left on a contract, which states assistants can be hired only by mutual agreement. Watt could veto a coach, but then, his status isn&rsquo;t exactly rock solid with his club in the NHL basement.The increasingly good relationship between the Canucks and the Soviets is meeting the approval of soon-to-be president and general manger Pat Quinn as well.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not exactly familiar with all that&rsquo;s gone on, but the inroads they seem to be making sound really exciting,&rdquo; said Quinn. &ldquo;Any time you get a chance to improve yourself with education, you&rsquo;re crazy to turn your back on it. Even if it&rsquo;s only an exchange in training methods and philosophy, it would be helpful. And if it leads to two or three players coming out down the road, so much the better.&rdquo;Presumably, the Soviets will advise the Canucks which players to draft to assure the club of obtaining their NHL rights.VAN LINES&mdash;Since scoring 17 goals in his first 23 games, Petri Skriko had gone into a prolonged slump. He had just four goals in his last 32 games, though he was still generating a lot of excellent opportunities. Michel Petit suffered badly-strained knee ligaments when hit by Herb Raglan of the Blues. He will be lost to the Canucks for four to six weeks. &#9632;

f0029-01

Vancouver Promised First Soviet Players

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02380/5432918-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="180" height="139"></div>NEW YORK&mdash;Poddubny. It is a name with a sound that rumbles off the lips like a bowling ball bouncing down a flight of stairs. It is a name you remember.This season, it is much easier to match the name with the face and the skills. Walt Poddubny is playing memorably spectacular hockey for the New York Rangers.The 27-year-old center&mdash;yes, that&rsquo;s center, not left winger&mdash;established the second longest point-scoring streak in Ranger history (15 games) before being stopped at Chicago on Feb. 19.Poddubny seemed a little surprised by how let down he felt following a 5-2 loss to the Blackhawks in which he had six shots on goal but no scoring points.&ldquo;Yeh, I&rsquo;m disappointed, more so than I thought I would be,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;I wanted the team record and I wanted us to keep playing well. Neither one happened.&rdquo;General manager-interim coach Phil Esposito went so far as to call the Rangers&rsquo; non-effort in Chicago &ldquo;our worst game since I started coaching&rdquo; and the level wasn&rsquo;t raised much higher the next night.Although Poddubny started a new streak by scoring his 34th goal of the season, the Rangers fell 6-3 to Ted Sator and the Buffalo Sabres on Esposito&rsquo;s 45th birthday.If not for the scoring of Poddubny and his injured linemate, Tomas Sandstrom (fractured right ankle), the Rangers would have fallen out of the race for a Patrick Division playoff spot long ago.The Aug. 18 acquisition of Poddubny (for Mike Allison) stands as Esposito&rsquo;s most spectacular success of his rookie year.Assistant coach Wayne Cashman says that Esposito&rsquo;s oft-repeated credo of turning the &ldquo;positives into negatives&rdquo; is a lot more than just talk.&ldquo;I remember talking to Phil about Poddubny before he made the deal and he saw something of himself in the guy,&rdquo; said Cashman. &ldquo;He knew that Walt would be more productive as a center than as a left wing (where he had played for Toronto).&ldquo;Their styles are a little different, but he saw that quality Walt has when a guy tries to rub him out along the boards, the way he keeps going.&rdquo;Poddubny, a center in junior hockey and throughout most of his minorleague career, had always felt that he was out of position as a left winger but the Leafs wanted to utilize his size (6-foot-l, 205-pounds) and big slap shot there.While the folks in Toronto may be shocked that Poddubny is heading toward a 40-goal season, he actually had one last season (28 goals in 37 games for St. Catharines of the American League, and 12 goals in 33 games for the Leafs).&ldquo;The only thing I can use to explain my success here,&rdquo; Poddubny notes, &ldquo;is that I&rsquo;m having fun playing center and they&rsquo;re letting me go out and do my stuff.&rdquo;Just as important, Podduby has avoided the kind of serious injuries which helped to limit him to less than 40 National Hockey League games in each of the previous three seasons. With the Rangers, he has played through a number of injuries, including a broken thumb, and has already surpassed Mike Ridley&rsquo;s team-leading point total (65) of last season.Poddubny: The player has become as unique as his name.BIG APPLESAUCE&mdash;When Troy Murray and company stopped Walt Poddubny&rsquo;s streak at 15, it left Mike Rogers with the all-time best Ranger streak of 16 games, set from Feb. 14 (Poddubny&rsquo;s 22nd birthday) to March 20, 1982 (three days after Poddubny&rsquo;s first NHL goal). During Poddubny&rsquo;s 15-game streak, he collected 12 goals and eight assists for 20 points&hellip;Phil Esposito sent defenseman Brad Maxwell to Minnesota for future considerations after he played only nine games for the Rangers. &#9632;

f0029-02

Poddubny Rolls Along As Top Gun

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KANE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02400/5432949-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="586" height="853"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brett Hull is learning the defensive side of the game to complement his big shot.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01573/5432956-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="177" height="137"></div>MONCTON, N.B.&mdash;The longest goal-scoring streak in the American League this season belongs to an outgoing, blond, muscled winger named Hull.In some ways, he&rsquo;s a chip off the old Golden Jet. This model, however, is known as the Golden Brett.The son of Bobby and the nephew of Dennis, Brett Hull has been riding a wave of success with the Moncton Golden Flames. He scored goals in 10 straight games, three shy of Daryl Evans&rsquo; league record. During the streak, he counted 14 goals. And in the 18 games since Jan. 7&mdash;when he returned to Moncton after playing in the Calgary Cup with Team USA and in the National Hockey League with the parent Calgary Flames&mdash;he had 18 goals and 28 points.While scoring goals is nothing new for the 22-year-old Hull (he had 52 last season during his sophomore season at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and 105 in 56 junior games with Penticton, B.C. three years ago), success in the American League came neither quickly nor easily.He struggled in the first few months of the season, was benched by Moncton coach Terry Crisp, and did not hit his stride until Calgary sent him back to the AHL.&ldquo;He realized just how hard you have to work when you are down here, to make the adjustment to go back up and to get that chance to go back up,&rdquo; Moncton forward Doug Kostynski said.&ldquo;Since he&rsquo;s come back, that&rsquo;s what he&rsquo;s done. He&rsquo;s stayed out extra in practice. He&rsquo;s been out early and he&rsquo;s been the last off. He&rsquo;s been a great leader, both for producing on the ice and off the ice.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t say it was night and day; but in the beginning you could see the talent and it just wasn&rsquo;t coming out. That was strictly through the work ethic. Now it&rsquo;s there. You know the old cliche, &lsquo;What you do in practice you do in games,&rsquo; and that&rsquo;s exactly what he&rsquo;s doing.&rdquo;More than anyone else, Crisp has been personally involved in the development of the former college star.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a happy-go-lucky, humorous kid,&rdquo; Crisp said. &ldquo;He has a good sense of humor and enjoys life, which is great. He&rsquo;s learning now that you can keep that&hellip;but there is also a time when professional hockey is a living for himself and also for some of the men he is playing with, who have families.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no such thing as going out there to have fun all of the time, without some work involved. What he&rsquo;s learned now is that it&rsquo;s a job and a responsibility.&rdquo;Physically and facially, Brett Hull resembles his father. He also wears the famous number nine. The differences are there, though. Starting from the top down: more hair, a right-handed shot, considerably less speed on skates.But the shot&hellip;well, it must be hereditary.&ldquo;No matter where he is in the slot,&rdquo; said linemate Randy Burridge, &ldquo;when I get him the puck he gets a good shot off. He&rsquo;s got a super shot. He gets it off so quick. It&rsquo;s in his skates, it&rsquo;s on his stick, at the net.&rdquo;Despite the good marks he received in his two seasons of college hockey, Hull found he was not a complete hockey player.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve learned that there&rsquo;s more to the game than just offense,&rdquo; Hull said, &ldquo;but you can&rsquo;t forget about offense and just worry about the defense, or the offense won&rsquo;t come.&rdquo;The coach has noticed an improvement.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s getting better defensively,&rdquo; Crisp said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s picking up his man, coming back, learning our system.&rdquo;The decision to turn pro before his graduating class was not difficult. After Minnesota-Duluth was knocked out of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs, he signed with the Flames, who drafted him in the sixth round in 1984. and played in two Stanley Cup playoff games.&ldquo;It comes down to whether I thought I could play in the NHL,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I thought I could. I didn&rsquo;t think I had anything else I could do in college. I had 52 goals and I said, &lsquo;I just don&rsquo;t think there is much more I want to do besides move up into the pros.&rsquo;&rdquo;Like his father before him.&ldquo;When I came in I said, &lsquo;I want to do so well because I&rsquo;ve got a big name to carry.&rsquo; I tried to tell myself that it wasn&rsquo;t that important, but it was. To me it was. It really hurt my ego when I was sent down. It was really tough adjusting to the minors.&rdquo;With Crisp alternately leading and pushing, Hull has made progress, especially in the last two months.&ldquo;I told him that once he stopped hearing me he would know I didn&rsquo;t care anymore,&rdquo; Crisp said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been pretty hard on him. He hasn&rsquo;t faltered.&rdquo;AROUND THE DIVISION&mdash;Detroit recalled Dale Krentz from Adirondack to replace Bob Probert. That left the Wings with eight forwards, including Ali Butorac, a defenseman/forward obtained from Flint of the 1HL. Less than 24 hours after Moncton battered the Wings 8-2, Adirondack goaltender Sam St. Laurent blanked Springfield 6-0&hellip;New Jersey recalled Uli Heimer and Perry Anderson from Maine&hellip;Adirondack forward Glenn Merkosky continued his torrid goalscoring pace, picking up his 44th goal in the Wings&rsquo; 55th game&hellip;Fredericton picked up defenseman Dwayne Boettger from Milwaukee of the IHL&hellip;A punctured lung may keep Nova Scotia forward Jim Camazzola out of action until the end of the regular season. Edmonton sent Marty McSorley to Nova Scotia for a conditioning stint. &#9632;

f0031-02

The Minors

Big Shooter Hull Shoots For Calgary Flames

<div class="byline">BY PAUL ABRAMOWITZ</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-03295/5432987-1-eng-US/f0031-032.jpg" title="f0031-03" width="178" height="135"></div>NEWMARKET, Ont.&mdash;There are several reasons why the Newmarket Saints have been in or near the American League&rsquo;s Southern Division cellar since Christmas.But goaltending, especially the play of rookie Jeff Reese, isn&rsquo;t one of them.&ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s been our MVP so far,&rdquo; said first-year Saint coach Paul Gardner. &ldquo;Goaltending has been our strong point. Without the goaltending. I&rsquo;m not sure where we&rsquo;d be.&rdquo;You mean it could be worse?With 22 games remaining, the Saints were last in the South, 12 points out of a playoff spot. They had the league&rsquo;s worst record, and their 23 wins would be sliced to 15 if it were not for shootouts.Their lineup has-been decimated by injuries, recalls and trades by the Toronto Maple Leafs. And, they&rsquo;d scored the league&rsquo;s fewest goals, more than 20 behind the next-to-worst offense.Yet, the goaltending had been respectable. in their 23 wins, they&rsquo;d allowed more than three goals just twice.Reese, Toronto&rsquo;s fourth-round pick in 1984, had 14 of the wins.&ldquo;It has been tough,&rdquo; said Reese, who had a 5-1 record in shootouts. &ldquo;We have gone through the worst times now and I think it&rsquo;s good for me because now I get a lot of shots.&ldquo;With a lot of shots comes more and more experience, and I hope it&rsquo;s only going to pay off in the future.&rdquo;Reese&rsquo;s pro debut was a success, a 3-2 shootout win at Baltimore, in the Saints&rsquo; third game of the season. But like any goalie on a last-place team, he&rsquo;s had his good and bad days.Reese&rsquo;s goals-against average was 3.81, but he&rsquo;d faced almost 34 shots a game and posted an impressive .889 save percentage.&ldquo;Toronto has been really good with me,&rdquo; Reese said. &ldquo;They made it clear where I was going to play this season right from the start.&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve done nothing to ruin my confidence. They&rsquo;ve done everything by the book. They started me on the road and I think it could be another year in the minors. They&rsquo;re doing everything to really get me prepared for the NHL.&rdquo;Reese was put to a quick test in his pro career, when veteran Tim Bernhardt was sidelined for almost a month with a pulled groin muscle. That left the goaltending chores solely on his shoulders.Reese&rsquo;s goaltending idols were Bernie Parent and Pelle Lindbergh, but Gardner is reminded of another young goalie when he watches Reese.&ldquo;I see a lot of similarities between him and Peter Sidorkiewicz in Binghamton,&rdquo; said Gardner, the Whalers&rsquo; captain during Sidorkiewicz&rsquo;s rookie season three years ago. &ldquo;Both are hard-working guys who constantly want to improve. They never seem happy with their game and always feel that they can play better.&rdquo;How does Reese feel about being compared to Sidorkiewicz?&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take that as a compliment,&rdquo; Reese said. &ldquo;I think Peter is the best goalie in this league. I like his style. He makes everything look easy.&rdquo;Reese hasn&rsquo;t mastered that just yet. He&rsquo;s still learning how to handle the puck effectively with his stick, something he was never taught in junior. Bernhardt and Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bower, a Toronto scout, have helped Reese&rsquo;s progress.&ldquo;When I first came into this league I really didn&rsquo;t know if I was ready for the NHL,&rdquo; Reese said. &ldquo;I was really worried about it when I saw the speed of play in camp.&ldquo;Then I got here and I wondered if I could play in this league. But now I know I can, and I feel I&rsquo;ll be able to play in the NHL once the opportunity comes.&rdquo;AROUND THE SOUTH&mdash;The Binghamton Whalers&rsquo; home game with Nova Scotia on Friday, Feb. 13 was suspended with the Whalers leading 4-1 at 13:04 of the second period, when a major power failure darkened the Broome County Arena. The game was resumed three nights later and the Whalers won 7-4&hellip;Springfield&rsquo;s Tim Coulis injured his knee after being checked by Rochester&rsquo;s Jim Hofford Feb. 14 and will probably miss the rest of the season&hellip;Dave Gans rejoined the Hershey Bears after spending a short time playing in Switzerland. Gans started the season in New Haven, then went over to Europe around Christmas. Gans played on the Bears&rsquo; Southern Division championship team last season&hellip;Baltimore goalie Steve Guenette was the Skipjacks&rsquo; player of the month for January. He was 5-1-3 with a superb 2.56 goals-against average. &#9632;

f0031-03

Saints Preserved By Efforts Of Freshman Goalie Reese

<div class="byline">BY BILL PICKETT</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01604/5433018-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="158" height="140"></div>INDIANAPOLIS&mdash;Every game is a &ldquo;key game&rdquo; at this point in the Inter-national League season&mdash;at least, according to the coaches.The Indianapolis Checkers and Milwaukee Admirals hooked up in such a contest Feb. 17 in Indy.Before the game. Checker coach Ron Ullyot observed, &ldquo;We have six games left against Milwaukee and five against Fort Wayne. These are key games in our own division, they&rsquo;re four-point games. And if we&rsquo;re going to finish first (in the West Division), we&rsquo;ve got to win most of them.&rdquo;To Admiral coach Phil Wittliff, the game held just as much significance. His team was in third place, just a point behind Indianapolis and six behind division leader Fort Wayne.Milwaukee had beaten the Checkers two days earlier, 7-6 in a shootout, and the Admirals were looking at games on successive nights in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.Milwaukee had won three of its last four games and was on the move upward with nine victories in its last dozen outings.The Admirals were slowed by the Checkers, however. They lost 5-2 on a night when they displayed little offensive spark.Wittliff left no doubt how he felt about the game. &ldquo;It was the biggest game of the year for us and we came up flatter than a pancake.&rdquo; he fumed.The Checkers&rsquo; boss, of course, saw things differently. &ldquo;We played good solid defense, we didn&rsquo;t give them too many second chances in front of the goal,&rdquo; said Ullyot, who hasn&rsquo;t been able to make a statement like that too often this season.The Checkers led the league in offense, but they also had given up the most goals.Ullyot was happy to put some breathing room between his team and the Admirals. &ldquo;But they have the home advantage the rest of the way,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We play there four times; they come back here just once.&rdquo;It was just a coincidence, perhaps, that a player, sought by both coaches before the season started, played a big part in the Indianapolis victory.Center Ron Handy scored two goals, his 38th and 39th of the year, to add to his league-leading scoring total. Wittliff had tried to sign the free agent over the summer, but lost out to Ullyot and the Checkers.&ldquo;The big reason is that Ron&rsquo;s wife is from Indianapolis and he decided he would play there.&rdquo; Wittliff said. &ldquo;But we wanted him and we still would like to have him.&rdquo;He&rsquo;ll be tough to get.When Handy counted a goal and three assists in the shootout loss at Milwaukee, he surpassed the former Indianapolis Checker scoring mark of 98 points set by Red Laurence in 1981-82, and matched the next season by Laurence with the same figures (43 goals, 55 assists).After his two goals Feb. 17, Handy had 103 points. His 64 assists, also best in the IHL this season, were one shy of Charlie Skjodt&rsquo;s franchise mark set last season.<blockquote class="pullQuote">Ron Handy has been a handy guy to have around in Indianapolis.</blockquote>Handy earlier had set a team record of five unassisted goals. The old mark of four had been shared by three players.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to have the record,&rdquo; said Handy, who was not re-signed by the New York Islanders after last season. &ldquo;But the important thing is that we have to get in the best position possible to go as far in the playoffs as we can. That&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re trying to do.&rdquo;Handy, incidentally, was selected offensive player of the week for the period ending Feb. 16. the third time he had been singled out this season.The Admirals, meanwhile, headed for Fort Wayne where they faced yet another &ldquo;key game.&rdquo;They had to play on Komet ice, where coach Rob Laird&rsquo;s team had won its 14th straight game to tie an IHL record. Cincinnati, in the mid-1950s, established the record for consecutive victories on home ice.Just 11 points separated four of the five teams in the West. Peoria, slowed by injuries and recalls by St. Louis, was a distant fifth.Things were even closer in the East Division, where Muskegon won three of four games during the week. Only three points separated Flint (60 points), Kalamazoo (59) and Muskegon (56). Saginaw continued to lead the division, and the IHL overall, with 69 points.I-LITES&mdash;Hat-tricks for the week were scored by Scott Gruhl of Muskegon. Michel Mongeau of Saginaw and George Servinis of Indianapolis-&hellip;Defensive player of the week was goaltender Darren Pang of Saginaw. He was in goal for all three Generals&rsquo; victories&mdash;a 5-4 shootout win over Kalamazoo; 7-3 decision over Fort Wayne and 6-4 triumph over Muskegon. &#9632;

f0032-01

Key Games Opening Doors In IHL West

<div class="byline">BY VIRG FOSS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01540/5433049-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="573" height="138"></div>MARQUETTE, Mich.&mdash;Just how good Northern Michigan could have been this season, nobody will ever know.The Wildcats, beset by injury problems all year, still went into the final weekend of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association with a valid shot at finishing in the first division.That&rsquo;s not bad for a team that has had players miss a total of 130 mangames because of injuries.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;We haven&rsquo;t had a horrible year.&rsquo; &mdash;Comley</blockquote>&ldquo;We never really got it going this year, so I don&rsquo;t know how good we could have been,&rdquo; coach Rick Comley said. &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t had a horrible year, but we haven&rsquo;t had a great year, either.&rdquo;What has hurt most of all is that the big line of Gary Emmons, Joe West and Ralph Vos has hardly been together at all because of injuries.Emmons, Northern Michigan&rsquo;s Hobey Baker Award candidate, has played in 32 of Northern Michigan&rsquo;s 36 games, but at less than full tilt for much of that time because of shoulder problems. Even so, his total of 64 points was easily tops on the club and near the top of league scoring.West, who was third in team scoring after 15 games with 23 points, is no longer on the team. He was dismissed after a conflict between himself and Comley. And Vos&rsquo; contribution has been limited to 16 points in 16 games, because of continuing shoulder problems.&ldquo;You look at Emmons&rsquo; statistics,&rdquo; Comley said, &ldquo;and see he has 27 goals in league play, compared to 45 a year ago. But he&rsquo;s playing as well or better than last year.&ldquo;You look at North Dakota and Tony Hrkac has Bob Joyce on his line. At Wisconsin, Tony Granato has Paul Ranheim.&rdquo; Granato and Hrkac are both top Hobey Baker candidates.&ldquo;Emmons hasn&rsquo;t had that luxury this year,&rdquo; Comley said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s had to get it done by himself.&rdquo;What has kept the Wildcats respectable is the play of goaltenders Mike Jeffrey and Dennis Jiannaras, who are both flirting with save percentages around the .900 mark after recovering from slow starts.&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been the most consistent part of our game,&rdquo; Comley said.Because of injuries and the departure of West, the Wildcats have been forced to play as many as nine freshmen at times. And freshmen are never the foundation of a winner in the WCHA.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re a good group,&rdquo; Comley said, &ldquo;but they&rsquo;re being asked to contribute like upperclassmen, and that&rsquo;s a lot to ask.Northern Michigan has not put together a long winning streak all season, unlike league champion North Dakota, which won its first eight to open the season and had won its last 14.The Wildcats had won three straight league games only twice, but they&rsquo;d also averted lengthy skids. Only once had Northern Michigan lost as many as three games in a row. It&rsquo;s that kind of play that has kept Northern Michigan hovering around the .500 mark all season.What has also helped Northern Michigan is an ability to win in overtime. The Wildcats were 5-1 in overtime contests, including 4-0 in WCHA games. That has enabled the Wildcats to stay among the leaders.WCHA NOTES&mdash;North Dakota&rsquo;s 30 wins in 36 games marks the fifth time in Gino Gasparini&rsquo;s nine years as head coach that the Sioux have won 30 or more&hellip;For the fifth consecutive year, Wisconsin coach Jeff Sauer has skipped the team to 20 wins or more-&hellip;Minnesota tops the WCHA in bodies once again. The Gophers have had 30 players in two or more games this season, and 28 of them have one or more points. &#9632;

f0033-01

The Colleges

NMU Wildcats Could Have Been Contenders

<div class="byline">BY BILL CRAWFORD</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-02384/5433080-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="180" height="138"></div>DETROIT&mdash;It&rsquo;s usually an easy matter to predict the playoff champion of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.Heading into the first round, you just pick the first-place team, or maybe the second-place outfit, and let it go at that. You tab Michigan State or Bowling Green and go with the odds.But this season is not &ldquo;usual.&rdquo;Sure, Bowling Green and Michigan State are right at the top of the heap. That was expected. But this year there are others who can upset any apple cart.This season, even the seventh-place finisher has a chance of pulling the ultimate upset and replacing a favorite at Joe Louis Arena, site of both the CCHA Final Four and the national championship Final Four.Heading into games on Feb. 20, only Lake Superior State knew for sure which playoff spot it would hold.After LSSC clinched third place by stunning Michigan State with a sweep Feb. 13-14, Bowling Green resurfaced as No. 1, a point ahead of MSU. Western Michigan and Illinois-Chicago were battling for fourth, with two games to play and the Flames three points up.Michigan and Ohio State were vying for sixth and seventh, while Ferris State had a four-point lead over Miami in the dash for the final playoff berth.In the playoffs, you can usually favor the home team heavily, but not this season.For instance, whomever Michigan meets, MSU or Lake Superior, the home team will be hard-pressed to advance to Joe Louis. Michigan, a vastly-improved club in the second half, is capable of upsetting anybody in the first round. The Wolverines are playing with such confidence, they&rsquo;re downright scary.And don&rsquo;t count out Illinois-Chicago; the Flames are the surprise of the season.Chicago&rsquo;s problem is that it will likely play host to fifth-place Western Michigan, a team with savvy and strong playoff aspirations. The Broncos are the defending playoff champs and play very well at Joe Louis Arena. They knocked off MSU here last season and beat the Spartans again this year in the holiday Great Lakes Invitational.Still, look for BG and MSU here March 6 and 7, at the CCHA Final Four. The others? Throw a few names in the hat.CCHATTER&mdash;Lake Superior State&rsquo;s Mark Vermette became his team&rsquo;s first CCHA player of the week this season, scoring three goals and assisting on another during the surprise sweep at MSU. The Spartans hadn&rsquo;t lost both games of a home series in league play since BG turned the trick in 1983&hellip;Western&rsquo;s Wayne Gagne set an NCAA West record for the most career points by a defenseman, 233. His 69 points this season are within five of the NCAA single-season mark for rearguards&hellip;Ferris State&rsquo;s Paul Lowden set a school record for career points with 206, breaking by one the previous mark held by Jim Baker (1978-1982)&hellip;Rob Bryden of WMU scored two goals in a 6-5 OT loss to Bowling Green Feb. 14, giving him a CCHA-best 41 this season. &#9632;

f0033-02

Expect The Unexpected In Post-Season

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-03279/5433132-1-eng-US/f0033-032.jpg" title="f0033-03" width="415" height="531"></div>JON MORRISLowellHOCKEY EASTJunior center Jon Morris scored five times and figured in nine of 10 goals as the Lowell Chiefs tied Providence Friars 5-5 and defeated them 5-4.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-04219/5433125-1-eng-US/f0033-042.jpg" title="f0033-04" width="416" height="530"></div>BOB KUDELSKIYaleECACCenter Bob Kudelski scored five goals and helped set up four others as Yale tied Colgate 6-6 and edged Cornell 6-5 to climb into second place.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-05180/5433118-1-eng-US/f0033-052.jpg" title="f0033-05" width="394" height="532"></div>PAUL YSEBAERTBowling GreenCCHAThe Bowling Green Falcons rolled over Michigan twice as junior center Paul Ysebaert counted three goals and assisted on three more in the sweep.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-06150/5433111-1-eng-US/f0033-062.jpg" title="f0033-06" width="421" height="536"></div>SCOTT SCHNEIDERColoradoWCHASenior wing Scott Schneider counted a conference-record six points in one period and scored four times as Colorado College split with Denver. &#9632;

f0033-03

Bauer’s College Performer of the Week

<div class="byline">BY TOM BOGGIE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02473/5433163-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="581" height="986"><figcaption class="caption-body">Harvard goalie Dickie McEvoy earned a shutout in a 3-0 win over Cornell.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01617/5433170-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="180" height="130"></div>PRINCETON, N. J.&mdash;If the Princeton Tigers had a little consistency, they would be battling for home ice in the opening round of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Association playoffs.But, because of the collective inexperience of the Tigers, they were desperately hanging on to eighth place entering the final two weeks of the regular season.The team has unlimited potential, but it has to learn how to win.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve lost some really tough games,&rdquo; said Tiger coach Jim Higgins, after watching his team drop back-to-back, one-goal decisions to Vermont and RPI. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve lost five of the last six games&mdash;and the worst game we played was the one we won, against Dartmouth. We&rsquo;ve played some great hockey. We just haven&rsquo;t been getting goals.&rdquo;Since coming back from a three-week exam break, the Tigers were 1-5 and sinking fast. But four of those losses were by one goal and the other, a 3-1 setback to nationally-ranked Harvard, was a 2-1 game until the Crimson hit an empty net.The most frustrating loss was a 3-2 overtime decision to RPI, as the Tigers outshot the Engineers 48-25. Princeton led 2-1, until late in the game, when RPI&rsquo;s Bill Kopecky scored the tying marker with his own net empty. Freshman Brian Ferreira then gave RPI the win in overtime.The bright spot for the Tigers this season has been the play of sophomore John Messuri and freshmen Greg Polaski and Bart Blaeser. Higgins put that line together early in the year and despite its inexperience, it has carried the offensive load.Messuri, last year&rsquo;s ECAC rookie of the year, led Princeton&rsquo;s scoring with 17 goals and 20 assists, and was tied for fourth in the league. With four regular-season games and possibly two more in the playoffs, Messuri has a shot at breaking the school record for points in a season (54), established by John McBride in 1959-60.Higgins found the perfect match for Messuri in Polaski, who prepped at Loomis-Chaffee School after playing at Malden (Mass.) Catholic. Polaski, built on the same lines as Messuri (5-foot-9, 170-pounds) was second in team scoring (19-13-32) and could be Princeton&rsquo;s second straight rookie of the year.Every good line needs a digger, and that role falls to Blaeser, a 6-foot, 190-pounder from Boxford, Mass. He had picked up five goals and 15 assists for the Tigers.But like any young line, the Mes suri-Polaski-Blaeser trio has had some bad games. Because the line has accounted for almost half of Princeton&rsquo;s scoring this year, opposing teams are loading up against it.&ldquo;There have been a couple of games where that line hasn&rsquo;t played well,&rdquo; Higgins acknowledged, &ldquo;but the other lines haven&rsquo;t been scoring and that&rsquo;s the big problem.&rdquo;While the youngsters have provided the scoring, the leadership has come from senior defensemen Scott Howe and Jaimie MacPherson, two legitimate All-ECAC candidates. Following in the footsteps of All-American Cliff Abrecht, Howe and MacPherson play both ends of the ice extremely well.If there&rsquo;s one thing in Princeton&rsquo;s favor, it&rsquo;s an early-season tie with Dartmouth. That single point had allowed the Tigers to maintain a precarious hold on the eighth and final playoff spot.ECAC NOTES&mdash;St. Lawrence solidified its hold on fourth place with a sweep of Yale and Brown. The 6-3 decision over Yale was the Saints&rsquo; sixth straight win, and snapped a five-game Yale winning streak&hellip;Harvard senior Dickie McEvoy had to make only 21 saves in posting his second shutout of the season, a 3-0 win over Cornell&hellip;Vermont goalie Tom Draper has Army&rsquo;s number. Before Draper gave up a goal to Rob Brenner with 2:13 left in the Cats&rsquo; 3-1 win over the Cadets, he had blanked Army for 184 consecutive minutes. &#9632;

f0034-02

Young Line Guiding Light For The Tigers

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-04266/5433215-1-eng-US/f0034-042.jpg" title="f0034-04" width="361" height="482"></div>DON MCLAUGHLINTorontoOUAACenter Don McLaughlin set a conference record for points in a single season, winding up the year as scoring champion with 68 points in 24 games. McLaughlin had 24 goals and 44 assists for the Blues.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-05206/5433208-1-eng-US/f0034-052.jpg" title="f0034-05" width="361" height="486"></div>PAUL GEDDESCalgaryCWUAAPaul Geddes climaxed a big season with the leading Calgary Dinosaurs, winning the scoring championship with 69 points&mdash;among them 32 goals. Geddes set records for both points and goals.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-06178/5433201-1-eng-US/f0034-062.jpg" title="f0034-06" width="365" height="491"></div>TODD ANNANDAcadiaAUAAThe Acadia Axemen didn&rsquo;t make the Atlantic Conference playoffs but it didn&rsquo;t keep center Todd Annand from winning the league scoring title. Annand finished with 52 points in 25 games. &#9632;

f0034-04

Bauers University Performer of the Week

<div class="byline">BY TOM BURKE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03366/5433246-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="180" height="137"></div>BOSTON&mdash;The play that resulted in Boston University&rsquo;s overtime goal in its 1987 Beanpot championship game against Northeastern began with a cranium-crunching check by the &ldquo;new&rdquo; Scott Young.The sophomor right winger from Clinton, Mass., dashed headlong behind the net and straight into defenseman Mike McDougall, rudely separating him from the puck. The turnover resulted in Mike Kelfer&rsquo;s winning goal.Young didn&rsquo;t even receive an assist on the play even though McDougall not only surrendered the puck, but was unable to help out on the ensuing coverage in front of the net.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been looking for ways to get Scott more involved in the action, and having him hit is one way to do it,&rdquo; said coach Jack Parker. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s such a good skater, he sometimes seems to be moving around in a world by himself out there.&ldquo;But I&rsquo;m finding it impossible to bum him out. I use him on regular shifts, penalty killing, power plays&hellip;&rdquo;Young, co-rookie of the year last season in Hockey East, doesn&rsquo;t think that his style has radically changed, although he thinks he&rsquo;s playing more and more like Clark Donatelli, the pepperpot junior who&rsquo;s been his left winger for the past 16 games.&ldquo;Clark is a very physical player,&rdquo; said Young. &ldquo;And we both like to goalmouth pass. He&rsquo;s added to the speed on our line and we like to race and beat the defensemen to the crease.&rdquo;Since Parker took Donatelli off the John Cullen-Ed Lowney line and put him with Young and Kelfer, the trio had 25 goals and 38 assists in 16 games. BU&rsquo;s record in that span was 9-5-2, significantly better than the 6-71 slate before the shuffle.Young, a first-round draft choice of Hartford last summer, was a member of Team USA at the World Junior Championships in Czechoslovakia, where he was named to the alltournament team, along with Boston College&rsquo;s Brian Leetch.Kelfer, like his linemates a good candidate for next year&rsquo;s U.S. Olympic team, was Young&rsquo;s center in Prague. The two have been paired together since they came to BU, and before that in minor hockey.The emergence of freshman left winger Mike Sullivan, reolacing Donatelli on the Cullen line, has given the Terriers two dangerous units. BU will finish in fourth place in Hockey East and will, in all likelihood, be paired with BC in the playoff semifinal round at Boston Garden.The key to their post-season hopes will probably be the third line of Eric Labrosse, Jeff Sveen, and Scott Sanders, a sometimes-brilliant, some-times-invisible trio. When they&rsquo;re playing well, they tum a pretty good team into a very good one.HOCKEY EAST NOTES&mdash;The conference had 14 games in the first two weeks of February. Of those, eight went into overtime, including a pair BU&rsquo;s Mike Sullivan settled with overtime goals against Providence&hellip; BC all but mathematically clinched its third straight pennant with a sweep over Maine, 6-5 in overtime and 6-3. In the OT game, Craig Janney scored with just 18 seconds remaining&hellip;Coupled with Maine&rsquo;s two losses was a sweep by Lowell over Northeastern, 5-4 (OT) and 7-4. The sweep put Lowell into a second-place tie on points with Maine, but the Chiefs had six games remaining to Maine&rsquo;s four. Lowell coach Bill Riley festooned his locker room with newspaper stories which quoted Maine coach Shawn Walsh as saying that BC and Maine were Hockey East&rsquo;s two best teams. &#9632;

f0034-03

Realignment Of Top Units Boon To Boston University

<div class="byline">BY HELEN DOLIK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01582/5433277-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="576" height="143"></div>EDMONTON&mdash;All is not quiet on the Western front.The Alberta Golden Bears created an uproar in the Canada West University Athletic Association when they uprooted themselves from the conference playoffs.Instead, they&rsquo;re representing Canada at the World University Winter Games, Feb. 21-28, in Poprad, Czech. The offer was just too tempting for the defending national champions to refuse.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d be tempted to go,&rdquo; said George Kingston, coach of the No. I-ranked Calgary Dinosaurs. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t have to worry about a berth in the nationals, and you get to take your team on this fantastic trip.&ldquo;If I had a berth, sure I&rsquo;d consider that. In the meantime, the rest of us beat up on each other.&rdquo;There&rsquo;s the rub.The Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union championship is set for March 18 to 22 in Edmonton and, as host team, the Golden Bears are automatically included. The Bears finished second to Calgary in Canada West, with Manitoba Bisons third and Saskatchewan fourth.Normally, the No. 1 team faces the No. 4 team, and No. 2 plays No. 3. The winners meet for the Canada West championship March 6 to 8.The Bears have chosen not to be there. They would have battled Manitoba in the first round of the playoffs, but decided to take on the likes of the Soviet Union, China and South Korea.Alberta&rsquo;s decision opened the playoff door for the No. 5 finishers, the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds. Ordinarily, the Thunderbirds would not have made the cut.Canada West members agreed to rearrange the regular-season schedule so the Golden Bears could finish their regular-season commitments a week and a half early for the trip to Czechoslovakia&mdash;even though it meant the Regina Cougars had to play six games in nine nights. But they stopped short of changing playoff dates to accommodate the Bears.To be able to compete in both events, U of A proposed delaying the playoff schedule one week. That meant the Canada West final would be played March 14 and 15. Since the nationals begin March 18, that would have allowed just minimal breathing room between the two events.The proposal was turned down unanimously, and Alberta opted to skip the Canada West playoffs. All of this was done with the CIAU&rsquo;s blessing. The national body made a &ldquo;semicommitment,&rdquo; in the words of executive vice-president Bob Pugh, to send a team to the games. Alberta&rsquo;s appearance exposes Canadian university hockey and allows Canadians to participate in a major international competition.&ldquo;They (the Bears) are probably thinking they&rsquo;re doing somebody a favor,&rdquo; Pugh said, &ldquo;and then they&rsquo;re being called the bad guys.&rdquo;Alberta&rsquo;s director of men&rsquo;s athletics, Jim Donlevy, described the issue as &ldquo;complex.&rdquo; The ClAU had initially asked a team of Quebec university allstars to compete at the games, but that idea fell through.As national champions, the Bears were approached. Funding couldn&rsquo;t be arranged, however, until late January&mdash;after the playoff schedule was carved in stone.&ldquo;At the 11 th hour.&rdquo; Donlevy explained, &ldquo;the students&rsquo; union came up with a $20,000 grant.&ldquo;Once we got caught on the horns of a dilemmma, we felt we really had no choice&mdash;because we felt we couldn&rsquo;t fly in the face of our student union, which had raised this money.&rdquo;More importantly, Donlevy said, &ldquo;the Czechoslovakians really wanted a Canadian team there.&rdquo; After the junior brawl in Piestany, international university officials felt it would be a sign of goodwill by Canada.And since Quebec City and Calgary had previously expressed interest in bidding for the 1991 World University Winter Games, it was felt that a Canadian hockey team should go to the 1987 Games.Still, the Bears&rsquo; decision was dominated by its assurance of a hostteam berth in the CIAU finals.&ldquo;If we hadn&rsquo;t had a bye into the national finals,&rdquo; Donlevy said, &ldquo;we would never have entertained the idea of going to the Games.&rdquo;The situation has created strained relations between Alberta and Calgary.&ldquo;We have opposed any changes in the playoff structure from the beginning,&rdquo; said Dr. Robert Corran, Calgary&rsquo;s athletic director, &ldquo;and we have been the most vocal in lack of support for the concept. We don&rsquo;t apologize at all.&rdquo;While Corran recognized the benefits to Alberta&rsquo;s trip, he argued the league also suffers a loss of credibility.&ldquo;I think that that is the opinion of the rest of the conference,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They are saying the conference is not all that important, and that&rsquo;s bothersome.&rdquo;Alberta competed in the 1981 Winter Games in Spain, but had finished out of the playoffs that year. &#9632;

f0035-01

Bears Skip Playoffs For Tourney In Europe

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0036-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01557/5433308-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0036-01

Bauer College Scoreboard

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-03270/5433391-1-eng-US/f0037-032.jpg" title="f0037-03" width="362" height="463"></div>GUY LAROSEOttawaONTARIO LEAGUEThe Ottawa 67s have gone from last in 1985-86 to near first place this season and one of the factors in their meteoric rise has been Guy Larose.The 1985 Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; draft pick was named OHL Player of the Week after he counted 10 points in three games, to increase his point total to 63 this season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-04223/5433384-1-eng-US/f0037-042.jpg" title="f0037-04" width="363" height="464"></div>RON SHUDRAKamloopsWESTERN LEAGUEThe Kamloops Blazers are the most powerful club in the Western League and it&rsquo;s all because of players like Ron Shudra.The six-foot, 180-pounder, drafted by Edmonton in 1986, was selected WHL Player of the Week after collecting 18 points in four games&mdash;among them a sevenpoint outing.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-05194/5433377-1-eng-US/f0037-052.jpg" title="f0037-05" width="359" height="458"></div>DENIS PAULShawiniganQUEBEC LEAGUEDenis Paul is living proof that good things often come in small packages.The 5-foot-8, 175-pound Shawinigan left winger got the nod as QMJHL Player of the Week after he picked up 10 points in three games. A 14-game consecutive goalscoring streak recently came to an end for Paul.At the end of the current season, THE HOCKEY NEWS will select a Micron Junior Player of the Year. &#9632;

f0037-03

MICRON JUNIOR PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

<div class="byline">BY BEN KUZMA</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02441/5433422-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg" title="f0038-02" width="585" height="956"><figcaption class="caption-body">Chris Joseph has been one of the few bright spots in a dismal Seattle season.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01563/5433429-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="178" height="137"></div>SEATTLE&mdash;Excuse Chris Joseph if he feels a little dizzy this Western League season. The highly-touted Seattle Thunderbirds&rsquo; defenseman has had more ups and downs than a pogo stick.The 6-foot-2, 200-pound mainstay of the Seattle blue line has commanded a lot of attention from the scouting fraternity. But the 1986-87 campaign will be remembered as one of both happiness and heartache for the 17-year-old Burnaby, B.C. native.Consider:&bull; Joseph was recently ranked third overall for the annual National Hockey League entry draft, behind Pierre Turgeon of the Granby Bisons and Brendan Shanahan of the London Knights.&bull; The Thunderbirds, expected to improve this season, were mired in last place in the Western Division with a 15-41-2 mark.&bull; Joseph beat the odds and made-Canada&rsquo;s national team for the World Junior Championships in Czechoslovakia.&bull; The Canadian team was both praised and rebuked for the Jan. 4 bench-clearing brawl with the Soviets.&bull; Joseph returned to Seattle to find coach Dan McDonald had resigned and been replaced by Jim Dobson.&bull; The International Ice Hockey Federation proposed that those involved in the Soviet-Canada brawl be banned from international competition for three years.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s kind of been a roller coaster a lot of the year,&rdquo; Joseph said. &ldquo;Making the national team was an up, the decision after the brawl was a down, the draft is an up and the way we (T-Birds) are going is a down.&rdquo;That has made it hard for Joseph to concentrate on the task at hand&mdash;winning hockey games. But with the Thunderbirds out of playoff contention, Joseph knows it&rsquo;s already &ldquo;next year&rdquo; for the T-Birds. All he can strive for is steady play to keep his high perch on the prospect list.&ldquo;Things started bad this season,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and we had some key injures. But losing sort of becomes a habit. The more you lose, the harder it gets to win. The attitude is not always positive.&ldquo;The players aren&rsquo;t always expecting to win. It&rsquo;s tough with a new coach too. This is the sixth one we&rsquo;ve had in two years. It&rsquo;s tough for the coach and tough for the players, too.&rdquo;What has made it especially tough for Joseph and his teammates is the wheeling and dealing Seattle has done in building for the future.Gone are snipers Craig Endean (Regina) and Brent Fedyk (Portland), along with defenseman Jamie Huscroft (Medicine Hat).&ldquo;You always hearthat &lsquo;we&rsquo;re building for the future&rsquo; every year,&rdquo; Joseph said.&ldquo;I think we have to look closer at the player list and get some better players, better all-around both offensively and defensively. It&rsquo;s tough to say what our biggest problem is. I wouldn&rsquo;t want to be the coach.&ldquo;A lot of time we have the play in the other team&rsquo;s end and we can&rsquo;t score. We outshot Victoria 56-28 and lost 7-6.&rdquo;Still, there are plenty of positives for Joseph.The draft, that pot of gold at the end of every junior player&rsquo;s rainbow, has kept him going.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m still trying to concentrate on our remaining games,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but it (the draft) is getting closer. I was a little surprised I was rated that high but I worked hard in the off-season.&rdquo;It has shown. After collecting just 12 points last season, he had 45 after 53 games this year.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s done a lot for a weak team,&rdquo; said the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; chief Western Canada scout, Bruce Haralson. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an excellent skater with pretty good offensive skills. He&rsquo;s getting better all the time.&rdquo;Joseph said he realizes there&rsquo;s still a glaring weakness in his game.&ldquo;I like to rush and skate with the puck, but if I have a weak point it&rsquo;s the rough, tough play. I need to get more physical.&rdquo;Joseph got a taste of that at the World Championships.&ldquo;Nobody expected a brawl but we knew they (Soviets) were a chippy team,&rdquo; said Joseph. &ldquo;Coach (Bert Templeton) said we might have to take a lot of stuff but it just kept getting worse and worse.&ldquo;I remember there was a scuffle and, as usual you grab the person next to you. He (Soviet) took a swing at me first and then I got on top of him. When I looked up I saw two benches coming at me but they (Soviets) were coming a lot faster.&ldquo;It was like a nightmare the next day. When we were flying back we thought. &lsquo;Did that really happen?&rsquo; &ldquo;&bull; &#9632;

f0038-02

Nothing But Entry Draft Is Left For Joseph

<div class="byline">BY RICK MAYOH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-03357/5433460-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="588" height="793"><figcaption class="caption-body">Patrice Tremblay paced a strong showing by a team of undrafted Quebec players.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-04274/5433467-1-eng-US/f0038-042.jpg" title="f0038-04" width="181" height="136"></div>MONTREAL&mdash;The Espoirs, a team of undrafted hopefuls, gave the Quebec League all-stars more than they could handle before 5,192 spectators&mdash;including scouts from every National Hockey League team&mdash;at the Montreal Forum.The Espoirs, directed by Longueuil Chevaliers&rsquo; coach Guy Chouinard and his assistant, Robert Lamoureux, jumped to a 4-0 lead after two periods and held on for a 4-3 win over the QMJHL all-stars Feb. 22, in the inaugural game of a new format being tried by the league.&ldquo;I think it was a super deal for the Quebec League to do that,&rdquo; said Pierre Dorion, head of the NHL&rsquo;s Central Scouting Bureau. &ldquo;The Quebec League hasn&rsquo;t had as many players drafted as the other leagues and is trying to do its utmost to sell its players.&rdquo;The QMJHL decided to stage a second showcase for its talent, in addition to the Challenge Series against theOntario League&rsquo;s stars. The game followed the Quebec midget AAA league&rsquo;s all-star contest as part of a doubleheader.&ldquo;The game gave good exposure for the kids to more than 50 scouts,&rdquo; said QMJHL head scout Flo Potvin. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very happy with it.&rdquo;With more at stake, former Atlanta/Calgary Flame Chouinard felt his club &ldquo;outworked&rdquo; the league all-stars, cocoached by the Granby Bisons&rsquo; Real Paiement and Hull Olympiques&rsquo; Pat Bums.&ldquo;We talked before the game about the situation,&rdquo; Chouinard said, &ldquo;and a lot of guys had to prove something. Some thought they should already have been drafted, and some thought they should have been on the other team.&rdquo;In the first period, the Espoirs got goals from Chicoutimi Sagueneens&rsquo; right winger Patrice Tremblay, 19, and Drummondville center Alain Charland, 19. Trois-Rivieres Draveurs&rsquo; center Claude Lapointe, 18, and Longueuil center Marc Saumier, 19, scored in the second period.Then the league all-stars rallied with goals by Granby winger Stephane Roy, 19, Laval Titan center Francois Guay, 18, and Shawinigan Cataractes&rsquo; right winger Patrice Lefebvre, 19.Lapointe, who also assisted on Tremblay&rsquo;s goal, was selected top player on the Espoirs. Lefebvre, 5-foot-6 and 168-pounds, was named the best of the all-stars.In a game where few individuals stood out, the play of Espoir goaltender Jason Glickman (Hull) drew the most comment. &ldquo;Glickman played very well,&rdquo; Paiement said. &ldquo;He made the key saves early.The goalie said his teammates&rsquo; enthusiasm helped.&ldquo;A lot of guys really wanted to win,&rdquo; said the 17-year-old, a 16th-round pick of the Olympiques from the Chicago Young American midgets.&ldquo;We got to face some pretty good players and we played pretty well defensively. As far as opportunities went, it was pretty even.&rdquo;The Espoirs&rsquo; 18-year-old winger Stefan Figliuzzi said his teammates&rsquo; diligence played an important role.&ldquo;We forechecked them well,&rdquo; the St-Jean Castors&rsquo; leading scorer said. &ldquo;We had two guys on the puck at all times.&rdquo;Shawinigan&rsquo;s Francois Gravel, 18, took over from Glickman in the second half of the game. Chicoutimi rookie Jimmy Waite, 17, and Desjardins, 19, shared goaltending duties for the league all-stars, who held a 43-31 advantage in shots and took four of five minor penalties.Potvin praised the play of Espoirs&rsquo; defenseman Yves Racine, 17, of Longueuil.&ldquo;I thought they took us lightly, and we had the intensity,&rdquo; Chouinard said.Paiement agreed.&ldquo;It was very hard to motivate our players,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;after playing against the OHL (7-4 win, 5-4 over-time loss). There was nothing at the end of the line. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not crazy about having an all-star game one month before the playoffs. I had seven guys out there.&rdquo;St-Jean coach Jacques Tremblay wanted to see the game feature two teams of undrafted players one from each of the LeBel and Dilio divisions. &#9632;

f0038-03

Undrafted ‘Stars’ Prove Their Worth

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0039-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01532/5433512-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01259/5433505-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="3060" height="3795"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01214/5433498-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="3080" height="3330"></div> &#9632;

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NHL STATISTICAL REPORT

<h2>Mon. Feb. 16</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01222/5433655-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="554" height="2143"></div><h2>Tue. Feb. 17</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02159/5433648-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="547" height="1458"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-03122/5433641-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="557" height="2553"></div><h2>Wed. Feb. 18</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0495/5433634-1-eng-US/f0042-042.jpg" title="f0042-04" width="539" height="1079"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0577/5433627-1-eng-US/f0042-052.jpg" title="f0042-05" width="561" height="3655"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0668/5433620-1-eng-US/f0042-062.jpg" title="f0042-06" width="538" height="184"></div><h2>Thu. Feb. 19</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0761/5433613-1-eng-US/f0042-072.jpg" title="f0042-07" width="553" height="2277"></div><h2>Fri. Feb. 20</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0855/5433606-1-eng-US/f0042-082.jpg" title="f0042-08" width="538" height="1141"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0951/5433599-1-eng-US/f0042-092.jpg" title="f0042-09" width="554" height="2723"></div><h2>Sat. Feb. 21</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-1045/5433592-1-eng-US/f0042-102.jpg" title="f0042-10" width="539" height="912"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01219/5433585-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="545" height="1401"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02162/5433578-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="543" height="1396"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-03137/5433571-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg" title="f0043-03" width="540" height="414"></div><h2>Sun. Feb. 22</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-04102/5433564-1-eng-US/f0043-042.jpg" title="f0043-04" width="553" height="929"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0591/5433557-1-eng-US/f0043-052.jpg" title="f0043-05" width="543" height="1387"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0677/5433550-1-eng-US/f0043-062.jpg" title="f0043-06" width="546" height="1342"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0375/5433543-1-eng-US/f0046-032.jpg" title="f0046-03" width="536" height="654"></div> &#9632;

f0042-01

NHL SUMMARIES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0044-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01177/5433686-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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SCOREBOARD

<h2>NATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>BOSTON&mdash;Bob Sweeney, C, recalled from Moncton of AHL.BUFFALO&mdash;Paul Brydges, C, and Bob Logan, LW, recalled from Rochester of AHL. Doug Trapp, LW, recalled from Rochester and later returned.CALGARY&mdash;Gary Roberts, LW, assigned to Moncton of AHL.DETROIT&mdash;Mark Laforest, G, returned to Adirondack of AHL.EDMONTON&mdash;Reijo Ruotsalainen, D, to join Oilers after completion of Swiss League season, March 3. Jaroslav Pouzar, LW, signed to NHL tryout from West Germany.LOS ANGELES&mdash;Ken Hammond, D, recalled from New Haven of AHL.MINNESOTA&mdash;Brad Maxwell, D, purchased from NY Rangers for undisclosed amount of cash.MONTREAL&mdash;Stephane Richer, C, suspended by the Canadiens after walking out on Sherbrooke of AHL.NEW JERSEY&mdash;Rich Chernomaz, RW, and Uli Heimer, D, returned to Maine of AHL. Chernomaz later recalled.NY ISLANDERS&mdash;Randy Boyd, D, and Dale Henry, LW, recalled from Springfield of AHL.NY RANGERS&mdash;Terry Carkner, and Lane Lambert, LW, recalled from New Haven of AHL.PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Don Nachbaur, C, and Tim Tookey, C, recalled from Hershey of AHL. Tookey later returned along with Al Hill, RW and Mike Stothers, D. Len Hachborn, C, signed as free agent from Italian League and assigned to Hershey.PITTSBURGH&mdash;Alain Lemieux, C, Warren Young, LW, Mitch Wilson, C, and Dwight Schofield, D, recalled from Baltimore of AHL. Rod Buskas, D, suspended for three games by NHL after high-sticking incident.QUEBEC&mdash;Pat Price, D, recalled from Fredericton of AHL. Bill Derlago, C, and Jeff Brown, D, assigned to Fredericton.ST. LOUIS&mdash;Darrell May, G, and Mike Dark, D, returned to Peoria of IHL.VANCOUVER&mdash;Wendell Young, G, Jim Agnew, D, and John LeBlanc, LW, returned to Fredericton of AHL. Agnew later recalled.WASHINGTON&mdash;Gary Sampson, LW, returned to Binghamton of AHL.<h2>INJURY LIST</h2>BOSTON&mdash;Doug Keans, G, back in lineup. Rick Middleton, RW. suffered concussion, Thomas Gradin, C, hip and groin injuries, Tom McCarthy, C, bruised ribs, Lyndon Byers, RW, back injury, Gord Kluzak, D, knee surgery, and Louis Sleigher, RW, groin surgery. Middleton and Gradin sidelined day-to-day, the others indefinitely.BUFFALO&mdash;John Tucker, C, back problem, sidelined indefinitely, and Lindy Ruff, D, out for season with broken collarbone.CALGARY&mdash;Doug Risebrough, C, twisted knee, Perry Berezan, LW, pulled groin, and Brian Engblom, D, back injury. Risebrough and Berezan out indefinitely, Engblom for rest of season.CHICAGO&mdash;Bill Watson, RW, separated shoulder, and Steve Ludzik, C, broken collarbone. Watson sidelined two to three weeks, Ludzik five to seven weeks. Behn Wilson, D, sidelined for season while recovering from back surgery.DETROIT&mdash;Gilbert Delorme, D, back in lineup. Harold Snepsts, D, separated shoulder, Doug Halward, D, dislocated kneecap, Billy Carroll, C, torn stomach muscle, Mark Kumpel, RW, dislocated wrist, and Lee Norwood, D, groin injury. Kumpel out two to three weeks, Halward five to seven weeks, the rest indefinitely.EDMONTON&mdash;Paul Coffey, D, back in lineup. Stu Kulak, RW, separated shoulder, sidelined day-to-day.HARTFORD&mdash;Dana Murzyn, D, strained shoulder, Joel Quenneville, D, shoulder separation, and Torrie Robertson, LW, broken leg. Murzyn out 10 days, Robertson and Quenneville indefinitely.LOS ANGELES&mdash;Dean Kennedy, D, hip pointer, Larry Playfair, D, knee surgery, Dave Taylor, RW, sprained knee, and Craig Redmond, D, knee injury. Playfair out for rest of season, the rest sidelined day-to-day.MINNESOTA&mdash;Jari Gronstrand, D, strained knee ligaments, and Tom Hirsch. Gronstrand out three to four weeks, Hirsch sidelined indefinitely.MONTREAL&mdash;Chris Nilan, RW, strained hip muscles, Kjell Dahlin, RW, torn knee ligaments, and Shayne Corson, C, broken jaw. Nilan sidelined day-to-day, Dahlin and Corson indefinitely.NEW JERSEY&mdash;Randy Velischek, D, and Greg Adams, C, back in lineup. Mel Bridgman, LW, foot injury, Jan Ludvig, RW, pulled groin muscle, and Timo Blomqvist, D, broken nose and left eye orbit. Ludvig and Bridgman out day-today, Blomqvist sidelined for rest of season.NY ISLANDERS&mdash;Ken Morrow, D, bruised ribs, Brian Curran, D, leg infection, Patrick Flatley, RW, knee injury, and Tomas Jonsson, D, broken jaw, Denis Potvin, D, knee. Curran and Flatley out one more week. Morrow, Jonsson and Potvin indefinitely.NY RANGERS&mdash;Tomas Sandstrom, RW, broken ankle, and George McPhee, LW, broken hand. McPhee sidelined for two more weeks, Sandstrom three.PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Tim Kerr, RW, and Mark Howe, D, back in lineup. Lindsay Carson, LW, sprained knee, Ron Sutter, C, back injury, Darryl Stanley, D, ankle injury, Ilkka Sinisalo, RW, knee surgery. Sinisalo sidelined day-to-day, Carson one more week, Stanley and Sutter indefinitely.PITTSBURGH&mdash;Mario Lemieux, C, bronchitis, Kevin LaVallee, LW, shoulder surgery, and Dave Hannan, RW, re-injured knee. Lemieux out day-to-day, Hannan one more week, LaVallee indefinitely.ST. LOUIS&mdash;Ron Flockhart, LW, back in lineup. Rick Wamsley, G, Bruce Bell, D, Mark Hunter, RW, and Bernie Federko, C, back in lineup. Pat Hughes, RW, strained ankle, Brian Sutter, LW, severe shoulder injury, Ed Beers, LW, back surgery, and Kent Carlson, LW, spinal surgery. Hughes out day-to-day, Sutter, Beers and Carlson out for rest of season.TORONTO&mdash;Bill Root, D, broken hand, Miroslav Frycer, RW, knee injury, Rick Lanz, D, injured ankle, Chris Kotsopoulos, D, groin injury, and Ken Yaremchuk, C, broken foot. Lanz and Frycer out day-to-day, the others sidelined indefinitely.VANCOUVER&mdash;Tony Tanti, RW, Dave Richter, D, and Dan Hodgson, C, back in lineup. Michel Petit, D, strained knee, sidelined two more weeks, and Glen Cochrane, D, out indefinitely after back surgery.WASHINGTON&mdash;David Jensen, C, back in lineup. Greg Adams, C, suffered collapsed lung, out one to three weeks.WINNIPEG&mdash;Hannu Jarvenpaa, RW, severely damaged knee ligaments, sidelined indefinitely.<h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE</h2>BINGHAMTON&mdash;Marc D&rsquo;Amour, G, recalled from Salt Lake of IHL.FREDERICTON&mdash;Tom Karalis, D, assigned to Muskegon of IHL.HERSHEY&mdash;Dave Gans, C, rejoined Bears from Swiss League.MAINE&mdash;Neil Davey, D, recalled from Indianapolis of IHL. Shawn MacKenzie, G, signed as free agent. &#9632;

TRANSACTIONS

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01150/5433741-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg" title="f0046-01" width="179" height="136"></div>MONTREAL&mdash;Stephane Richer, the talented enigma in the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; organization, has decided to step back and think about his hockey future.While he is doing so, the 20-year-old sophomore will not be collecting a pay cheque from the Canadiens, who have placed him under suspension for bolting their No. 1 farm team.Richer, demoted to the Canadiens&rsquo; American League farm club at Sherbrooke just prior to the Rendez vous break, left the AHL. team Feb. 20 to ponder his hockey future.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve lost my taste for playing hockey,&rdquo; Richer told a Sherbrooke reporter shortly after Sherbrooke defeated Nova Scotia 5-2 in a brawl-filled game. Richer was benched in the third period by Sherbrooke coach Pierre Creamer because he was displeased with his play.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been wondering about my future since I was first sent down here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m disappointed with the way things have turned out.&rdquo;Instead of joining his teammates for a bus trip to Fredericton. Richer hopped in his car and headed for Ripon, his home town in the Outaouais region of Quebec.It&rsquo;s not the first time that Richer has tried to leave hockey. When he was 16 and playing with Granby in the Quebec League, he made a similar threat. At the time, he said that he didn&rsquo;t like to play hockey and was in Granby because he was being pushed to be there.Richer had three goals and four assists during his seven games in Sherbrooke. Two of the goals came in his first game with the AHL club. As in Montreal, Richer was great some nights, not so great others.Don&rsquo;t expect Canadiens&rsquo;managing director Serge Savard to go running after Richer. Savard was clearly upset with the decision of the potential National Hockey League star.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the guy who left,&rdquo; said Savard, who drafted Richer in the second round of the 1984 entry draft. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s up to him to call me. I have no intention of taking the first step.&rdquo;Savard also made it clear that if Richer is going to pursue his hockey career, it will be with the Canadiens&rsquo; farm team.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s not coming back up with us,&rdquo; Savard told the Journal de Montreal.&rdquo;You don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m going to reward him for leaving our farm team, do you?&rdquo;Canadiens&rsquo;coach Jean Perron was taken aback by Richer&rsquo;s decision but did not feel that the young center would quit hockey.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a special case,&rdquo; Perron said. &ldquo;I tried everything with him.&rdquo;Before his demotion. Richer had 17 goals and 15 assists in 48 games to rank third in goals and sixth in points. Still, there has always been the feeling the Chicoutimi Sagueneen all-star and member of Canada&rsquo;s world championship junior team in 1985 could contribute more.Richer earned 21 goals and 16 assists in 65 games during his rookie season last year.In Perron&rsquo;s opinion. Richer was acting a touch like a spoiled brat by leaving Sherbrooke but doubted that Savard would make any deal involving the youngster.The next move was Richer&rsquo;s.IN PASSING&mdash;Chris Chelios was used at right wing in the Canadiens&rsquo; 6-5 loss to the Islanders at the Nassau County Coliseum Feb. 22. the first time he had played up front since his junior days at Moose Jaw. Chelios was the Canadiens&rsquo; best forward&hellip;David Maley. Patrick Roy, Guy Carbonneau. Brian Hayward and John Kordic were involved in the taping of a rock video recently&hellip;Canadiens were 1-7-0 in their last eight road games in January and February&hellip;Montreal goaltender Brian Hayward was a little miffed with former Winnipeg teammate Dale Hawerchuk over comments the Jet captain made on a recent Hockey Night In Canada telecast. Hawerchuk was critical of the Jets&rsquo; goaltending last season, which was handled by Hayward&hellip;Chelios drew the ire of the Boston Bruins when he bumped Rick Middleton into the boards and Middleton suffered a concussion. The Bruins claimed that Chelios deliberately attempted to injure Middleton and were upset that referee Kerry Fraser made no penalty call. Chelios was absolved of any blame by the league office&hellip;Chris Nilan suffered a hip pointer Feb. 18 against the Islanders&hellip;Kjell Dahlin, who suffered tom ligaments in his right knee Jan. 7. had resumed practising with the Canadiens. &#9632;

f0046-01

Richer Goes AWOL From Habs’ Farm Team

<div class="byline">By Bob Duff</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-02110/5433772-1-eng-US/f0046-022.jpg" title="f0046-02" width="444" height="444"></div>Q: I&rsquo;m a Finnish hockey nut who is very interested in Canadian hockey. I have a few questions for you. First, who is the youngest player to ever play in an NHL game? Second, who is the oldest to have played in an NHL game? Finally, could you please list all the retired sweater numbers in the NHL?Paivi Tenhunen, Sinoo, FinlandA: Armand (Bep) Guidolin was just 16 years old when he played for the Boston Bruins in 1942-43, making him the youngest player in NHL history. Guidolin later coached both Boston and Kansas City. The oldest NHL player was Gordie Howe, who was 52 when he played his last game with the Hartford Whalers in the 1980 Stanley Cup playoffs.As for the retired sweater numbers, here&rsquo;s the list&mdash;Boston: 2 (Eddie Shore); 3 (Lionel Hitchman); 4 (Bobby Orr); 5 (Dit Clapper); 9 (John Bucyk); 15 (Milt Schmidt); Chicago: 9 (Bobby Hull); 21 (Stan Mikita); Detroit: 6 (Larry Aurie); 9 (Gordie Howe); Edmonton: 3 (Al Hamilton); Hartford: 2 (Rick Ley); 9 (Gordie Howe); 19 (John McKenzie); Los Angeles: 30 (Rogie Vachon); Minnesota: 19 (Bill Masterton); Montreal: 2 (Doug Harvey); 4 (Jean Beliveau); 7 (Howie Morenz); 9 (Maurice Richard); 10 (Guy Lafleur); 16 (Henri Richard); NY Rangers: 7 (Rod Gilbert); Philadelphia: 1 (Bernie Parent); 4 (Barry Ashbee); 16 (Bobby Clarke); Pittsburgh: 16 Michel Briere; Quebec: 3 (J.C. Tremblay); 8 (Marc Tardif); St. Louis: 3 (Bob Gassoff); 8 (Barclay Plager); Toronto: 5 (Bill Barilko); Vancouver: 11 (Wayne Maki); Washington: 7 (Yvon Labre).A lot of people expect to find No. 6 listed underToronto for Irvine (Ace) Bailey. Bailey&rsquo;s number was retired by the Maple Leafs after he suffered a career-ending skull injury during the 1933-34 season. However, in the late 1960s, Bailey requested the number be given to Leaf forward Ron Ellis. Once Ellis retired, the number was to again be retired. However, Bob Stellick, the Leafs&rsquo; publicity director, says the number has never been officially filed with the NHL as retired.Q: Is it true that the NHL record for the fastest hat-trick is 21 seconds? I ask because mv friend. Brian Poe. recently scored one in 20 secondsMatt Reece, Indianapolis, INA: Yes, Matt. Chicago Blackhawk forward Bill Mosienko rifled three goals past New York Ranger goalie Lome Anderson in just 21 seconds in a 7-6 Chicago win on March 23, 1952. So, your friend definitely has something of which to be very proud.If you want your question answered by the Duffer, send the query to:ASK THE DUFFER, 347 White wood Rd., Saskatoon, SK S7J 4K8 &#9632;

f0046-02

ASK THE DUFFER

<div class="byline">BY LARRY HUMBER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01170/5433810-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg"></div><h2>ACROSS:</h2>1. Rugged Cap pictured, he led club in penalty minutes last season (7).4. Faked an opponent out of position (5).7. Keen, eager (4).8. Manitoba birthplace of Flyer executive Bob Clarke (4, 4).10. Winner of the WHA&rsquo;s last MVP award, his brother is in Hall of Fame (4, 6).12. Oilers&rsquo; Summanen (5).13. Merge (5).14. Suspends (10).18. Jerseys (8).19. Free agent who appeared in all but one game for Flames last season, Joel-&mdash;(4).20. Swedish-born Jet, Thomas&mdash;(5).21. &ldquo;Terrible Ted,&rdquo; he topped NHL scorers in 1949-50 (7).<h2>DOWN:</h2>1. Kind of netminder, up (5).2. First of three Harpes to capture the Calder Trophy (4, 4).3. Last Maple Leaf to be named Calder winner (5).4. Veteran North Star netminder (3, 7).5. Use up the playing time of a penalty (4).6. Only Sabre to be named Masterton Trophy winner (3, 4).9. Penguins&rsquo; general manager, he tended nets for four NHL clubs (2, 8).11. Argues (8).12. Opposes (7).15. Former Leaf, Red Wing Thompson (5).16. Dave Williams&rsquo; book on the NHL, &ldquo;Tiger&mdash;A Hockey (5).17. Former King Carr (4).<h2>CROSSWORD SOLUTION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0861/5433803-1-eng-US/f0043-082.jpg" title="f0043-08" width="585" height="588"></div> &#9632;

f0047-01

CROSSWORD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-02117/5433841-1-eng-US/f0047-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; dynasty-builder Sam Pollock chats with one of his chattels, Bobby Rousseau. Rousseau, rookie of the year in 1961-62, had six 20-goal seasons (among them two 30-goal years) during a career spent with Montreal, Minnesota and New York Rangers.</figcaption></div><h2>30 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; Bill (Wiggie) Wylie of the Vancouver Canucks moved into fifth place in Western League scoring. It wasn&rsquo;t unusual for the five-year pro to score but it was surprising that he survived the rough Western League. Wylie was only 5-foot-6 and weighed a mere 143-pounds.&bull; Jack Adams, general manager of the Detroit Red Wings, broke up his best line because &ldquo;it was too good.&rdquo; Adams had placed Alex Delvecchio between Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay and the line clicked right away for an average of two goals per game. The Detroit GM believed the team needed better balance so he moved Delvecchio off the line and replaced him with Norm Ullman.Val Fonteyne of the Seattle Americans drew his first penalty after 120 games in the Western League. The minor penalty was his first infraction since turning professional.<h2>25 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; Dick Duff of the Toronto Maple Leafs returned from the injury list to his spot on a line with George Armstrong and Dave Keon. Duff missed 18 games with a fractured hand and Toronto suffered during his absence. At the time of his injury, the Leafs were in first place, one point ahead of the Montreal Canadiens. By the time he returned they were 13 points behind the Habs.The Chicago Blackhawks lost one of their most loyal fans when Jim Bozzelli, Sr. died during a Hawk game. Bozzelli, known for ringing a 14-pound cowbell, had been going to Chicago hockey games for 25 years.&bull;After a two-year stint in the minors, Forbes Kennedy was recalled to the NHL by the Detroit Red Wings. Kennedy had worked himself back into shape, hoping for another shot at the NHL. But, it wasn&rsquo;t until Detroit discovered that Boston was willing to pay $20,000 for the centerman did the Red Wings view him as being valuable enough to be on their team.<h2>THE WAY WE WERE &#9632;</h2>

f0047-02

THIS WEEK…

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SCHULTZ</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0385/5433872-1-eng-US/f0047-032.jpg" title="f0047-03" width="603" height="1446"><figcaption class="caption-body">Floyd Smith</figcaption></div>Floyd Smith called it &ldquo;unofficial,&rdquo; but it was a reunion, nonetheless.Between periods of a recent game, in the press box at Buffalo&rsquo;s Memorial Auditorium, several Buffalo Sabres from the 1974-75 Stanley Cup finalist team came over to say &ldquo;Hi&rdquo; to Smith, their coach that year.Jerry Korab, Gary Bromley, Rick Martin, Jim Lorentz, Don Luce, Gerry Meehan and Craig Ramsay all stopped by to share remembrances of the Cup that almost was&mdash;a dream deflated by the Philadelphia Flyers.It was Smith&rsquo;s first year as an NHL coach, after two-and-a-half seasons as boss of the Sabres&rsquo; minor-league franchise in Cincinnati of the American League.&ldquo;I knew that team had a lot of talent that could win a lot of games,&rdquo; Smith said of he Sabres&mdash;a team that had finished out of the playoffs the year before. &ldquo;I had coached a lot of those players in Cincinnati.&ldquo;Add to that the fact that (general manager) Punch Imlach traded and got Jocelyn Guevremont and Fred Stanfield. That added the veteran touch we needed.&ldquo;The only thing that stopped us from winning the Cup was (Bernie)Parent and his goaltending for the Flyers.&rdquo;Neither Smith nor the rest of the Sabres, who lost the best-of-seven final 4-2. would ever get that close again.&ldquo;We needed to make a couple of more key trades,&rdquo; said Smith. &ldquo;I also think there was complacency on the team. Long-term contracts for players didn&rsquo;t help either.&ldquo;We also lost Rick Dudley to the WHA. That really hurt a lot. We needed him and we missed him. He meant a lot to the Sabres.&rdquo;In just that one season, Smith gained more notoriety than he ever did during his 13 seasons as a player in the NHL with the Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs and Sabres.In fact, as a player, Smith was most famous for his part in the famous trade that sent Smith, Paul Henderson and Norm Ullman to Toronto from Detroit, for Frank Mahovlich, Peter Stem-kowski, Garry Unger and the rights to Carl Brewer.Smith coached the Sabres through 1976-77, then rejoined Imlach as coach of the Maple Leafs in 1979-80. He was fired at the end of the season, but remained with the organization.Today, at 51, Smith is chief scout for the Leafs. He resides with his wife Audrey, in Lewiston, N.Y. &#9632;

f0047-03

Smith Coached ’75 Finalist

<div class="byline">BY AL MORGANTI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-01128/5433903-1-eng-US/f0048-012.jpg" title="f0048-01" width="181" height="140"></div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;The captain came back from Rendez-vous with a song in his heart, wings on his heels and fire in his belly.All of which the Philadelphia Flyers needed just to keep on an even keel, as they continued to struggle through injury problems. A couple of wins on the road were nastily balanced by some unusually sub-par performances at the Spectrum.And through it all, captain Dave Poulin was the center of attention. He picked up seven points in three games, including a game-winning goal, gametying goal, and crucial assist on another game-winning goal at Long Island.More than ever, Poulin was playing the role of Bobby Clarke. All right, so maybe he&rsquo;s not the Archangel of the Spectrum like Clarke was as captain.But since Rendez-vous, if Poulin had taken his teeth out, you&rsquo;d have thought that was Clarke out there trying to pump up his teammates.It all started one night after the Soviet series. Poulin pumped in two goals and added an assist at the Arena in St. Louis, leading the Flyers to a 4-2 victory. He scored the game-winning goal in the third period, and later admitted that he was still pumped up from the Soviet series.Poulin scored the game-winning goal in the first game of that series, too. leading the NHL all-stars to a 3-2 victory.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s any doubt I&rsquo;m still running on the adrenalin from that series,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was just such a great experience for me; the hockey was so good, the whole experience was so exciting.&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ll run off that excitement for a while, and maybe it&rsquo;ll continue through the season. I hope so.&rdquo;That first-game-back euphoria was blunted just two days later, when the Flyers played host to the Calgary Flames in a President&rsquo;s Day matinee at the Spectrum and got buried 5-0. It was the first time the Flames had won a regular-season game at the Spectrum since 1978, and the loss didn&rsquo;t go down easily.Late in the third period, goalie Ron Hextall was assessed another penalty on his road to 100 minutes for the season, and Flyer coach Mike Keenan appointed Poulin to serve it.After the game, Keenan said he elected Poulin because the captain should have to serve as some kind of an example of how poorly the team played. Poulin wasn&rsquo;t bothered, or at least if he was he didn&rsquo;t show it. He simply shrugged off his unexpected contribution to team play.The effort was generally regarded as one of the Flyers&rsquo; worst in the last decade at the Spectrum.Just one night later, the Flyers tried to erase some of that memory when they went into Nassau Coliseum and defeated the New York Islanders 3-2. Poulin picked up a key assist when he fed a pass to Dave Brown in the third period, leading to a goal which tied the score 2-2.There was still the matter of trying to right things before the hometown crowd, which had left the building hooting after the loss to Calgary. And things looked as if they might really get ugly a couple of nights later, when the Pittsburgh Penguins carried a 4-2 lead into the third period.Not only were the Penguins playing without Mario Lemieux, but they hadn&rsquo;t won at the Spectrum since 1974. a stretch of 35 games (0-33-2), the last 23 of which had been losses. After the loss to Calgary, the last thing the home crowd wanted to see was a Penguin victory at the Spectrum.Well, the Flyers didn&rsquo;t win the game, but they did manage a tie, when the captain came through again. This time, he scored two goals in the third period to knot the score at 4-4.PHILLERS&mdash;After missing 10 consecutive games due to a bad back, defenseman Mark Howe was scheduled to return for the Flyers&rsquo; road trip to Los Angeles, Calgary and Minnesota&hellip;Left winger Ilkka Sinisalo, who had missed 24 games due to knee surgery, was also expected to return during the trip&hellip;Center Ron Sutter was expected to be out another two to three weeks with a stress fracture in his back&hellip;The loss and tie at the Spectrum left the Flyers winless at home in February (0-1-1), and winless in their last three at the Spectrum (0-2-1), where they are 23-5-2 overall&hellip;Left winger Brian Propp had scored two goals and four assists in five games since returning from knee surgery-&hellip;Right winger Rick Tocchet was assessed his fourth game misconduct of the season in the game against Pittsburgh, resulting in an automatic two-game suspension. He speared Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Dwight Schofield. &#9632;

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March 6, 1987

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Midgets Face Off For National Championships

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