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 20, 1987

The Hockey News March 20, 1987

<h2>Mon. Mar. 2</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01600/5607047-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="544" height="754"></div><h2>Tue. Mar. 3</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02469/5607040-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg" title="f0038-02" width="539" height="1223"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-03380/5607033-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="538" height="2032"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-04295/5607026-1-eng-US/f0038-042.jpg" title="f0038-04" width="545" height="2238"></div><h2>Wed. Mar. 4</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-05215/5607019-1-eng-US/f0038-052.jpg" title="f0038-05" width="547" height="1357"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-06176/5607012-1-eng-US/f0038-062.jpg" title="f0038-06" width="544" height="1167"></div><h2>Thu. Mar. 6</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-07162/5607005-1-eng-US/f0038-072.jpg" title="f0038-07" width="544" height="2398"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-08139/5606998-1-eng-US/f0038-082.jpg" title="f0038-08" width="552" height="3088"></div><h2>Fri. Mar. 6</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-09126/5606991-1-eng-US/f0038-092.jpg" title="f0038-09" width="550" height="518"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01566/5606984-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="552" height="1015"></div><h2>Sat. Mar. 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-02394/5606977-1-eng-US/f0039-022.jpg" title="f0039-02" width="554" height="2637"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-03296/5606970-1-eng-US/f0039-032.jpg" title="f0039-03" width="550" height="2055"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-04242/5606963-1-eng-US/f0039-042.jpg" title="f0039-04" width="550" height="1316"></div><h2>Sun. Mar. 8</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-05200/5606956-1-eng-US/f0039-052.jpg" title="f0039-05" width="537" height="698"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-06170/5606949-1-eng-US/f0039-062.jpg" title="f0039-06" width="555" height="2050"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-07153/5606942-1-eng-US/f0039-072.jpg" title="f0039-07" width="550" height="2049"></div> &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

NHL SUMMARIES

<div class="byline">BY CHARLIE HALPIN Editorial Director</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0013-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-02970/5605305-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg"></div>TORONTO&mdash;If National Hockey League teams continue the trend established so far in 1986-87, it&rsquo;s conceivable they&rsquo;ll end the season on an all-time box office high.Powered by the Pittsburgh Penguins, Hartford Whalers and Detroit Red Wings, whose collective appeal has helped brighten the league&rsquo;s attendance picture, the NHL heads into the final four weeks of the regular season slightly ahead of its 198485 boom-year pace.Through 30 home games for each of the league&rsquo;s 21 teams, 9,218,289 fans had seen NHL action&mdash;according to figures compiled by THE HOCKEY NEWS for the third of four quarterly attendance reports.In 1984-85, the NHL attracted 9,193,339 spectators over the first three quarters on the way to a record 12,307,913. Nearly 25,000 more fans have seen games this year.The Red Wings led with 556,256 customers in 30 of their 40 home games, for an average of 18,541 per game, Detroit had sold out the 19,000-plus seat Joe Louis Arena 16 times this year.The struggling Penguins represent a remarkable story. Though they&rsquo;ve struggled most of this year, they had jumped from 19th place to 9th in the box-office race, boasted 22 sellouts and drawn a whopping 106,643 more fans this year than last year at the same time.Hartford, too, had improved its attendance significantly. The Adams Division leaders had attracted 49,298 more fans and ranked 13th in the league.Other bright spots for the NHL included 266 sellouts, 34 more than last year. More than half of the teams showed increases. Besides the Penguins, Whalers and Red Wings, the St. Louis Blues were up 37,382.The Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils had dropped the most, with 37,446 and 36,151 less fans, respectively, through their first 30 home dates.<h2>NHL Attendance Report</h2>{Number in brackets indicates position team held at three-quarter mark in 1985-86 schedule). &#9632;

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NHL On Record Pace At Box Office

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0034-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01655/5606674-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01620/5606667-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="3088" height="3793"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01594/5606660-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="3040" height="3309"></div> &#9632;

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Departments

NHL Statistics

<h2>NATIONAL LEAGUE</h2>BOSTON&mdash;Wade Campbell, D, recalled from Moncton of AHL. Tom McCarthy, C, assigned to Moncton for conditioning period after coming off injury list. Bob Sweeney, C, also returned to Moncton.BUFFALO&mdash;Don Lever, C, and Richie Dunn, D, recalled from Rochester of AHL. Dunn and Bob Logan, RW, returned to Rochester.CALGARY&mdash;Joe Nieuwendyk, C, from Cornell, drafted by Calgary in 1985, signed to pro contract. Gary Roberts, LW, recalled from Moncton of AHL. Kari Eloranta, D, signed as free agent.CHICAGO&mdash;Warren Skorodenski, G, recalled from Saginaw of IHL.DETROIT&mdash;Mark Laforest, G, recalled from Adirondack of AHL.EDMONTON&mdash;Lee Fogolin, D, and Mark Napier, RW, traded to Buffalo for Normand Lacombe, RW, and Wayne Van Dorp, RW, who was with Rochester of AHL, and unspecified future considerations. Danny Gare, RW, announced his retirement. Reijo Ruotsalainen, D, joined Oilers from Swiss League.HARTFORD&mdash;Wayne Babych, RW, had suspension lifted by Whalers when he agreed to report to Binghamton of AHL.3 LOS ANGELES&mdash;Peter Dineen, D, recalled from New Haven of AHL. Darren Eliot, G, assigned to New Haven. Ken Baumgartner, D, signed to pro contract and sent to New Haven.MINNESOTA&mdash;Kent Nilsson, RW, traded to Edmonton for undetermined draft choice in 1988.MONTREAL&mdash;Gilles Thibaudeau, C, returned to Sherbrooke of AHL.NEW JERSEY&mdash;Murray Brumwell, D, recalled from Maine of AHL.NY ISLANDERS&mdash;Ari Haanpaa, RW, assigned to Springfield of AHL.NY RANGERS&mdash;Mark Osborne, LW, traded to Toronto for Jeff Jackson, LW, and Leafs&rsquo; third-round draft pick in 1989. Lane Lambert, RW, traded to Quebec for Pat Price, D. Chris Jensen, RW, and Ron Talakoski, RW, returned to New Haven. Terry Kleisinger, G, recalled from Indianapolis of IHL and declared a free agent after Rangers bought out his contract.QUEBEC&mdash;Jean-Francois Sauve, C, rejoined Nordiques from Swiss League. Bill Derlago, C, recalled and returned to Fredericton. ST. LOUIS&mdash;Pat Hughes, RW, traded to Hartford for 10th-round draft choice in 1987. Deal later voided by NHL due to fact Hughes was not eligible to be traded without first being placed on waivers.TORONTO&mdash;Ted Fauss, D, returned to Newmarket of AHL. Miroslav Ihnacak, LW, recalled from Newmarket.VANCOUVER&mdash;Craig Levie, D, signed as free agent from Swiss League.WASHINGTON&mdash;Steve Leach, RW, recalled from Binghamton of AHL.<h2>INJURY LIST</h2>BOSTON&mdash;Lyndon Byers, RW, Nevin Markwart, LW, and Thomas Gradin, C, back in lineup. Paul Boutilier, D, sprained ankle, Michael Thel-ven, D, strained hip muscle, Reed Larson, D, strained leg, Gord Kluzak, D, knee surgery, and Louis Sleigher, RW, groin surgery. Boutilier and Thelven sidelined day to day, Larson 10 to 14 days, Sleigher and Kluzak out for rest of season.BUFFALO&mdash;Paul Brydges, C, back in lineup. Mikael Andersson, LW, sprained ankle, Tom Kurvers, D, strained back muscles, Shawn Anderson, D, separated shoulder, and Wilf Paiement, RW, sprained knee. Andersson and Kurvers out day to day, Anderson 10 more days, Paiement three more weeks. John Tucker, C, back surgery, and Lindy Ruff, D, sidelined indefinitely.CALGARY&mdash;Doug Risebrough, C, twisted knee, Perry Berezan, LW, pulled groin, and Brian Engblom, D, back surgery. Risebrough and Berezan out indefinitely, Engblom for rest of season.CHICAGO&mdash;Bill Watson, RW, back in lineup. Bob Sauve, G, back injury, and Steve Ludzik, C, broken collarbone. Sauve sidelined day to day, Ludzik three more weeks. Behn Wilson, D, out for season while recovering from back surgery.DETROIT&mdash;Lee Norwood, D, back in lineup. Harold Snepsts, D, separated shoulder, and Doug Halward, D, dislocated kneecap. Halward out two more weeks, Snepsts four.HARTFORD&mdash;Dana Murzyn, D, strained shoulder, Joel Quenneville, D, shoulder separation, and Torrie Robertson, LW, broken leg. Murzyn out day to day, Robertson and Quenneville indefinitely.LOS ANGELES&mdash;Dave Taylor, RW, and Sean McKenna, RW, back in lineup. Phil Sykes, LW, and Dave Langevin, D, sprained knees, Dean Kennedy, D, hip pointer, Larry Playfair, D, knee surgery, and Craig Redmond, D, knee injury. Playfair out for rest of season, the rest sidelined day to day.MINNESOTA&mdash;Dirk Graham, RW, back in lineup. Scott Bjugstad, LW, abdominal strain, Jari Gronstrand, D, strained knee ligaments, and Tom Hirsch, D, shoulder surgery. Wilson out day to day, Bjugstad and Gronstrand one more week, Hirsch sidelined indefinitely.MONTREAL&mdash;Chris Nilan, RW, and Chris Chelios, D, back in lineup. Shayne Corson, C, broken jaw, out indefinitely.NEW JERSEY&mdash;Bruce Driver, D, back in lineup. Andy Brickley, LW, broken thumb, and Timo Blomqvist, D, broken nose and left eye orbit. Brickley and Blomqvist sidelined for rest of season.NY ISLANDERS&mdash;Ken Morrow, D, back in lineup. Dale Henry, LW, and Denis Potvin, D, sprained knees, Patrick Flatley, RW, knee injury, and Tomas Jonsson, D, broken jaw. Flatley out one more week, the rest indefinitely.NY RANGERS&mdash;Tom Laidlaw, D, and Tomas Sandstrom, RW, back in lineup. Pierre Larouche, C, lower back injury, Ron Greschner, D, hip injury, and George McPhee, LW, broken hand. All sidelined day to day.PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Ron Sutter, C, back injury, Lindsay Carson, LW, sprained knee, and Darryl Stanley, D, ankle injury. Carson sidelined day to day, Stanley two more weeks, Sutter indefinitely.PITTSBURGH&mdash;Terry Ruskowski, C, and Moe Mantha, D, back in lineup. Craig Simpson, RW, hip injury, and Kevin LaVallee, LW, shoulder surgery. Simpson out day to day, LaVallee indefinitely.ST. LOUIS&mdash;Rick Nattress, D, strained knee, Brian Sutter, LW, severe shoulder injury, Ed Beers, LW, back surgery, and Kent Carlson, LW, spinal surgery. Nattress out day to day, Sutter, Beers and Carlson sidelined for rest of season.TORONTO&mdash;Bill Root, D, reinjured hand, Miroslav Frycer, RW, cracked pelvic bone, Chris Kotsopoulos, D, groin injury, and Ken Yaremchuk, C, broken foot. All sidelined indefinitely.VANCOUVER&mdash;Rich Sutter, RW, and Michel Petit, D, back in lineup.WASHINGTON&mdash;Kelly Miller, RW, separated shoulder, Greg Adams, LW, collapsed lung and John Barrett, D, broken kneecap. Miller out for week, Adams two more weeks, and Barrett indefinitely.WINNIPEG&mdash;Hannu Jarvenpaa, RW, severely damaged knee ligaments, sidelined inde-finitely.<h2>AMERICAN LEAGUE</h2>FREDERICTON&mdash;Claude Julien, D, signed as free agent. Richard Zemlack, LW, suspended for 10 games by AHL for cross-checking infraction. &#9632;

TRANSACTIONS

Regina&rsquo;s Brad Hornung Paralyzed For Life/33 &#9632;

WING DING The Long-Awaited Puck Renaissance Arrives In Detroit

In next week&rsquo;s March 13 issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS, we take a look at the progress of the Hartford Whalers, who are being seriously considered Stanley Cup contenders for the first time in their eight years in the National Hockey League.The only championship season in the franchise&rsquo;s history came in the first year of the World Hockey Association&rsquo;s existence, 1972-73. They&rsquo;ve come a long way since beating Winnipeg 9-6 in the final game on the strength of three goals by Larry Pleau, who would go on to become a coach and general manager of the NHL Whalers.Plus, count on columnists Jay Greenberg, Frank Orr and Al Strachan to both entertain and inform.Don&rsquo;t miss any of it in next week&rsquo;s Mar. 27 issue of THE HOCKEY NEWS. &#9632;

NEXT WEEK

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011392/5604788-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="338" height="463"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Dryden</figcaption></div>If all goes as planned, the only floods Johnstown, Pa., will have to worry about next year will be those between periods of Atlantic Coast games.Yes, that&rsquo;s right, Johnstown is looking to make a comeback in minor-league hockey after an absence of seven years and a decade after achieving much notoriety as home to the movie, Slapshot.The Pennsylvania steel town was last represented in pro hockey by the Johnstown Wings of the short-lived North Eastern League. Before that, the infamous Jets (Charlestown Chiefs in Slapshot) were members of the North American League until a fatality-filled flood rendered the Cambria County War Memorial Arena inoperable.That was the third major flood to hit Johnstown during the past century. Some people have taken to wearing T-shirts with the message, &ldquo;Floods 3, Johnstown 0,&rdquo; emblazoned on their chests.Johnstown hockey fans hope they&rsquo;re not similarly shut out in their bid to get an ACHL franchise. (A team may also be placed in Charlotte, N.C.)Response was overwhelming to a test exhibition game played between Virginia and Erie, two of the four teams in the league. More than 4,000 packed the arena. Many others had to be turned away.&ldquo;It was unreal,&rdquo; says ACHL commissioner Ray Miron of Broken Arrow, Okla. &ldquo;Hell, they could have sold 1,000 more tickets&hellip;We&rsquo;re quite pleased with the outcome and the interest. Now it&rsquo;s a matter of them coming up with enough interest and investors.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s where D.C. Nokes Jr. comes in. The enthusiastic Nokes, who makes Howie Meeker sound like a manic depressive, is spearheading the campaign to bring minor-league hockey back to Johnstown.Nokes, who says he &ldquo;gets excited watching cement harden,&rdquo; expects $60,000 in investment capital will be needed and predicts Johnstown will get a franchise should two hurdles be overcome.On the first, negotiating an agreement with the arena, he anticipates no problems. On the second, he&rsquo;s also hopeful, figuring the reduction of local amusement taxes&mdash;five per cent by the city and five per cent by the school district&mdash;is achievable.&ldquo;The &lsquo;ifs&rsquo; aren&rsquo;t that big in my mind,&rdquo; he says.Larry Hudson, a reporter who has been covering the story for the Johnstown TribuneDemocrat, is also optimistic.&ldquo;I think the chances look pretty good,&rdquo; says Hudson, who says the league&rsquo;s salary-cap policy will help make the project feasible in Johnstown, which is on the upswing after astronomical unemployment swept through the city five years ago.Should hockey make a return, at least one man will be happier for it. Somewhere, John Mitchell will be smiling. The father of Johnstown hockey died late last year.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021125/5604781-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="1486" height="1464"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; Phil Housley remains one of the top products of Minnesota high school hockey, which has been getting roughed up lately.</figcaption></div><h2>Minny Trailing-High Schoolers</h2>When it comes to style, nothing beats the current Minnesota high school championships, but if it&rsquo;s substance you want&hellip;well, it&rsquo;s best to go east young man.Because that&rsquo;s where the best U.S. high school hockey is being played these days.No longer is Minnesota, the home on the iron range of schoolboy hockey. For that, you have to check out the East Coast&mdash;in particular Massachusetts, which is producing more top-flight players than its mid-American rival.On the 1987 U.S. national junior team, there were eight products of Massachusetts high school hockey, only two from Minnesota. Last year it was 6-3 in favor of Mass. Not since 1983 has Minnesota had the upper hand. Both states were equally represented in 1984 and 1985.&ldquo;The east has surpassed us. No question about it,&rdquo; says Larry Johnson, a former national team player who was manager of Minnesota&rsquo;s winning entry at the 1986 Jr. Olympics&mdash;a competition of mostly high school players.Minnesota, bent on regaining lost prestige, enlisted the services of Herb Brooks&mdash;who practised his team regularly and vigorously before the tournament last year.It was some consolation for the disaster of 1983, when Minnesotans discovered&mdash;just as Canadians did in 1972&mdash;that hockey was not only their game. In a series against Massachusetts high schoolers, Minnesota was waxed three straight games, by a cumulative score of 28-5.&ldquo;It was a blow to me when we first took a team out there and just got killed,&rdquo; says Johnson. &ldquo;It was just terrible.&rdquo;The following season, Massachusetts won two of the three games, outscoring Minny 2013. Minnesota was winless at the 1985 Jr. Olympic gathering, which replaced the head-to-head series. Massachusetts was 1-1-1 and a team representing all of New England won three straight.Last year, Brooks&rsquo; boys rallied from a 7-1 deficit in the first period to beat Michigan 11-10 in the championship game. (This year&rsquo;s tournament is April 8-11 in Michigan.)The principal reasons for Minnesota&rsquo;s inferiority are smaller population and the presence of restrictive rules, which prevent that state&rsquo;s high school skaters from playing nearly as often as those on the East Coast, both in and out of season. &middot;It is for that reason, many Minnesotans are hindered as much as helped by the high school program.&ldquo;A lot of them haven&rsquo;t come close to realizing their potential,&rdquo; says Hartford Whalers&rsquo; scout David McNab, who says only two players from the Twin Cities have received Division I scholarships this years. Both are going to University of Minnesota, which ices an allMinnesota lineup.&ldquo;Minnesota kids are just as good if they only had the opportunities.&rdquo;<h2>Small Budgets-Hockey Awards</h2>The Heisman Trophy they aren&rsquo;t, but the Hobey Baker and Sullivan awards are tops for U.S. and Canadian university hockey players.Exposure for the two honors, particularly the Sullivan which goes to Canada&rsquo;s top university player, is minscule compared to that of college football&rsquo;s highly-publicized honor.So are the investments in promoting candidates.While the University of Miami thought nothing of dropping an estimated $5-6,000 on its campaign for 1986 winner Vinny Testaverde, U.S. schools are modest in their expenditures on Hobey Baker candidates.Budget-conscious Canadian schools, most of which seem to consider publicity a plague best avoided, spend little to sway coaches who vote on the award. (In the U.S., media representatives. scouts and coaches vote.)None of the U.S. schools contacted spent as much as $1,000 on any one candidate. North. Dakota, which was pushing both Tony Hrkac and Bob Joyce, spent $1,100 on a poster that also includes all-America candidates Ed Bel-four and Ian Kidd.But, UND sports information director Lee Bohnet says that he hopes to recoup half of the school&rsquo;s investment on sales of the poster.Northern Michigan, plugging Gary Emmons, put $500 into a four-color, 8 &times; 11 information sheet on the scoring star. No more than a couple of hundred was spent on Joe Nieuwendyk of Cornell. A nifty folder Western Michigan sent out featuring Wayne Gagne cost less than $300.Even Illinois-Chicago&rsquo;s memorable &lsquo;Man of Steel&rsquo; eight-by-11 of two years ago, which promoted summer steel worker Ray Staszak, only cost in the neighborhood of $500.In Canada, where sports information departments have substantially less funding than their U.S. counterparts, most schools don&rsquo;t mount campaigns at all. They provide information packages but not much else.&ldquo;It is considered inappropriate,&rdquo; says Toronto&rsquo;s Paul Carson, who provided statistics supporting Ontario candidate Don McLaughlin. &ldquo;You are not supposed to put pressure on the (selection) committee.&rdquo;Jack Neumann, at Calgary, is of a different opinion and has been pushing Paul Geddes for the Sullivan Trophy this year.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s better to have tried and failed,&rdquo; says Neumann, &ldquo;than to have failed to try.&rdquo;Still, the school&rsquo;s investment has been more in sweat than cents. Neumann figures less than $200 was spent, &middot;The 10 finalists for the Hobey Baker are forwards John Cullen of Boston University, Emmons, Tony Granato of Wisconsin, Hrkac, Craig Janney of Boston College, Lane MacDonald of Harvard, Nieuwendyk and Tom Sasso of Babson (Division III), and defensemen Gagne and Brian Leetch of BC. The winner will be named March 27 in Detroit.-Final candidates for the Sullivan are forwards McLaughlin, Geddes and Mark Reade of McGill, and goalie David Quigley of Moncton. The winner will be announced Mar. 19. in Edmonton.<h2>&lsquo;Good Pay&rsquo;-Mike Bossy</h2>Quote of the week:&ldquo;He must be getting pretty good pay just to skate around and check all night. I&rsquo;d be pretty embarrassed if that&rsquo;s how I made a living. Maybe he&rsquo;s happy playing that way. It seems a lot of guys in the league are.&rdquo;&mdash;Mike Bossy on the close checking of New York Ranger Jan Erixon, page 25. &#9632;

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Slapshot City On RebounD

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011406/5604819-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="177" height="135"></div>CALGARY&mdash;Goaltender Reggie Lemelin must be a cat reincarnated&mdash;he&rsquo;s on at least life No. 7 by now.Just when it seemed safe to count Lemelin out of the Calgary Flames&rsquo; goaltending plans, just when it appeared as if he&rsquo;d been backed into a comer for the last time in his career, just when it seemed as if the end were near, Lemelin&mdash;as always&mdash;played himself right back into the team&rsquo;s good graces.It took Lemelin until the seventh week of the season to win his first game. Then, during intermittent play from Dec. 11 to Mar. 2, he did not lose a single game (9-0-1).Suddenly, his numbers have come in line with Calder Trophy candidate Mike Vernon, leaving the Flames to choose from between two possible starters for the coming playoffs.What caused the turnaround?In part, Lemelin said, it&rsquo;s because of his revolutionary new goalie pads. Made of pressed foam plastic and colored an unusual cherry red and lemon yellow, the pads weigh roughly a third less than conventional pads.That, he said, has made a big difference in his game.&ldquo;The lightness of the pad helps you move quicker,&rdquo; Lemelin said. &ldquo;Your lateral movement is better. You can get up and down easier and you can move around the net better. Secondly, you stay fresher. You&rsquo;re not as tired in the third period because there&rsquo;s not as much fatigue in your legs. That helps not only in the third period, but the next day&mdash;which is a good advantage to a goalie who plays a lot of games or plays back-to-back games.&ldquo;The only negative point that has been mentioned by people is that they give rebounds. People say that because the pads are made of foam. They get picky. I think people are looking for something. It&rsquo;s only a rebound when it lands on the other team&rsquo;s stick. If it lands on your teammate&rsquo;s stick, there&rsquo;s no rebound. So if that&rsquo;s the only disadvantage they can find, for all the advantages they&rsquo;ve shown, that&rsquo;s an immaterial thing.&ldquo;The bottom line for me is, since I&rsquo;ve worn then, my play&rsquo;s gone from lousy to where it was a year and a half ago&mdash;and I chopped my goals-against average from almost 5.00 to just above 3.00.&rdquo;Lanny McDonald, Lemelin&rsquo;s roommate and close friend, thought the difference in the veteran goaltender&rsquo;s play was a combination of things.&ldquo;More than anything else, he&rsquo;s moving his feet better,&rdquo; McDonald said. &ldquo;When things weren&rsquo;t going well, he was having a tough time with his lateral movement, which is the most important part of his game. All of a sudden, he&rsquo;s light on his feet, his confidence is there. Plus, the light pads have really helped him too.&rdquo;&ldquo;He&rsquo;s playing with more confidence,&rdquo; added coach Bob Johnson. &ldquo;He seems to enjoy playing again. This gives the Flames two goalies, which is important.&rdquo;Johnson took a wait-and-see attitude when Lemelin first unveiled the new pads earlier in the season. They were slightly undersized by National Hockey League standards and certainly stood out in a crowd. Since then, Lemelin has received a second, less conspicuous pair from Jim Lowson, the pad&rsquo;s inventor.He has only used the newest pads in practice. In games, he&rsquo;s stuck to the originals.&ldquo;If Reggie thinks the pads are helping him, that&rsquo;s fine,&rdquo; Johnson said. &ldquo;He seems to be moving better. He said he&rsquo;s not getting as tired. That makes sense to me.&rdquo;As word of the pads spread around the NHL, Lemelin has been approached by a number of his peers.&ldquo;It seems as if I get one out of two goalies on each team that&rsquo;s interested,&rdquo; Lemelin said. &ldquo;But there are more and more people looking at them all the time. I don&rsquo;t even have to go to them. Now they&rsquo;re coming to me. The trainer will come around and say, &lsquo;So-and-so wants to look at your pads.&rsquo; So I show them. The interest is there.&rdquo;Once the patents are in place, Lemelin and Lowson expect to market and sell the pads. They could be especially beneficial to young goaltenders, because they weigh so much less.FLICKERS&mdash;Center Doug Risebrough, recovering from knee surgery since November, joined the team for its eastern road trip. However, he wasn&rsquo;t sure if he&rsquo;d get into the lineup or not&hellip;The Flames were anxious to get Cornell University center Joe Nieuwendyk under contract. Coach Bob Johnson wanted Nieuwendyk around for the stretch drive&hellip;ExFlame defenseman Kari Eloranta signed on for the last four weeks of the season and the playoffs. The Flames brought him back as insurance, in case they lose a rearguard in the last days of the season. &#9632;

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Rejuvenated Lemelin Has Revolutionary Edge

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011296/5604850-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="339" height="468"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jay Greenberg</figcaption></div>THE ICE IS WHITE. The puck is black. If it enters a 4 &times; 6-foot opening it counts one. Whoever does this more often over 60 minutes wins.It&rsquo;s pretty simple, really. So it should be easy then to distinguish the winners from the losers, the heroes from the villains, and over the course of several seasons, the geniuses from the idiots.But the puck bounces and the players change. And time, which is supposed to provide the true test, turns out to only confuse the issue.Tracks are left, sure, and it&rsquo;s the job of persons like me to trace them. So I try, but soon realize that eight sets of footprints have covered over the original one. The drawing has been colored with so many different bright shades that eventually all you can make out is grey.Irving Grundman&mdash;who made the horrible Rod Lang way deal, who passed over Denis Savard to draft Doug Wickenheiser&mdash;got fired. Three years later, the Montreal Canadiens, the same institution he so horribly disfigured, won the Stanley Cup with 12 of Grundman&rsquo;s draft choices.Larry Pleau traded Mark Howe and got back Risto Siltanen, then took on a Rick MacLeish for a draft choice that turned out to be Ron Sutter. By the time Pleau&rsquo;s ruinous reign was finished, the Hartford Whalers were a laughing-stock. But in his last draft, Pleau picked Ulf Samuelsson, Kevin Dineen and Ray Ferraro from the third round on. Today Emile Francis is getting all the credit for turning the Whalers around.In New York, the Rangers are reborn. Phil Esposito has moved body after body, changed a faceless crew into one of personality, preached positive thinking, been miked behind the bench&mdash;and improved his team, at this writing, all the way up to one game under. 500. Last year, under Ted Sator, the coach Esposito fired soon after taking over, the Rangers finished two games under.But the Rangers nonetheless sing, &ldquo;Ding dong, the witch is dead.&rdquo; Sator, a high-tech Captain Bligh with computer printouts, obsessive demands and an inflexible personality, is the problem of the Buffalo Sabres now.He turns out to be no problem at all. He has been refreshing, even. Since Sator was hired on Dec. 22, the Sabres have played better-than-500 hockey. What was once an 18-point gap between them and fourth place had shrunk to four, with five weeks left.All this, from a team that laid absolutely still in the final days of the ruinous Scotty Bowman reign. The new general manager, Gerry Meehan, has made it a policy not to comment&mdash;not even the most benign way&mdash;about Bowman, his former boss. But the fact that the Sabres have dug out from a terrible start, without Meehan making a great number of changes, indicates that Bowman may not have done so badly after all, at least in the management portion of his responsibilities.&ldquo;We had a number of players come up at 19 or 20,&rdquo; said Meehan, &ldquo;who had some success, then began to suffer that letdown, or whatever you want to call it that begins to have an effect in the second year.&ldquo;We had so many of them (Tom Barrasso, Paul Cyr, John Tucker, Adam Creighton, Phil Housley, Dave Andreychuk) that it became a big factor.&rdquo;Of course, here&rsquo;s where coaching comes in. Practically every Sabre is scoring at a better pace since Sator took over, which would indicate that he&rsquo;s done exactly what Meehan hired him to do&mdash;restore confidence. His affect upon Barrasso, who was suffering terribly but has once again become one of the best goalies in the league, is undeniable.And the irony is that, following Bowman, Sator is coming off in Buffalo like everything the Rangers were insisting he wasn&rsquo;t.&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t just a matter of the players regaining their own confidence, but confidence in the coaching staff, too,&rdquo; Barrasso said. &ldquo;Players took Scotty too personally, when it should have been business. That became a big problem toward the end of his reign.&ldquo;He was aloof. He made it a point to be that way and the players didn&rsquo;t know how to read him. He came in and told you what to do, and that was the only time you talked to him. You never really knew what to believe&hellip;well, when to take him seriously.&ldquo;Compared to Scotty, Ted&rsquo;s a saint. Everything is upbeat now. I have the utmost respect for him.&rdquo;To try to sort all of this out, there is one rule of thumb that you should follow: Nothing, or nobody, is as good as he/she/it seems. Or as bad.Sator did the best he could with what Craig Patrick gave him. Esposito has since changed so much that future attempts to judge Sator&rsquo;s record in New York will be absurd. Meehan, too, will have his mark on the Sabres&mdash;because it&rsquo;s obvious that while they weren&rsquo;t as bad as they started out this year, they aren&rsquo;t the contender we thought they were three seasons ago either.In the meantime, we do know this. Absolutely, for sure&mdash;or until tomorrow, anyway: Sator is not the martinet the Rangers painted him to be, which is proving that Bowman, despite appearances to the contrary, left the Sabres a decent nucleus.Ever watch a wheel turn? Watch it spin fast enough and it appears to reverse and spin backwards.Nothing makes sense. Everything makes sense. The more opinions you have, the more likely you are to have some of them turn out to be wrong. &#9632;

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Columnists

In Hockey, Spinning Wheel Got To Go Round

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-02949/5604881-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="181" height="131"></div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;The road was not a good place to be for the National Hockey League&rsquo;s most traveled team.&ldquo;&lsquo;What&rsquo;s been going wrong on the road?&rsquo; That&rsquo;s a good question,&rdquo; Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; coach Mike Murphy said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we&rsquo;ve been hungry for 60 minutes, but I don&rsquo;t think we&rsquo;ve been playing that poorly on the road.&rdquo;The Kings were 7-19-5 on the road, where they had been outscored by 141118. One goal decided nine of the defeats. Going back to Jan. 31, they had lost seven straight games on the road and been outscored by 35-16.This does not bode well for the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Kings were locked into fourth place in the Smythe Division and will begin the first round on the road, most likely in Edmonton.The only encouraging news about that was the fact the Kings were unbeaten in their first three visits to Northlands Coliseum, capturing a 6-1 decision and salvaging 5-5 and 8-8 ties.The bad news was that back-to-back games, in which the Kings&rsquo; have experienced particular troubles, will be played in the playoffs.Their record in back-to-back games was a dismal 7-18-4. Their record in the back end of &ldquo;doubleheaders&rdquo; was 2-11-2, including 0-11-2 in the past 13 second games during which the Kings had been outscored 65-36.Eight of their remaining 16 games would be played back-to-back.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think anybody should be thinking about the playoffs now with so many games to go,&rdquo; Tiger Williams said. &ldquo;Anybody who does is a birdbrain.&ldquo;To be realistic, there&rsquo;s no way we&rsquo;re going to catch either the second or third spot, but we&rsquo;ve got to fight to get to. 500. I think that&rsquo;s something we should pride ourselves on. We don&rsquo;t want to bust our backs to get there, but we have to bust our butts.&rdquo;With a 25-31-8 record heading into mid-March, it appeared the Kings would have to do both.Injuries continued to be a factor. The Kings were playing without a halfdozen regulars, including captain Dave Taylor and three defensemen. Because of the injuries, they were forced to add winger Lyle Phair and defensemen Ken Hammond and Peter Dineen to a lineup that already included rookies Luc Robitaille, Jimmy Carson and Steve Duchesne.Rookies&mdash;Duchesne, Hammond and Dineen&mdash;made up half their defense corps.Taylor missed 11 games with a sprained knee before returning March 3 and producing a goal in a 4-4 tie (at home) with Minnesota, but wingers Phil Sykes (knee) and Morris Luko-wich (thigh), and defensemen Craig Redmond (knee), Dave Langevin (knee), Larry Playfair (knee) and Dean Kennedy (hip) were still on the injured list.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a taxing situation,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;But you have to have players come along who can fill in those spots. It&rsquo;s an opportunity for players to show that they can play. When you get a chance to play, you have to do well. Injuries are no excuse.&rdquo;Maybe so, but they had taken a toll on a team that had fallen six games below. 500 for the first time since Nov. 26.KINGS NOTES&mdash;Goaltender Darren Eliot had played four times since Dec. 23 and asked to be traded following the acquisition of Al Jensen from Washington. He had requested a trade during the pre-season, when he surprised management with a strong showing and won the opening-night assignment. &ldquo;I got that because of my play, not because they wanted me,&rdquo; Eliot said. He had an 8-12-2 record with one shutout and a 4.33 average, though his play was better than his numbers. Despite calling Eliot, 25, their goalie of the future at every opportunity, the Kings have traded for a goalie (Jensen, Bob Janecyk and Rollie Melanson) in each of his three seasons. Janecyk figured to be the next to go. He&rsquo;d played once since midNovember&hellip;Tiger Williams collected his 500th career point&hellip;Luc Robitaille was named rookie of the month for February when he had six goals and two assists in eight games. He was mired in a four-game slump without a point, his longest of the season. &#9632;

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Injuries And Back-To-Back Games Take Toll

<div class="byline">BY VARTAN KUPELIAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011479/5604926-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Captain Steve Yzerman and coach Jacques Demers, inset, have keyed the Red Wings&rsquo; resurgence from last place in the league to first place in the Norris Division.</figcaption></div>For three seasons, the Detroit Red Wings and their legion of followers watched from afar and wondered how the glory days could be resurrected.Now they know.Jacques Demers.It&rsquo;s no mystery, really. Jacques Demers is merely demonstrating once again what most hockey people figured they knew all along: The guy can take a group of players&mdash;almost any group&mdash;mold it into a hard-working team capable of turning heads around the National Hockey League&hellip;and finish first in the Norris Division.While the Red Wings of seasons past languished in the lower reaches of the NHL, they watched Demers turn the St. Louis Blues into contenders when the odds said it wasn&rsquo;t possible&mdash;not with that bunch. The nondescript Blues would skate into Joe Louis Arena, bore everybody within the Wings&rsquo; territorial rights and leave with two points.It didn&rsquo;t happen only in Detroit, of course. The scene was repeated in NHL buildings throughout the circuit, and it kept right on happening until the seventh and final game of the Stanley Cup semi-finals last year. That&rsquo;s how close the Blues came against the Calgary Flames.Now, having signed a $1-million, five-year contract last June, Demers is coach of the Red Wings. In no time at all, he has restored hockey in Detroit. The Red Wings have been flirting with first place in the Norris Division since early in the season and it&rsquo;s not a longshot anymore that they&rsquo;ll finish on top.The Wings have been a revelation. From a team that managed only 40 points last season, they have played the NHL&rsquo;s best teams on even terms this season. For the first time in three decades, they were over. 500 at this late stage of the season. More significantly, they had moved into the upper half of the NHL&rsquo;s overall standing, sitting cozily in seventh spot entering the final full month of the season. If you want to suggest that this Detroit team already is better than any Demers had in St. Louis, go ahead. The suggestion box is over there.Sure, Steve Yzerman is having his best season. He is rapidly maturing into one of the NHL&rsquo;s handful of best players, and closing in on 100 points.Sure, Gerard Gallant is having his best season. He&rsquo;s a leader who wears five hearts on his epaulets.Sure, defensemen Harold Snepsts and Mike O&rsquo;Connell have discovered the fountain of youth.And Darren Veitch has discovered the promise of his youth.And Greg Stefan and Glen Hanlon are playing goal like it&rsquo;s supposed to be played, not like some martial art.And Shawn Burr has become one of the league&rsquo;s best defensive forwards in his rookie year.All those things, and more, have happened this season to help turn the Red Wings into a team worth watching once again. But the common bond is Demers. He&rsquo;s brought it all together.He&rsquo;s got the Wings&hellip;(what&rsquo;s that word we used to describe the Blues?)&hellip;overachieving.&ldquo;He was very important at the start,&rdquo; said veteran right winger Tim Higgins, another of those role players who has flourished under Demers&rsquo; subtle touch.&ldquo;He had a master plan. The guys have a taste for winning now. They&rsquo;re not going back to old habits. It&rsquo;s a lot of hard work.&rdquo;The players believe in Jacques Demers. They have confidence in themselves through their confidence in the coach. And with each victory, the confidence grows.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;After 40 points last season? No team gets 40 points. Talking to the players in the summer, I really believed we could accomplish more than what was expected of us if we could just get them to play hard every night. When there&rsquo;s a situation with limited talent, that kind of effort is all a coach wants and demands.&rdquo;While many teams pick their spots these days, the Wings have played hard and with determination. The on-ice discipline is unmistakably Demers.His personality made an immediate impact on the hockey club. He stressed discipline and backed up his demands. Now, the Wings are reaping the benefits.&ldquo;I do these things to deliver a message,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t do your best, this coach is not going to accept it. If you challenge the system or the work ethics, there is no way you can stay here.&rdquo;Sometimes, the lessons are painfully learned.Early in the season, a 6-0 blowout&mdash;or, as he called it, a &ldquo;mini-crisis&rdquo;&mdash;in Toronto sent Demers into a rage.&ldquo;We will not accept anything but the maximum here,&rdquo; he said, sending the Wings on the ice at 7:30 a.m. the following day, and keeping them occupied with game films and meetings until rush-hour traffic. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll show them how it feels to go to work in the morning. They have the greatest job in the world, but they don&rsquo;t know it sometimes.&rdquo;There was a heart-to-heart with Veitch, who has developed into the offensive threat along the blue line that the Wings sorely needed.&ldquo;Basically,&rdquo; Veitch recalled, &ldquo;he just said he knew I was a better player than I had shown&mdash;and if I didn&rsquo;t play up to my capablities, I wasn&rsquo;t going to play. He told me to get my butt in gear.&rdquo;The results were positive. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s playing a more emotional type of game, with more intensity,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s become involved with the team.&rdquo;And he benched Burr, after the team&rsquo;s outstanding rookie center cost the team a goal in Chicago.&ldquo;He was trying to be cute and fancy,&rdquo; Demers said, &ldquo;and that&rsquo;s not the way we want him to play. He&rsquo;s cheating to try to score goals, and he can&rsquo;t be successful playing like that. I will live with an honest mistake. I cannot live with a cute mistake.&rdquo;Burr learned his lesson, and hasn&rsquo;t looked back.Not all of the Red Wings needed such individual attention.Yzerman has been marvelous from the start and a recent scoring flurry sent him into the top 10 in the league.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s worth the price of admission,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d pay to see him play.&rdquo;O&rsquo;Connell&rsquo;s praise was similarly high.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been the best player in our division all year,&rdquo; the veteran defenseman said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s taking charge and that&rsquo;s very difficult to do over a string of games like that. It&rsquo;s tough mentally. Every game you&rsquo;ve got to come to the rink thinking you&rsquo;ve got to produce. He has.&rdquo;Yzerman was never better than he was in a recent 6-3 victory over Quebec. He orchestrated the outcome, scoring or setting up the first five Detroit goals.&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to expect that from him,&rdquo; Gallant said, smiling. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the captain.&rdquo;On most teams, a 21-year-old would never be considered for such a post. But Demers didn&rsquo;t hesitate. Another star for the coach.Don MacAdam, the Wings&rsquo; newest assistant coach, and Brent Ashton, who has been a nice addition since coming over from Quebec in the John Ogrodnick trade, are getting their first prolonged looks at Yzerman.&ldquo;The one thing that has really impressed me has been his consistency,&rdquo; MacAdam said. &ldquo;And the level of consistency. It&rsquo;s been superior. He&rsquo;s 21, and being a captain at that age is one thing. Handling it the way he has, so admirably, is another. He&rsquo;s intense on the ice, first-class off.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s not one thing he does poorly and he can do most things as well as anybody. He can score as pretty a goal as you&rsquo;ll want to see and he can set them up. He knows situations and his responsibilities in all three zones, and he handles them. A player who can play offensively and defensively at the level he can is rare.&rdquo;Ashton is watching Yzerman from the same bench these days.&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t see a player that much as an opponent,&rdquo; Ashton said. &ldquo;Now I get a chance to watch him and realize how good he is. He&rsquo;s a star in this league and deserves respect.&rdquo;Yzerman, Gallant, Ashton, Stefan, Veitch and Petr Klima are the stars of this Red Wing team&mdash;but Demers won&rsquo;t tolerate any ego trips, because the operative word is team. Role players often go unnoticed but are particularly significant to Demers.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011321/5604919-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="1472" height="1438"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gerard Gallant is the Detroit star nobody talks about&mdash;except for his teammates and coach who have come to appreciate his versatile skills.</figcaption></div>Burr is the checking center. At 20, his responsibilities have included shutting down Denis Savard, Neal Broten and the other big shooters. He&rsquo;s done that with aplomb, and has still found time to contribute 17 goals.Dave Barr, a former Blue reunited with Demers after a trade with Hartford for Randy Ladouceur, has stepped in to score eight goals and 16 points in his 21 games with Detroit. Always a third- or fourth-line right winger/center, Barr has capitalized on the opportunity to play alongside a center of Yzerman&rsquo;s calibre.Ashton has been on better than a point-a-game clip, playing mostly with Burr and Tim Higgins. Higgins and Ric Seiling are the checking/grinding right wingers, while Kocur supplies the muscle.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-02920/5604912-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="708" height="1228"><figcaption class="caption-body">Red Wing fans can face up to their team again this year after last year&rsquo;s embar-rassment.</figcaption></div>The defense remained steady, even after Snepsts was sidelined by a separated left shoulder. Rick Zombo has matured into a dependable NHL defenseman, rookie Steve Chiasson continues to progress, and veteran Dave Lewis has come on after a slow start.The Wings were four games under. 500 on Jan. 17, when they defeated Quebec 3-2. They were winless in six games at the time, and barely had managed to hold on to a 3-0 lead against the Nordiques. That was the night of the big trade.Twenty-four hours later, the Wings blanked Pittsburgh 1-0, then followed up with victories over the New York Islanders and St. Louis to get back to. 500.Another turning point eame at the Feb. 6-7 home-and-home series against Minnesota. The North Stars arrived with a three-point division lead, but when the series was over, the Wings were alone in first place. They had rallied from deficits in both games, winning 6-4 and 5-3.The Demers trademark is all over the Wings.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s like playing against St. Louis,&rdquo; said former Wing Kelly Kisio, who departed before Demers&rsquo; arrival. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s amazing what Jacques Demers can get out of a team.&rdquo;The Wings haven&rsquo;t lost many games this season. They&rsquo;ve been beaten, but they haven&rsquo;t been beaten easily and they have seldom beaten themselves&mdash;another trait of a Demers team. They have rallied, from deficits as large as 6-1, and they&rsquo;ve won with the lead. They&rsquo;ve done whatever it takes.&ldquo;Jacques has everybody believing,&rdquo; Burr-said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not being cocky. We just have it in our heads that we&rsquo;re going to win. When we get down a couple of goals, we don&rsquo;t get frustrated. Before, when we got down, we&rsquo;d be gambling for everything. Now we don&rsquo;t panic. We know we&rsquo;ve got guys who can score and we know we&rsquo;ve got guys who can check. Everybody does his job.&rdquo;The Wings have advanced to the point where they&rsquo;re no longer just thinking about making the playoffs. That&rsquo;s a lock. Now they want to finish first. &#9632;

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Dead Wings No More

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Vartan Kupelian</div>DETROIT&mdash;Gerard Gallant is the National Hockey League&rsquo;s best-kept secret.Think about it.How many left wingers are better, more accomplished all-around players than the Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; 23-year-old native of Summerside, P.E.I.Michel Goulet? A sniper extraordinaire, but better all around?Mats Naslund? Better skills, but not nearly as tough.Brian Propp? Ditto.Kirk Muller? Young, talented but can he do all the things for a team that Gallant can, and does?Esa Tikkanen? Take away the Gretzky factor, and let&rsquo;s see.Petr Klima? Super offensive threat, but only No. 2 on his own team.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s our best player,&rdquo; said Steve Yzerman, the guy most observers consider the Red Wings&rsquo; best player.Gallant is a self-made player enjoying a banner season in what amounts to his first full NHL campaign. He&rsquo;s closing in on a40-goal season, but that statistic barely scratches the surface of what the 5-foot-10, 175-pounder means to the Red Wings.&ldquo;He hates to lose,&rdquo; coach Jacques Demers said. &ldquo;He comes to play every night. A spitting image of Brian Sutter.&rdquo;People can be forgiven if they&rsquo;re just now beginning to notice Gallant. After all, he wasn&rsquo;t a first-round draft and glamor boy. In fact, he wasn&rsquo;t drafted until the sixth round, 107th overall, in the 1981 entry draft by former general manager Jimmy Skinner.Gallant played junior hockey in the Quebec League, spending his last season with Verdun Jr. Canadiens alongside Pat LaFontaine. When he graduated from the junior ranks, he wasn&rsquo;t ready to take the big step up to the NHL. He needed to improve his skills and skating. It took him a couple of seasons to do that.Gallant got off to a fast start last season. He led the Wings with 13 goals early in December when he suffered a broken jaw in a fight. It kept him out nearly two months and he was never quite the same again, although he finished with 20 goals and 39 points in 52 games.This season, with that NHL experience under his belt, Gallant started fast and hasn&rsquo;t stopped. He&rsquo;s been instrumental in the Wings&rsquo; turnaround.Gallant&mdash;Spud is the nickname, naturally, as it is with all Prince Edward Islanders&mdash;is a coach&rsquo;s delight. Left wing is his natural position, but he can play either side, wherever he&rsquo;s needed. He kills penalties, scores goals, checks, grinds, bumps, fights&mdash;whatever it takes.In addition to his versatility, he&rsquo;s a consummate team player and leader.Gallant was overlooked as a top prospect because of his lack of size and skating deficiencies.&ldquo;The draft is overrated,&rdquo; Gallant said. &ldquo;How many first-round picks and other high picks never make it or you never even hear about them again.&ldquo;That year, look at who we got. After the Wings took me in the sixth round, they got Greg Stefan in the seventh and Rick Zombo in the eighth.&rdquo;All three are now regulars and major contributors to the Wings&rsquo; renaissance. &#9632;

The Most Gallant Of Wings

OH MY GOD! What have they done?Okay, okay, we&rsquo;re sorry. Look, I know we&rsquo;ve been Gretzky-bashing for a few years now, and we didn&rsquo;t vote for him on the all-star ballot, but geesh, that&rsquo;s only because we&rsquo;re jealous and we hate the Oilers. But, my God, that is no reason to go and trade him to the Russians&rsquo;.Will he ever forgive us?D.L. Cameron, Winnipeg, MBP.S. Who&rsquo;d we get for him?<h2>REPLAY IDEAS</h2>I have watched a lot of hockey games on television and this season alone I have seen at least six or seven goals scored but not counted. Some of those goals cost the team the game and an important two points in the standings.I know the league won&rsquo;t use replays because it would cause too many game delays. So I have a rule that would benefit both sides.If a team feels that they have scored a goal and it was disallowed, that team should have a choice whether or not they want a replay. If the replay shows that it wasn&rsquo;t a goal, they should get a two-minute penalty for delay of game. This will keep a team from calling for a replay on every goal. On the other hand, if the replay shows the goal was good, then that team should get credit for the goal.After all, a goal is a goal!Truman Lucci, Happy Valley, NF<h2>MEISEL MISSILE</h2>I would like to respond to Barry Meisel&rsquo;s column from the Feb. 20 edition of THE HOCKEY NEWS.His idea of free agency for hockey is ridiculous. The Canadian-based hockey teams wouldn&rsquo;t be able to match the salaries that U.S.-based teams could offer because of the exhange rate between the two countries.His most ridiculous suggestion is he prays for a Philadelphia-Edmonton final this year. He also said that last year was an embarrassment. What is embarrassing is reading people&rsquo;s columns when they don&rsquo;t know what they are talking about. Last year&rsquo;s playoffs were the most exciting in years. No one could have predicted what happened. This is what makes watching the playoffs exciting. If it was Edmonton-Philadelphia every year in the finals, it would get boring.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011409/5604988-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="708" height="852"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Gretzky, as he appeared on the cover of THN (Feb. 27), after exchanging uniforms with Soviet captain Viaches-lav Fetisov.</figcaption></div>Barry Meisel has this strange idea that teams that win first place in their division during the regular season should automatically be one of the final four teams. I&rsquo;m sorry but that&rsquo;s not how it works. Wake up, Barry, and face reality!John Spencer, Success, SK<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021143/5604981-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="1520" height="2370"></div> &#9632;

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Soviet Hockey Program Welcomes New Recruit?

Let 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;

FAN FORUM

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-03896/5605043-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg" title="f0008-03" width="386" height="441"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob McKenzie</figcaption></div>THE NATIONAL HOCKEY League has a problem. I have a solution.But since I won&rsquo;t be doing that lunch thing with John Ziegler in the near future, I&rsquo;m left with no other choice than to reveal it here.This is your lucky day.The problem, as I see it, is that refereebashing is getting out of control. Everywhere you turn, including the pages of this publication, someone is taking a shot at the on-ice officials.Vancouver coach Tom Watt calls &lsquo;em fat. New York Islander Bryan Trottier calls &lsquo;em bad. Boston Bruin general manager Harry Sinden calls &lsquo;em liars or cheats, take your pick.Those guys aren&rsquo;t the exception to the rule either. NHL GMs regularly go into convulsions over officiating. Coaches scream and yell; players rant and rave; and the media chronicles it for all to see.And what does the NHL do to protect its officials; to maintain the integrity of the men in the striped shirts?It tells the zebras not to say anything. Then, it hands down fines. Or does nothing.Trottier is out $1,000. Sinden, $2,000. Watt, surprisingly, zippo.Whining and fining&mdash;big deal.The impact is minimal.It isn&rsquo;t a deterrent. If it were, then we&rsquo;d hear no more complaints.In fact, there are no redeeming qualities to fines. It&rsquo;s not as if payments undo the damage that&rsquo;s been done to the officials&rsquo; and game&rsquo;s reputation.What&rsquo;s needed is a hands-off approach.That is, allow the GMs, coaches and players to say whatever they like about the officials. They do anyway.Just replace the fining process with one that allows the officials to not only stand up for themselves and defend their work, but also to criticize their critics.Yes, it&rsquo;s time for the officials to go on the offensive&mdash;to question the integrity and ability of those who judge them.If they did, it might unfold something like this:&ldquo;Hey Sinden,&rdquo; yells referee Kerry Fraser, as he chases the Bruin GM down the hall towards the dressing room. &ldquo;Do you really think it makes a difference if I give Chelios a penalty for that hit on Middleton?&ldquo;I could call penalties all night, but it wouldn&rsquo;t matter. You stiffs can 7 beat the Canadiens. You&rsquo;re no good. Your farm system stinks. You don 7 pay your players enough. I may be a liar or a cheat, but you&rsquo;re a loser.You&rsquo;ll never beat Montreal in the playoffs, not for another 40 years.&rdquo;Or:&ldquo;Nice going, Tom,&rdquo; says referee Don Koharski, flashing the choke sign to the Vancouver coach after the Canucks blow a three-goal lead. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re doing a helluva job. Too bad you were too stupid not to get along with Dale Hawerchuk. You might still be in Winnipeg. You&rsquo;re not going to win any coach-of-the-year awards in Vancouver.&ldquo;Yeah, Tom, I may be fighting the battle of bulge but at least I&rsquo;ll be working next season. That&rsquo;s more than I can say for you. I was talking to Pat Quinn the other day&hellip;&ldquo;Or:&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not keeping count or anything, Trots,&rdquo; says referee Andy van Hellemond to the Isles center in the middle of a game, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;ve won a faceoff all night. In fact, Trots, I&rsquo;d say you&rsquo;re playing your worst hockey since coming into the league. I&rsquo;m getting on in years but you&rsquo;re over the hill. Maybe you can get a job at THE HOCKEY NEWS.&rdquo;It need not stop there. Better access to the officials would mean the media could take bold, new steps in covering hockey.After the game, for instance, reporters could gain a whole new perspective by doing their interviews with both coaches, the players and the referee.&ldquo;I think the turning point of the game,&rdquo; the ref tells the media throng, &ldquo;was when the dummy behind the bench allowed eight guys to be on the ice. And I don&rsquo;t have to tell you how bad their penalty killing is. They must never practise that part of the game. But what do you expect from a bunch of cementheads anyway?&rsquo; &lsquo;Great idea, right?Okay, maybe it needs a little work, but I&rsquo;d like to see it happen.Just once.You can hear THN Editor-in-Chief Bob McKenzie on mid-week Toronto Maple Leaf broadcasts on the Telemedia Maple Leaf radio network. &#9632;

f0008-03

An Alternative To NHL’s Whining And Fining

<div class="byline">COMPILED BY RICHARD BEALES Copy Editor</div>Rugged right winger Andy Ristau of the Flint Spirits has been &ldquo;ruled ineligible to participate&rdquo; in further International League regular-season or playoff action, as the result of a brawl during the Spirits&rsquo; Feb. 27 game against the Muskegon Lumberjacks.IHL director of information Mike Meyers said commissioner Bud Poile&rsquo;s ruling, unlike a suspension, is not meant to keep Ristau from playing in any other league.The Spirits had 24 games left to play this year when, during the game in Muskegon, Ristau received his second match penalty of the season. He also had nine game misconducts and 267 penalty minutes in the 31 games he played for Flint.Ristau&rsquo;s future in the IHL is uncertain. He must appeal to the board of governors at their annual meeting in June, before he will be considered for re-entry to the league.Ristau, under contract to the Buffalo Sabres, was immediately recalled and assigned to Rochester of the American League.The bench-clearing brawl spilled into the stands, with members of the Spirits mixing it up with fans.Flint coach Rick Dudley and player Brian Carroll were each suspended for three games and placed on probation for the balance of the season.Dudley was also fined $500 and ordered to post a $1,000 bond.Four other Flint players&mdash;Jim Andonoff, Kurt Kalweit, Jayson Meyer and Terry Tait&mdash;were each fined $200 and handed one-game suspensions.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011364/5605074-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="586" height="1410"><figcaption class="caption-body">The IHL has had enough of bad boy Andy Ristau. It has banned him from the league.</figcaption></div><h2>BRIDGMAN TRADED</h2>The Detroit Red Wings made a move designed to improve their playoff potential&mdash;one day before the National Hockey League trade deadline on March 10.Detroit traded right winger Chris Cichocki, 23, and a third-round draft choice in 1987 to the New Jersey Devils for center/winger Mel Bridgman, 31.Bridgman, chosen first overall by the Philadelphia Flyers in 1975, had eight goals and 31 assists in 51 games for the Devils this season. He missed 12 games with hip and foot injuries.The 12-year veteran joins his fourth team. He also played for the Calgary Flames.Cichocki, a second-year pro, had two penalty minutes to show for two games with the Wings this year. He had 31 goals and 34 assists in 55 games with the Adirondack Red Wings of the American League.Meanwhile, in an exchange of American Leaguers, the Philadelphia Flyers sent defenseman Dom Campedelli of the Hershey Bears to the Edmonton Oilers for Nova Scotia Oiler left winger Jeff Brubaker.<h2>FINES LEVIED</h2>The Boston Bruins and Quebec Nordiques, two charter members of the NHL&rsquo;s hard-nosed Adams Family, have been fined a total of $32,000 for their involvement in a bench-clearing brawl at Boston Garden, Feb. 26The Bruins were fined $18,000, including a $9,000 team fine for the club&rsquo;s second such brawl this season, while the Nordiques were fined $14,000. The Nordiques&rsquo; team fine, as a first-time offender, was $5,000.Both teams were also assessed fines of $9,000, based on $500 per player on each bench.<h2>HULL CHARGE DROPPED</h2>The wife of former Chicago Blackhawk star Bobby Hull has told authorities in Wheaton, Ill., she will not proceed with a battery complaint she filed earlier this year.Deborah Hull, 34, answered &ldquo;no&rdquo; when prosecutors in Du Page County Court asked if anyone had forced her to drop her complaint.Hull, 47, still faces an assault charge laid by Willowbrook, Ill., police constable Frederick Wiley. Wiley alleged that the former hockey star swung and shook his fist at him while resisting arrest, during the officer&rsquo;s investigation of Mrs. Hull&rsquo;s complaint.Hull, who has pleaded not guilty, will appear in court again April 15.<h2>HUGHES A WHALER?</h2>Pat Hughes may become a Hartford Whaler after all.The St. Louis Blues agreed to trade the veteran winger to Hartford for a l0th-round draft choice, but the league voided the deal&mdash;saying that as a player selected in the October waiver draft, Hughes was ineligible to be traded without first clearing waivers within 30 days of any transaction.The Blues subsequently placed Hughes on waivers with right of recall, said PR director Susie Mathieu, and Hartford was the only team to place a claim.If Hughes is released to the Whalers, she added, it isn&rsquo;t yet known whether Hartford would transfer a l0th-round draft choice to the Blues, as per the earlier agreement. &#9632;

f0009-01

Ristau Banished From International League

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011450/5605105-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="334" height="445"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stan Fischler</figcaption></div>Homestretch homilies&hellip;&bull; Dumbest trade move of the season was the Flyers&rsquo; unloading Bob Froese for &ldquo;the Skating Tripod,&rdquo; Kjell Samuelsson.&bull; If I&rsquo;m Bobby Froese and I&rsquo;m facing Philly in the playoffs, I&rsquo;m the most motivated hockey player since Wayne Gretzky vs. Mario Lemieux.&bull; Does ref Kerry Fraser realize that ref Bob Hall does a pretty good imitation of ref Kerry Fraser?&bull; Wasn&rsquo;t it a year ago that the hockey geniuses in Connecticut wanted Jack (Tex) Evans to take up parlor croquet as a substitute for coaching the Whalers? Granted that Tex got a little pushy but he&rsquo;s justified Cat Francis&rsquo; faith better than I ever imagined.&bull; Nothing against Michel Bergeron, but one of the three best stories of the season will be Ted Sator orchestrating a playoff berth for the Sabres.&bull; The people who know Wayne Gretzky don&rsquo;t know half the nice things he does when they&rsquo;re not looking.&bull; Whether you agree with Bryan Trottier or not, you have to admit it&rsquo;s a pleasure to see a player have the nerve to take a public opinionated stand on a controversial subject.&bull; I&rsquo;ve yet to meet a goon I didn&rsquo;t like off the ice.&bull; What&rsquo;s Hurting Hockey I: Too many players are using basketball-type body picks.&bull; Bobby Orr has no idea how many good friends he has who passionately stick up for him in Paul Coffey vs. Orr and Ray Bourque vs. Orr arguments. (Wayne Cashman, for one.)&bull; Want to know who&rsquo;s the closest to being Don Cherry behind an NHL bench this year? You&rsquo;re right if you said Phil Esposito.&bull; It&rsquo;s difficult to dislike the Flyers after talking with Dave Poulin.&bull; What&rsquo;s Hurting Hockey II: Players dragging opponents &ldquo;offside&rdquo; over the blue line and not being called on it.&bull; Every time I finish gabbing with Gordie Howe, I feel like pulling a five-spot out of my pocket and handing it to him as entertainment tax.&bull; I must be getting wimpy; every once in a while I wince when a columnist buries John Ziegler.&bull; Here&rsquo;s a rule that would help the game; do not allow any player to remain stationary in front of the goalie. The rule would be that you have to be skating in the area in front of the crease. That would prevent the excessive screening and pushing and shoving and other nonsense that screws up the game.&bull; What&rsquo;s Hurting Hockey III: The clutching and grabbing and clutching and grabbing and everyone believing that it&rsquo;s an accepted part of the game.&bull; Here are guys I would like to see on the same team. Bill Smith in goal; Mike Milbury and Brad Marsh on defense; Tiger Williams, Chris Nilan and George McPhee up front.&bull; It soon will be time for some brainy ice boss to phone Bob McCammon and offer him a general manager&rsquo;s job. How about Toronto, for starters?&bull; When the Oilers get knocked out of the playoffs (by Calgary), historians will flash back to Edmonton&rsquo;s disastrous February-March eastern road swing which shattered the confidence of Gretzky and Co.&bull; What&rsquo;s Hurting Hockey IV: Pat Quinn&rsquo;s mid-season excursions.&bull; I can&rsquo;t wait for Gerry McNamara&rsquo;s next &ldquo;State of the Press&rdquo; address. Wonder if he&rsquo;ll blame the media for trading Walt Poddubny?&bull; Add to the list of World Class Nice Guys: Adam Creighton, Paul MacLean, Kevin Lowe, Kevin Dineen, Marcel Dionne, Randy Velis-chek, Brian Curran, Pierre Larouche, Peter Zezel, John Chabot and Kelly Miller.&bull; I&rsquo;m getting the feeling that Wendelmania has lost its zest in Toronto. And to think it could have been Poddubnymania this year.&bull; The chap who wrote to THE HOCKEY NEWS pointing out that Garry Howatt was more than just a fighter has a good memory. Betcha&rsquo; Ken Dryden remembers Howatt&rsquo;s classic breakaway score when Garry played it like Jean Beliveau.&bull; What&rsquo;s Hurting Hockey V: Not enough ebullient personalities among players. (Imagine what it&rsquo;ll be like when Tiger Williams retires.)&bull; Gene Hart belongs in the broadcasters&rsquo; section of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Now!&bull; Los Angeles hockey people (writers, club officials) know a damn sight more about the NHL than people realize. And this, despite their geographic isolation.&bull; Best description of Ted Sator belongs to broadcaster Mike Robitaille: &ldquo;Ted hasn&rsquo;t changed but the writers covering him have!&rdquo;&bull; If Buffalo makes the playoffs, I would not want to be coaching against the Sabres in the first round.&bull; It&rsquo;s going to be hell for the Canadiens to make it to the Adams Division finals. Who&rsquo;s Jean Perron going to start in goal&mdash;his best goalie, Brian Hayward or the disappointing second-stringer, Patrick Roy?&bull; What&rsquo;s Hurting Hockey VI: Ask the editors of Inside Sports, Sports Illustrated and Sport, who adamantly refuse to put an NHL personality on the cover.&bull; One foot soldier I&rsquo;d like to have on my team is Dirk Graham.&bull; When are the writers going to realize that Ulf Samuelsson is one of the best zanies in the game?&bull; I haven&rsquo;t picked my 1986-87 All-Flubs Team yet but Gary Nylund sure is a contender.&bull; Dave Lewis will never break the speedometer but he sure knows what he&rsquo;s doing, even in waltz time.&bull; When it comes to underrated tough guys, add the Whalers&rsquo; Paul MacDermid to the list.&bull; John Ziegler addressed the NHL by-laws when he fined Bryan Trottier $1,000 for criticizing the state of officiating. Now Ziegler ought to address the pressing problems (hooking, holding, interference, etc.) raised by Trots. That&rsquo;s the biggest problem of all. And if you don&rsquo;t believe it, John, ask Wayne Gretzky.&bull; There is no more enjoyable coach with whom to talk hockey than Jacques Martin.&bull; Just when you wonder what John Kordic is doing in a Canadiens&rsquo; uniform he comes up with a goal.&bull; If I&rsquo;m a coach, the one team I don&rsquo;t want to face anywhere down the playoff line is Bob Johnson&rsquo;s Flames.&bull; Yes siree, Bob, 16 out of 21 teams making the playoffs is the best idea. Check out the interest levels in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Quebec and St. Louis where the key word is &ldquo;playoffs,&rdquo; and you&rsquo;ll know the reason why.&bull; Hockey people who are impossible to dislike: Bob Plager, Tom Webster, Barclay Plager, Jacques Demers, Lou Nanne, Terry Simpson, Mike Allison, John Chabot, Bob Sauve, Nick Fotiu, Bill Jamieson, Darcy Rota, Clark Gillies and Carol Alt.&bull; If Kjell Samuelsson helps the Flyers in the playoffs, then I&rsquo;ll eat this column with Swedish meatballs. &#9632;

f0010-01

Our Man Doesn’t Like This Ki ell’s Game

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-03710/5605136-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg" title="f0010-03" width="581" height="966"><figcaption class="caption-body">Boston&rsquo;s Geoff Courtnail was one of those ejected in the Boston-Quebec brawl.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021102/5605143-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="175" height="136"></div>BOSTON&mdash;Just as the heat from November&rsquo;s brawl between the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens had died down, the Quebec Nordiques came to town and turned up the burner.The Bruins won 6-2, but lost some respect in the eyes of local politicans by participating in a major brawl midway through the game.The timing was especially bad.The game came only a week after Boston mayor Raymond Flynn met with National Hockey League president John Ziegler in New York to discuss the earlier brawl, at Boston Garden on Nov. 20. Ziegler had assured him that &ldquo;the NHL does not promote excessive violence.&rdquo;Flynn&rsquo;s initial response to the Bruins-Habs fiasco&mdash;during which players brawled on the ice, the benches and in the corridors&mdash;was roundly negative. He said that if he was at the game, he would have &ldquo;instructed the police to go on the ice to have the Bruins and Canadiens taken off the ice in handcuffs and arrested.&rdquo;The president of the city council, Bruce Bolling, was equally upset. He introduced an ordinance that would authorize Boston&rsquo;s finest to go out on the ice (or court, or field) and arrest any pro athlete found committing an act of violence on another.The proposal had barely been scoffed off the council agenda when the Nordiques came to town, fighting for their Adams Division playoff lives.There were simple explanations for what happened at 9:05 of the second period that night, when referee Terry Gregson whistled 167 minutes in penalties and threw nine players out of the game&mdash;including the Nords&rsquo; Gord Donnelly, twice.&ldquo;It was just a hard, solid, aggressive hockey game,&rdquo; said Quebec defenseman Randy Moller, who started it all by roughing up the Bruins&rsquo; Nevin Mark wart. &ldquo;We have a pretty good rivalry with these guys. There was probably a little frustration out there.&rdquo;&ldquo;(Quebec coach Michel) Bergeron has a tradition of trying to get his hockey team going by doing that,&rdquo; charged Boston coach Terry O&rsquo;Reilly. &ldquo;Last time they were here, Basil McRae jumped Cam Neely from behind.&rdquo;Bruin tough guy Jay Miller took it in stride.&ldquo;When guys are down 4-0 in this building (as the Nords were at the time), they start to run around,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;We have to slow them down, that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;After Moller was called for roughing Markwart, Quebec&rsquo;s Dale Hunter and Boston&rsquo;s Ken Linseman exchanged words. Hunter wound up on top and Ray Bourque tried to intervene. He didn&rsquo;t get very far, so the Bruins&rsquo; bench, led by Bob-Sweeney, emptied.Comic relief was provided by two unlikely hams, Miller and McRae. The two tough guys wound up in a comer of the rink, with Miller sitting on top of McRae.&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t want to fight,&rdquo; said Miller. &ldquo;With the misconducts we&rsquo;ve both gotten, we can&rsquo;t afford to miss any more games. We wrestled around and, when I got on top of him, we agreed not to fight. He said, &lsquo;Move over so I can get a better view of this.&rsquo;Their restraint didn&rsquo;t matter. Both got game miscondcuts, as did Dwight Foster, Linseman, Geoff Courtnall, Cam Neely and Sweeney of the Bruins, and Hunter and Donnelly of the Nordiques.In the end, six game misconducts, six fighting majors and three minors were called against the Bruins; four game misconducts, six fighting majors and three minors against the Nordiques.Flynn didn&rsquo;t comment on the brawl, but a spokesman from his office said the mayor hadn&rsquo;t changed his mind about violence in sport.WHAT&rsquo;S BRUIN&mdash;Bruins&rsquo; president Paul Mooney, general manager Harry Sinden and coach Terry O&rsquo;Reilly also met with John Ziegler in New York to hash over the violence question. &ldquo;He brought to our attention the three brawls we had in the last couple of years,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Reilly said, &ldquo;but it turns out Montreal had more.&rdquo;&hellip;C-rack of the week came from Steve Kasper, after the Bruins lost six players to misconducts in the Quebec game: &ldquo;At least we didn&rsquo;t have to worry about too many men on the ice.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-03

Bruins Keep Brawling Despite Mayor’s Plea

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011321/5605174-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="177" height="136"></div>NEW YORK&mdash;When Phil Esposito made his first trade as general manager of the New York Rangers on July 29, after just 12 days on the job, he declared, &ldquo;This is fun!&rdquo;Eight months and 10 trades later, he admitted to feeling &ldquo;tired and depressed&rdquo; as he announced that he had sent left winger Mark Osborne to Toronto for left winger Jeff Jackson and a third-round draft choice in 1989.&ldquo;Somebody warned me&mdash;I forget who it was&mdash;not to go behind the bench when I became GM because you get too close to your players,&rdquo; Esposito said on March 5. &ldquo;I hate telling a guy that I&rsquo;ve gone through so much with that I&rsquo;ve traded him. That&rsquo;s one reason why I didn&rsquo;t want to coach and why I won&rsquo;t ever coach again after this season.&rdquo;Esposito said he is aware that Osborne is capable of playing tough and scoring 35 goals for Toronto next season but, right now, the GM felt that the 6-foot-2, 200-pound left winger&rsquo;s inconsistency might hurt the Rangers&rsquo; playoff push.&ldquo;Although he&rsquo;s played better in the last two or three games,&rdquo; the GM continued, &ldquo;I just felt it was time for Mark Osborne to have a change. Toronto wanted him and I wanted Jackson but I also wanted that third-round pick because it gives me things to manipulate with. It could allow me to make a trade I&rsquo;ve been working on for awhile.&rdquo;A likeable but extremely sensitive young man, Osborne was troubled by the sudden death of his father in November. Since then, he has had difficulty concentrating on hockey and seemed to lose much of his aggressiveness.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t have traded Mark anywhere but Toronto or Buffalo, because it&rsquo;s close to Toronto and that&rsquo;s where his mother and his family is,&rdquo; Esposito said, &ldquo;and I think that he needs his family tremendously right now.&rdquo;Esposito said he never knew what to expect in the way of Osborne&rsquo;s severe mood swings.&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t take the chance on Mark becoming depressed again,&rdquo; Esposito said. &ldquo;When Mark wants to be, he is one of the best forwards in hockey but I don&rsquo;t care for inconsistency.&ldquo;Not that other people weren&rsquo;t inconsistent sometimes, too, but when Ozzie hit for us, the team played better. I couldn&rsquo;t wait; one time he did, one time he didn&rsquo;t. One time he was on and one time he wasn&rsquo;t and it was all because of his mental attitude.&ldquo;Mark had his troubles but I think he is over most of it now. I like him as a person and I like his talent and I hope he bounces back and has a great season for Toronto.&rdquo;A few hours after reluctantly saying goodbye to Osborne, Esposito traded Lane Lambert to Quebec in exchange for veteran defenseman Pat Price.&ldquo;Time is running out,&rdquo; he said, referring to the NHL&rsquo;s March 10 trading deadline. &ldquo;Toronto has been after Ozzie for months and, when they offered Jackson and a third-rounder, I finally said yes. I got Price for insurance on defense, which we needed.&rsquo;Despite his troubles, the 25-year-old Osborne left New York with 17 goals and 15 assists in 58 games, compared to the 21-year-old Jackson&rsquo;s eight goals and seven assists in 55 games for Toronto.&ldquo;I like the way Jackson has played against us and our scouts say he will be as good as Osborne is now by the time he is 25,&rdquo; Esposito projected. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an intelligent kid and a hard worker and I think we&rsquo;ve got enough (talent) to compensate because George McPhee (fractured knuckle, right hand) is ready to come back and Dave Gagner is having a great season at New Haven (AHL).&rdquo;Although Esposito believes Jackson&rsquo;s best hockey is a year or two away, he says the young left winger still might be able to help right now.&ldquo;If Jeff Jackson plays a consistently tough game for us,&rdquo; the GM said, &ldquo;he&rsquo;ll add to our team more than Osborne could have the way things were going.&rdquo;Osborne scored his second goal in two games during a 7-5 Ranger victory over the Islanders on March 4 and went out fighting&mdash;drawing roughing, spearing and game misconduct penalties at 6:52 of the third period.In four seasons with the Rangers, Osborne showed flashes of toughness, speed and a big slap shot but could not sustain his best efforts. He missed all but 23 games in the 1984-85 season because of pulled hip and stomach muscles and 23 goals in 1983-84 represented his Ranger high.BIG APPLESAUCE&mdash;The need to acquire Pat Price was created by the failure of another Phil Esposito acquisition, Don Jackson, to earn a regular spot in the lineup. Although Esposito has praised Jackson&rsquo;s character, he expressed some doubts concerning the former Edmonton defenseman&rsquo;s physical ability to perform when he arrived in New York. Jackson will probably have to retire this spring because of a deteriorating hip condition. &#9632;

f0011-01

Trading Flurry Leaves Espo ‘Tired, Depressed’

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011422/5605205-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="374" height="421"><figcaption class="caption-body">Frank Orr</figcaption></div>FROM FIRSTHAND EXPERIENCE, I realize that any defense of National Hockey League officials, referees and linesmen, will earn such nifty nicknames as &ldquo;houseman&rdquo; or &ldquo;NHL shill.&rdquo; But I&rsquo;ll risk it, and say one more time that the men in the striped shirts do a good job.The guns have been opened on the referees again this season, perhaps a little more strongly than in any recent time. Some of it has been the usual bleating from general managers and coaches, looking for a handy scapegoat to disguise the fact that, on a particular night, the men to whom they pay those large salaries screwed up.As faithfully as old hounds and as regularly as 99&rsquo;s 200 points, the usual media critics of officials have made the same tired old bleats about the NHL&rsquo;s refereeing staff being in bad shape. Those whines are more rigidly scheduled than pit stops in the Indy 500.Bryan Trottier, the president of the NHL Players&rsquo; Association, isn&rsquo;t any lightweight. When he criticized the officials strongly in this august journal, it packed some punch. So much clout, in fact, that Trottier was tagged with a $1,000 fine.Some of Trottier&rsquo;s blast, however, consisted of shooting the messenger. The NHL referees don&rsquo;t write the rule book or determine the sociology of the game&mdash;how many goons per team, how the game will be played&mdash;because the owners, GMs, coaches and players determine that.What the evolution of the game has produced in 1987&mdash;and this fact never seems to get mentioned when someone is dumping on a referee&mdash;is hockey that might just be impossible to officiate well. Or at least, well enough to be viewed as satisfactory by all concerned.Harry Sinden, GM of the Boston Bruins, is concerned about the quality of officiating. At the same time, he is one of the strongest critics of the work done by the current crop of referees. That&rsquo;s because Harry is one of the game&rsquo;s best students, a man with a large number of ideas on its conduct. But he&rsquo;s also a GM, a job that demands he yell about the zebras. It&rsquo;s right there in the GMs&rsquo; job description, isn&rsquo;t it?Sinden is a big foe of interference, seeing it as a major problem in the game. Harry claims that interference is the big contribution the Soviets have made to NHL hockey.&ldquo;Back in the &lsquo;72 series with the Russians,&rdquo; Sinden said, &ldquo;interference was the big thing that got under our players&rsquo; skins and led to trouble with the referees when it wasn&rsquo;t called.&ldquo;Well, Fred Shero was a big devotee of the Soviets&rsquo; style. He picked up on it and had the Philly Flyers use interference as part of their tactics. Before long everyone was doing it. &lsquo;Pick&rsquo; plays were all over the place and now interference is the biggest problem the NHL has. There&rsquo;s so much of it and the officials don&rsquo;t or can&rsquo;t call it.&rdquo;This is not a knock on Harry&rsquo;s statement, which is correct, but a comment on how things are in the game. Something is amiss&mdash;the large amount of interference he points out&mdash;but at the same time, when teams play the Bruins at Boston Garden, they concentrate on interference in the neutral zone of that small ice surface. Who&rsquo;s best at that tactic? The home team.If the officials ever call even a small percentage of that interference, there will be enormous hollering&mdash;but maybe that&rsquo;s the answer to all the referee-knockers.For a one-week stretch in every game, the NHL should instruct the officials to call everything that is literally a penalty under the rules. That&rsquo;s every foul (no matter how small), every restraining act, every one of the countless cases of interference.Maybe then the ref-bashers would realize (a) what a difficult job the officials have and (b) what good discretion the zebras show in the calls they make. The secret to good refereeing is knowing what not to call&mdash;and in a game where rule infractions abound, NHL referees are good at it. &#9632;

f0012-01

Running Interference For Beleaguered Referees

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03784/5605236-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">John MacLean has developed into one of New Jersey Devils&rsquo; steadiest forwards, contributing scoring and checking talents.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021185/5605243-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="178" height="134"></div>EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.- Even in his first full season with the Devils, John MacLean might have been considered indispensible.It was MacLean who kept an eye on Joe Cirella&rsquo;s cooking, reminded Pat Verbeek what time The Beverly Hillbillies were on television, and made sure rookie Kirk Muller got to the Meadowlands Arena on game nights when the four lived together in an old Tudor-style home in New Jersey during the 1984-85 season.Times have changed. Cirella is married and a possible future captain of the Devils, Verbeek has developed into the team&rsquo;s leading goal-scorer (26) without having to eat Cirella&rsquo;s pot roast, and Muller is a three-time all-star&mdash;yet none of them has changed as much as MacLean.At 22, MacLean has become one of the steadiest of New Jersey&rsquo;s forwards, using his size (6 feet, 195 pounds) and defensive talents to his benefit. For the first time in his three-and-a-half season National Hockey League career, he has become a goal-scoring threat, ranking among the team leaders in that category all season.As the Devils scratched to stay in the race for a playoff spot, MacLean scored some key goals. It was MacLean who tallied the game-tying goal midway through the third period, sparking the Devils to an eventual 4-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers, Feb. 25. Four days later, MacLean scored two goals and was selected first star in a 5-5 tie at Hartford.New Jersey&rsquo;s playoff chances have faded considerably, but without MacLean&rsquo;s strong finish they would have been dead long ago.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think my style has changed, but I&rsquo;ve become more patient in my game,&rdquo; explained MacLean, who had 48 points (25 goals, 23 assists) and shared the team lead with four gamewinning goals after 63 games.&ldquo;I used to rush my shots, but I&rsquo;m more aware of how much time I have before I must shoot. My first or second year, I would shoot too quickly. It would work sometimes, but not as often. I think it comes with experience.&rdquo;He has also learned to use his size, toughness and strength to his advantage. While opposing players have manhandled some of New Jersey&rsquo;s smaller forwards, MacLean has held his own and has played effectively long after others are physically drained.&ldquo;The type of game I play, banging in the corners, you have to be the size I am,&rdquo; said MacLean. &ldquo;My size is an advantage over the long season, but a lot is mental preparation. You can easily psych yourself out of a game by saying you&rsquo;re tired. Tiredness is a state of mind. I really believe that.&ldquo;Of course, I&rsquo;m still learning. Sometimes you go out and skate all over the place and accomplish nothing, and you&rsquo;re dead tired. It&rsquo;s 80 games and that seems like a lot, but it&rsquo;s really not. There are a lot of people out there who would like to be in our position. That&rsquo;s a motivating factor for me.&rdquo;So is the prospect of the franchise&rsquo;s second playoff berth ever, and the first since the move to New Jersey.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a new experience for a lot of us,&rdquo; said MacLean. &ldquo;We realize where we want to be April 7, and if it takes the last game of the season to do it, we&rsquo;re going to be fighting until the end.&rdquo;HOT STUFF&mdash;With defensemen Bruce Driver (stiff neck) and Steve Richmond (strained left knee) both sidelined with injuries, GM Max McNab summoned Murray Brumwell from Maine under emergency recall rules, in time for the Devils&rsquo; March 5 date in Buffalo&hellip;Dave Pichette was out with a bad knee and Uli Heimer had just begun playing despite a broken toe&hellip;Jan Ludvig, who missed five games with a groin pull and last played for the Devils on Feb. 8, was sent to Maine for conditioning&hellip;Craig Billington seemed to be seizing the No. 1 goaltending spot from Alain Chevrier down the stretch. Billington was 4-4-2 with a 3.66 goals-against average and. 886 save percentage, while Chevrier was 19-22-2 with a 4.43 GAA and. 868 save percentage. &#9632;

f0012-03

MacLean Has Become Devils’ Tireless One

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011335/5605274-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="177" height="129"></div>HARTFORD&mdash;In three of the last four years, he has been voted MVP by his teammates. He was the first player to represent the Hartford Whalers in two National Hockey League all-star games. Through 408 career games, he had 152 goals and 450 points.Yet, in what the Whalers hope will be their first championship season in eight NHL years, Ronnie Francis, rather amazingly, has been overlooked.Or, at least he had been until he collected a team-record six assists (and points) in a 10-2 romp over the Boston Bruins, Mar. 5.Winger Kevin Dineen and defenseman Ulf Samuelsson played at Rendez-vous &lsquo;87. Jack Evans is being touted for coach-of-the-year honors. And whenever the Whalers&rsquo; dramatic, 12-month turnaround is discussed, in insurance board rooms or saloons, goaltender Mike Liut or the man himself, general manager Emile Francis, usually dominate the conversation.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;He shows elements of leadership and skill to a high quality all the time.&rsquo;&mdash;Tippett</blockquote>Ronnie remains, well, Ronnie.&ldquo;All the way along the line, you really hoped it would turn out like this,&rdquo; said Francis, the Whalers&rsquo; captain who turned 24, March 1. &ldquo;This is the thing you kept looking forward to. What keeps you going are your dreams.&rdquo;Francis has had to endure his share of nightmares in six seasons in Hartford. In 1982-83 when the Whalers went 19-54-7, Francis had his best statistical season, scoring 31 goals and 90 points in 79 games, proof positive that he will play when skies are cloudy.Mature beyond his years, both on and off the ice, Francis has provided the kind of stable leadership that often is associated with both good and very good teams.&ldquo;Ronnie&rsquo;s like our backbone,&rdquo; Dave Tippett said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the best player on a team with a lot of grinders and workers. He shows elements of leadership and skill to a high quality all the time. Every team needs a player like him to be successful.&rdquo;In Francis&rsquo; draft year (1981), the Whalers already had cast their lot with Bobby Carpenter, and worse, they let the rest of the hockey world know it. In one of those bizarre developments that forever seems to haunt the NHL, Carpenter&rsquo;s father, believe it or not, was sitting at the Whalers&rsquo; table at the draft that June day in Montreal.In this case, father didn&rsquo;t know best because the Washington Capitals swung an 11th-hour deal and drafted Carpenter third overall.One pick later, the Whalers chose Francis.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;ve ever thought about where I&rsquo;d be,&rdquo; said Francis. &ldquo;I was happy to be drafted by Hartford. I thought it was a stable franchise. All in all, I&rsquo;m very happy to have ended up in Hartford. The team is doing well, and the city is coming along.&rdquo;Through 65 games, Francis led the Whalers in scoring with 25 goals and 71 points.&ldquo;Francis is a great player,&rdquo; Detroit coach Jacques Demers said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a talented player and he comes to play every night. He&rsquo;s a competitor.&rdquo;That he is, and a winner, to boot.The New Jersey Devils spoiled Francis&rsquo; 24th birthday, Mar. 1, by rallying from a 5-1 deficit to forge a 5-5 tie in Hartford.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t put your head between your legs over one game,&rdquo; Francis said afterwards. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to come back, play the full 80 games.&rdquo;In his next start, Francis scored two goals and two assists in a 5-3 victory over Detroit. The win lifted the Whalers to 34-24-7, putting them 10 games above. 500 for the first time in their NHL history.For the Whalers, and especially, Ronnie Francis, the glory days are fast approaching.WHALER SCUTTLEBUTT&mdash;Joel Quenneville, who suffered a separated shoulder in December, was scheduled to return around March 15&hellip;The Whalers were 27-1-2 when leading after two periods and 14-5 in one-goal decisions&hellip;In Hartford against divisional foes, the Whalers were 11-2-2, a primary reason that they&rsquo;re taking dead aim at the Adams Division title. &#9632;

f0013-01

Capt. Francis Is The Whalers’ Stable Star

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>Before returning to the Blues, Bernie Federko had been on a liquid diet which included lots of beer&mdash;on doctor&rsquo;s orders. This reminded Blues&rsquo; aide Bob Plager of the time he played under Scotty Bowman for the Blues and was shown an experiment by Bowman. &ldquo;Scotty had a worm and put it in a glass of water and it was all right. Then he put the same worm in a glass of beer, and it died. He asked me what it meant. I told him it meant you won&rsquo;t get worms if you drink beer!&rdquo;&hellip;Arthur Reichert, the Rangers&rsquo; 84-year-old goal judge, recently celebrated his 43rd year as an NHL red-light button-pusher. He says he&rsquo;ll continue on the job, &ldquo;until I get it right.&rdquo;&hellip;Asked what she misses most since she moved to Hollywood, Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s companion Vicki Moss replies, &ldquo;My family and my boyfriend.&rdquo;Hall of Famer Gordie Howe is as sharp with the quip as he was with the puck. Asked to pinpoint the biggest change in hockey, Howe snaps, &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve added zeroes to the contracts.&rdquo; Gordie says his most significant fiscal mistake was not having his business-sharp wife. Colleen, negotiate for him &ldquo;when we were first married. And it was my fault that I didn&rsquo;t let her. She has a most creative mind.&rdquo;&hellip;The Red Wings&rsquo; improvement has had a spill-over value for the International League. The IHL, with four Mighigan-based franchises, reports a 20 percent gate boost&hellip;A fact disturbing to some NHL moguls is that the value of National Basketball Assn, franchises is escalating faster than their own.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011402/5605343-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="367" height="571"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gordie Howe</figcaption></div>The first women&rsquo;s world hockey tournament is slated tor April 26th at North York Centennial Arena in Toronto. If it works, female hockey could be a part of programming handled by the International Ice Hockey Federation&hellip;FLARE, Canada&rsquo;s fashion magazine, selected Paul Coffey among &ldquo;The 40 Most Eligible Men and Women&rdquo; in the country. Jill Pocklington, daughter of Oilers&rsquo; boss Peter Puck, also made the list&hellip;Minnesota&rsquo;s popular high school hockey tourney will be featured on ESPN&rsquo;s &ldquo;Scholastic Sports America&rdquo; series to be seen later this month or early April. Incredibly, the general public ticket waiting list for the tourney closed in 1973, with 1,000 names, and has yet to re-open. There are 77 names now on the list&hellip;Dan Hodgson on the difference between Toronto and Vancouver fans: &ldquo;At Maple Leaf Gardens the fans are laidback. They sit on their hands a lot. In Vancouver, there&rsquo;s nobody there.&rdquo;Devils&rsquo; young goalie Craig Billington has been active on the PR front. He recently addressed a group at the Meadowlands rink on the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. When Billington was injured earlier in the season, he received dozens of letters from well-wishers. He personally answered each one&hellip;Overlooked in the Bryan Trottier vs. Refs dispute was the Islander center&rsquo;s TV appearance in which he apologized to officials and told of an exchange with Andy van Hellemond after a game in which the ref had hit him with a holding penalty in the early minutes. &ldquo;Andy said I was holding the guy&rsquo;s stick,&rdquo; Trottier recalls. &ldquo;I said, &lsquo;Yeah, but the guy&rsquo;s stick was stuck in my stomach. The only way I could get it out was by pulling it away.&rsquo; &ldquo;Some Minnesota scribes are not surprised that Herb Brooks&rsquo; St. Cloud State team has been involved in headline-making brawls. &ldquo;People outside Minnesota don&rsquo;t realize that Brooks&rsquo; old University of Minnesota teams had tough guys like Russ Anderson and Paul Holmgren,&rdquo; Minny hockey writer Brad Boyle tells BLUELINES. &ldquo;They forget that Holmgren one-punched a guy in the NCAA tourney final.&rdquo;&hellip;Agent Art Kaminsky lists Harry Sinden and Bob Pulford as the two toughest GMs with whom to negotiate. Of Sinden, Kaminsky explains, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s experienced and very innovative on contract language. Harry makes you work very hard.&rdquo; As for Pulford, Kaminsky says, &ldquo;If he&rsquo;ll ever talk to you. &ldquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021089/5605336-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="361" height="569"><figcaption class="caption-body">Herb Brooks</figcaption></div>Friends of former NHLer Anders Hedberg say the classy Swede is still hoping to land an administrative or coaching job in the league and has hitched his hopes to his former boss, Craig Patrick. &ldquo;If Craig gets an NHL job before the summer,&rdquo; whispers one source, &ldquo;Anders hopes to go with him. Otherwise he may return to Sweden.&rdquo;&hellip;Flyers&rsquo; goal judge George Torchiana reveals that he&rsquo;s responsible for the change in terminology from &ldquo;minor officials&rdquo; to &ldquo;off-ice officials.&rdquo; It happened on a plane flight when Torchiana encountered NHL prexy John Ziegler. Tor-chiana&rsquo;s logic was this: &ldquo;Suppose I&rsquo;m the goal judge and it&rsquo;s the last second of the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals, and nobody sees the goal go in but me. I light the light and it makes the difference whether you&rsquo;re champs or not. Is there anything &lsquo;minor&rsquo; about that call?&rdquo; &#9632;

f0014-01

Beer Part Of Diet, Under Dr.’s Orders

<div class="byline">BY JIM KELLEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04521/5605374-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="580" height="661"><figcaption class="caption-body">Back surgery has sidelined John Tucker, one of Buffalo&rsquo;s topscoring forwards.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03761/5605381-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="178" height="132"></div>BUFFALO&mdash;Lindy Ruff was the first to go down.Given the hard-nosed winger&rsquo;s style of play, it wasn&rsquo;t surprising.The injuries that followed, however, have left the once-surging Buffalo Sabres reeling, and threatened to cut short their run at a playoff berth.In recent days the Sabres, earlier the hottest team in the National Hockey League (9-2-0), had lost for of six starts.The losses came hand in hand with the loss of Ruff (broken clavicle). John Tucker (back), Wilf Paiement (knee), Scott Arniel (charley horse), Tom Kurvers (back) and Steve Dykstra (knee). Even the replacements weren&rsquo;t able to escape the injury bug as rookie Paul Brydges (shoulder), Shawn Andersson (shoulder) and Mikael Anderson (leg) were also troubled by hurts.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re doing the best we can,&rdquo; said Sabre coach Ted Sator of the team&rsquo;s efforts to cope with the casualties, &ldquo;but we don&rsquo;t have interchangeable parts.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s certainly the case regarding Ruff, Tucker, Paiement, Arniel and Kurvers.Ruff, the team captain and its most inspirational performer, is likely to be out for the remainder of the season.The injuries to Tucker and Paiement are even more disturbing in that they are two of the team&rsquo;s best scorers.Tucker was leading the club in scoring (17-34-51) when he went out with a lower back problem. After several days of testing and deliberation it was determined that Tucker needed surgery. The unannounced event took place Feb. 23. Afterward the club said that a disc in the lumbar area was removed and that Tucker would be out a minimum of six weeks.Paiement, who had slumped after a hot start, appeared to have righted himself just prior to injuring his right knee in a game against the Bruins. The former No. 1 (overall) draft pick had scored three goals in a previous outing, giving him 20 for the season, and had hopes for a strong stretch drive. He was expected to be lost for at least three weeks.Arniel, obtained in the off-season from the Winnipeg Jets, had also played a prominent role in the Sabres&rsquo; scheme before he went on the limp. Kurvers, obtained during the season in a deal with the Montreal Canadiens (for a second-round pick in 1988) was out on a day-to-day basis. His absence in losses to Vancouver and at Philadelphia was extremely noticeable.The injuries forced the Sabres to reach all the way down into the junior ranks for a slew of emergency recalls.Ken Priestlay, from Victoria in the Western League and Mike Hartman, of North Bay in the Ontario League, were both summoned to Buffalo. Defenseman Mark Ferner, Anderson and veteran forward Don Lever were all recalled from Rochester.The hurts were most obvious in a 4-2 loss to the Vancouver, Canucks at Buffalo.&ldquo;We had a difficult time just icing a team let alone trying to find compatible lines,&rdquo; acknowledged Sator. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t get down on the guys though. They gave a good effort. We just have to do whatever we can to try and get through this.&rdquo;SABREPOINTS&mdash;Doug Smith picked up his 100th career assist against the Canucks&hellip;Mark Ferner assisted on a goal vs. the Canucks. It was Ferner&rsquo;s first NHL point in his first NHL game. &#9632;

f0014-04

Injuries Throw Roadblock In Playoff Path Of Sabres

<div class="byline">BY MIKE PERRICONE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-02925/5605412-1-eng-US/f0015-022.jpg" title="f0015-02" width="582" height="1126"><figcaption class="caption-body">Forward Wayne Presley was the hottest of the red-hot Chicago Blackhawks.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011301/5605419-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="179" height="137"></div>CHICAGO&mdash;Time was getting tight. The Chicago Blackhawks decided they had to play it tighter.They did.&ldquo;I think the guys on the team Realize there&rsquo;s no time to spare,&rdquo; right winger Wayne Presley said. &ldquo;The last couple of games, we&rsquo;ve told ourselves we need to make the playoffs.&rdquo;The Hawks have been hot, and Presley has been the hottest Hawk. He scored seven goals in nine games following the Rendez-vous break.The Hawks lost just one of those nine games (6-1-2), and tore off on a seven-game unbeaten streak (5-0-2). And the way they were doing it was with defense and goaltending.Bob Sauve, the Hawks&rsquo; mainstay in goal all season, was 2-1-1 in four starts after Rendez-vous before pulling a back muscle and going to the sidelines. It was time for Murray Bannerman to get hot, and he did.Bannerman was trying to salvage a bad season and doing a good job of if. He was unbeaten in five starts (4-0-1) with a 1.77 goals-against average.&ldquo;Murray&rsquo;s playing great,&rdquo; Sauve said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got some big wins for us, that&rsquo;s for sure.&rdquo;Included were back-to-back victories at Pittsburgh and at Chicago Stadium against Los Angeles, only the second time the Hawks have had a four-point weekend. Bannerman got the start, and the 6-1 victory, against the Kings when Sauve was hurt in the pre-game warmup. Then Bannerman made 35 saves Mar. 4 in a 3-2 victory over Winnipeg.&ldquo;Murray certainly looks like he&rsquo;s found himself,&rdquo; said Hawks&rsquo; coachgeneral manager Bob Pulford. &ldquo;If he&rsquo;s back playing the way he&rsquo;s capable of playing, that&rsquo;s a big help for us.&rdquo;&ldquo;Maybe I&rsquo;m challenging the shooters a little more, and maybe I&rsquo;m standing up a little more,&rdquo; Bannerman said. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;re playing better defensively.&rdquo;The Hawks gave up 14 goals in their seven-game unbeaten streak for a 1.95 goals-against average.&ldquo;The way we had been playing was partially embarrassing,&rdquo; said defenseman Doug Wilson. &ldquo;We were too good a hockey team to keep playing that way.&rdquo;Wilson led the Hawks with a plus-11 rating since the break.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re playing much better defensively,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not giving up 40 shots every game. We&rsquo;re playing much more disciplined in our end.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re moving the puck up more quickly. We&rsquo;re not making any fancy plays. Our wingers are holding up the opposition forwards. A half-step makes all the difference.&rdquo;But no one seemed able&mdash;or willing&mdash;to point directly to why the Hawks had made such a major change in attitude. The only common thread was that time was getting tight.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s really hard to say what it is,&rdquo; Bannerman said. &ldquo;We all realize there&rsquo;s not many games left and we&rsquo;ve got to keep winning. For whatever reason, everybody&rsquo;s just playing a lot better.&rdquo;HAWK TALK&mdash;With Bob Sauve sidelined seven to 10 days with a pulled back muscle, the Hawks recalled Warren Skorodenski from Saginaw in the IHL to back up Murray Bannerman. Skorodenski had played in two games at Saginaw after being switched from Nova Scotia in the AHL&hellip;Denis Savard recorded his 700th career point Mar. 1 against the Los Angeles Kings-&hellip;Left winger Bill Watson returned Feb. 28 with a goal at Pittsburgh after missing 13 games with a separated right shoulder. He then had two assists in a 3-2 victory Mar. 4 over Winnipeg&hellip;Ed Olczyk was back at right wing after playing center much of the season. Into his center spot went rookie Mike Stapleton, with Al Secord and Wayne Presley on the wings. Stapleton was playing strongly defensively, killing penalties, winning faceoffs and showing skills as a playmaker in his first chance at taking a regular shift. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re very, very pleased with young Stapleton,&rdquo; Hawk GM-coach Bob Pulford said. &#9632;

f0015-02

Hawks Exhibit Uncommon Defense In Streak

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011190/5605457-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Forward Patrik Erickson scored 10 goals in 25 games with Brynas of the Swiss Elite League this season.</figcaption></div>If, as the stereotype suggests, Swedes are blue-eyed blonds with fair skin, then Patrik Erickson is definitely not your typical Swede.But he stands out in a hockey crowd for more reasons than the color of his skin.The black native of Javle, a two-hour drive north of Stockholm, is a standout hockey prospect. Playing as a 17-year-old for Brynas in the Swedish Elite League, Erickson excelled as few before him his age.Erickson, a 6-foot, 172-pound left winger, is considered by many National Hockey League scouts to be the best European prospect available for the 1987 entry draft.While it&rsquo;s difficult to predict when he&rsquo;ll be drafted, several scouts say he possesses abilities equivalent to many of the first-round prospects.It is, however, unlikely he&rsquo;ll be chosen that high&mdash;especially with the dismissal of Scotty Bowman in Buffalo. Bowman chose Swedes in the first rounds of both the 1984 (Mikael Andersson) and 1985 (Calle Johnsson) drafts.Craig Patrick, as general manager of the New York Rangers, also favored Europeans&mdash;choosing Ulf Dahlen first in 1985. He, too, is gone.So, look for Erickson to be a second-round selection, largely on the basis of question marks surrounding his availability.The player, himself, has little to say about his draft prospects, come June 13.&ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t know anything about that,&rdquo; says Erickson. &ldquo;To play in North America, that is a dream. But I do not know if I&rsquo;ll ever get the chance. Maybe one day&hellip;&rdquo;Scouts would prefer it were sooner than later. But Erickson must fulfill a number of obligations first.He&rsquo;s still just a high school student and won&rsquo;t graduate until 1988. He still owes his country one year of mandatory military service and then there is the matter of his commitment to Brynas, his club team.&ldquo;I am only committed to Brynas for next season,&rdquo; says Erickson, who turned 18 on March 13. &ldquo;But there is a contract with the Swedish Hockey Federation that is good until I am 22 years old. As I understand it, it would cost a sum (of money) to get loose from it.&rdquo;That is not his concern, though. Establishing himself on the international scene is his immediate objective.&ldquo;I am really surprised at how it has gone,&rdquo; says Erickson, who jumped from Brynas&rsquo; junior team to the seniors in mid-season. In 25 senior games, he scored 10 goals and five assists. In 1985-86, with the junior Brynas team, he scored 26 goals and 32 assists in 34 games.He made a splashy debut with the senior club, scoring a pair of goals, including the winner with less than a minute to play, in his first game.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;To play in North America, that is a dream. But I do not know if I&rsquo;ll ever get the chance. Maybe one day&hellip;&rsquo;&mdash;Erickson</blockquote>&ldquo;At the beginning of this season,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;I thought I might play two or three or four games with the senior club. I did not expect to play 25.&rdquo;Erickson&rsquo;s rise to relative prominence&mdash;few 17-year-olds play tn the Elite League and fewer make an impact&mdash;has caught Swedish observers by surprise. It wasn&rsquo;t as if Erickson progressed through the Swedish system as a phenom.He did not play for Sweden&rsquo;s entry in the 1987 World Junior Championships in Czechoslovakia. He did not even merit serious consideration.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t given the chance,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;because I wasn&rsquo;t good enough.&rdquo;He has, however, played for Sweden&rsquo;s under-17 national team.After Brynas finished the regular season out of playoff contention, Erickson began working out as a member of the 18-and-under national team which is preparing for the European championships in Finland in early April.Erickson is expected to be a key member of that team and will undoubtedly go on to the national junior team next season. Ultimately, he would like to play for the national team.&ldquo;Maybe in two or three years, if I&rsquo;m lucky,&rdquo; he says.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-02948/5605450-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="1210" height="1729"><figcaption class="caption-body">It&rsquo;s expected 18-year-old Patrik Erickson will be a second-round choice at this summer&rsquo;s entry draft. (Photos by Lars Haluarsson)</figcaption></div>And when he is able to play for the Swedish nats, it will be a signal to him that he&rsquo;s ready for the NHL.&ldquo;If I am good enough to play on the national team,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;then maybe I could do it (go to the NHL), But if I go, I want to be sure that I can play.&rdquo;In the meantime, he plans to work on his deficiencies.&ldquo;I am not strong enough for playing in the senior league,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I am too weak.&rdquo;Thus far, though, he has compensated with ample speed and outstanding playmaking and scoring skills.As for his being black, Erickson says it&rsquo;s not a factor.&ldquo;Yes, I will admit it&rsquo;s quite unusual,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s not such a big deal. Not very much is made of it, at least not so far.&rdquo;He acknowledges that could change in North America, given the image most NHL hockey fans have of Swedes.&ldquo;I guess they&rsquo;ll be surprised, won&rsquo;t they?&rdquo; &#9632;

f0016-01

Young Forward Rarity In Swiss Elite League

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011041/5605488-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="179" height="134"></div>EDMONTON&mdash;Add a gifted Swede, swift-skating Finn, hard-nosed Czechoslovak and two hulking Canadian right wingers to the National Hockey League&rsquo;s most potent scoring machine, and you&rsquo;ve got the Edmonton Oilers&mdash;1987 playoff edition.The Oilers have thrown their budget out the window in their effort to reclaim the Stanley Cup. Here&rsquo;s what has happened:&bull; On March 6, veteran defenseman Lee Fogolin and right winger Mark Napier were dealt to the Buffalo Sabres, in exchange for hefty right wingers Normand Lacombe (5-foot-11,206 pounds) and Wayne Van Dorp (6-foot-5, 230). The Oilers also received a draft choice.&bull; Czechoslovak national Jaroslav Pouzar rejoined the Oilers, after spending two seasons with Iserlohn of the West German First Division.&bull; When the Oilers departed Phoenix following a three-day hiatus, 13-year-old NHL veteran Danny Gare announced his retirement rather than report to the minors.&bull; One of the reasons Gare called it quits was the March 2 acquistion of Swedish forward Kent Nilsson from the Minnesota North Stars, for a draft choice to be determined later.&bull; As the Oilers returned home from their longest (13 days) and most fruitless (1-5) road trip of the season on March 5, they were joined at practice by Reijo Ruotsalainen, the slick little defenseman they acquired from the New York Rangers in October.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;I take the good with the bad.&rsquo;&mdash;Nilsson</blockquote>Ruotsalainen&rsquo;s arrival from Bern of the Swiss League has been anxiously awaited, ever since his rights were acquired from the Rangers for Don Jackson. Ironically, he&rsquo;ll play alongside Jackson&rsquo;s old defensive partner, Randy Gregg.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m nervous, very nervous,&rdquo; said the 27-year-old Finn. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been nervous for the last two weeks. On road trips, all I could think of was coming here, coming back to the small ice surface and making all the adjustments in a short period of time.&rdquo;Outside of Ruotsalainen. the most heralded addition was Nilsson, who has been called &ldquo;The Magic Man&rdquo; for his vast wealth of talent and occasional on-ice disappearing acts.&ldquo;I think we needed to do something to rejuvenate a little of our skating enthusiasm.&rdquo; general manager/coach Glen Sather said. &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t been getting much mileage out of our third and fourth lines. We can&rsquo;t have the same guys carrying the club all of the time.&rdquo;Sather attempted to pick up Nilsson last year, but Minnesota GM Lou Nanne wasn&rsquo;t buying a trade at that time.&ldquo;He was an untouchable to Louie,&rdquo; Sather said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good player who can do a lot of things. He increases our overall team speed and gives us a lot of options.&rdquo;Nilsson is comfortable at every forward position and can also play the point on the power play, a factor that enthuses co-coach John Muckier.&ldquo;No question, he&rsquo;ll help the power play,&rdquo; Muckier said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s one of the areas we&rsquo;ve been weak in. He&rsquo;s a skilled player and skill isn&rsquo;t something you lose.&rdquo;The 30-year-old Nilsson, who has twice topped 100 points in his eightyear NHL career, said he&rsquo;s excited about joining the Oilers.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve played in North America for 10 years (including two in the WHA),&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;People have said a lot of things about me in those years. I take the good with the bad. Lots of nights I&rsquo;ve been good; lots of nights, I&rsquo;ve been bad. Maybe I wasn&rsquo;t playing good in Minnesota. Maybe I didn&rsquo;t fit in there.&rdquo;With the Oilers, he was placed on left wing with Mark Messier and Glenn Anderson.&ldquo;If I can&rsquo;t play with those guys,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;then I think it&rsquo;s time to get out of the game.&rdquo;Of the two transfers from Buffalo, Lacombe is better known. The Sabres&rsquo; second selection (10th overall) in the 1983 entry draft has split time between the Sabres and Rochester of the American League since he turned pro.The Vancouver-born Van Dorp, an enforcer type, joined Rochester this year after spending the 1985-86 season in Holland, where he had 27 goals and 32 assists in 29 games.Sather had mixed feelings in giving up Napier, 30, and Fogolin, 32.&ldquo;Fogolin is such an important part of our history that making the deal was especially hard,&rdquo; the GM said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry to see him go; he&rsquo;s been such a class player since Day One. Napier&rsquo;s been a valuable addition who helped us win a second Stanley Cup, but it was time to think of the future in terms of youth.&rdquo;An Edmonton NHL original, Fogolin returns to the Sabres, from whom the Oilers plucked him in the 1979 expansion draft. &#9632;

f0017-01

Edmonton Gears Up For Run At Stanley Cup

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN Assistant Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011083/5605519-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="179" height="148"></div>TORONTO&mdash;The nature of coaching in professional sports is such that job security is as transitory as glimpses of intelligent life form in the Oval Office.There are no long-term guarantees, just long-term contracts.So it was for coach John Brophy, whose Toronto Maple Leafs had lost five of six games to drop out of a playoff position.On Mar. 5, the Toronto Sun reported that Brophy had narrowly escaped the hangman&rsquo;s noose. Later, the story was fleshed out.Heavily-criticized general manager Gerry McNamara apparently recommended Brophy&rsquo;s firing but owner Harold Ballard turned down the proposal.Instead, Brophy was behind the bench the very night the story broke. What he saw unfold in front of his eyes was music to his ears.The Leafs, desperate for a win after losing two of three games despite strong play, whipped Pittsburgh 7-2.An elated Brophy fielded the question of the day: Was he affected by the news of his imminent demise?&ldquo;No sir, I&rsquo;m not,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There are only a few things you can control around here and that&rsquo;s not one of them.&rdquo;Former captain Rick Vaive, who has emerged once again as the team&rsquo;s best player, put the matter in perspective&mdash;from a player&rsquo;s perspective.&ldquo;I felt affected by it,&rdquo; said Vaive of the surprising story. &ldquo;Obviously, I have a pretty good personal relationship with John. As well, I think he&rsquo;s a good coach.&ldquo;I felt a little more motivated by that but the bottom line was that we still had to win a hockey game and get into the playoffs regardless of any kind of outside stuff.&rdquo;The most serious criticism of Brophy&rsquo;s work this year is related to his impatience, if changes don&rsquo;t work out for the better immediately, there are usually more changes.He has also been the victim of unrealistic expectations after the Leafs shot out to a 7-2-3 start. Over its next 52 games, Toronto lost 15 more games than it won.One of the reasons was mediocre goaltending, particularly from Ken Wregget, last year&rsquo;s playoff saviour.Still, it&rsquo;s Wregget that Brophy was counting on to carry the Leafs into the playoffs. Even though he was the loser in a heartbreaking and critical 4-3 loss to St. Louis, Mar. 3, Wregget was back in goal versus Pittsburgh, and again two nights later, against the New York Islanders.The Leafs also beat the Islanders 7-2 to give Brophy some breathing space. With 14 games left they remained, however, five points behind the Blues, who occupied the fourth and final playoff position in the Norris Division.Wregget had started four in a row and, in the words of Brophy, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s got his confidence back. I think we&rsquo;ll have to let him go (on playing).&rdquo;That meant Detroit destroyer Allan Bester, who dominated the first-place team this season, was the No. 2 man. It also meant Jeff Reese of the Newmarket Saints would not be supplanting Wregget.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;There are only a few things you can control around here and that&rsquo;s not one of them.&rsquo;&mdash;Brophy</blockquote>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d heard someone might be coming up and someone would have to go down,&rdquo; said Wregget, after permitting just two of 33 Islander shots to get past him. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s bite-scratch-and-claw time; time to start worrying about our jobs, the coach&rsquo;s job and everybody&rsquo;s job.&rdquo;One job lost in the shuffle was rookie Jeff Jackson&rsquo;s. The left winger was traded to the New York Rangers, along with a third-round draft choice in 1989, for left winger Mark Osborne.Jackson, 21, had eight goals and seven assists in 55 games. Osborne, 25, had 17 goals and 15 assists in 58 games with the Rangers this season.Twice a 20-plus goal-scorer, once with Detroit and once with New York, the tough forward had been playing inconsistently since the unexpected death of his father in November.The Leafs had coveted him for some time.&ldquo;He knows how to play,&rdquo; said Brophy. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big strong man and he&rsquo;s got a helluva shot.&rdquo;Osborne, playing alongside Russ Courtnail and Brad Smith, scored a goal against the Penguins&mdash;his first game with the Leafs.He said that he&rsquo;s delighted to return to his hometown, and hopeful that he can leave behind his demons in New York.&ldquo;I was losing a little bit of my confidence,&rdquo; said Osborne. &ldquo;I was really frustrated on the ice.&rdquo;Many of the Leafs have shared that feeling this season.LEAFLETS&mdash;Rick Vaive had nine goals in his last five games, giving him 28 for the season&hellip;The win over the Islanders gave Toronto 58 points, one more than all of last season. Detroit, by the way, was on pace to more than double its 40 points of 1985-86. Red Wings&rsquo; coach Jacques Demers stuck it to bitter rival John Brophy, saying it would take a &lsquo;miracle&rsquo; for the Leafs to make the playoffs&hellip;Wendel Clark closed in on the 30-goal mark, getting two against Pittsburgh and a dandy against the Islanders&mdash;giving him 29 for the season&hellip;Steve Thomas, too, approached 30 with two goals and two assists in the win over the Islanders. He had 28&hellip;Defenseman Ted Fauss was demoted to Newmarket and right winger Miroslav Ihnacak recalled&hellip;Rick Lanz was playing his best hockey since since joining the Leafs in a December trade from Vancouver&hellip;Gary Leeman was moved back to defense from right wing&hellip;Rookie Vincent Damphousse had gone 12 games without a goal&hellip;Tom Fergus was on a five-game point-scoring streak. &#9632;

f0018-01

Brophy Hangs On, So Do The Maple Leafs

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02822/5605550-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="418" height="468"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Simmons</figcaption></div>IT WAS A TRADE that can win the Edmonton Oilers another Stanley Cup.Or lose one.The trouble with Kent Nilsson is, you never know.Glen Sather&rsquo;s halfway house of hockey horrors has another of the game&rsquo;s great talents and how it all turns out is anyone&rsquo;s guess. The irony of it all is, as Nilsson plays for Edmonton, the rival Calgary Flames&mdash;the team which first traded the Magic Man&mdash;will pay a large percentage of the newest Oilers&rsquo; salary.Kent Nilsson on the Oilers? My first reaction to the move was: Why? My second reaction was: Glen Sather is smarter than I often give him credit for.No less of an authority than Lanny McDonald thinks so. It was Lanny who told me that Nilsson is at his best when little is expected of him. And in Edmonton, where fans and media have ridiculed him over the years, little, most certainly, will be expected.In Calgary, Nilsson was supposed to lead. Because he was the most talented, it was naturally assumed he would be most productive. He was always productive. But he was rarely consistent.In Minnestoa, little changed. There were those streaks of brilliance only a player of Nilsson&rsquo;s ability could attain, and then there were the unaccountable lapses. Too often. Too many. Too frustrating.In Calgary, he was a center of great debate. On most nights, he was thought to be the reason the Flames won or lost. He mirrored the team, and in its inconsistency, the team mirrored him. In the end, Nilsson was the scapegoat for a playoff loss, and a vote of those who count in Flames&rsquo; management deemed the club better off without him, than with him.In Minnesota, there was a similar debate. Lou Nanne, who calls the shots off the ice, wanted Nilsson to play regularly. Lome Henning, who calls the shots on the ice, didn&rsquo;t want Nilsson to play. Surprisingly, Henning won, which means he&rsquo;s got more power than many thought, or Nanne is mellowing in this general manager&rsquo;s game.Enter Edmonton, who can afford to use Nilsson differently than his previous NHL clubs. In Calgary, he was considered the club&rsquo;s best player. In Minnesota, he was lumped alongside Dino Ciccarelli and Neal Broten on the list of stars. In Edmonton, where exactly does he fit in?On a team with Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Paul Coffey, Esa Tikkanen, and eventually Reijo Ruotsalainen, Nilsson is just another talented forward. He&rsquo;ll blend in quietly, which is how he likes it best.If Sather chooses to employ Nilsson solely for powerplay and penalty-killing duties, he will improve the club. And through the tough playoff grind, he will also afford the more physical players more rest when necessary.Imagine starting with a line of Gretzky, Kurri and Tikkanen. Then throwing out Messier, Anderson and Nilsson as a second line. Few teams have ever been able to boast six forwards capable of 100-point seasons.Imagine the power plays. Nilsson and Coffey at the points. Gretzky, with Messier and Kurri. Then, if you want, you can throw out Ruotsalainen and friends for the last half minute or so, just to keep everyone honest.I get angry at those who have stereotyped Nilsson as a playoff quitter. Last year, when the North Stars&rsquo; stars weren&rsquo;t scoring in the playoffs, he was.In his first season in Calgary&mdash;his best NHL season&mdash;it was his play that carried the Flames to their first-ever playoff series victory. He got hurt in the second round against Philadelphia, but was still good enough to figure prominently in the dramatic seventh-game victory at the Spectrum.Two years later, the Flames played nine playoff games. He had 12 points.His two questionable playoff years were seasons when the team was eliminated in the first round, once in three games by Vancouver, the other in four games by Winnipeg. Each time the Flames looked to him for leadership. Each time, perhaps unfairly, he was accused of quitting on the team.Since then, the reputation stuck. It was easy to say the Magic Man disappeared. How appropriate. It was convenient to find one person to blame. It was too easy. And it wound up hurting Nilsson, a sensitive man who is a victim of himself.McDonald, who sat beside him in the Flames&rsquo; dressing room for four seasons, said Nilsson wasn&rsquo;t a quitter.&ldquo;He cares,&rdquo; said McDonald. &ldquo;Sometimes he doesn&rsquo;t know how to show it. But when the team loses, or when he doesn&rsquo;t play the way he wants to, you know that he&rsquo;s hurting inside. I think Kent has been one of the most misunderstood players in the game.&rdquo;And now the Flames will have to deal with him&mdash;and pay him at the same time. &#9632;

f0018-02

Misunderstood Magic Man Yet Another Edmonton Star

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011002/5605581-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="582" height="1176"><figcaption class="caption-body">Goalie Pete Peeters had a personal nine-game winning streak snapped by Philadelphia.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02738/5605588-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="182" height="140"></div>LANDOVER&mdash;Remember Pete Peeters? He was the Washington Capitals&rsquo; No. I goaltender last season, playing every minute of all nine playoff games.This season Peeters celebrated (?) the Christmas break as the No. I goalie in Binghamton. At that point, he had played only 11 games for Washington, winning three and recording a 4.36 goals-against average.When Bob Mason, the Capitals&rsquo; mainstay over the first half of the season, ran into some January doldrums, Peeters went back into the nets, with some startling results.Peeters earned nine straight victories, one short of Pat Riggin&rsquo;s club record, before his onetime teammates in Philadelphia halted the streak in a tough 4-2 game at the Spectrum.The four goals were the most Peeters yielded during a solid stretch following the Rendez-vous break. He played every minute of a six-game Washington winning streak that included two victories over Edmonton and a 5-2 decision in Calgary.Over the six games, Peeters yielded only three goals in the first and second periods, frustrating the opposition while his teammates built big early leads and then missing shutouts when everyone relaxed.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s kind of disappointing to keep losing shutouts, but if it&rsquo;s meant to be, I&rsquo;ll get them,&rdquo; Peeters said. &ldquo;I thought I had good cracks at them against Detroit, the Rangers and New Jersey (all into the third period), but we went out to win and we did, and that&rsquo;s the big thing.&rdquo;Shutout or no shutout, New Jersey coach Doug Carpenter was impressed with Peeters after the Devils outshot the weary Capitals 34-24, and lost 3-2.&ldquo;The only thing that wasn&rsquo;t going right was that we had to shoot at Peeters,&rdquo; Carpenter said. &ldquo;I thought that Peeters was outstanding and had he not been, we would have won the hockey game.&rdquo;Peeters was playing well despite a bruised right hand that was aggravated by a slash from New Jersey&rsquo;s Rich Chernomaz.&ldquo;Pete has been really solid,&rdquo; said coach Bryan Murray. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s on a roll right now and he will get a fair amount of work that he wasn&rsquo;t getting earlier on. He&rsquo;s been especially tough early, making some big saves and giving us the chance to win the game.&rdquo;Warren Strelow, the Capitals&rsquo; goal-tending coach, said, &ldquo;Pete is playing the angles well. His balance is good and he has a lot of confidence. He&rsquo;s really worked hard.&rdquo;Capital Centre fans were warming up to Peeters, where before they had not shown him the whole-hearted support they extended to more popular goaltenders Bernie Wolfe, Gary Inness and Al Jensen.One of the problems in accepting Peeters is that he makes the job look easy and does not appear to be expending the effort of goalies who dive in all directions making spectacular saves.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never been a flashy goaltender,&rdquo; Peeters said. &ldquo;Some guys are all over the place. I try to rely on being in the right place at the right time. That&rsquo;s the way I was taught by Jacques Plante and now by Warren, too.&ldquo;Why make a three-foot move if all you have to do is make a six-inch move? If you can save the energy, save it for when you need to make the big save? I try to play angles, but I use reflexes, too.&rdquo;Peeters scared the Capitals and a lot of ESPN viewers from coast to coast during a 5-3 victory at Edmonton following the all-star hiatus. He went down in the third period, rolling on the ice in agony, and had to be replaced by Bob Mason.What happened was that because of his long inactivity, he had stopped adhering to a special diet designed to rid him of the leg cramps that had plagued him earlier in his career. So the cramps struck again. By game&rsquo;s end, after drinking fluids, he was fine.&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it funny, how you can be rolling around like you&rsquo;re dying and an hour later you&rsquo;re fine?&rdquo; Peeters asked.Not really much different from being a has-beentone month and a hero the next.CAPSULES&mdash;The Flyers snapped Mike Gartner&rsquo;s latest goal-scoring streak at seven games, matching the second-best in the NHL this season. Gartner also had the longest&mdash;nine games. Gartner, who had 10 goals after 45 games, reached 35 in game No. 65. He has never had fewer than 35 in eight NHL seasons&hellip;New Jersey ended Dave Christian&rsquo;s streak of assists at nine games, which tied Bengt Gustafsson&rsquo;s club record&hellip;Kelly Miller suffered a shoulder separation when he took a solid check from the Devils&rsquo; Randy Velischek&hellip;Six games after he returned from a knee injury, Alan Haworth was out of action again. The same knee was giving him pain, although an arthrogram revealed no further damage. &#9632;

f0019-01

Peeters Goes From Minor To Major Role

<div class="byline">BY JERRY ZGODA</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0020-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01879/5605619-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Defenseman Ron Wilson underwent surgery to remove kidney stones. He was expected to miss two weeks of action.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02592/5605626-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="179" height="134"></div>BLOOMINGTON&mdash;This, the Minnesota North Stars figure, has got to end sometime. If nothing else, the law of averages suggests that the Stars have to beat the Detroit Red Wings sooner than later.At least, that&rsquo;s what the Stars were thinking when they dragged an 0-5-1 record against the Wings into Detroit for their seventh meeting of the year. But when they dragged themselves back home after a 9-3 beating, they were five points out of first place, instead of a possible one, and they still hadn&rsquo;t beaten the Wings, whom they demolished in last season&rsquo;s series 6-11.This time, instead of getting closer to stopping the Wings&rsquo; streak, the Stars were drilled for their worst loss yet. The Wings hadn&rsquo;t scored nine goals since beating Toronto in March, 1985. And the Stars hadn&rsquo;t given up nine goals since losing to Vancouver 10-5 in January, 1986.But a blowout was evident from the opening minutes, when Joe Kocur scored at 1:08 and Bob Probert added another goal on a penalty shot at 3:07. Four more goals followed in the next nine minutes and by the time the last stragglers in the crowd of 19,700 fans settled into their seats, the Wings had a 6-0 lead with just 12:15 gone in the game.&ldquo;I thought Minnesota would come out and play their best game against us,&rdquo; said Detroit coach Jacques Demers.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Obviously, we have to get over this (streak) soon. The longer it is, the worse it is.&rsquo;&mdash;Henning</blockquote>Demers had called the game the Wings&rsquo; most important of the year, because a victory meant a five-point lead with 14 games left. A loss meant a one-point lead. But Minnesota coach Lome Henning refused to attach such significance to the game.&ldquo;If you put a &lsquo;must-win&rsquo; tag on it and it doesn&rsquo;t work out, it&rsquo;s tough to rebound,&rdquo; Henning said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s still time left.&rdquo;But some facts remain: The Stars had just one more game against Detroit (Mar. 14) before the playoffs and if they&rsquo;re going to slow the Wings&rsquo; soaring confidence, they better do it then.&ldquo;Obviously, we have to get over this (streak) soon,&rdquo; Henning said. &ldquo;The longer it goes, the worse it is. But the regular season doesn&rsquo;t always mean a whole lot when the playoffs come.&rdquo;The Stars began preparations for the playoffs when they trimmed their roster (and payroll) by sending right winger Kent Nilsson to Edmonton for a 1988 draft choice. The choice depends on how the Oilers fare in the playoffs, but it could be as high as a second-rounder.Nilsson had been benched a couple of times this season, including a stretch in late February, because Henning wasn&rsquo;t happy with Nilsson&rsquo;s defensive lapses. And with Nilsson, who is in the last year of his contract, considering returning to Sweden next season, the Stars decided to get something for him while they could.&ldquo;He just wasn&rsquo;t going to play a lot for us and he needs to play a lot to play well,&rdquo; Henning said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll fit in well with Edmonton.&rdquo;STARDUST&mdash;Defenseman Ron Wilson was hospitalized and underwent surgery to remove kidney stones the first week of March. He missed a 4-4 tie at Los Angeles, March 3 and was expected to be out at least two weeks&hellip;Michigan State senior right winger Mitch Messier, a first-team CCHA all-star, is expected to join the Stars after the Spartans&rsquo; season ends&hellip;The Stars called up right winger Jim Archibald from their Springfield farm club for the game at Detroit. Archibald had nine goals, 25 points and 272 penalty minutes in 60 games for the Indians&hellip;Goalie Kari Takko was yanked for the first time this season after the Wings scored their first five goals in 11 minutes. &#9632;

f0020-01

Wings Have Dominated Stars This Season

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03411/5605657-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="388" height="464"><figcaption class="caption-body">Barry Meisel</figcaption></div>IN 1950, Philip Anthony Esposito of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., was eight years old. The Rangers hadn&rsquo;t won a Stanley Cup in 10 years, but the lad hardly cared that they lost in the finals that year to the Detroit Red Wings, four games to three.It wasn&rsquo;t until 1972 that the Rangers returned to the finals. That year they were the second-best team in hockey. The best team, the Boston Bruins, beat them for the Cup, four games to two. Bobby Orr and a 24-year-old scoring machine named Phil Esposito spoiled New York&rsquo;s dream. In Madison Square Garden that night, New York cried.Three years later, Espo was traded to the Rangers. And in 1979, under a fog named Fred Shero, they shocked the hockey world by marching to the finals. Espo carried a band of overachievers on his huge, sloping shoulders as far as he could. The Rangers fell short to the Montreal Canadiens, four games to one. And New York shed another tear.The Rangers haven&rsquo;t come close since. But Phil Esposito, rookie GM of hockey&rsquo;s star-crossed organization, armed with a three-year contract and a three-year plan, has this dream: &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing more I want in the world right now than to win a Stanley Cup in New York. Then I would have no qualms, absolutely no qualms, about just saying: &lsquo;Hey, baby, it was great. I&rsquo;m out of here.&rsquo; &ldquo;When Phil Esposito was named vice-president and general manager of the Rangers on July 14, 1986. North America laughed. Another Gulf & Western corporate clunker, the cynics said. Another example of style over substance from the land of filth and grime, pollution and crime.Well get this straight: Phil Esposito belongs in New York because Phil Esposito is New York. He is a shout among the whispers, a doer among the procrastinators, a showman among the wallflowers.A tuxedo on New Year&rsquo;s Eve, a fist in the air, a scowl, a smile. Every night is a Garden party and Espo&rsquo;s having fun playing host.Maybe that makes people uncomfortable, jealous, envious.Too bad.In eight months he&rsquo;s made more moves than most GMs make in eight years: Glen Hanlon and two draft picks to Detroit for Kelly Kisio, Lane Lambert and Jim Leavins-&hellip;Brian MacLellan to Minnesota for a draft pick&hellip;Mike Allison to Toronto for Walt Poddubny&hellip;The rights to Reijo Ruotsalainen to Edmonton in a complicated yet-to-be completed deal in which the Rangers acquired Don Jackson and a Czech named Miroslav Horava&hellip;Bob Brooke and Mark Pavelich to Minnesota for Curt Giles, Tony McKegney and a draft pick&hellip;Bob Froese to Philadelphia for Kjell Samuelsson and a draft pick&hellip;Mike Ridley, Kelly Miller and Bob Crawford to Washington for Bobby Carpenter and a draft pick&hellip;Chris Kontos to Pittsburgh for Ron Duguay&hellip;Brad Maxwell from Vancouver on waivers&hellip;Brad Maxwell to Minnesota for future considerations&hellip;Mark Osborne to Toronto for Jeff Jackson and a draft pick&hellip;He&rsquo;s won some, he&rsquo;s lost some. New York can handle that. New York can handle a guy who&rsquo;s unafraid to roll the dice.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m no genius. I don&rsquo;t profess to be,&rdquo; says Esposito. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have the answers. I&rsquo;m learning every day. Until the day 1 die I&rsquo;m going to be learning.&rdquo;Over the summer, Esposito hired a goalie coach. Ed Giacomin. In the fall he fired a coach, Ted Sator. He then hired a new coach, Tom Webster, and a new assistant coach, Wayne Cashman. The head coach became ill in the winter, so Espo jumped behind the bench and swore he hated doing it.And the more he said he hated it, the more his team won.No, the Rangers are not contenders yet. They are still fighting for the playoffs. But for five years under bland Craig Patrick, the Rangers never knew what they were supposed to be. Were they the sweet-skating, European-style Herb Brookses? Were they the methodical defensive Satorian robots?With Espo in control, the Rangers again belong to New York. And they know who they are.On Espo&rsquo;s left hand rests the Bruins&rsquo; 1971-72 Stanley Cup ring. On his right rests the 1969-70 momento. &ldquo;When my dad died, the last thing before they closed the casket I took it off his finger. And I wear it all the time. I probably will continue to wear that one, because it&rsquo;s the first one.&rdquo;In Esposito&rsquo;s mind, the 1971-72 ring is nearing retirement. In the dream, he is standing on the steps of city hall.Off comes the 1971-72 ring. On goes the symbol of the Rangers&rsquo; first Stanley Cup in nearly 50 Ranger years.Esposito waves his arms, punches the air with his fists. And as the Monster of MSG roars, he walks away smiling. &#9632;

f0020-03

Phil Esposito Is New York, Not Just Its Hockey Coach

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01765/5605688-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="438" height="2622"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02538/5605695-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="184" height="140"></div>VANCOUVER&mdash;Chronic lack of depth on the Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; blue line turned out to be just the break Craig Levie needed to salvage his National Hockey League career.Having returned from playing in Europe, the veteran NHL defenseman was working out with the Calgary Flames in hopes of landing a job somewhere in their organization. He was also planning to spend some time with the Canadian national team while the Flames made up their mind.Then the Canucks came through Calgary for their last visit of the year. A knee injury to Michel Petit, combined with the season-long erosion of their defense (veterans Doug Hal ward, Rick Lanz and Brad Maxwell have all been sent packing) led the Canucks to seek out free agent Levie.Coach Tom Watt, who worked with Levie through parts of two seasons, thought it would be a good idea for the club to improve its depth and asked the 27-year-old rearguard to call Canuck general manager Jack Gordon back in Vancouver. He did, and a week later, Levie was in the lineup against the Edmonton Oilers.&ldquo;I was going to sign with Calgary until Vancouver made a better offer in terms of money,&rdquo; Levie said. &ldquo;And they said I probably had a chance of playing with them right away instead of going down to the minors.&ldquo;Calgary was going to sign me to a minor-league contact and have me more as insurance for the playoffs. They wanted me to play in Moncton or have me play with the Olympic team&mdash;but I didn&rsquo;t want to play in the minors, because I didn&rsquo;t want to move my family and three kids.&rdquo;It turns out Levie&rsquo;s family won&rsquo;t be moving&mdash;his contract is only until the end of the season. But clearly a reasonable showing down the stretch would earn him at least an invitation back to training camp and, perhaps, even another contract&mdash;depending on the disposition of Pat Quinn when he takes over the reins this summer.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s someone who has played in the NHL before and he&rsquo;ll give us a little more added depth on defense,&rdquo; said Gordon, who has kept a low profile since Quinn was named president and general manager.&ldquo;He (Watt) knew me from Winnipeg and knows what I can do,&rdquo; Levie said. &ldquo;And from what I&rsquo;ve been told, they&rsquo;re concerned about their injuries on defense. I guess they don&rsquo;t have a lot of depth there.&rdquo;VAN LINES&mdash;Tony Tanti, on a torrid scoring pace lately, had 22 of his 34 goals on the road.<h2>NHL Games To Gome</h2><h3>MAR. &#9632;</h3>

f0022-01

Levie Added As Insurance On The Blue Line

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-03320/5605726-1-eng-US/f0023-032.jpg" title="f0023-03" width="554" height="802"><figcaption class="caption-body">RON FRANCIS</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01687/5605740-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="189" height="176"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02451/5605733-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="147" height="153"></div>NEW YORK&mdash;Hartford Whaler center Ron Francis tallied a League-high 12 points on three goals and nine assists in three games to earn the Chrysler-Dodge Player of the Week Award for the period ending March 8. Francis, whose performance helped the Whalers stretch their Adams Division lead to eight points over Montreal, edged teammate Mike Liut, Edmonton center Wayne Gretzky, Pittsburgh left winger Randy Cunneyworth and Minnesota right winger Dino Cic-carelli for the honor.On Francis&rsquo; behalf, ChryslerDodge will donate $500 to the Avon, Connecticut, Youth Hockey Association, the youth hockey organization of his 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.Francis&rsquo; performance helped Hartford complete a 5-0-1 homestand with three straight victories. Francis had two goals and two assists in Hartford&rsquo;s 5-3 win over Detroit March 3, then set a club assists and points record with six in a 10-2 thrashing of Boston March 5. Francis concluded his week with one goal and one assist in the Whalers&rsquo; 5-3 win over Philadelphia March 7. Two of his three goals during the week were gamewinners.Francis, the 24-year-old Whaler captain and Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., native, increased his season totals to 26 goals and 53 assists for 79 points. He vaulted from 18th to a tie for eighth place among League scoring leaders, and he is now fifth in the League in assists. &#9632;

f0023-03

Ron Francis selected this week’s Chrysler-Dodge NHL Player of the Week

<div class="byline">BY JEFF GORDON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01743/5605771-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="177" height="136"></div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;The importance of good goaltending was never more obvious to the St. Louis Blues than March 3.In their most critical game of the season&mdash;against the Maple Leafs in Toronto&mdash;the Blues were outshot 3918 but managed to win 4-3.&ldquo;Yeah, but they were long shots,&rdquo; defenseman Bruce Bell said.He was just kidding. Goaltender Rick Wamsley was under fire from the outset, getting tested from every angle in rapid-fire succession. The Blues were bad-check artists, allowing high-percentage shots and then not clearing the rebounds.&ldquo;Wamsley was the difference,&rdquo; defenseman Rob Ramage said. &ldquo;He stood on his head. We gave up too many scoring chances. That&rsquo;s not how we like to play, especially on the road.&rdquo;Wamsley erased those errors with his best effort of the season.&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t had to come up that big before,&rdquo; said Wamsley. &ldquo;I felt the strongest since I came back. I felt strong throughout the whole game.&rdquo;From Jan. 23 through March 3, Wamsley started just four games and won three of them beating Calgary 2-1. Quebec 4-3 in overtime and then the Maple Leafs. In that span he yielded five games to Greg Millen, who got hot, then he suffered a peri-rectal abscess that sidelined him for six games.&ldquo;The doctors think they got it,&rdquo; was Wamsley, who has been plagued by that sort of ailment throughout his career. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a type of thing that really doesn&rsquo;t go away.&rdquo;The Toronto game established Wamsley for the stretch run and gave the Blues balanced netminding for the first time all season.&ldquo;They are excellent goaltenders when they are on top of their game,&rdquo; Blues&rsquo; coach Jacques Martin said. &ldquo;Both guys had their periods this season when they weren&rsquo;t as sharp. Wamsley had an excellent start, then he had a stretch when he was struggling a bit. I&rsquo;d have to say he&rsquo;s back.&rdquo;Millen, on the other hand, started poorly, going 2-6-2 in this first 10 games. He got pulled in a 7-1 loss at Philadelphia Dec. 2 and looked especially bad in a 5-3 loss at Washington Dec. 20.But Millen turned his season around with a 3-1-1 homestand at the end of January and started 15 of 18 games during one span.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re both veteran goaltenders,&rdquo; Wamsley said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve both won in the past. Right now I think we&rsquo;re both playing well. It&rsquo;s to everybody&rsquo;s advantage. If both guys are playing well, you can get around having slumps.&rdquo;Good goaltending is especially critical to the Blues, one of the lowest-scoring National Hockey League teams. After 64 games, they were 213-6 when they allowed three goals or less and 3-25-6 when they allowed four or more.Last season the Blues allowed the fewest goals in the Campbell Conference.BLUENOTES&mdash;Defenseman Ric Nattress and forward Pat Hughes were slow to recover from a strained knee and strained ankle, respectively. The rest may do the weary Nattress some good, since his defensive rating had plummeted to a minus-28&hellip;General manager Ron Caron paid a visit to University of North Dakota star Tony Hrkac, the team&rsquo;s second-round pick in 1984. &ldquo;He is playing at the college level how Wayne Gretzky is dominating the professional level,&rdquo; Caron said. Hrkac, a sophomore center, had 98 points in 40 games. If he wants to turn pro, Caron said, the Blues will oblige him&hellip;Right winger Greg Paslawski was scoring when it counted, making five of his first 19 goals game-winners&hellip;After a month of skating with the team, left winger Eddy Beers still looked like a longshot to return this season. The surgically-repaired disc in his back still has him too stiff to reach for pucks and play comfortably. &middot; &#9632;

f0024-01

Wamsley Saves His Best For Key Encounter

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN JOHNSTON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02523/5605802-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="176" height="137"></div>QUEBEC CITY&mdash;Quebec Nordique general manager Maurice Filion and his New York Ranger counterpart, Phil Esposito, got together for a little game of The Price Is Right, less than a week before the National Hockey League&rsquo;s trading deadline.Quebec, the NHL&rsquo;s lowest-scoring team, acquired winger Lane Lambert from the New York Rangers in exchange for defenseman Pat Price. Both have spent time in the minors this season.The Nordiques, desperate for scoring punch, are hopeful Lambert can regain the 20-goal form he flashed in his rookie season with the Detroit Red Wings.Since then, his output has diminished steadily.This year, he had two goals and two assists in 18 games with the Rangers, plus three goals and three assists with the American League&rsquo;s New Haven Nighthawks.The Nordiques, wallowing in fourth place in the Adams Division, had seen a double-digit point lead on Buffalo shrink to a mere two by March 5. The club bottomed out March 3, in an 8-1 home loss to Pittsburgh.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a disgrace,&rdquo; said Filion. &ldquo;Enough is enough. Something has to be done. We&rsquo;ve been giving all kinds of excuses since the beginning of the season to explain our performances on the ice, but now, we&rsquo;ve run out. I&rsquo;m ashamed.&rdquo;Coach Michel Bergeron was just as enraged.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s terrible. It&rsquo;s awful,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;To play so bad in a game that&rsquo;s supposed to be so important is a disgrace. There&rsquo;s something very wrong with this team. I&rsquo;m talking about team spirit, about pride.&rdquo;The trade came less than two months after the Nordiques&rsquo; big deal with Detroit, the one that was supposed to solidify a playoff berth and send the team into the playoffs on a winning note.The expected results of the trade (John Ogrodnick, Basil McRae and Doug Shedden to Quebec for Brent Ashton, Gilbert Delorme and Mark Kumpel) hadn&rsquo;t materialized.Ashton and Delorme were doing a fine job for Jacques Demers and the Wings. Ogrodnick, on the other hand, was having a hard time adjusting to the Nords&rsquo; environment and Doug Shedden was down in the minors. Only McRae had played well.The fans had grown weary of their team&rsquo;s poor play.Some appeared at games with paper bags over their heads. Another was spotted walking around Le Colisee with a golf bag slung over his shoulder.Unless the Nordiques shape up, they&rsquo;ll soon be joining him on the, links.NORDIQUE NOTES&mdash;Jean-Francois Sauve, the Nords&rsquo; mainstay on the power play last year, is back after spending the season with a Swiss team. &#9632;

f0024-02

Nords Deal After Penguin Disaster

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01657/5605833-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="178" height="137"></div>UNIONDALE&mdash;Five times the Rangers and Islanders had met this season, five times they had played nice, close games. But the fire had died.These were no Battles for New York. Hell, none of the first five games took more than two-and-a-half hours. A rivalry that once was called a raging inferno of excellence had cooled to a mound of mediocrity.Until March 4, that is. Until the Monster of MSG sensed the significance of Rangers-Islanders VI in the Patrick Division standings, and juiced up the teams for a two-hour, 59-minute rumble. The Rangers won it 7-5, moving to within two points of the Islanders and Washington Capitals in second.The Islanders, especially the young players who had never seen the Garden at its fiercest, learned a few lessons.&ldquo;It was the first time they&rsquo;ve seen the zoo in action,&rdquo; general manager Bill Torrey said. &ldquo;I thought they handled it well.&rdquo;&ldquo;I felt some of younger players played some of their better games,&rdquo; coach Terry Simpson said. &ldquo;Bob Bassen played well. Pat LaFontaine had a good game.&rdquo;The Garden is, well, different. The X-rated chants, the thunderous cheers, the alcoholic precipitation that falls from the upper level known simply as &ldquo;the blue seats.&rdquo;Whenever the Rangers play, the Garden rocks. When the Islanders came to town, the Garden rolled.&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t believe the way some of the people are,&rdquo; Curran said. &ldquo;Fans everywhere like to generate things, and there are some real good hockey fans here. But some are real losers in this place.&rdquo;The Islanders tied the Rangers 2-2 in their first 1986-87 meeting at MSG. Then they lost 4-3 in OT on New Year&rsquo;s Eve and won 2-1 on Jan. 9. But those three games in Manhattan did not feel like Rangers-Isles.This one did.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s always good for a young team to get experience in a building like this,&rdquo; Duane Sutter said, &ldquo;But the bottom line is, we lost.&rdquo;Bryan Trottier twisted his ankle in the first period and wasn&rsquo;t around to see his buddy, Mike Bossy, lose his poise. Bossy was molested all night by shadowy left winger Jan Erixon. The three-time Lady Byng winner, who amassed 14 penalty minutes all last season, was penalized for elbowing Erixon at 14:26 of the second period, negating a Mikko Makela goal. He was also penalized for cross-checking Tom Laidlaw at 19:56 of the second, in retaliation for Laidlaw&rsquo;s check into the boards &ldquo;that just about broke my neck.&rdquo;And at 3:12 of the third, Bossy received a 10-minute misconduct for critiquing referee Kerry Fraser&rsquo;s work from the bench.&ldquo;I would have been skating for 10 minutes with Erixon on my back,&rdquo; Bossy muttered, when asked about that penalty. &ldquo;So what&rsquo;s the difference?&rdquo;Sure, Bossy was fouled 100 times. Of course he was mauled. That&rsquo;s the NHL. Trottier paid $1,000&mdash;the amount he was fined by the league after writing a column in THN&mdash;to get it off his chest just last month.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m fed up,&rdquo; Bossy grumbled after the game. &ldquo;Just fed up. What fun is there? I might as well go up and down my wing and just be a checker.&rdquo;Then Bossy laced into Erixon.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d love to have that job,&rdquo; he said, sarcasm forming a puddle at his feet. &ldquo;He must be getting pretty good pay just to skate around and check all night. I&rsquo;d be pretty embarrassed if that&rsquo;s how I made a living. Maybe he&rsquo;s happy playing that way. It seems a lot of guys in the league are.&rdquo;ON THE ISLE&mdash;Patrick Flatley&rsquo;s sprained left knee was improving slowly. What originally was supposed to be a two-to-four-week injury had kept Flatley out over a month&hellip;Denis Potvin (sprained left knee) hoped to return for the last weekend of the regular season&hellip;Tomas Jonsson&rsquo;s broken jaw was healing better than expected. Out since Jan. 22, he could be back by April 1. &#9632;

f0025-01

Islanders Gobbled Up By Monster Of MSG

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02434/5605864-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="179" height="135"></div>MONTREAL&mdash;Patrick Roy expects to enjoy a busy month of March.The sophomore Canadiens&rsquo; goaltender, still considered Montreal&rsquo;s No. 1 netminder, says he is fully prepared to take on whatever heavy workload coach Jean Perron wants to lay on.&ldquo;I would like to play a little bit more,&rdquo; said Roy. &ldquo;The coach will decide, though, and I will be ready when he wants me.&ldquo;I think Brian (Hayward) has had a great season. We have two goaltenders ready for the playoffs.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the coach who is going to decide. He is going to have to prepare one of us. I hope I am going to have a few games in a row if I am his choice.&rdquo;While Hayward, acquired from Winnipeg last Aug. 15th for Steve Penney, has enjoyed an excellent season with the Canadiens, it is still expected that Roy, last year&rsquo;s playoff hero, will get the nod from the Canadiens&rsquo; brass come Stanley Cup time.After 65 games, Roy&rsquo;s goals-against mark was a respectable 3.05 while Hayward&rsquo;s was 2.93, the best individual mark among regular goaltenders in the league.Since the Rendez-vous break, there has been a leaning towards Roy even though Hayward started three of the first four games. But after a 6-5 loss to the New York Islanders in which Roy relieved Hayward after two periods, Roy started and lost to Minnesota, tied in Chicago, defeated New Jersey and Calgary and then lost in Vancouver.&ldquo;Overall, though, I am satisfied with the game I&rsquo;m playing right now,&rdquo; said Roy. &ldquo;The guys are playing really well in front of me and that&rsquo;s really important for me.&rdquo;Roy, who was a key figure in the Canadiens&rsquo; five-game final series against Calgary, had a 36-save performance against the Flames as the Canadiens began a five-game western road trip which was expected to determine their chance of finishing first in the Adams Division.&ldquo;As we head into the playoffs, we have to play a tight game on the defensive side,&rdquo; Roy said. &ldquo;If we take a lead, I think it is going to be important for us to keep the lead and give fewer chances to the opponent to score.&rdquo;What Roy and every other member of the Canadiens would like to see is more 60-minute efforts, instead of the 35-to-40-minute performances the Canadiens have often given in their various losses this season&ldquo;Sometimes we look like we panic a little bit when we make a mistake,&rdquo; Roy admitted. &ldquo;I think the guys want to do too much, they want to do everything right. When you want to do too much, you have trouble making the easy play.&rdquo;All things being equal, Roy is likely to be standing guard in the Montreal net a touch more than Hayward as the National Hockey League season winds down.IN PASSING&mdash;Chris Chelios returned to active duty from his shoulder injury in Vancouver, March 6, one game after Chris Nilan returned from a hip injury. Both Chelios and Nilan missed four games apiece&hellip;Shayne Corson (broken jaw) had been expected to join his teammates out west, but his return was put off until midMarch&hellip;David Maley sat out the early part of the western trip, fuelling speculation that he was Sherbrooke-bound&hellip;Gilles Thibaudeau was returned to Sherbrooke, March 5&hellip;A gag order has been slapped on Stephane Richer. Richer criticized the Canadiens for not recalling him before he walked out on Sherbrooke in late Februrary. Upon returning, he broke a club rule by appearing on a French-language television sports magazine show, without permission. Now that he is back playing in Sherbrooke, coach Pierre Creamer is doing all of his talking to the media. &#9632;

f0025-02

Roy Likely To Be Playoff Netminder

<div class="byline">BY BILL PICKETT</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01696/5605895-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">&ldquo;OUR COACH SAYs. &ldquo;WITH A TIGHTER DEFENSE AHO MORE SCORING PUNCH, WE COULD WIN A FEW.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02482/5605902-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="153" height="133"></div>KALAMAZOO&mdash;After winning three Turner Cups in five years beteen them, coaches Bill Inglis and Pat Kelly are seeing life from the other side.Inglis coached the Toledo Goaldiggers to back-to-back International League championships in 1981-82 and &lsquo;82-83, while Kelly&rsquo;s Peoria Rivermen captured the Cup in 1984-85. Now, both men are at the bottom looking up.The Inglis-coached Kalamazoo Wings spent the first half of the season battling Flint for second place in the East Division behind Saginaw, and even had opportunities to challenge the Generals for top spot.Kalamazoo won nine of 15 games between Dec. 30 and Feb. 1 and appeared ready to make a climb in the standings. Then they dropped nine of 14 between Feb. 11 and March 1 to tumble into the East cellar.It has been frustrating for Inglis, whose Wings have suffered some damaging injuries. Bill Terry, leading the team in scoring after 27 games, suffered a separated shoulder and was lost for the rest of the season.The team&rsquo;s No. 2 scorer at the time, Wayne Crawford, was sidelined a little more than a week later, also with a shoulder injury.Veteran winger Neil Hawryliw. in and out of the lineup with knee problems, hasn&rsquo;t got in gear this season. He had four goals in 36 games.&ldquo;Everybody that&rsquo;s been hurt has been hurt badly,&rdquo; said Inglis, who reached the 700-game mark as coach in February.Greg Evtushevski, a rookie winger picked up from New Jersey and the Indianapolis Checkers, had been a pleasant surprise, however. He was leading the team in scoring and had 24 goals in 47 games for Kalamazoo. But Evtushevski was recalled in late February and assigned to Maine of the AHL.Inglis picked up free agent Brian Rorabeck&mdash;who scored five goals in his first nine games&mdash;and got a bit of help in goal from Detroit assignee Randy Hansch, who won three games, including a 3-0 shutout of Peoria.Otherwise, there didn&rsquo;t appear to be much more help on the way.Kelly, like Inglis, hasn&rsquo;t been getting much help from above. The St. Louis roster has been depleted by injuries and he hasn&rsquo;t been able to get assistance from the top.&ldquo;The Blues had three forwards out, so there were three forwards we couldn&rsquo;t have,&rdquo; Kelly pointed out. &ldquo;Doug Evans has been up all year, Todd Ewen is still up and we just got Michael Dark back.&rdquo;Lack of scoring punch has kept the Rivermen from escaping the cellar.&ldquo;Mike Prestidge (257 points in three years at Peoria) went to Europe just before we opened the season,&rdquo; Kelly explained, &ldquo;and we got off to a slow start.&ldquo;Defensively we aren&rsquo;t doing badly, but we&rsquo;re the poorest offensive team in the league. Denis Cyr isn&rsquo;t scoring like he should and he had a stretch of 22 games where he got just two goals.&rdquo;Playing-assistant coach John Goodwin, who had been playing on a line with Cyr, retired in mid-season.Cyr, who had 15 goals in 34 games at Peoria last year, had 23 in 62 this season. Paul Adey, who had eight goals in 16 games after joining the Rivermen from Fort Wayne a year ago, had 26 in 59 games this year. John Vecchiarelli, a 40-goal scorer last year at Flint, had only 18 this season. Brian Shaw, a 41 goal-man last year, has also been lost to injury. Even when Shaw was in the lineup, however, chronic hurts limited him to only nine goals in 32 games.I-LITES&mdash;Fort Wayne&rsquo;s Jim Burton was selected IHL player of the month for February. Burton scored seven goals and 15 assists in 14 games, to take over the Komets&rsquo; scoring lead with 65 points.<h2>The Snowbirds &#9632;</h2>

f0026-01

The Minors

Terrible Turnarounds For Past Turner Titlists

Wayne Russell is only six years old, but already he is earning respect in the nets of the Burrillville (R.l.) mite A travel team.Though Wayne is the youngest player with a team on which the mean age is nine, his teammates thought enough of him to vote him captain. That was quite an honor for the 3-foot-9, 48-pounder.Coaches Al Carlow and Jim Berard aren&rsquo;t hesitant to use the youngster, and he had responded with two shutouts by the midway point of the season.Wayne attends Grade 1 classes at Austin T. Levy School in Burrillville.His favorite National Hockey League team is the Boston Bruins, and his favorite player is Bill Ranford, the Bruins&rsquo; fine young rookie goalie.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-03393/5605933-1-eng-US/f0026-032.jpg" title="f0026-03" width="541" height="1145"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Russell</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0026-03

PLAYER OF WEEK TITAN JOFA

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-04287/5605964-1-eng-US/f0026-042.jpg" title="f0026-04" width="699" height="1042"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Gartner has not scored fewer than 35 goals in any of his eight seasons with Washington.</figcaption></div>Mike Gartner was 15 when he realized the dream of many North American hockeyplaying boys.As a member of the Barrie (Ont.) CoOp midget team, Gartner was in Moscow, representing his country in an exhibition tour against Soviet teams.The team won one and tied two of five games. For Gartner, the journey was filled with memorable moments, but not when it came to dinnertime.&ldquo;The thing that saved us,&rdquo; he chuckles, &ldquo;is that we brought a lot of our own food.&rdquo;The Co-Ops won the right to tour in the USSR after winning the Wrigley midget national championship tournament. That, too, was a highlight.&ldquo;Representing a town of, at that time, 30,000, and winning the national championship was quite a thrill,&rdquo; he says.The Barrie Co-ops were the last in a long line of good minor hockey teams for Gartner. The Washington Capital right winger also played with tournament-winning teams as a peewee in the Mississauga (Ont.) Reps minor hockey system.Mississauga has grown considerably since Gartner was a boy. What was once a series of small communities west of Toronto is now a bustling metropolis of 400,000. Still, the NHL star recalls he got excellent early hockey training.&ldquo;When I was there, our subdivision was one of the first in Mississauga,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We played in the old Dixie Arena. The town was like a suburb, but the Mississauga Reps organization was good even then.&rdquo;For the most part, Gartner&rsquo;s early coaches followed his present philosophy:&ldquo;The best thing a minor hockey coach can do for a player,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;is teach the basics and give the kids a lot of ice time. The rest comes naturally.&rdquo;Gartner moved to Toronto from the Barrie midget champs, where he joined the Tier II junior Young Nationals. There, he received top-notch coaching from Ted Tobias.&ldquo;He helped me make the transition,&rdquo; Gartner says, &ldquo;from being a kid having fun to someone who could make a living at hockey.&rdquo;He couldn&rsquo;t help Gartner make the transition, however, from being a consistent winner to being part of a losing team. That experience Gartner had to learn on his own, when he joined the Niagara Falls Flyers of the Ontario League.&ldquo;With the Flyers, we finished last two years in a row,&rdquo; he says.Still, Gartner persevered through adversity in junior and was selected fourth overall by the Capitals in the 1979 NHL entry draft. After scoring 27 goals in his rookie pro year with Cincinnati of the now-defunct World Hockey Association, he joined the Capitals and hasn&rsquo;t scored fewer than 35 goals in any season since. &#9632;

f0026-04

Gartner First Played Soviets at 15

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KANE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01645/5605995-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="179" height="137"></div>MONCTON, N.B.&mdash;In a most amicable parting of ways, the owners of the Moncton Golden Flames franchise announced March 2 that the Calgary Flames would end their affiliation with the team at the end of the current season.The decision by Calgary, to leave the American League after three seasons in Moncton, was not a surprising one. The Flames&rsquo; top management people had made it clear on several occasions that they do not feel the American League is the ideal place to develop players. To that end, the Flames will operate in the International League next season, in either Salt Lake City or Denver, a new IHL city.During the final few seasons of the now-defunct Central League, Calgary&rsquo;s top minor-league team was in Denver.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s really simple,&rdquo; said Al Coates, the assistant to Cliff Fletcher, Calgary&rsquo;s president and general manager. &ldquo;We would like to have our own team and we don&rsquo;t feel we have the personnel capable of competing in the American League with our own team.&ldquo;So what that means is that somebody is going to have to supplement our resources player-wise in Moncton to make it competitive, for the owners there.&rdquo;Calgary shares operation of the Golden Flames with the Boston Bruins.Ironically, Moncton has occupied first place in the AHL&rsquo;s Northern Division since late December and is considered a strong contender for the Calder Cup playoff title.Calgary landed in Moncton in 1984, when the Central League went out of business. At precisely the same time, the Edmonton Oilers left Moncton for Halifax, N.S., leaving the New Brunswick city without a franchise for the second time in three years.Between mid-June and early July, a group of seven Moncton businessmen purchased an AHL franchise and succeeded in gaining Calgary as an NHL parent. Calgary operated in Moncton by itself in 1984-85, and has shared the franchise with Boston for the past two seasons.Golden Flames&rsquo; president Gary O&rsquo;Neill said Moncton will have a team in the AHL next season. O&rsquo;Neill said that Bruin general manager Harry Sinden is interested in continuing his working agreement in Moncton.&ldquo;At this time, I guess all we&rsquo;re looking for is players,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Neill said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking for either one or two parent teams to supply us with players. We&rsquo;ve talked to several people and I feel pretty confident that we&rsquo;ll be able to operate a team here next year.&rdquo;One of the teams that O&rsquo;Neill and his partners have contacted is the Winnipeg Jets. Winnipeg&mdash;which sends some of its players to the Montreal-owned Sherbrooke Canadiens&mdash;has been holding discussions with a group of businessmen and civic leaders in Sydney, N.S., about a franchise for that city&rsquo;s new arena.Coates cited the distance between Calgary and Moncton as factor in the decision to leave the AHL, but he emphasized that development concerns were paramount.&ldquo;We would have to go out and get a bunch of players, sign a bunch of free agents who are not NHL prospects, in order to make that a competitive team if we were there by ourselves,&rdquo; Coates said.Those veteran players, Coates noted, would take up roster spots away from younger players being groomed for the NHL.The Flames are part of a group of at least three NHL teams that plans to move to the IHL next season. Minnesota has announced its intention to leave Springfield, where it is a partner with the New York Islanders, to operate in Indianapolis. The New York Rangers are expected to move from New Haven to the IHL, possibly to the new Denver franchise.The transfers are not likely to have an impact on the size of the 13-team AHL next season. Both Moncton and Springfield have local ownership, and New Haven is owned by the Los Angeles Kings.AROUND THE DIVISION&mdash; Sherbrooke and Adirondack continue to make up ground on Moncton in what has developed into a three-way struggle for first place&hellip;The Golden Flames lost rookie goaltender Doug Dadswell for two weeks with an ankle injury, forward John Carter for three weeks with a bruised knee, forward Dave Reid on recall to Boston, and forward Gary Roberts on recall to Calgary&hellip;Maine snapped a team-record nine-game losing streak at New Haven&hellip;Fredericton&rsquo;s playoff chances were jeopardized by a five-game losing streak. The Express lost winger Richard Zemlack to a 10-game league suspension. Zemlack received a match penalty for cross-checking Sherbrooke&rsquo;s Joel Baillargeon in the face&hellip;Czech defector Vojtech Kucera, a defenseman who has spent the last six months in West Germany, joined the Express&hellip;Adirondack won four straight and moved into second place again. Goaltender Mark Laforest was recalled by Detroit. &#9632;

f0027-01

Flames Snuff Out Affiliation With Moncton

<div class="byline">BY PAUL ABRAMOWITZ</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02422/5606026-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="178" height="132"></div>BALTIMORE&mdash;His younger brother, Mario, is among the National Hockey League&rsquo;s elite, but Alain Lemieux isn&rsquo;t concerned.The high-scoring center for the Baltimore Skipjacks finds it more difficult to live down his past than live up to his family name.Lemieux is playing for his third organization in six years, since being drafted by St. Louis in the fifth round in 1980. And Baltimore is the eighth city he&rsquo;s called home.Pittsburgh was the ninth&mdash;for just one game in February&mdash;when he was recalled by the Penguins while Mario was out with bronchitis.Lemieux understood the promotion was only going to be temporary, so there were no complaints or unhappiness when he was returned to Baltimore.There certainly wasn&rsquo;t an adjustment period, either. In one of his first few games back, Lemieux set team records by scoring five goals and six points in a 10-5 win against Moncton on Feb. 27. That performance earned him player-of-the-week honors, the first Skipjack this season to get the award.If anything, the brief stay in Pittsburgh gave Lemieux hope he may one day return to the NHL.After being traded from St. Louis to the Quebec Nordiques in January, 1985, Lemieux spent most of last season in Fredericton.Despite scoring 29 goals for the Express, it was an unpleasant season, one Lemieux didn&rsquo;t want to go through again. He worked out a deal with Quebec to get out of the last two years of his contract, and left in July to play in Switzerland.That didn&rsquo;t work out too well; a few months later, he was back looking for a job. The only problem was that the season was two weeks old and every team&rsquo;s roster was set&mdash;except for the Baltimore Skipjacks, who were sagging in the Southern Division and desperately seeking a scorer.Baltimore coach Gene Ubriaco, a defensive specialist, was aware of Lemieux&rsquo;s past. The knock on Lemieux was that he was a lazy, inconsistent player, who frequently neglected the defensive zone.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s something wrong in our business,&rdquo; said Ubriaco. &ldquo;We gossip more than a whole bunch of church ladies.&ldquo;I phone around, hoping to hear good things.&rdquo;He might not have heard good things, but he&rsquo;s certainly seen them from Lemieux, who was the team&rsquo;s top scorer, and third in the league with 74 points (32-42) after 56 games.But more importantly, he&rsquo;s helped out the Skipjacks with his defensive work, too.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve gotten him to play both ends of the ice,&rdquo; Ubriaco said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s done a great job for us. He&rsquo;s been more consistent. He&rsquo;s closer (to playing in the NHL) than he&rsquo;s ever been.&rdquo;One of the new roles Lemieux has filled is that of penalty killer.&ldquo;It forced him to pull his weight,&rdquo; Ubriaco said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think he realizes he could work a little harder and still maintain a high level of play.&rdquo;Maybe it&rsquo;s Ubriaco&rsquo;s method, or maybe it&rsquo;s just that at age 25, Lemieux realizes he won&rsquo;t have too many more chances, but the Montreal native seems to be a changed man.&ldquo;I figured this year was a big year for me,&rdquo; said Lemieux, who led the Skipjacks with 11 power-play goals. &ldquo;So I just put everything into it and went for it.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think anybody is going to stay in the NHL if he does not work hard. Like Gene told me, if I want to make it up there I&rsquo;ve got to play defense. That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;ve got to work on and I think I&rsquo;ve improved on it a lot this year.&rdquo;AROUND THE SOUTH&mdash;Baltimore goalie Steve Guenette posted his second career shutout by blanking the Binghamton Whalers 2-0, on Feb. 27. Two nights later, Binghamton goalie Peter Sidorkiewicz logged his leaguehigh fourth shutout by beating the Newmarket Saints, 6-0. It was the second time this season Sidorkiewicz shut out the Saints, who had scored the fewest goals in the league&hellip;Rugged left winger Jay Fraser has returned to the Rochester Americans. Fraser, who left the Amerks following the first period of a December game, went home to ponder his future. After trade talks didn&rsquo;t work out, he went to Flint of the IHL and played eight games, before being recalled by the Amerks for the March 1 game against Binghamton. Fraser got an assist in a 6-2 win, the Amerks&rsquo; seventh straight and 11th in their last 12 games. &#9632;

f0027-02

High Scorer Learns Defense Important For Shot At NHL

<div class="byline">BY VIRG FOSS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02475/5606057-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="569" height="823"><figcaption class="caption-body">Scott Dub&rsquo;s two goals led UND over Colorado College in the semi-final opener.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01669/5606064-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="175" height="130"></div>GRAND FORKS, N.D.&mdash;Colorado College won the battle but lost the war. as the Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs filtered down to two teams.The Tigers, who upset 1986 WCHA-champion Denver in the playoff quarter-finals, managed a split with 1987 regular-season champion North Dakota in the semi-finals.But the split still ended Colorado College&rsquo;s season, as the Tigers were eliminated by a cumulative 7-4 in the total-goal series.In the other WCHA semi-final series, Minnesota roared back after losing the opening game 2-1 to Wisconsin, to hammer the Badgers 8-4 and win the series 9-6.That left Minnesota and North Dakota in the playoff final&mdash;another two-game, total-goals series. Minnesota (32-10-1) lost three of four games during the regular season to North Dakota (34-8), finishing second in the league behind the Sioux.Regardless of the outcome, both teams are expected to be chosen to compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament quarter-finals, which begin March 20.In the second game of the Colorado College-UND set, Colorado struck for two third-period goals to win 2-1 after the Sioux established a comfortable cushion by winning 6-2 in the opener.Scott Schneider&rsquo;s goal, with just 11 seconds left, gave Colorado College the victory.The slender victory was some consolation for the Tigers, who lost 14 games by one goal this season after dropping 11 by that margin in 198586.CC coach Mike Bertsch made no effort to pull goaltender Derek Pizzey, who was brilliant in making 45 saves, in favor of an extra attacker.&ldquo;If we had scored a goal or two more in the third period. I might have considered it,&rdquo; Bertsch said.CC&rsquo;s best chance to do that came with 10 minutes left in the game when, with the game tied 1-1, UND&rsquo;s Murray Baron drew a double minor and CC&rsquo;s Rob Doyle a minor, giving the Tigers a power play.&ldquo;It would have been suicide to try it then, with (Tony) Hrkac and (Bob) Joyce killing penalties for the Sioux,&rdquo; Bertsch said. Hrkac and Joyce were the key figures as UND scored a leaguerecord 16 shorthanded goals this season.&ldquo;Besides, our kids had worked too hard for 40 minutes to just give it away in the final 20,&rdquo; Bertsch added. &ldquo;We felt it was important for our program and our players to end the season on a positive note. So that&rsquo;s why we went for the win in this game, instead.&rdquo;So, the series in Grand Forks ended with both North Dakota and Colorado College winning, at least in the eyes of Bertsch.&ldquo;CC had more incentive in this game than we did,&rdquo; North Dakota coach Gino Gasparini said. &ldquo;I think that was very evident.&rdquo;The Tigers did snap the 14-game winning streak of Sioux rookie goalie Ed Belfour, who finished with 34 saves.North Dakota&rsquo;s 6-2 win in the opener took away some of the incentive to sweep the series. Two goals by Scott Dub helped put the Sioux in control of the first game.In Minneapolis, senior center Corey Millen picked up his third hat trick of the season to pace the Gophers to their 8-4 win, after Mike Richter&rsquo;s 31-save performance sparked Wisconsin to the 2-1 win in the opening game.Defenseman Gary Shopek added two goals and two assists for the Gophers.In the opener, Tony Scheid and Chris Tancill scored as Wisconsin sanpped Minnesota&rsquo;s eight-game winning streak. Richter, a good bet to be the goalie on the 1988 U.S. Olympic team, allowed only a third-period breakaway goal by Millen. &#9632;

f0028-02

The Colleges

Tigers Lose To Sioux, But Are Not Losers

<div class="byline">BY BILL CRAWFORD</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-03343/5606095-1-eng-US/f0028-032.jpg" title="f0028-03" width="175" height="133"></div>DETROIT&mdash;Michigan State&rsquo;s Kevin Miller said he thought he would score the winning goal in overtime. Bowling Green goalie Gary Kruzich said he had a bad feeling about OT.Both proved prophetic.Miller&rsquo;s power-play goal, 6:02 into overtime, gave MSU a 4-3 win over Bowling Green and the Central Collegiate Hockey Association playoff championship before 17,995 fans at Joe Louis Arena.Miller was hot in overtime, firing all five Michigan State shots at the Kru-zich-defended Falcon net. He finally scored off the BG goalie&rsquo;s deflector on a slapshot from the circle to the right of the net.&ldquo;I told the guys I would score the winner,&rdquo; Miller said, only half-laughingly in the post-game hoopla. &ldquo;I just had the feeling I would do well in OT.&rdquo;Just as Kruzich had the opposite premonition.&ldquo;I had a bad feeling about the overtime,&rdquo; the BG goalie said. &ldquo;A bad bounce, a mistake, and it&rsquo;s over. I didn&rsquo;t have good vibes about the OT.&rdquo;Tourney MVP Bobby Reynolds scored twice for the Spartans, who built a 3-0 lead midway through the title game. Bowling Green replied with three straight to tie it 3-3 by the end of regulation time.Danton Cole scored the other MSU goal, while Paul Ysebaert, Iain Duncan and Don Barber replied for the Falcons.Both teams are expected to advance. MSU (30-9-2) will likely play host to an eastern foe in the next round of the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament, while Bowling Green (33-8-2) will probably visit an eastern site.Michigan State outshot Bowling Green 35-30 in the finale, with Norm Foster handling the netminding for the Spartans.&ldquo;It was a classic hockey game,&rdquo; said MSU coach Ron Mason. &ldquo;Bowling Green showed a lot of charcter by coming back to tie it. Specialty teams played a major role, but that&rsquo;s the way it should be with two good teams. We both killed penalties and we both scored on the power play.&rdquo;In five meetings with Bowling Green this season, Michigan State has won four and tied one. Three of the games went into overtime.In earlier action, Michigan State defeated Western Michigan 6-3 and Bowling Green survived a scare to beat Ohio State 5-3 and qualify for the championship. Ohio State won the consolation game, beating Western Michigan 7-4. Jeff Madill scored three times for Ohio State.CCHATTER&mdash;The all-tournament team consisted of Gary Kruzich in goal, with MSU&rsquo;s Don McSween and BG&rsquo;s Scott Paluch on defense, and Bobby Reynolds, Paul Ysebaert and Jeff Madill up front&hellip;Western Michigan defenseman Wayne Gagne, who finished the season with 12 goals and a record 56 assists, was named CCHA player of the year&hellip;Bowling Green&rsquo;s speedy freshman center Nelson Emerson. who collected 20 goals and 47 points, was named rookie of the year. &#9632;

f0028-03

Overtime Is Miller Time For Spartans

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-04245/5606147-1-eng-US/f0028-042.jpg" title="f0028-04" width="402" height="514"><figcaption class="caption-body">KEVIN HEFFERNAN Northeastern</figcaption></div><h2>HOCKEY EAST</h2>The Northeastern Huskies swept New Hampshire 5-4 and 7-3 to end their schedule and junior center Kevin Heffernan scored four times in the two games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-05193/5606140-1-eng-US/f0028-052.jpg" title="f0028-05" width="406" height="512"><figcaption class="caption-body">LANE MacDONALD Harvard</figcaption></div><h2>ECAC</h2>Harvard ousted Brown from the first-round of the ECAC playoffs as junior left winger Lane MacDonald earned seven points, including four goals.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-06167/5606133-1-eng-US/f0028-062.jpg" title="f0028-06" width="410" height="516"><figcaption class="caption-body">BOBBY REYNOLDS MSU</figcaption></div><h2>CCHA</h2>The top-ranked Michigan State Spartans won the CCHA title as Bobby Reynolds counted four goals and was named playoff MVP after a 4-3 win over Bowling Green.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-07149/5606126-1-eng-US/f0028-072.jpg" title="f0028-07" width="408" height="514"><figcaption class="caption-body">COREY MILLEN Minnesota</figcaption></div><h2>WCHA</h2>Minnesota reached the WCHA final against North Dakota by beating Wisconsin 9-6 in a two-game series and senior center Corey Millen scored four times.Bauer FIT FOR PERFORMANCE &#9632;

f0028-04

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/f0029-01577/5606178-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="584" height="809"><figcaption class="caption-body">Freshman Brian Ferreira was the man of the &ldquo;mini-game&rdquo; for the RPI Engineers.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02399/5606185-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="178" height="129"></div>HAMILTON, N.Y.&mdash;Just two months after they were life-and-death to stay in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Association playoff race, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers earned a spot in the semi-finals at Boston Garden.The Engineers, seeded seventh for the opening round of the tournament, shocked second-seeded Colgate in the quarter-finals and joined top-seeded Harvard, St. Lawrence and Yale in the Garden.Freshman Brian Ferreira and senior Neil Hemberg scored goals in a tiebreaking 10-minute &ldquo;mini-game,&rdquo; to give the Engineers the decisive win over the Red Raiders. RPI had won the opening game 9-1, behind a superb performance by sophomore goaltender Steve Duncan, but Colgate came back with a wild 7-2 win in the second game of the series.That forced the 10-minute minigame, which the ECAC uses to settle quarter-final ties.Meanwhile, Harvard&mdash;which will play RPI in the semi-finals&mdash;easily eliminated Brown 6-2 and 5-2, to raise its overall record to 24-4. Third-seeded St. Lawrence defeated Vermont 9-1 and 3-1, to reach the semi-finals for the first time since 1983.In the other series. Rich Geist scored twice to lead fourth-seeded Yale past Clarkson 4-3, in the second game of the series. The two teams battled to a 4-4 tie in the first game.But it was RPI that pulled the shocker. The Engineers, who twice lost 4-3 to Colgate during the regular season, got two goals apiece from Hernberg, Bill Kopecky and freshman Tony He-jna in the 9-1 first-game whipping of Colgate.Goaltending was the difference for the Engineers. Duncan, in just his second career start, made 38 saves before being pulled for a well-deserved rest with 5:45 left.The second night produced some wild hockey. RPI only needed a tie to advance to the semi-finals, but Colgate came out smoking and led 3-0 after the first period, on goals by Greg Dres-chel, Shawn Lillie and Scott Reston.When Colgate pushed the lead to 4-0 in the second period. RPI coach Mike Addesa began planning for the minigame. In the third period, he pulled freshman goalie Gavin Armstrong each time Colgate had a man in the penalty box. continously giving RPI two-man advantages. Although the strategy led to three shorthanded, empty-net goals by Colgate (two-by Dreschel. who finished the night with a shorthanded hat-trick), Addesa wanted to wear out Colgate sophomore goalie Wayne Cowley.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t care if they scored 35 goals,&rdquo; Addesa said. &ldquo;We just wanted to keep ramming it at him and hoped to tire him out.&rdquo;Cowley finished that game with 49 saves. After a break to resurface the ice, the two teams came back for the mini-game.Colgate completely controlled the action, but couldn&rsquo;t get anything past Duncan, who replaced Armstrong with three minutes left in the regulation game. The Engineers got a big break with 3:11 left when Colgate&rsquo;s Gary Mitchell hit the inside of the post.Although the extra period ran for the full 10 minutes, it turned into a virtual sudden-death affair once the clock got under two minutes.Ferreira scored the winner when he flew down the right wing, shook off close coverage by Colgate sophomore Scott Webb, and managed to get off a slapshot that sailed under the stick and between the pads of Cowley with 1:11 left.Hernberg scored on a rebound with 43 seconds left to seal the win.RPI. 13-17-1 after the series, became the first visiting team to win a mini-game. In the five years that the ECAC has been using the format, home teams had won the only three series to use the unique tie-breaker.Harvard had no trouble getting past Brown. Lane MacDonald scored a hat trick, giving him 33 goals for the year, to ignite the Friday night win; Allen Bourbeau scored two power-play goals in the 5-2 win on Saturday. &#9632;

f0029-01

RPI Wins ‘Mini-Game,’ Brushes Off Colgate

<div class="byline">BY TOM BURKE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-03261/5606216-1-eng-US/f0029-032.jpg" title="f0029-03" width="180" height="134"></div>BILLERICA, Maine&mdash;Over the past two Hockey East seasons, the Lowell Chiefs were backed into a corner in the first round of the playoffs, but each time upset a higher-seeded opponent.It won&rsquo;t happen this year, because the scrappy Smurfs of Tully Forum clinched second place more than a week before the season ended, earning a bye into the semi-final round.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure I wanted the bye,&rdquo; coach Bill Riley mused, &ldquo;but I guess it&rsquo;s good to get some rest and reward for a good season.&rdquo;Lowell, which finished with a 2010-2 record (22-11-2 overall), has never minded being the underdog. This was just its fourth year of Division I hockey, and the first year with an entire roster recruited for Division 1 play.&ldquo;We knew that we were a lot better this year,&rdquo; said junior center Bill Dohaney, &ldquo;but I can&rsquo;t honestly say that we thought we&rsquo;d win as much as we have, either.&rdquo;Dohaney has had to fight his way out of his own comer. He was the fifthleading goal-scorer on the team, with 13. Riley expected more and reminded him. frequently.&ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t got yelled at my first two years here,&rdquo; said the native of Peterborough, Ont. Not only has he been berated, he&rsquo;s also been shuffled around.Early on, he centered a checking line with Conrade Thomas and John Borrell. The trio&rsquo;s solid play helped Lowell stay undefeated in early-season non-conference games against Western Collegiate Hockey Association foes.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;He&rsquo;s (Dohaney) the kind of player who plays better when he&rsquo;s in the doghouse.&rsquo;&mdash;Riley</blockquote>Later, when the Hockey East schedule heated up. he was shifted to the second line, between Tony Lopilato and Gary Valimont.When he didn&rsquo;t score with any regularity, the coach kept the heat on.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the kind of player who plays harder when he&rsquo;s in the doghouse,&rdquo; the coach said. &ldquo;I put the pressure on him and told him that. Just because he&rsquo;s a junior, he hasn&rsquo;t got a position sewn up.&rdquo;Dohaney has had a flair for the dramatic, however. Four of his goals were game-winners&mdash;two against first-place Boston College (Lowell was the only team to beat BC twice) and the other pair in overtime, against Maine and Providence.He said he shouldn&rsquo;t have even been playing against BC on Nov. 8, when his tip-in gave the Chiefs a 4-3 win. He was still recovering from back pain, caused by a brutal check in a game against Merrimack the week before.&ldquo;Things just weren&rsquo;t dropping for me early in the season, either&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But now. though, I don&rsquo;t seem to be getting as many shots, more of them are going in.&rdquo;Riley said his team owes its success to a veteran corps of defensemen. Offense has been spotty, with only Jon Morris (28) and Randy LeBrasseur (20) cracking the 20-goal plateau. Still, the forwards have been able to concentrate more on offense, knowing that defenseman Paul Ames and his mates are backing them up.HOCKEY EAST NOTES&mdash;Six players from each team were suspended, following a first-period brawl between Lowell and New Hampshire in a game won 6-5 by the Chiefs. For Lowell&rsquo;s Gary Valimont, it was his second suspension of the year, leading to a two-game sitdown&hellip;Tempers also flared late in BC&rsquo;s 9-3 win at Providence. Referee Richie Fowkes called the game with one second left and sent the teams to the dressing rooms, to preserve the peace&hellip;New Hampshire was eliminated from playoff contention, but went down gamely. Though the suspensions left them with only 17 players, they came close to upsetting Northeastern, eventually losing 5-4. Jeff Lazaro had a pair for last-place UNH&hellip;First-round playoff action featured No. 5 Northeastern (11-18-3 in Hockey East) at No. 4 Boston University (15-14-3), and No. 6 Providence (7-22-3) at No. 3 Maine (19-121). BC (26-6-0) and Lowell play the winners in the semi-finals. &#9632;

f0029-03

Lowell Playoff Underdog No Longer

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-04183/5606261-1-eng-US/f0029-042.jpg" title="f0029-04" width="363" height="484"><figcaption class="caption-body">CHRIS MCCAULEY Western</figcaption></div><h2>OUAA</h2>Former All Canadian defenseman Chris McCauley sparked the Western Mustangs to a playoff split against Laurier as he scored twice and set up two more goals. McCauley had seven points in the playoffs.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-05157/5606254-1-eng-US/f0029-052.jpg" title="f0029-05" width="365" height="479"><figcaption class="caption-body">ROSS McKAY Saskatchewan</figcaption></div><h2>CWUAA</h2>For the second straight week goalie Ross McKay was the deciding factor for Saskatchewan. This time the Huskies beat Calgary to win the CWUAA title. McKay stopped 203 of 223 shots in six playoff games<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-06126/5606247-1-eng-US/f0029-062.jpg" title="f0029-06" width="357" height="483"><figcaption class="caption-body">YVES LAPOINTE T-Rivieres</figcaption></div><h2>AUAA</h2>The Trois-Rivieres Patriotes won the Quebec conference championship by sweeping McGill in the final series. Six-foot-three, 215-pound Yves Lapointe led the way with seven points, among them four goals.Bauer FIT FOR PERFORMANCE &#9632;

f0029-04

Bauers University Performer of the Week

<h2>CCHA</h2>(FINAL STANDINGS)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01659/5606439-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="528" height="261"></div><h2>CCHA PLAYOFFS</h2><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>FIRST ROUNDFRI. FEB. 27FERRIS STATE 6 AT BOWLING GREEN 4MICHIGAN 7 AT MICH. STATE 8OHIO STATE 5 AT LAKE SUPERIOR 8W. MICHIGAN 3 AT ILL-CHICAGO 2SAT. FEB. 28FERRIS STATE 0 AT BOWLING GREEN 5MICHIGAN 3 AT MICH. STATE 6MICH. STATE WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-0)OHIO STATE 5 AT LAKE SUPERIOR 2W. MICHIGAN 4 AT ILL-CHICAGO 6SUN. MAR. 1FERRIS STATE 1 AT BOWLING GREEN 5BOWLING GREEN WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-1)OHIO STATE 8 AT LAKE SUPERIOR 4OHIO STATE WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-1)W. MICHIGAN 5 AT ILL-CHICAGO 1W. MICHIGAN WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-1)SEMI-FINALSFRI. MAR. 6MICH. STATE 6 VS W. MICHIGAN 5BOWLING GREEN 5 VS OHIO STATE 3(SUDDEN-DEATH GAMES)SAT. MAR. 7CONSOLATION FINALOHIO STATE 7, W. MICHIGAN 4CHAMPIONSHIP FINALMICHIGAN STATE 4, BOWLING GREEN 3(MICH. STATE WINS CCHA CHAMPIONSHIP)ALL GAMES AT JOE LOUIS ARENA IN DETROIT)<h3>FINAL PLAYOFF SCORING</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02477/5606432-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="532" height="182"></div><h2>WCHA</h2>(FINAL STANDINGS)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-03328/5606425-1-eng-US/f0030-032.jpg" title="f0030-03" width="531" height="235"></div><h2>WCHA PLAYOFFS</h2><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>SEMI-FINALSFRI. MAR. 6COLORADO COLLEG 2 AT NO. DAKOTA 6WISCONSIN 2 AT MINNESOTA 1SAT. MAR. 7COLORADO COLLEGE 2 AT NO. DAKOTA 1(NO. DAKOTA WINS IWO-GAME SERIES 7-4)WISCONSIN 4 AT MINNESOTA 8(MINNESOTA WINS TWO-GAME SERIES 9-6)<h3>GAMES TO COME</h3>CHAMPIONSHIP FINALSTHU-FRI. MAR. 12-13MINNESOTA AT NORTH DAKOTA(TWO-GAME TOTAL GOALS)<h3>FINAL SCORING LEADERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-04227/5606418-1-eng-US/f0030-042.jpg" title="f0030-04" width="532" height="259"></div><h2>HOCKEY EAST</h2>(FINAL STANDINGS)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-05157/5606411-1-eng-US/f0030-052.jpg" title="f0030-05" width="529" height="209"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>TUE. FEB. 24LOWELL 8 AT NEW HAMPSHIRE 4THU. FEB. 26BOSTON COLL 3 AT NORTHEASTERN 5FRI. FEB. 27BOSTON UNIV. 3 AT MAINE 6SAT. FEB. 28BOSTON UNIV. 2 AT MAINE 4NEW HAMPSHIRE 5 AT LOWELL 6SUN. MAR. 1BOSTON COLL 9 AT PROVIDENCE 3MON. MAR. 2NEW HAMPSHIRE 4 AT NORTHEASTERN 5TUE. MAR. 3BOSTON UNIV 7 AT LOWELL 4FRI. MAR. 6LOWELL 2 AT BOSTON UNIV 3NORTHEASTERN 7 AT NEW HAMPSHIRE 3SAT. MAR. 7PROVIDENCE 3 AT BOSTON COLL 9(END OF REGULAR SCHEDULE)H. EAST PLAYOFFSGAMES TO COMEQUARTER-FINALS(SUDDEN-DEATH GAMES)TUE. MAR. 10NORTHEASTERN AT BOSTON UNIVWED. MAR. 11PROVIDENCE AT MAINESEMI-FINALS(ALL GAMES AT BOSTON GARDEN)SUN. MAR. 15LOWELL VS HIGHEST QUALIFIERBOSTON COLL VS LOWEST QUALIFIERCHAMPIONSHIP FINALSMON. MAR. 16<h3>FINAL SCORING LEADERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-06122/5606404-1-eng-US/f0030-062.jpg" title="f0030-06" width="537" height="287"></div><h2>ECAC</h2>(FINAL STANDINGS)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-0798/5606397-1-eng-US/f0030-072.jpg" title="f0030-07" width="530" height="337"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>ECAC PLAYOFFSFRI-SAT. MAR. 6-7QUARTER-FINALSBROWN 2 AT HARVARD 6BROWN 2 AT HARVARD 5(HARVARD WINS SERIES 2-0)RPI 9 AT COLGATE 1RPI 2 AT COLGATE 7RPI 2 AT COLGATE 0(RPI WINS SERIES 2-1)VERMONT 1 AT ST. LAWRENCE 9VERMONT 1 AT ST. LAWRENCE 3(ST. LAWRENCE WINS SERIES 2-0)CLARKSON 4 AT YALE 4CLARKSON 3 AT YALE 4(YALE WINS SERIES 1-0, ONE TIE)<h3>GAMES TO COME</h3>SEMI-FINALSFRI. MAR. 13ST. LAWRENCE VS YALEHARVARD VS RPI(SUDDEN-DEATH GAMES)CHAMPIONSHIP FINALSSAT. MAR. 14(ALL GAMES AT BOSTON GARDEN)<h3>PLAYOFF SCORING LEADERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-0888/5606390-1-eng-US/f0030-082.jpg" title="f0030-08" width="537" height="233"></div><h2>GWHC</h2>(FINAL STANDINGS)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-0979/5606383-1-eng-US/f0030-092.jpg" title="f0030-09" width="533" height="101"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>ALA-FAIRBANKS 7, ALA-ANCHORAGE 3ALA-ANCHORAGE 9, ALA-FAIRBANKS 2(END OF REGULAR SCHEDULE)NON-CONFERENCEALA-FAIRBANKS 6, NO. DAKOTA 5ALA-FAIRBANKS 6, NO. DAKOTA 2ALA-ANCHORAGE 10, NO. ARIZONA 6NO. ARIZONA 7, ALA-ANCHORAGE 4<h3>FINAL SCORING LEADERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1070/5606376-1-eng-US/f0030-102.jpg" title="f0030-10" width="535" height="284"></div><h2>WEST PENN CONFERENCE</h2>(STANDINGS ON MON. MAR. 9)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1164/5606369-1-eng-US/f0030-112.jpg" title="f0030-11" width="532" height="231"></div><h2>SOUTHERN CONFERENCE</h2>(STANDINGS ON MON. MAR. 9)<h3>NORTHERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1260/5606362-1-eng-US/f0030-122.jpg" title="f0030-12" width="533" height="154"></div><h3>SOUTHERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1357/5606355-1-eng-US/f0030-132.jpg" title="f0030-13" width="526" height="129"></div><h2>OUAA</h2>(FINAL STANDINGS)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1453/5606348-1-eng-US/f0030-142.jpg" title="f0030-14" width="533" height="361"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>SAT. FEB. 21BROCK 4 AT WINDSOR 8LAURENTIAN 5 AT GUELPH 7RYERSON 2 AT McMASTER 5SUN. FEB. 22LAURENTIAN 5 AT LAURIER 7McMASTER 1 AT WINDSOR 1(END OF REGULAR SCHEDULE)OUAA PLAYOFFSFIRST ROUNDWED. FEB. 25WINDSOR 2 AT TORONTO 1LAURIER 5 AT WATERLOO 4THU. FEB. 26McMASTER 1 AT YORK 2GUELPH OAT WESTERN 7FRI. FEB. 27TORONTO 1 AT WINDSOR 5(WINDSOR WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-0)SAT. FEB. 28WESTERN 4 AT GUELPH 1(WESTERN WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-0)YORK 5 AT McMASTER 2(YORK WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-0)WATERLOO 3 AT LAURIER 4(LAURIER WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-0)SEMI-FINALSTHU. MAR. 5LAURIER 1 AT WESTERN 9WINDSOR 1 AT YORK 7SAT. MAR. 7WESTERN 3 AT LAURIER 4(BEST-OF-THREE SERIES TIED 1-1)YORK 2 AT WINDSOR 5(BEST-OF-THREE SERIES TIED 1-1)<h3>FINAL SCORING LEADERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1553/5606341-1-eng-US/f0030-152.jpg" title="f0030-15" width="528" height="286"></div><h2>AUAA</h2>(FINAL STANDINGS)<h3>KELLY DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1645/5606334-1-eng-US/f0030-162.jpg" title="f0030-16" width="532" height="130"></div><h3>MCADAM DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1744/5606327-1-eng-US/f0030-172.jpg" title="f0030-17" width="529" height="155"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>AUAA PLAYOFFSSEMI-FINAL ROUNDWED. FEB. 25MONCTON 4 AT ST. F. XAVIER 3DALHOUSIE 3 AT UPEI 4SAT. FEB. 28ST. F. XAVIER 4 AT MONCTON 2UPEI 4 AT DALHOUSIE 2(UPEI WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-0)SUN. MAR. 1ST. F. XAVIER 5 AT MONCTON 4(ST. F. XAVIERWINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-1)CHAMPIONSHIP FINALSWED. MAR. 4UPEI 3 AT ST. F. XAVIER 1SAT. MAR. 7ST. F. XAVIER 2 AT UPEI 4(UPEI WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-0)<h3>FINAL PLAYOFF SCORING</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1835/5606320-1-eng-US/f0030-182.jpg" title="f0030-18" width="537" height="232"></div><h2>CWUAA</h2>(FINAL STANDINGS)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1929/5606313-1-eng-US/f0030-192.jpg" title="f0030-19" width="532" height="287"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>FRI. FEB. 20MANITOBA 7 AT CALGARY 9SASKATCHEWAN 2 AT UBC 1BRANDON 4 AT LETHBRIDGE 5SAT. FEB. 21MANITOBA 2 AT CALGARY 10SASKATCHEWAN 4 AT UBC 1BRANDON 2 AT LETHBRIDGE 3(END OF REGULAR SCHEDULE)CWUAA PLAYOFFSSEMI-FINAL ROUNDFRI. FEB. 27UBC 0 AT CALGARY 5SASKATCHEWAN 3 AT MANITOBA 1SAT. FEB. 28UBC 3 AT CALGARY 4CALGARY WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-0)SASKATCHEWAN 2 AT MANITOBA 5SUN. MAR. 1SASKATCHEWAN 5 AT MANITOBA 1SASK. WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-1)CHAMPIONSHIP FINALFRI. MAR. 6SASKATCHEWAN 4 AT CALGARY 5SAT. MAR. 7SASKATCHEWAN 9 AT CALGARY 7SUN. MAR. 8SASKATCHEWAN 6 AT CALGARY 2SASK. WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-1)ALBERTA X3ETS BYE INTO Cl AU FINAL ROUND ASHOST TEAM).<h3>FINAL PLAYOFF SCORING</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-2024/5606306-1-eng-US/f0030-202.jpg" title="f0030-20" width="528" height="208"></div><h2>QUAA</h2>(FINAL STANDINGS)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-2118/5606299-1-eng-US/f0030-212.jpg" title="f0030-21" width="533" height="131"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>SEMI-FINAL PLAYOFFSTHU. FEB. 19McGILL 1 AT OnAWA 3MON. FEB. 23OnAWA 1 AT McGILL 6WED. FEB. 25McGILL 3 AT OnAWA 2(McGILL WINS BEST-OF-THREE SERIES 2-1)CHAMPIONSHIP FINALSFRI. FEB. 27McGILL 0 AT T-RIVIERES 8MON. MAR. 2T-RIVIERES 3 AT McGILL 1WED. MAR. 4McGILL 4 AT T-RIVIERES 6FRI. MAR. 6T-RIVIERES 5 AT McGILL 4(T-RIVIERES WINS BEST-OF-SEVEN SERIES 4-0)<h3>FINAL PLAYOFF SCORING</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-2215/5606292-1-eng-US/f0030-222.jpg" title="f0030-22" width="536" height="260"></div>Bauer FIT FOR PERFORMANCE &#9632;

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Bauer College scoreboard

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01608/5606470-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="177" height="134"></div>CALGARY&mdash;The Saskatchewan Huskies outworked and outmuscled the No. 1-ranked Calgary Dinosaurs to win the Canada West Universities Athletic Association championship in three games.The unranked Huskies blew a 4-1 lead in dropping the best-of-three series opener 5-4, but squared matters with a 9-7 second-game win and dethroned the defending CWUAA champions in convincing fashion with a 6-2 victory.Calgary, which earned its ranking as the country&rsquo;s top college squad with a potent offense, ran into a hot goaltender in former Calgary Wrangler Ross McKay. McKay stopped 38 shots in the deciding game.&ldquo;We lived and died by offense, and today we died by it,&rdquo; said Calgary coach George Kingston.Terry Lloyd scored two goals for Saskatchewan in the final game, while Marty Hillis, Curtis Stewart, Brian Pugh and Chris Lafleur had one apiece. Scott Robinson scored both Calgary goals.In the second game, Dan Leier had two goals for the Huskies, with singles going to Rob McKechney, Larry Korchinski, Ken Lovesin, Ken Morrison, Stewart Pugh and Lafleur. For Calgary, Robin Leacock had a pair, while Brent Meckling, Barry Bracko, Paul Geddes, Mike Fioretti and Robinson had singles.Calgary may yet qualify for the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union finals, March 19 to 22 in Edmonton, as a wild-card team. Six teams&mdash;including host Alberta, winners from each of the four conferences, and a CIAU-selected wild-card team&mdash;will meet at the tournament.In Montreal, Yves Lapointe&rsquo;s second goal of the game at eight seconds of overtime gave the Trois-Rivieres Patriotes a 5-4 victory over the McGill Redmen and a four-game sweep of the Quebec University League final.Francois Bellerose, Alain Bisson and Marc Gervais also scored for Trois-Rivieres, which will represent Quebec at the CIAU tournament for the second straight year.Tim Iannone, with two, David Boucher and Benoit Lafleur replied for McGill.The penalty-filled series (456 minutes in four games) saw police summoned to quell fan rowdiness in the first and fourth games.During the first-game, an 8-0 homeice walkaway for Trois-Rivieres, police had to restrain fans who were taunting players and coaches on the Redmen bench.&ldquo;It was a zoo up there,&rdquo; McGill coach Ken Tyler said. &ldquo;And they were just as bad on the ice. I made a film of all the cheap shots.&rdquo;Lapointe led the way with two goals and two assists; other markers went to Martin Nicoletti, Roch Doucet, Mario Paradis, Serge Trepanier, Yvan Genereux and Gervias.Nicoletti, Genereux and Donald Dessureault all scored in Trois-Rivieres&rsquo; 3-1 second-game victory, while Mark Reade replied for McGill.Dessureault&rsquo;s pair led the 6-4 third-game victory.In Charlottetown, P.E.I., the Prince Edward Island Panthers won their second Atlantic Universities Hockey Conference title in three years, with a sweep of St. Francis Xavier X-Men.The Panthers earned a CIAU berth by downing the X-Men in two straight games of the best-of-three final.The clincher came on Charlottetown Forum ice, when Vince Mulligan&rsquo;s squad rallied from a 1-0 first-period deficit to down Jim MacDonald&rsquo;s X-Men 4-2. UPEI goals were scored by Randy Muttart, Craig Jenkins, Steve Fulton and Ron Hennessey. Tom MacNeil and Blair MacIsaac counted for the X-Men.Darren Murphy led the Panthers to a 3-1 victory in the series opener at Anti-gonish with two goals. Stefan Giffin also scored for the winners, while Peter Dermastja had the lone St. Francis marker.In Ontario, both best-of-three semifinal series appeared headed for expected outcomes, as the favored teams each won the series openers by wide margins, only to lose one-goal games March 7.The Western Mustangs, led by a two-goal, two assist effort from Dave Carreiro, beat the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks 9-1 in the opener of that series. The No. 2-ranked Mustangs, unbeaten in their last 12 league and playoff games, were forced to a third game by a 4-3 setback in Waterloo, when Tim Fedy&rsquo;s goal at 17:26 of the third period broke a 3-3 tie.The Windsor Lancers, a. 500 team during the regular season but a first-round upset winner over Toronto, appeared headed for elimination after dropping a 7-1 decision to the No. 3-ranked York Yeomen, then falling behind by two goals early in the third period of Game Two.But the Lancers bounced back. Rick Pickersgill scored with 27 seconds to play in the third period to tie the score, and Jean Landry scored after 9:04 of sudden-death overtime to give Windsor a 4-3 victory. &#9632;

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No. 1 Calgary Goes Way Of The Dinosaur

<div class="byline">BY RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01643/5606508-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="584" height="678"><figcaption class="caption-body">Sudbury&rsquo;s Mario Chitaroni is a member of the DHL&rsquo;s 50-goal club this season.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02470/5606515-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="178" height="136"></div>WINDSOR&mdash;After 16 seasons as a goalie with some of the worst teams in the National Hockey League, Jim Rutherford is back in the pressure cooker.With seven games left in the Ontario League regular season, Windsor Spitfire general manager Rutherford took on the coaching duties as well.Rutherford would have been content to finish the season behind a desk, but the resignation of coach Tony MacDonald left him no option. The GM will be behind the bench until the end of the playoffs.MacDonald had taken over the Spitfires in December, after Tom Webster accepted the New York Rangers&rsquo; head coaching job, following the dismissal of Ted Sator. MacDonald had a 15-152 record as Spitfire coach, compared to 16-7-1 for Webster.Windsor was in third place in the Emms Division at the time of the move.The Spitfires&rsquo; head coach before becoming coach, MacDonald said he felt the team wasn&rsquo;t responding under his direction.&ldquo;And I wasn&rsquo;t having any fun,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The pressure was getting to me. I did what I did for the betterment of the team and in the very best interests of the Windsor organization.&rdquo;Paul Maurice, the Spitfire captain and plus-minus leader, said he felt the Rutherford, who was 1-2-1 as an interim coach between Webster and MacDonald, said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll throw myself 100 per cent into the coaching job. When I took over before for the four games, I merely ran the bench and wasn&rsquo;t on the ice for practices.&ldquo;This time I&rsquo;ll be fully involved. The pressure&rsquo;s on. We think we can be a factor in the playoffs&mdash;and in a tight division such as the Emms, any of the six playoff teams are capable of winning. I think this team has a lot of character and will respond to the change in a team-oriented way.&rdquo; players let MacDonald down.&ldquo;Maybe if we would have played better, it wouldn&rsquo;t have come to Tony having to resign,&rdquo; the defenseman said, adding that his teammates have &ldquo;a lot of respect for Mr. Rutherford. Maybe he&rsquo;s the guy who can get us going.&rdquo;Rutherford said MacDonald will remain with the team as an assistant coach&mdash;for the time being.&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll be up in the press box and will report to the dressing room between periods,&rdquo; Rutherford said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a situation we&rsquo;re comfortable with.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;The pressure was getting to me.&rsquo;</blockquote><blockquote class="pullQuote">&mdash;MacDonald</blockquote>When MacDonald took the coaching job, Terry McDonnell was elevated to the position of chief scout. Rutherford said the scouting staff could face further realignment at the end of the season, now that MacDonald is no longer coach. The GM also said he has no plans to coach beyond this season.&ldquo;Right now, we&rsquo;re injury-free and our depth is pretty good,&rdquo; Rutherford said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a matter of me getting the players ready to play. The pressure&rsquo;s on. It&rsquo;s that simple.&rdquo;OHL NOTEBOOK&mdash;Paul Theriault, coach of the Leyden Divisionleading Oshawa Generals, has dismissed reliable reports that he was offered the coaching job of the NHL&rsquo;s Pittsburgh Penguins earlier this month. &ldquo;The rumor is flattering,&rdquo; said Theriault, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s just a rumor. I feel (Pittsburgh coach) Bob Berry is a very competent man who is doing his best to get his team into the playoffs. Besides, my only concern right now is preparing the Oshawa Generals for the playoffs and a shot at the Memorial Cup. My players have a commitment to me and I have a commitment to them. I wouldn&rsquo;t respect any coach who left his team at this stage of the season for an NHL job.&rdquo;&hellip;Sault coach-GM Don Boyd has reinstated 19-year-old left winger Brad Aitken, after sending him home for a week because of &ldquo;indifferent play. &ldquo;&hellip;After Oshawa&rsquo;s Derek King became the first OHLer this season to hit the 50-goal mark, he was followed in succession by Mike Richard of Toronto and Mario Chitaroni of Sudbury.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03320/5606501-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="580" height="677"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brad Aitken returned to the Greyhounds after a week away from the team.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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The Juniors

Spits Coach Quits, Rutherford Takes Reins

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-04202/5606560-1-eng-US/f0032-042.jpg" title="f0032-04" width="363" height="463"><figcaption class="caption-body">MIKE RICHARD Toronto</figcaption></div><h2>ONTARIO LEAGUE</h2>The Toronto Marl-boros&rsquo; playoff hopes rest on their ability to finish strongly and players like Mike Richard are making the outlook bright.The Marlies&rsquo; center was chosen OHL Player of the Week after he scored five times in three games to raise his season total to 50 goals and 100 points.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-05136/5606553-1-eng-US/f0032-052.jpg" title="f0032-05" width="367" height="466"><figcaption class="caption-body">DAVE THOMLINSON Moose Jaw</figcaption></div><h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>Moose Jaw Warriors reaped the benefits of a spectacular scoring outburst from forward Dave Thom-linson.Thomlinson, drafted in the third round by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1985, got the nod as WHL Player of the Week when he counted seven goals&mdash;four in one game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-06105/5606546-1-eng-US/f0032-062.jpg" title="f0032-06" width="367" height="468"><figcaption class="caption-body">EVERETT SANIPASS Granby</figcaption></div><h2>QUEBEC LEAGUE</h2>The Granby Bisons&rsquo; acquisition of Everett Sanipass has made the powerful squad even more formidable.Sanipass, who recently completed an NHL stint with Chicago, picked up 12 points in four games to become the QMJHL&rsquo;s Player of the Week. Bisons secured Sanipass from Verdun.At the end of the current season, THE HOCKEY NEWS will select a Micron Junior Player of the Year.WE PUT THE PROTECTION INTO PERFORMANCE &#9632;

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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/f0033-01571/5606591-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="592" height="773"><figcaption class="caption-body">The career of 18-year-old Brad Hornung ended with one check into the boards.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-02408/5606598-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="182" height="133"></div>REGINA&mdash;This has been a season of pain and sorrow for the Western League.Three months after four Swift Current Broncos were killed in a bus crash, 18-year-old Regina Pat center Brad Hornung was paralyzed for life in an on-ice accident.Hornung got caught in a numbers game and came away a bigger loser than anyone could have imagined. Today, he lies in hospital with a crushed vertebrae and shattered spinal cord. He is paralyzed from the neck down and must use a respirator to breathe.On March 1, Hornung became the victim of a common checking practice. He was hit from behind, but fell headfirst into the boards. His promising career ended in a horrible thud at the Regina Agridome.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a coach&rsquo;s nightmare,&rdquo; said Regina general manager and coach Doug Sauter. &ldquo;You see something like that and you question your teaching methods and the importance of the game.&rdquo;Hornung and teammate Craig Endean were breaking in on the Moose Jaw Warriors&rsquo; net, during a four-on-three power-play opportunity. At the net, Hornung dished the puck across to Endean before being checked by Warrior forward Troy Edwards, pursuing from behind.Hornung, watching Endean, didn&rsquo;t have time to protect himself before hitting the end boards. He laid unconscious and motionless on the ice for more than 40 minutes after the impact.Edwards hit Hornung square on the uniform numbers, just as young players across the continent are taught.&ldquo;Hitting the numbers from the rear should be a definite concern of coaches and the league too,&rdquo; said Sauter. &ldquo;You see it 15 times a game. Some are guilty, some more than others.&ldquo;But the Hornung family and the Pats hold no malice toward Troy Ed wards at all. It&rsquo;s just a sad case. I talked to the boy (Edwards) and told him we didn&rsquo;t claim him to be responsible.&ldquo;If he (Hornung) had seen the player behind, he would have got his stick up to protect himself.&ldquo;There are three victims here&mdash;Brad, Troy and the game of hockey.&rdquo;Edwards, so shaken by the turn of events in Moose Jaw&rsquo;s 6-3 win, went home for two days before returning to the Warriors.&ldquo;He took it very hard,&rdquo; said Moose Jaw GM Harvey Roy, &ldquo;but he&rsquo;s a very level-headed and classy kid.&rdquo;Sauter thought referee Bruce Bennett should have called a penalty on the play.&ldquo;I honestly believe his view was blocked out,&rdquo; Sauter assessed. &ldquo;I would have called a penalty.WHL referee-in-chief Richard Doerksen disagreed.&ldquo;The referee was in excellent position and it (check) wasn&rsquo;t what I would term a deliberate action at all. If it was, there would have been a minor penalty and, with the injury, a major.&rdquo;In Roy&rsquo;s opinion, the check was legal. &ldquo;They called it a cross check,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but from what I saw on the replay, it was more of a shove.&rdquo;Sauter said quick response by medical people at the Agridome ensured Hornung was cared for in a professional manner.&ldquo;In any other rink his life would not have been saved&mdash;that&rsquo;s how fast our medical staff reacted. We had five doctors there within a minute.&rdquo;But Dr. Chris Ekong, a neurosurgeon at Regina General Hospital, offered little hope for recovery.&ldquo;Brad has no feeling in his arms and legs,&rdquo; Ekong told Canadian Press. &ldquo;He is completely paralyzed from the neck down. Brad is concious but he will never breathe on his own.&ldquo;He could reach the wheelchair stage but he would have to operate it with his mouth.&rdquo;Four days after the accident, Hornung was fitted with a halo vest, a device he will wear for the next three months in an attempt to have injured bones in his back stabilized. Hornung had been in halo traction.Another major concern is what the WHL will do to ease the Hornung family&rsquo;s financial burden.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t buy his career back,&rdquo; Sauter said, &ldquo;but they (WHL) have to look at other ways with insurance. I understand there is a sufficient amount of money available.&rdquo;Doerksen, also a league vicepresident, said the financial end is now out of the league&rsquo;s hands.&ldquo;The WHL and all teams are covered,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and this is something we&rsquo;ve turned over to our insurance people.&rdquo;Hornung, a 5-foot-10, 175-pound Fort Erie, Ont. native, was Regina&rsquo;s third-leading scorer with 66 points in 61 games.Although eligible for the 1987 entry draft, the son of former NHLer Larry Hornung was not rated a first-round selection. Scouts questioned his skating, but not other talents nor his desire.&ldquo;Brad had good skills and great character,&rdquo; assessed Sauter. &ldquo;He was hard working and quiet, the type of guy who might make a good coach. He was very mature.&rdquo;Hornung&rsquo;s absence has had an emotional and physical effect on the Pats.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m concerned how hard we&rsquo;re going to play,&rdquo; said Sauter.Three nights later, Moose Jaw routed Regina 14-3. &#9632;

f0033-01

Regina Center Hornung Paralyzed For Life

<div class="byline">BY RICK MAYOH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-03298/5606629-1-eng-US/f0033-032.jpg" title="f0033-03" width="181" height="137"></div>TROIS-RIVIERES, Que.&mdash;The Trois-Rivieres Draveurs are looking to general manager Michel Boucher and a new group of young owners to lead them back to their glory days in the Quebec League.Eight Trois-Rivieres businessmen, ranging in age from 28 to 34, have purchased the franchise, which began as a charter member of the QMJHL in 1969-70.They&rsquo;ve given former university coach Boucher the task of restoring the Draveurs to the prominence they enjoyed in the late 1970s. That&rsquo;s when Michel Bergeron, now with the Quebec Nordiques, was behind the bench, guiding players such as Jean-Francois Sauve and Jacques Cloutier.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d be back in hockey,&rdquo; said Boucher, a 35-year-old Quebec City native well known in Trois-Rivieres. &ldquo;The team has been having problems for the past five years and was going badly this year. I knew most of the young men who bought the franchise and they&rsquo;ve given me a mandate to rebuild the program.&rdquo;Although the Draveurs (26-36-2) were in sixth place overall&mdash;ahead of the St-Jean Castors, Hull Olympiques and Verdun Jr. Canadiens&mdash;they will miss the playoffs.The league&rsquo;s new post-season format eliminates the last-place team in each division. With six games left in the regular season, the Draveurs were locked into last spot in the Dilio Division.And because of the dominance of the Dilio Division over the LeBel Division all season, Trois-Rivieres is looking at selecting fourth in the QMJHL draft.&ldquo;We have to live with that,&rdquo; said Boucher, who signed a one-year contract with the team. &ldquo;But we won&rsquo;t lose any games to get a higher position in the draft.&ldquo;We have eight picks in the first five rounds&rsquo;, and we feel we&rsquo;ll be able to revamp next year. We expect 10 to 14 rookies to make the lineup and play.&ldquo;The team has been saying it has been rebuilding for the last couple of years, but it didn&rsquo;t again this year and it&rsquo;s the second-oldest team in the league. We have to go with youngsters. We have five people scouting for us and we&rsquo;re going to meet the first 60 or 70 kids on our list. We have to regain our credibility.&rdquo;Boucher said first-year coach Alain Vigneault, 26, a former St. Louis Blues&rsquo; defenseman, will remain with the club for now. &ldquo;We have to find out if we can get along together,&rdquo; the GM said.The club was previously owned by pharmacy businessman Real Droulx and accountant Claude Caron. Caron will continue as part-owner and team president. Former GM Yvon Gendron will evaluate midget prospects until the end of the season.&ldquo;I think the team was more of a hobby for Real and he didn&rsquo;t want to have to work at it the same way he did his business,&rdquo; Boucher said.Boucher played three seasons of university hockey with the Trois-Rivieres Patriotes from 1972 to 1975, became their assistant coach in 198081 and moved up to the head coaching job the following year.He became known nationally from 1983 to 1986, during a stint as coach of the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees.Boucher took the last-place GeeGees to the Quebec final and a No. 10 ranking in his first season. The following year, third-ranked Ottawa won the Quebec and Eastern Canadian titles and advanced to the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union finals.QUEBEC CACHE&mdash;After watching film of a post-game altercation between the Hull Olympiques and St-Jean Castors, Feb. 22 in Hull&hellip;league president Gilles Courteau suspended Olympiques&rsquo; left winger Hal Turner for five games. A longer sentence had been expected. &#9632;

f0033-03

Draveurs Hope New Ownership Helps

<h2>AHL</h2>(STANDINGS ON MON. MAR. 9)<h3>NORTHERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01514/5606887-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="531" height="183"></div><h3>SOUTHERN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-02377/5606880-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg" title="f0037-02" width="536" height="234"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>TUE. MAR. 3BINGHAMTON 3 AT NEWMARKET 1WED. MAR. 4FREDERICTON 2 AT ADIRONDACK 7BALTIMORE 7 AT HERSHEY0NOVA SCOTIA 4 AT MONCTON 3MAINE 5 AT NEW HAVEN 2THU. MAR. 5FREDERICTON 4 AT BALTIMORE 5FRI. MAR. 6NEW HAVEN 4 AT NEWMARKET 5BINGHAMTON 5 AT ROCHESTER 6NOVA SCOTIA 4 AT SHERBROOKE 5SAT. MAR. 7BINGHAMTON 3 AT BALTIMORE 2FREDERICTON 5 AT HERSHEY 7ADIRONDACK 4 AT MAINE 5SHERBROOKE 2 AT MONCTON 1ROCHESTER 6 AT SPRINGFIELD 7SUN. MAR. 8NEW HAVEN 4 AT ADIRONDACK 6FREDERICTON 4 AT BINGHAMTON 8BALTIMORE 4 AT HERSHEY 5SPRINGFIELD 1 AT MAINE 5SHERBROOKE 5 AT MONCTON 4NOVA SCOTIA 1 AT ROCHESTER 2<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-03294/5606873-1-eng-US/f0037-032.jpg" title="f0037-03" width="535" height="392"></div><h3>TOP GOALTENDERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-04244/5606866-1-eng-US/f0037-042.jpg" title="f0037-04" width="558" height="159"></div><h2>ACHL</h2>(STANDINGS ON MON. MAR. 9)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-05213/5606859-1-eng-US/f0037-052.jpg" title="f0037-05" width="539" height="161"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>SUN. MAR. 1VIRGINIA 3 AT ERIE 0TUE. MAR. 3CAROLINA 6 AT MOHAWK VALLEY 5WED. MAR. 4MOHAWK VALLEY 4 AT ERIE 7THU. MAR. 5CAROLINA 4 AT VIRGINIA 6FRI. MAR. 6ERIE 3 AT CAROLINA 11VIRGINIA 9 AT MOHAWK VALLEY 3SAT. MAR. 7VIRGINIA 5 AT ERIE 7MOHAWK VALLEY 6 AT CAROLINA 7SUN. MAR. 8CAROLINA 2 AT VIRGINIA 5GAMES TO COMETUE. MAR. 10ERIE AT MOHAWK VALLEYWED. MAR. 11MOHAWK VALLEY AT ERIECAROLINA AT VIRGINIA(END OF REGULAR SCHEDULE)<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-06184/5606852-1-eng-US/f0037-062.jpg" title="f0037-06" width="538" height="423"></div><h3>TOP GOALTENDERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-07161/5606845-1-eng-US/f0037-072.jpg" title="f0037-07" width="564" height="168"></div><h2>IHL</h2>(STANDINGS ON MON. MAR. 9)<h3>EAST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-08132/5606838-1-eng-US/f0037-082.jpg" title="f0037-08" width="546" height="133"></div><h3>WEST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-09113/5606831-1-eng-US/f0037-092.jpg" title="f0037-09" width="546" height="184"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>SUN. MAR. 1KALAMAZOO 2 AT FORT WAYNE 5INDIANAPOLIS 4 AT MILWAUKEE 8SALT LAKE 2 AT PEORIA 3MUSKEGON 5 AT FLINT 2WED. MAR. 4SALT LAKE 5 AT KALAMAZOO 2MILWAUKEE 3 AT MUSKEGON 5FORT WAYNE 4 AT SAGINAW 3FRI. MAR. 6MUSKEGON 6 AT KALAMAZOO 5SALT LAKE 6 AT INDIANAPOLIS 5PEORIA 4 AT FLINT 2SAT. MAR. 7FLINT 3 AT MUSKEGON 11PEORIA 3 AT SAGINAW 8SALT LAKE 3 AT KALAMAZOO 4SUN. MAR. 8SALT LAKE 5 AT FORT WAYNE 9KALAMAZOO 6 AT SAGINAW 5MILWAUKEE 3 AT INDIANAPOLIS 6PEORIA 3 AT FLINT 4<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-10104/5606824-1-eng-US/f0037-102.jpg" title="f0037-10" width="544" height="395"></div><h3>TOP GOALTENDERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-1187/5606817-1-eng-US/f0037-112.jpg" title="f0037-11" width="565" height="163"></div><h2>OHL</h2>(STANDINGS ON MON. MAR. 9)<h3>LEYDEN DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-1276/5606810-1-eng-US/f0037-122.jpg" title="f0037-12" width="541" height="211"></div><h3>EMMS DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-1370/5606803-1-eng-US/f0037-132.jpg" title="f0037-13" width="538" height="238"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>TUE. MAR. 3CORNWALL 2 AT OTTAWA 5WED. MAR. 4LONDON 6 AT KITCHENER 5THU. MAR. 5OSHAWA 6 AT CORNWALL 3HAMILTON 5 AT NORTH BAY 8TORONTO 2 AT PETERBOROUGH 3S.S. MARIE 5 AT WINDSOR 7FRI. MAR. 6BELLEVILLE 1 AT KINGSTON 4NORTH BAY 4 AT KITCHENER 3GUELPH 1 AT LONDON 7OSHAWA 3 AT OTTAWA 8HAMILTON 6 AT SUDBURY 3SAT. MAR. 7KINGSTON 4 AT BELLEVILLE 6CORNWALL 1 AT PETERBOROUGH 5OTTAWA 9 AT TORONTO 10SUN. MAR. 8GUELPH 9 AT KITCHENER 7SUDBURY 3 AT NORTH BAY 7CORNWALL 4 AT OSHAWA 4PETERBOROUGH 3 AT OTTAWA 4HAMILTON 4 AT S.S. MARIE 3BELLEVILLE 3 AT TORONTO 8LONDON 5 AT WINDSOR 2<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-1464/5606796-1-eng-US/f0037-142.jpg" title="f0037-14" width="539" height="418"></div><h3>TOP GOALTENDERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-1557/5606789-1-eng-US/f0037-152.jpg" title="f0037-15" width="563" height="162"></div><h2>WHL</h2>(STANDINGS ON MON. MAR. 9)<h3>EAST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-1651/5606782-1-eng-US/f0037-162.jpg" title="f0037-16" width="539" height="239"></div><h3>WEST DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-1747/5606775-1-eng-US/f0037-172.jpg" title="f0037-17" width="542" height="187"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>TUE. MAR. 3MOOSE JAW 5 AT SWIFT CURRENT 2SEATTLE 5 AT VICTORIA 2NEW WESTMINSTER 5 AT KAMLOOPS 13WED. MAR. 4SASKATOON 7 AT CALGARY 6REGINA 3 AT MOOSE JAW 14BRANDON 4 AT PRINCE ALBERT 6THU. MAR. 5SASKATOON 5 AT MEDICINE HAT 10PRINCE ALBERT 4 AT SWIFT CURRENT 5SEATTLE 4 AT NEW WESTMINSTER 3FRI. MAR. 6SWIFT CURRENT 2 AT REGINA 8SEATTLE 4 AT KAMLOOPS 3SPOKANE 3 AT PORTLAND 9SAT. MAR. 7MOOSE JAW 4 AT MEDICINE HAT 12PRINCE ALBERT 5 AT REGINA 1SPOKANE 1 AT VICTORIA 5NEW WESTMINSTER 4 AT PORTLAND 9SUN. MAR. 8MOOSE JAW 5 AT CALGARY 4REGINA 0 AT SASKATOON 13PRINCE ALBERT 4 AT BRANDON 3MEDICINE HAT 5 AT SWIFT CURRENT 7VICTORIA 2 AT KAMLOOPS 10SPOKANE 7 AT NEW WESTMINSTER 1PORTLAND 8 AT SEATTLE 7<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-1846/5606768-1-eng-US/f0037-182.jpg" title="f0037-18" width="538" height="442"></div><h3>TOP GOALTENDERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-1942/5606761-1-eng-US/f0037-192.jpg" title="f0037-19" width="564" height="165"></div><h2>QMJHL</h2>(STANDINGS ON MON. MAR. 9)<h3>DILIO DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-2041/5606754-1-eng-US/f0037-202.jpg" title="f0037-20" width="541" height="158"></div><h3>LEBEL DIVISION</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-2140/5606747-1-eng-US/f0037-212.jpg" title="f0037-21" width="539" height="160"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>MON. MAR. 2HULL 4 AT LAVAL 3TUE. MAR. 3SHAWINIGAN 5 AT DRUMMONDVILLE 2LONGUEUIL 4 AT HULL 2GRANBY 7 AT T-RIVIERES 6WED. MAR. 4VERDUN 4 AT LAVAL 11THU. MAR. 5CHICOUTIMI 4 AT GRANBY 9FRI. MAR. 6T-RIVIERES 7 AT DRUMMONDVILLE 6HULL 0 AT LONGUEUIL 8CHICOUTIMI 5 AT SHAWINIGAN 7LAVAL 3 AT ST. JEAN 6SUN. MAR. 8DRUMMONDVILLE 3 AT GRANBY 10-LAVAL 5 AT HULL 6T-RIVIERES 3 AT SHAWINIGAN 12LONGUEUIL 8 AT VERDUN 3<h3>LEADING SCORERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-2239/5606740-1-eng-US/f0037-222.jpg" title="f0037-22" width="543" height="82"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-2338/5606733-1-eng-US/f0037-232.jpg" title="f0037-23" width="541" height="345"></div><h3>TOP GOALTENDERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-2436/5606726-1-eng-US/f0037-242.jpg" title="f0037-24" width="561" height="164"></div><h2>USHL</h2>(FINAL STANDINGS)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-2534/5606719-1-eng-US/f0037-252.jpg" title="f0037-25" width="534" height="317"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>THU. 5DUBUQUE 3 AT MADISON 6DES MOINES 7 AT SIOUX CITYFRI. MAR. 6THUNDER BAY 7 AT OMAHAWATERLOO 8 AT NORTH IOWASAT. MAR. 7THUNDER BAY 5 AT SIOUX CITYDUBUQUE 12AT NORTH IOWAST. PAUL 2 AT DES MOINESMADISON 2 AT ROCHESTER 10SUN. MAR. 8THUNDER BAY 10 AT ROCHESTERMADISON 1 AT ST. PAUL 5OMAHA 1 AT WATERLOO 4NORTH IOWA 4 AT DUBUQUEEND OF REGULAR SCHEDULE)<h3>FINAL SCORING LEADERS</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-2629/5606712-1-eng-US/f0037-262.jpg" title="f0037-26" width="535" height="266"></div><h2>OSHL</h2>(FINAL STANDINGS)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-2723/5606705-1-eng-US/f0037-272.jpg" title="f0037-27" width="546" height="161"></div><h3>GAMES COMPLETED</h3>FRI. FEB. 26DUNDAS 4 AT BRANTFORD 7(END OF REGULAR SCHEDULE)OSHL PLAYOFFSSEMIFINALSSAT. FEB. 28THUNDER BAY 4 AT DUNDAS 8SUN. MAR. 1THUNDER BAY 1 AT DUNDAS 10FRI. MAR. 6DUNDAS 2 AT THUNDER BAY 3SAT. MAR. 7DUNDAS 2 AT THUNDER BAY 3SUN. MAR. 8DUNDAS 5 ST THUNDER BAY 4(DUNDAS LEADS BEST-OF-SEVEN SERIES 3-2)SAT. MAR. 7BRANTFORD 10 AT CAMBRIDGE 1SUN. MAR. 8CAMBRIDGE 4 AT BRANTFORD 7(BRANTFORD LEADS BEST-OF-SEVEN SERIES 3-0) &#9632;

f0037-01

SCOREBOARD

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINARI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01287/5607078-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="578" height="802"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Penguins are counting on superstar Mario Lemieux to lift them into the playoffs.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02191/5607085-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg" title="f0040-02" width="175" height="134"></div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;So far as Mario Lemieux is concerned, Gustave Flaubert might have been a left winger with some long-forgotten junior team from the hinterlands of Quebec.But Flaubert, a 19th-century French novelist, unknowingly captured the essence of Lemieux a century or so before he was bom.&ldquo;Be regular and orderly in your daily life,&rdquo; Flaubert wrote, &ldquo;so you can be violent and original in your work.&rdquo;Indeed, Lemieux prefers an almost sedentary lifestyle away from the ice, opting for a low profile which is the very antithesis of his playing style.But never has the magnificence of Lemieux been as important to the Penguins as it is now&mdash;as they head into the final weeks of the season still lurking on the periphery of the Patrick Division playoff race.If the Penguins are to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs&mdash;for the first time in five years&mdash;they will do so largely on the production of Lemieux.So vital is he to their success, in fact, that assistant coach Jim Roberts felt compelled to make the point during a recent, private meeting with Lemieux.&ldquo;He told me I have to start playing well on the road, and have to start playing well defensively,&rdquo; Lemieux said.&ldquo;When I don&rsquo;t play well, our team doesn&rsquo;t play well. The guys look at me as a leader on the ice, and that&rsquo;s why I have to be sharp every game from now on.&rdquo;&ldquo;I told Mario it was very important he plays well, because the team looks up to him for leadership, not only in scoring goals but playing an all-out game both ways,&rdquo; Roberts said.&ldquo;I told him, &lsquo;They&rsquo;ll pick up on what you&rsquo;re doing bad, so you must do everything well.&rsquo; I think Mario responded.&rdquo;Lemieux went out a few hours after their conversation and ravaged the Quebec Nordiques for two goals and an assist in an 8-1 Pittsburgh victory at Le Colisee.&ldquo;He played the way he&rsquo;s capable of playing,&rdquo; Penguin coach Bob Berry said. &ldquo;He was alive, got two goals, was very aggressive and played very well defensively.&rdquo;Two nights later, however, he was none of the above as the Penguins lost 7-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs.An uninspired Lemieux was a nonfactor.If there are any lingering doubts about Lemieux, they concern his intensity, not his ability.Those questions came to prominence during the 1984 Memorial Cup, when Lemieux played poorly and his team, the Laval Voisins, was quickly eliminated from title contention.Since then, he has not had the opportunity to prove he can lift a team above the quagmire of mediocrity. He would have had a chance in the final month of last season, but his playing time and effectiveness were limited by bronchitis.A recurrence caused him to miss four games after the Rendez-vous break, but Lemieux appears to have shaken its effects.&ldquo;I got the bronchitis out of the way early this year,&rdquo; he said.Which just might mean Lemieux will be able to prevent the rest of the Patrick Division from doing the same to the Penguins.NOTES&mdash;Bob Berry was enraged after the loss in Toronto. &ldquo;Win one 8-1, lose one 7-2,&rdquo; fumed Berry. &ldquo;Easy come, easy go. That&rsquo;s the attitude we had tonight&hellip;They tell everybody they&rsquo;re professional hockey players. They might be hockey players but they&rsquo;re not very professional.&rdquo;&hellip;Pittsburgh has not won more than two games in a row since October&hellip;Left winger Randy Cunneyworth tied a team record with four goals in that 8-1 victory in Quebec. He shares the record with Paul Gardner, Mike Bullard and Mario Lemieux&hellip;Lemieux was fitted for two lightweight knee braces before the Quebec game and said, unlike others he has worn, they did not affect his play: &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t bother me at all. I can&rsquo;t feel them, and they don&rsquo;t move like the other ones did.&rdquo;&hellip;Defenseman Moe Mantha was sidelined after being struck in the left eye by the stick of Penguin center John Chabot. &#9632;

f0040-01

Lemieux’s Work Must Be Its Most ‘Original’

<div class="byline">BY REYN DAVIS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01248/5607116-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="581" height="989"><figcaption class="caption-body">Winnipeg is touting Ron Wilson for the Frank Selke Trophy as top defensive forward.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02178/5607123-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="180" height="137"></div>WINNIPEG&mdash;Short, obscure and modest. Ron Wilson is reluctant to consider himself the best defensive forward in the National Hockey League.But he&rsquo;s the leader of the best penalty-killing unit in the league during a year when speciality teams have been more important than ever.&ldquo;I would consider him an outstanding candidate for the Frank Selke Trophy.&rdquo; said general manager John Ferguson, sounding the first endorsement of Wilson on a pre-game radio show from a Mexican restaurant across the street from Winnipeg Arena.Teammates have begun to call Wilson, &ldquo;Frank&rdquo; and &ldquo;Fergie&rsquo;s son.&rdquo;All levity aside. Wilson is flattered by the elevated status accorded him.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to be considered in the company of the top defensive forwards,&rdquo; he said.When most players his age are either retired or about to be, the 30-year-old Wilson is finally making his mark in the NHL.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m underrated,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But maybe I&rsquo;m being appreciated more. The people who score goals or fight are noticed more. When you don&rsquo;t score goals or take a lot of penalties your name doesn&rsquo;t appear in the summaries very often.&rdquo;Wilson is the only player who has surived since 1979-80. the Jets&rsquo; first season in the NHL.Purchased from Montreal Canadiens for $50,000, he has appeared in more than 450 NHL games with three unscheduled stops in the minors.The fact is, he couldn&rsquo;t play for the Jets when they were a bad team, but is considered invaluable when they are at their best.&ldquo;We always knew he was a good defensive player,&rdquo; said Bill Sutherland, a Jets&rsquo; assistant coach since 1978. &ldquo;But we were always a team that worried about the power play first and let the penalty killing take care of itself.&ldquo;Until this season, this has always been a full-steam-ahead team.&rdquo;It is more than a coincidence that the Jets had the NHL&rsquo;s best penalty-killing unit and an overall record of 10 games over. 500.But if penalty-killing is so critical to a team&rsquo;s success, why is Quebec&rsquo;s record so abysmal with the No. 2 unit?Certainly, the Jets&rsquo; overall defensive record is most attributable to their standing. After 67 games, they had given up 87 fewer goals than last year.Wilson&rsquo;s duties with the Jets are three-fold. He plays the first 40 seconds and last 40 seconds of every opponent&rsquo;s power play; takes a regular shift as the fourth-line center; and trouble-shoots, filling any hole when a forward is needed.His skating is the key. Like a bad rumor, he is all over the place being the perfect pest.&ldquo;I kind of had the same role when I played in the NHL,&rdquo; said Sutherland. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a better skater, I admit, but, back then, you had to score a few goals, too.&rdquo;Wilson&rsquo;s output is more than modest. It&rsquo;s embarrassing. In 67 games, he had three goals and eight assists. Still, he was plus-9.Another speedster, Doug Smail, is Wilson&rsquo;s penalty-killing partner. As penalty killers, they pounce on the players trying to organize a rush.&ldquo;We try to make the other team start deep in its own end,&rdquo; said Dave Ellett, a defenseman. &ldquo;They try to get there fast, so they can confuse things at the start. If they are beaten, they have enough speed to get back into the play.&rdquo;Ideally, Wilson likes to delay the start of a rush long enough to force the players waiting in the neutral zone to retreat.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s an expert in the art of causing confusion,&rdquo; said Ellett.BENCH BITS&mdash;Assistant coach Rick Bowness has confirmed that he&rsquo;ll be leaving the team next season to be the coach and general manager of the Jets&rsquo; farm club&mdash;wherever it&rsquo;s located. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an opportunity I cannot refuse,&rdquo; said Bowness, 32. &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s my choice&rdquo;. The Jets are considering Moncton, N.B., and Sydney, N.S., as prospective sites of an American League franchise. The Jets have been providing some players to Montreal&rsquo;s operation in Sherbrooke&hellip;Dale Hawerchuk had a six-game goalscoring streak stopped in a 3-2 loss in Chicago and a seven-game point streak ended in a 3-3 tie in St. Louis&hellip;The Jets had a seven-game winning streak in Winnipeg Arena. &#9632;

f0042-01

Jets’ Wilson Expert At ‘Creating Confusion’

<div class="byline">By Bob Duff</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-03140/5607154-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="442" height="457"></div>Q: Please settle a bet and list all of the players involved in the DetroitToronto trade which sent Norm Ullman and Paul Henderson to Toronto. Also, what year did the trade take place?Robert Zinck, Bridgewater, NSA: On March 3, 1968, the Maple Leafs shipped forwards Garry Unger, Frank Mahovlich and Pete Stemkowski, along with the rights to retired defenseman Carl Brewer, to the Red Wings in exchange for Ullman, Henderson, and forward Floyd Smith.Q: I was recently introduced to the game and I enjoy it very much. A friend of mine has been helpful in answering all my questions, execpt one. Why is it called a &ldquo;hat-trick&rdquo; when a player scores three goals?Jeanne J. Stevens, Los Angeles, CAA: The term originates from the sport of cricket. In that game, when a bowler takes down three wickets on successive balls, he is awarded a brand new hat, and it is referred to as a hat-trick.Since many of hockey&rsquo;s early participants were of British descent, the term caught on here. Thus, when a hockey player scored three successive goals in a game, he was rewarded with a new hat.Today, any player who scores three or more goals in a game is credited with a hat-trick. Players who score three successive goals in a game are said to have scored a natural hat-trick.Q: Which two teams took part in the worst bench-clearing brawl in NHL history, in terms of penalty minutes?Darcy Peterson, Prince George, BCA: The site was the Boston Garden on Feb. 26, 1981, when the hometown Bruins and Minnesota North Stars squared off in more ways than one.The Bruins and North Stars combined for 84 infractions and 406 penalty minutes, both NHL records.Minnesota had 42 penalties and 211 minutes, including 18 minors, 13 majors, four 10-minute misconducts and seven game misconducts.Boston, meanwhile, picked up 42 penalties and 195 minutes. Their totals included 20 minors, 13 majors, three 10-minute misconducts and six game misconducts.The two teams shattered the existing record of 380 minutes, set by Philadelphia and Los Angeles in 1979. Oh, by the way, in case you re interested, Boston won the game 5-1.If you want your question answered by the Duffer, send the query to:ASK THE DUFFER,347 Whitewood Rd.,Saskatoon, SKS7J 4K8 &#9632;

f0042-03

ASK THE DUFFER

<div class="byline">BY LARRY HUMBER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01250/5607192-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-03139/5607185-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="566" height="572"></div><h2>ACROSS:</h2>I. Peter is pictured, Frank is in Hall of Fame (9).8. Division topped by the Nordiques last season (5).9. Beats (7).10. Winner of the first four Olympic hockey competitions, Great Britain won the fifth (6).11. Swedish-born Canadien named to last season&rsquo;s allrookie team (6).12. Velocity (5).14. Home of the American League&rsquo;s Red Wings, Falls (5).17. Crouches (6).19. Cleveland-born Jet, Dave&mdash;(6).20. Red Wing previously with Isles and Oilers, Billy (7).21. He appeared in just two games for North Stars in their first NHL season, Lou (5).22. Former King center acquired by Penguins in 1985, Terry (9).<h2>DOWN:</h2>2. Blues&rsquo; building, St. Louis (5).3. NHL&rsquo;s executive vicepresident, Brian (6).4. Give up a goal (3,2).5. Pester (6).6. 21 Across&rsquo; current position with Minnesota, general (7).7. Ed Westfall was this NHL club&rsquo;s first captain (9).11. Bruin netminder previously with Los Angeles (4,5).13. He was first pick of Sabres in 1977 draft, Ric (7).15. Blackhawks&rsquo; captain (6).16. Islander blueliner who was with the 1980 U.S. Olympic team (6).17. He netted Cup-winning goal for Leafs in 1963 (5).18. Blueliner with Leafs from 1967-74, Mike (5). &#9632;

f0043-01

CROSSWORD

<h2>30 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; The Detroit Red Wings finished on top of the NHL standings for the eighth time in nine years. The Wings; with 84 points, clinched the Prince of Wales Trophy with three games still remaining. The Montreal Canadiens, despite a late-season charge, were six points behind in second place.&bull; The highest-scoring game in 10 years saw the Toronto Maple Leafs hammer the New York Rangers 14-1. Toronto also tied Detroit&rsquo;s record for most points in a game, with 37. The 14 goals in one game were the most ever by a Leaf team&mdash;a record that still stands today.&bull;It was Floyd Curry Night at the Montreal Forum, as the Canadiens honored the forward for his 10 years of service to the team. Curry was showered with gifts, including a new car and a year&rsquo;s supply of both pizza and sardines. The Canadiens pitched in by giving Curry an electric clothes dryer.<h2>15 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; Rod Gilbert of the New York Rangers scored his 40th goal of the season against the Chicago Blackhawks. Linemates Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield also had 40 goals. It marked the first time in history all three members of a line hit the 40-goal plateau.&bull; The Detroit Red Wings retired Gordie Howe&rsquo;s famed No. 9 jersey in an emotional ceremony at center ice. Detroit fans obviously thought they had bid a fond farewell to the 43-year-old winger. But, in 1980, Howe returned to Detroit in a Hartford Whalers&rsquo; sweater. No one could have imagined Howe would still be playing in the NHL at the age of 52.&bull; Lome (Gump) Worsley of the Minnesota North Stars was knocked out cold by a shot from Toronto&rsquo;s Paul Henderson. Worsley, only one of two goalies in the NHL (along with Detroit&rsquo;s Joe Daley) who didn&rsquo;t wear a mask, took the rising shot squarely on the nose. Strangely enough, it was the first time all season he had been hit in the face. Even after the injury, the &lsquo;Gumper&rsquo; refused to don the mask. &#9632;

THIS WEEK…

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SCHULTZ</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-03158/5607254-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg" title="f0043-03" width="600" height="1484"><figcaption class="caption-body">Forbes Kennedy</figcaption></div>Most people save their worst for last; Forbes Kennedy saved his worst.Kennedy played 603 regular-season games over 10 years in the NHL and never set a record. He went on to play in 11 more Stanley Cup playoff games with the same results.But in the 12th, and final, playoff game of his career, he set records for most penalties (eight) and penalty minutes (38) in one contest. It wasn&rsquo;t exactly the way Kennedy envisioned ending his career, but it was memorable, nonetheless.What started out as a simple slashing call ended up as a melee, after which Kennedy received four minors, two majors, one 10-minute misconduct and one game misconduct.The 1969 quarter-final game was out of reach for Kennedy&rsquo;s Toronto Maple Leafs, who were trailing the Boston Bruins 10-0.&ldquo;It was near the end of the game when Bruins&rsquo; goalie Gerry Cheevers gave me a good two-hander with his stick across my ankles,&rdquo; Kennedy said. &ldquo;The penalty had been called and I skated out back towards center ice.&ldquo;But the more I thought about it the more I wanted to get back at Cheevers. So I turned around and headed back to him. But (Bruin defenseman) Ted Green saw what I was going to do and came after me and cross-checked me. That&rsquo;s when everything broke loose. &ldquo;Since that time Dave Schultz (42) has broken the record for most penalty minutes in one game and Kim Clack-son has equalled the mark for most penalties.Kennedy was originally a member of the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; organization. But the Dorchester, N.B., native ended up being traded from the Montreal Jr. Canadiens directly to the Chicago Blackhawks. He made his NHL debut at the age of 20 without a day of minor-league hockey under his belt, something unheard of in the mid-1950s. Known as a scorer during his junior days, Kennedy turned into a top checker and penalty killer once he made it to the NHL.The all-purpose forward also played for the Bruins, Detroit Red Wings and Philadelphia Flyers.Kennedy was also a great fall guy for many of his teammates&rsquo; practical jokes&mdash;principally because of his deathly fear of mice. Teammates on the Flyers terrorized him during one 24-hour period, beginning by putting a mouse in his pre-game soup bowl.Today, Kennedy is 51 and still afraid of mice. He lives in Charlottetown, P.E.L, where he coaches a junior hockey team in the winter and a minor baseball team in the summer.<h2>THE WAY WE WERE</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02185/5607247-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="1846" height="1742"><figcaption class="caption-body">Toronto Maple Leaf Jim Pappin, footloose and fancy free in front of the net, tries to score on Oakland Seals&rsquo; goalie Charlie Hodge but is unsuccessful. Both are now scouts&mdash;Pappin for the Chicago Blackhawks, with whom he played, and Hodge for the Winnipeg Jets.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0043-03

Tough Guy Afraid Of Mice

<div class="byline">BY AL MORGANTI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/c0004-01214/5607285-1-eng-US/c0004-012.jpg" title="C0004-01" width="574" height="1150"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Sutter, who suffered a stress fracture in his back, could be out for the year.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/c0004-02130/5607292-1-eng-US/c0004-022.jpg" title="C0004-02" width="178" height="137"></div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Although the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; ranks are fast filling up with an army of regulars, there is still one key player missing in action&mdash;maybe for the remainder of the regular season.The MIA is center Ron Sutter, who the Flyers expected back by the end of February. However, Sutter is still hurting from a stress fracture in his lower back, and the new diagnosis called for another month of rest. Even at that, the Flyers and Sutter can&rsquo;t be sure the back will be fully healed.Nobody has ever accused a Sutter of dogging it&mdash;but on the advice of his brothers and his own best intuition, Sutter decided that it was not worth the risk involved if he tried to rush back from this injury.The 23-year-old center, who has been out since Jan. 11, said he did not see any sense in trying to play until the back was fully healed&mdash;and the Flyers have complied with his request.&ldquo;It had been determined that he couldn&rsquo;t do any further damage by playing,&rdquo; said Pat Croce, the Flyers&rsquo; conditioning coach, &ldquo;but what couldn&rsquo;t be determined was how much pain he felt.&ldquo;For Ron to be in so much pain that he couldn&rsquo;t play must have been a lot of pain. We can only go by what the athlete tells us, and in this case Ron wasn&rsquo;t ready to play.&ldquo;Obviously, it hasn&rsquo;t responded as quickly as we had hoped.&rdquo;Sutter has been fidgety while sitting out, but the long-term possibilities have made him take the safest route.&ldquo;I tried to skate this past week,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and it hurts just as much as it did four weeks ago. There are times it hurts when I sit, when I walk, and even when I sleep at night.&ldquo;I want to play, but the risk is very high. I&rsquo;ve played with bad knees and bad shoulders, but a back is another thing. You can reconstruct a knee or a shoulder, but you can&rsquo;t reconstruct a back.&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve told me that I can&rsquo;t injure a stress fracture anymore, but I know I can&rsquo;t play my game&mdash;not the way I feel. And what&rsquo;s the sense (of playing) if I can&rsquo;t bang, or if I&rsquo;m worried about getting hit? I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d be effective.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m looking forward to a long career, and I don&rsquo;t want to risk permanent injury because of this. I know it&rsquo;s getting close to playoff time. Nobody has to remind me of that.&ldquo;I want to play as much as anybody, but this has to feel right&mdash;and right now it just doesn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;PHILLERS&mdash;After losing consecutive games at Calgary (4-3) and Minnesota (5-4), the Flyers snapped a two-game losing streak at the Spectrum, where they defeated Buffalo 4-2, and Washington, also 4-2&hellip;Defenseman Mark Howe scored his 500th career point with a goal against the Sabres, and notched his fourth shorthanded goal of the season against Washington&hellip;Forward/de-fenseman Daryl Stanley again reinjured his left ankle (ligament strain) and was to miss at least two weeks&hellip;Winger Lindsay Carson returned from a knee injury against the Cap-s&hellip;Right winger Tim Kerr tied Minnesota&rsquo;s Dino Ciccarelli for the NHL lead in power-play goals when he scored his 22nd (46th overall) against the Caps&hellip;Ron Hextall, with six assists, has often stated that he&rsquo;d like to score a goal in the NHL. He very nearly did against the Caps, who had pulled their goalie when trailing 4-2. Hextall fired a high shot out of the zone, which appeared headed for the goal, before it was knocked down by Washington defenseman Larry Murphy. A subse-quent shot was wide. &#9632;

C0004-01

Painful Back Keeps Sutter On The Sidelines

Mike Liut, 1980-81When a team jumps 27 points in the standings, as the St. Louis Blues did from 1979-80 to 1980-81, it's a good bet that goaltending had a lot to do with the resurgence.In the Blues' case, it was Mike Liut who led the way.The 25-year-old native of Weston, Ont., won 33 games and tied 13 others against 14 losses that year. And as a result, the Blues chalked up a grand total of 107 points and finished second overall.Liut's spectacular netminding didn't go unnoticed. He was runner-up to Wayne Gretzky in the Hart Trophy balloting as MVP, and tied Gretzky as THE HOCKEY NEWS Player of the Year&mdash;the only playerto do so since Gretzky entered the league.Liut's 3.34 goals-against average in 1979-80 was no fluke. The 6-foot-2 graduate of Bowling Green State University, now in his eighth NHL campaign, went into the season with a career 3.56 average.Liut's 3.34 goals-against average in 1979-80 was no fluke. The 6-foot-2 graduate of Bowling Green State University, now in his eighth NHL campaign, went into the season with a career 3.56 average. &#9632;

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March 20, 1987

NHL SUMMARIES

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