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 11, 1988

The Hockey News March 11, 1988

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01222/5446093-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0043-01

Departments

OLYMPIC SCOREBOARD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-02119/5446279-1-eng-US/f0047-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Age didn&rsquo;t stop Jacques Plante from retaining his status as one of the game&rsquo;s best goaltenders. Plante, in his forties as a Toronto Maple Leaf, gets a little help here from defenseman Rick Ley as he stops St. Louis&rsquo; Gary Sabourin on a close-in chance.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0047-02

IN THIS ISSUE

THE WAY WE WERE

<div class="byline">BY TOM HENSHAW</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021266/5443974-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="178" height="137"></div>BOSTON&mdash;Michael Thelven played North American-style hockey for a day, and the Boston Bruins are glad he did.The Swedish defenseman scored two goals in a game for the first time in his three-year NHL career, in Boston&rsquo;s 5-2 victory over the Hartford Whalers Feb. 25.But it wasn&rsquo;t the goals as much as the way he scored them that attracted the attention of 14,451 fans, the team&rsquo;s 14th sellout of the season in Boston Garden.They weren&rsquo;t used to seeing him in the opponents&rsquo; end of the rink.&ldquo;I just ran for the net,&rdquo; said Thelven. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not the European style, but I&rsquo;ve been here three years now and I&rsquo;m starting to leant. That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m most impressed with over here. Everybody goes to the net.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not the way we played in Sweden. We tried to pass the puck all the time and make cute plays. But you can&rsquo;t do that over here&mdash;especially in this rink, it&rsquo;s so small. You have to go to the net to score goals.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;You can play such a good defensive game and the media never recognizes that. But I don&rsquo;t complain. I just try to play my game.&rsquo; &mdash;Thelven</blockquote>&ldquo;In a European game on plays like that I probably would be hanging in the slot a little, waiting for the puck up there. But I like it this way. It took me three years to learn that.&ldquo;As a defenseman it&rsquo;s hard to go to the net, because you have to get back as fast as you can to get on defense. It&rsquo;s a tough decision to make. Shall I go or shall I not, as a defenseman?&rdquo;The two goals against Hartford brought Thelven&rsquo;s total for the season to six in 57 games. He also had six in 1985-86, his rookie year, and five last season, which was shortened to 34 games by injury.&ldquo;We have so many offensive defensemen this year, so maybe I have stayed back a little bit more than I have before,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;But now I seem to be putting in my chances. That&rsquo;s a big thing. I have had a lot of chances this year but I haven&rsquo;t been putting them in. You lose confidence when you don&rsquo;t score.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t really lose confidence,&rdquo; he corrected himself. &ldquo;I know what I can do. I played in the Canada Cup and I played pretty solid in the first part of the season.&rdquo;The two-goal, one-assist performance drew an unusally large crowd of reporters around him after the Hartford game&mdash;which, in turn, drew a wry grin from the 27-year-old Swede as cameramen jockeyed for position.&ldquo;You can play such a good defensive game and the media never recognizes that,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t complain. I just try to play my game.&rdquo;And Thelven&rsquo;s game, whether he scores goals or not, has been good enough for the man who counts, general manager Harry Sinden.&ldquo;You know,&rdquo; said Sinden, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t&rsquo; remember him ever having a bad game this season.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;U.S. Olympic center Craig Janney signed a multi-year contract with the Bruins and was scheduled to join the team for practice Feb. 29&hellip;Would he stay with the club? &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s 20 guys who have gotten us to the top four,&rdquo; said coach Terry O&rsquo;Reilly. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s coming Monday. He&rsquo;ll practise with us and then we&rsquo;ll see what happens.&rdquo;&hellip;Geoff Courtnall fired his first NHL hat trick Feb. 27 against Minnesota, giving him 31 goals for the season, a career high&hellip;Allen Pedersen has emerged as a real defensive defenseman. As of the 64th game of the season, he hadn&rsquo;t earned a point in 39 games. He last collected one&mdash;an assist&mdash;Nov. 28, but had a rating of plus-11&hellip;Ray Bourque tied his own team mark for defensemen with a point in 17 straight games, and set out for the overall club record of 22 set by center Bronco Horvath in 1959-60.<h2>BRUINS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 22: Alan May, RW, assigned to Maine (AHL).Feb. 24: Dave Reid, C, assigned to Maine.Feb. 25: Frank Simonetti, D, assigned to Maine; John Blum, D, recalled from Maine.Feb. 26: Craig Janney, C, U.S. Olympic team, signed to multi-year contract.<h3>INJURIES</h3>C&mdash;Ken Linseman, Steve Kasper, Bob Sweeney., Billy O&rsquo;Dwyer.LW&mdash;Geoff Courtnail, Randy Burridge, Jay Miller.RW&mdash;Cam Neely, Keith Crowder, Nevin Markwart, Lyndon Byers, Willi Plett.LD&mdash;Glen Wesley, Allen Pedersen, John Blum.RD&mdash;Ray Bourque, Reed Larson, Michael Thelven.G&mdash;Doug Keans.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Gord Kluzak, D, right knee sprain, March 3.Tommy Lehmann, C, pneumonia, indefinitely.Reggie Lemelin, G, groin strain, day-to-day.Rick Middleton, LW, hairline rib fracture, March 3. &#9632;

f0004-02

‘Run For Net’ Pays Dividends For Thelven

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0023-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01659/5444965-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0023-01

CAN/AM CHALLENGE CUP

<div class="image-hero"><img title="Cover-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover-01826/5446341-1-eng-US/cover-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Andrew McBain(Photo by Mike Ryan, Photo by Bruce Bennett)</figcaption></div>Jet Finally Takes Off/22&lsquo;Rocket&rsquo;Rick Tocchet/17High-Flying Soviets No. 1 At The Olympics &#9632;

Cover-01

GOOD AS GOLD!

While his flashier counterparts such as Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque, Scott Stevens and Mark Howe have commanded the spotlight, James Patrick of the New York Rangers has quietly established himself as one of the top defensemen in the game. Now in his fourth full season, Patrick is enjoying his best statistical season yet, and will play a major role in the Rangers&rsquo; battle for a playoff berth.Most college hockey fans know about the Hobey Baker award, given annually to the top collegian in the U.S., but how many are familiar with the Sullivan Trophy, the MVP award for Canadian university players? Here&rsquo;s your chance to get a look at some underappreciated players, as THN examines the top candidates for this year&rsquo;s award.And, of course, you&rsquo;ll get our usual team-by-team look at all 21 NHL clubs in the March 18edition of THE HOCKEY NEWS. &#9632;

NEXT WEEK

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011353/5443912-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Top-scoring rookie Joe Nieuwendyk, who hails from Whitby, Ont., attributes a portion of his success to a long reach.</figcaption></div>Los Angeles sniper Luc Robitaille, who was the butt of teammates&rsquo; jokes last year because of his language problems, has significantly improved his English, and is en route to a Hollywood acting career. Luc already has taken an eight-week commercial acting course and has won raves from the Tinseltown pros. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a leading man, hero type,&rdquo; says actor Fred Holliday, who has worked closely with Luc. Vigorously promoting their players for the first time, King officials hustled Luc with Man Watchers, Inc., which recently rated the sharpshooter one of the ten most watchable men in the world. On top of that, Robitaille&rsquo;s name is now appearing in theatrical gossip columns, especially since Luc has taken a liking to soap opera beauties. His latest heartthrob is Knots Landing&rsquo;s Lisa Hartman. Apparently, Luc&rsquo;s teammates are taking it without jealousy. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a real good fellow,&rdquo; says left winger Bob Bourne. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard not to like him.&rdquo;<h2>BIG BUCKS FOR NO. 66</h2>Mario Lemieux&rsquo;s climb to the NHL scoring summit, combined with his All-Star Game masterpiece, will be translated into a commercial windfall. Already pulling in big ad bucks in Canada, Lemieux is hoping to make hay in the States while enlarging his already-big Canadian ad portfolio. Lemieux&rsquo;s endorsements include Diet Coke, Snickers, Arrow Shirts and Micron Skates. Bob Perno, his Montreal-based agent, is pursuing American Express as a potential summer client. Because of homestretch pressures, Lemieux has nixed any further commercials through the playoffs&mdash;with the firm encouragement of GM Ed Johnston. A lucrative Gillette TV commercial, that required a March taping date, was in the works. Johnston stepped in and nixed the deal&hellip;Israel&rsquo;s first major hockey arena will seat 10,000, will be located near Tel Aviv and will be backed by a well-placed NHL personality. The group backing the rink, a source connected with the project tells BLUELINES, expects it to draw heavily from the large segment of eastern Europeans&mdash;especially Soviet emigres who love hockey&mdash;in Israel.<h2>PLAYOFF SYSTEM ATTACKED</h2>Emile Francis does not hide his displeasure with NHL president John Ziegler when the playoff system is discussed. The Whaler leader tells BLUELINES it&rsquo;s absurd to have an arrangment where there are such inequities as now exist. &ldquo;This spring,&rdquo; says Francis, &ldquo;there could be two Patrick Division teams, each with more than 80 points, missing the playoffs while the second-place team in the Norris Division could make the playoffs with 20 points fewer.&rdquo; Francis recalls arguing for a change. &ldquo;Ziegler likes to say &lsquo;If it (the playoff system) ain&rsquo;t broke, don&rsquo;t fix it,&rsquo; but I say, &lsquo;Maybe for you, it ain&rsquo;t, but what about us?&rsquo;&rdquo; Although many clubs, particularly in the Patrick and Adams Division, favor Francis&rsquo; &ldquo;wild-card&rdquo; playoff system, Emile is convinced he&rsquo;ll never get enough votes to support it. &ldquo;All they need is seven votes to shoot it down,&rdquo; Francis explains. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve got five votes in the Norris Division right off the bat and with a couple of friends backing them, they can easily add two more.&rdquo;<h2>SUPPOSED TO BE NILAN II?</h2>Nordiques&rsquo; enforcer Gord Donnelly reveals his ex-coach, Michel Bergeron, told him to pattern his play after that of Chris Nilan. &ldquo;That,&rdquo; says Donnelly, &ldquo;is why Bergeron is so happy to have Nilan with him in New York now.&rdquo; Montreal&rsquo;s John Kordic accuses Bruins&rsquo; coach Terry O&rsquo;Reilly of not-too-discreet tactics. &ldquo;O&rsquo;Reilly is the kind of coach who sends his players out to get guys,&rdquo; Kordic tells the Montreal Gazette&hellip;Jean Perron on Cam Neely: &ldquo;Every one of Neely&rsquo;s hits is a clean hit.&rdquo;&hellip;Nordiques&rsquo; godfather Marcel Aubut asserts that the presence of the club has enabled its owners, Carling-O&rsquo;Keefe Breweries, to claim 60 per cent of the market in Quebec. &ldquo;When we were in the WHA,&rdquo; says Aubut, &ldquo;they had only 28 per cent of it.&rdquo; As a result, Aubut laughs off suggestions that the conglomerate which now rules Carling-O&rsquo;Keefe (the Australian Foster&rsquo;s group) may move the franchise to Hamilton. Aubut contends the Nordiques-to-Hamilton rumor is rooted in a column written by Claude Bedard of Le Journal de Quebec. Bedard took issue with the number of Quebec City fans who root for the Canadiens. &ldquo;He suggested maybe the team should be moved to Hamilton if the Quebec fans aren&rsquo;t going to support the Nordiques more when they play the Canadiens,&rdquo; Aubut explains.<h2>RIPPING OFF TEAMMATES</h2>This is a true story: an NHL player got wind of a wholesaler who had an attractive electronic product he was willing to sell the stickhandler at cost. The NHLer bought the item and then decided it was such a good deal, he ordered a dozen more&mdash;but sold them to teammates at a $25 profit, without telling them. One of the players who bought the product liked it so much, he phoned the wholesaler for another but at the higher price. Dumbfounded by the call and the fact the player wanted to buy it at the retail price, the wholesaler then put two and two together, kept the secret and sold another to the NHLer at the higher price. The latter still thinks he got a good deal!&hellip;There&rsquo;s no longer any question in the Bruins&rsquo; camp that 33-year-old Reggie Lemelin will be, for better or worse, the Bs&rsquo; playoff goalie. Rejean, who likes to tell reporters &ldquo;I&rsquo;m only 29,&rdquo; tells BLUELINES he&rsquo;s &ldquo;ready&rdquo; for the playoff assignment, even if it carries him all the way to the finals. &ldquo;The protection I&rsquo;ve gotten this year has made it easy for me,&rdquo; Lemelin explains. &ldquo;The lightweight pads haven&rsquo;t hurt either. In fact, the pads have caught on so well that we&rsquo;re opening a plant in New Haven to mass-market them.&rdquo; Although it may have seemed otherwise, Lemelin&rsquo;s exit from Calgary was not made with recrimination toward the Flame general staff. &ldquo;Cliff Fletcher was very good to me and up front,&rdquo; says Lemelin. &ldquo;He told me that they were going to play Mike Vernon in most of the games and that&rsquo;s when I decided I wanted to go elsewhere.&rdquo;<h2>BOSSY NOT GONE YET</h2>Mike Bossy tells BLUELINES that while he appreciates the &ldquo;Night&rdquo; the Islanders are orchestrating for him (March 10), he has not decided on retirement&mdash;although his troublesome back &ldquo;still hurts.&rdquo;&hellip;Boston broadcast aide George Falkowski thought he was being Mr. Nice Guy when he invited Bruins Reed Larson, Glen Wesley, Al Pederson and Frank Simonetti for a home-cooked meal prepared by his mother, Julie, at her Scotch Plains, N.J., house when the Bs had an off-day before playing at The Meadowlands. &ldquo;What I found out,&rdquo; Falkowski tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;is how to get into trouble. The guys liked Mom&rsquo;s roast beef so much, they went back and told the rest of the team. So, I had 17 Bruins mad at me for not inviting them.&rdquo;&hellip;Vancouver Province reporter Lowell Ullrich claims Barry Pederson&rsquo;s salary has been incorrectly listed at $350,000. According to Ullrich, it&rsquo;s $425,000&hellip;The Blackhawks employ a man full-time just to hang out and fix the organ pipes at Chicago Stadium should one of the notes get stuck. The Stadium organ is one of only two in the world with pipes built into the rafters.<h2>REACH HELPS NIEUWENDYK</h2>Joe Nieuwendyk says his superior scoring this season can be attributed, in part, to his long reach. &ldquo;A lot has to do with the knack of finding the open spots,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The reach is a big help.&rdquo; Nieuwendyk spends considerable time correcting newsmen who report that he&rsquo;s from Oshawa, Ont. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m from Whitby, which is close to Oshawa, but the people in Whitby get very angry when they hear someone say I&rsquo;m from Oshawa.&rdquo;&hellip;Although it&rsquo;s generally acknowledged that Kevin Lowe is having his finest season, Harry Neale insists that the Oiler hasn&rsquo;t a chance to win The Norris Trophy. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t get the points,&rdquo; Neale tells BLUELINES, &ldquo;and the writers always look at points. They should give Lowe &lsquo;The Other Norris Trophy.&rsquo; Jim Norris (after whom the trophy is named) had a daughter, Marguerite, who once was president of the Red Wings. How about a Marguerite Norris Trophy for the best defensive defenseman?&rdquo;&hellip;Broadcaster Dan Kelly&rsquo;s son, John, himself a play-by-play man, followed dad&rsquo;s decibels and handled the Blues-Sabres game, Feb. 25 from Buffalo on St. Louis&rsquo; KMOX Radio. &#9632;

f0003-01

Movies Next For Lucky Luc?

DAVE PETERSON CAN crawl back under his rock now, where he can worry about all the silly things that he allowed poison the air around the U.S. Olympic hockey team.He can continue to let it deeply bother him that no United States newspaper covers the pickup team our country sends to the world tournament every year. He can steam forever in his media hell about all those terrible questions about what he might have said to his team at specific points of specific games.&ldquo;You won&rsquo;t get any miracles out of my mouth,&rdquo; the U.S. coach said at one point. We asked for none from him, or his team. What we wanted from these kids was effort, which they gave. And what we desired from their coach was civility, of which he was not capable.We didn&rsquo;t even ask for a medal, although Peterson&rsquo;s perception was that we demanded one. What he never understood was that those whose expectations were unrealistic needed an explanation, not a sparring partner. If they then refused to understand, then they weren&rsquo;t very important anyway.What was important was that hockey in the United States make friends, not enemies. Diplomacy, not coaching, was Peterson&rsquo;s major failing in Calgary.One could make the point that the fundamentally-insecure manner in which his team played was reflective of the coach&rsquo;s psyche. But his players said that wasn&rsquo;t the case, so we&rsquo;ll stop short of that. The U.S. team did too many things poorly for one not to wonder about its preparation, but its youth figured to catch up to it anyway.A tougher pre-Olympic schedule might have helped and it might not have. But beating West Germany or hanging on to beat Czechoslovakia to make the medal round would not have changed the context of the U.S. Olympic hockey program.The formula for success remains rather suspect. You take the best talents from the upper Midwest and New England, the only two population pockets in the country where the sport is played well. Then you ask these kids to hold off turning professional for a year or two. If they do, you then train them for seven months to play against talented teams that have bascially been together for years.Understanding all this, can you believe in miracles? Nah, only an outside shot at a bronze, if a lot of things go particularly well.The problem, as George Steinbrenner said, may be that the U.S. has won gold mdeals twice in 28 years doing it the above way, so in our heart of hearts, we keep expecting it to happen again. This leaves Bob Johnson, who became director of the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States too late to change anything for these Olympics, pushing for improvement and pulling for perspective.&ldquo;We&rsquo;d like to have the best possible team, but we have a lot of obstacles,&rdquo; said Badger Bob. One of them this time was the demeanor of the coach, who did not have the temperament to handle a media event of this size. But Johnson would only mildly criticize Peterson.&ldquo;I thought he did a good job,&rdquo; said Johnson. &ldquo;I probably would have emphasized, as I did in the Canada Cup, more defense. But I&rsquo;ve coached myself. And I thought they should run their own program.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011376/5443943-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="335" height="460"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jay Greenberg</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I thought he (Peterson) overreacted to some of the (questions and criticisms) from people from non-hockey areas. I don&rsquo;t think he should have been bothered by them.&ldquo;But their (Peterson and assistant coaches Ben Smith and Jack Blatherwick) ideas were pretty good from the standpoint that they weren&rsquo;t going to be outskated by anybody.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s always a guy or two you can second-guess cutting. But I was at the Olympic Festival when they picked the team and they really had the 30 best guys. It&rsquo;s just that the strong suit of most of the best defensemen we had was offensive. It&rsquo;s hard to find defensemen who can play maturely at that age on this level.&ldquo;They played a flow game. Tactically, it scared me. But it was exciting. I watched them beat Finland (once), Canada (three out of ten) and Sweden (once in two games) and that&rsquo;s three of the teams in the medal round.&ldquo;That, to me, says they were close and that the program was close. Now, what can we do to get there?&rdquo;Johnson said he didn&rsquo;t see much value in an ongoing national team: &ldquo;I looked on the ice at practice the other day and, really, there might be only two players who we could interest in such a thing.&rdquo;Johnson says he never wants to pick up players in the final days before the Olympics, as Canada did. But he does want a more veteran team for 1992, with a small nucleus of older pros.&ldquo;If you look at the European teams in this tournament, they all have their pros. Finland had (Reijo) Ruotsalainen, (Kari) Eloranta and (Timo Blomqvist), all of whom played in the NHL.&ldquo;The best German player was the goalie (Karl Friesen) who played for the Devils. The average age of that Swedish team is 27, 28. The Soviets&rsquo; best players are that age. The Germans had 13 guys who played on their Canada Cup team in 1984.&ldquo;Brian Leetch and Greg Brown are 19 years old and playing in a men&rsquo;s tournament. Asking them to lead us asked too much.&ldquo;Next time, ideally, we come up with some kind of compromise. Maybe two or three defensemen or a veteran goalie who have been around the horn a few times. Maybe get a corporate sponsor for a veteran.&rdquo;And a coach, hopefully, secure enough with himself to know the difference between a question and personal attack. Beauty runs skin deep and alas, Peterson&rsquo;s wasn&rsquo;t thick enough. His behavior was unnecessary, and his selection for the job unfortunate. &#9632;

f0004-01

Columnists

Peterson Was Wrong Man To Coach USA

<div class="byline">BY RANDY SMITH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011258/5444005-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="177" height="132"></div>HARTFORD&mdash;Penalty-killing has been one positive constant in the Hartford Whalers&rsquo; season of unexpected troubles.Through 63 games, the Whalers had killed off 293 of 346 manpower disadvantages, an efficiency rate of about 85 per cent&mdash;best in the NHL.Several players have had a hand in the success&mdash;among them forwards Dave Tippett, Brent Peterson and Dean Evason, defensemen Joel Quenneville and Ulf Samuelsson, and goaltenders Mike Liut and Steve Weeks.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been very disciplined, that&rsquo;s been the key.&rdquo; Quenneville said. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t like to give up the shot from the point. We let the other team come down low. From there it takes a perfect pass if they want to score.&rdquo;Under general manager Emile Francis, defense is the name of the game in Hartford and always will be. It doesn&rsquo;t matter if recently-fired Jack Evans or Larry Pleau is calling the shots as coach.Aware of the Whalers&rsquo; 26-30-7 record through 63 games, Quenneville smiled.&ldquo;Truthfully, our penalty-killing really hasn&rsquo;t won many games for us, but it&rsquo;s kept us in a lot of games,&rdquo; he said.The arrival of Peterson from Vancouver in the waiver draft last October has helped. He is an excellent face-off man. Plus Tippett, who possesses plenty of smarts and savvy, has developed into an outstanding penalty-killer.Under Pleau, the Whalers&rsquo; penalty-killing unit has become a tad more offensive-minded. Pleau likes to use Ron Francis and Kevin Dineen as the opponent&rsquo;s power play winds down.&ldquo;We go out there at the end of a shift when maybe they&rsquo;re a little tired,&rdquo; Francis said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re hoping to catch them pinching in. But our main concern is not to allow a goal.&rdquo;Pleau took over a good penalty-killing unit when he replaced Evans on Feb. 7.&ldquo;The key is to recognize when to force the play and when to lay off,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s how you should play the whole game. Players have to have patience in recognizing when to go to the puck. It&rsquo;s something that has to come naturally.&rdquo;Quenneville agreed.&ldquo;Personally, I don&rsquo;t like to get caught with one guy, say, in a corner. It&rsquo;s too easy for him to hold me and create more open ice.&rdquo;While many teams have been smothered by the power play this season, the Whalers have not.&ldquo;You should take advantage of quick shifts so you don&rsquo;t get tired and you should never throw the puck around the boards wildly,&rdquo; Pleau said. &ldquo;In Tippy. Joel, Brent and the others, we&rsquo;ve got some smart players. It&rsquo;s not a mistake that we&rsquo;re leading the league. Those guys know what they&rsquo;re doing out there.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;GM Emile Francis denied the Whalers were starting their second training camp, but the number of bodies in Hartford swelled temporarily to 29. Right wingers Gord Sherven of Canada and Scott Young of the U.S. joined the Whalers following the Olympics&hellip;Defenseman Mike McEwen has risen again, this time as a free agent from Switzerland&hellip;Defenseman Dave Babych returned Feb. 27 after missing four games with a knee injury&hellip;Center Ray Ferraro sat out five of the Whalers&rsquo; first seven games under coach Larry Pleau.<h2>WHALERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 22: Mike Vellucci, D, recalled from Milwaukee (IHL).Feb. 28: Jim Culhane, D, recalled from Binghamton (AHL); Mike McEwen, D, signed as free agent from Switzerland; Scott Young, RW, signed from U.S. Olympic team; Gord Sherven, RW, added from Canadian Olympic team.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Ron Francis, Carey Wilson, Dean Evason, Brent Peterson, Ray Ferraro.LW&mdash;Sylvain Turgeon, Dave Tippett, Torrie Robertson, Lindsay Carson.RW&mdash;Kevin Dineen, Paul MacDermid, John Anderson, Stewart Gavin, Mark Reeds, Scott Young, Gord Sherven.LD&mdash;Joel Quenneville, Randy Ladouceur, Mike Vellucci, Mike McEwen.RD&mdash;Dave Babych, Ulf Samuelsson, Sylvain Cote, Jim Culhane.G&mdash;Mike Liut, Steve Weeks.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Scot Kleinendorst, D, separated shoulder, March 12.Randy Ladouceur, D, back spasms, day-to-day.Neil Sheehy, D, hip-pointer, day-to-day. &#9632;

f0005-01

Whalers’ Penalty-Killing A Potent Weapon

Rick Tocchet selected this week&rsquo;s Dodge-NHL Performer of the WeekCHRYSLER CANADA IS THE EXCLUSIVE SPONSOR OF THE DODGE-NHL PERFORMER OF THE WEEK, MONTH AND YEAR AWARDS<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011440/5444036-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="556" height="819"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Tocchet</figcaption></div>NEW YORK&mdash;Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; right winger Rick Tocchet, who tallied five goals and three assists in two road games last week, was named Dodge Performer of the Week for the period ending February 28. Tocchet, who has already surpassed his career-high point total (47 in 1986-87) with 59 this season, edged Edmonton Oiler center Mark Messier, Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; right winger Stephane Richer and Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; goaltender Tom Barrasso to capture the award.The Dodge and Chrysler Canada divisions of Chrysler Motors will donate $500 to the youth hockey organization of the performer&rsquo;s choice. The Dodge and Chrysler Canada divisions of Chrysler Motors also sponsor the Performer of the Month and the Performer of the Year Awards, for which the latter receives the Dodge vehicle of his choice.Tocchet, who is in his fourth season with the Flyers, began the week in Detroit (Feb. 23) helping his team to an 11-6 defeat of the Red Wings with one goal and two assists. The Flyers travelled to Los Angeles (Feb. 27), where in an 8-6 Flyers&rsquo; win, Tocchet became only the ninth player in Flyer history to score four goals in a game. He added an assist, making it the second game this season in which he has scored five points.Messier, the week&rsquo;s top scorer, and Richer posted 1-89 and 5-3-8 totals respectively in three games apiece. Barrasso registered a 3-0-0 record and a 2.67 goals-against-average in three starts. &#9632;

f0006-01

DODGE NHL PERFORMER OF THE WEEK

<div class="byline">BY GLENN COLE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011285/5444067-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="588" height="1105"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Gainey went almost 1,100 games before he counted his first three-goal game.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-02903/5444074-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="176" height="135"></div>MONTREAL&mdash;It took a while&mdash;1,097 games, to be precise&mdash;but Bob Gainey recorded his first three-goal game in the NHL.The hat trick helped Montreal top the Winnipeg Jets 6-0 on Feb. 27 and lengthen the Canadiens&rsquo; winning streak to five.&ldquo;I guess there were things that I had missed in my career (such as) a hat trick,&rdquo; said Gainey, &ldquo;and there was a time that I would have liked to have scored 30 goals.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got the hat trick. The 30 goals will have to wait, I suppose, until old-timers.&rdquo;In 64 games this year, Gainey had nine goals and nine assists&mdash;giving him 227 goals and 253 assists for 480 career points.Gainey, four times named the NHL&rsquo;s best defensive forward, is expected to end a superb 15-year career at the end of this season. He has enjoyed playing the game much more in the second half of the season than the first. There were loud whispers during the first half that he had hung on for one year too many.&ldquo;I felt during the first two months of my season that I was slow to get my rhythm, and to get playing the type of game that could be productive for the team,&rdquo; said Gainey, 34. &ldquo;Since the first of December, I feel I have been playing better in most of the games and helping the team in the best ways that I can.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I changed too much, I didn&rsquo;t give up and I kept my determination and slowly things started to work better for me. Playing with (Guy) Carbonneau has been a big help. He is always ready to play every night and we work well together.&rdquo;Carbonneau set up all three Gainey goals against the Jets. It was one of the Canadiens&rsquo; best efforts of the year, and former Jet goaltender Brian Hayward enjoyed his second shutout of the season.&ldquo;Outstanding job,&rdquo; said Hayward. &ldquo;By far our best defensive game of the year. I would say it was easily the best game we have played overall in the last 20. We controlled the game all night.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Since the first of December, I feel I have been playing better in most of the games&hellip;&rsquo; &mdash;Gainey</blockquote>Hayward was acquired from Winnipeg Aug. 15, 1986 for Steve Penney&mdash;the victim of Gainey&rsquo;s second and third goals&mdash;and the rights to Swedish winger Jan Ingman. He admitted there was extra satisfaction in beating the Jets, who had some uncomplimentary things to say about him after he was dealt away. And though his defense made the shutout easy, he accepted it gladly.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t consider myself a shutout goaltender,&rdquo; Hayward said. &ldquo;When they do happen it&rsquo;s a nice feeling.&ldquo;The victory was especially important because, now we are going on the road and the good defensive clubs are the ones who seem to have the most success on the road.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Stephane Richer had two goals and three assists in a 5-4 victory over Vancouver Feb. 24, and followed that performance with a two-goal effort against the Jets&hellip;Patrick Roy continued to look shaky. The 1986 playoff hero was weak on two of four goals scored by the Canucks&hellip;Coach Jean Perron was fined $1,000 and John Kordic suspended for five games after run-ins with Gord Donnelly in back-to-back confrontations with Quebec. Kordic and Donnelly fought five seconds into a game Feb. 20 in Montreal, although they actually dropped their gloves before the puck was dropped. Three nights later in Quebec, referee Bob Myers hadn&rsquo;t dropped the puck before the two went at it again, costing their teams $25,000 apiece under rule 54G&hellip;Bobby Smith, the Canadiens&rsquo; leading scorer, missed the victories over Quebec and Vancouver with the flu.<h2>CANADIENS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Jan. 22: Larry Trader, 0, assigned to Sherbrooke (AHL).Jan. 24: Jose Charbonneau, RW, recalled from Sherbrooke.Jan. 26: Jean Perron, coach, fined $1,000 by NHL; John Kordic, RW, suspended five games and fined $100 by NHL for fighting before Feb. 23 game against Quebec. Eligible to return March 12.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Bobby Smith, Guy Carbonneau, Shayne Corson, Gilles Thibaudeau.LW&mdash;Ryan Walter, Bob Gainey, Mats Naslund, Mike McPhee.RW&mdash;Claude Lemieux, Jose Charbonneau, Stephane Richer, Kjell Dahlin.LD&mdash;Craig Ludwig, Petr Svoboda, Mike Lalor.RD&mdash;Larry Robinson, Chris Chelios, Rick Green.G&mdash;Brian Hayward, Patrick Roy.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Sergio Momesso, LW, leg cut, day-to-day.Brian Skrudland, C, groin injury, day-to-day. &#9632;

f0007-01

Gainey’s First Hat Trick Keeps Habs Rolling

WHEN ARE THEY going to learn?Not only is Canada technically advanced, but we even have indoor plumbing too. I saw the Olympic Games contest between the USA and USSR, and was quite irritated by a comment made by the American announcer.&ldquo;Calgary is a beautiful city,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s even more American than Canadian.&rdquo;Where has this guy been? Why do Americans still think we walk around in snowshoes, and live in igloos, with no entertainment other than hockey, beer, TV and snow fights? They should try being here in July when its 90 degrees outside.Oh well, gotta snowmobile to work.D. Raphael, Burlington, Ont.<h2>UNHAPPY WITH COVER</h2>I was quite miffed to see the cover of THN&rsquo;s Feb. 5 issue.The photograph of Buffalo&rsquo;s Christian Ruuttu was fine, but what was that in the top left-hand comer? Since when does your prestigious newspaper resort to using sex as a means of selling copies?While reading the article on the International League, trying to learn what women in skimpy bikinis had to do with hockey, I discovered that Chippendale male dancers were also featured. Why weren&rsquo;t these men given space on the cover also? Women buy your paper too. Why not place pictures of both on the cover, to sell to both genders?This is along the same lines as the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. We wouldn&rsquo;t want people to cancel their subscriptions because your paper is becoming too sexist, would we?Christine Bloomer, Lewiston, Me.<h2>LEAVE FTOREK ALONE</h2>Robbie Ftorek does not wear a suit behind the bench. Big deal!What is all the hullabaloo about? I mean, it&rsquo;s not like he&rsquo;s dressed in flowered shorts and sandals like a cartoon I just saw (THN, Feb. 5).In all of the games I&rsquo;ve seen Ftorek behind the bench, he&rsquo;s been comfortably, yet neatly dressed with a shirt, tie and&mdash;yes&mdash;a sweater. I think it&rsquo;s refreshing to see, in contrast to the suited stiffs we see behind most benches in the NHL.So, why all the negative press, as reflected in Bluelines and Barry Meisel&rsquo;s column in the same THN issue?I&rsquo;ll tell you why. It&rsquo;s because the media has such an over-inflated opinion of itself that it feels any sports figure not wearing a suit is simply an outcast, a rebel.In a game criticized for a lack of personalities due to the wearing of helmets, visors and so on, what is wrong with a little injection of personality into the coaching ranks? Nothing.By the way, does Barry Meisel own any sweaters?Murray Carey, Riverview, N.B.<h2>BE REALISTIC, USA</h2>When will the United States drop this insane policy of not using professional players in the Olympics?It is embarrassing to see the U.S. lose games that could be won by using experienced talent.If we have our best players on the ice, then losing can be accepted. But the present policy of using inexperienced kids is totally unrealistic.George Vassallo, Winston-Salem, N.C.<h2>VANCOUVER&rsquo;S REAL PROBLEM</h2>Great cover story on the Vancouver Canucks (THN, Jan. 29).But you failed to mention that their biggest mistake was changing their uniforms into the ugliest ones in the NHL!Tom DeMarco, Uranium City, Sask.Let your voice be heard. Send your comments to Fan Forum, THE HOCKEY NEWS, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont. M3B 2R2. Include home and business phone numbers. THN reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

Calgary Is More American Than Canadian, Says ABC

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011373/5444129-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0008-01

Elston

OLYMPIC LEFTOVERS. All the news that&rsquo;s fit to print but didn&rsquo;t fit:&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just wonderful to be America&rsquo;s team-&hellip;North America&rsquo;s team&hellip;South America&rsquo;s team.&rdquo;&mdash;Canada coach Dave King after the U.S was eliminated.&ldquo;When I came here I didn&rsquo;t know where my own end was.&rdquo;&mdash;Canada&rsquo;s Marc Habscheid on his defensive improvement since joining the Olympic team.&ldquo;I just wish every person in Canada could come on a 10-game road trip to Europe with us. If they did, I think they&rsquo;d have a lot of respect for us.&rdquo;&mdash;Habscheid on the trials and tribulations of being an Olympian-in-waiting.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t want my son to go through what they have to do to be as good as they are.&rdquo;&mdash;Canada&rsquo;s Randy Gregg on Soviet players.&ldquo;Unfortunately, it&rsquo;s not the Canadian Izvestia Team. It&rsquo;s the Canadian Olympic Team.&rdquo;&mdash;Gregg on the thrill of victory in Moscow and the agony of defeat in Calgary.&ldquo;Your team has no system.&rdquo;&mdash;A Swiss journalist directing comments at U.S. coach Dave Peterson.&ldquo;Are you asking a question or giving a lecture?&rdquo;&mdash;U.S. coach Peterson in response to the Swiss journalist.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know he was a hockey expert.&rdquo;&mdash;Peterson on critical remarks about the U.S. hockey team from International Olympic Committee chairman Juan Antonio Samaranch, a Spaniard.&ldquo;Are you?&rdquo;&mdash;Swiss journalist to Peterson.&ldquo;No, we owe ABC a debt of thanks. I&rsquo;m told they got the medal round increased from four to six teams. Too bad we didn&rsquo;t take advantage of it.&rdquo;&mdash;U.S. player Lane MacDonald when asked if there was pressure being the focal point of ABC-TV&rsquo;s Olympic coverage.&ldquo;When Alan Eagleson phones a Canadian NHLer just eliminated from the playoffs, he says, &lsquo;Get your ass on the next plane to the World Championships in Europe.&rsquo; When we call in the U.S., the player says, &lsquo;Aw, geez, I wanna go to Florida.&rsquo;&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021128/5444160-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="387" height="436"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob McKenzie</figcaption></div>&mdash;AHAUS executive director Bob (Badger) Johnson on the differences between Canadians and Americans when international hockey is involved.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not a fair question.&rdquo;&mdash;Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov, asked whether he favors Soviet stars playing in the NHL.&ldquo;I had some offers.&rdquo;&mdash;Tikhonov on whether he would like to coach in the NHL?&ldquo;No way! I will get my holiday on the airplane. Then, it&rsquo;s back to work.&rdquo;&mdash;Tikhonov, asked if he would take a holiday after the Olympics.&ldquo;I have been known to leave many bad losses behind me.&rdquo;&mdash;West German coach Xavier Unsinn.&ldquo;I have even played in a few.&rdquo;&mdash;Unsinn.&ldquo;National Hockey League action, no?&rdquo;&mdash;Swedish journalist stopping at a monitor showing a replay of the John Kordic-Gord Donnelly fight.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure we can win against the Russians, with our best players.&rdquo;&mdash;Swedish coach Tommy Sandlin on how his national team would do if the top Swedes from the NHL were on it.&ldquo;He is the best defenseman in the world. He can do more things with the puck than (Viacheslav) Fetisov or (Alexei) Kasatonov.&rdquo;&mdash;Sandlin on Swedish blueliner Anders Eldebrink.&ldquo;No wonder the government is having a reception for them, Each player gets $ 13,000 and they&rsquo;re all in the 50 percent tax bracket. The only one getting rich on this is the government.&rdquo;&mdash;A Finnish journalist on his country&rsquo;s silver medal in hockey. &#9632;

f0008-02

All’s Fair In Love, War And Olympic Leftovers

<div class="byline">BY KARLO BERKOVICH AND STEVE DRYDEN</div>John Wallin resigned as coach of the Sudbury Wolves after THN revealed several war stories told by the Chicago native were false.Wallin, 38, left the Ontario League team Feb. 23 after a meeting with owner Ken Burgess.&ldquo;I was going to ask him for his resignation,&rdquo; said Burgess, &ldquo;but he already had it available for me.&rdquo;Inaccurate stories about his experiences in Vietnam, published by the London (Ont.) Free Press and THN, led to Wallin&rsquo;s departure.Jim Cressman of the Free Press wrote both stories.The first-year OHL coach never did tell Cressman of the extraordinary war stories published but he did tell his players. They related the experiences to Cressman.Among them were prisoner-of-war stories, including one that had Wallin biting off a rat&rsquo;s head. Wallin, it was learned by THN, was never a POW.Wallin did not set the record straight after either of the Cressman articles appeared&mdash;in the Free Press on Dec. II, 1987, or THN on Feb. 12, 1988.Only when confronted with THN&rsquo;s findings did Wallin acknowledge there was fiction mixed in with the facts of his past.&ldquo;I said those stories in a joking way just like you would over beers,&rdquo; Wallin told the Sudbury Star on Feb. 21. &ldquo;Apparently they (the players) didn&rsquo;t take it that way. That&rsquo;s my fault, not theirs. I wasn&rsquo;t trying to snow anyone.&rdquo;In THN&rsquo;s March 4 follow-up story, Wallin said he told the war stories to deflect attention from the Wolves&rsquo; on-ice problems.&ldquo;We sometimes sit around telling stories,&rdquo; said Wallin. &ldquo;I was just trying to divert attention from our problems here this year. I told them stories in a kidding way. It was bull.&hellip;-over-beer stuff.&ldquo;I told them it happened to me. It did actually happen to guys over there, but not to me. But everything I said was in jest. All of it in jest. It&rsquo;s just a ghost story that has gotten out of hand.&rdquo;Wallin was in Sudbury but unavailable for comment after his parting of the ways with the Wolves.At the time of Wallin&rsquo;s resignation, the Wolves&rsquo; record was 16-40-1, second-worst in the OHL. But Burgess said the record was inconsequential.&ldquo;The win-loss column had nothing to do with it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was strictly the credibility factor.&rdquo;Wallin&rsquo;s contract ran through the 1989-90 season. A settlement was reached.&ldquo;He was crushed by this,&rdquo; said Burgess. &ldquo;(But he told) little stories to gain credibility and respect from the players. They just blossomed out of control like a forest fire.&ldquo;And there was no water to put it out.&rdquo;Burgess met with his players the morning of Feb. 24 and told them assistant coach Ken MacKenzie, 32, would be taking over the team. The Wolves lost their first two games under MacKenzie, 10-2 at home to Windsor Feb. 27 and 9-3 to Hamilton on Feb. 28 in Sudbury. The defeats extended Sudbury&rsquo;s losing streak to nine games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011331/5444191-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="587" height="844"><figcaption class="caption-body">Winnipeg&rsquo;s Dale Hawerchuk was honored in Cornwall, where he played junior hockey.</figcaption></div>Players who spoke to Sudbury newspaper Northern Life were bitter towards Wallin.&ldquo;We thought this guy came straight out of a Chuck Norris-Rambo movie,&rdquo; said assistant captain Todd Lalonde. &ldquo;But it turned out he was a complete fraud.&rdquo;Goalie Dan Gatenby pointed out an ironic twist.&ldquo;From the time he came here his line was always, &lsquo;Give it to me straight. Always tell the truth,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Gatenby.The former Kent State coach came highly recommended to Sudbury general manager Marcel Bedard, who hired him but was vacationing in Florida when Wallin left the team.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s (Bedard) really upset,&rdquo; said Burgess. &ldquo;I told him that it was unfortunate that I couldn&rsquo;t wait for him to come back to make a decision on this.&ldquo;I had to go ahead and get things cleared up because it was just out of hand up here.&ldquo;He (Wallin) had some good credentials coming in here and he was recommended by very prominent people in the hockey field (both) in Canada and the United States.&rdquo;<h2>NUMBER CRUNCHING</h2>As of Feb. 29, it appeared likely no NHL team would win 50 games in 1987-88.The last time the league was without a 50-win team was 1980-81. Last season, the Edmonton Oilers were the only team to reach the 50-win level. The Oilers finished 50-24-6.This season&rsquo;s best bets were Calgary and Boston, though both the Flames (37-20-7 as March began) and Bruins (37-22-5) would need finishes of at least 13-3 to hit 50 victories. Montreal would need a 15-0 finish, Edmonton 15-1 and Philadelphia 17-1.Fifty-win seasons have been most common in Boston. The Bruins have won 50 games six different times. The Canadiens and Philadelphia Flyers have done it five times each. The New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers have three 50-win seasons to their credit, and the Washington Capitals one.Montreal is the only NHL team ever to win 60 games. The Habs set the NHL points record of 132 with a 60-812 season in 1976-77.On 21 of the 23 occasions a team has won 50 games, it has also scored at least 300 goals. The 1973-74 and 1974-75 Stanley Cup-winning Flyers are the only exception.Eleven teams have enjoyed 100-point seasons. Boston and Montreal lead the way with 12 each, followed by Philadelphia (10), the Islanders (seven). Edmonton and Buffalo (six each), Chicago (four), Washington (three), Detroit (two) and Los Angeles and St. Louis (one each).All 100-point years, except for Detroit&rsquo;s in 1950-51 and 1951-52 and Montreal&rsquo;s in 1955-56, were accomplished following the NHL&rsquo;s first major expansion in 1967-68.<h2>BITS AND PIECES</h2>The best way to sell out the arena in Cornwall is to showcase Dale Hawerchuk. A capacity crowd of 3,991&mdash;the first sell-out since Hawerchuk&rsquo;s last game as a member of the Cornwall Royals in 1981&mdash;helped the Winnipeg Jet center celebrate Dale Hawerchuk Night in the Ontario city Feb. 25. The team retired Hawerchuk&rsquo;s No. 10 Cornwall jersey. Other NHL personalities at the event were Winnipeg coach Dan Maloney, general manager John Ferguson and Montreal Canadien managing director Serge Savard&hellip;The fifth annual professional hockey oldtimers reunion is scheduled for Fri., April 29 at the Markham (Ont.) Firefighters&rsquo; Club. For further information telephone (416) 926-4380.<h2>OVERHEARD</h2>&ldquo;Could you give us Gretzky and Lemieux? No. You see, our fans do not want our players to go to the NHL.&rdquo;&mdash;Soviet Olympic team coach Viktor Tikhonov. &#9632;

f0009-01

Vietnam Stories False, Coach Resigns

<div class="byline">BY BOB MCKENZIE Editor-in-Chief</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011412/5444222-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Speedy center Viacheslav Bykov celebrates a goal scored on Sean Burke during the Soviets&rsquo; 5-0 rout of Canada in opening medal-round action. (Photo by canapress)</figcaption></div>CALGARY&mdash;The Soviet Union&rsquo;s Olympic gold medal in hockey wasn&rsquo;t so much a victory as it was a vindication.And not just for the players.On the day the gold was won, to Viktor went the spoils.Viktor Tikhonov, that is.&ldquo;There has been criticism of the Soviet national team and Viktor Tikhonov,&rdquo; the coach said after his team routed Sweden 7-1 to strike gold on Feb. 26.&ldquo;Everything is judged by first place. Second place is a failure. That is an incredible burden for any coach or team.&ldquo;Some of our lack of success, starting in &rsquo;87 at World Championships in Vienna, led many to believe in the decline of the Soviet team.&ldquo;These Olympic Games will change the opinion of many about the strength of the Soviet national team.&rdquo;Of that there is no doubt.The Soviets didn&rsquo;t dominate this tournament; they ruled it&mdash;until the gold medal was firmly in hand. Then, on the final day (Feb. 28), they lost their first Olympic game since 1980.Finland, needing a tie or a win to get the silver medal, won 2-1. That gave the Finns a 3-1-1 mark in games that counted in the medal standings and left Sweden (2-1-2) with the bronze. The Soviets were 4-0-1. Canada (2-2-1 in medal play) finished fourth, followed by West Germany (1-4-0) and Czechoslovakia (1-4-0). The Germans finished fifth by virtue of their tourney-opening 2-1 win over the Czechoslovaks.Aside from the loss to Finland, the only time the Soviets were challenged was in a 7-5 win over the United States in the preliminary round. The Soviets scored decisive wins over Czechoslovakia, West Germany, Canada and Sweden.The Soviets scored 45 goals for a per-game average of about 5.6&mdash;second only to the U.S. mark of 5.8. They allowed 12, for a tournament-low average of 1.50.&ldquo;That Russian team,&rdquo; said Sweden&rsquo;s coach Tommy Sandlin, &ldquo;is playing better than at any time in the last five or six years.&rdquo;Should we be surprised?This is, after all, the Soviets&rsquo; seventh Olympic gold medal in hockey&mdash;their seventh in the past eight Olympiads. Their cumulative Olympic record, since first entering hockey in the &rsquo;56 Games, stands at 53-5-2.Nevertheless, the Soviets came into the &rsquo;88 Games as a vulnerable favorite. In terms of talent, they overmatched every team by a large margin. But in terms of results&mdash;losses at the Calgary Cup, &rsquo;87 World Championships, Canada Cup and Izvestia&mdash;their dominance was not so well established.Nor was the future of Tikhonov as national team coach. He was being held accountable for the team&rsquo;s inability to win when it counted. Much of the criticism came from within the Soviet Union and rumors were that he would be replaced after these Games.After winning the gold, he didn&rsquo;t sound like a man on his way out.Asked if he would be back for the &rsquo;89 World Championships in Sweden, he responded: &ldquo;I have always thought I would be there.&rdquo;And the &rsquo;92 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France?&ldquo;It is hard to say,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That is a long time to go, but yes, I would like to.&rdquo;Whether a coaching change is made remains to be seen. But if so, Tikhonov&rsquo;s players gave him a great sendoff.Two of them&mdash;defenseman and team captain Viacheslav Fetisov and center Igor Larionov&mdash;were especially impressive.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the big difference between this Soviet team and the one we&rsquo;ve seen in the past year or two,&rdquo; said Canadian Olympic team coach Dave King.&ldquo;Fetisov and Larionov were exceptional. They played as well as I&rsquo;ve ever seen them play&rdquo;Fetisov scored four goals and nine assists and finished with a tournament-leading plus-19. Larionov, who centers the top Soviet line of Sergei Makarov and Vladimir Krutov, also had four goals and nine assists. He was plus-11.They finished tied for second place in tourney scoring. Only Krutov, with six goals and nine assists, had more.Tikhonov, as is Soviet custom, was reluctant to praise individual players, but made an exception for his captain.&ldquo;He (Fetisov) told me, &lsquo;I believe it should be my last Olympic Games. I want to be remembered well.&rsquo; This is his special dream. He was outstanding.&rdquo;Assistant coach Igor Dmitriev said the reason for Larionov&rsquo;s improved play was merely good health. Larionov had an injured knee at the Canada Cup and &rsquo;87 World Championships.There was speculation that Fetisov&rsquo;s improved play was due to an unconfirmed report that the 29-year-old defenseman&rsquo;s chances of joining the NHL&rsquo;s New Jersey Devils next season would be greater if the Soviets won the gold.Also, a pre-tournament story in the Toronto Globe and Mail reported that each Soviet player would receive $25,000 if the gold was won.Tikhonov dodged direct questions on both issues.&ldquo;If I get nothing at all,&rdquo; he said in reference to the money question, &ldquo;the gold medal will be quite enough.&ldquo;Nothing has been decided yet (on Soviet players going to the NHL). I&rsquo;m sure it will be resolved in the weeks to come, but it is not my decision.&rdquo;Dmitriev, the assistant coach, added a little levity.&ldquo;Is this newspaper in Canada willing to pay this amount of money?&rdquo; he said, a smile creasing his face &ldquo;If so, I gladly accept.&rdquo;Incentives notwithstanding, the Soviets played spirited hockey. Canada&rsquo;s Marc Habscheid noticed a big difference between this Soviet team and the one Canada defeated 3-2 to win the Izvestia tournament.&ldquo;Their intensity level was much higher here,&rdquo; Habscheid said. &ldquo;You could see it in their eyes. They were very emotional. They were chirping at us from the bench, which is unusual for them.&rdquo;Netminding, considered a Soviet weakness, was not a factor&mdash;positive or negative. Sergei Mylnikov, who played every minute of every game, was steady. He rarely had to be much more.As for the Finns, pre-tourney longshots for a medal, their silver was no less sweet than gold was for the Soviets.Finland was beaten 2-1 by Switzerland in a preliminary round game. After that ignominious defeat, Finnish coach Pentti Matikainen received a telegram from an irate fan who suggested the team return home in disgrace. Finland rebounded to beat Canada, tie Sweden and knock off the West Germans and Soviets. Their only medal-round loss was to Czechoslovakia.<blockquote class="pullQuote">Olympic Summaries, p. 12 Scoring, Standings, p. 43</blockquote>&ldquo;Those kinds of telegrams belong in hockey,&rdquo; Matikainen said. &ldquo;The players know when they lose that they&rsquo;ll be knifed. Now, our players will need protection because a lot of people (at home) will be patting them on the back.&rdquo;The silver was the Finns&rsquo; first Olympic medal in hockey. In fact, it&rsquo;s their first top-three finish in a world championship event. Each player will receive the equivalent of $ 13,000 (Cdn.).The Swedes, meanwhile, were satisfied with the bronze, though they had expected a Soviet win over Finland and the silver medal.&ldquo;We are very content.&rdquo; coach Sandlin said. &ldquo;This is a whole amateur team. Every player works at something else and plays hockey at night. &ldquo;The Swedes recorded medal-round wins over Czechoslovakia and West Germany, tied Canada and Finland and lost to the Soviets.Of the remaining medal-round teams. only West Germany, in fifth, was happy with its finish. Canada, in fourth, and Czechoslovakia, in sixth, expected a better fate.&ldquo;I think there is going to be a reaction of profound disappointment in Czechoslovakia over this finish,&rdquo; said Czechoslovak assistant coach Frantisek Pospisil.The Czechoslovaks only medal-round points came from a 5-2 win over Finland.Jan Starsi will be replaced as national team coach, although that was apparently decided before the Games got under way. As the Czechoslovaks floundered, though, it became official.West German coach Xavier Unsinn, a media favorite because of his chatty ways and everpresent hat, a la Punch Imlach, was ecstatic with his team&rsquo;s effort.And why not? The Germans defeated the Czechoslovaks, played competitively with the Swedes and Soviets in defeat and were blown out by Canada and Finland. They also had an impressive win over the U.S. to get them into the medal round.&ldquo;We have shown ourselves to be a strong national team that can play anywhere against anyone at anytime,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That was our goal. I think we have done the sport of hockey a good service.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-01

Soviets Back On Ton

<div class="byline">BY BOB MCKENZIE Editor-in-Chief</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011289/5444253-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Serge Boisvert powers his way past defenseman Peter Anders-scored one of Canada&rsquo;s goals in the Feb. 22 round-robin game, son to challenge Peter Lindmark in the Swedish nets. Boisvert which ended in a 2-2 tie. (Photo by canapress)</figcaption></div>CALGARY&mdash;If Olympic medals were awarded for hard work, Canada&rsquo;s hockey team would be golden.But effort does not always lead to excellence. So cancel the search party looking for the silver lining.You won&rsquo;t find it. Or a bronze one for that matter.Canada&rsquo;s Olympic team came within one West German goal of finishing third, but it will be recorded as a fourth-place finish&mdash;the same as four years ago at the Sarajevo Winter Games.The Canadian players were as disappointed by the result as their fans.&ldquo;People look back to Izvestia,&rdquo; said Canada&rsquo;s Marc Habscheid of the pre-Christmas tourney Canada won in Moscow, &ldquo;and it was basically the same teams, the same tournament.&ldquo;We won that and made a lot of believers out of ourselves and the people in Canada. It was no fluke.&ldquo;Hockey is Canada&rsquo;s sport, Canada&rsquo;s baby. A fourth-place finish might be good for a cross-country skiier, but this is hockey. Canadians expect to win and the players in the dressing room expect to win, too. We didn&rsquo;t. We&rsquo;re disappointed.&rdquo;There were no excuses. No recriminations that the public or media placed unrealistic demands on this team.The players believed there was an opportunity to strike gold. Silver and bronze seemed easily within their grasp.But when it mattered most, they simply failed to play well enough. The effort was there, the excellence wasn&rsquo;t.Regrets?Canadian coach Dave King has a few.&ldquo;If I could take back anything, it would be 20 minutes of hockey we played against Finland,&rdquo; he said of the first-period 3-0 deficit that led to a 3-1 defeat Feb. 18.&ldquo;Heck, if I could take back just one of those Finnish goals. Two goals down and I believe this team comes back. Three, and facing a hot goalie (Jarmo Myllys), no way. But you can&rsquo;t take anything back. What&rsquo;s done is done.&rdquo;Goal-scoring never came easily to this team. Strong goaltending and disciplined defense were the foundation upon which it was built.But not even King could believe just how stale his offense became in preliminary-round games against Poland, Switzerland, Finland and Sweden (a 3-3 tie) and a 5-0 loss to the Soviet Union in the medal round. Only in a 9-5 win over France did the offense cut loose.The loss to the Soviets on Feb. 24 killed Canadian hopes for a gold or silver medal. But Canada rebounded to whip West Germany 8-1 on Feb. 26. A day later, Canada beat Czechoslovakia 6-3 and left itself with a mathematical shot at bronze.Sweden&rsquo;s 3-2 win over the West Germans on the final day of the Games shut out the Canadians.Just what troubled Canada until late in the tournament was a subject of much speculation&mdash;speculation that defenseman Randy Gregg contributed to cryptically.&ldquo;Izvestia was an amazing win for us,&rdquo; Gregg said. &ldquo;There was a sense of oneness and togetherness. Since Izvestia, however, that spirit, that oneness on the team has been lost. Why? I can venture some guesses but I can&rsquo;t comment.&rdquo;Gregg seemed to be alluding to the personnel changes made on the eve of the Games. NHLers Jim Peplinski, Tim Watters and Steve Tambellini were added and former national team members Don McLaren and Ray Cote were dropped. Defensemen Serge Roy and Chris Felix and forwards Bob Joyce and Claude Vilgrain had to sit out some games because of the extra players.&ldquo;All I can say is that I consider Ray Cote and Don McLaren as very special friends,&rdquo; Gregg said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll leave it at that.&rdquo;Neither Cote nor McLaren, however, were on the team at Izvestia. Both had been playing in Europe and were given only outside chances of making the team anyway.Other Olympic players dismissed the idea that team spirit was broken because of player additions.&ldquo;It was always understood changes would be made,&rdquo; left winger Ken Berry said. &ldquo;Spots were being held open until the last minute. Maybe Izvestia raised expectations, but the players always understood the situation.&rdquo;The netminding tandem of Sean Burke and Andy Moog was brilliant at times, no less than solid the rest of the way.Offensively, Canada&rsquo;s top scorers, and top players, were Serge Boisvert (7-2-9) and Habscheid (5-3-8).The tournament ended Feb. 28 and King was back at work the next day. How long he&rsquo;ll be with the national team program is anybody&rsquo;s guess. He wasn&rsquo;t saying, although he&rsquo;s been offered the job as general manager-coach of the program for the next four years.&ldquo;Out of deference to him and to the job he&rsquo;s done for us and because we don&rsquo;t want to end up with an unhappy employee, we gave him the opportunity to consider other offers that may come his way (in the next couple of months),&rdquo; said Canadian Amateur Hockey Association president Murray Costello.Even if King leaves, the program is assured of continuing. The CAHA and Hockey Canada have reached a six-year agreement that will see them form a joint committee to operate the team through the 1994 Winter Games. Previously, Hockey Canada was solely responsible for the day-to-day operation and administration of the program. &#9632;

f0011-01

Canada Fourth Again

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Bob McKenzie</div>CALGARY&mdash;In the end, U.S. Olympic team coach Dave Peterson proved to be more offensive than his team.And in a tournament where the U.S. &lsquo;Running Rebels&rsquo;&mdash;as they were dubbed by general manager Art Berglund&mdash;averaged 5.8 goals per game (tops in the tournament), that was no small accomplishment.For the record, the U.S. used its run-and-gun offense to finish seventh overall with a 3-3-0 record.But the Games ended bitterly for the Americans, with coach Peterson battling reporters.&ldquo;I think this team is much better than you&rsquo;ll ever know,&rdquo; he told the media after the U.S. beat Switzerland 8-4 on Feb. 25 to claim seventh spot.&ldquo;You have unrealistic expectations&hellip;you missed a great story. I was led to believe you people knew hockey. I have a tough time believing you even covered one hockey game.&rdquo;Throughout the tourney, Peterson bristled at media queries concerning his team&rsquo;s offensive approach, defensive deficiencies and suggestions that it played without a system.When it was over, though, there was but one certainty&mdash;the players acquitted themselves better than their coach.Peterson&rsquo;s acrimony served only to deflect attention from his team&rsquo;s performance, which was, as he said, nothing to be ashamed of.&ldquo;In my opinion,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the team played as well as it was capable of playing.&rdquo;Certainly, there were critical flaws. The U.S. needed a win against West Germany on Feb. 21 to advance to the six-team medal round, but came up flat, losing 4-1. It had Czechoslovakia on the ropes, with a 4-1 lead, but lost 7-5.However, the Americans and silver-medalist Finns were the only teams who were any match for the gold-medalist Soviet Union. It took a late goal by Viacheslav Fetisov to ice a 7-5 Soviet victory over the U.S..Despite not advancing to the medal round, the U.S. effort was credible. In a tougher pool, their preliminary-round play was no poorer than that of the Canadians, who started slowly but came on strongly at the end to finish fourth overall.&ldquo;We aren&rsquo;t a bad team,&rdquo; said U.S. forward Lane MacDonald. &ldquo;He (Peterson) did a good job.&ldquo;Dave handled the team well, but didn&rsquo;t handle the press well. Each coach must decide what&rsquo;s important to him. Coach Peterson decided handling the team was more important than handling the media.&rdquo;The Swiss, meanwhile, finished eighth (3-30), mirroring their finish at the 1987 World Championships in Vienna. It was on that basis that the Swiss have been demoted to the B Pool for next year&rsquo;s World Championships. The highlight of the tournament for the Swiss was a 2-1 upset of Finland.In the battle for ninth place, Austria defeated Poland 3-2. Coach Ludek Bukac&rsquo;s team finished with a 1-4-1 record, just ahead of the Poles, who looked good early but faltered.Poland finished with a deceiving 0-4-1 record. The Poles tied eventual bronze-medalist Sweden 1-1, lost 1-0 to Canada and beat France 6-2, only to be stripped of the win due to a drug controversy involving one of their top players.Jaroslaw Morawiecki was found to have traces of testosterone, a banned substance found in steroids, during a post-game drug test. As a result, France was awarded a 2-0 win, though they did not receive two points. Morawiecki faces an 18-month suspension from International Ice Hockey Federation play.France came to these Games ranked as the worst team, but left in 11th spot. France (2-4-0) beat Norway (0-5-1) on the strength of a shootout victory.The two teams were tied 6-6 after regulation time and played a scoreless 10-minute overtime period.The French scored twice in the shootout while the last-place Norwegians were shut out. &#9632;

Controversy Engulfed U.S. Olympic Coach

<h2>Monday, Feb. 22</h2><h3>Finland 5 Poland 1</h3>Former Edmonton Oiler Reijo Ruotsalainen&rsquo;s two second-period goals broke a 1-1 tie. Third-period goals by Kai Suikkanen and Erkki Laine sewed up the win.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021157/5444427-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="590" height="618"></div><h3>Canada 2 Sweden 2</h3>Jens Ohling scored at 8:26 of the third period to give Sweden a come from-behind tie. Serge Bosivert&rsquo;s goal late in the second period put Canada ahead 2-1.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03773/5444420-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="592" height="528"></div><h3>Switzerland 9 France 0</h3>Joerg Eberle had two goals and an assist for the Swiss, while goalie Olivier Anken stopped 30 French shots.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-04463/5444413-1-eng-US/f0012-042.jpg" title="f0012-04" width="598" height="855"></div><h2>Tuesday, Feb. 23</h2><h3>France 2 Norway 0</h3>After tying 6-6 in regulation time and going scoreless through a 10-minute overtime period, the teams began the first shootout in Olympic history. Five players from each side took penalty shots and France scored twice to finish 11th in the tournament. The official score was recorded as 2-0.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-05333/5444406-1-eng-US/f0012-052.jpg" title="f0012-05" width="603" height="976"></div><h3>Austria 3 Poland 2</h3>Austria scored three goals in a 2:35 span during the second period and then relied on goalie Brian Stankiewicz to hold off a Polish team which outshot them 32-14.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-06276/5444399-1-eng-US/f0012-062.jpg" title="f0012-06" width="593" height="561"></div><h2>Wednesday, Feb. 24</h2><h3>Sweden 6 Czechoslovakia 2</h3>Six players had goals for Sweden, which scored three times in each of the second and third periods.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-07240/5444392-1-eng-US/f0012-072.jpg" title="f0012-07" width="601" height="822"></div><h3>Finland 8 West Germany 0</h3>Kari Laitinen scored two goals for Finland and goalie Jarmo Myllys stopped 26 West German shots for the shutout.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-08211/5444385-1-eng-US/f0012-082.jpg" title="f0012-08" width="595" height="645"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011387/5444378-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="603" height="968"><figcaption class="caption-body">Canada&rsquo;s Zarley Zalapski scored the winning goal in a rout of West Germany.</figcaption></div><h3>Soviet Union 5 Canada 0</h3>Sergei Yashin&rsquo;s goal in the opening minute of the second period broke a scoreless tie and goalie Sergei Mylnikov stopped 17 shots in the game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-09173/5444371-1-eng-US/f0012-092.jpg" title="f0012-09" width="591" height="619"></div><h2>Thursday, Feb. 25</h2><h3>United States 8 Switzerland 4</h3>Switzerland&rsquo;s Peter Jaks opened the scoring after 19 seconds of play, but the U.S. scored the next five times to finish seventh.Thur., Feb. 25<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-10157/5444364-1-eng-US/f0012-102.jpg" title="f0012-10" width="584" height="381"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-11145/5444357-1-eng-US/f0012-112.jpg" title="f0012-11" width="594" height="626"></div><h2>Friday, Feb. 26</h2><h3>Canada 8 West Germany 1</h3>Despite being outshot 17-7 in the first period, Canada took a 1-0 lead on a late goal by Serge Boisvert, then added four more in the second period.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-12125/5444350-1-eng-US/f0012-122.jpg" title="f0012-12" width="597" height="768"></div><h3>Czechoslovakia 5 Finland 2</h3>The Czechs were 4-for-4 on the power play, including three man advantage goals in the first two periods.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-13113/5444343-1-eng-US/f0012-132.jpg" title="f0012-13" width="600" height="735"></div><h3>Soviet Union 7 Sweden 1</h3>Igor Larionov and Anatoli Semenov each scored twice in the game, as the Soviets outshot Sweden 29-13.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-14106/5444336-1-eng-US/f0012-142.jpg" title="f0012-14" width="592" height="384"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-1599/5444329-1-eng-US/f0012-152.jpg" title="f0012-15" width="595" height="364"></div><h2>Saturday, Feb. 27</h2><h3>Canada 6 Czechoslovakia 3</h3>Gord Sherven&rsquo;s natural hat trick and some sharp goaltending by Andy Moog was the difference for Canada.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-1689/5444322-1-eng-US/f0012-162.jpg" title="f0012-16" width="607" height="773"></div><h2>Sunday, Feb. 28</h2><h3>Sweden 3 West Germany 2</h3>Two goals by Dieter Hegen staked West Germany to a 2-0 lead, but Sweden came back with three of their own, outshooting West Germany 42-18.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-1774/5444315-1-eng-US/f0012-172.jpg" title="f0012-17" width="594" height="677"></div><h3>Finland 2 Soviet Union 1</h3>Erkki Lehtonen&rsquo;s power-play goal at 18:20 of the third period gave Finland the victory and the Soviet Union its only loss in the Olympics.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-1863/5444308-1-eng-US/f0012-182.jpg" title="f0012-18" width="591" height="587"></div> &#9632;

f0012-02

SUMMARIES

<div class="byline">BY JIM KELLEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011308/5444458-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="177" height="132"></div>BUFFALO&mdash;Buffalo Sabre goalie Tom Barrasso is no medicine man, but he was doing all he could to help his injured team.Barrasso was the main reason the Sabres won three straight games through Feb. 28, a week in which injuries threatened to decimate the team.Center Christian Ruuttu, right winger Mike Foligno and center John Tucker were the latest victims of an injury plague that had the Sabres averaging about five scratches per game.Ruuttu, the team&rsquo;s leading scorer (24 goals and 41 assists for 65 points), suffered a knee injury during a 5-2 home-ice win against St. Louis on Feb. 25 and did not play in a 4-3 win at Hartford on Feb. 27 or 5-3 victory against Winnipeg on Feb. 28. It could be ligament damage and until further examination, the knee was immobilized.Foligno (22-25-47) was the team&rsquo;s leading scorer on the right side before he missed all three games with back spasms.Tucker banged up a shoulder against St. Louis and missed the next two starts. He&rsquo;d played in just 29 games this season due to an assortment of injuries.Those three injuries came after hurts suffered by center Adam Creighton (knee) and right wingers Kevin Maguire (broken ankle) and Jan Ludvig (knee), all of whom missed the entire week. Creighton underwent knee surgery Feb. 13 and could be lost for the rest of the season.Things were complicated by veteran defenseman Mike Ramsey&rsquo;s slow recovery from a concussion, which caused him to miss the St. Louis game and part of the game against Hartford.The situation became so bad that half of the 20 players dressed for the Hartford game had less than one year of NHL experience.Barrasso, however, was not one of them.He stopped 35 of 37 shots against St. Louis, 24 of 27 against Hartford and 32 of 35 from Winnipeg, to continue lowering his goals-against average. Since the calendar turned to 1988, Barrasso&rsquo;s GAA had gone from 3.43 to 3.24. His save percentage was .897.As of Feb. 29, Barrasso had played in 29 of Buffalo&rsquo;s last 31 games and was 14-3-4 in 1988. A renewed sense of confidence is helping him, he said.&ldquo;For now, I don&rsquo;t want to be anywhere but in the net,&rdquo; Barrasso said after the Winnipeg win. &ldquo;I feel as though I want to play and that I deserve to play. Those are the keys really. The biggest one is the fact that I desire to go out and play every night. It&rsquo;s not easy to do, but the desire is there and I just hope I&rsquo;m the guy that continues to get the call.&ldquo;You know, a year ago I was written off (in the media). I was 21 years old and I couldn&rsquo;t play hockey any more. I&rsquo;m very happy that I&rsquo;m playing well again. I&rsquo;m more pleased that the team is playing well in front of me again and that the Buffalo Sabres are a good up-and-coming hockey club again. That&rsquo;s something we weren&rsquo;t for two years.&ldquo;I think I enjoy my role on the team now. I think I&rsquo;m a part of it in every aspect. I have great confidence in my teammates and they have great confidence in me. That&rsquo;s something only my playing ablity can bring. It seems I&rsquo;m there with the team for every game, and that&rsquo;s something goaltenders usually don&rsquo;t get to do. I&rsquo;ve got what I think is a good working relationship with my teammates right now and it&rsquo;s paying the dividends everyone hoped it would.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Defenseman Phil Housley was three points away from 400 in his six-season career. Left winger Dave Andreychuk was four points away from the same total in the same number of seasons&hellip;Center John Tucker had five goals in six games before his shoulder injury against St. Louis on Feb. 25&hellip;Right winger Scott Arniel scored his 100th NHL goal Feb. 25 against St. Louis. He&rsquo;s been in the league seven seasons&hellip;Left winger Mikael Andersson&rsquo;s empty-net goal against Hartford proved to be the game-winner&hellip;Right winger Ray Sheppard had six goals in three games before being blanked against Winnipeg on Feb. 28&hellip;Center Benoit Hogue&rsquo;s first NHL goal, against Winnipeg in his second game, was the game-winner.<h2>SABRES</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 27: Benoit Hogue, C, recalled from Rochester (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Pierre Turgeon, Doug Smith, Ken Priestlay, Benoit Hogue.LW&mdash;Dave Andreychuk, Mikael Andersson, Mike Donnelly, Clark Gillies.RW&mdash;Scott Arniel, Ray Sheppard, Mark Napier, Mike Hartman.LD&mdash;Bob Halkidis, Lindy Ruff, Mike Ramsey.RD&mdash;Phil Housley, Uwe Krupp, Calle Johansson, Ed Hospodar.G&mdash;Tom Barrasso, Jacques Cloutier.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Adam Creighton, C, recovering from knee surgery, indefinite.Mike Foligno, RW, back spasms, day-to-day.Jan Ludvig, RW, knee, indefinite.Kevin Maguire, RW, ankle, indefinite.Joe Reekie, D, multiple injuries, day-to-day.Christian Ruuttu, C, knee, indefinite.John Tucker, C, shoulder, day-to-day. &#9632;

f0013-01

Confident Barrasso Key Man For Sabres

THREE MEN AND a baby&mdash;John Brophy, Harry Sinden. Phil Esposito and Brian Leetch.First, Brophy.The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the midst of a severe leadership crisis.Their bombastic owner is recovering from a heart attack. Their general manager is long gone. And theircoach is wound up tighter than a toy soldier.This is a team in desperate need of enlightened guidance.They are not getting it from Brophy, the bench boss who was handed GM responsibilities after the firing of Gerry McNamara.Players are confused by his wild mood swings, his habit of pushing the panic button when calm reflection would better suit the occasion.After a 4-2 loss in Minnesota on Feb. 22, Brophy threw a temper tantrum. Unofficially, he swore 72 times during two sessions lasting a total of about four minutes.Use your imagination to fill in a prodigious amount of profanity.&ldquo;Who are these guys, anyway?&rdquo; he ranted. &ldquo;Who do they think they are? Who do they think they&rsquo;re kidding? Where do they get the courage to come to the rink every second day and fourth day and play one period in a week and get away with it?&rdquo;He placed the blame for the loss squarely on the players&rsquo; shoulders.&ldquo;It is very clear from the start,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;I am tired of explaining. I am tired of making things clear to this hockey team. I am wore out doing it.&ldquo;We explain more things to this hockey team and get nothing for it than any team in history&hellip;Don&rsquo;t tell me they weren&rsquo;t explained to and talked to.&rdquo;On Feb. 8, he criticized McNamara for ducking the blame for the Leafs&rsquo; troubles. He seemed to sidestep responsibility two weeks later.&ldquo;Who are these people who drag that uniform into the mud?&rdquo; he asked.John Brophy sullied the grand old Maple Leaf more than any player that night.Second, Sinden.While Canada struggled to score in Calgary, the Bruin GM simmered in Boston.He couldn&rsquo;t understand the lack of confidence Canadian coach Dave King had in left winger Bob Joyce. Joyce sat out four of Canada&rsquo;s first six games.After scoring 52 goals in 48 games with North Dakota last year, it was hoped Joyce could be one of Canada&rsquo;s few goal-scorers.He scored just 12 goals in 46 games of pre-Olympic competition, one during the Olympics.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011364/5444489-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="335" height="459"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Dryden</figcaption></div>&ldquo;When he came out of college, he was recognized as one of the best-looking prospects for the NHL,&rdquo; said Sinden, who wonders if Canada&rsquo;s obsession with strong defense hampered Joyce&rsquo;s development.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to have to de-program him,&rdquo; he said.Sinden objected to King&rsquo;s use of late additions&mdash;among them Jim Peplinski, Merlin Malinowski and Steve Tambellini&mdash;ahead of Joyce. And he is also uncertain what kind of a player he is going to get from Canada.&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll probably come out of there a helluva player in our drills,&rdquo; snorted Sinden.Third, Esposito and the 19-year-old Leetch.On Feb. 19, Esposito said Leetch is not the Second Coming.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want people thinking he&rsquo;s a Messiah,&rdquo; said the New York Ranger GM.Esposito said he wants to minimize expectations placed on the U.S. national team defenseman.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want to put pressure on him,&rdquo; he said.Esposito said criticisms of Leetch&rsquo;s light-hitting style are off-base.&ldquo;Yeah,&rdquo; said the former Boston Bruin, &ldquo;he doesn&rsquo;t play the body much but neither did Bobby Orr. Nor does Paul Coffey.&rdquo;Way to go, Espo.Mentioning the kid in the same breath as Orr and Coffey&mdash;just a couple of journeymen hockey players&mdash;is certain to ease the pressure on him.But that wasn&rsquo;t the worst of it. Esposito questioned the legitimacy of media criticism concentrating on Leetch&rsquo;s perceived defensive shortcomings.&ldquo;I have a hard time respecting somebody&rsquo;s opinion when they haven&rsquo;t played the game,&rdquo; he said.Hold on, there! That&rsquo;s where I draw the blue line. Who do you think you&rsquo;re talking to? Some rube?Hey, I was a key member of the 1986-87 Chesswood Arena Men&rsquo;s No-Body-Contact Winter League championship team.And an offensive defenseman, at that. &#9632;

f0014-01

Brophy Drags Leaf Uniform ‘Into The Mud’

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN JOHNSTON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021067/5444520-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="172" height="135"></div>QUEBEC CITY&mdash;Suspensions have become a way of life for the Quebec Nordiques this season.First, there was right winger Gord Donnelly, who sat out five games for kneeing Boston&rsquo;s Willi Plett in the head Oct. 29 in Boston.Then defenseman Terry Carkner and coach Ron Lapointe were suspended for 10 and five games, respectively, when Carkner jumped off the bench to join a fight against the Montreal Canadiens on Jan. 24.And within a month, Donnelly was back in trouble.On Feb. 20 at the Montreal Forum, Donnelly and Montreal right winger John Kordic fought as soon as the puck was dropped for the opening face-off.The reprise was Feb. 23 in Quebec City. Donnelly and Kordic were side-by-side at the beginning of the game and they dropped their gloves before referee Bob Myers dropped the puck. Both players were ejected from the game and automatically fined $100. Both teams were fined $25,000.Donnelly and Lapointe met with NHL vice-president Brian O&rsquo;Neill on Feb. 25. O&rsquo;Neill fined Lapointe $1,000 and suspended Donnelly for five games. Montreal coach Jean Perron and Kordic received the same treatment.After the Feb. 20 Montreal-Quebec game, NHL referee supervisor Wally Harris told a group of reporters the referees wouldn&rsquo;t get caught unaware again. But when Myers hesitated before dropping the puck in Quebec, eyebrows were raised.&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s true that the referee faked a face-off, then I just can&rsquo;t get over it,&rdquo; said Lapointe, before he met with O&rsquo;Neill. &ldquo;It just isn&rsquo;t right.&ldquo;The referees are the ones that should take all the flak and not Jean Perron and me. By faking a face-off, it means they knew Donnelly and Kordic were going to fight. That&rsquo;s enticement.&rdquo;NHL director of officiating John McCauley said, &ldquo;Myers didn&rsquo;t do anything differently there he didn&rsquo;t do any other game. The reports I read&mdash;and from (referee supervisor) Wally Harris&rsquo; report&mdash;indicated there wasn&rsquo;t anything different other than a pregame fight.&rdquo;The ruling was &ldquo;a little severe,&rdquo; Lapointe said. &ldquo;I know I have to be careful in commenting on a league decision like this one. I accept it, but I find it hard to swallow.&ldquo;Mr. O&rsquo;Neill told me that he knew very well that athletes like Gord and Kordic had special roles to play. But he also stated that it was the coaches who had the last word in using them.&rdquo;General manager Maurice Filion wasn&rsquo;t happy with what happened.&ldquo;We have to stop looking for trouble like that,&rdquo; said Filion. &ldquo;There are acceptable limits. I know that during a fight, anything can happen. Like when Gord was suspended for the first time this season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got nothing against a good fight. But not when it happens like it did in this case. Things like this shouldn&rsquo;t happen before games.&rdquo; before the game like I did wasn&rsquo;t the most intelligent decision of my career.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Former Buffalo Sabre center Gilbert Perreault was approached by the Nordiques about a comeback. They wanted to team him with left winger Michel Goulet, but Perreault declined&hellip;The Nords will offer Finnish national team player liro Jarvi a contract at the end of the season and an invitation to training camp next fall. &ldquo;His good performance (two goals and five assists in eight games) at the Olympic Games convinced me,&rdquo; said general manager Maurice Filion&hellip;Nordique draft picks Bryan Fogarty of the Kingston Canadians and Joe Sakic of the Swift Current Broncos are expected to sign with Quebec in the next few weeks. They were selected ninth and 15th, respectively, in last summer&rsquo;s entry draft.<h2>NORDIQUES</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 26: Ron Lapointe, coach, fined 81,000 by NHL. Gord Donnelly, RW, suspended five games and fined $100 by NHL for fighting before-Feb. 23 game against Montreal. Eligible to return March 6.Feb. 27: Bobby Dollas, D, recalled from Fredericton (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Peter Stastny, Alan Haworth, Paul Gillis, Marc Fortier.LW&mdash;Michel Goulet, Jeff Jackson, Mike Eagles, Gaetan Duchesne.RW&mdash;Anton Stastny, Lane Lambert, Alain Cote, Ken Quinney.LD&mdash;Steven Finn, Stephane Guerard, Bobby Dollas.RD&mdash;Jeff Brown, Randy Moller, Tommy Albelin.G&mdash;Mario Brunetta, Mario Gosselin.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Terry Carkner, D, broken nose, day to-day.Robert Picard, D, crushed first vertebra in lower back, March 19.Normand Rochefort, D, sprainec right knee, indefinite. &#9632;

f0014-02

Donnelly Adds To Nords’ Suspension Tally

<div class="byline">BY BARRY MEISEL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011275/5444551-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="174" height="135"></div>UNIONDALE, N.Y.&mdash;Pat LaFontaine bruised his right knee 47 seconds into the New York Islanders&rsquo; 6-1 rout of Vancouver Feb. 23, but kept playing because &ldquo;there&rsquo;s nobody else.&rdquo;As the Islander injury toll continued. trainer Craig Smith became the most quoted guy in the NHL.X-rays revised Rich Kromm&rsquo;s abdominal muscle strain to a fractured rib.A CAT-scan noticed that behind the bruises to Steve Konroyd&rsquo;s face and forehead there were three facial fractures.Mikko Makela missed two games with an infected elbow.And Tomas Jonsson missed two games with a bruised left thigh.The Isles didn&rsquo;t harp on their medical reports. They just added a few more lines into the game notes (with Mike Bossy&rsquo;s back, Neal Coulter&rsquo;s thumb, Ken Morrow&rsquo;s shoulder and Patrick Flatley&rsquo;s knee), plucked a few players from their Springfield farm club, and extended their unbeaten streak to 4-0-3 by routing Vancouver 6-1 and tying Chicago 1-1.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a way of thinking,&rdquo; Denis Potvin said. &ldquo;When a dressing room is right, guys coming in and out of it fall into the system.&rdquo;The system finally collapsed Feb. 27. when Washington snapped the streak with a 3-0 win at Nassau Coliseum. It was a loss that left the second-place Islanders just one Patrick Division point ahead of the Capitals.A 1-1-1 week was admirable, considering the Islanders beat Vancouver with four defensemen. one of whom was eight-game NHL veteran Jeff Finley. Coach Terry Simpson even used left winger Greg Gilbert for a shift on defense.Why not? The overall team defense had been good enough to limit its last three opponents to a combined three goals. That would have been two, had Kelly Hrudey not lost his bid for a second straight shutout, on a goal by Petri Skriko during a 6-on-3 situation with 1:24 left.Despite Gilbert&rsquo;s request and Hrudey&rsquo;s near-shutout, Simpson opted to start Billy Smith against Chicago. Smith stopped all of the Blackhawks&rsquo; shots, but not Gord Dineen&rsquo;s inadvertent backhander into his own net at 7:43 of the third period to break a scoreless tie.Undaunted by the gaffe, the Isles tied it on Alan Kerr&rsquo;s 20th goal, with 2:34 remaining in regulation.The Islanders were still missing the four short-term injured&mdash;Jonsson, Kromm, Konroyd and Makela&mdash;when they were overwhelmed by the Caps and goalie Clint Malarchuk, who recorded the first shutout against the Islanders at home in nearly two years.NOTES&mdash;U.S. Olympians Jeff Norton, a defenseman, and Todd Okerlund, a left winger, joined the team Feb. 29. After their first practice, the Isles held an introductory press conference in which their signings were announced&hellip;Mike Bossy Night will be March 10 against Quebec. The injured superstar right winger said he plans to announce nothing that night, though his injured back has not improved. Still, GM Bill Torrey did not think it odd to honor Bossy this month. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think he might need something like this?&rdquo; Torrey asked. &ldquo;What do you think it&rsquo;s been like for him? He&rsquo;d never admit it, but he&rsquo;s got to be having a real tough time adjusting.&rdquo;<h2>ISLANDERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 24: Brian Curran, D, recalled from Springfield (AHL).Feb. 26: Rod Dallman, LW, assigned to Springfield.Feb. 27: Brad Dalgarno, RW, recalled from Springfield.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Pat LaFontaine, Bryan Trottier, Brent Sutter, Bob Bassen.LW&mdash;Greg Gilbert, Derek King, Dale Henry, Randy Wood.RW&mdash;Alan Kerr, Brad Lauer, Mick Vukota, Brad Dalgarno.LD&mdash;Denis Potvin, Jeff Finley, Brian Curran.RD&mdash;Gerald Diduck, Ken Leiter, Gord Dineen.G&mdash;Kelly Hrudey, Billy Smith.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Neal Coulter, RW, fractured left thumb, March 1.Patrick Flatley, RW, reconstuctive knee surgery, out until 1988-89.Tomas Jonsson, D, bruised left thigh, day-to-day.Steve Konroyd, D, facial fractures, March 18.Rich Kromm, LW, fractured rib, day-to-day.Mikko Makela, RW, infected left elbow, day-to-day.Ken Morrow, D, separated right shoulder, March 26. &#9632;

f0015-01

Isle Spirit Overcomes Chronic Injury Woes

IT HAS ALWAYS struck me that one of the stupidest NHL moves ever perpetrated was allowing writers and broadcasters to vote for significant awards.This is ridiculous because compared to coaches, GMs and players, the media knows precious little about hockey on the whole. However, writers and broadcasters do know a lot about hockey interviewing.Since that&rsquo;s their forte, what they really should be doing when it comes to NHL elections is voting for the &ldquo;Best Interview of the Season.&rdquo;I submit a Charlie Bourgeois Best Interview Trophy would be appropriate, and would honor the best gabber in hockey. Naturally, writers and broadcasters would do the picking.Were there such a prize, who would be the winner? First, a list of candidates:BRUINS: Ray Bourque&mdash;A few years ago, you couldn&rsquo;t get this superior defenseman to say &ldquo;Boo!&rdquo; Since then, Bourque has emerged as a bright, talkative, true leader of his club.SABRES: Christian Ruuttu&mdash;Most interviewers shy away from foreign players. Ruuttu fools a lot of people. He was schooled (Belmont Hill) in Massachussets, is virtually accent-free and, apart from being a splendid player, has a lot to say about the NHL in an engaging, humorous manner.FLAMES: Mike Bullard&mdash;A few years ago, Mike had a &ldquo;stay-away-from-me&rdquo; reputation, partially doe to his scowl and perpetual need for a shave. Now, Mike has a new appeal and comes across as bright, informed and candid.BLACKHAWKS: Denis Savard&mdash;One night he suffered a broken nose and still agreed to do an interview. He is as charming off the ice as he is clever on the pond. A delight, as long as you stay away from the subject of smoking.RED WINGS: Mike O&rsquo;Connell&mdash;Anyone who can write his own newspaper column and play good defense figures to be a media masterpiece. He does, however, get agitated if you bring up his Don Cherry feud.OILERS: Kevin Lowe&mdash;It has been said, with more than a modicum of truth, that Kevin has never met a microphone he doesn&rsquo;t like. He has had his own radio show, still has his own column in the Edmonton Sun and speaks articulately in both English and French.WHALERS: Mike Liut&mdash;A latter-day Ken Dryden in more ways than one, Liut has been doing ESPN playoff commentary for years. He does get upset when it&rsquo;s implied he&rsquo;s overpaid, but then so would you!KINGS: Bob Bourne&mdash;Ever since his Islander days, Bourne has been recognized as a purveyor of high-class quotes and anecdotes. He digs deeper in the mind than most, which is why he&rsquo;s constantly sought for the superior observation.NORTH STARS: Herb Brooks&mdash;You get an NHL version of James Gamer and Paul Newman, providing you don&rsquo;t get him mad by getting into stale Olympic stuff. Truth is, though, that Herbie&rsquo;s best stuff is juicy off-the-record material he loves to dispense.CANADIENS: Claude Lemieux&mdash;Although Claude&rsquo;s English still needs work, he&rsquo;s eager, co-operative and tries very hard to make himself understood. If you have a mike, however, beware of an unconscious drop of an occasional expletive.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011155/5444582-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="328" height="439"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stan Fischler</figcaption></div>DEVILS: Jack O&rsquo;Callahan&mdash;His club was down by five goals one night and he had been on the ice for four, yet Jack unhesitatingly fulfilled a between-period commitment and graciously handled the questions as if he had just scored a hat trick.ISLANDERS: Bill Smith-Kelly Hrudey&mdash;Smith gives the most straightforward, no-applesauce answers in the league&mdash;if he trusts you. If not, stay away&mdash;far away. Hrudey, win or lose, is just like John Vanbiesbrouck, a winner before the mikes or the writing pads.RANGERS: John Vanbiesbrouck-Bob Froese&mdash;A dead heat. Froese is witty, but also has a serious side. He wasted no time going public, calling his early-season empty-net goal a &ldquo;phony&rdquo; and he&rsquo;ll cover all the angles verbally as well as on the ice. Beezer is forthright and invariably available when most players hide in the shower.FLYERS: Dave Poulin&mdash;The first time we met, he was an NHL rookie, at a TV studio on an off-day, as an observer. Broadcasting is his alternate passion. He talks about issues with clarity and ease.PENGUINS: Mario Lemieux&mdash;In the beginning, he was impossibly difficult, virtually inarticulate, inaudible and banal. His English has improved 300 per cent and, despite overwhelming demands on his time, Mario remains accommodating, unless he&rsquo;s in a very, very foul mood.NORDIQUES: Peter Stastny&mdash;The only time I ever saw the Czech tongue-tied was when it was suggested on the air that, a decade from now, he&rsquo;ll be in the Hockey Hall of Fame.BLUES: Tony McKegney&mdash;He&rsquo;s made media friends at all NHL stops&mdash;Buffalo, Quebec, Minnesota, New York and now St. Louis&mdash;because of his patience, appreciation and good gift of gab.MAPLE LEAFS: Al Secord&mdash;See Mike O&rsquo;Connell above, or Scott Stevens, below!CANUCKS: Randy (Bullseye) Boyd&mdash;He sounds like Charles Bronson in Death Wish, but Bullseye has a David Letterman disposition. He&rsquo;s the kind of personality you&rsquo;ve got to like.CAPITALS: Scott Stevens&mdash;He looks like trouble, but he&rsquo;ll even come on the air after botching a goal, as he did last year during a critical playoff game. Honest to a fault, Scott will even tell you why he beats up on certain people.JETS: John Ferguson&mdash;Complete with Cigar, he is hockey&rsquo;s answer to Edward G. Robinson.The winner: Lowe. When you score 100 per cent in two languages, you&rsquo;re the best. Runner-up: Poulin. &#9632;

f0016-01

Talk Of The Teams—Here’s 21 Of Them

<div class="byline">BY WALT MacPEEK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03710/5444613-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="586" height="993"><figcaption class="caption-body">Back-to-back 2-1 wins with John Vanbiesbrouck in net lifted the Rangers to fourth.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-02924/5444620-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="175" height="136"></div>NEW YORK&mdash;The New York Rangers approached their ascent from the Patrick Division cellar to the playoff level with cautious optimism.The down-but-not-out Rangers struggled through the most important 48 hours of their season by earning back-to-back 2-1 victories over Pittsburgh and New Jersey, their head-to-head competitors for the last playoff berth.&ldquo;(Moving out of sixth place after four months) is nice but it is a temporary satisfaction,&rdquo; said Ranger goalie John Vanbiesbrouck, who was outstanding in both the Feb. 25 and 26 games. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t even realize we had been there quite so long (since Nov. 7).&ldquo;What is more valuable, what is really important, is the confidence we&rsquo;ve gained over the last two games in our ability to play strong team defense, to be able to win the tight, low-scoring games.&ldquo;I think being down in the standings, being under pressure for two, maybe even three months has hardened us,&rdquo; he suggested. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got some new players who have helped a lot but I think the whole group understands now how many sacrifices it takes to win.&rdquo;A veteran checking line of Lucien DeBlois, Jan Erixon and Don Maloney continued its 1988 resurgence to lead the way. All three players doubled as penalty-killers.In the final analysis, the Rangers were able to move up because their penalty-killing units shut down both the Pittsburgh (0-for-5) and New Jersey (0-for-8) power plays.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;I think being down in the standings&hellip;has hardened us.&rsquo; &mdash;Vanbiesbrouck</blockquote>The acquisition of defenseman Mark Hardy and the earlier-than-expected return of injured right winger Chris Nilan were also important factors in the turnaround.&ldquo;Hardy was a big help in those two very physical games,&rdquo; a relieved Ranger coach Michel Bergeron observed. &ldquo;He is a good addition&mdash;and Nilan, our record when he plays tells you something about how valuable he is.&rdquo;Following their weekend success, the Rangers were 4-0-1 with the combative, inspirational winger in their lineup.&ldquo;Knuckles (Nilan) is one of the best team men I&rsquo;ve ever played with,&rdquo; veteran Ranger Ron Greschner said. &ldquo;No, he is the best I&rsquo;ve ever played with.&rdquo;The Rangel&rsquo;s&rsquo; ability to rise to the occasion represented a major change in what has been a disappointing season.Before Feb. 25, when rookie Ulf Dahlen&rsquo;s goal edged Pittsburgh, the Rangers owned a 3-16 record in one-goal games. Vanbiesbrouck&rsquo;s record for one-goal decisions was 0-11.&ldquo;We have our best team now,&rdquo; Dahlen said. &ldquo;Everybody is playing well.&rdquo;The Ranger defense corps, which had been weakened by illness and injury in two previous losses, bounced back in impressive fashion.&ldquo;Our defensemen did everything right,&rdquo; DeBlois said, after the Rangers&rsquo; success at New Jersey. &ldquo;They moved everyone from in front of the net, they blocked shots, they cut off passes. They showed their best in the biggest game of the year.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Chris Nilan, who came back at least a week early from a knee injury, contributed a crucial assist on rookie Norm Maciver&rsquo;s winning goal at New Jersey&hellip;U.S. Olympic team captain Brian Leetch joined the Rangers for his first practice on Feb. 28&hellip;Veteran center Marcel Dionne, the third player in NHL history to score 700 goals, was honored in pre-game ceremonies Feb. 29.<h2>RANGERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 22: Ron Duguay, C, traded to Los Angeles for Mark Hardy, D.Feb. 23: Brian Leetch, D, U.S. Olympic team, agreed to contract terms.Feb. 26: Mark Tinordi, D-LW, assigned to Colorado (IHL).Feb. 27: Peter Laviolette, D, U.S. Olympic team, assigned to Colorado.Feb. 28: Mike Richter, G, U.S. Olympic team, signed contract and assigned to Colorado.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Kelly Kisio, Walt Poddubny, Marcel Dionne, Lucien DeBlois.LW&mdash;Tomas Sandstrom, Don Maloney, Joe Paterson, John Ogrodnick, Paul Cyr, Jeff Brubaker.RW&mdash;Chris Nilan, Ulf Dahlen, Jan Erixon, Brian Mullen.LD&mdash;Norm Maciver, Mark Hardy, Ron Greschner, Brian Leetch.RD&mdash;James Patrick, Michel Petit, David Shaw.G&mdash;John Vanbiesbrouck, Bob Froese.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Jari Gronstrand, D, strained ligaments in right knee, indefinite.Pierre Larouche, C, pinched nerve in lower back, indefinite. &#9632;

f0016-03

Rangers Scratch Way Into Playoff Position

<div class="byline">BY RAY PARRILLO</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011011/5444651-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="581" height="1345"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rick Tocchet scored 11 goals in a five-game span, including two hat tricks.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02798/5444658-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="173" height="132"></div>PHILADELPHIA&mdash;Rick Tocchet has discovered he doesn&rsquo;t need to drop his gloves to beat up the rest of the NHL.And those gloves should be made of asbestos, because the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; burly right winger had the hottest hands in the league.Tocchet popped in four goals against Los Angeles in the Flyers&rsquo; 8-6 win at the Forum Feb. 27, running his total to 11 in five games.The latest outburst gave Tocchet his second hat trick in three games&mdash;he had one against Detroit Feb. 23&mdash;after going through his first 3&frac12; seasons in the league without a three-goal game.Tocchet, who assisted on Scott Mellanby&rsquo;s game-winning goal against Los Angeles, extended his scoring streak to eight games. He had 11 goals and seven assists during that stretch, upping his season totals to 27-31-58 in 58 games.His remarkable performance against the Kings also made Tocchet, 23, only the second Flyer in the club&rsquo;s 21-year history to score four goals in a regular-season road game. Tim Kerr did it in the Capital Centre Feb. 9, 1985.&ldquo;I never imagined anything like this would happen to me,&rdquo; said Tocchet. who scored into an empty-net at 19:59 of the third period. &ldquo;Maybe now is a good time for me to go buy a lottery ticket, huh?&rdquo;Tocchet has developed into a rare breed&mdash;an intimidating winger who can also provide plenty of offense.Tocchet showed how he thrives under pressure by leading the Flyers with 11 goals during the Stanley Cup playoffs last year. His goal in the third and decisive game of the Canada Cup finals against the Soviets in September sparked Team Canada&rsquo;s comeback for a memorable 6-5 win.&ldquo;I just hope I can carry this into the playoffs,&rdquo; Tocchet said.With 272 penalty minutes to go along with his 27 goals, Tocchet should join Al Secord as the only other player in league history to get 30 goals and 300 penalty minutes in the same season. Detroit&rsquo;s Bob Probert (26 goals and 339 PIM) will also probably be there.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Honestly, I think I should score 35 goals a year&hellip;I&rsquo;ve worked hard to round out my offense.&rsquo; &mdash;Tocchet</blockquote>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not gonna go out and purposely take penalties,&rdquo; Tocchet said with a smile. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m aware of the 30-300 thing. I think Bob Probert might do the same thing.&rdquo;&ldquo;Honestly, I think I should score 35 goals a year,&rdquo; Tocchet said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never wanted to be known as a fighter only, so I&rsquo;ve worked hard to round out my offense.&rdquo;Flyers&rsquo; coach Mike Keenan, who feuded with Tocchet during the Flyers&rsquo; gruesome 6-13-3 start, expressed pleasure with Tocchet&rsquo;s progress.&ldquo;Rick&rsquo;s a self-made player who&rsquo;s had to work hard for all he&rsquo;s accomplished,&rdquo; Keenan said. &ldquo;He likes pressure situations and he wants more responsibility. He&rsquo;s a leader who also has a tremendous amount of respect around the league.&rdquo;The Flyers&rsquo; run-and-gun win over the Kings ran their winning streak to four games and undefeated streak to six (5-0-1). It also capped a stunning week for the Flyers, who came back from a 5-1 deficit to beat the Red Wings 11-6, on Feb 23 at Joe Louis Arena.In that game, the Flyers scored their last 10 goals in 24 minutes, 21 seconds. Seven of those goals came in the third period, and five of them within 5:29.&ldquo;It was one of the strangest games I&rsquo;ve ever been involved in,&rdquo; Keenan said.NOTES&mdash;The Flyers&rsquo; win over the Kings ran their record to 14-4-2 in their last 20 road games&hellip;Second-year right winger Scott Mellanby raised his season total to 21 with a pair of goals against L.A. The Flyers had eight players who were on target to finish with 20 or more goals&hellip;At 32, defenseman Mark Howe has been playing as well as ever. His goal and assist against the Kings gave him 13 points (5-8) in nine games.<h2>FLYERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 21: John Stevens, D, recalled from Hershey (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Dave Poulin, Pelle Eklund, Ron Sutter, Peter ZezelLW&mdash;Brian Propp, Murray Craven, Derrick Smith, Paul Lawless, Craig Berube, Nick Fotiu.RW&mdash;Rick Tocchet, Scott Mellanby, llkka Sinisalo.LD&mdash;Mark Howe, Brad Marsh, Doug Crossman, Gordie Roberts.RD&mdash;Kjell Samuelsson, Greg Smyth, J.J. Daigneault, Bill Root, John Stevens.G&mdash;Ron Hextall, Mark Laforest.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Kerry Huffman, D, calcium buildup in left leg, indefinite.Tim Kerr, RW, shoulder surgery, March 10.Brad Marsh, D, bruised knee, day-to-day.Bill Root, D, groin pull, day-to-day. &#9632;

f0017-01

Hot Tocchet Turns Into Flyers’ Big Gunner

IN A CAREER filled with conflicts of interest, perhaps this will be his crowning moment.The conflict of interests to end all conflicts of interest.One one side is Alan Eagleson, international hockey negotiator, doing his utmost to bring Soviet players to the National Hockey League.On the other is Alan Eagleson, Players&rsquo; Association boss, looking out for the well-being of his union membership.And no, there are not two Alan Eaglesons in this case, although there sometimes appears to be.Just how these two hats fit him in this very circumstance is open to interpretation. But the conflict is blatant, no matter how defensive or in his case, offensive Eagleson is about it.By acting for one party, Eagleson is acting in direct violation of the other&rsquo;s interests.Consider the situation of Ken Daneyko, a run-of-the-mill defenseman for New Jersey Devils who regularly pays his membership dues in the NHLPA. Daneyko, like many, is under the assumption that when he pays his dues, his union will represent his interests.But the man, whose salary Daneyko and other rank-and-file players are paying, went out and negotiated a deal that means players such as Daneyko could find themselves out of work in the future.How&rsquo;s that for union protection?Can you imagine this happening in a real world, in a real union?Can you imagine reaction to the United Auto Workers of America bringing in the best Soviet auto mechanics, not to enhance the union necessarily, but to increase the level of top employees, costing some rank-and-file members their positions.Reaction from the auto workers would be overwhelming.But response from the NHLPA has been non-existent adding further proof that this isn&rsquo;t really a union at all, and Eagleson is a much a union leader as Dave Peterson is a coach.Only Eagleson&rsquo;s better at fooling people.His title looks good on the resume but means little in translation.If Eagleson pulls this off, he has sold his union members a bill of goods and the odds are he didn&rsquo;t even bother to consult with them in the first place.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011054/5444689-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="366" height="449"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Simmons</figcaption></div>Why bother with the peons, anyway?They&rsquo;re quiet, they&rsquo;re weak and they&rsquo;re meek. Always have been. Always will be, unless the union boss and the league president stop sharing so many moments together.The ability of the NHLPA to work with the league has been a strength which has helped the game. It has kept hockey free of the troubles that have plagued other professional sports. That&rsquo;s the good news.The bad news is: That isn&rsquo;t the purpose of the Players&rsquo; Association.Perhaps the addition of Viacheslav Fetisov and Alexei Kasatonov to the NHL will be good for the game, but that doesn&rsquo;t excuse Eagleson for his blatant disregard of the union which pays him so well for protection.If I were Ken Daneyko or Randy Velischek or Jack O&rsquo;Callahan, I&rsquo;d consider having a chat with NHLPA representative, and quite possibly a lawyer.Even some general managers are upset about it. &ldquo;Normally, we&rsquo;re on different sides, but in this case I feel for the players,&rdquo; said David Poile. &ldquo;If I were the players, I wouldn&rsquo;t be happy about it. I&rsquo;m be damned upset.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s time to hear from the union leaders, from Bryan Trottier to Marcel Dionne to Lanny McDonald.This is one conflict of interest that has been carried too far, by a leader who again is acting on behalf of a sport, which in this case, is only half his mandate. &#9632;

f0018-01

Union Members Should Be Asking Questions

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINARI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02799/5444720-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="176" height="133"></div>PITTSBURGH&mdash;There is no mistaking the signs that winter is about to loosen its chilly grip on North America.Baseball training camps have opened. The Minnesota North Stars are underachieving.And, of course, one cannot overlook the most convincing indication: The Penguins are on a frightening free-fall through the Patrick Division.This isn&rsquo;t simply deja vu. We&rsquo;re talking tradition.The Penguins have spent the past five playoff seasons on golf courses across the continent, often because of late-season winning percentages that are somewhere between miserable and microscopic.And so it was this season as they stumbled into March with a six-game losing streak, their longest of the, season.They were alone in last place in the Patrick Division 15 days after having sole possession of second place.But the Penguins lost more than a series of games after the all-star break. Their confidence was plunging in a manner reminiscent of the stock-market collapse last October.&ldquo;It seems no matter what the score is, even if it&rsquo;s 2-0 for us, we still feel we have a chance to lose,&rdquo; defenseman Paul Coffey said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to get rid of that feeling.&rdquo;And do it no later than yesterday, for that matter, unless they are prepared to endure another off-season of criticism and cracks about their ineptitude.The players publicly professed their belief the season could be salvaged&mdash;&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t throw it in now,&rdquo; left winger Charlie Simmer said&mdash;but no one disputed there were stress fractures appearing in their game.Despite possessing two of the most gifted players on the planet, Coffey and Mario Lemieux, the Penguins&rsquo; offense was functioning with all the ferocity of a sedated lamb&mdash;particularly in critical situations.That explains why they lost three straight one-goal games, a streak broken only when they lost 7-5 in Chicago.That failing was particularly evident in a 2-1 loss to the Rangers in Madison Square Garden, when the Penguins rarely strayed into the New York zone until the final 10 minutes of the game.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have any (offense), except on the power play,&rdquo; Coffey said.Even the power play was often a haunting contradiction in terms, however. The Penguins scored one goal&mdash;but gave up two&mdash;on a five-minute power play in a 5-4 loss to St. Louis, then failed to get the tying goal on a five-minute power play in the final 5&frac12; minutes of the Ranger game.Losing to New York cost the Penguins a chance to move five points ahead of the Rangers. Instead, they slipped into a tie for last place with New Jersey one night later when the Rangers beat the Devils.NOTES&mdash;Four games into the six-game slide, Penguin vice president Paul Martha was asked if a coaching change was being considered. His simple response: &ldquo;No.&rdquo; Pierre Creamer is in his first season behind the Penguins&rsquo; bench&hellip;Edmonton apparently is interested in acquiring Penguin goalie Steve Guenette if Andy Moog declines to resign with the Oilers. Edmonton scouted Guenette for several weeks while he was with Muskegon and sent co-coach John Muckier and scouts Ed Chadwick and Ace Bailey to watch him play in the 2-1 loss to the New York Rangers a day after he was recalled&hellip;The Penguins expected to add two Olympians, Team Canada defenseman Zarley Zalapski and Team USA forward Kevin Stevens, to their lineup.<h2>PENGUINS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 24: Recalled Steve Guenette, G, from Muskegon (IHL); sent Jock Callander, RW, to Muskegon.Feb. 26: Signed Kevin Stevens, LW, of U.S. Olympic team to multi-year contract; sent Dave McLIwain, C, to Muskegon.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Mario Lemieux, Dan Quinn, Steve Gotaas, Rob Brown.LW&mdash;Randy Cunneyworth, Dave Hunter, Charlie Simmer, Troy Loney, Mark Kachowski.RW&mdash;Bryan Erickson, Dan Frawley, Perry Ganchar, Jimmy Mann.LD&mdash;Paul Coffey, Jim Johnson, Doug Bodger, Chris Dahlquist.RD&mdash;Ville Siren, Randy Hillier, Rod Buskas.G&mdash;Frank Pietrangelo, Gilles Meloche, Steve Guenette.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Bob Errey, LW, broken wrist, day-to-day.Norm Schmidt, D, back, indefinite.Wayne Van Dorp, LW, knee, indefinite. &#9632;

f0018-02

Annual Penguin Dive Means Spring Is Near

<div class="byline">BY BOB FACHET</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-01977/5444758-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="583" height="750"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pete Peeters, above, missed a scheduled start but Clint Malarchuk earned another shutout.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02724/5444765-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="179" height="136"></div>LANDOVER&mdash;&ldquo;This has been an unbelievable scenario,&rdquo; said Washington Capital coach Bryan Murray. Nobody was inclined to disagree.While Pete Peeters, the National Hockey League&rsquo;s top goaltender with a 2.57 goals-against average, watched on crutches at Nassau Coliseum, partner Clint Malarchuk recorded his third shutout in four games.As had been the case before his shutouts in Winnipeg and Minnesota on Feb. 19 and 20&mdash;when Peeters had the flu&mdash;Malarchuk was not scheduled to face the New York Islanders Feb. 27. On Feb. 26, however, Peeters was struck in the left foot by a Kelly Miller shot during practice.Although Peeters stayed on the ice for another hour and looked sharp, the foot began to swell as soon as he removed his skate. By day&rsquo;s end, it was so sore Malarchuk was told he would be the starter and Alain Raymond was summoned from Fort Wayne of the International League as a backup.Malarchuk made some sensational stops among a total of 28 as Washington snapped the Islanders&rsquo; seven-game unbeaten streak, improved to 31-26-6 and climbed within one point of the second-place Islanders in the Patrick Division.If Peeters was being tossed around on a rollercoaster of injury and illness, Malarchuk certainly was experiencing extreme ups and downs too.Following his back-to-back shutouts, the first by an NHL goalie since Malarchuk did it himself for Quebec in November, 1985, he gave up four goals on 17 shots at Los Angeles on Feb. 24 and was yanked after 33 minutes of what became a 4-3 defeat.&ldquo;After the back-to-back shutouts, I went into L.A. riding high and I got shot down,&rdquo; said Malarchuk following the Islander game. &ldquo;When I was pulled, my confidence dropped lower, but maybe that was good. My confidence wasn&rsquo;t as high this time, but I was really prepared.&ldquo;I was more nervous than usual. I wanted to get off to a good start and get in the same groove as Winnipeg and Minnesota. I got some long shots in the first period, which was good. I got the feel of the puck right away and it got me going.&rdquo;Malarchuk, who blanked Edmonton on Jan. 2, tied former Capitals Al Jensen and Pat Riggin (both in 1983-84) for the club record of four shutouts in one season. He was more than willing to share the credit with his teammates.&ldquo;Sure, you get some tough shots every game, but the big thing with this team is that there aren&rsquo;t many re bounds,&rdquo; Malarchuk said. &ldquo;The guys let me see every shot, they force the other team to shoot from unproductive spots and they clear the rebounds. I can&rsquo;t remember any rebounds in any of my shutouts.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-03498/5444751-1-eng-US/f0019-032.jpg" title="f0019-03" width="585" height="745"><figcaption class="caption-body">Defenseman Kevin Hatcher was a winner in the Capitals&rsquo; golf tournament.</figcaption></div>During the eight games following the all-star break, of which they won seven, the Capitals scored 35 goals and allowed 16.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re scoring goals and building confidence in our offense,&rdquo; said captain Rod Langway. &ldquo;Defensively, I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s going on. These days with high-scoring offenses and refs calling so many penalties, not many teams get three shutouts in four games.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Goalie Clint Malarchuk&rsquo;s touch extended beyond the rink. His putting was a key factor as he and defensemen Scott Stevens, Kevin Hatcher and Rod Langway won the team golf tournament. It was played under a scramble format at a Palm Springs-area course during the Los Angeles road trip&hellip;Right winger Mike Gartner collected at least one point in eight straight games, dating back to Feb. 11. In that span, he had five goals, seven assists and was plus-10&hellip;With 188 goals-against in 63 games, the Capitals were the only team that had allowed fewer than 200&hellip;Washington also was the least-penalized team in the league, serving 1,315 minutes.<h2>CAPITALS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 26: Alain Raymond, G, recalled from Fort Wayne (IHL).Feb. 28: John Barrett, D, recalled from Binghamton (AHL).Feb. 29: Steve Leach, RW, returned from U.S. Olympic team.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Bengt Gustafsson, Mike Ridley, Peter Sundstrom, Dale Hunter.LW&mdash;Michal Pivonka, Kelly Miller, Greg Adams, Yvon Corriveau.RW&mdash;Dave Christian, Mike Gartner, Lou Franceschetti, Bob Gould, Ed Kas-telic, Steve Leach.LD&mdash;Scott Stevens, Rod Langway, Greg Smith, Grant Ledyard.RD&mdash;Larry Murphy, Kevin Hatcher, Garry Galley, John Barrett,G&mdash;Clint Malarchuk, Alain Raymond.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Pete Peeters, G, bruised left foot, day-to-day. &#9632;

f0019-01

Goalie Rides Caps’ Winning Rollercoaster

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02571/5444796-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="589" height="743"><figcaption class="caption-body">Goalie Bob Sauve finally took a breather after starting nine consecutive games.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01844/5444803-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="176" height="134"></div>EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.&mdash;In the most frustrating week of the season for the New Jersey Devils, they dominated three games and lost all three.The Devils outshot Boston. Winnipeg and the New York Rangers by a collective margin of 118-51, but goaltenders Rejean Lemelin, Daniel Berthiaume and John Vanbiesbrouck held them to just three goals.The strain was most evident on the faces of New Jersey&rsquo;s No. 1 line&mdash;Kirk Muller. Aaron Broten and Pat Verbeek. The Devils&rsquo; bread-and-butter trio failed to score a single goal, collecting only a pair of assists on a Bruce Driver power-play goal.&ldquo;When we don&rsquo;t score that makes it very tough on us, because we feel we let our team down,&rdquo; admitted Verbeek. &ldquo;We know that&rsquo;s our role. The team relies on us to score goals. It puts added pressure on us, but we accept that.&rdquo;When the trio finally broke loose, in an 8-6 triumph over the Minnesota North Stars Feb. 28, it did so in a big way. Verbeek became the first Devil to score four goals in one game. Muller scored three times to reach the 30-goal plateau for the first time in his four-season NHL career, and Broten added three assists. In all, the line accounted for seven goals, and five assists.&ldquo;It was really good to see them finally get the puck in the net,&rdquo; said coach Jim Schoenfeld, who had been pacing the floor as his power-play unit floundered at l-for-26. &ldquo;The way it&rsquo;s been going, who cares that one line was doing all the scoring? It was becoming more of a mental than physical thing.&rdquo;&ldquo;It was just amazing,&rdquo; added Verbeek. &ldquo;There was no justice at all.&rdquo;Verbeek&rsquo;s four goals raised his total to 36 for the season, breaking the New Jersey record of 35 he (1986-87) shared with Greg Adams (1985-86). Wilf Paiement holds the franchise mark of 41 goals for the 1976-77 Colorado Rockies. The four goals also equalled the franchise record for goals in one game, held by Bob MacMillan (against St. Louis Jan. 8, 1982, in Colorado).&ldquo;Personally, the 36 goals mean something, but I&rsquo;d trade in all the goals for a playoff spot,&rdquo; said Verbeek. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s my main goal&hellip;A season without the playoffs is nothing.&rdquo;Muller&rsquo;s hat trick gave him 31 goals, five more than last season&rsquo;s personal best. He has matured into the goal-scorer the Devils expected when they drafted him No. 2 overall in 1984.&ldquo;I had a lot of adjustments to make,&rdquo; said the Devils&rsquo; 22-year-old captain. &ldquo;If you ever saw me as a junior, I was an offensive player. When I got here everybody labelled me as &lsquo;a complete hockey player&rsquo; and I got that into my head. It wasn&rsquo;t until this year that I realized I could do better offensively.&rdquo;Muller may be a pleasant surprise to himself, but Verbeek&rsquo;s production has come as no shock.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve played with him every day now for the last three or four years,&rdquo; Muller said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a surprise to me he&rsquo;s approaching 40 goals. Patty&rsquo;s been consistent. I don&rsquo;t mind going into the comers and setting him up. If you give it to him he&rsquo;s going to put it in the net.&rdquo;For an entire week, however, that just wasn&rsquo;t happening.NOTES&mdash;Alain Chevrier replaced Bob Sauve and gained the victory over Minny, his first since Feb. 1 in Calgary. Sauve had started nine straight games (Chevrier last played Feb. 7). Chevrier&rsquo;s role remained questionable since Chris Terreri joined the Devils from the U.S. Olympic team Feb. 29 and Sean Burke reported from Team Canada the following day. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t do anything about that,&rdquo; said Chevrier. &ldquo;If they want me here, I&rsquo;ll be here. I have no control over it.&rdquo;&hellip;Ken Daneyko&rsquo;s nose was cut and broken when he was hit by Ray Neufeld&rsquo;s stick Feb. 24 against Winnipeg. That made his fight with Basil McRae four days later painful to watch. &ldquo;In the heat of the battle you don&rsquo;t feel anything,&rdquo; said Daneyko, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s sore now.&rdquo;<h2>DEVILS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 27: Murray Brumwell, D, recalled from Utica (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Kirk Muller. Mark Johnson, Patrik Sundstrom, Claude Loiselle, David Maley.LW&mdash;Aaron Broten, Perry Anderson, Andy Brickley, Doug Sulliman, Pat Conacher.RW&mdash;Pat Verbeek, John MacLean, Brendan Shanahan, Doug Brown.LD&mdash;Ken Daneyko, Randy Velischek, Murray Brumwell.RD&mdash;Craig Wolanin, Joe Cirella, Jack O&rsquo;Callahan.G&mdash;Bob Sauve, Alain Chevrier.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Anders Carlsson, LW, strained right knee ligaments, indefinite.Bruce Driver, D, sprained ankle, day-to-day.Jim Korn, LW, arthroscopic surgery left shoulder, indefinite.Tom Kurvers, D, groin pull, day-to-day.George McPhee, LW, groin pull, indefinite. &#9632;

f0020-02

Frustrated Linemates Connect Against Stars

YOU HOLLERED ABOUT the hockey, savored the skating and loved the luge.Picking a favorite moment from the 15th Winter Olympics is at least as difficult as settling on the finest song by The Beatles.But the favorite Olympic sport among many Canadians who make their livings mangling participles appeared to be American-bashing.By now, everyone should realize the Games have evolved into an orgy of nationalistic fervor.Spectators wrap themselves in their country&rsquo;s flag when a fellow citizen wins and cry into it when he or she loses.It doesn&rsquo;t matter that the athletes and their families are the ones who have sacrificed and suffered for all those years leading up to the Games.Those people were all but ignored the entire time but. dammit, they&rsquo;re performing for us now.Strip away that pseudo-patriotism, and the Olympics are little more than another world-class winter competition.Apparently, it is OK to become bloated with pride in the competitors from one&rsquo;s country, although that right is not to be extended to anyone else.Consider the words of one John McCallum, who was chronicling the scheduled TV coverage of the Games for The Province, a Vancouver newspaper.&ldquo;Stomach the American flag-waving,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;and catch ABC&rsquo;s 100 hours.&rdquo;A few hours after reading that, I watched the Canada-Poland telecast on CTV and heard &ldquo;We&rdquo; so many times I kept expecting to see the announcers take a shift.A few days later, Tony Gallagher of The Province wrote that while Team Canada&rsquo;s defensive style was somewhat boring, &ldquo;They&rsquo;re out there giving their best for us.&rdquo;Now, unless Dave King&rsquo;s team was representing a specific Vancouver media outlet&mdash;Team Typewriter, perhaps?&mdash;such a statement surely can be construed as a less-than-objective assessment.Same with a headline in the Vancouver Sun that read: &lsquo;Loose Lips sinks our curling ship.&rsquo;Most of us weren&rsquo;t aware The Sun even had an entry in the curling competition.(For the benefit of the uninitiated, curling appears to involve sliding land mines down a frozen bowling alley toward a bulls-eye. Kind of like horizontal darts.)When the U.S. lost its hockey game against the Soviet Union, the Toronto Globe and Mail&rsquo;s Al Strachan churned out a rather gloating piece about how America&rsquo;s failure to repeat its gold-medal miracle of 1980 was not likely to receive much sympathy.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03397/5444834-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="355" height="451"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dave Molinari</figcaption></div>Seeing &ldquo;you&rdquo; lose&mdash;ha, ha, ha&mdash;seemingly is as satisfying as watching &ldquo;us&rdquo; win.Then there was the braying in the public prints about how ABC had been allowed to dictate much of the Games&rsquo; scheduling, like having the American hockey team play its games in prime time.Imagine the audacity of that network, expecting any sort of consideration for the pittance of $309 million it turned over for the TV rights.Never mind that without that money, the Olympic budget would have been smaller than most folks&rsquo; monthly heating bill.Hey, it&rsquo;s an American network, and the U.S. is to blame for everything from unrest in the Middle East to the high winds that disrupted the ski jumping.Make no mistake: The U.S. has more problems than most countries have people.Prominent among them are rampant crime, poverty, and, yeah, probably an inflated opinion of its importance. At last check, the planet still was revolving around the sun, not the District of Columbia.But surely, the U.S. has few illusions about being the sort of paradise George Gross, corporate sports editor for The Sun newspapers of Canada, was describing when he wrote:&ldquo;Indeed, how the world must envy&mdash;or admire&mdash;us for being a country of economic stability, political maturity and human compassion. In short, the closest thing to what life may have been like on that small piece of land once inhabited by Adam and Eve.&rdquo;Of course, only an ill-mannered lout&mdash;specifically, an American&mdash;would perceive that as as example of the dreaded flag-waving.Just a simple statement of fact, eh?One last thought: If it weren&rsquo;t for the U.S., Canadians wouldn&rsquo;t have to worry about beating the Soviets.They&rsquo;d probably be playing for them. &#9632;

f0020-03

A Rap On The Knuckles For Canadian Flag-Wavers

<div class="byline">BY GYLE KONOTOPETZ</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02352/5444865-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="587" height="916"><figcaption class="caption-body">Calgary rookie sensation Joe Nieuwendyk refuses to rest on his laurels.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01632/5444872-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="178" height="137"></div>CALGARY&mdash;If Joe Nieuwendyk had a butler, he&rsquo;d probably offer to take out the garbage. If he had a chauffeur, he&rsquo;d insist on driving.At the rate Nieuwendyk has been going, he just may have a chauffeur and butler in his employ before too long.But that&rsquo;s not his style.While his celebrity status has grown, the 21-year-old Calgary Flame center hasn&rsquo;t loafed. He&rsquo;s just worked harder.&ldquo;I have a long way to go,&rdquo; Nieuwendyk said. &ldquo;I want to be a stronger skater, a stronger physical player, a Mark Messier-type.&rdquo;With 44 goals at the 64-game mark, the gangly kid from Whitby, Ont., was on a 55-goal pace that would break Mike Bossy&rsquo;s 10-year-old rookie record of 53.Nieuwendyk&rsquo;s style contrasts Bossy&rsquo;s. The New York Islander injured superstar&rsquo;s game was based on a graceful style, accentuated by a magnificent wrist shot.Nieuwendyk is an unorthodox skater who appears awkward&mdash;until he gets his stick on the puck.&ldquo;Bossy busts down the wing and blasts the biscuit,&rdquo; said Nieuwendyk, who has scored most of his goals in heavy traffic within 15 feet of the net. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t had too many of those.&rdquo;A lot of Nieuwendyk&rsquo;s goals haven&rsquo;t been pretty&mdash;one even deflected off his derriere&mdash;but that seems to suit him.His favorite player during his boyhood years was the hard-nosed Bobby Clarke of Philadelphia Flyers, even though he says he&rsquo;s &ldquo;still a Leafs&rsquo; fan.&rdquo;&ldquo;He was so intense all the time,&rdquo; Nieuwendyk says of Clarke, the Flyers&rsquo; general manager.Coach Terry Crisp&rsquo;s favorite response about his rookie center is, &ldquo;The kid doesn&rsquo;t read his press clippings.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s a pretty impressive scrapbook.Nieuwendyk had 28 power-play goals after 64 games, nearing Flyer Tim Kerr&rsquo;s NHL record of 34 in a season. Besides that, Nieuwendyk had already set or tied five club records: consecutive games scoring points (14); goals by a rookie in a season (44); points by a rookie in a season (75); goals in one game (tied record with two four-goal games); and power-play goals (28).Nieuwendyk&rsquo;s teammates admire him for his ability to cope with pressure and the limelight. His right winger, Hakan Loob, protests Nieuwendyk isn&rsquo;t really a rookie at all.For his part, Nieuwendyk deflects the pressure with a boyish grin. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t look at it as pressure. To me, it&rsquo;s responsibility. When I get the puck, I expect to score.&rdquo;He remains nonplussed when confronted with Calder Trophy nominations as rookie of the year. &ldquo;It would have been silly to think about it at the start of the year. My biggest concern was to make the team.&ldquo;Now, a Stanley Cup would be a nice way to top it off.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Left winger Jim Peplinski returned from Canada&rsquo;s Olympic team with a dramatic game-winning goal in the Flames&rsquo; 3-2 win in Edmonton on Feb. 28. it was Peplinski&rsquo;s first goal in nine NHL games and salvaged a 5-5-1 record on the longest road trip in club history&hellip;Right winger Hakan Loob wants to play for Sweden in the 1992 Olympics. He expects to be winding down his career in Sweden by that time&hellip;The addition of Czechoslovakian Olympian Jiri Hrdina and Canadian Olympian Brian Bradley on Feb. 29 swelled Calgary&rsquo;s roster of forwards to 17.<h2>FLAMES</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 25: Jim Johannson, C, from U.S. Olympic team, signed with Calgary, assigned to Salt Lake City (IHL).Feb. 26: Marc D&rsquo;Amour, G, recalled from Salt Lake City.Feb. 27: Rich Chernomaz, LW, assigned to Salt Lake City.Feb. 28: Jim Peplinski, LW, rejoined Calgary.Feb. 29: Jiri Hrdina, C, Czechoslovakian Olympic team, and Brian Bradley, C, Canadian Olympic team, reported to Calgary.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Mike Bullard, Joe Nieuwendyk, Joel Otto, Jiri Hrdina, Brian Bradley, Lanny McDonald.LW&mdash;John Tonelli, Jim Peplinski, Gary Roberts, Colin Patterson, Steve Bozek.RW&mdash;Joe Mullen, Hakan Loob, Brett Hull, Tim Hunter, Shane Churla.LD&mdash;Gary Suter, Dana Murzyn, Brian Glynn, Kevan Guy.RD&mdash;Brad McCrimmon, Al Maclnnis, Ric Nattress.G&mdash;Mike Vernon, Doug Dadswell, Marc D&rsquo;Amour.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Perry Berezan, C, groin injury, day-to-day.Jamie Macoun, D, nerve damage in arm and shoulder, indefinite.Paul Reinhart, D, back spasms, indefinite. &#9632;

f0021-02

Flame Rookie Sees Room For Improvement

<div class="byline">BY TIM CAMPBELL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01734/5444903-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="181" height="137"></div>WINNIPEG&mdash;They call him &lsquo;Beaner&rsquo; or &lsquo;The Bean.&rsquo;As in a hill of beans. As in what he&rsquo;s done for the Winnipeg Jets since he was their first pick, eighth overall, in the 1983 entry draft.But Andrew McBain has suddenly become a Mexican jumping bean, bouncing around in front of opposition nets as one of the Jets&rsquo; big power-play weapons.As March began, McBain had 28 goals&mdash;18 on the power play and four game-winners&mdash;and had risen from a hill of beans to become the rose on general manager John Ferguson&rsquo;s lapel. His work had helped Winnipeg total 90 power-play goals as of Feb. 29, nine short of the NHL record set by Pittsburgh in 1981-82 and tied by Quebec in 1985-86.The Toronto native scored 11 goals and 30 points as an 18-year-old rookie in 1983-84. He followed with seasons plagued not only by poor production (seven, three and 11 goals) but also a serious knee injury, mononucleosis and immaturity.&ldquo;When I first came to Winnipeg, I was 18 and had always lived with a family,&rdquo; McBain recounted. &ldquo;My meals were taken care of, there was curfew and everything like that.&ldquo;Then you&rsquo;re put in a sitation where you have all the money you want and you&rsquo;re living by yourself. My parents wanted me to live with a family. I said, &lsquo;Are you kidding me? I&rsquo;m 18, old enough to take care of myself.&rsquo;&ldquo;I was pretty much fooling myself&mdash;not necessarily going out and drinking my face off or staying out late, just cooking properly and stuff like that.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve really learned to take care of myself. What you do off the ice is just as important. It helps you on the ice.&rdquo;McBain&rsquo;s production this season has rewarded Ferguson&rsquo;s patience. But he&rsquo;s still a target for needling. He&rsquo;s known as &ldquo;Fergie&rsquo;s son.&rdquo;&ldquo;There&rsquo;s one thing about John Ferguson,&rdquo; McBain said. &ldquo;He is a very loyal man. I could have gotten mad at the organization when I didn&rsquo;t get played (in the past) but I didn&rsquo;t deserve to play because I wasn&rsquo;t playing that well.&ldquo;Of course I was his first pick. He&rsquo;s very stubborn when it comes to that. But I really thank the man. He&rsquo;s kept me around and stood by me. I don&rsquo;t mind it (the ribbing) at all.&rdquo;McBain actually taught Ferguson the virtues of patience.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s one thing I learned with Andrew McBain and that&rsquo;s patience,&rdquo; Fergie said. &ldquo;When I look back now, he probably should have been sent back (to junior). Then he had the knee, mono, and there was a great deal of pressure.&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t know if he had a great scoring touch but we&rsquo;re finding out he&rsquo;s matured a great deal in the last couple of years.&rdquo;Ferguson also said he had a reason to keep McBain around.&ldquo;When things were not going that good, he was one guy other clubs called about more than anybody,&rdquo; the GM said.McBain, once humorously accused of having the most interviews per NHL goal, got his big break when coach Dan Maloney decided to try him on the power play early this season.&ldquo;Just being on it gives you a lot more confidence,&rdquo; said McBain, 23. &ldquo;At the beginning, our power play was having problems. They didn&rsquo;t know who to put on and I didn&rsquo;t have any experience on it since junior (at North Bay).&ldquo;If I hadn&rsquo;t done anything on the power play, I wouldn&rsquo;t be there now. It&rsquo;s as simple as that.&rdquo;McBain has succeeded at standing in front of the net and also at one-timing passes&mdash;many from Dale Hawerchuk&mdash;for goals.&ldquo;And I think it&rsquo;s a smart move,&rdquo; McBain says about his taking a regular shift alongside Hawerchuk. &ldquo;We were kind of a one-line team before with Mac (Paul MacLean) and Dale together.&ldquo;Now, I&rsquo;ve taken some of the load and Mac can go with Thomas (Steen). And Bosch (Laurie Boschman) is having a good scoring year. They&rsquo;re always going to key on Dale, he&rsquo;s one of the best, but now we&rsquo;ve got three lines.&rdquo;With 11 goals and 32 points as previous career bests, McBain hasn&rsquo;t had much experience with scoring streaks. Or slumps.But as March began he already had 51 points. Enough that three goals and one assist in nine games constituted a slump.&ldquo;It feels like a slump because I had been so hot,&rdquo; said McBain, who scored a power-play winner in a 3-1 win at New Jersey Feb. 24 and another power-play goal in a 5-3 loss Feb. 28 at Buffalo.&ldquo;I was getting a little worried there because I hadn&rsquo;t scored in three or four games,&rdquo; McBain said. &ldquo;Before, I&rsquo;d think nothing of it. I&rsquo;ve gone through 20 games before.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;After his team was outshot 45-12 but won 3-1 over the Devils thanks to goalie Daniel Berthiaume, Jets&rsquo; GM John Ferguson stood in the press box at The Meadowlands and wryly declared it a &lsquo;Miracle on Ice&rsquo;&hellip;The 12 shots against the Devils set a team record for fewest in one game. The previous mark was 14, set in a 7-3 loss at Montreal on Jan. 15, 1981.<h2>JETS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 22: Pokey Reddick, G, assigned to Moncton (AHL); Steve Penney, G, recalled from Moncton.Feb. 23: Signed Don McLaren, RW, of Canadian Olympic Team. Assigned McLaren to Moncton.Feb. 28: Randy Gilhen, LW, and Todd Flichel, D, recalled from Moncton.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Dale Hawerchuk, Thomas Steen, Laurie Boschman. Ron Wilson.LW&mdash;lain Duncan, Hannu Jarvenpaa, Gilles Hamel, Brad Jones, Dwight Schofield, Randy Gilhen.RW&mdash;Andrew McBain, Paul MacLean, Ray Neufeld, Mark Kumpel.LD&mdash;Dave El left, Randy Carlyle, Brad Berry.RD&mdash;Fredrik Olausson, Mario Marois, Peter Taglianetti, Todd Flichel.G&mdash;Daniel Berthiaume, Steve Penney.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Jim Kyte, D, stretched back ligaments, day-to-day.Steve Rooney, LW, fractured rib, day-to-day.Doug Smail, LW, bruised knee, day-to-day. &#9632;

f0022-01

McBain Now Piling Up Goals For Winnipeg

THREE YEARS AGO, a small book store burned down on Rue Sherbrooke in Montreal. Of the 500-plus employees who travel regularly with NHL teams, John Cunniff probably was the only one who knew it.&ldquo;The guy&rsquo;s back in business,&rdquo; Cunniff said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s moved down the street and opened another shop. He specializes in used books. I was there the last time we were in Montreal.&rdquo;Cunniff may not be the NHL&rsquo;s all-time most prodigious reader, but he&rsquo;s in the finals.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always been a reader, even as a kid,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It began with those &lsquo;How To&hellip;&rsquo; books. You know, &lsquo;How To Play Football.&rsquo; I wanted to learn how to do things.&rdquo;Like how to play hockey?&ldquo;That, too,&rdquo; he said.Cunniff is in his second season as the Boston Bruin assistant coach under Terry O&rsquo;Reilly. He&rsquo;s generally recognized as the brains of an outfit that has made considerable noise this season.&ldquo;Everybody&rsquo;s saying that, but I don&rsquo;t go along with it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Terry and I basically think the same. We have the same philosophy. Hockey is a confrontational sport. It is a hard game to play. You can get hurt playing this game.&rdquo;Hockey was Cunniffs ticket off Second Street in South Boston, a tough place for any kid to grow up.&ldquo;If you wanted to stay in my neighborhood and keep your respect, you fought,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We fought just about every day.&rdquo;Cunniff escaped by becoming an All-America at Boston College and a member of the 1968 U.S. Olympic team. He played professionally for seven seasons in the AHL, CHL and World Hockey Association with the New England Whalers. There he solidified a relationship with Larry Pleau, who knew of Cunniff&rsquo;s untapped potential. When Pleau became GM of the Whalers, he hired Cunniff.In 1982-83, Cunniff began as coach of Binghamton in the AHL, joined Pleau in Hartford as an assistant coach at mid-season and finished the year as Hartford&rsquo;s acting head coach.When Whaler bosses, Howard Baldwin and Donald Conrad, announced a &ldquo;Czar Hunt&rdquo; March 15,1983, most employees ran for cover.Not Cunniff.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t wait to see who this new Czarina will be,&rdquo; he said.Those were tough times for Cunniff, Pleau and the rest.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02517/5444934-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="421" height="475"><figcaption class="caption-body">Randy Smith</figcaption></div>&ldquo;We were so close,&rdquo; Cunniff said. &ldquo;A lot of things were in place. Billy Dineen, Larry and me, well, our mistakes were behind us.&rdquo;Ronnie Francis and Paul MacDermid already were in Hartford, and Kevin Dineen, Ulf Samuelsson and Ray Ferraro had been drafted.&ldquo;All Howard had to do was bite the bullet, but he couldn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Cunniff said.When Emile Francis took over the Whalers in May, 1983, he retained Cunniff as a scout, a position he served for three years before joining the Bruins.Cunniff and O&rsquo;Reilly have formed a strong alliance.Cunniff has a lot of respect for O&rsquo;Reilly, who attended coaching clinics over the summer to improve his game.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s interesting,&rdquo; Cunniff said. &ldquo;Terry had enough confidence in himself to get help in other areas. Not many individuals do that. When a guy is aggressive, the public perception is that he&rsquo;s not too smart. It&rsquo;s usually the other way around. Take Jay Miller, for example. He&rsquo;s really a sharp kid. Terry&rsquo;s a bright guy, too.&rdquo;Although the two work hand in hand, it is O&rsquo;Reilly who makes the final decisions, Cunniff said.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s up to the head coach to say, &lsquo;This is what we&rsquo;re going to do,&rsquo;&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the job. I like the teaching end. I like to coach.&rdquo;Asked if he aspired to become a head coach, Cunniff said, &ldquo;Oh yeah, but I&rsquo;m having a lot of fun right now.&rdquo;More than once along the way, Cunniff has had to reach into his own pocket to attend clinics to stay in touch with a game that never ceases to amaze him. He understands the school of hard knocks and always has.At 43, he has grown into one of Boston&rsquo;s strangest creations&mdash;a scholarly Southie.&ldquo;All the kids I grew up with are either dead or in jail,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got no complaints.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0022-02

Coaches O’Reilly, Cunniff Are Bruins’ Dynamic Duo

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01714/5444996-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="178" height="133"></div>EDMONTON&mdash;Faith has been restored in the NHL&rsquo;s 50-goal club.Six years ago, Wayne Gretzky made a mockery of the charmed circle, popping 50 goals in 39 games and going on to score 92 for the season. Talk of a 100-goal campaign began circulating&mdash;especially considering the number of breakaways Gretzky missed en route to 92.Sanity, however, has since returned to the goal-scoring ranks as Gretzky fell to 62 last season, and only four others joined him in the 50-goal club.The newest member of this once-again exclusive fraternity will likely be Craig Simpson, whose nine goals in seven games gave him 42 on the season.&ldquo;It seems to go in cycles,&rdquo; said Simpson. &ldquo;It seems like everything you shoot goes in, while other days you can&rsquo;t buy one. So I just have to take advantage of the situation when it&rsquo;s ripe.&rdquo;About the only time Simpson experienced difficulty locating the net was when he first joined the Oilers&mdash;and only on home ice. He scored eight goals in his first five road games following the Nov. 24 blockbuster trade with Pittsburgh. But, he didn&rsquo;t find the mark at home until his seventh game.&ldquo;He just turned 21 (Feb. 15) and he&rsquo;s already got 42 goals,&rdquo; said manager-coach Glen Sather. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what he could end up with if that line (Mark Messier-Glenn Anderson-Simpson) keeps going the way it has been. They&rsquo;ve been dominating every line they&rsquo;ve played against.&rdquo;If Simpson keeps on tipping home shots from close range, he&rsquo;ll undoubtedly cost Sather a few quid, too.It&rsquo;s rumored Simpson has a unique bonus clause for goals in the contract he signed with the Pittsburgh Penguins. For every goal over 25, he&rsquo;s said to receive $ 1,000&mdash;along with a $25,000 bonus for 50. That&rsquo;s 50 grand for 50 goals. Nice work if you can get it.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s way off,&rdquo; said Simpson, who admitted he does have bonuses for 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 and so on.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d be lying if I was to say I wouldn&rsquo;t like to get 50,&rdquo; said Simpson, who had 16 games in which to score eight goals. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s not the end-all. The main pride is for the team to win games and I don&rsquo;t want to get caught up in any kind of goal-scoring race. I&rsquo;m just excited to be in a position to have a chance of finishing first overall.&rdquo;According to Simpson, Messier makes the line work.&ldquo;Our line&rsquo;s been hot and Mark&rsquo;s been fantastic,&rdquo; said the 6-foot-2, 185-pounder. &ldquo;When he&rsquo;s on top of his game, it makes it easier for Andy (Anderson) and I. They (opponents) tend to concentrate on him. When that happens I have a tendency to get chances, because he creates so much havoc on the ice.&ldquo;The key to this team&rsquo;s success is there are a lot of superstars on it, but everyone is considered equal. On some teams that don&rsquo;t win, a lot of guys are only out for themselves.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I haven&rsquo;t really been concentrating on 50 goals. I can&rsquo;t wait for the playoffs. Guys like Davey Hannan. Keith Acton and myself walk around shaking our heads at the atmosphere around here.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Wayne Gretzky returned from a three-game stint on the sidelines, after he was accidentallly clipped on the left eye, but failed to register the assist that would put him past Gordie Howe as No. 1 on the career list. They were tied at 1,049&hellip;The Oilers have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of defenseman Randy Gregg from the Canadian Olympic team. Manager-coach Glen Sather gave Gregg a couple of days off following the Winter Games&hellip;Sather has also been attempting to coax goalie Andy Moog to rejoin the Oilers, but apparently with little successs. Moog wants to go elsewhere in order not to play second fiddle to Grant Fuhr&hellip;The Oilers were scouting Pittsburgh goaltender Steve Guenette, lending credence to the theory there&rsquo;s a trade in the works.<h2>OILERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Mike Krushelnyski, Keith Acton.LW&mdash;Craig Simpson, Dave Hannan, Esa Tikkanen, Craig MacTavish.RW&mdash;Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson, Marty McSorley, Kevin McClelland, Normand Lacombe.LD&mdash;Kevin Lowe, Steve Smith, Steve Dykstra.RD&mdash;Jeff Beukeboom, Craig Muni, Charlie Huddy, Selmar Odelein.G&mdash;Grant Fuhr, Daryl Reaugh.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None. &#9632;

f0024-01

Scoring 50 Won’t Be ‘End-All’ For Simpson

<div class="byline">BY TONY GALLAGHER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01627/5445027-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="179" height="131"></div>VANCOUVER&mdash;The Smythe Division playoff sun, which earlier this season shone brightly over the Vancouver Canucks, began sinking slowly in the west.The 2-0 loss to Los Angeles Kings Feb. 28 at Pacific Coliseum, was crushing to the Canucks in two ways. Not only were they shut out for the second time in four home games against the team with the worst goals-against average in the league, but they also fell six points behind L.A. in the I laughable race for the final playoff spot in the division. The Canucks mustered just 13 shots on goal, three in the final period when offense was essential.With veteran captain Stan Smyl and their best offensive defenseman, Doug Lidster, both out with injuries, the need for offense has never been greater. And while they don&rsquo;t expect miracles from Steve Tambellini, they certainly plan to use the Olympian center upon his return from Team Canada.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re hoping Tambellini will be able to come back and give us a shot in the arm offensively,&rdquo; said hockey operations director Brian Burke, who has high hopes that the Soviets might someday release Canuck draft choices Igor Larionov and Vladimir Krutov to provide some bounce to the attack. &ldquo;Doug Wickenheiser hasn&rsquo;t been able to produce offensively like we&rsquo;d hoped, and offense is Tambellini&rsquo;s strong suit.&rdquo;The native of Trail, B.C., who was picked up along with two other NHL players for the Olympic tournament, didn&rsquo;t exactly run wild in the competition. He scored just one goal, and missed on his most glorious opportunity&mdash;a first-period chance against the Soviets. But nonetheless, he enjoyed the Olympic experience and said he was looking forward to getting back and helping out the team.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been good,&rdquo; said Tambellini. &ldquo;Everyone seemed-to have about the same amount of ice time and the feeling on the team was pretty good, even for us new guys. The Soviets were the best team, but we were right in the thick of it. The game against the Finns hurt us. We would like to have had one period back. But other than that, we played about as well &ldquo;as we could have.&rdquo;Tambellini&rsquo;s father, Addie, played on the &rsquo;61 world-champion Trail Smoke Eaters, so getting into the Olympics was something of a dream fulfillment for the veteran center who has a Stanley Cup ring from his New York Islander days.&ldquo;It was fun, I was happy to be able to get the opportunity,&rdquo; said Tambellini, 29. &ldquo;You have sort of mixed feelings leaving the team in the middle of the season, but you do what is asked of you.&rdquo;The Canucks had not been using Tambellini much prior to the Olympics, but with the evident lack of offense, he was almost certain to get a chance to add to his totals of 10 goals and 10 assists in 39 games. Coach Bob McCammon, not as sold on Tambellini&rsquo;s ability on the power play as former coach Tom Watt, said he&rsquo;d likely give him a shot at the point with the man advantage again.NOTES&mdash;Claude Vilgrain also joined the Canucks from the Olympic team and Ken Berry was expected to follow. Berry was offered a contract for the remaining weeks of the season, while Vilgrain was under contract, being paid his minor-league salary while playing for Dave King. Vilgrain was promised at least five games with the Canucks before any decision would be made on his future&hellip;Brian Burke said the Canucks had looked at the possibility of bringing in free-agent defenseman Tony Stiles, who was also being checked out by Minnesota.<h2>CANUCKS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 29: Steve Tambellini, C, and Claude Vilgrain, RW, recalled from Canadian Olympic team.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Barry Pederson, Greg Adams, Doug Wickenheiser, Steve Tambellini.LW&mdash;Dave Lowry, Petri Skriko, John Leblanc, Dave Saunders, Dave Bruce, Craig Coxe.RW&mdash;Rich Sutter, Jim Sandlak, Tony Tanti, Ron Stern.LD&mdash;Jim Benning, Randy Boyd, Larry Melnyk, Daryl Stanley.RD&mdash;Garth Butcher, Dave Richter, Willie Huber.G&mdash;Frank Caprice, Kirk McLean.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Dan Hodgson, C, fractured leg, out for season.Doug Lidster, D, strained knee, indefinite.Stan Smyl, RW, groin pull, day-to-day. &#9632;

f0025-01

Canucks Hope Tambellini Can Add Offense

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01665/5445058-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ex-Ranger Ron Duguay was getting more ice time in Los Angeles and responded by scoring in his first game with the Kings.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02464/5445065-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="184" height="131"></div>LOS ANGELES&mdash;The Los Angeles Kings overcame their biggest psychological hurdle of all in the battle to maintain the fourth and last playoff spot in the Smythe Division.They won a game at Vancouver&rsquo;s Pacific Coliseum, where they had not won in more than two seasons. The 2-0 victory Feb. 28 put the Kings six points up on the Canucks&mdash;55 to 49&mdash;with 13 games left for L.A. and 14 for Vancouver.Rookie Glenn Healy, whose toughest task was staying awake, needed to stop only 13 shots to record his first NHL shutout.The Kings had gone 0-6-2 in Vancouver since taming the Canucks 9-7, way back on Jan. 17, 1986.The shutout was the club&rsquo;s third of the season&mdash;Rollie Melanson had the other two&mdash;and second within a week. The Kings still owned the worst defensive record in the league, but under coach Robbie Ftorek have tightened things up considerably while playing close to .500.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re learning how to play Robbie&rsquo;s style,&rdquo; Bobby Carpenter said. &ldquo;It takes a while to learn a defensive system. Anyone can play a run-and-gun style. We&rsquo;re starting to have confidence in it and everybody&rsquo;s doing it.&rdquo;The Kings were permitting 5.1 goals per game when Ftorek took over from Mike Murphy on Dec. 9. Since then, they had allowed 3.9 goals per game in going 18-20-1.Not great, but a significant improvement.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;We&rsquo;re making teams work harder to come out of their zone. It&rsquo;s great to see the forwards doing that.&rsquo; &mdash;Melanson</blockquote>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re taking care of the slot a lot better,&rdquo; said Melanson, who was 7-4 with a 3.30 average and .898 save percentage since Jan. 19. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s definitely room for improvement, but we&rsquo;ve been playing pretty well. It&rsquo;s a positive sign for us.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been in a lot of tight-checking games lately and it&rsquo;s nice to see us learning to play that type of game. It&rsquo;s very encouraging.&ldquo;I mean, you look at the films of games earlier in the year and now. There&rsquo;s quite a difference. When guys don&rsquo;t have plays, they&rsquo;re dumping it in, making safe plays. We&rsquo;re cutting down on errant passes and there aren&rsquo;t as many 2-on-l and 3-on-2 rushes the other way. It&rsquo;s so much easier for a goaltender.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re making teams work harder to come out of their zone. It&rsquo;s great to see the forwards doing that.&rdquo;The Kings&rsquo; improvement was never more apparent than in the win over Vancouver, when the Canucks were limited to six shots during even-strength situations.That, and outstanding penalty-killing, has paid dividends. In 77 disadvantages, the Kings allowed only eight goals, an 89.6 success percentage.&ldquo;The guys just did a great job in front of me. They deserve the credit,&rdquo; Healy said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great feeling to get a shutout. It&rsquo;s something you dream about.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;The trade which sent Mark Hardy to the Rangers for Ron Duguay didn&rsquo;t exactly catch the 29-year-old defenseman by surprise. &ldquo;I thought it was coming,&rdquo; said Hardy, who had been a King for nine years. &ldquo;I was playing the best hockey of my life (earlier in the season), then I was kind of up-and-down and my ice time was getting cut. My play was not as consistent as it had been.&rdquo; The object of Forum boo-birds for several seasons, Hardy began seeing a hypnotist because the jeers bothered him so much&hellip;Duguay, relegated to spot duty in New York, was seeing a regular shift with the Kings and killing penalties. He scored a goal in his first game-&hellip;Duguay was playing on a unit with fellow ex-Rangers Paul Fenton and Mike Allison. It was quickly dubbed the Off-Broadway Line&hellip;Craig Laughlin had three goals and eight points in eight games, after collecting five goals and 10 points in 40 games with Washington.<h2>KINGS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 22: Mark Hardy, D, traded to New York Rangers for Ron Duguay, RW.Feb. 28: Paul Guay, RW, assigned to New Haven (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Jimmy Carson, Bernie Nicholls, Bobby Carpenter, Mike Allison.RW&mdash;Dave Taylor, Jim Fox, Craig Laughlin, Ron Duguay.LW&mdash;Lyle Phair, Phil Sykes, Luc Robitaille, Bob Bourne, Paul Fenton.RD&mdash;Ken Hammond, Steve Duchesne, Dean Kennedy.LD&mdash;Tom Laidlaw, Ken Baumgartner, Larry Playfair.G&mdash;Rollie Melanson, Glenn Healy.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Jay Wells, D, groin, day-to-day. &#9632;

f0026-01

Kings Break Free In Fight For Playoff Berth

<div class="byline">BY KEITH GAVE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01616/5445096-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="186" height="134"></div>DETROIT&mdash;As Detroit Red Wing coach Jacques Demers waited to board the team&rsquo;s charter home from Quebec City Feb. 27, he heard the result of that evening&rsquo;s St. Louis-Toronto game. And he winced.The Blues, his old team, had beaten the Leafs 6-2 at Maple Leafs Gardens. It was like salt on an open wound.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s seven points now,&rdquo; Demers said, referring to the ever-shrinking margin separating his first-place-but-slumping team from St. Louis in the Norris Division. &ldquo;God, I hope they don&rsquo;t do what they did to us last year.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Hey, the Montreal Canadiens just lost five in a row. They came out of it&hellip;We&rsquo;ll come out of it.&rsquo; &mdash;Demers</blockquote>The Blues put together a furious rush in the final two weeks, climaxed by a thrilling overtime victory in Detroit on the final day of the season to wrest first place from the Wings.And now, heading into the 1988 home stretch, the Wings put the skids on one of the best streaks in the NHL this season. They had lost four straight after losing just four times in their previous 24 games&mdash;a stretch that prompted Demers and his players to begin talk of challenging for first place overall in the NHL.But the slump had Demers second-guessing himself, especially after his team embarrassed itself in front of its own fans.&ldquo;Maybe I should have gone nuts,&rdquo; he said, reflecting on his calm approach after the Wings blew a 5-1 lead en route to an embarrassing 11-6 loss to the Flyers at Joe Louis Arena, Feb. 23.But that would have been too predictable. And Demers is anything but predictable to his players. He likes to keep them guessing.So he tried to laugh it off and forget it. He didn&rsquo;t yell at his players after the game. He didn&rsquo;t even look at the tape and yell at them the next morning at practice. In fact, the Wings didn&rsquo;t even have practice the next day. Demers gave his players the day off.The players responded by losing two more, in a home-and-home series with the Quebec Nordiques. But Demers refused to panic.&ldquo;Hey, the Montreal Canadiens just lost five in a row,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They came out of it. And Calgary lost something like four or five in a row. We&rsquo;ll come out of it. But it (the Norris race) is tightening up, eh?&rdquo;A positive note amid the slump was that 22-year-old captain Steve Yzerman&rsquo;s 100th point (49-51) at Quebec Feb. 27.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nothing special,&rdquo; Yzerman said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care.&rdquo;So what is special?&ldquo;Fifty goals,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s harder to get than 100 points.&rdquo;Yzerman needed 22 points to surpass Marcel Dionne&rsquo;s 1974-75 club record of 121 points in a season. The Wings had 17 games remaining. Yzerman had averaged about 1.6 points per game this season, which would give him 126 points for the season if he kept up the pace.NOTES&mdash;Jacques Demers claimed to be upset at the way the St. Louis Blues are treating his successor as coach, Jacques Martin. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a total injustice what they&rsquo;re doing to him,&rdquo; Demers said, commenting on reports that Martin&rsquo;s job depends on how well the Blues do in the playoffs. &ldquo;Look what he&rsquo;s done with that team the last two seasons, and they&rsquo;re doing that to him. And people wonder why I left. &ldquo;&hellip;Defenseman Mike O&rsquo;Connell underwent surgery to repair a broken left index finger, and will miss the remainder of the regular season&hellip;After missing nearly two months with ligament damage to his lower left leg, Greg Stefan was scheduled to return early in March.<h2>RED WINGS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 24: Joe Murphy, LW, recalled from Adirondack (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Steve Yzerman, Adam Oates, John Chabot, Shawn Burr, Mel Bridgman.LW&mdash;Gerard Gallant, Petr Klima, Brent Ashton, Joe Murphy.RW&mdash;Bob Probert, Dave Barr, Jim NilL Tim Higgins, Joe Kocur.LD&mdash;Jeff Sharpies, Doug Halward, Lee Norwood, Harold Snepsts.RD&mdash;Darren Veitch, Gilbert Delorme.G&mdash;Glen Hanlon, Sam St. Laurent.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Steve Chiasson, D, separated right shoulder, day-to-day.Mike O&rsquo;Connell, D, hand, April 5.Greg Stefan, G, bruised left knee, day-to-day.Rick Zombo, D, shoulder, day-to-day. &#9632;

f0027-01

Four-Game Slump Kills Wings’ Momentum

<div class="byline">BY JERRY ZGODA</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01638/5445127-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="179" height="134"></div>BLOOMINGTON, Minn.&mdash;The Minnesota North Stars have become so refined in the art of losing that defeat can be defined in one of two categories&mdash;satisfying and unsatisfying.Mark down an 8-6 loss to New Jersey Feb. 28 in the latter category, a 7-4 loss to Boston Feb. 27 in the former and a 4-2 defeat in Toronto Feb. 24 as a bit of both.The first loss, to the Maple Leafs at the start of a five-game trip, dropped the Stars five points away from the final Norris Division playoff spot. The last of the trip, to the Devils, came after the Stars led 3-0 after 12 minutes and 5-4 in the second period. The middle one, to the Bruins, came after the Stars led 2-0 after 34 seconds. They still lost 7-4, but coach Herb Brooks called it &ldquo;a great effort, a tremendous effort.&rdquo;Together, the three losses dropped the Stars, who have been playing with as many as 10 regulars out of the lineup because of injuries, another step closer to first choice overall in the June draft. And the losses dropped the Stars another step closer to perhaps the third-worst season in franchise history.After 64 games, the Stars were 1738-9 for 43 points, worst in the NHL.Brooks was satisfied with his team&rsquo;s play against Boston because it battled the Bruins all game. The Stars trailed 5-4 in the third period until the Bruins added two goals in the final 3:19 of play.He also said he was &ldquo;very proud and very happy&rdquo; of the game they played in Toronto. But that result and the entire game at New Jersey were less than satisfying.Against Toronto, the Stars had a chance to complete a home-and-home series sweep and pull within a point of the Leafs. The Stars beat Toronto 4-2 at home Feb. 22 but lost by the same score two nights later. Ed Olczyk scored a breakaway shorthanded goal late in the second period for the eventual winning goal. Suddenly, the Stars, who had recorded just 12 points in 24 games in 1988, were facing a steep climb.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a serious situation, no question about it,&rdquo; Brooks said. &ldquo;But until you&rsquo;re mathematically eliminated, you persevere. And even then, you still do it because of the pride of professional athletes. We&rsquo;re trying and we&rsquo;re going to keep trying.&rdquo;For those of you keeping score at home (and Brooks is), the Stars were approaching 400 man-games lost this season. Neal Broten, Dennis Maruk, Curt Fraser were out for the season; Scott Bjugstad, Terry Ruskowski and Shawn Chambers out indefinitely; Craig Hartsburg, Brian Lawton and Moe Mantha on a day-to-day basis.Most upsetting of all, Brooks looked for leadership from his few healthy veterans but found it mostly from his rookies.Until Brian Bellows scored the team&rsquo;s final goal in the 8-6 loss at New Jersey, the Stars&rsquo; goal production came from five players who had 13 goals between them this season. Pat Micheletti scored the second of his career, Rick Boh added his second career goal and Stephane Roy his first to lead the Stars to a stunning 3-0 lead&mdash;just one day after Boh and Basil McRae scored in 34 seconds at Boston.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know who New Jersey beat today,&rdquo; Brooks said. &ldquo;I think they beat Kalamazoo 8-6. We get our first three goals from three rookies and a couple of our NHLers didn&rsquo;t do anything. You would think that, up 3-0, we&rsquo;d be able to handle it in an intelligent way&mdash;and we didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;It&rsquo;s a serious situation, no question about it. But until you&rsquo;re mathematically eliminated, you persevere.&rsquo; &mdash;Brooks</blockquote>And the Stars, who lost veteran defenseman Moe Mantha on a day-to-day basis because of a bruised kneecap, will look to more newcomers for help. Team Canada center Marc Habscheid, a former Star, signed Feb. 29, and general manager Lou Nanne was also trying to sign free-agent winger Wally Schreiber and defenseman Tony Stiles, two other members of the Canadian Olympic team.NOTES&mdash;Moe Mantha left the Jersey game after Doug Sullitnan sent him crashing into the boards early in the second period&hellip;Shawn Chambers suffered his fourth shoulder injury this season, dislocated this time, at Toronto and may be lost for the season. He will undergo surgery at season&rsquo;s end&hellip;Brian Lawton missed all three games because of bruised ribs, suffered when teammate Frantisek Musil accidentally cross-checked him in the 4-2 victory over Toronto at home.<h2>NORTH STARS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 22: Mitch Messier, RW, recalled from Kalamazoo (IHL).Feb. 24: Kirk Tomlinson, LW, recalled from Oshawa (OHL).Feb. 25: Tomlinson assigned to Oshawa.Feb. 26: Emanuel Viveiros, D, recalled from Kalamazoo.Feb. 29: Marc Habscheid, C, Canadian Olympic team, signed as free agent.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Dave Gagner, Dave Archibald, Bob Brooke, Richard Zemlak, Marc Habscheid.LW&mdash;Brian Bellows, Basil McRae, Brian MacLellan, Stephane Roy.RW&mdash;Dino Ciccarelli, Rick Boh, Mitch Messier.LD&mdash;Curt Giles, Frantisek Musil, Emanuel Viveiros.RD&mdash;Bob Rouse, Mike Berger.G&mdash;Kari Takko, Don Beaupre.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Scott Bjugstad, LW, strained knee ligaments, indefinite.Neal Broten, C, reconstructive shoulder surgery, out for season.Shawn Chambers, D, dislocated shoulder, indefinite.Curt Fraser, LW, viral infection, out for season.Craig Hartsburg, D, hernia operation, day-to-day.Tom Hirsch, D, shoulder, day-to-day.Brian Lawton, C, bruised ribs, day-to-day.Moe Mantha, D, bruised kneecap, day-to-day.Dennis Maruk, C, surgery to repair shattered kneecap, out for season.Terry Ruskowski, LW, torn knee ligaments, indefinite. &#9632;

f0028-01

Losing No Simple Matter With North Stars

Mark Dineley of Mississauga, Ont., is an 11-year-old center/right winger on the Toronto Young Nationals. He has been on the team for two years.He won the Manager&rsquo;s Trophy for effort and determination in the peewee-to-novice age group for the Young Nationals. He&rsquo;s 4 feet tall and 68 pounds.Mark&rsquo;s favorite National Hockey League team is the Montreal Canadiens but when it comes to individual players his tastes change. His favorite player is New York Islander right winger Mike Bossy. Bossy scored at least 50 goals for nine straight seasons, but is out this season with an injured back and Mark misses watching his hero.Mark is in Grade 5 at St. Elizabeth Seton School in Mississauga. His goal is to continue playing hockey in college or professionally.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02452/5445158-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="576" height="1131"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARK DINELEY</figcaption></div>You or someone you know can be part of the TITAN-JOFA Minor Hockey Showcase. Just send a photograph, along with biographical information (age, height, weight, team, coach&rsquo;s name, school and grade, as well as favorite NHL team and player) to: TITAN-JOFA SHOWCASE, C/O THE HOCKEY NEWS, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont. All entries submitted will be eligible for selection as THN/TITAN-JOFA Minor Hockey Player of the Year. &#9632;

f0028-02

PLAYER OF WEEK

<div class="byline">BY STEVE DRYDEN Associate Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01549/5445189-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="178" height="144"></div>TORONTO&mdash;A stormy week came to an end as it began for the Toronto Maple Leafs.With a loss.But you wouldn&rsquo;t have known it from coach John Brophy&rsquo;s behavior. Because during a six-day period he underwent a much-needed metamorphosis.After opening the week with a blistering attack on his players following a 4-2 loss in Minnesota, he closed it with a subdued post-mortem in the wake of a 6-2 loss to St. Louis.&ldquo;Who are these people who drag that uniform into the mud?&rdquo; he thundered Feb. 22 in Minnesota.Among other things, he accused his players of trying to get people fired with their poor performances. (For more details, see Steve Dryden on page 14.)Two days later, Toronto doubled up Minnesota 4-2, ending a 12-game winless streak at home against the North Stars. Not since Feb. 27, 1985 had Minnesota lost at Maple Leaf Gardens.But within three days, the Leafs were soundly beaten by St. Louis. An opportunity to put additional space between themselves and the last-place North Stars was lost.Yet Brophy was remarkably calm.&ldquo;It seems every time we get a chance to move ahead, we come up with our worst efforts,&rdquo; he said quietly Feb. 27. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why we don&rsquo;t seem to get cranked for big games.&rdquo; Motivation has been a problem in more than big games. In 53 games since Nov. 5 the Leafs had won two games in a row just twice.Brophy&rsquo;s withering words at the Met Center made an impact in the dressing room, where players were diplomatic but obviously disappointed in their coach.&ldquo;Sometimes when John explodes on us,&rdquo; said right winger Mark Osborne, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think he realizes we&rsquo;re really affected by it. We really take it personally.&rdquo;Brophy, too, took it personally. Assistant coach Garry Lariviere had a more visible role during a couple of the week&rsquo;s practices. More importantly, Brophy was more relaxed behind the bench at home against Minnesota and St. Louis.&ldquo;He really took it out on us verbally,&rdquo; continued Osborne, &ldquo;and I think he realized he&rsquo;d have to let up a little bit.&rdquo;Perhaps he decided the team needed him to temper his enthusiasm for winning more than throw another temper tantrum.The most prominent reason for Toronto&rsquo;s troubles this year is the same as it has been since 1979-80. Just once during the past eight years have the Leafs had a season-end goals-against average below the 3.99 mark.Before games Feb. 27, only the leaky Los Angeles Kings (4.38) had a more porous defense than the Leafs (4.10).The loss to St. Louis dropped Toronto&rsquo;s record to 0-31-4 in games it failed to score more than three goals.There was a time when one man who could be counted on for defensive heroics was Borje Salming. The Maple Leafs acknowledged that before the St. Louis game.Salming, the 36-year-old who did more to legitimize the use of Europeans in the NHL than any other Swede, was honored for playing his 1,000th NHL game on Jan. 4.Plans to celebrate the occasion earlier were postponed when owner Harold Ballard suffered a heart attack and couldn&rsquo;t be present.The Leafs, Blues and NHL made Feb. 27 a night to remember for Salming.First, he was presented with an NHL milestone award. Then, St. Louis presented Salming with a City of St. Louis Arch Award.Next, the Leafs gave him a ring and commemorative silver plate. And finally, a blue Chevy Blazer truck was driven onto the ice with the numbers 21 (Salming&rsquo;s sweater number) and 1,000 emblazoned on it.When the truck came to a halt, Salming&rsquo;s parents, brother and sister piled out in a surprise visit from Kiruna, Sweden. At the wheel was Inge Hammarstrom, the winger who came to Toronto along with Salming in 1973.A detailed script was prepared for the pre-game ceremony.The only thing left off was the game&rsquo;s outcome. Salming, with one goal and 22 assists in 50 games, admitted it would have been a nice touch had he scored a goal.But apart from an assist, his principal contribution on the night were a pair of penalties that led to St. Louis powerplay goals.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to get a streak going,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We know Minnesota is going to get something going&hellip;It&rsquo;s hard to describe why we can&rsquo;t come up with two good games in a row.&rdquo;One saving grace was that Minnesota had put together just two winning streaks of two games in length since Dec. 1.NOTES&mdash;Russ Courtnall, out two games with a virus, had two goals in his last 23 games. He is not among John Brophy&rsquo;s favorites&hellip;Ed Olczyk, the Leafs&rsquo; best forward this season, had 33 goals&mdash;four more than his previous season high&hellip;Wendel Clark visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., to have his injured back examined. No test results had yet been released. He&rsquo;s expected out the remainder of the season&hellip;Peter Ihnacak&rsquo;s two goals in the home-ice win over Minnesota were his first since Dec. 15&hellip;Defenseman Dale DeGray was a welcome addition after missing 15 games with a separated shoulder.<h2>MAPLE LEAFS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 22: Mike Blaisdell, RW, recalled from Newmarket (AHL).Feb. 25: Mike Stothers, D, and Jeff Reese, G, sent to Newmarket.Feb. 28: Reese recalled from Newmarket.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Ed Olczyk, Tom Fergus, Peter Ihnacak, Dan Daoust.LW&mdash;Al Secord, Vincent Damphousse, Greg Terrion, Dave Semenko.RW&mdash;Mark Osborne, Mirko Frycer, Gary Leeman, Mike Blaisdell, Sean McKenna.LD&mdash;Borje Salming, Todd Gill, Luke Richardson.RD&mdash;Dale DeGray, Rick Lanz, Al lafrate, Ted Fauss.G&mdash;Ken Wregget, Jeff Reese.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Allan Bester, G, sprained left knee, day-to-day.Wendel Clark, LW, back, out for season.Russ Courtnail, C, virus, day-to-day.Chris Kotsopoulos, D, groin muscle, out for season.Brad Smith, RW, back, indefinite. &#9632;

f0029-01

Leafs Keep On Trucking…In Wrong Direction

<div class="byline">BY JEFF GORDON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01628/5445220-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="181" height="132"></div>ST. LOUIS&mdash;When a team&rsquo;s bread-and-butter is its defense, a penalty-killing slump can be devastating.&ldquo;Penalty-killing is a big part of the game,&rdquo; said center Rick Meagher. &ldquo;It keeps your goals-against down. We have to get better at it. The last 10 games, we have been terrible at it.&rdquo;In their first 50 games, the St. Louis Blues killed off 85 per cent of their penalties. They consistently ranked among the league&rsquo;s top four in penalty-killing efficiency.During the next 10 games, they killed just 72 per cent of their man disadvantages.In a 5-2 loss at Buffalo Feb. 25, the Blues allowed two power-play goals in the first 10 minutes of the game and couldn&rsquo;t recover.Against the Toronto Maple Leafs Feb. 27, they faced a pivotal test&mdash;Toronto had a five-on-three advantage for nearly half of a two-minute power play in the second period.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;We talked before the season about scoring more shorthanded goals.&rsquo; &mdash;Meagher</blockquote>The Blues led 2-0, just as they had in a similar situation Feb. 23 against the Edmonton Oilers at The Arena. In that game, the Oilers scored twice and earned a 6-4 victory.The Maple Leafs, though, were thwarted by Greg Millen&rsquo;s spectacular goaltending. Then Blues&rsquo; defenseman Robert Nordmark got a breakaway opportunity coming out of the penalty box and was tackled. That ended Toronto&rsquo;s one-man advantage and its hope of winning the game.&ldquo;We had that five-on-three against Edmonton and gave up two goals off it,&rdquo; Millen said. &ldquo;That was on all of our minds. We knew if we could stop them (the Leafs) there, we could win the game.&rdquo;The Blues killed six of seven penalties against the Maple Leafs, and were reminded of the type of play that got them to second place in the Norris Division earlier this season.What was going wrong?Coach Jacques Martin didn&rsquo;t know.&ldquo;You go through these stretches when you play an 80-game schedule,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Last year we went through a stretch in December where we gave up a lot of goals when (then-Blue) Mark Reeds was out with an injury.&rdquo;The Blues have played more aggressively shortanded this season. Forwards Meagher, Doug Gilmour, Brian Sutter, Tony Hrkac, Tony McKegney and Gino Cavallini have been pressuring the opposing point men, trying to force mistakes at the blue line.Those mistakes not only disrupt the enemy, they lead to shorthanded scoring chances. After 60 games, the Blues had 10 shorthanded goals. Last season they only scored six.&ldquo;You have to be aggressive,&rdquo; said Meagher, who led the Blues with four shorthanded goals. &ldquo;You have to force mistakes. You can&rsquo;t sit back. You have to know the team you&rsquo;re playing against, study them, know how they want to work the power play.&rdquo;In a 5-4 victory Feb. 21 at Pittsburgh, Meagher and McKegney scored shorthanded goals, and Gilmour was fouled on a breakaway during one five-minute Penguin power play.&ldquo;We talked before the season about scoring more shorthanded goals,&rdquo; Meagher said. &ldquo;A lot of teams put forwards on the point, so it gives you the opportunity. We look for the guy making the break before we dump the puck down the ice. We&rsquo;re more aware of that than in the past, that&rsquo;s for sure.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;When Bernie Federko tied a club record with five assists against the Maple Leafs, he took a big step toward reaching the 1,000-point plateau this season. He entered this season with 917 points and had accumulated 70 points in 63 games&hellip;Tony Hrkac missed a couple of games with a foot laceration and Rick Meagher missed one game with a sore knee&hellip;The Blues took out an ad in the &ldquo;Positions Available&rdquo; section of the Wall Street Journal classifieds. The job available? General manager. But the Blues aren&rsquo;t trying to replace Ron Caron, just help him get his green card from U.S. Immigration. They must advertise his job, draw applicants and prove that Caron is better qualified for the job than a U.S. citizen.<h2>BLUES</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Bernie Federko, Doug Gilmour, Tony Hrkac, Rick Meagher, Cliff Ronning.LW&mdash;Brian Sutter, Tony McKegney, Gino Cavallini, Doug Evans, Perry Turnbull.RW&mdash;Mark Hunter, Herb Raglan, Michael Dark, Todd Ewen.LD&mdash;Brian Benning, Tim Bothwell, Paul Cavallini.RD&mdash;Rob Ramage, Gaston Gingras, Robert Nordmark.G&mdash;Greg Millen, Rick Wamsley.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Charlie Bourgeois, D, bruised ankle, day-to-day.Ron Flockhart, LW, rheumatoid arthritis, out for season.Jocelyn Lemieux, LW, broken leg and damaged ligaments, out for season.Greg Paslawski, RW, disc surgery, indefinite. &#9632;

f0030-01

Blues Break Out Of Penalty-Killing Slump

<div class="byline">BY DEAN SPIROS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01575/5445258-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="617" height="755"><figcaption class="caption-body">A shorthanded goal by Troy Murray gave the Blackhawks a team record.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02402/5445265-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="183" height="135"></div>CHICAGO&mdash;There&rsquo;s a new T-shirt making the rounds in the NHL these days. It reads, &ldquo;Pang is easier to spell than Nieuwendyk.&rdquo;The tongue-in-cheek message goes out to the hockey writers who will be voting for the NHL&rsquo;s rookie of the year. Chicago Blackhawk goaltender Darren Pang has been getting a big kick out of it, almost as big as the kick he&rsquo;s gotten from being mentioned in the same breath as Calgary center Joe Nieuwendyk.Pang long ago conceded the Calder Trophy to Nieuwendyk. Finishing second would be a victory in itself.&ldquo;The main thing I am looking for is respect from the other general managers and from the press in the other cities,&rdquo; said Pang. &ldquo;Not like, He&rsquo;s a good little guy,&rsquo; but that they respect the job I do.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t look at what I have accomplished in this league as being lucky. I worked hard&mdash;three years of development in the minors&mdash;to prepare myself. So it would mean a lot to me to get that respect.&rdquo;The 5-foot-5, 155-pound Pang has made believers out of his teammates and the fans in Chicago. The Calder balloting will go a long way in revealing whether the rest of the league feels the same way.&ldquo;Finishing second would be a feather in the cap of all the little guys out there,&rdquo; Pang said. &ldquo;After Nieuwendyk, I think the Calder voting is wide open. (Calgary winger) Brett Hull will get his share of votes and (Buffalo winger) Ray Sheppard has already scored 28 goals. He&rsquo;s an Ottawa guy (like Pang).&ldquo;And there&rsquo;s (goaltender) Kirk McLean in Vancouver. Finishing second to Joe Nieuwendyk would not be a letdown. He&rsquo;s having a fantastic season and I like to see that. I like to see a guy step in and contribute like that.&rdquo;Pang, 24, has done his share. After starting the season as Bob Mason&rsquo;s backup, Pang gained at least co-ownership of the No. 1 job. A good case can be made that Pang has the job to himself.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-03296/5445251-1-eng-US/f0031-032.jpg" title="f0031-03" width="610" height="744"><figcaption class="caption-body">Denis Savard treated everyone to a spectacular goal in a win over Edmonton.</figcaption></div>Pang earned his 16th win Feb. 28 when he helped the Hawks hold off Pittsburgh 7-5. He has single-handedly delivered a few wins as well. Pang&rsquo;s save percentage of .897 ranked near the very best in the league.&ldquo;At the beginning (of the season) I felt like I was destined to be a cheerleader,&rdquo; Pang said. &ldquo;My job was going to be to keep the other guys up on the bench.&ldquo;But I never wanted to be satisfied with that. Hopefully I have established myself as an up-and-coming goaltender. It&rsquo;s only been one year, but I feel very good about what I&rsquo;ve done.&rdquo;NOTES&mdash;Denis Savard collected what he called &ldquo;the best goal I ever scored&rdquo; Feb. 24 in the Hawks&rsquo; 6-4 win over Edmonton. With the Hawks shorthanded, Savard intercepted a pass in the neutral zone and headed for the Oilers&rsquo; blue line. Cut off by Mark Messier, Savard turned and headed back to the red line. Spinning again, he broke into the Edmonton zone down left wing, got around a checker, avoided Kevin Lowe while putting the puck through his legs, and beat Grant Fuhr up top. &ldquo;That was worth the price of admission,&rdquo; said Hawk coach Bob Murdoch. &ldquo;He had the coaches on the bench cheering.&rdquo;&hellip;Savard set a team record Feb. 24 against Edmonton with his seventh shorthanded goal of the season. Two games later Troy Murray&rsquo;s shorthanded goal was the Hawks&rsquo; 16th of the season, also a club record.<h2>BLACKHAWKS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 25: Dave Mackey, LW, recalled from Saginaw (IHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Denis Savard, Troy Murray, Brian Noonan, Steve Ludzik.LW&mdash;Steve Larmer, Dave Mackey, Everett Sanipass, Glen Cochrane.RW&mdash;Rick Vaive, Dirk Graham, Duane Sutter, Wayne Presley.LD&mdash;Behn Wilson, Gary Nylund, Bruce Cassidy, Marc Bergevin.RD&mdash;Bob Murray, Bob McGill, Dave Manson.G&mdash;Darren Pang, Bob Mason.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Keith Brown, D, knee injury, March 1.Steve Thomas, LW, shoulder separation, March 13Dan Vincelette, LW, bruised ribs, day-to-day.Doug Wilson, D, shoulder surgery, out for season. &#9632;

f0031-01

Pang Shoots For No. 2 Spot In Calder Vote

<div class="byline">BY PAUL ABRAMOWITZ</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0032-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02446/5445296-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Utica&rsquo;s Steve Tsujiura has scored almost a point a game during his AHL career, but his forte is strong defensive play. (Photo by Steven Somerville)</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01607/5445303-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="180" height="137"></div>It&rsquo;s hard for Steve Tsujiura to blend in with the surroundings.After all, 5-foot-5 pro hockey players of Japanese descent tend to stand out in a crowd.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m recognized because I&rsquo;m different,&rdquo; says Tsujiura, captain of the Utica Devils, who are battling for the last playoff spot in the Southern Division.That&rsquo;s not the only reason, though. Tsujiura, a fan favorite wherever he&rsquo;s played, stands out for his relentless hard work and dedication.Those twin qualities have enabled him to prosper for five-plus seasons in a game dominated by big men.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always said that if you want to play in the NHL level at my size, you have to be an exceptional talent,&rdquo; says Tsujiura, born in Goaldale, Alta. &ldquo;And I don&rsquo;t fit into that category. I can do everything decently, but nothing exceptional.&rdquo;In the American League, however, he is one of the premier centers. He&rsquo;s averaged almost a point a game (407 in 434) during four seasons in Maine, one in Springfield and this year in Utica (14-30-44 in 47).But his strong points are defense, penalty-killing and winning faceoffs. Over the years, he&rsquo;s caused many unpleasant nights for the league&rsquo;s top scoring centers.Above all, however, his contribution is best expressed in terms of leadership. He&rsquo;s been captain of New Jersey Devil farm teams for three years, the last two at Maine before the move to Utica last spring.&ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s one of the most valuable players for his team in this league,&rdquo; says Hershey Bears coach John Paddock, who played with and coached Tsujiura at Maine. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little different than saying he&rsquo;s in the &lsquo;best&rsquo; category. Stevie is like that. There aren&rsquo;t too many more valuable than he is, but there are better centers.&rdquo;Better leaders?&ldquo;As far as being a leader, work ethic and holding the respect of teams, I guess you could compare him in a way to Bobby Clarke,&rdquo; Paddock says.Like the former NHL star, Tsujiura was drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers. But that&rsquo;s where the playing comparisons end. Clarke, now GM of the Flyers after an illustrious 15-year career with the team, is in the Hall of Fame. Tsujiura, selected by Philadelphia 205th overall in 1981 and then signed as a free agent by New Jersey in 1984, is waiting to play his first game in the NHL.&ldquo;You always think you can do better,&rdquo; says Tsujiura, who recently celebrated his 26th birthday. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never won a Calder Cup (the American League playoff championship trophy). That&rsquo;s something I&rsquo;d definitely like to do. Your stats, I guess, can always be better, too.&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to take what you do and live by it. Most nights I can go to sleep and say I&rsquo;m happy, but there are definitely some nights where I can&rsquo;t.&rdquo;Tsujiura played his junior hockey for Medicine Hat in the Western League, and was named the league MVP his last season after scoring 55 goals and 84 assists.It was his play several years previous that most impressed one of his present teammates.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been a top player in every league he&rsquo;s played in,&rdquo; says Utica defenseman Murry Brumwell, who has played with Tsujiura the past 4&frac12; seasons. &ldquo;I first saw him in Tier II hockey. There were mostly 19- and 20-year-olds and there was this kid who was 14 playing with 20-year-olds.&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t believe it. He was able to go out and play against guys that were six years older and he could take the bumps.&rdquo;Tsujiura has always been able to take the bumps, the price you learn to pay when you&rsquo;re shorter than everyone else. In his first five years of pro hockey, he missed just 15 games. The last two years, he played complete 80-game seasons. A broken collarbone in early December led to a 14-game layoff this year.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s made it a long way in a game that&rsquo;s dominated by guys over 6 feet and 200 pounds,&rdquo; Brumwell says. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s fast and good with the puck. And he&rsquo;s very smart. I think that&rsquo;s why he fits in so well.&ldquo;What makes him so special is his burning desire and love for the game. No matter how the game is going, Steve Tsujiura is always giving 110 percent. I know those are just sayings, but it fits him.&rdquo;Games like the 1984-85 regular-season finale are proof. Tsujiura&rsquo;s Mariners, already assured of the Northern title, trailed the Southern-champion Binghamton Whalers by two goals with a minute remaining in the third period of what some might have considered a meaningless game.But not Tsujiura. He scored twice in the final minute to get his team a point in the standings.&ldquo;I think someone like Walter Payton said it best,&rdquo; Tsujiura says. &ldquo;When you play, you just want to be remembered as someone who worked hard every time they played.&ldquo;I know there have been times when I don&rsquo;t fit into that category. But hopefully if someone can remember me as a player I hope it&rsquo;s as someone who worked hard when they played.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s just as likely he&rsquo;ll be remembered for his leadership, which has earned him his only AHL award. In 1985-86 he received the Fred T. Hunt Memorial Trophy for sportsmanship, determination and dedication to hockey.In his last two years of junior hockey, he received the Frank Boucher Memorial Trophy, the equivalent of the NHL&rsquo;s Lady Byng.Tsujiura has maintained that high standard of play and conduct in the AHL, where he is truly an officer and a gentleman. &#9632;

f0032-02

The Minors

An Officer And Gentleman

<div class="byline">BY MIKE KANE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03296/5445334-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="180" height="137"></div>Opportunity knocked for rookie goaltenders Kay Whitmore, Dan Delianedis and Pete Richards.Whitmore was the star of the trio with back-to-back shutouts that extended his unbeaten streak with the Binghamton Whalers to four. The 20-year-old former Peterborough Pete blanked Baltimore 6-0 on the road Feb. 20 and stopped Sherbrooke 3-0 one day later.&ldquo;It starts off when you make a save,&rdquo; Whitmore said after the Sherbrooke win. &ldquo;Then the defense clears the puck, you make another save, you have a few shutout periods and it keeps building. It&rsquo;s a team thing.&rdquo;Whitmore, who spent most of the season on the bench behind veteran Peter Sidorkiewicz, had a 1.20 goals-against average in five appearances since establishing himself as No. 1 goalie Feb. 6. Overall, he was 12-12-2 with an average of 3.49.Delianedis, who watched Craig Billington start 26 consecutive games, came on in relief Feb. 14 at Rochester when Billington was struck in the facemask by a puck and needed 30 stitches to close a cut on his forehead.The 23-year-old Delianedis went 3-1-0 in four consecutive starts after that, boosting his overall mark to 6-7-1.Richards, 20, signed with Adirondack in mid-February, ostensibly to back up Darren Eliot while Sam St. Laurent was on recall to Detroit.But Richards, who started the season with Rochester and had a short stint with New Haven, was given a chance to play Feb. 18 at Fredericton, when Eliot gave up five goals in two periods. Richards stopped the four shots he faced in the third period while watching the Wings mount a furious rally that fell short at 6-5.Three days later at Halifax, Richards was in goal for a 4-2 win over Nova Scotia. He replaced Eliot, who had been injured in a collision, two minutes into the game.In his two appearances with the Wings, Richards had a 1.56 goals-against average and .944 save percentage.<h2>STREAK HIT NINE WINS</h2>Hershey tied a franchise record with nine consecutive victories, but failed to break the mark when it lost 5-4 at Newmarket Feb. 19.Wendell Young was the starting goalie throughout and right winger Brian Dot bin delivered a point in every game. The Bears, at home for six of the games, won eight times against Southern Division teams.The franchise record was set in 1973-74 by a Hershey team that won the Calder Cup playoff title. Baltimore set the league and professional record of 16 in 1984-85. Maine went 11 games without a loss or tie earlier this season.After Newmarket ended the most recent streak. Hershey rebounded with a win over Utica Feb. 20, but lost at home to the Saints four days later.<h2>RED-HOT MURPHY</h2>During his six-game conditioning stint with the Wings, Joe Murphy had five goals and six assists. He earned a point in every game&hellip;Veteran Washington defenseman John Barrett was playing for Binghamton during the final stages of his recovery from a serious knee injury&hellip;Adirondack center Murray Eaves extended his point-scoring streak to 17 games, three short of the team record held by Andre St. Laurent. During the streak, Eaves had 13 goals and 30 points. Mike Richard of Binghamton set the league record of 31 games earlier this year. &#9632;

f0032-03

Rookie Goaltenders All The Rage In South

<div class="byline">BY PAUL ABRAMOWITZ</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01543/5445372-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="590" height="922"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Hough was one of three players assigned to Fredericton by NHL teams.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-02387/5445379-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="177" height="136"></div>As the Fredericton Express left the Aitken University Centre for three weeks Feb. 19, it knew chances of remaining in first place hinged on team fortunes during a 10-game road odyssey.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a long one,&rdquo; said Express coach Blair MacDonald. &ldquo;I guess it&rsquo;s a little abnormal to have one this long, but I guess it comes with the job.&rdquo;The Express had been in or tied for first in the Northern Division since Nov. 1 and was 18-13-3 under MacDonald, who inherited the team from Ron Lapointe in mid-December.Curling and basketball tournaments at the Aitken Centre forced the Express to load up the bus and visit all seven Southern Division cities.&ldquo;Our bus is jammed,&rdquo; MacDonald said. &ldquo;I packed a couple of suitcases and will have to find a place to get laundry done.&rdquo;The Express trip didn&rsquo;t start well. The team tied 4-4 at Nova Scotia, 5-3 at Newmarket and 7-2 at Rochester.&ldquo;I think the trip is good for us,&rdquo; MacDonald said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll develop some character and we&rsquo;ll learn how to play in adverse conditions. We&rsquo;ll see how we do in that type of situation.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll see at the end of the trip. We&rsquo;ll either come home a harmonious team or we&rsquo;ll be at each other&rsquo;s throats.&rdquo;<h2>CRUISING IN MARITIMES</h2>The Maine Mariners continued in hot pursuit of the Express with another impressive Maritime trip. In early February, they won three straight. On the most recent trip they won two of three, with the only blemish an OT loss at Fredericton. In six games, they collected 11 of 12 points.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-03280/5445365-1-eng-US/f0033-032.jpg" title="f0033-03" width="583" height="915"><figcaption class="caption-body">Springfield veteran Bruce Boudreau has mounted a challenge for the AHL scoring lead.</figcaption></div>The Mariners (78 points in 62 games) have already surpassed their point total of last season (75), when they failed to reach the playoffs for the first time in team history. Since Dec. 12, they were 27-8-2 with two of the losses in OT.<h2>BOUDREAU CLOSES IN</h2>Springfield center Bruce Boudreau extended his point streak to 18 games and moved within three points of the league&rsquo;s top scorer, Sherbrooke&rsquo;s Gilles Thibaudeau. Thibaudeau, with 96 points, was recalled by Montreal and missed the 3-0 loss at Binghamton on Feb. 21&hellip;Moncton defenseman Matt Cote, who suffered a serious eye injury in a pre-season game with Fredericton, returned to the Hawks&rsquo; lineup on Feb. 17 and scored a second-period goal. It was Moncton&rsquo;s only goal in a 7-1 loss to the Mariners&hellip;Edmonton returned goalie Warren Skorodenski to Nova Scotia and recalled Daryl Reaugh. In Skoro&rsquo;s absence, Nova Scotia went 2-8-1. In eight games, Reaugh was 2-5 with a 4.46 goals-against average.Defenseman Larry Trader was assigned to Sherbrooke by Montreal. The NHL Canadiens also traded Sherbrooke defenseman Rick Hayward to Calgary for right winger Martin Nicoletti, who was playing in the International League for Salt Lake&hellip;Fredericton lost David Bruce, Marc Fortier and Ken Quinney on recalls to Quebec, but gained Mike Hough and Jason Lafreniere. Veteran Vancouver goalie Richard Brodeur was also assigned. &#9632;

f0033-01

Express Steams Off On 10-Game Milk Run

<div class="byline">BY BOB WAGNER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-04220/5445410-1-eng-US/f0033-042.jpg" title="f0033-04" width="156" height="135"></div>When Team USA disbanded after the 1988 Olympic Winter Games, Colorado Rangers awaited the fallout with more anticipation than any other club in the International League.There were six players with ties to Colorado&rsquo;s NHL parent New York Rangers.But Colorado coach-general manager Pete Mahovlich did not expect a Windfall of talent.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&lsquo;Looks like Peter Laviolette will be joining us&hellip;&rsquo; &mdash;Mahovlich</blockquote>&ldquo;Looks like Peter Laviolette (left defenseman) will be joining us from the Olympic team, and also Mike Richter, a goalie,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not exactly sure who else will be signed (by New York). It&rsquo;s up in the air. Of course, Brian Leetch will be going to the New York Rangers.&rdquo;Laviolette is no stranger to the IHL, having played 72 games last season in Indianapolis.Other Team USA members who are possibilities for Colorado are left wingers Kevin Miller and Tony Granato, Corey Millen, another potential Ranger from the U.S. Olympic team, opted for Ambri-Piotta of the Swiss League.New York right winger Ron Duguay was slated to return to Colorado for a two-week conditioning period, but the NHL club scotched that plan by trading him to the Los Angeles Kings for defenseman Mark Hardy.New York did reassign two defensemen, Bruce Bell and Rudy Poeschek, but called up blueliner Mark Tinordi.<h2>MINOR PRO DEBUT AT 40</h2>Maybe the motto of coach John Marks of the Kalamazoo Wings should be, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t do as I say, do as I do.&rdquo;Marks donned the gear for the first time since retiring from the NHL&rsquo;s Chicago Blackhawks some six seasons ago and scored a power-play goal in the K-Wings&rsquo; 4-0 road win Feb. 22 over Salt Lake.Not only did Marks appear in his first minor-league game ever but he also was reunited with former Blackhawk teammate Phil Russell for one rush down the ice. &ldquo;It was just great playing with Marks again,&rdquo; the defenseman enthused.Marks decided to suit up when the Wings found themselves down to 14 skaters following the call-ups of right winger Mitch Messier and centerman Rick Boh by the parent Minnesota North Stars.Rookie centerman Ken Hodge stole the show, however. Hodge, whose father Ken, Sr. played against Marks and Russell in the NHL, got a pure hat trick before his coach scored. It was Hodge&rsquo;s first professional three-goal game.Goalie Jon Casey stopped 35 shots as Kalamazoo snapped a winless streak on the road at seven games.<h2>HAT TRICKS GALORE</h2>When Saginaw players get hat tricks they do it in style.In an 11-6 rout of Milwaukee Admirals Feb. 17, three Hawks produced hat tricks, including a four-goal performance by left winger Dave Mackey. Three-goal efforts were turned in by right winger Mark Lavarre and center Brad MacGregor.<h2>HARLOW KEY RIVERMAN</h2>Left winger Scott Harlow&rsquo;s five goals and two assists ignited Peoria to three wins in four games. The two assists led to game-winning goals as the Rivermen solidified their grip on third place in the West Division&hellip;Salt Lake&rsquo;s Tom Pratt, Steve MacSwain and Doug Clarke scored three goals just 27 seconds apart in a 7-3 win over Colorado, a club record. The old standard of 31 seconds was set in 1973 against the Denver Spurs, when Salt Lake was in the Central League.Milwaukee&rsquo;s losing streak reached 11 games with a 4-3 loss at home to Peoria Feb. 20&hellip;Fort Wayne center Colin Chin had 24 goals, including a league-high 19 on the power play&hellip;Defenseman Rick Hayward was involved in an NHL trade between Montreal and Calgary, but remained in the IHL. Hayward, on loan to Saginaw from the Canadiens, played in 24 games with the Hawks and accumulated 129 penalty minutes. When he wound up as Calgary property he was assigned by the Flames to Salt Lake. &#9632;

f0033-04

Rangers To Add U.S. Olympic Talent

<div class="byline">BY ED WILLES</div>On the face of it. Kerry Clark&rsquo;s hockey resume looks much like that of his older brother Wendel.Both starred on the ponds of Kelvington, Sask. Both played midget hockey for the Notre Dame Hounds of Wilcox, Sask. And both continued on to play major junior at Saskatoon, though Kerry detoured via the Regina Pats.Yet, Kerry and Wendel are as much different as they are similar.Wendel, 21, was first choice overall in the 1985 NHL entry draft. He put together seasons of 34 and 37 goals for the Toronto Maple Leafs, before shoulder and back problems forced him out of the lineup prematurely this season. He has achieved a fine balance between fractiousness and finesse.Kerry, 19, a l0th-round choice of the New York Islanders in 1986. is many more parts tenacious than talented. With 45 points and 457 penalty minutes through his first three seasons in the Western League, he piled up more than 10 penalty minutes for every point he earned.In 56 games this year, his fourth in major junior hockey, Clark had 13 goals, nine assists and 197 penalty minutes.He is not nearly the star his brother was in the WHL.Still, comparisons don&rsquo;t bother Kerry, although the weight of a common gene poo] can be overwhelming. More than one man&rsquo;s spirit has been buried by the legacy of an older brother.&ldquo;Some people wondered if I was going to be just like my brother,&rdquo; says Kerry. &ldquo;I just came to play the way I play. I decided I just had to do the best I can and, if the public doesn&rsquo;t like me, or the organization doesn&rsquo;t like me, there&rsquo;s nothing I can do.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01620/5445448-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="592" height="1099"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kerry Clark entertains Saskatoon fans with a moonwalk dance after he scores.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02474/5445441-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="1222" height="1656"><figcaption class="caption-body">Unlike brother Wendel, above, Kerry Clark has never enjoyed the natural advantages of good stickhandling or a top-notch wrist shot.</figcaption></div>Kerry and Wendel couldn&rsquo;t be more different off the ice. Kerry is outgoing and personable, Wendel withdrawn and taciturn.On the ice, both share toughness, but Wendel has substantial puck skills and perhaps the best wrist shot in hockey. Kerry is as fancy as beans and wieners.&ldquo;I enjoy playing that way,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to face reality. I&rsquo;ve got a role I&rsquo;m going to be playing the rest of my career. I&rsquo;m not a fancy hockey player. I&rsquo;ve got to do my job and, if I want to continue I&rsquo;ve got to keep playing the same way.&rdquo;As a youngster, Kerry entertained dreams of being a goal-scorer. But those delusions were stripped away when he followed his brother to Notre Dame.&ldquo;Back in Kelvington I used to carry the puck a lot,&rdquo; Kerry says. &ldquo;But when I got to Notre Dame I found out there were a lot of guys who were faster than me. I had to bump and grind&mdash;take the puck off them and give it to our guys.&rdquo;That game plan worked a little better. But Clark struggled before finding his niche. As a 16-year-old with Regina in 1984-85, he tried to establish himself as one of the Western League&rsquo;s tough guys. While that notion was fine in theory, it would have been better in practice had Clark the physical maturity to back up his fighting spirit.&ldquo;He took on all comers that first year,&rdquo; recalls Blades&rsquo; general manager Daryl Lubiniecki. &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t win them all, but he showed up.&rdquo;Still, Clark was going nowhere in Regina. Midway through the 1985-86 season, he was dealt to the Spokane Chiefs. With his high school year hanging in the balance, Clark refused to report to the American city.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not great in school,&rdquo; admits Clark. &ldquo;I wanted to do the best I could and I could see where going to the States would be a real drawback.&rdquo;He has persevered, however, and is preparing to graduate from high school at the end of this semester.After Clark refused the trade to Spokane, he was dealt to the Blades for defenseman Brent Severyn.And it&rsquo;s in Saskatoon that Clark&rsquo;s career has taken shape. At the end of his first season with the Blades, he was drafted by the Islanders.&ldquo;He definitely had to overcome quite an obstacle as Wendel&rsquo;s brother,&rdquo; says Lubiniecki, who swung the deal for the younger Clark. &ldquo;But the kid never pretended to be Wendel. The fans might have thought he was going to be a player like Wendel, but he&rsquo;s handled it well.&rdquo;In fact, Clark has won over the blue-collar crowd with his robust style of play and flair for theatrics. A stocky 6-foot-l and 195 pounds, Clark gets a rise whenever he goes on a search-and-destroy mission as a right winger, or executes a patrol on defense with the vigilance of a pit bull.&ldquo;We probably like him a little better up front,&rdquo; says Lubiniecki. &ldquo;It gives him a little more freedom as far as forechecking (goes). He likes to bang guys around; there&rsquo;s no question about that.&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll go with anybody and he doesn&rsquo;t pass up many hits. Our fans cheer for a good hit as much as they cheer for a goal.&rdquo;Which is good because Clark doesn&rsquo;t score much. Still, he makes every goal an event. After putting the puck in the net, he celebrates with a Michael Jackson moon walk.Pretty soulful for a guy from Kelvington.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a crowd-pleaser,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;A lot of people like it. A lot of people hate it.&rdquo;Goals could be fewer and further between now that the Blades have moved from the cozy confines of Memorial Arena to the new Saskatchewan Place and its larger ice surface.&ldquo;It was a little tough at first,&rdquo; Clark says. &ldquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t think 15 feet (extra in length) would make that much difference, but it&rsquo;s all in the neutral zone. I&rsquo;ve just got to work on moving the puck up faster through the zone, especially when I&rsquo;m playing defense.&rdquo;Clark knows he has only an outside shot at cracking an NHL lineup, and expects he&rsquo;s destined for the minor leagues. The family farm could be a post-hockey option.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d assume so,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;but I could take up a trade.&rdquo;Whatever Clark does, he&rsquo;s got his family behind him.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re a close family in some ways, but we don&rsquo;t talk about things a lot,&rdquo; Kerry says. &ldquo;We offer encouragement at what we&rsquo;re doing.&rdquo;Above all, self-sufficiency is encouraged.&ldquo;We never made things easy for any of our kids,&rdquo; says Alma Clark, Kerry&rsquo;s mother. &ldquo;They had to fight their own battles and Kerry did that. He&rsquo;s his own man.&rdquo;Kerry Clark has never been one to back down from a battle. &#9632;

f0034-01

The Juniors

Younger Clark A Fan Favorite

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03367/5445493-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="379" height="479"><figcaption class="caption-body">KELLY CAIN Windsor</figcaption></div><h2>ONTARIO LEAGUE</h2>The 19-year-old center scored five goals and six assists in three games as Windsor extended its winning streak to 15 games. Cain improved his season totals to 53 goals&mdash;a league high&mdash;and 65 assists for 118 points.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-04267/5445486-1-eng-US/f0034-042.jpg" title="f0034-04" width="372" height="467"><figcaption class="caption-body">STEPHAN LEBEAU Shawinigan</figcaption></div><h2>QUEBEC LEAGUE</h2>Center Stephan Lebeau, 19, scored seven goals and five assists in four games. He had three goals and an assist in an 8-4 win over Trois-Rivieres and improved his totals to 84 goals and 84 assists in 60 games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-05207/5445479-1-eng-US/f0034-052.jpg" title="f0034-05" width="377" height="478"><figcaption class="caption-body">BLAIR ATCHEYNUM Moose Jaw</figcaption></div><h2>WESTERN LEAGUE</h2>Atcheynum, an 18-year-old right winger, had eight goals and one assist in three games. The 6-foot-2, 185-pounder was on a nine-game goal scoring streak and had improved his totals to 26 goals and 11 assists in 52 games.At the end of the current season. THE HOCKEY NEWS will select a Micron Junior Player of the Year.MEGA by MICRONBio-engineered for skating performance &#9632;

f0034-03

MICRON JUNIOR PLAYERS OF THE WEEK FOR FEB. 22-28

<div class="byline">BY RANDY RUSSON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01585/5445524-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="171" height="134"></div>He&rsquo;s been a winner in real estate and land development.And 47-year-old Lou Kazowski sees no reason why he can&rsquo;t be a winner in the hockey arena.Kazowski, a Peterborough businessman, bought the Ontario League&rsquo;s Kingston Canadians on Feb. 19. He said the cost was between $500,000 and $600,000.When Kazowski bought the franchise from an ownership group of 14 people, the Canadians were on a 17-game losing streak and in the Leyden Division basement with a 14-41-0 record.&ldquo;I can make the franchise successful, no doubt in my mind,&rdquo; said Kazowski, a former minor-league player who retired in 1970. &ldquo;The first thing I have to do, though, is get some first-rate management.&rdquo;The club is currently coached by Jacques Tremblay. His position will be reviewed at year&rsquo;s end, Kazowski said. He also said general manager Gord Wood will be asked to return as a scout next year.Kazowski indicated he&rsquo;s already had discussions with Roger Neilson, Gary Green and Sam McMaster about running the club.Neilson and Green both previously coached and managed the Peterborough Petes. McMaster is a former GM of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds.Neilson is currently doing hockey analysis for The Sports Network, scouting for the Chicago Blackhawks during the final year of a three-year contract with the NHL club and helping current Petes&rsquo; coach Dick Todd at practices.Neilson has coached the Hawks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Vancouver Canucks, Buffalo Sabres and Los Angeles Kings.&ldquo;I said I could be interested,&rdquo; said Neilson. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t do any specifics. He knew I expressed some interest in getting back into coaching, but I will get back and talk to him about it.&rdquo;Green coached the Washington Capitals for 157 games from 1979 to 1981. Green, also a commentator for TSN, has been a friend of Kazowski&rsquo;s for several years but said he&rsquo;s not interested in being coach or general manager of the Canadians.McMaster joined the Greyhounds in 1980 and turned a last-place team into a three-time league champion before becoming the Capitals&rsquo; assistant director of player recruitment in 1985.The Canadians, whose alumni include Boston&rsquo;s Ken Linseman and Los Angeles&rsquo; Bernie Nicholls, have fallen on hard times&mdash;finishing better than .500 only once since 1980-81.<h2>PETES-SPITS FINAL?</h2>The division leaders are making a strong case for an appearance in the league final.While the Windsor Spitfires led the Emms Division and were No. 1 overall Feb. 24 with a 40-13-2 record, the Leyden Division-leading Peterborough Petes quietly won eight of 10 to stay close.The Petes were 36-14-4 for 76 points, six behind Windsor with a game in hand.One reason for the Peterborough resurgence is goaltending. Rookie goalies Todd Bojcun and John Tanner had allowed 168 goals&mdash;fewest in the league.Windsor veterans Pat Jablonski and Peter Ing were second at 178.<h2>GOODALL GETS 50th</h2>London Knight overage right winger Ron Goodall became the OHL&rsquo;s first 50-goal scorer in a 5-4 win over the North Bay Centennials on Feb. 21&hellip;Soo coach Don Boyd faces a four-game suspension after being assessed a double game misconduct by referee Bill Prisniak in a 7-4 loss at Windsor on Feb. 21. It was the Greyhounds&rsquo; 14th consecutive loss at Windsor Arena&hellip;Hamilton Steelhawk coach and general manager Bill LaForge was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for treatment of asthma. LaForge had complained of trouble breathing. Assistant Mike Fedorko was handling the team in LaForge&rsquo;s absence. &#9632;

f0035-01

New Owner Vows A Kingston Turnaround

<div class="byline">BY KEN JUBA</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02461/5445555-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg" title="f0035-02" width="547" height="133"></div>It&rsquo;s amazing what some carpentry work can do&mdash;just ask Sid Cranston, master craftsman of the Alberta Golden Bears.&ldquo;I adjusted the lie of my sticks a little and took a little of the curve off them,&rdquo; explained Cranston. &ldquo;It made a big difference, really helped my scoring. I&rsquo;ve got more of a touch now.&rdquo;How much more? After 17 points in 17 games last season, Cranston exploded for 34 goals, 46 assists and 80 points&mdash;all league records&mdash;in 28 conference games this year. In the final four games of the season, the third-year Bear had four hat tricks and 22 points to lock up the league scoring title.It&rsquo;s been a remarkable comeback for Cranston, who battled injuries his first two seasons. A knee injury ruined his rookie year, and injuries to both ankles limited his playing time last year. Cranston compensated for that this season, winning the scoring championship, the CWUAA outstanding player award and the league nomination for the Sullivan Trophy, which goes to the CIAU&rsquo;s outstanding player.<h2>CIAU SWITCHEROO</h2>The Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union was unimpressed with Calgary&rsquo;s CWUAA championship. Saskatchewan ended the regular season ranked second in the country, Alberta third and Calgary fourth&mdash;exactly reverse of the way they stood in the CWUAA&hellip;Morrison tied Cranston for the goal-scoring record, with 34&hellip;Drake was selected coach of the year for the third time in the past four seasons&hellip;Terry Houlder of Calgary, who finished third in confererence scoring with 19 goals and 64 points, was rookie of the year&hellip;Wakabayashi won the UBC Hockey Alumni Trophy, given annually to the player who best combines sportsmanship and athletic ability&hellip;Proft won the Mervyn (Red) Dutton Award as best defenseman, for the second consecutive year&hellip;Saskatchewan Huskies&rsquo; goalies Ross McKay and Greg Holtby captured their second consecutive Adam Kryczka Trophy, given annually to the goal-tending team with the lowest goals-against average in conference play. They gave up 94 goals during the 28-game season, the first time a team has allowed fewer than 100 since the conference adopted a 28-game schedule three years ago.In 15 games this year, Calgary native McKay had the conference&rsquo;s lowest goals-against average, 2.74, and highest save percentage, .900. Holtby posted a 3.98 GAA and .852 save percentage in 13 games.<h2>FOUR BEAR ALL-STARS</h2>Alberta and Saskatchewan, runnersup behind Calgary in the Canada West standings, captured all six positions on the first all-star team. Cranston and Stacey Wakabayashi of Alberta make up the forward line with Ken Morrison of Saskatchewan. Parie Proft and Brent Severyn of Alberta are the defense pair, and McKay is the goaltender.Calgary had three players on the second team&mdash;forwards Ken Vinge and Terry Jones and defenseman Brent Meckling. Ken Lovsin of Saskatchewan is the other defenseman, Brent Marinos of Regina the forward, and Larry Dyck of Manitoba the goaltender. &#9632;

f0035-02

The Colleges

Carpentry Work Helps Bear Become West’s Top Gunner

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-03366/5445607-1-eng-US/f0035-032.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-04298/5445600-1-eng-US/f0035-042.jpg" title="f0035-04" width="347" height="471"><figcaption class="caption-body">PARIE PROFT Alberta</figcaption></div><h2>CANADA WEST</h2>The Golden Bear defenseman had three goals and six assists in three games to lead his team to Victory over Saskatchewan in a tough quarterfinal playoff series.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-05246/5445593-1-eng-US/f0035-052.jpg" title="f0035-05" width="347" height="470"><figcaption class="caption-body">ROSS KENNY Acadia</figcaption></div><h2>ATLANTIC</h2>The Acadia forward had five goals and four assists to lead his team to a 7-6, 10-6 sweep of Dalhousie in league quarterfinal playoff action.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-06221/5445586-1-eng-US/f0035-062.jpg" title="f0035-06" width="342" height="464"><figcaption class="caption-body">TIM IANNONE McGill</figcaption></div><h2>ONTARIO</h2>lannone had seven goals&mdash;four in one game&mdash;and six assists in three games to lead McGill to victory over Concordia in a high-scoring league quarterfinal series.Performers of the week for the period Feb. 22-28.Bauer&nbsp;FIT FOR PERFORMANCE &#9632;

f0035-03

Bauer’s university performers OF THE WEEK

<div class="byline">BY ED WILLES</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01560/5445638-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="176" height="133"></div>It took two days longer than it should have, but right winger Craig Endean of the Regina Pats became the third player in Western League history to reach 500 career points.During the Pats&rsquo; 13-2 rout at Moose Jaw on Feb. 20, Endean passed the puck to teammate Gary Dickie for Regina&rsquo;s 10th goal.Inexplicably, the assists on the goal were given to center Mark Janssens and goalie Rob McKinley. A postgame appeal fell on deaf ears. It took a ruling from the league office two days later to officially change the second assist from McKinley to Endean.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure what they were doing,&rdquo; Endean said.Pats&rsquo; coach and general manager Doug Sauter said Endean clearly made the play. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand it. If it was just another point I could understand it, but this was an important milestone.&rdquo;Endean, 19, spent three seasons with the Seattle Thunderbirds before being dealt to the Pats early last season.Third on the WHL&rsquo;s all-time scoring list, the delayed point gave Endean 220 goals and 280 assists in 337 games. Ahead of him were former Brandon Wheat King left winger Brian Propp&mdash;219-292-511 in 213 games&mdash;and ex-Kamloops Blazer center Rob Brown, the leader at 179-343-522 in 242 games. On Feb. 22, Endean had 14 games remaining to catch Brown.&ldquo;I played against Rob my last year of bantam,&rdquo; said Endean, a native of Prince George, B.C. &ldquo;Then me, him and (Blazer defenseman) Greg Hawgood all went into the West Division. People have been talking about us for a while. He&rsquo;s (Brown) a great hockey player. It would be an honor to pass him.&rdquo;<h2>A PLAYOFF GAMBLE</h2>Kamloops Blazers were 14 points ahead of the second-place Spokane Chiefs in the West Division. But Blazer head coach Ken Hitchcock said he still fears running into Chiefs&rsquo; goalie Troy Gamble in the playoffs.&ldquo;I think a lot of it has to do with how Troy Gamble plays,&rdquo; said Hitchcock. &ldquo;If he continues to play the same way, he&rsquo;s the one guy who can win a game all by himself and I think all the teams are fearful of that. It&rsquo;s more a race to avoid Troy.&rdquo;Gamble had a 29-21-1 record, 3.57 goals-against average and .897 save percentage in 56 games. Yet, during the 1985 NHL entry draft, many wondered if the Vancouver Canucks erred when they selected Gamble from the Medicine Hat Tigers. He was picked 25th overall, one spot behind New Jersey&rsquo;s selection of Canadian Olympic goalie Sean Burke.During the 1985-86 season, Gamble shared playing time in Medicine Hat with Mark Fitzpatrick, a second-round pick (27th overall) by the Los Angeles Kings in 1987. Midway through last season, Gamble was dealt to Spokane. After an indifferent conclusion to the year, he has returned to form.Gamble credits his rejuvenation to the stand-up style former Tiger coach Sauter taught him in Medicine Hat.&ldquo;When I was playing badly I was going down too much,&rdquo; said the 20-year-old native of Wetaskiwin, Alta. &ldquo;I went back to what Doug taught me this season and things have worked out a lot better.&rdquo;<h2>TIGERS WELCOME MCBEAN</h2>Since defenseman Wayne McBean returned from the Los Angeles Kings on Jan. 19, the defending-Memorial Cup champion Medicine Hat Tigers had gone 14 games&mdash;12-0-2&mdash;without a loss and moved to within five points of first-place Prince Albert&hellip;Saskatoon Blade right winger Kelly Chase said he wanted to become the first Blade to fight in Saskatoon&rsquo;s new Saskatchewan Place arena. It took him until the 18:55 mark of the second period in a Feb. 9 game against Brandon, but Chase realized his objective. &ldquo;I was going to get into a fight on the first shift but Brandon didn&rsquo;t start any fighters,&rdquo; said Chase, who had 17 goals, 29 assists and 301 penalty minutes in 58 games. He tangled with Wheat King defenseman Barry Dreger&hellip;Moose Jaw center Theoren Fleury reclaimed the WHL scoring lead with a 16-point week, Feb. 14-20. Included in the outburst was a four-goal, two-assist effort in an 8-6 win over Brandon on Feb. 14. In 54 games, Fleury had 57 goals and 72 assists for 129 points, six points more than Swift Current&rsquo;s Joe Sakic, 58-65-123 in 51 games. &#9632;

f0036-01

Milestone Assist Was Better Late Than Never

<div class="byline">BY CATHERINE GRACE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02417/5445669-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="175" height="132"></div>It&rsquo;s not that the Chicoutimi Sagueneens don&rsquo;t want to be hosts of this year&rsquo;s Memorial Cup.But until the Sags recently snapped an eight-game losing streak, they didn&rsquo;t look nearly as anxious as two months ago when they held an eight-point lead over Hull Olympiques in the overall Quebec League standings.That is, until Patrice Tremblay got rolling against the Verdun Jr. Canadiens on Feb. 21. Tremblay scored four goals, including the winner in overtime, as Chicoutimi beat Verdun 5-4.The national championship tournament is in Chicoutimi this season (May 7-14), and that&rsquo;s given the Sags added incentive for the playoffs. The regular-season and playoff champions advance to the Cup. If the same team wins both titles, the regular-season runner-up also advances.Hull Olympiques led the league with 78 points (37-18-4) as of Feb. 22. St-Jean was second (34-23-3) at 71 and Chicoutimi third (32-26-1) with 65.Despite the slump, Chicoutimi maintained its hold on first place in the Dilio Division. The second-place Drummondville Voltigeurs (29-27-4) and third-place Victoriaville Tigres (28-26-5) were three and four points back, respectively, but Sags&rsquo; coach Gaston Drapeau was not worried.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not talking about losing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll only talk about victory and winning in the future.&rdquo;Chicoutimi goaltender Jimmy Waite was instrumental in turning things around. He stood out in a 2-0 loss at Drummondville on Feb. 19 and turned away 39 shots in the Verdun game two nights later.&ldquo;Jimmy is just an incredible netminder,&rdquo; Drapeau said. &ldquo;In Drummondville he was phenomenal and against Verdun he was extraordinary.&rdquo;<h2>COOL PROSPECTS</h2>Verdun, the Quebec League&rsquo;s worst team with a 19-39-3 record, should have two players drafted within the first two rounds of this June&rsquo;s NHL entry draft, according to coach Jean-Maurice Cool.Neil Carnes, a 5-foot-9, 184-pound center, is the coach&rsquo;s best bet. He recorded his second four-goal night of the season Feb. 15 against Trois Rivieres and had 30 goals and 48 assists in 51 games.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good skater,&rdquo; said Cool. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s great with the puck and has a strong shot.&rdquo;Carnes&rsquo; only shortcoming is size. In the NHL Central Scouting&rsquo;s January assessment, he was rated a fourth-round prospect.The other hopeful is left winger Martin St-Amour (20-48 in 56 games).&ldquo;Sometimes he gives you the impression that he&rsquo;s lazy because he&rsquo;s a big winger,&rdquo; said Cool. &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s good with the puck and hard to move when he&rsquo;s standing in front of the net.&rdquo;The 6-foot-2&frac12;, 194-pound St. Amour was rated a third-rounder by Central Scouting.<h2>MACLEAN ON UPSWING</h2>St. Louis property Terry MacLean of the Trois-Rivieres Draveurs, taken in the 11th round of the 1986 entry draft, was sixth overall in league scoring (47-75-122 in 60 games) as of Feb. 24&hellip;Verdun lost leading scorer Eric Legros (33-44-77 in 55 games) for the season with mononucleosis&hellip;Chicoutimi will play three games&mdash;March 4, 9 and 11&mdash;in nearby Jonquiere while the Labatt Brier Canadian curling championship moves into the Georges Vezina Centre. &#9632;

f0036-02

Cup Gives Sags Playoff Incentive

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0036-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-03337/5445728-1-eng-US/f0036-032.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-04252/5445721-1-eng-US/f0036-042.jpg" title="f0036-04" width="406" height="518"><figcaption class="caption-body">NELSON EMERSON Bowling Green</figcaption></div><h2>CCHA</h2>The sophomore center earned five points during the final weekend series of the season, against Michigan, to win the league scoring title with 65 points.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-05202/5445714-1-eng-US/f0036-052.jpg" title="f0036-05" width="408" height="520"><figcaption class="caption-body">ROBB STAUBER Minnesota</figcaption></div><h2>WCHA</h2>The sophomore goaltender earned back-to-back shutouts as the Gophers eliminated Colorado College 7-0 and 5-0 in league quarterfinal playoff action.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-06172/5445707-1-eng-US/f0036-062.jpg" title="f0036-06" width="407" height="520"><figcaption class="caption-body">JEFF FLAHERTY Lowell</figcaption></div><h2>Hockey East</h2>The sophomore forward earned six points as Lowell beat New Hampshire 6-1 and Northeastern 4-3. Flaherty scored the winning goal in both Chief victories.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-07160/5445700-1-eng-US/f0036-072.jpg" title="f0036-07" width="405" height="515"><figcaption class="caption-body">GREG POLASKI Princeton</figcaption></div><h2>ECAC</h2>The sophomore left winger scored five goals, including four in the third period alone, to lead his team to a 7-4 victory over Yale.Performers of the week for the period Feb. 22-28.Bauer FIT FOR PERFORMANCE &#9632;

f0036-03

Bauer’s COLLEGE Performers OF THE WEEK

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-02355/5445801-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg" title="f0037-02" width="732" height="951"><figcaption class="caption-body">Lake Superior&rsquo;s Mark Vermette has impressed as a solid two-way winger.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01488/5445808-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="180" height="135"></div>Last year, it was easy.North Dakota&rsquo;s Tony Hrkac collected such eye-popping offensive statistics that he wasn&rsquo;t seriously challenged for the Hobey Baker Award, given annually to U.S. college hockey&rsquo;s top player.But this year, several prime candidates for the award have emerged in college hockey&rsquo;s four major conferences&mdash;Central Collegiate, Western Collegiate, Hockey East and Eastern College.Players from independent and Division III programs are also eligible for the Hobey Baker.The weight of opinions from 118 NCAA hockey coaches will determine the 10 finalists, who will be announced March 5 at a banquet in St. Paul. Minn.The winner, selected by a panel of three coaches, six media members, three NHL scouts and a representative from USA Hockey, will be announced March 30 at Lake Placid Arena, immediately following the NCAA Final Four tournament coaches&rsquo; press conference.THN correspondents Bill Crawford, Virg Foss, Larry Mahoney and Tom Boggie combined to provide this synopsis of top candidates. Players&rsquo; NHL affiliations are indicated in parentheses.Right winger Mark Vermette of Lake Superior State (Quebec Nordiques) is the only serious candidate from the Central Collegiate Association, and is perhaps the overall favorite.At 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, the native of Cochenour, Ont., is a team leader and fine twoway player.He had 39 goals and 63 points as of Feb. 25, tying him for the overall national goal-scoring leadership with Northern Michigan&rsquo;s Phil Berger, and second to Bowling Green&rsquo;s Nelson Emerson in CCHA scoring, four points back.Laker coach Frank Anzalone labels his junior star &ldquo;the most complete player in the running.&rdquo;Vermette, with 132 penalty minutes, plays a rugged game, yet is disciplined. He is instrumental on the Laker power-play and penalty-killing units. Nineteen of his 39 goals had come on the power play, and he had six game-winners.Hartford Whalers&rsquo; scout Dave McNab touts Vermette, 20, as &ldquo;the top Hobey Baker candidate in the country.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think there is much doubt that Mark Vermette is the best pro prospect in the college game today. He is the type of player who is capable of dominating a game, no matter what style of hockey&mdash;a skating game, a physical game, whatever you want. He has so many great qualities that it is almost impossible to handle him in the college game.&rdquo;Miami&rsquo;s Mike Om (Minnesota North Stars), a native of Moorehead, Minn., and Emerson (St. Louis Blues), from Hamilton, Ont., would be serious Hobey Baker candidates in most other years. Orn, 21, had 28 goals and 43 points before being sidelined for the season with a back injury several weeks ago, while Emerson, 20, had 26 goals and a league-leading 67 points.Goalie Robb Stauber (Los Angeles Kings), who started all 36 games WCHA-champion Minnesota had played&mdash;winning 29 of them&mdash;has established himself as his league&rsquo;s prime candidate for the award.Stauber, a 20-year-old sophomore goaltender from Duluth, Minn., rates a slight edge over senior center Steve Johnson (Vancouver Canucks), 22, of North Dakota and senior left-winger Paul Ranheim (Calgary Flames), 22, of Wisconsin.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-03273/5445794-1-eng-US/f0037-032.jpg" title="f0037-03" width="728" height="942"><figcaption class="caption-body">Minnesota goalie Robb Stauber set a WCHA record with 28 victories.</figcaption></div>Stauber&rsquo;s final regular-season statistics included a 29-7 won-lost record, 2.88 goals-against average and .907 save percentage. His 28 wins in WCHA games are a league record.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-04226/5445787-1-eng-US/f0037-042.jpg" title="f0037-04" width="693" height="140"></div><h2>WESTERN COLLEGIATE</h2>&ldquo;I think playing in the U.S. Olympic Sports Festival last summer had a lot to do with the progress I&rsquo;ve made,&rdquo; says Stauber. &ldquo;It gave me a lot of confidence that if I could play that well against the best U.S. college players in the country, I could do well in the WCHA.&rdquo;Running a close second to Stauber is Johnson, from Grand Forks, N.D. Johnson finished with 27 goals and 41 assists in 35 league games to beat Berger by three points.Ranheim, from Edina, Minn., was a late cut from the U.S. Olympic team and is one of the WCHA&rsquo;s speediest and stongest skaters. Through 36 games overall, Ranheim had 28 goals, 23 assists and led the WCHA in powerplay goals with 15.Hockey East has no one clear-cut Hobey Baker candidate. But a pair of Maine Black Bear centers, 19-year-old sophomore Dave Capuano (Pittsburgh Penguins) and 22-year-old senior Mike Golden (New York Rangers), appear to be leading the pack.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-05197/5445780-1-eng-US/f0037-052.jpg" title="f0037-05" width="726" height="944"><figcaption class="caption-body">Center Dave Capuano is one of two Hobey Award candidates from Maine.</figcaption></div>Capuano, from Cranston, R.I., was 28-43-71 in 34 overall games and will win the Hockey East scoring title. In 24 league games, he was 24-31-55.Golden was 27-35-62 in 35 games and 12-2436 in 24 league contests. He had 12 power-play goals while Capuano had nine.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-06168/5445773-1-eng-US/f0037-062.jpg" title="f0037-06" width="180" height="133"></div><h2>HOCKEY EAST</h2>Golden, author of four game-winning goals, admits the Hobey Baker Award is something he has thought about.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s always in the back of your head,&rdquo; says the native of Boston. &ldquo;Once it&rsquo;s brought up, it&rsquo;s hard to ignore. It&rsquo;s every kid&rsquo;s dream who plays college hockey to win it and have his team do well. It&rsquo;s a really nice feeling to be considered a candidate. It&rsquo;s a tribute to the guys I play with. When everybody is playing well, it helps you play well.&rdquo;Capuano, too, considers the possibility of winning exciting.&ldquo;To be considered among the top 10 players in college hockey is an honor, no question,&rdquo; the sophomore says. &ldquo;But individual awards result from what your team does and what your linemates do. My linemates have been playing great.&rdquo;Other Hobey Baker possibilities from Hockey East include Boston University sniper Mike Kelfer (Minnesota North Stars) of Peabody, Mass. (24-22-46 in 30 games), Northeastern goalie Bruce Racine (Pittsburgh Penguins) of Cornwall, Ont. (3.70 goals-against average, .883 save percentage), and Boston College forward Danny Shea (Pittsburgh Penguins) of Quincy, Mass. (19-28-47).<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-07145/5445766-1-eng-US/f0037-072.jpg" title="f0037-07" width="730" height="1046"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rejean Boivin was on the brink of becoming Colgate&rsquo;s third 30-goal scorer.</figcaption></div>Kelfer and Racine are both 21 and Shea 22.Two of the best senior forwards in the league will carry the hopes of the ECAC in this year&rsquo;s balloting for the Hobey Baker.Colgate right winger Rejean Boivin (NHL free agent) and St. Lawrence center Pete Lappin (Calgary Flames) have been terrorizing ECAC goaltenders for four years and have the credentials to make them both legitimate contenders for the honor.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-08119/5445759-1-eng-US/f0037-082.jpg" title="f0037-08" width="179" height="130"></div><h2>EASTERN COLLEGE</h2>&ldquo;He does so many things,&rdquo; Colgate coach Terry Slater says of Boivin, who had amassed 170 points (84-86) during his career. &ldquo;I have so much faith in what he can do on the ice. I don&rsquo;t think there are many players in the country who are as good as Reggie Boivin.&rdquo;Through 27 games this season, Boivin of Ste-Foy, Que., had 29 goals and 20 assists, putting him on the brink of becoming just the third 30-goal scorer in Colgate history. Among his goals were 11 power-play efforts and five game-winners.He and Lappin went into the final weekend of the regular season tied for the ECAC scoring lead. Boivin had 32 points (17-15) in 20 games, while Lappin, who missed two games with a knee injury, had 10 goals and 22 assists.Both Boivin, 21, and Lappin, 22, are quiet leaders.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see anybody better than Pete as a truly competitive player,&rdquo; says St. Lawrence coach Joe Marsh. &ldquo;He can score goals, but he can do a lot of other things, too. A lot of kids play and some are competitors, but this kid is a real competitor. He&rsquo;s great under pressure. He&rsquo;s chased a lot of records here, but his main objective is to win.&rdquo;By scoring 11 goals and 30 assists in 24 games this season, the native of St. Charles, Ill., pushed his career totals to 75-93-168, placing him second on the all-time Saints&rsquo; list in both goals and assists and third overall in points. &#9632;

f0037-02

Who Will Win The Hobey?

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01566/5445853-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01535/5445846-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="3109" height="3659"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01262/5445839-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="3114" height="3354"></div> &#9632;

f0038-01

NHL STATISTICAL REPORT

<h2>Mon., Feb. 22</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01217/5446031-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="603" height="851"></div><h2>Tue., Feb. 23</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02139/5446024-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="611" height="2607"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0398/5446017-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="612" height="2425"></div><h2>Wed. Feb. 24</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0481/5446010-1-eng-US/f0041-042.jpg" title="f0041-04" width="598" height="1077"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0569/5446003-1-eng-US/f0041-052.jpg" title="f0041-05" width="611" height="2882"></div><h2>Thur., Feb. 25</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0662/5445996-1-eng-US/f0041-062.jpg" title="f0041-06" width="592" height="618"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0754/5445989-1-eng-US/f0041-072.jpg" title="f0041-07" width="598" height="1956"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0845/5445982-1-eng-US/f0041-082.jpg" title="f0041-08" width="593" height="645"></div><h2>Fri&bdquo; Feb. 26</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0932/5445975-1-eng-US/f0041-092.jpg" title="f0041-09" width="603" height="1231"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02161/5445968-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="599" height="1238"></div><h2>Sat., Feb. 27</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-03124/5445961-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="598" height="792"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0497/5445954-1-eng-US/f0042-042.jpg" title="f0042-04" width="612" height="2120"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0579/5445947-1-eng-US/f0042-052.jpg" title="f0042-05" width="605" height="769"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0670/5445940-1-eng-US/f0042-062.jpg" title="f0042-06" width="611" height="2329"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0763/5445933-1-eng-US/f0042-072.jpg" title="f0042-07" width="588" height="153"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01225/5445926-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="605" height="1197"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kirk Muller had three goals and two assists in New Jersey&rsquo;s win over Minnesota.</figcaption></div><h2>Sun., Feb. 28</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0857/5445919-1-eng-US/f0042-082.jpg" title="f0042-08" width="616" height="2101"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01153/5445912-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg" title="f0046-01" width="604" height="480"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-02113/5445905-1-eng-US/f0046-022.jpg" title="f0046-02" width="603" height="507"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0378/5445898-1-eng-US/f0046-032.jpg" title="f0046-03" width="603" height="513"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0465/5445891-1-eng-US/f0046-042.jpg" title="f0046-04" width="601" height="520"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0548/5445884-1-eng-US/f0046-052.jpg" title="f0046-05" width="596" height="517"></div> &#9632;

f0041-01

NHL SUMMARIES

<h2>TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE&hellip;</h2>1. Canada won the hockey gold medal in five of the first six winter Olympiads. How many has it won since?2. Since the 1956 Winter Olympics, only two countries have won the hockey gold medal. Name them.3. In what years did Canada not compete in hockey at the Winter Olympics?4. Which member of Canada&rsquo;s 1988 team also played in the 1984 Games at Sarajevo?5. Name the four members of Canada&rsquo;s 1988 team who have played on Stanley Cup winners.6. 1988 United States Olympic team forward Todd Okerlund has a famous father. What does he do?7. What country won its only gold medal in 1936 and went to war against the host country three years later?8. The U.S. won the gold medal at Lake Placid in 1980. What medal did the U.S. win the only other time the Winter Games were held there?9. How many Olympic medals has West Germany won?10. Prior to the 1988 Games, Czechoslovakia won either a silver or bronze medal in five of the last six Olympiads. In what year did Czechoslovakia finish out of the medals?<h2>ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ</h2>1. None. 2. The Soviet Union and United States. 3. 1972 and 1976.4. Vaughn Karpan. 5. Serge Boisvert. Randy Gregg, Andy Moog, Steve Tambellini. 6. Mean&rsquo; Gene Okerlund is a World Wrestling Federation announcer. 7. Great Britain. 8. Silver. 9. One, a bronze in 1976. 10. 1980 BONUS ANSWER: Brian Glennie.<h2>BONUS QUESTION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0952/5446062-1-eng-US/f0042-092.jpg" title="f0042-09" width="582" height="1005"></div>BONUS: He played defense for Canada in the 1968 Olympics. &#9632;

f0042-09

THN HOCKEY TRIVIA

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0044-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01180/5446124-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0044-01

SCOREBOARD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0045-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01153/5446155-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0045-01

Bauer college ScoreBoard

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0046-06" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0640/5446186-1-eng-US/f0046-062.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0046-06

The Hockey News Classified (416) 445-5702

<div class="byline">BY LARRY HUMBER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01173/5446224-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg"></div><h2>ACROSS:</h2>1. Nickname of the defunct Flin Flon junior club for which pictured player performed (7).4. Former Canuck defenseman recently convicted of drug smuggling (5).7. Former Lady Byng Memorial Trophy winner Reibel (4).8. Plugs away (8).10. First-round draft pick of Blackhawks in 1970, he&rsquo;s now an NHL coach (3,7).12. First name of former Canadien, Seal, Bruin, Ranger and devil (5).13. He was North Star coach twice, the first time in 1969-70 (5).14. He joined the Rangers in 1978 after four productive seasons in the WHA (3,7).18. Kevin Lowe was once captain of this Quebec League team (8).19. Leave out (4).20. Pucks (5).21. Opposite of offense (7).<h2>DOWN:</h2>1. Merge (5).2. Nickname of San Diego&rsquo;s WHA entry (8).3. Winnipeg-born coach said to be in a &lsquo;fog&rsquo; (5).4. Sport whose season runs at same time as hockey&rsquo;s (10).5. Former majority owner of the Kings (4).6. Hall of Fame defenseman Babe Pratt was credited with six in a 1944 game (7).9. Hap Day was this NHL team&rsquo;s first captain (5,5).11. One of several Flyers who played in the most recent Canada Cup (8).12. Shot the puck away from the defended goal (7).15. Famous (5).16. Dave Poulin&rsquo;s alma mater, Dame (5).17. An Ontario League division (4).Crossword solution in Classified Section on page 46.<h2>CROSSWORD SOLUTION</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0733/5446217-1-eng-US/f0046-072.jpg" title="f0046-07" width="599" height="585"></div> &#9632;

f0047-01

CROSSWORD

<h2>20 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; Classy Montreal center Jean Beliveau became the first Canadien to crack the career 1,000-point barrier, with a goal against the Detroit Red Wings. The Wings&rsquo; Gordie Howe was, at the time, the only other player to top 1,000. Beliveau finished his career with 1,219 points.&bull; Former Detroit defenseman Bill Gadsby resigned as coach of the Edmonton King juniors, prompting rumors he would return to the Red Wings as a player, Gadsby, who retired two years earlier, did eventually return to Detroit&mdash;as coach for the 1968-69 season.&bull; Boston defenseman Don Awrey was drawing comparisons to Hall of Fame Bruin Eddie Shore. Not for his play, but for his penalty minutes. After 63 games, Awrey had 142 minutes, just 25 short of Shore&rsquo;s club record. Awrey stuck to hockey in his last 11 games and finished with 150 minutes.<h2>10 YEARS AGO:</h2>&bull; Toronto Maple Leaf owner Harold Ballard finally relented in his battle with NHL president John Ziegler over a new league bylaw requiring players&rsquo; last names be printed on the back of home and road jerseys. Ballard initially refused to comply, saying the names would cut down his program sales. He also had the Leafs wear blue lettering on their blue jerseys, making the names unreadable.&bull; Birmingham left winger Paul Henderson scored his second hat trick in six days to lead the Bulls to a 7-3 win over Quebec. Henderson was in the midst of his best WHA season. He finished the year with 37 goals and 29 assists in 80 games. &#9632;

THIS WEEK…

<div class="byline">BY HOWARD BERGER</div>The success of Bert Olmstead&rsquo;s playing career in the National Hockey League was but a distant memory during his one season as NHL coach.In fact, his calamitous year in charge of the expansion Oakland Seals drove him out of hockey for good.A clever, abrasive left winger with Chicago, Montreal and Toronto from 1948 to 1962, Olmstead played on five Stanley Cup teams&mdash;four with the Canadiens and one with the Leafs.He guided Vancouver of the Western Hockey League for two years and had his pick of coaching jobs when the NHL added six new teams in 1967-68.&ldquo;Los Angeles wanted me, and it would have been nice to work with (GM) Larry Regan&mdash;an old teammate from the Leaf years,&rdquo; Olmstead recalls. &ldquo;But I didn&rsquo;t get along with (Kings&rsquo; owner) Jack Kent Cooke and I knew if we ever had a battle, I&rsquo;d be the loser.&ldquo;The Seals offered to make me general manager and coach (after firing Rudy Pilous), so I went up to Oakland. It was the worst decision of my life.&rdquo;Olmstead knew only one way to play the game&mdash;with fire and passion. Perhaps mistakenly, he expected similar diligence from the players he coached and was perilously close to a nervous breakdown when he left the Seals in March, 1968.&ldquo;Maybe I over-estimated the talent on that team but I had never experienced such a blase attitude among hockey players,&rdquo; says Olmstead.&ldquo;The entire scene, from ownership on down, was a disaster and it reached a point where I had to get away to keep my sanity.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-0387/5446310-1-eng-US/f0047-032.jpg" title="f0047-03" width="600" height="920"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bert Olmstead</figcaption></div>After drafting proven NHL commodities like goalie Charlie Hodge, defensemen Bob Baun and Kent Douglas, and forwards Billy Harris, Gerry (Tex) Ehman and Bill Hicke, Oakland was the pre-season favorite to lead West Division standings.In addition, the NHL believed the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area had potential to make the Seals a landmark expansion franchise.Both expectations were way off.Team apathy, a lack of scoring, and Olmstead&rsquo;s inability to inspire his charges left Oakland lagging far behind its expansion counterparts. The Seals were 20 points in arrears of fifthplace Pittsburgh at season&rsquo;s end.To complicate matters, nobody seemed all that interested in watching the team flounder. Gatherings of 3,000 in the 12,500-seat Coliseum were commonplace.&ldquo;The whole situation almost drove me crazy,&rdquo; Olmstead laments. &ldquo;Players I relied on&hellip;didn&rsquo;t come close to matching the value of their contracts.&ldquo;There were a lot of chiefs and very few Indians among the owners, and the Bay Area sports fans didn&rsquo;t give a heck. I walked out with about two weeks left in the season; I was a nutcase.&rdquo;Olmstead led the NHL in assists with Montreal in 1954-55 (48) and 1955-56 (56). Knee damage and what Olmstead terms &ldquo;improper medical advice&rdquo; led to his release by Montreal in 1958 and he was claimed by the Leafs.Physiotherapist Karl Elieff and Leaf doctor Jim Murray rehabilitated Olmstead&rsquo;s knee and the Scepter, Sask., native helped Toronto to its first of three consecutive Stanley Cups before retiring in 1962.He totalled 181 goals and 421 assists in 848 NHL games.After his experience in Oakland, he quit hockey and ran his two farms in Saskatchewan and Alberta. He sold them both and, at 61, is now retired and living in Calgary. &#9632;

Search for your favorite player or team

March 11, 1988

OLYMPIC SCOREBOARD

THE WAY WE WERE

‘Run For Net’ Pays Dividends For Thelven

CAN/AM CHALLENGE CUP