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

May 24, 1991

The Hockey News May 24, 1991

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021206/5938446-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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DEPARTMENTS

ELSTON

<div class="byline">BY STEPHEN HARRIS</div>Mike Milbury, who narrowly lost the Jack Adams Award for NHL coach of the year last season to Winnipeg&rsquo;s since-fired Bob Murdoch, isn&rsquo;t one of three finalists this year for top coach honors.He should have been&mdash;especially if voters could have taken into account all the hunches and angles and mind games Milbury played in bringing his weary and undermanned club within six wins of the Stanley Cup.Milbury&rsquo;s contract is up, and Bruins&rsquo; general manager Harry Sinden regards re-signing him as his No. 1 post-season task.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d say this season, Mike has done the best coaching job of anyone,&rdquo; said Sinden, after his club was eliminated May 11 by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the six-game Wales Conference title series. &ldquo;Mike constantly, and with regularity, brought the team back from slipping. I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s any question he&rsquo;s one of the premier coaches in sports today.&ldquo;I never think he goes too far. I&rsquo;m fortunate to have a coach who has that kind of courage and ingenuity to try new things. He has the imagination to be a great coach. Mike&rsquo;s not a shrinking violet by any means.&rdquo;The many plots and ploys of Milbury, who took his team to the Adams Division title despite the loss of 413 manpower-games to injury, have been well-documented: Picking Chris Nilan for the all-star team; lying to the media about Bobby Carpenter&rsquo;s unexpected return from injury early in the playoffs; forming little-used Peter Douris, Ron Hoover and Randy Burridge as a highly-effective checking line against Montreal&rsquo;s Stephane Richer, Brian Skrudland and Shayne Corson; sticking his team in a second-rate highway motel the night before Game 5 against the Canadiens, a reminder it was time to get back to &ldquo;nofrills&rdquo; hockey.And, of course, his inflamatory charge of &ldquo;goon tactics&rdquo; by the Pittsburgh Penguins and coach Bob Johnson.&ldquo;The professor of hockey, as he so often professes to be, is also subtly a professor of goonism,&rdquo; said Milbury, responding to Penguin Ulf Samuelsson&rsquo;s Game 3 check that injured Cam Neely. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t take that any longer.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a deliberate tactic. What&rsquo;s really irritating to me is he pretends to be a goody-two-shoes coach, with his college mentality. But then he has got his guys trying to pick off key players. I think that&rsquo;s hypocritical at best.&rdquo;Milbury meant little, if any, of it. Recognizing after a lucky Game 2 overtime win and a one-sided Game 3 loss that his team was in serious trouble against the faster, bigger and better Pens, he introduced the red herring about goonism as a way of challanging his team to give an all-out effort.It didn&rsquo;t work, as the Bruins went out in six games. But Milbury tried.&ldquo;Everybody realizes talk is just talk,&rdquo; said Douris.At the end of the series, Milbury backed away from his anti-Johnson charges.&ldquo;All that stuff was gamesmanship and malarkey,&rdquo; said Milbury. &ldquo;Bob Johnson is an excellent coach.&rdquo;<h2>BOSTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Craig Janney. Bob Sweeney, Ron Hoover, Wes Walz, Ken Hodge.LW&mdash;Vladimir Ruzicka, Petri Skriko, Randy Burridge. Nevin Markwart, Lyndon Byers.RW&mdash;Cam Neely, Dave Christian, Jett Lazaro, Chris Winnes, Chris Nilan, Peter Douris.LD&mdash;Don Sweeney, Glen Wesley, Al Pedersen, Ken Hammond.RD&mdash;Ray Bourque, Jim Wiemer, Bob Beers.G&mdash;Andy Moog, Reggie Lemelin, Matt DelGuidice, Norm Foster.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Bobby Carpenter, LW, fractured left kneecap Dave Poulin, C. pulled groin muscle. Stephane Quintal, D, torn ankle ligaments.<h3>LEADERS</h3>G&mdash;Neely, 16. A&mdash;Janney, Bourque, 18. P&mdash;Bourque. 25. PIM&mdash;Nilan, 62. &#9632;

THE NHL

ENSURING MILBURY RETURNS IS SINDEN’S TOP PRIORITY

<div class="byline">BY NICK GATES</div>The announcement by the North American League to place a franchise in Cincinnati next season could escalate into a hockey war in the Queen City.But until Cincinnati owner&mdash;and NAHL chairman of the board&mdash;Gordon Stenback signs a lease for the use of the 17,000-seat Riverfront Coliseum, Cyclones&rsquo; owner Doug Kirchofer believes there is no reason to fire the first shot.&ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Seems to me there are a lot of unanswered questions regarding the announcement made (May 3) by the NAHL,&rdquo; Kirchofer said. &ldquo;Questions about arena leases, players and organization. Until some of these questions are addressed, I don&rsquo;t have a reaction.&rdquo;Pat Kelly, commissioner of the three-year-old ECHL, took a similar stance.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re established in that town and ours is a proven minor league drawing 1.58 million last season,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They are going to have a higher caliber of hockey, something like the AHL or IHL. But they don&rsquo;t have an arena tied up. It&rsquo;s hard to say what direction they are going.&rdquo;There is no question the Cyclones are headed in the right direction.As an expansion team in 1990-91, the Cyclones averaged a league-record 7,700 and more than 1,300 season tickets have been sold for 1991-92. Dasher boards have been sold, the maximum four on-ice logos in the neutral zone have been purchased and program advertising is ahead of last year.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re the established team,&rdquo; Kirchofer said. &ldquo;The only thing we can do is continue preparations for the coming season at Cincinnati Gardens and build on the foundation we laid last year.&rdquo;NAHL teams will operate under a $3 million salary cap and have at least $2 million in operating costs.According to Cyclones&rsquo; estimates, their competition would have to charge at least $15 per ticket&mdash;about double the cost of admission to Cyclones&rsquo; games&mdash;and average between 8,000 and 10,000 to break even.&ldquo;We feel comfortable,&rdquo; Kirchofer said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll continue to provide low-cost entertainment in a building well thought of by our fans and ideally suited for the product we offer.&rdquo;Stenback has had meetings with officials of Riverfront Coliseum but no lease agreement was signed.The NAHL draft to stock teams with players is June 3 at league offices in Cleveland. The battle between the leagues for supremacy in Cincinnati will begin long before November, when the NAHL is scheduled to debut.<h2>COLUMBUS LANDS</h2>Kelly confirmed that Columbus will operate as the league&rsquo;s 15th team next season. Owner Horn Chen hasn&rsquo;t announced a nickname, but the team will play at Fairgrounds Arena which seats more than 6,000.The Columbus team in the Continental Basketball League will use the facility before moving to another arena downtown next year. Columbus was once the home of the Checkers and Owls in the IHL.Chen also considered Cleveland, but couldn&rsquo;t get enough suitable weekend dates at Richfield Coliseum.Another potential franchise, Charlotte, will likely not operate until 1992-93. &#9632;

IN THIS ISSUE

STORM BREWING FOR FANS IN CYCLONE COUNTRY

<div class="byline">BY THN STAFF</div>The defending champion Oshawa Generals didn&rsquo;t quite make it to the Memorial Cup, but their star center Eric Lindros made his presence felt winning three Canadian Hockey League awards.Lindros was named CHL player of the year and also added the Trans-america Life plus/minus award and Valvoline top draft prospect award to his showcase.Lindros led the Ontario League in scoring with 71 goals and 149 points in 57 games. He beat out Ray Whitney of the Western League&rsquo;s Spokane Chiefs and Yanic Perreault of the Quebec League&rsquo;s Trois Rivieres Draveurs for the player of the year award.Lindros, with a plus-74 rating, shaded Christian Lariviere of the QMJHL&rsquo;s St-Hyacinthe Laser and Frank Evans of Spokane for the plus/minus award, and Philippe Boucher of the QMJHL&rsquo;s Granby Bisons and Scott Niedermayer of the WHL&rsquo;s Kamloops Blazers for the top prospect award.Boucher captured the CHL rookie of the year award edging out Cory Stillman of the OHL&rsquo;s Windsor Spitfires and Donovan Hextall of the WHL&rsquo;s Prince Albert Raiders. Boucher had 21 goals and 67 points in 69 games.Niedermayer won the CHL scholastic player of the year award with Benoit Larose of the QMJHL&rsquo;s Laval Titan and Nathan Lafayette of the OHL&rsquo;s Cornwall Royals as runnersup. Niedermayer had 26 goals and 82 points in 57 games.Falloon was named the CHL&rsquo;s most gentlemanly player beating Dale Craigwell of the Generals and Perreault of Trois Rivieres. Falloon had 64 goals, 138 points and 33 penalty minutes in 61 games.Patrice Brisebois of the QMJHL&rsquo;s Drummondville Voltigeurs captured the CHL top defenseman award edging out Chris Snell of the OHL&rsquo;s Ottawa 67&rsquo;s and Darryl Sydor of Kamloops. Brisebois had 17 goals and 61 points in 54 games.Felix Potvin of the QMJHL&rsquo;s Chicoutimi Sagueneens won the CHL top goalie award with Mike Torchia of the OHL&rsquo;s Kitchener Rangers and Jamie McLennan of the WHL&rsquo;s Lethbridge Hurricanes as runners-up. Potvin was 33-15-4 witha2.71 goals-against average.Chicoutimi&rsquo;s Joe Canale was named CHL coach of the year ahead of George Burnett of the OHL&rsquo;s Niagara Falls Thunder and Tom Renney of Kamloops. Chicoutimi finished in first place with a 43-21-6 record for 92 points.Sherry Bassin of the OHL&rsquo;s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds is the CHL&rsquo;s executive of the year edging out Roland Janelle of Drummondville and Bob Brown of Kamloops. Sault Ste. Marie had a 42-21-3 record for 87 points.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011481/5938515-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="559" height="707"><figcaption class="caption-body">Oshawa&rsquo;s Eric Lindros was named CHL player of the year.</figcaption></div><h2>SECRET AGENTS</h2>The third annual NHLPA Player/Agent seminar, held in early May in Toronto, may have been the finest yet. And it may well send the players to the table better prepared than ever this summer as they attempt to negotiate a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the owners.&ldquo;They ran a very complete, educational seminar,&rdquo; said Lloyd Friedland, the Long Island attorney who respresents New York Rangers&rsquo; goalie John Vanbiesbrouck and Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; goalie Kelly Hrudey. &ldquo;It was the best seminar of its type that I&rsquo;ve ever attended.&rdquo;This one was for the big players in the agent game&mdash;Don Meehan, Rick Curran. Pierre Lacroix, Herb Pinder and Tom Reich&mdash;as well as the small. The agents were presented with comprehensive breakdowns on player salaries, and also broke into groups for extensive discussion of the collective-bargaining issues that will dominate the approaching negotiations.Ryan Walter (Montreal), Joe Nieuwendyk (Calgary), Mike Liut (Washington), Mike Hough (Quebec) and Kevin Dineen (Hartford) also participated in the seminar, occasionally even leading the discussions. The players received guidance from the agents and vice-versa, suggesting that the NHLPA may have a deeper understanding of the issues.&ldquo;The more you know, on either side of a problem, the better the opportunity for common ground,&rdquo; said Pinder, whose clients include Boston goalie Andy Moog and Rangers&rsquo; defenseman James Patrick.At least as important, Goodenow officially kicked off efforts toward an agent registration program. Every agent attending paid an $800 (US) registration fee and filled out a detailed questionnaire, answering such questions as whether the agent has ever been in trouble with the law or his bar association, what types of services are provided for the client, and so on. The aim of registration/certification is to weed out the credible agents from the not-credible in the hope of avoiding the past situations in which agents misused client funds, and also to help find solid representation for those seeking an agent.<h2>GREAT LAKES</h2>A championship win, no matter how it&rsquo;s attained, is sweet. But proving people wrong, as the Vernon (B.C.) Lakers did to capture their second straight Centennial Cup, always makes it that much more enjoyable.Led by the three-goal, one-assist performance of Phil Esposito (no relation to the former NHL great), the Lakers defeated the host Sudbury Cubs 8-4 May 11 to win the Canadian national Tier 11 junior championship.The British Columbia Junior League champs also got three goals from Jason Elders and singles for Corey Spring and Terry Klapstein to cruise to victory.But it wasn&rsquo;t supposed to be that way.Coming off their 1989-90 tournament win&mdash;a tourney to which they were invited only because they were the host team&mdash;the Lakers were supposed to be in a rebuilding mode this season. After all, just four players from the 1990 title team were returning.&ldquo;We were picked for fourth in our league with nobody giving us a chance of doing anything,&rdquo; said coach Ed Johnstone, a former NHLer with the New York Rangers and Detroit. &ldquo;We only had four guys back from last year&rsquo;s squad, so everyone counted us out.&ldquo;Last year, a lot of people said we didn&rsquo;t deserve to win because we got in as host team. No one can say we didn&rsquo;t earn it this time.&rdquo;The story within the story is that of Esposito&rsquo;s. A native of New Haven, Conn., Esposito wound up in Vernon after a one-year stint in the U. S. army.&ldquo;I wanted out of the army and when I got out I still wanted to play hockey,&rdquo; said Esposito, who had 86 points in 56 BCJHL games and a league-leading 316 penalty minutes. &ldquo;I contacted the New Westminster juniors in B.C. and went to their camp, but things didn&rsquo;t turn out too well.&ldquo;Mel Lis (Lakers&rsquo; owner) contacted me and I went to Vernon and things went beautifully all season. It has been a great season and this is a perfect way to finish it.&rdquo;And what about the famous name?&ldquo;My grandfather&rsquo;s name is Phil and so is my dad&rsquo;s and they&rsquo;ve both been around longer than the Phil you&rsquo;re talking about,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Actually, I&rsquo;m the first member of my family to ever play hockey.&rdquo;The Lakers placed second in the week-long tournament, while the host Cubs finished third.Vernon defeated the Yorkton (Sask.) Terriers 7-4 in one semifinal, while the Cubs beat Halifax, winners of the round-robin portion, 5-3 in the other semifinal.&mdash;with files from Frank Brown and Keith Lacey &#9632;

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GENERAL LINDROS WINS HAUL AT CHL JUNIOR AWARDS

<h2>QUOTABLE</h2>&ldquo;He played with two knee braces and a busted thumb. That&rsquo;s comparable to Kryptonite for Superman.&rdquo;&mdash;Edmonton&rsquo;s Kevin Lowe, on teammate Mark Messier&rsquo;s injury-plagued playoff. Page 32.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re too stupid to know what we&rsquo;re doing.&rdquo;&mdash;Minnesota rearguard Mark Tinordi, on the playoff success of the North Stars&rsquo; defense. Page 17.<h2>NEXT ISSUE</h2>This is the last weekly issue of The Hockey News this season. In our June issue, we&rsquo;ll analyze the NHL playoffs, recap the Memorial Cup and minor pro playoffs and have an interview with NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow on the issues surrounding the Collective Bargaining Agreement. &#9632;

THIS WEEK

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011320/5938360-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="515" height="612"><figcaption class="caption-body">BOB MCKENZIE</figcaption></div>I have grave concerns about the way the game of hockey is being played these days.A bleeding heart? Perhaps.Selective negativity? Maybe.But I don&rsquo;t think I am alone.Granted, there is much to be excited about this spring. Though some may suggest an allAmerican Stanley Cup final between the upstart Minnesota North Stars and Pittsburgh Penguins detracts from the Spring Classic, I beg to differ.Vive la difference, I say. The Stars and Penguins have earned their playoff stripes and far be it for me, or anyone else, to suggest that traditional finalists, like Edmonton or Boston, would make for a better finale.And who could not have been excited by the seven-game series between Edmonton and Calgary? Or the Oilers&rsquo; overtime heroics against the Los Angeles Kings?But, for me, it is all tainted.You may see a Cinderella final between the Stars and Penguins&mdash;the 1967 expansion finally bears fruit&mdash;but I see something else.I see Boston&rsquo;s Bob Sweeney blackening the eye of Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Mark Recchi with a butt end. I see Montreal&rsquo;s Shayne Corson crosschecking Boston&rsquo;s Raymond Bourque in the head. I see Edmonton&rsquo;s Craig Muni delivering checks that, contrary to his claims, are blatantly illegal. I see Los Angeles&rsquo; Marty McSorley viciously cheap-shotting Edmonton&rsquo;s Anatoli Semenov. Edmonton&rsquo;s Glenn Anderson kicking Minnesota&rsquo;s Gaetan Duchesne. Minnesota&rsquo;s Bobby Smith crosschecking Edmonton&rsquo;s Martin Gelinas in the head. New Jersey&rsquo;s Viacheslav Fetisov sticking Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Paul Coffey in the eye. Players running goalies. Hitting from behind. Rugby scrums at every whistle.It goes on and on and on. And, if you want to know the truth, it makes me sick.Where is the respect?Am I overreacting? I certainly hope so, but suspect not.The nonsense is as bad, perhaps worse, at the junior level. The Ontario League final between Sault Ste. Marie and Oshawa was an emotional spectacle. Eric Lindros made his first visit to the Soo since spuming the Northern Ontario city in the summer of 1989. The emotion of the moment, the drama and the Greyhounds&rsquo; miraculous comeback story camouflaged the sad fact the series was punctuated by excessive stick-work and cheap histrionics.The Memorial Cup, at least in a couple of early games, was no different.As a television color commentator on junior games, I am perfectly capable of making a total ass of myself without adolescent actors behaving as though someone had removed their spleens every time they get knocked down. More than once, I have been duped into thinking a real injury has occurred.Silly me.For all my love of the game, I am at a loss to explain these developments. One supposes the eternal quest to gain the upper hand is at the root of the problem; that win-at-all-cost hockey has overwhelmed what little sportsmanship is left in our fine sport.But I just don&rsquo;t know. I am at a loss to explain it and must admit recommending a remedy does not come easily.You see, it&rsquo;s not enough to just complain. If you&rsquo;re going to be a chronic carper, you better be leveling constructive criticism.But I don&rsquo;t know the answer.I would love to believe that if the NHL went back to ejecting every stick-related offender, unintentional or not, the situation would improve. Or that a second referee would make all the difference. Or that things would change if NHL vice president Brian O&rsquo;Neill, in charge of supplementary discipline, would drop his gloves and hang a few of these outlaws out to dry.I fully understand the violence inherent to a high-speed contact sport played in a confined area. I, like many, find a perverse beauty or grace in a life-on-the-line hockey game played with dire physical consequences.But try as I may, I cannot accept the quality of play exhibited this spring.The Stanley Cup is on. So, too, is the Memorial Cup. It should be a time of celebration. It is not.Forgive me for my self-righteousness, but I seriously wonder if many of those who play the game today care for it as deeply as I do.I don&rsquo;t know. What do you think?Bob McKenzie is editor-in-chief of The Hockey News. &#9632;

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COLUMNS

IF THEY LOVED THE GAME, WOULD THEY PLAY IT THIS WAY?

Being an NHL fan living in Sweden, I feel I have to express my views about the American national team that competed at the World Championships in Finland.Granted, the Americans did well to defeat Finland and qualify for the medal round. However, in their final game against Canada, the U.S. team sold itself like a prostitute. Their tactics were scandalous!With 30 seconds remaining and Canada leading 7-4 (the Canadians needed to win by five goals to have a shot at the gold), U.S. coach Tim Taylor pulled his goalie. Canada scored into the empty net to make it 8-4.Then, on the ensuing faceoff, Canada scored to make it 9-4 against a very passive U.S. team. It seemed as though some of the American players skated away to make room for the Canadian attackers.Taylor&rsquo;s excuses at the post-game press conference made him the laughingstock of the European hockey community. This episode left a bad taste in a lot of people&rsquo;s mouths. I hope there is somebody at USA Hockey wise enough to fire Taylor.Micael Frost Tingsryd, Sweden<h2>CAN&rsquo;T WAIT</h2>Canada&rsquo;s silver-medal performance at the World Championship proves once again it is clearly hockey&rsquo;s dominant power. Having nothing but respect for the likes of Dave Archibald, Brad Schlegel and Steve Konroyd, they hardly represent Canada&rsquo;s elite.Just consider those who were available but didn&rsquo;t participate: Steve Yzerman, Al Maclnnis, Joe Nieuwendyk, John Cullen and Rick Tocchet. The list goes one.Let&rsquo;s put it in perspective. With the possible exceptions of Thomas Steen, Tomas Sandstrom and Frederik Olausson, Sweden will ice the exact same team in the Canada Cup, while at most, perhaps five Team Canada members will be invited to camp in August. No wonder the Swedes were so ecstatic about wrestling the gold away from this Canadian powerhouse.A final message for Team Sweden: See you in September.Michael Nease Bramalea, Ont.<h2>ADMIT IT</h2>Neil Smith, why don&rsquo;t you give credit where it&rsquo;s due?Did you ever bother to think the only reason your New York Rangers played so poorly in their playoff series against Washington is that the Capitals outplayed them in every aspect of the game?Oh, and Neil, now you know why the Caps traded Mike Gartner before the playoffs a couple of years ago.Rich Valliere Vienna, Va.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011482/5938415-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="561" height="645"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Johnson worked wonders in Pittsburgh, says a reader.</figcaption></div><h2>WHAT ABOUT BOB?</h2>After reading the list of Jack Adams Award nominees for coach of the year in the NHL (Mike Keenan, Brian Sutter, Tom Webster), I was wondering who does the nominating? Whoever it is must have had their head in the sand for the last six months.Granted, Keenan did a good job with the Blackhawks, but who has done a better job than Bob Johnson of the Penguins? From a non-playoff team last year to Patrick Division champions&mdash;and without Mario Lemieux for 50 games. It should be unanimous.Tom Wagner Homer City, Penn.(ed. note: the Jack Adams Award winner is selected in a vote by members of the NHL Broadcaster&rsquo; Association at the end of the regular season.)<h2>OH, CANADA</h2>I can&rsquo;t believe it. CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, pre-empts the start of Game 2 of the Wales Conference final for an American soap opera, Dallas.If the CBC is to continue its hockey tradition it ought to get in the game or let another Canadian network give us total coverage.Dennis Decevito Cochrane, Ont.<h2>WHO CARES?</h2>While I very much enjoy reading THN every week, I am getting rather miffed with the on-going discussions about Canadian versus American hockey players.I am an American, but I could care less whether Paul Coffey, Joe Nieuwendyk or Doug Gilmour are Canadian; I like them because they are three of the best hockey players in the world.Please don&rsquo;t let this insignificant issue overshadow the individuals who make hockey the great sport it is.Mary Chmielewicz Southfield, Mich.Make your feelings known. Send your comments to:&nbsp;Letters, The Hockey News, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont., M3B 2R2&nbsp;or fax us at&nbsp;(416) 445-0753.&nbsp;Include home and business phone numbers. THN reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

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TAYLOR’S TACTICS AN AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03796/5938484-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="374" height="363"></div>&#9632; Parity. That the Penguins and North Stars have made it through to the Stanley Cup finals is a reflection of the league&rsquo;s strength. Both teams succeeded on their own; neither slipped through the proverbial back door. Now, if we could just find a way to get the Canucks and Maple Leafs in the finals&hellip;&#9632; Mario Lemieux. Four months ago there was serious doubt about Lemieux&rsquo;s long-term future, let alone a possible comeback this season. But his inspirational play in the post-season&mdash;-he was tied with teammate Mark Recchi for the playoff scoring lead entering the final series&mdash;has erased those fears. Win or lose, it has been a storybook ending to his troubled season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-04442/5938477-1-eng-US/f0003-042.jpg" title="f0003-04" width="376" height="362"></div>&#9632; Playoff goonery. What is it about the playoffs that makes some players lose their mental faculties? Glenn Anderson kicking Minnesota&rsquo;s Gaeten Duschesne and the Stars&rsquo; Bobby Smith nearly decapitated Martin Gelinas arc new lows. It&rsquo;s time the league sent a stiff message to the players.&#9632; NHL ticket prices. Of course NHL teams should keep in line with inflation, but the spiraling cost of going to see a game is getting out of control. The Toronto Maple Leafs, the league&rsquo;s perennial doormat, are the latest to hike seat prices, with the top ticket going for $40. Teams may survive with these gaudy prices for a time, but they risk losing their traditional, working-class fan base. &#9632;

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CHEERS JEERS

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>Alcohol abuse cases like Washington&rsquo;s John Kordic have inspired the NHL Players&rsquo; Association to hammer out a therapeutic drinking policy. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have a program to present to the owners this summer,&rdquo; says NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow. &ldquo;It will be very extensive and is based, in part, on a detailed questionnaire we have given to the players.&rdquo; Goodenow says the union has had discussions with its baseball and football counterparts to help develop the program. The NHLPA has been moving toward a system of self-help ever since the drunken driving arrests of Craig MacTavish and Petr Klima and the death of Philadelphia goalie Pelle Lindbergh, who was drunk when he crashed his car into a wall in 1986. Goodenow and other NHLPA members insist players aren&rsquo;t boozing as they had in the past. &ldquo;There has been an internal catharsis,&rdquo; says Goodenow. &ldquo;People like Mark Howe say players recognize hockey as a business now. A player who once would have had a beer after a game is now drinking fruit juice.&rdquo; An educational program for junior players is also in the works.<h2>BOXED IN</h2>A problem the NHL is facing in luring ESPN back into the bidding for its U.S. TV package is the network&mdash;once sprinkled with hockey fans&mdash;has none now. &ldquo;When (vice-president) Scotty Connal left ESPN, there were no more hockey fans remaining there,&rdquo; an industry insider says. &ldquo;Nobody at ESPN is crazy about the NHL.&rdquo; The source says ESPN&rsquo;s interest in obtaining a new NHL deal is predicated on its receiving rights to the Stanley Cup finals&hellip;Edmonton fans believe this is the last season five-time Stanley Cup-winners Charlie Huddy, Grant Fuhr, Glenn Anderson, Kevin Lowe and Mark Messier will be together as Oilers. &ldquo;The chance of changes are real,&rdquo; says Lowe. &ldquo;Especially with eight guys playing out their options.&rdquo; Lowe says the oldtime quintet has its own theme for winning another ring&mdash;win one for the Final Five&hellip;Anderson and Messier are demanding renegotiated contracts. Fuhr&rsquo;s superb playoff has upped his trade value, should Glen Sather put the goalie back on the block. And Hartford seems to be the most interested team. But what GM Eddie Johnston plans to give up is still a mystery.<h2>OWNER FEUD</h2>A managerial feud between Glen Sather and Neil Smith may occur following Sather&rsquo;s criticism of the Ranger general manager for signing collegians Tony Amonte and Doug Weight. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got one or two young GMs who are the worst part of the problem,&rdquo; says Sather referring to Smith. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t have the guts to say no to agents.&rdquo; Angered by Sather&rsquo;s remarks, Smith replies: &ldquo;It has nothing to do with guts. It has to do with the position you&rsquo;re in at the time when you sign the player and the leverage. Everyone&rsquo;s situation is different. Slats has his situation and we have ours.&rdquo; Another NHL official suggests Sather&rsquo;s primary goal &ldquo;is to make more money for (Oilers&rsquo; owner) Peter Pocklington.&rdquo; Others say Sather is miffed over his inability to sign U.S. collegiate star Brad Werenka&hellip;NHL owners are beginning to focus on the outcome of the collective bargaining agreement to be worked out this summer with the NHLPA. The Whalers&rsquo; Richard Gordon says, &ldquo;We all have to consider the security of the league and the security of the players; we don&rsquo;t want to blow the place up. We have to do what&rsquo;s best for everybody.&rdquo; Gordon says there&rsquo;s a lesson to be learned in terms of salary scale and success from the 1991 playoffs. &ldquo;Two of the highest-spending teams (Kings and Blues) got beaten early,&rdquo; he says.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011388/5938546-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="568" height="848"><figcaption class="caption-body">Garry Galley says people calling the Bruins plumbers are all wet.</figcaption></div><h2>PLUM PLUMBERS</h2>The Bruins&rsquo; Garry Galley resents his club being labelled a bunch of plumbers surrounded by Ray Bourque, Cam Neely, Andy Moog and Craig Janney. &ldquo;We may be plumbers,&rdquo; says Galley, &ldquo;but our pipes don&rsquo;t leak.&rdquo; Galley says those who doubt the Bruins have a short memory. &ldquo;How can anybody be surprised at our run?&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;Look at what we did last year, going to the finals and look at all the experience we&rsquo;ve gained since then.&rdquo;&hellip;If Pat Quinn doesn&rsquo;t return as Canucks&rsquo; coach, the betting in Vancouver is either his pal from his Philadelphia days, John Paddock, or Oilers&rsquo; aide Ted Green, will be hired. Quinn says he enjoyed his recent move behind the bench. &ldquo;When you&rsquo;re coach, you&rsquo;re closer to the players,&rdquo; he admits. &ldquo;What I missed most being just the GM was dealing with the players and being a part of the emotion. Getting back to that was fun.&rdquo; But as Canuck fans will learn, it won&rsquo;t be enough to keep Quinn coaching. &#9632;

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NHLPA TO INTRODUCE DRINKING POLICY

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div>If the Minnesota North Stars and Pittsburgh Penguins appear to be unlikely Stanley Cup finalists, you may have forgotten about the 1982 Vancouver Canucks and 1938 Chicago Blackhawks.&ldquo;&lsquo;Unlikely&rsquo; may have been an understatement to describe us,&rdquo; says Darcy Rota, a member of the &ldquo;miracle&rdquo; &rsquo;82 Canucks. &ldquo;Down the homestretch we were so bad that we couldn&rsquo;t even persuade the beat writers on our two daily papers to accompany us on our last road trip.&rdquo;How a team that finished its regular season with a 30-33-17 record could manage to beat Calgary, Los Angeles and Chicago to reach the 1982 finals was nothing short of miraculous.&ldquo;The turning point for us was three road games&mdash;in Washington, Montreal and Quebec,&rdquo; says Rota, now an aide to NHL president John Ziegler in New York. &ldquo;We came out of it with two wins and a tie. Like the North Stars, we seemed to find a groove.&rdquo;During the game in Quebec City, Canucks&rsquo; coach Harry Neale became embroiled in a row with fans and eventually was suspended. He was replaced by Roger Neilson, current Rangers coach.Neilson, like Minnesota&rsquo;s Bob Gainey, is studious and low-key. And like Gainey, he immediately appealed to his players.&ldquo;Roger was a great strategist,&rdquo; Rota recalls. &ldquo;He did a &lsquo;book&rsquo; on each team we were to face and we started winning.&rdquo;The &rsquo;82 Canucks finished on a roll and maintained the momentum into the opening round, knocking off Calgary three straight in the best-of-five series. Los Angeles was easy prey in the second round, a best-of-seven affair. After splitting the first two games, Vancouver took Game 3, 4-3 in overtime and then reeled off 5-4 and 5-2 wins to wrap up their second series.&ldquo;By this time,&rdquo; says Rota, &ldquo;we were real hot. When I watched Minnesota beat Chicago and St. Louis in the first two rounds, I was reminded of our Vancouver team. Both got hot at the right time.&rdquo;To reach the 1982 finals, the Canucks had to beat the Blackhawks. They beat them physically, spiritually and artistically, four games to one and moved into the Cup finals against the defending champion Islanders.&ldquo;Believe it or not,&rdquo; Rota insists, &ldquo;I believe we could have beaten them if a couple of things had fallen into place. To start with, we didn&rsquo;t have a breather after the Chicago series and the Islanders were rested waiting for us.&ldquo;Had we a little more time to get ourselves together, it would have made a difference.&rdquo;The Canucks put up a good fight but went down in four straight.For the 1938 Blackhawks, the final result was more upbeat although the odds were just as steep. The Hawks were the only one of six qualifying teams to have less than a .500 record (14-25-9) and their first-round opponents were the Montreal Canadiens who had a more respectable 18-17-13 mark. Additionally, the Hawks had been ridiculed by the opposition because their owner, Major Frederic McLaughlin, had insisted on stocking his club with native Americans; no less than eight of them dressed for the playoffs.The Hawks shocked in Round 1, winning the best-of-three series 2-1.Coached by National League baseball umpire Bill Stewart&mdash;grandfather of NHL referee Paul Stewart&mdash;the Hawks were not expected to win their second-round match against a solid New York Americans&rsquo; squad.The Americans opened with a 3-1 victory at home but in Game 2 the teams were scoreless after regulation time. Chicago won in sudden-death on Cully Dahlstrom&rsquo;s goal. And in the clincher, the Hawks prevailed on Doc Romnes&rsquo; third period goal that broke a 2-2 tie.Rarely has there been a more bizarre series of events than those that preceded the 1938 finals. Chicago goalie Mike Karakas discovered he had a broken big toe whereupon coach Stewart asked his opposition, the Toronto Maple Leafs, for permission to &ldquo;borrow&rdquo; Rangers&rsquo; goalie Dave Kerr. When Toronto boss Conn Smythe rejected the request, the Hawks scoured the city for a substitute goalie.They found Alfie Moore, a minor league, free-agent goalie, quaffing drinks in a Toronto pub, signed him to a contract and rushed Moore to Maple Leaf Gardens. All Alfie did was beat the Leafs 3-1.For some reason the Hawks decided to try another minor-league goaltender, Paul Goodman, for Game 3 but Toronto rebounded with a 5-1 decision.By this time, Karakas had recovered enough for doctors to outfit him with a special shoe to protect his broken toe. The Hawks won the game 2-1 before a record crowd of 18,496 at Chicago Stadium.Stewart&rsquo;s skaters applied the coup de grace with relative ease in the fifth game, winning 4-1 to take the best-of-five series, three games to one.Stan Fischler is a freelance writer based in New York City. &#9632;

STARS EVOKE MEMORIES OF ’82 MIRACLE CANUCKS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-021011/5938601-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="554" height="1184"></div>Born: Sept. 22, 1966. Philadelphia, Penn. Height: 5-foot-11. Weight: 185 pounds. Position: Goaltender. Team: New York Rangers. Acquired: New York&rsquo;s second choice, 28th overall, in 1985 entry draft.Career highlight: &ldquo;My first NHL victory&mdash;a 7-3 win against Hartford last season. I didn&rsquo;t have an awful lot of work but it was the principal of the whole thing. It was great to be accepted as someone who could make a contribution.&rdquo;On being accepted as a rookie: &ldquo;The guys were fantastic. That&rsquo;s part of what makes a team sport fun&mdash;the camaraderie. It&rsquo;s a long process in the minors and it&rsquo;s nice to feel like &lsquo;Okay, I do belong here and all the hard work paid off.&rsquo;&rdquo;Most embarrassing moment: &ldquo;Do you have a book?&rdquo;Biggest disappointment: &ldquo;This year&rsquo;s playoffs. We had an incredible first game, just beautiful. But just when you think the ship&rsquo;s cruisin&rsquo; in the right direction it starts getting leaks. To be honest. I don&rsquo;t know what the heck went wrong.&rdquo;Most memorable practical joke: &ldquo;Chris Nilan once threw my skates away after a practice. He had originally cut my laces and I guess I cut his or something. He never caught me. but there was suspicion. So the cleaning guy comes up to me and says &lsquo;I found this pair of goalie skates in the trash.&rsquo; And they weren&rsquo;t just on top&mdash;they were buried in the stuff.&rdquo;If he were NHL president: &ldquo;I&rsquo;d market the game better. Look at the World Wrestling Federation. They&rsquo;ve made that sport well known and it has a hell of a lot less substance than hockey.&rdquo; &#9632;

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MIKE RICHTER

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011568/5938632-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">It&rsquo;s fiction that you can eliminate fighting says NHL president John Ziegler.</figcaption></div>John Ziegler has been NHL president since 1977, but never in his 14 years at the helm has he faced so many challenges on so many fronts.By next fall Ziegler faces the possibility of, (a) a players&rsquo; strike; (b) problems with three expansion franchises; (c) a new league raiding the NHL; (d) a lawsuit over pension monies launched by former players; (e) a significant drop in U.S. television revenue from the $51million SportsChannel contract; (f) demands for video replay to improve officiating; and, (g) failure of the league to improve its image.In an interview with The Hockey News, Ziegler addressed these and other significant issues.THN: There has been talk that the NHL could face a strike this fall if the Collective Bargaining Agreement cannot be hammered out.JZ: I&rsquo;ve started every negotiation with that possibility. But my feeling is that anytime there&rsquo;s a strike, usually both sides have failed to do their job.THN: What is your objective, vis-a-vis collective bargaining this summer?JZ: Mainly to preserve the relationship that players and owners have had since the union was first born in &rsquo;66-67. The rest of the pieces will depend on what the players&rsquo; demands are.THN: There seems to be few areas which the NHL can explore for more revenue. Satellite TV is one that&rsquo;s mentioned.JZ: That and pay-per-view TV has potential, but that&rsquo;s still a way out&mdash;&rsquo;92, &rsquo;93, &rsquo;94. We&rsquo;re all kind of wondering when that will come on.THN: Free agency is a subject on the minds of a lot of players; that is expansion of free agency from its present status.JZ: I don&rsquo;t know how they (the players) are talking about this. The league needs a system in which you control your performers&rsquo; cost. Whatever that system is&mdash;as long as it comes out that they&rsquo;re getting 50 per cent&mdash;then the business will go forward and players&rsquo; compensation will increase.THN: The 1991 negotiations will be significantly different in that Bob Goodenow is leading the NHLPA and not Al Eagleson.JZ: Bob is competent and has a good background. He&rsquo;s a fellow Detroitian like me. But it&rsquo;s not just two people involved. It&rsquo;s owners and players. Bob&rsquo;s role, I&rsquo;m sure, will be not to lead but to help direct and mediate among the players, just like it&rsquo;s my role with owners.THN: What are your expectations from a new U.S. TV contract?JZ: We&rsquo;re entering a market where there is a valley right now of broadcast opportunities and it&rsquo;s not because of hockey. As Lawrence Tisch said to his stockholders, CBS made a major mistake in the amount they paid for baseball rights. It cost them $80 million for one year.All of the networks have said the football deal was too expensive. The networks are losing advertising, losing viewers and advertising rates are going down. We just happened to get into our broadcast negotiations in a trough. Nobody should expect a bonanza coming out of the next TV contract.THN: There have been concerns about Ottawa and Tampa Bay getting off the ground because of various problems.JZ: We will be meeting with the Ottawa people to review the financial plan. The reception there by way of season ticket commitments, sponsorship commitments has been at least up to everyones&rsquo; expectations, if not beyond. They have responded as we would expect of a solid Canadian community.THN: Some concerns have been voiced about Tampa&rsquo;s ability to sell season tickets.JZ: The critical response to their suggestion that people should send in their deposit has been as good as anyone who has had an expansion experience. They really haven&rsquo;t gone on a marketing campaign yet for season tickets so I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s a real litmus paper (test) there so far. The media is still enthused and supportive. As for the rivalry with the disgruntled suitors (Compuware) for a franchise: It has more of a spanking of sour grapes than anything else and there&rsquo;s some legal positions trying to be established. In the long run I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s going to make anything.THN: Can San Jose support an NHL team?JZ: I was just out there and was pleasantly surprised. This is a community unto itself and proud of their identity. It has a bigger population base than San Francisco. San Jose has done tremendous things. It&rsquo;s a very youthful community and appears that it is taking this team unto themselves because it is the only major league team that across the shirt is going to say &ldquo;San Jose&rdquo;. If a community takes that, and once they&rsquo;ve gone to the game, they&rsquo;re going to be stuck with it; hooked.THN: But can they sell enough tickets?JZ: Their season-ticket sales are around 6,500 and they have not made their final push. Their goal is around 7,500. They&rsquo;re quite satisfied. Their logo was the hit of the trade show. Kids are starting to wear them. It looks like it will be fun.THN: Has regular season attendance been down?JZ: I think just over one per cent. We measure through the whole season (including playoffs) and I think we&rsquo;ll come out about where we were last year. Considering the recession, we&rsquo;re very pleased with that. The question will be next year. We may not feel the impact until season-ticket buying this summer.THN: Criticism has been voiced about escalating ticket prices going beyond the ability of some fans to pay.JZ: I was concerned about that 14 years ago because I went to hockey games on a very low-priced ticket. That was the only way I could get there. What we&rsquo;ve seen happen is that our communities have changed and there are less blue collar (fans) and more white collar, technically speaking. We&rsquo;re a high-priced forum almost by necessity and we have always been close to commuter prices. Our ticket prices have gone up, basically, with the rate of inflation.THN: There has been a lot of talk about the need for video replay to help the referees. Will&mdash;or when&mdash;we see this happen? Could it happen next season?JZ: There&rsquo;s a chance we&rsquo;ll see video as an aid on goal-no goal situations. As soon as you start extending it beyond that, you create a whole different dimension of consideration.THN: What aspect of &ldquo;tough hockey&rdquo; would you like to see changed?JZ: Stick work, definitely. I didn&rsquo;t like what I saw in the first part of the playoffs and I&rsquo;m not satisfied that these intentional aggressive acts have been taken under control.THN: Are you anxious about the proposed North American and the Continental leagues?JZ: You have a concern that people get mislead; that hope springs eternal and there&rsquo;s disappointment and then there&rsquo;s a bad taste about the game of hockey. The WHA experience&mdash;there were a lot of unpaid bills left; a lot of people were very disappointed; a lot of players who left; that&rsquo;s a sad experience for people.Now to the extent that there&rsquo;s a feeling out that more hockey is good, there&rsquo;s a positive there; that they think that this sport is something that can go in different directions, wider directions; I think that&rsquo;s a positive. If they&rsquo;re going to go forward, I just hope they go forward on a solid basis and if they become competitors, well, we&rsquo;ve never shied away from competition.THN: Hockey&rsquo;s image suffers in several places. What are your concerns about the way the game is portrayed?JZ: The fact that on those 30-second bytes we see on television on sports programs usually is one of the fights, or some collision that takes place and is portrayed as Slapshot incidents of hockey; that always concerns me. We can&rsquo;t control that. We can&rsquo;t go to NBC or CBS and say, &ldquo;Just show goals; don&rsquo;t show any of the other stuff.&rdquo;THN: Wayne Gretzky has made quite an issue of banning fighting. What about it?JZ: You can&rsquo;t eliminate fighting. That&rsquo;s fiction. Basketball hasn&rsquo;t eliminated fighting; football hasn&rsquo;t; baseball hasn&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s fiction. Whether we should punish more severely people who fight with each other is a legitimate question. I certainly don&rsquo;t think that it is the principal part of our entertainment.By the same token, I think that if you immediately suspended everybody that took a swing at somebody, that you would alter the game substantially.THN: Do you hope to make any changes along these lines?JZ: One of the things we hope to accomplish in this collective bargaining is to get some authority to fine players. We can only fine them $500 and it has been that way for what, 25, 30 years. That was a substantial fine when you were making $ 15,000 a year but now when your average salary is $300,000, that really doesn&rsquo;t have much impact.THN: How much money does the NHL make?JZ: We would have been about $50 million (in 1989-90) if you took all the revenues. This year it&rsquo;ll be about $25 million. It went down because our player cost has jumped this year. It&rsquo;s the biggest jump we&rsquo;ve had since the middle &rsquo;70s.THN: The league has been hit with a lawsuit by a group of retired players over pension monies they believe they have been denied. Where does that stand?JZ: Since we&rsquo;re in litigation, I must be cautious as to my comments but let me say that we are most certain that everything we did was as appropriate as possible. There was nothing we did without advice of counsel, the best intentioned counsel in Canada and the United States.The idea circulated that money that was supposed to be for player &ldquo;X&rdquo; was taken for player &ldquo;Y&rdquo;. That rumor grew into a creed almost for the former players and we have attempted to explain to them that this was not the case. But because this has become a belief, I think the only way that that will be proven to them is that they have their day in court.Look for the National Hockey League Player&rsquo;s Association&rsquo;s views on these issues in an interview with NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow in the next Hockey News. &#9632;

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PRESIDENT ADDRESSES ISSUES FROM A TO ZIEGLER

<div class="byline">BY GARY LOEWEN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011414/5938663-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Stars&rsquo; rejuvenation coincides with Bobby Smith&rsquo;s return.</figcaption></div>Last November, an indubitable Norm Green was telling a skeptical listener that the Minnesota North Stars were bound for a turnaround.The North Stars&rsquo; new sole owner was envisioning the day his hapless team would be a contender again, its glorious and exciting product enticing fans back to the Met Center.&ldquo;The story a year from now,&rdquo; Green said with rink-of-dreams conviction, &ldquo;will be our great turnaround.&rdquo;Sorry, Norm but you were, quite obviously, wrong. The turnaround took only six months.In a stunning reversal that even Green couldn&rsquo;t have dreamed possible, the Stars shot into the Stanley Cup final against the Pittsburgh Penguins with a 3-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers at Northlands Coliseum May 10.The victory completed a remarkable hat-trick for a team that had finished 16th overall in the NHL standings. First, they upset No. 1 Chicago, then No. 2 St. Louis and now the defending champion Oilers. In winning the Campbell Conference championship in five games, the Stars advanced to the Stanley Cup final for the second time in their history and the first time in 10 years.&ldquo;This is the greatest story in sports. Not just hockey, but sports,&rdquo; Green said after his team ousted Edmonton.The upstart Stars also captured the hearts of hockey fans in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Six months ago, Minnesota&rsquo;s ponds outnumbered the pucksters.Early in the season, the Stars were averaging only 6,000 fans a game&mdash;a figure that rose slightly only after Green unveiled an extensive marketing scheme.&ldquo;There is no logic that could support this team drawing only 6,000. This is a very strong hockey market,&rdquo; Green said last November.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care if we draw five or six or seven thousand because I know where we&rsquo;re headed.&rdquo;Green was right&mdash;Minnesota represented one of the NHL&rsquo;s strongest markets. Yet, he wasn&rsquo;t aware of how jaded the fans had become after years of indifferent ownership and management. The inept organization had made the Toronto Maple Leafs resemble IBM.While Minnesotans have been chastised for jumping on the spring bandwagon, it is hard not to sympathize with them. After all, a year ago the Stars seemed near extinction.Throughout the 1989-90 season, the Stars were dogged by stories of their imminent transfer to another city. Eventually, the team&rsquo;s owners, George and Gordon Gund, pleading losses of $16 million over four years, left for San Jose and a fresh start with the expansion Sharks. They took their general manager, Jack Ferreira, with them while inspirational coach Pierre Page went the opposite direction, becoming GM of the Quebec Nordiques.Furthermore, in a complicated and very awkward deal between the NHL board of governors and the Gunds, half of the current North Star players ostensibly became lame ducks. They were on Ioan to Minnesota for the season, but were scheduled to join the Sharks for their &rsquo;91-92 debut.Shortly after buying the franchise, Green axed a couple of hundred employees and set about reorganizing the operation. He renegotiated the cross-pollination deal with the Gunds and reports now say that only Ulf Dahlen and one or two other current Stars will play for San Jose.The on-ice product was boosted immeasurably by the efforts of GM Bob Clarke and neophyte coach Bob Gainey. Clarke brought in free-agent Brian Propp, a proficient playoff power-play weapon, while Gainey taught the Stars to believe in themselves&mdash;and in Gainey&rsquo;s defensive system.Clarke and Gainey also were responsible for bringing center Bobby Smith back to Minnesota in an off-season trade with the Montreal Canadiens.Unbeknownst to many, including most Twin Cities residents, the Stars had a splendid second half and, come playoff time, had developed into a far better team than their record showed. Gainey said it was a three-month project to convince his players that when they held their opponent to no goals they never lost. Some of them, unaccustomed to the long-time Canadien&rsquo;s team-first attitude, sulked at first but eventually grasped his style.&ldquo;Back last October it was too far out of the realm to even think of going to the Cup final,&rdquo; Gainey said following the decisive game in Edmonton.&ldquo;But we started to make things happen slowly. A marathon starts with one step.&rdquo;It has been a long jog back to Cup contention for the franchise. The North Stars were a promising team with a faithful following in the early &rsquo;80s, making it to the final in 1981 against the New York Islanders. They never realized their potential, however. Former Star Dino Ciccarelli said that the downfall of the franchise coincided with the Oct. 28, 1983 trade of Smith to Montreal.The Stars&rsquo; sudden revitalization coincides with Smith&rsquo;s return this season. The lanky veteran quelled an Edmonton comeback with the winning goal in the third period of Game 5.&ldquo;Bob Gainey gave me a kick afer the second period. He just looked at me and said, &lsquo;You&rsquo;ve got to get us going,&rsquo;&rdquo; the 33-year-old Smith said. &ldquo;I knew it.&rdquo;For a handful of other veterans such as Brian Bellows, Curt Giles and Neal Broten the celebration was long overdue.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just exhilarated,&rdquo; Bellows said. &ldquo;Nine years Brotsy and I have played together and we&rsquo;re finally going for the Cup. It&rsquo;s a long time coming.&rdquo;At the other end of the demographics is Mike Modano, 20, who felt fortunate to make it in just his second year.&ldquo;You feel the best for those old guys who have never had a chance,&rdquo; Modano said.The Stars&rsquo; combination of speed, goaltending, determination and confidence drew grudging admiration from the Oilers.Indeed, their conquerors reminded the Oilers of another upstart team, one that rose to the top about eight years ago. &#9632;

f0007-01

CHARTING THE STARS’ METEORIC RISE

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Gary Loewen</div>Canadian hockey fans might consider it a mugging, but the Stanley Cup will move to the U.S. this spring after a seven-season stay north of the border.For the first time in a decade, two U.S.based teams, the Minnesota North Stars and the Pittsburgh Penguins, are meeting in the Stanley Cup final. And for the first time since 1983, a U.S. team will win the Stanley Cup.Canadian-based teams&mdash;the Edmonton Oilers (five), the Calgary Flames and the Montreal Canadiens&mdash;have accounted for the past seven championships.The Stars and the Pens constitute a truly unique matchup. This is the first time since 1934 that two non-winners of the Cup have made it to the final. Not since the Stars lost to the New York Islanders in 1981 have two American teams been finalists. And not since the Islanders defeated the Edmonton Oilers in 1983 has the Cup taken up U.S. residence.The North Stars and the Penguins, both of whom joined the NHL as expansion franchises in 1967, are relatively unaccustomed to such late starts to the golfing season. The North Stars are in the final for the second time, the Penguins for the first.While the two teams are meeting in the playoffs for the first time, both sides have players with memories of the Stars&rsquo; only other appearance in the final. Bobby Smith. Neal Broten and Curt Giles were in the North Star lineup while current Penguin Bryan Trottier was on the other side, leading the Isles to their second Stanley Cup.Ironically, both Minnesota and Pittsburgh have come perilously close to losing their franchises in the ensuing years. Center Mario Lemieux&rsquo;s presence rekindled interest in the Penguins several years ago while colorful North Star boss Norm Green has done likewise in his first year of ownership. &#9632;

CUP YANKED SOUTH OF THE BORDER

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011498/5938718-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="492" height="622"><figcaption class="caption-body">STAN FISCHLER</figcaption></div>The need to roll out damage control equipment on to the NHL runway seems more critical than ever this spring. If you don&rsquo;t believe it, just check the headlines.The ridiculing of the regular season:Critics this spring have tarred and feathered the NHL over the alleged meaninglessness of the 80-game schedule. They point to hasty playoff exits of top teams like the Flames, Kings, Blues and Blackhawks and, conversely, Minnesota&rsquo;s (under. 500) miracle. The Oilers&rsquo; annual reawakening at playoff time lends huge support to skeptics who gnaw away at the &ldquo;why-try-in-the-regular-season&rdquo; issue. Critics may be wrong but the NHL has a nasty public relations issue on its hands.Solution:Make the 80-game slate more meaningful. Divide the schedule in half. Have a 40-game champ in each division which offer rich rewards for coming out on top. Add another set of prizes for the second-half winners. Develop the President&rsquo;s Trophy (overall point-winner) race into a gala event of Stanley Cup-winning proportions and up the ante on prize money. That will make the regular season truly significant and will silence the critics.Officiating blunders:Never in memory has there been a playoff season with more outrageous refereeing mistakes. Space doesn&rsquo;t permit a listing of every faux pas, because I don&rsquo;t want to make a book about this. But here are a few dandies: 1. Chicago beats Minnesota 6-5. The winning goal is scored when Mike Hudson pushes Neil Wilkinson into the crease and up against goalie Brian Hayward, holding Wilkinson against Hayward while Jeremy Roenick puts the puck in. Referee Denis Morel has the gall to call it a goal. 2. Calgary trails Edmonton 2-1 when Joe Nieuwendyk&mdash;according to video replays and photos&mdash;shoots the puck across the goal line. Referee Dan Marouelli rules it hadn&rsquo;t cross the line. 3. Edmonton&rsquo;s Anatoli Semenov scores the series-winning overtime goal against Los Angeles but referee Kerry Fraser waves it off, claiming crease interference. Replays indicate Fraser was one thousand per cent wrong. 4. Trailing 4-3 in what could have been the series-clinching game against Pittsburgh, the Devils&rsquo; Laurie Boschman redirects the puck into the net for the tying goal late in the second period. Referee Bill McCreary disallows it as a kick-in. Replays explicitly show the puck legally going in off Boschman&rsquo;s stick.Solution:Let&rsquo;s make an impossible job easier by eliminating nonsensical rules that cause controversy. Allow hand passes of all kinds; allow players to kick the puck anyway they please, including into the net; allow goals to go in off a high stick. Eliminate the red line and allow passes to the far blue line. Eliminate the crease altogether since nobody pays attention to it anyway. Give linesmen full penalty-calling power for anything the referee might miss. Empower video replay to settle all of the above mentioned close calls and disregard the phony rationales the league clings to in order to avoid the wonders of electronics as a seeing-eye dog for the zebras.Inept public relations:If the league&rsquo;s PR department had a plus-minus rating compared to other big-time sports, it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of minus-57. Try this true story: a photo-journalist phoned the NHL&rsquo;s New York office for playoff information and asked for the PR man. &ldquo;Sorry,&rdquo; he was told, &ldquo;but he won&rsquo;t be back for five weeks.&rdquo; The pity is it was true. In the world&rsquo;s media capital, the NHL has just one PR man, Michael Berger, and he was on the road, working the playoffs. If you told that to someone from Major League Baseball, the NFL or NBA, they&rsquo;d die laughing. In the U.S., where hockey needs all the PR help it can get, the NHL&rsquo;s only American office has one publicist.Solution:You don&rsquo;t have to be Marty McSorley to figure this one out: hire another PR rep.Recession vs. inflated ticket prices:The NHL has placed so much emphasis on luring the luxury box crowd, it has forgotten the lunch pail gang who put the league in business in the first place. There&rsquo;s nothing wrong with making a buck&mdash;especially if the league can do it with rich folks&rsquo; money.But there is a recession on and if teams like the Rangers talk about a $75 ticket while squeezing out the little guys upstairs, they&rsquo;d dam well better be prepared to provide $75 worth of excitement every night, or else there&rsquo;ll be a lot more empties next year than anyone would like to imagine.Solution:Each rink should set aside a reasonable amount of cheap seats so that anyone with a few bucks in his pocket can attend.Stan Fischler is a freelance writer based in New York City &#9632;

f0008-01

LET’S MAKE REGULAR SEASON MORE MEANINGFUL

A center with the New York Rangers, Detroit, Buffalo, Los Angeles and Toronto from 1969-70 to &rsquo;81-82, Don Luce, 42, is the director of player personnel for the Buffalo Sabres. &ldquo;The highlight was the year we went to the finals in &rsquo;74-75.&rdquo; Luce said. &ldquo;Every round was harder and harder but it also got easier because we gained so much confidence from the previous series. It was a thrill because a lot of players never get a chance to go to the finals.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021186/5938749-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="557" height="421"><figcaption class="caption-body">Don Luce</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0008-02

THEN & NOW

<h2>CANADIENS</h2>Captain Guy Carbonneau has not heard from GM Serge Savard since the playoffs ended and assumes he will be a free agent come July 1. &ldquo;As far as I am concerned, negotiations are dead,&rdquo; said Carbonneau, who&rsquo;s looking for a deal in the $800,000 range&hellip;Saturday will continue to be the night you&rsquo;ll most likely find the Habs at home next season. Almost half (18) of the Habs&rsquo; 40 home games will be played that night of the week. Next most popular is Monday (nine), followed by Wednesday (eight), Sunday (four) and Thursday (one). The Habs will open the 1991-92 season Oct. 3 when they host the Toronto Maple Leafs as part of the NHL&rsquo;s 75th anniversary celebrations. Their busiest month will be November when they play 16 games evenly split between home and away&hellip;Russ Courtnall is now 0-for-3 when it comes to seventh games in the playoffs. He played two of them with the Leafs, losing both, and, of course, lost to the Bruins this season in the Adams Division final with Montreal.<h2>SABRES</h2>There has been no decision made on the future of assistant coaches John VanBoxmeer or John Tortorella. Both men are to be evaluated and a decision will be made at a future date&hellip; The Sabres released their 1991-92 season schedule, which includes two home dates with the San Jose Sharks. The Sabres will play just two games against Winnipeg, Vancouver and Toronto instead of the usual three&hellip; After scoring just 11 goals and 37 points in the first half of the season, Dale Hawerchuk closed with 20 goals and 52 points in the second half. The 15-point improvement was the largest of anyone on the team. Hawerchuk was also the Sabres&rsquo; leading point getter on the road with 42. The next closest was Pierre Turgeon with 38.<h2>WHALERS</h2>In an attempt to attract families and encourage downtown commerce, the Whalers have added five afternoon weekend games to next year&rsquo;s home schedule&hellip;Ron Francis and Ulf Samuelsson, two of the Whalers&rsquo; cornerstones for years, are giddy about advancing to the finals with Pittsburgh. &ldquo;My dad (Bo who had suffered a heart attack in April) is doing all right,&rdquo; said Samuelsson, who left the team in the Patrick Division finals to be with him. &ldquo;In fact, he wanted to come over for the finals. I told him, &lsquo;No, stay home. This is too much action for you. These fans are wild in this building.&rsquo;&rdquo; Said Francis: &ldquo;Our heads were spinning after the trade (March 4). But Ulfie, Jenner (Grant Jennings) and I sat down a few games after we came. I said, &lsquo;Fellas, let&rsquo;s enjoy this. We&rsquo;ve got a good shot at going all the way.&rsquo;&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-03904/5938787-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg" title="f0008-03" width="563" height="754"><figcaption class="caption-body">Guy Carbonneau will likely become a free agent July 1.</figcaption></div><h2>BRUINS</h2>The Bruins went back to basics in Game 6 of the Wales Conference title series against Pittsburgh, abandoning their forechecking game to back off in a purely defensive style. It nearly worked, as the Bruins led the game 2-0, before the ever-dangerous Pens rallied for a 5-3 series-ending win&hellip; Dave Poulin&rsquo;s loss with a Game 3 groin pull badly hurt the Bruins&hellip; Vladimir Ruzicka had 1-7-8 totals in the first two games, then was scoreless in the final four games&hellip;Peter Douris did a good job shadowing and frustrating left winger Kevin Stevens in Game 6. Stevens was held without a point after recording five points in the Pens&rsquo; 7-2 Game 5 win&hellip;Ray Bourque (7-18-25), Craig Janney (4-18-22) and Cam Neely (16-4-20) all averaged more than a point-a-game in the playoffs.<h2>NORDIQUES</h2>Reports out of Buffalo contend the Sabres have offered Pierre Turgeon and Benoit Hogue to the Nordiques for the rights to draft Eric Lindros&hellip;The Nords feel they could lose goalie Scott Gordon and left winger Jeff Jackson to the San Jose Sharks in the expansion draft&hellip;GM Pierre Page has promised to spend more time with the team this season. Last year, he was the most-traveled GM in the NHL. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll definitely stick around more because it&rsquo;s when you see your team play that you get the most input on your players,&rdquo; said Page.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-04470/5938780-1-eng-US/f0008-042.jpg" title="f0008-04" width="562" height="758"><figcaption class="caption-body">Benoit Hogue could find himself in Quebec next season.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0008-03

HAB HEADS FOR FREE AGENCY

<div class="byline">BY CHRIS STEVENSON</div>Shayne Corson enjoyed his brightest moments in a Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; uniform this spring.Unfortunately, many observers&rsquo; last memory of the center/left winger&rsquo;s playoff performance will be of him cross checking Ray Bourque&rsquo;s head in the final, frantic minute of the Adams Division final.Corson was suspended for the first four games of next season by NHL executive-director Brian O&rsquo;Neill.Corson&rsquo;s hard hit on Bruins&rsquo; defenseman Garry Galley after time had expired was also punished with a $500 fine. The fine is the maximum allowed under the Collective Bargaining Agreement.Corson&rsquo;s blow on Bourque came during a goal-mouth scramble which resulted in the Habs halving the Bruins&rsquo; lead to 2-1 on a goal by Stephan Lebeau. Bourque was left dazed and lying on the ice.&ldquo;There was some pretty heavy action around their net when this thing happened,&rdquo; said the 24-year-old Corson.He was not penalized on the play by referee Terry Gregson, but the Bruins sent a videotape of the hit to O&rsquo;Neill. A full-color photo of the hit also made the front page of the Boston Globe.Bourque said he was knocked silly by the &ldquo;vicious&rdquo; hit.&ldquo;Corson has the reputation of being dirty,&rdquo; Bourque said. &ldquo;There was lots of traffic in front of the net and Gregson was busy following the puck, but I thought one of the linesmen could have called it.&rdquo;O&rsquo;Neill obviously agreed the hit deserved further punishment.&ldquo;In considering these incidents it is noted that Bourque was cross-checked from behind severely and was defenseless at the time,&rdquo; said O&rsquo;Neill. &ldquo;The actions by Corson were extremely reckless and careless.&rdquo;Those words tainted a playoff run that saw Corson finally exploit his talent on a consistent basis after yet another spotty regular season.After posting a career-best total of 75 points in 1989-90, Corson, who missed nine games with injuries, tumbled to 47 points this season.The season was also marred by the well-publicized Marble Club incident in Winnipeg in which Corson and teammate Mike Keane became involved in brawl outside the Winnipeg nightspot in December.The pair were arrested along with center Brian Skrudland and had to be bailed out of jail by coach Pat Bums. The case was resolved after mediation between the trio and the men with whom they had been fighting.He wound up as Montreal&rsquo;s top scorer in the playoffs with nine goals and six assists for 15 points.&ldquo;The big difference is I was healthy,&rdquo; said the five-year veteran. &ldquo;People say I had a bad season but they forget I had some serious injuries in the first few weeks. That set me back a lot.&rdquo;There were other things as well. Trade rumors, for one. It was reported during the off-season the Habs were close to closing a deal to send Corson to Toronto along with Claude Lemieux for Wendel Clark.Corson was also unhappy with his $270,000 salary and claims Montreal general manager Serge Savard had promised to re-do the deal. Savard maintains no such promise was made.He did earn some ammunition at the bargaining table with that playoff performance which had Bums comparing his left winger to Boston&rsquo;s Cam Neely.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re two big guys who aren&rsquo;t afraid of the rough play and don&rsquo;t hesitate to set up in front of the net,&rdquo; Burns said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big part of our team. He doesn&rsquo;t get the recognition he deserves. It&rsquo;s not for nothing all kinds of teams in the league try to get him.&rdquo; &#9632;

HEALTHY CORSON SHINED IN PLAYOFFS

<div class="byline">BY JEFF JACOBS</div>Ed Johnston was in Rochester, N.Y., the night the Pittsburgh Penguins clinched the first Wales Conference championship in their 24-year history.That&rsquo;s fairly close in terms of miles. But spiritually, it&rsquo;s light years apart.The Hartford Whalers&rsquo; general manager said he has two distinct feelings about watching the club he ran for five years (1983-88) finally advance to the Stanley Cup championships.Pride that helped build the Penguins and anger that his early 1988 trade for goalie Andy Moog in exchange for a first-round pick and Steve Guenette was nixed by the Penguins&rsquo; ownership.&ldquo;Tony Esposito, unbeknownst to me at the time, already had come aboard and squashed the deal,&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;With Moog, we could have challenged immediately.&rdquo;But this, Johnston recognized, is water under the bridges that cross the three rivers around Pittsburgh. Rebuilding the Whalers is his mission now and he sees something that must be learned from the Penguins.&ldquo;They are the only club in hockey that if it is down two-three goals, can come back and catch you in two minutes,&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;Our club can&rsquo;t say anymore. &lsquo;We&rsquo;ve got to stay defensive, because we can&rsquo;t afford to give up too many chances.&rsquo; If the playoffs have told us anything, it&rsquo;s we&rsquo;ve got to inject more offense.&ldquo;Pittsburgh is having fun. They&rsquo;re moving the puck. They&rsquo;ve got the confidence they can get four goals a game. Our second, third and fourth centers had less than 10 goals each. We&rsquo;ve got to have 20 to 25 goals from the second guy for us to jump up.&rdquo;John Cullen was fifth in NHL scoring with 110 points and set a Whalers&rsquo; record with nine playoff points in one series. But after that, Dean Evason had six goals, Mike Tomlak had eight and the Whalers finished with a variety of fourth centers (including Terry Yake&rsquo;s one goal, five points in 19 games).It&rsquo;s a major reason why the Whalers finished 19th in offense with 238 goals and are searching for a No. 2 pivot.The Whalers&rsquo; American League farm team in Springfield, however, did lead the AHL with 348 goals. And as the Indians advanced to the Calder Cup finals against Rochester, Johnston was watching for prospects to join the parent club.Left winger Michel Picard was first in the AHL with 56 goals, while center James Black was seventh in scoring with 96 points. But it is Yake, with 77 points in only 60 Springfield games, who has been the best forward in the AHL playoffs.&ldquo;Yake has been terrific,&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;He has got the speed and hands. He has just got to get a little stronger.&ldquo;Picard is pretty close, too. On defense, Todd Richards has been the best and Kay Whitmore has been terrific in goal. He&rsquo;s not letting in the one bad goal each game that he had been susceptible to.&rdquo;The player with the biggest hype in Springfield, however, is 1990 first-round pick Mark Greig. The swift 21-year-old right winger had 32 goals as a rookie, but he has much to learn.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s in and out,&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll show signs of brilliance. He has got skills and speed. He has got to play better without the puck.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011517/5938866-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="704" height="817"><figcaption class="caption-body">Center John Cullen finished fifth in NHL scoring with 110 points.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0010-01

JOHNSTON SEEKS HELP ON OFFENSE

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN JOHNSTON</div>Call it &ldquo;The Great Chase&rdquo;.Quebec Nordique president Marcel Aubut&rsquo;s pursuit of Soviet star Valeri Kamensky has lasted more than half a year and spanned two continents.Aubut&rsquo;s latest attempt to secure Kamensky&mdash;the Nords&rsquo; eighth-round pick (129th overall) in the 1988 draft&mdash;took him to Finland, the site of the World Championships.Popular opinion said Aubut was wasting his time, that the talented forward had already signed a contract with Lugano of the Swiss League. Skeptical of the reports, Aubut decided to go directly to the source and discovered the Red Army right winger hadn&rsquo;t made any decisions on his hockey future.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just met a very confused young man,&rdquo; said Aubut after talking with Kamensky in his Turku hotel room. &ldquo;He was very tense. The lucrative contract offers are coming from everywhere and he doesn&rsquo;t know where to turn.&rdquo;That Kamensky was tense and mixed up didn&rsquo;t bother Nords&rsquo; general manager Pierre Page, who also attended the meeting. In fact, it made Page all the more optimistic.&ldquo;When I left Quebec, I really didn&rsquo;t have much hope in Kamensky&rsquo;s case,&rdquo; said Page. &ldquo;But all of a sudden, I&rsquo;ve gotten my optimism back. I feel a lot more encouraged. The feeling is definitely positive.&rdquo;Page&rsquo;s optimism also stems from the other contract offers Kamensky has received, offers initially feared to be in the seven-figure range. But it turns out those amounts are inflated, that both Lugano and Milan of the Italian League are willing to part with roughly $500,000 to sign Kamensky with the same amount going back to Soviet authorities.&ldquo;We know we can more than match those figures,&rdquo; said Page. &ldquo;We are in a very competitive situation and General (Anatoly) Akentiev (president of the Red Army team), who negotiates in very good faith, knows our offers will be very hard to match.&rdquo;The situation intensified when representatives from Mike Barnett&rsquo;s office arrived towards the end of the tournament. Barnett, who handles Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s affairs among other pro athletes, also represents Kamensky. Aubut said the talks were progressive, but felt Soviet national coach Viktor Tikhonov was standing in the way of closing the deal.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021145/5938897-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="708" height="641"><figcaption class="caption-body">Craig Wolanin says Soviet Valeri Kamensky reminds him of Guv Lafleur</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Viktor, whom I know very well, doesn&rsquo;t want to lose his best player,&rdquo; said Aubut. &ldquo;With the Olympics coming rapidly, he wants Kamensky on his side if he wants a fighting chance.&ldquo;Viktor is the one I have to convince. He&rsquo;s still very powerful over there. But I&rsquo;m getting a little tired. I&rsquo;m getting the runaround and I don&rsquo;t appreciate it at all. So I&rsquo;m going to give the Soviets an ultimatum very soon. What I want is an answer.&rdquo;And what about Kamensky? He did talk to the press at the end of the tourney&mdash;ending a vow of silence&mdash;but refused to elaborate on his plans.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got so many ideas in my head that I don&rsquo;t know where to start,&rdquo; said Kamensky. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll have to let me get back home and then I will be able to think things out in their proper manner.&rdquo;While his future may be in question, Kamensky&rsquo;s skills certainly aren&rsquo;t. At least not in the eyes of Nordique defenseman Craig Wolanin, who participated for Team USA in Finland.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s kind of strange,&rdquo; said Wolanin, &ldquo;but he reminds us an awful lot of Guy Lafleur. When he cuts towards the net and uses his hands, he looks exactly like him. He uses his speed and body in the same manner as Guy did.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-02

KAMENSKY DERBY HEATS UP WITH OVERSEAS TREK

<div class="byline">BY JIM KELLEY</div>The Buffalo Sabres are looking for a few good men. And one of them doesn&rsquo;t even have to be a player.Sabres&rsquo; general manager Gerry Meehan said he hasn&rsquo;t determined what the exact criteria would be for the new front office person team owner Seymour H. Knox III charged him with finding, but Meehan did say the new man &ldquo;likely would have responsibilities in the area of talent evaluation rather than administration.&rdquo;In re-shuffling the front office in the wake of yet another first-round playoff loss, both Knox and Meehan agreed on the need for someone to join the organization from outside.The idea is to have the new person take a cold and impartial look at how the Sabres do their hockey business as well as be a contributor to the hockey department in the areas of player acquisitions and development.This is not unprecedented. The Pittsburgh Penguins have a similar setup with Craig Patrick, Scott Bowman and coach Bob Johnson. The Chicago Blackhawks have something of the same setup with Mike Keenan and Bob Pulford.&ldquo;I first raised the issue with the Knoxes (Seymour and his brother Northrup) some months ago,&rdquo; Meehan said. &ldquo;There may be some restructuring coming.&rdquo;Meehan said his first step will be to interview the entire hockey department staff and get its input on what needs to be done.&ldquo;I want everyone involved in this,&rdquo; Meehan said. &ldquo;We have to look at everything we do and determine what we need.&rdquo;No names have been mentioned as possible hirees and Meehan and others on the club have been careful not to even speculate.The idea seems to be to just let it be known that there is an opening in Buffalo for a hockey person and then see what kind of applications come their way. Meehan did say he has a general idea of the kind of person he wants and does have a few people in mind, but he stressed the door is open and he wants to see what&rsquo;s available.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-03725/5938928-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg" title="f0010-03" width="700" height="715"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gerry Meehan is searching for a hockey man specializing in player development.</figcaption></div>We certainly won&rsquo;t have any meetings or anything scheduled until after the Stanley Cup playoffs are over,&rdquo; Meehan said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have the internal meetings first and then proceed.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s likely the Sabres won&rsquo;t have their man before the draft either. It&rsquo;s unlikely any club would let a person go before that time and the Sabres have indicated they want someone with NHL ability.Meehan said the new man doesn&rsquo;t have to be a top name person (though they wouldn&rsquo;t be ruled out) but could be someone who is a good hockey person who perhaps is blocked from getting to the top in some other organization and willing to make a move to get going again.Asked if that meant Meehan would be dangling the possibility of the new person someday replacing him as GM, Meehan said he was not afraid of that possibility.&ldquo;I want someone in here who will accept a challenge,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It that person ends up eventually challenging for my job, well I&rsquo;m not afraid of that.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-03

NEW MANAGEMENT MEMBER WILL HELP MEEHAN OUT

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011371/5938959-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="511" height="623"><figcaption class="caption-body">STEVE DRYDEN</figcaption></div>Spring means one thing to everyone who reads this journal: You have been crazy-glued to the television for about seven weeks. It means one other thing: You all have opinions on coverage provided by television networks.Most would agree that, on the whole, the playoffs, World Championships and major junior playoffs have been well-packaged and-presented. Still, there is room for improvement. There always is. Here are some recommendations for the men who bring us the words and pictures on television.Do&hellip;convey a sense of when and where you are. Nobody has done this better than Danny Gallivan, the best play-by-play man the sport has known. He gave weather reports in wonderful scene-setting openings that transported viewers to NHL cities all over North America.Don&rsquo;t&hellip;forget that few fans will ever go to, say, Chicago Stadium. Talk about more than the decibel count during the national anthem. Everybody knows about that now. How about some words on the high priority Bill Wirtz puts on selling first-rate hot dogs and the high rate of poverty that surrounds the ancient arena?Do&hellip;be creative and daring and willing to experiment with story ideas and how they are presented. The camera is a powerful ally. Use it to your advantage. Plus, go beyond the basics, the superficial. Get somebody like Mike Farber of the Montreal Gazette, an outstanding columnist who has a gift for providing glimpses into people&rsquo;s souls, to do player profiles. The subject of his first story: The troubled Stephane Richer. It would be powerful television.Don&rsquo;t&hellip;get carried away with cutesy seques and punchless puns. Leave that to Ron MacLean. Some of his extros on Coach&rsquo;s Comer are a stretch (okay, a lot of them are) but he still does it better than anyone and it is his trademark.Do&hellip;raise journalistic standards. Hockey Night in Canada needs a reporter to address issues and hot stories. Get a print journalist (like NBC does Will McDonough of the Boston Globe for its football coverage) to dig out stories. My nominees for the job: editor-in-chief Bob McKenzie of THN (this has nothing to do with job security), Eric Duhatschek of the Calgary Herald or Scotty Morrison of the Toronto Sun.Don&rsquo;t&hellip;refer to players, coaches, managers, officials, etc., by their first names. It sounds way too chummy.Do&hellip;be thorough in preparation. Ex-NHL goalie John Davidson prepares for his work as Madison Square Garden Network hockey analyst as though he were an investigative reporter. Hockey Night&rsquo;s MacLean is another who does his homework.Don&rsquo;t&hellip;apologize for asking tough questions or provide the subject with an escape clause. As in, &ldquo;Is coach Bonzo really a jerk or is that just his means of getting the best out of your team?&rdquo;Do&hellip;be careful not to rely on statistics too much. Numbers are easier to comprehend on paper than the airwaves.Don&rsquo;t&hellip;use nicknames in referring to one another in the broadcast booth. Too collegiate.Do&hellip;continue to do great things like keeping track of players&rsquo; times and hits and scoring chances. It&rsquo;s excellent information that gives context to a game and seldom shows up in the next day&rsquo;s papers.Don&rsquo;t&hellip;wear your flag on your sleeve. Don&rsquo;t compromise yourself just because your country is involved.Do&hellip;maintain the intermission interviews but evaluate how you can get the most out of them. The Globe and Mail was told the oft-criticized and oft-mundane question-and-answer sessions will be continued because they are unique to hockey. I rarely watch them any more. I wonder how many others have tuned them out.Don&rsquo;t&hellip;use sportuguese or sophomoric expressions. Some very good sportscasters who work very hard at their crafts lapse into sportuguese. Likely without realizing it. Does anyone ever point these things out to them? Some jargon is necessary but cliches aren&rsquo;t. They represent more than well-worn words, they represent recycled thought processes.Do&hellip;take stands. Harry Neale, for one, has developed an edge over the years that is most welcome. Choose a side and present a viewpoint. Don&rsquo;t be wishy-washy. If a referee blows a call, say it. Criticism is professional, not personal. We all know referees aren&rsquo;t perfect. Any more than color commentators or columnists. Well, maybe columnists are.Steve Dryden is managing editor of Inside HOCKEY. &#9632;

f0011-01

HERE’S SOME FREE ADVICE FOR TALKING HEADS ON TV

If the Cinderella Minnesota North Stars continue their winning ways and win the Stanley Cup, they&rsquo;ll be only the third team to win one after finishing the regular season with a losing record (27-39-14). The others&mdash;the 1948-49 Toronto Maple Leafs and the &rsquo;37-38 Chicago Blackhawks. Minnesota coach Bob Gainey has something in common with Bill Stewart, who coached the Chicago team. Both were rookies.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-021003/5938990-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="719" height="511"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Gainey</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0011-02

ODDITIES

<h2>RANGERS</h2>Right winger Joe Kocur underwent surgery May 10 on the middle knuckle of his right hand. The surgery was to correct slippage of tendons and ligaments around the knuckle. Though recovery is expected to be lengthy, Kocur should be ready to play by training camp and punch by opening night&hellip;GM Neil Smith has spoken with agents for goalie Mike Richter (Don Meehan) and right winger Ray Sheppard (Larry Kelly) and expects more serious conversations to occur in the near future regarding contract negotiations. Each player has played out the option year of his contract. Richter is a Group II free agent, Sheppard has completed a termination contract&hellip;Lloyd Friedland, who represents goalie John Vanbiesbrouck, says: &ldquo;I anticipate, if the Rangers can put the right deal together, that John is out of here (New York). That&rsquo;s my gut feeling.&rdquo; Such handwriting has been on the wall for some time.<h2>DEVILS</h2>Left winger Brendan Shanahan&rsquo;s agent, Rick Curran, said he&rsquo;d be &ldquo;very surprised&rdquo; if there weren&rsquo;t at least 10 NHL teams that expressed interest in his client. &ldquo;And five of those are clubs that have been known to spend money to improve their clubs,&rdquo; Curran added, hinting that the Kings, Blues, Rangers, Bruins and Flyers might be willing to sign Shanahan for upwards of $500,000 a year&hellip;Perry Anderson&rsquo;s exposure in the playoffs is likely to extend his playing career. The hard-hitting forward is hoping to play for an expansion team since it is unlikely that he has much of a future with the Devils. &ldquo;With expansion coming in, I figure if a guy stays in good shape and is willing to give 100 per cent there will be jobs,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very optimistic.&rdquo;<h2>FLYERS</h2>Philadelphia city officials reportedly have reached an agreement to pay $6.5 million to help owner Ed Snider build a 1,100-car parking garage as part of a deal to keep the Flyers from moving to New Jersey. The deal was struck with Spectacor, the company which owns the Flyers and operates the Spectrum. According to city officials, the city would receive no revenues from the $15-million garage. If things go as planned, the garage would be constructed near a new 21,000-seat arena planned for a 55-acre site where the condemned John F. Kennedy Stadium currently stands. The state would pick up the cost to demolish JFK Stadium. Officials have said it would take about two years to complete a new arena, which would be built about 200 yards south of the Spectrum&hellip;The Flyers will open their 25th season in Landover, Md., against the Washington Capitals on Friday night, Oct. 4. They will open their home schedule on Thursday night, Oct. 10, against Pittsburgh.<h2>PENGUINS</h2>Left winger Kevin Stevens scored at least one goal in each of the first five games of the Wales Conference final against Boston to solidify his place among the game&rsquo;s premier power forwards. Bruins&rsquo; winger Peter Douris shadowed Stevens in Game 6 and snapped his 10-game scoring streak, but Stevens still entered the Stanley Cup final with a team-high 13 goals&hellip;Boston right winger Cam Neely bypassed defenseman Ulf Samuelsson, his personal tormentor, during the ceremonial handshake after the Penguins&rsquo; series-clinching 5-3 victory in Game 6. &ldquo;I play as hard as I can and try to leave it on the ice,&rdquo; Samuelsson said. &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s only my opinion.&rdquo;&hellip;Pittsburgh had the home-ice advantage for the Cup final, but also entered the series with the league&rsquo;s best road record (5-3) in the playoffs.<h2>ISLANDERS</h2>After having trained on Long Island for many years, the Islanders are planning to hold training camp in Troy, N.Y., the site of their AHL affiliate. GM Bill Torrey said at a news conference in Troy he is considering the possibility, but he has not reached a decision. The Islanders last year signed a long-term deal at a new practice facility on Long Island, but soon after that agreement was reached, construction stopped because the developer failed to pay his contractors&hellip;Jeff Norton has begun rehabilitative exercises on his surgically repaired right shoulder, while Brent Sutter&rsquo;s slight tear in his right rotator cuff is responding to exercise and probably will not require surgery, trainer Ed Tyburski said. Rich Pilon&rsquo;s injured left medial collateral knee ligament is nearly back to full health, and Patrick Flatley&rsquo;s broken left little finger has healed, the trainer said.<h2>CAPITALS</h2>The Capitals held their scouting meetings in Annapolis recently. &ldquo;Lots of ratings to discuss,&rdquo; said GM David Poile, adding with a laugh, &ldquo;Discussions and arguments.&rdquo; The Capitals&rsquo; scouting staff has more to plan this year. At the moment, the Capitals know they&rsquo;ll have their pick (14th) and the Blues&rsquo; pick (21st). But to meet part of its compensation requirements for signing Scott Stevens, the Blues could trade for a top seven pick. So the Capitals are deciding who they&rsquo;d pick in spots two through seven. They wouldn&rsquo;t need scouting meetings to decide on the top pick, which everyone assumes will be Eric Lindros. &ldquo;We want to be prepared for whatever happens,&rdquo; Poile said&hellip;Left winger Steve Seftel, who spent most of the season in Baltimore (AHL), had major knee sugery May 3. Team physician Stephen Haas repaired the anterior cruciate ligament, but Seftel is facing a six-to-nine month recovery period. &#9632;

LONG RECOVERY AHEAD FOR KOCUR

<div class="byline">BY FRANK BROWN</div>Even if you made each problem a raindrop, you couldn&rsquo;t exactly call things stormy in Rangerville. Water torture would be more like it: One drop on your head, then one drop on your head, then one more drop on your head&mdash;all while your hands are tied.Drop I: The team remains without a president.This is not a huge procedural problem. Instead of reporting to Jack Diller, who was recently fired, general manager Neil Smith reports to Madison Square Garden boss Dick Evans.Still, uncertainty continues every day that the job is not filled: Is Smith going to be president? Or is some new face going to be named?Any newcomer clearly would undercut Smith&rsquo;s security. But if he was positive Smith is the clear-cut candidate for president, Evans would&rsquo;ve made the move and promoted him by now. This is one drop that could turn into a torrential rain, but Evans said recently he has no timetable for a decision on the presidential vacancy.Drop II: John Paddock may leave the organization.Winnipeg GM Mike Smith called Neil Smith May 9 and received permission to interview Paddock, coach of the Rangers&rsquo; American League affiliate in Binghamton, for the Jets&rsquo; job.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s good to know they want our people,&rdquo; Neil Smith said.The problem here is that Paddock, who has been an extremely successful minor-league coach, wants an NHL head coaching job.While one might open with the Rangers in the relatively near future&mdash;Roger Neilson is 56-years-old, after all, and isn&rsquo;t going to coach forever&mdash;Paddock may not be willing to wait.&ldquo;John is the best development coach in the business,&rdquo; Smith said, &ldquo;because he knows how to teach and he knows how to win.&rdquo;Paddock was a limited but dependable forward on the Flyers&rsquo; team that faced the Islanders in the 1980 Stanley Cup Final. He has done well as a coach with AHL affiliates in Maine and Hershey. He is younger than Neilson by 20 years, despises losing and is tough enough to go out behind the barn with any player on his team.Neilson, who has won seven playoff games over his two Ranger seasons, is entering the final year of his contract. Paddock, who guided Binghamton to 94 points in this, his first season with the team, is entering the final year of his agreement.Paddock was a candidate for the Flyers&rsquo; job before Paul Holmgren received it. He has turned down NHL assistant coaching jobs because his eyes are focused on a head coaching position, and though appearing reluctant to leave the Rangers, Paddock has said, &ldquo;Timing is everything.&rdquo;Drop III: The Stanley Cup Final began roughly a month after the Rangers had been eliminated.Every day there is hockey being played by teams other than the Rangers, there is&mdash;or there should be&mdash;disgust and outrage over the way they finished.The Cup truly was up for grabs this year, more than it has been in recent memory and the Rangers were the first team on the tournament garbage heap.Evans expressed his anger by firing Diller; other than some strong words, Smith has not yet expressed his anger.But don&rsquo;t expect that restraint to last all summer; expect it to last until we find out who the team president is going to be. &#9632;

SMITH’S PRESIDENTIAL FUTURE STILL UNCERTAIN

<div class="byline">BY RICH CHERE</div>The emergence of Chris Terreri as one of the NHL&rsquo;s top young goaltenders surprised those who viewed him simply as a fill-in until Sean Burke got his game back on track.But for those who saw Terreri&rsquo;s heroics during his career at Providence College&mdash;like New Jersey teammate Eric Weinrich&mdash;the acrobatic goalie&rsquo;s 24 victories and 2.91 goals-against average (seventh-best in the league) came as no surprise.&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t any surprise to me because I&rsquo;ve played with him a lot,&rdquo; said Weinrich, who was a Hockey East rival at Maine in 1985-86 and later Terreri&rsquo;s teammate on the &rsquo;87-88&rsquo; U.S. national and Olympic teams. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen him a lot and I know what he can do.&ldquo;Chris had a great season. I didn&rsquo;t see him the year he took Providence to the NCAA finals (1985), but this was the best I&rsquo;ve seen him play.&rdquo;During a season which ended in disappointment, the 26-year-old Terreri was the Devils&rsquo; brightest point. He tied Alain Chevrier&rsquo;s team record for victories by a goalie, was voted the club&rsquo;s most valuable player by New Jersey hockey writers and was honored by his teammates as the Devils&rsquo; player&rsquo;s player.In the past, even as a college star, Terreri was known for his acrobatic style and spectacular sprawling saves. After two full NHL seasons he has abandoned that approach, which often saw him make dozens of impossible stops before ultimately giving up a soft goal.&ldquo;I think I feel more confident as a player now,&rdquo; Terreri said. &ldquo;As the year went on, I felt I got a lot stronger. Maturity and consistency are the difference. I used to have my hot streaks and then play a game where I was out in space. I no longer lose my focus on the ice. I don&rsquo;t have that uneasy feeling that I might have had in the past. I eliminate the highs and lows.&rdquo;In 51 starts, he held opponents to two goals or fewer 25 times. On Feb. 10 at the Meadowlands Arena, Terreri posted the first shutout of his NHL career when he stopped 27 shots in a 2-0 victory over the Vancouver Canucks.At home, Terreri became the favorite of New Jersey fans who lost confidence in Burke. While Burke was being booed by the home crowd, Terreri went 19-7-2 at the Meadowlands Arena, extending his record on home ice to 25-7-3 in 32 decisions dating back to Jan. 12, 1990.&ldquo;He does amaze guys with his success night after night,&rdquo; left winger Brendan Shanahan said. &ldquo;Chris seems to go out and rob people every night. That&rsquo;s amazing.&rdquo;Tom McVie replaced John Cunniff as coach March 4 and Terreri started a career-high nine straight games March 1-19. He disproved those who felt his 5-foot-8, 155-pound frame would be unable to stand up to such a workload.&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t affect me at all,&rdquo; Terreri said. &ldquo;I guess that&rsquo;s the one thing I have going for me. I don&rsquo;t look that big, but I don&rsquo;t tend to lose weight. I can play when they tell me to play.&rdquo;&ldquo;In Utica, Terreri went 15 games in a row and he got better as he went,&rdquo; McVie recalled. &ldquo;By the 15th game he was loving it.&rdquo;Although McVie played Burke in two late-season road games at Chicago and Montreal and the big goalie earned a pair of ties, there was really no question which player the Devils would go to in the playoffs.Terreri started all seven playoff games against the Pittsburgh Penguins and went 3-4 with a 2.94 GAA.&ldquo;Chris did a good job,&rdquo; Burke said of his roommate. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t lose because of goaltending. There is nothing to be said that things would&rsquo;ve been different if I played one game.&rdquo;There is no question, however, that things would&rsquo;ve been much different for the Devils had Tererri not enjoyed such a successful season.During the season the Devils signed Tererri to a new multi-year contract at a bargain rate. It was a wise move which will keep the rising young star in New Jersey as he enters the peak of his career. &#9632;

TERRERI’S ARRIVAL WAS INEVITABLE

<div class="byline">BY DAVE MOLINARI</div>Tom Barrasso sat at his locker room stall in the Civic Arena, watching the celebration swirl around him and savoring the achievement that made it possible.The Pittsburgh Penguins had just beaten the Boston Bruins 5-3 in Game 6 of the Wales Conference final May 11 to clinch the franchise&rsquo;s first-ever berth in the Stanley Cup final. The room was filled with players, coaches and hangers-on exchanging high-fives, hugs and handshakes, but Barrasso chose to be an observer, at least for a few moments.Sure, the Penguins had won a championship, but this series represented a major personal, as well as professional, victory for him.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s cut through the b.s.,&rdquo; Barrasso said. &ldquo;A lot of people said I could never win the big game. Well, I just won two of them.&rdquo;He won more than that during the first three rounds of the playoffs, actually, but Pittsburgh&rsquo;s victories in Games 5 and 6 against Boston might have been the most significant in franchise history.Barrasso stopped 34 of 36 shots in Pittsburgh&rsquo;s 7-2 win at Boston Garden in Game 5, then turned aside 25 of 28 in Game 6. Of the five goals Barrasso allowed in those games, three came during Boston power plays.Oh, there are plenty of reasons why the Penguins locked up a spot opposite the Minnesota North Stars in the Stanley Cup final. Everything from the breathtaking offense of Mario Lemieux, Mark Recchi and Kevin Stevens to the solid, unsung play of guys like Bryan Trottier, Gordie Roberts and Randy Gilhen.But Barrasso&rsquo;s performance was one of the major factors that turned the series in Pittsburgh&rsquo;s favor. He allowed only seven goals during the final four games as the Penguins rallied from an 0-2 deficit to win four in a row.&ldquo;He has played terrific,&rdquo; Lemieux said. &ldquo;We couldn&rsquo;t have done this without Tommy. Every time we&rsquo;ve needed him, he has come up big for us. He&rsquo;s one of the big reasons we&rsquo;re in the final.&rdquo;Pittsburgh&rsquo;s showdown with Minnesota matched the two goalies with the best statistics during the first three rounds of the playoffs.Jon Casey led the league with a goals-against average of 2.63, but Barrasso was just a fraction off that pace (2.66).Of course, it can be dangerous to put too much emphasis on statistics. Witness Boston goalie Andy Moog, who entered the semifinals with a 2.56 GAA and played superbly most of the time, but still had a 4.38 mark in the Pittsburgh series.Much of that can be attributed to Pittsburgh&rsquo;s superior speed and skill, but Boston has a few scary offensive players, too. But after the Bruins put 11 goals&mdash;many of which can be traced directly to flagrant defensive breakdowns&mdash;behind Barrasso in the first two games, he frustrated them the rest of the way.So the Penguins stormed into their first Cup final with their adrenaline pumping and their confidence level at unprecedented levels. About the only thing that didn&rsquo;t make it through the first three rounds intact was Barrasso&rsquo;s reputation for crumbling under the pressure of big games.<h2>PITTSBURGH</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Mario Lemieux, Ron Francis, Bryan Trottier, Jiri Hrdina, Randy Gilhen, Barry Pederson, Ken Priestlay.LW&mdash;Kevin Stevens, Phil Bourque, Bob Errey, Troy Loney.RW&mdash;Mark Recchi, Jaromir Jagr, Joe Mullen, Scott Young, Jay Caufield, Jamie Leach.LD&mdash;Ulf Samuelsson, Gordie Roberts, Grant Jennings, Jim Paek.RD&mdash;Larry Murphy, Peter Taglianetti, Paul Stanton, Randy Hillier.G&mdash;Tom Barrasso, Frank Pietrangelo, Wendell Young. Bruce Racine.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Paul Coffey, D, jaw surgery, day-to-day. Gilbert Delorme, D, leg stress fracture, indefinite.<h3>LEADERS</h3>G&mdash;Stevens. 13. A&mdash;Recchi, 23. P&mdash;Lemieux, 32. PIM&mdash;Taglianetti, 41. &#9632;

BARRASSO PROVES HE CAN WIN BIG GAMES

<div class="byline">BY DAVE SELL</div>John Kordic says he&rsquo;s sober. He also says he wants another shot at the NHL.&ldquo;I feel really good.&rdquo; Kordic said recently at the Met Center, where he was watching the Minnesota North Stars play the Edmonton Oilers in the Campbell Conference finals. &ldquo;This is different. I haven&rsquo;t been sober for 12 weeks since maybe I was 16 years old.&rdquo;It wasn&rsquo;t quite 12 weeks since Kordic had his second alcohol-related relapse and was suspended by the Washington Capitals after missing a March 2 game against the New York Islanders.He has been in the Minneapolis area since then, getting treatment at a facility and now as an outpatient.Always gregarious and often boastful, Kordic often seems quite sure he can handle his alcohol problem. But at other times, he seems more realistic, saying he knows it&rsquo;s a problem that can be controlled through abstinance but never cured.&ldquo;Tomorrow is another day and today is not over with yet,&rdquo; Kordic said. &ldquo;As soon as you stop thinking that way&hellip;I can&rsquo;t say that 1&rsquo;11 be great 12 weeks from now. But this is the longest I&rsquo;ve been straight and sober in a long time.&rdquo;Kordic will have to stay that way if he&rsquo;s ever to have another chance at playing in the NHL. Kordic had a short but turbulent stay with the Capitals this season. Whether he ever returns is another matter.Needing another intimidating enforcer, the Capitals sent a fifth-round draft pick Jan. 24 to Toronto for Kordic and Paul Fenton, who was subsequently dealt to Calgary for Ken Sabourin.The Capitals were in fifth place at the time and the move was a gamble. Kordic had been traded to Toronto from Montreal in part because of a troublesome relationship with personnel.The Maple Leafs had found Kordic enough of a distraction that they sent him home to Edmonton in late October. The Capitals conducted a series of interviews with Kordic before the trade. They&mdash;and Kordic&mdash;thought he had the alcohol problem under control. They were both wrong.&ldquo;A lot of pain,&rdquo; Kordic said of his life as an alcoholic. &ldquo;It starts out fun, but ends up as hell. Lies, deceit, cheating. It was all so I could get by and get another drink.&rdquo;The Capitals are paying for the services of Kordic&rsquo;s alcohol rehabilitation counselor, James Fearing. Fearing counsels several NHL players. Kordic is sharing an apartment with one, though he declined to name the player. Fearing lives in the apartment complex.&ldquo;James knows everything I do, how much money I had in my pocket and how much I spent that day,&rdquo; Kordic said. &ldquo;I think he knows everything I&rsquo;ve said or done. James knows about alcoholism, but he didn&rsquo;t learn it out of a book. James has gone through the same hell I have.&rdquo;Fearing said he is &ldquo;guardedly optimistic&rdquo; Kordic is on the road to recovery, while stressing that the assessement has to be rethought every day because of the nature of the program and the task.&ldquo;He is continuing to demonstrate a willingness to take directions and take the steps needed to build a foundation,&rdquo; Fearing said. &ldquo;When we started, I told him, don&rsquo;t tell me about it. Show me.&rdquo;Kordic rattles off the other programs he has been in. The first lasted 28 days and then there was a spell in a half-way house. He&rsquo;s trying to emphasize that he&rsquo;s trying to lick the problem. He knows there are a lot of skeptics throughout the hockey world.Kordic is hoping to show the Capitals or some other team he can still help them. He is volunteering at a local health club five hours a day, five days a week. That gives him ample opportunity to work out.Kordic was in the option year of his contract, so he will be a free agent July 1. His agent, Howard Gourwitz, and Capitals&rsquo; general manager David Poile have talked, but Poile said he doesn&rsquo;t expect there to be a decision on whether Kordic is re-signed until after the draft.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to give it as much time as we can so John can put the problem behind him before making any decision to sign him or not sign him,&rdquo; Poile said. &#9632;

SOBER KORDIC SEEKS A CHANCE

<div class="byline">BY MARK HERRMANN</div>Craig Ludwig, the defensive defenseman who rarely shoots and only once has collected more than five goals in an NHL season, does have a considerable offensive streak after all.It becomes conspicuous every time he steps into a batter&rsquo;s box, and that happens just about every night in the off-season.While he has earned a comfortable living by making big scorers uncomfortable in front of the net, the New York Islanders&rsquo; veteran defenseman admits his true passion is crunching softballs, not forwards.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always said that I play hockey so I can get to the three months of softball in the summer,&rdquo; said Ludwig, who got a jump on a personal schedule of about 200 softball games even before he returned home last week to Eagle River, Wis.For a month following the end of the Islanders&rsquo; season, he played for a team in Long Island&rsquo;s Brookhaven Town league. By the standards of long-time softball enthusiasts, Ludwig was a smash. He raised eyebrows when the team worked out at a park that almost never yields home runs.During batting practice, the 6-foot-3, 222-pound Ludwig rarely hit anything that didn&rsquo;t carry over the left field fence.Anchored by his presence at shortstop, the team didn&rsquo;t lose a game.But that was only a warmup for Ludwig, who plays third base and roving outfielder for a Wisconsin-based travel team called the Socks and for teams in four different weeknight leagues.His softball itinerary will include trips to Las Vegas, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois and throughout southern Wisconsin.Ludwig started playing softball soon after he graduated from high school in Wisconsin.&ldquo;Two of us were invited to the Cincinnati Reds&rsquo; tryout camp, but we didn&rsquo;t go,&rdquo; Ludwig said. &ldquo;I regret that now, not because I thought I was good enough to play, but because I think it would have been a good experience. After that there was nowhere to play baseball in our area. We didn&rsquo;t have any senior league.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011468/5939141-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="714" height="767"><figcaption class="caption-body">Softball fanatic Craig Ludwig will play more than 200 games this summer.</figcaption></div>So, he began playing softball and he was so good at it that people kept asking him to play on their teams.Now, it&rsquo;s Ludwig who does the recruiting, seeking out opposing players that he meets at various tournaments. It doesn&rsquo;t hurt, he said, that people recognize him as an NHL stalwart.Few fellow pro hockey players share his devotion to softball, but Ludwig&rsquo;s former Montreal teammates&mdash;Stephane Richer and Patrick Roy&mdash;do. Ludwig calls Roy &ldquo;an excellent ballplayer and a great shortstop.&rdquo;Ludwig attests to softball fever in the province of Quebec, recalling a tournament in Sherbrooke several years ago.He acknowledged having been nervous, playing on a field before 32,000 fans&mdash;twice the size of the crowds that regularly watched him on the ice at the Montreal Forum.The practical applications for softball toward his job on the Islanders&rsquo; defense are limited, Ludwig said. But he did point out that his offseason regimen does keep him active in a town that has no summer ice rink.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m running every night,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not like running four miles, but it&rsquo;s something.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0014-01

LUDWIG HAS A BALL DESPITE EARLY EXIT

<div class="byline">BY WAYNE FISH</div>Pelle Eklund left Philadelphia in early April with a frown on his face. The Flyers had just missed the Stanley Cup playoffs for a second straight year.But Eklund was all smiles by the time he arrived home in Leksand, Sweden a month later.The reasons for Eklund&rsquo;s mood change were twofold.One, Eklund and his Team Sweden teammates upset the highly favored Soviet Union to win the World Championships in Helsinki, Finland.Two, the 28-year-old center put his signature on a new three-year contract that will make him one of the three highest-paid members of the Flyers.There had been speculation Eklund might exercise an escape clause after the first of two remaining years on his old contract expired at the end of the 1991-92 season.Eklund hinted he wanted to get back to his native country to be closer to family and friends and maybe play hockey in Europe.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021132/5939172-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="707" height="707"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pelle Eklund helped Sweden win gold at the World Championships.</figcaption></div>Sensing this and realizing Eklund is one of a dwindling number of legitimate star players on their roster, the Flyers made Eklund an offer he couldn&rsquo;t refuse.With team incentive clauses, the contract is believed to be worth about $700,000 per year, putting him in the same salary range with Ron Hextall and Rick Tocchet.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very pleased with the contract,&rdquo; said Eklund, via a trans-Atlantic telephone call from Leksand. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m looking forward to the next three years and hope I can help the team the same way I&rsquo;ve been doing.&rdquo;Eklund indicated he and some of the other Flyers weren&rsquo;t as discouraged by last year&rsquo;s performance as people might think. After all, the Flyers were in second place March I before a 2-10-2 collapse dropped them out of the playoffs.&ldquo;The first 60 games, we played well,&rdquo; Eklund said. &ldquo;The last 20, we just fell apart. Maybe we can get off to the same good start and finish up a little better this year and make the playoffs again.&rdquo;Eklund, who has played all six of his NHL seasons with the Flyers, is coming off two of his best years. Last year he led the team in assists (50), tied his career high for points (69) and was voted the team&rsquo;s most valuable player.The line of Eklund, Mike Ricci and Tocchet was the only consistent scoring threat throughout the season. A few more players of that type would help get the Flyers back in the playoffs.&ldquo;It looked like in some of those games this year we needed one more goal-scorer,&rdquo; said Eklund. &ldquo;Of course, we need one or two more finesse players. Otherwise. I think this team has just about everything it needs.&rdquo;In the World Championships, Eklund played on a line with Johan Garpenlov of the Detroit Red Wings. A 2-1 win over the Soviets did a lot to erase the memory of a disappointing season with the Flyers.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been working hard for years to beat them,&rdquo; Eklund said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to win. We don&rsquo;t beat them too often. It was a good thing for me after our team didn&rsquo;t make the playoffs. It was a nice ending.&rdquo;With the influx of new players, Eklund has become more of a Flyers&rsquo; leader, albeit a quiet one.&ldquo;This is going to be my seventh year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You feel like you have to play pretty well on every shift and that&rsquo;s the kind of leadership I&rsquo;m looking (to give).&rdquo; &#9632;

f0014-02

EKLUND ENDS SPECULATION. RE-SIGNS WITH TEAM

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011355/5939203-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="538" height="613"><figcaption class="caption-body">ERIC DUHATSCHEK</figcaption></div>Joey Mullen may not see it that way, but Don Cherry paid him the ultimate compliment, the ultimate compliment from Cherry anyway.In praising Mullen&rsquo;s storybook comeback from neck surgery, Cherry stated that the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; right winger, the highest-scoring American-born player in NHL history, played like a Canadian.Now in the Cherry ethic, that means Mullen possesses a hard nose and a hard edge to his play. He could also have added a hard backbone.Only two months ago, doctors traced ongoing back problems to a herniated disc in his neck and gave him few alternatives. If he wanted to play again, surgery would be required.So on Feb. 6, 20 days shy of his 34th birthday, Mullen went under the knife and pretty much reconciled himself to the fact that he would not play hockey again this season.That is, until he awoke from the anaesthesia and the surgeon muttered something about good news and six to eight weeks. Did he hear that right? Or was he still in dreamland?&ldquo;I said, &lsquo;What was that, six to eight weeks?&rsquo;&rdquo; reported Mullen. &ldquo;He said, &lsquo;Yeah, you might be back in time for the playoffs.&rsquo; That was a big change from three to six months out of the lineup, which is what they were talking about before I went in.&rdquo;On the day the Penguins acquired him from the Calgary Flames, coach Bob Johnson said that he would go to war with Mullen. All the battlefield analogies in the Penguins-Bruins series make that comment seem singularly appropriate now.The one difference: Mullen doesn&rsquo;t do battle with his fists or his stick. He does it with his skill. Always did. Probably always will.This latest comeback adds one more chapter to a remarkable career that began in the playgrounds of Hell&rsquo;s Kitchen, N.Y., continued in the hallowed halls of Boston College and, until this moment, probably culminated in 1989 on the Montreal Forum ice when he carried around the Stanley Cup.&ldquo;For me, the hardest part (of coming back) was getting my conditioning,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I lifted some light weights and tried to build up the muscles around the neck area. I was skating on my own, working out on my own, and that was kind of lonely. It was tough to push yourself. You don&rsquo;t know if you&rsquo;re getting enough done.&rdquo;Especially because off-ice conditioning was never Mullen&rsquo;s strong suit. Perennially, he would start every season slowly, gradually playing himself into shape. This time around, he didn&rsquo;t have that luxury.Johnson put Mullen into the Penguins&rsquo; lineup for the third game of the New Jersey series. Right away, he stepped into the highest tempo hockey of the season.&ldquo;The thing I had to find out was if I could take the hits,&rdquo; said Mullen. &ldquo;On my first shift, it took about 20 seconds and Kirk Muller hit me solid. I came off the boards and you kind of check to make sure everything&rsquo;s in place. Everything felt good.&ldquo;I think that hit put it in my head that I had nothing to worry about. Every hit I&rsquo;ve gotten throughout the playoffs, nothing has bothered me. I feel great.&ldquo;Every game I&rsquo;ve played, I could feel I was doing better and better. Now I don&rsquo;t feel too far out of place. I feel I can keep up.&rdquo;Mullen must wear a protective collar for the rest of the playoffs as a precautionary measure. The doctors wouldn&rsquo;t let him play without it.With Paul Coffey out of the lineup with a broken jaw, Mullen possesses the most playoff experience of any Penguin except for Bryan Trottier.Mullen is not exactly the type to rally the troops with rah-rah speeches. It&rsquo;s enough that he sets an example on the ice.He did make one pertinent point, however, seeing a parallel between this year&rsquo;s Penguins and the 1989 Flames.That year, the Flames didn&rsquo;t exactly dazzle the Vancouver Canucks in the first round, but they gradually improved as the playoffs progressed.The Penguins looked beatable in the first round against New Jersey and were perhaps fortunate to advance.Only in the final three games against Washington did they hit their playoff stride and they&rsquo;ve gotten stronger since.&ldquo;I was just thinking of that Vancouver series the other day,&rdquo; said Mullen. &ldquo;We got better as the playoffs went on. The second round was a lot better than the first. That&rsquo;s what this reminds me of. I think you have to play that way to keep trying to jump up a level.&rdquo;And now, there&rsquo;s only a level to go.Eric Duhatschek is a hockey writer for the Calgary Herald. &#9632;

f0015-01

COMEBACK KID AS HEALTHY AS EVER

May 24,1990: The Edmonton Oilers defeat the Boston Bruins 4-1 in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup final to win their fifth Cup in seven years. Glenn Anderson, Craig Simpson, Steve Smith and Joe Murphy beat Boston goalie Andy Moog, while Lyndon Byers broke Oiler goalie Bill Ranford&rsquo;s shutout.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-02950/5939234-1-eng-US/f0015-022.jpg" title="f0015-02" width="628" height="400"><figcaption class="caption-body">Craig Simpson</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0015-02

FLASHBACK

<h2>BLACKHAWKS</h2>The Blackhawks and the NBA&rsquo;s Chicago Bulls announced ground will be broken for a new staduim for the two teams in September. The 20,000-seat, 214-skybox facility should be ready for occupancy for the start of the 1994-95 season. The new building, whose $160-million price tag will be paid by the Hawks and Bulls, will be constructed across the street from Chicago Stadium, which probably will be left standing to be used for concerts, ice shows and college basketball. Chicago Stadium has been home to the Hawks since 1929&hellip;It&rsquo;s possible the Hawks might draft a European player with their first-round draft pick for the first time in franchise history. The Hawks, who have the 22nd and last pick in the first round, are thought to be interested in Soviet center Alexei Kovalev&hellip;Defenseman Chris Chelios hadn&rsquo;t played on a team eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs until this season. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an empty feeling,&rdquo; he said&hellip;Center Mike Hudson underwent successful surgery to correct a nagging elbow problem.<h2>NORTH STARS</h2>Defenseman Shawn Chambers returned to the Twin Cities the afternoon after the North Stars&rsquo; eliminated the Oilers and had surgery on his aching left knee before sundown. The surgery, to remove a piece of loose cartilage, is the third this season to the knee but it should only cause him to miss one or two games of the Stanley Cup final&hellip;The North Stars have sold 3,032 new season tickets, a 92 per cent increase over this season&rsquo;s base of 3,331 season tickets. The team only counts new tickets purchased, not the free ticket in the buy-two, get-one-free promotion&hellip;Asked if he would send videotape of an incident from Game 4 of the series against the Oilers, coach Bob Gainey said: &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t seem to make much sense. Nothing seems to happen. The tapes cost $8 and you never see them again.&rdquo; Gainey changed his mind, however, after the Oilers asked the league to review an incident involving Bobby Smith&hellip;Late in Game 4 of the series against the Oilers, goalies Jon Casey and Grant Fuhr paired off in the Minnesota zone, well away from the Stars&rsquo; goal but still not too close to an angry swarm of players insulting and assaulting each other along the boards. Asked if he thought the two were going to fight, goalie coach Chico Resch said: &ldquo;Yes. Knowing the personalities, I thought the Fuhr was going to fly.&rdquo;<h2>RED WINGS</h2>GM and coach Bryan Murray spoke with Soviet officials during the World Championships about the availability of defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov and center Viacheslav Kozlov. He was told that neither would be available until the conclusion of the Olympics, and even then only Konstantinov, 24, might be allowed to join countryman Sergei Fedorov in Detroit. Murray described Konstantinov as &ldquo;a good steady guy, not a superstar but a good player.&rdquo; Kozlov, who was brilliant in the World Junior Championships, did not look out of place playing among men, Murray said, adding: &ldquo;He played well. He&rsquo;s very quick, but he&rsquo;s a little immature in his play right now.&rdquo;&hellip;The Wings have tendered offers to right wingers Bob Probert and Dave Barr, and defenseman Doug Crossman, all of whom played out their options this season. Murray said the club is determining whether to offer defenseman Rick Green another contract.<h2>BLUES</h2>Although veterans Harold Snepsts and Rick Meagher have expressed their desire to retire, GM Ron Caron said the team may try to sign them to one-year contracts. &ldquo;Can they provide some services?&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the question I asked of the hockey people. The answer is, &lsquo;Yes.&rdquo; The services rendered may be off the ice. Snepsts and Meagher would fulfill the Blues&rsquo; requirement of having at least one forward and defenseman exposed in the expansion draft&hellip;Last season, the Blues caused an uproar by signing Type II free-agent Scott Stevens, but without any No. 1 draft picks, they can&rsquo;t go that route this season. Caron also indicated they probably wouldn&rsquo;t try to sign Type I free agents such as New Jersey&rsquo;s Brendan Shanahan and Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Mark Recchi. &ldquo;Type I is a very dangerous avenue,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There aren&rsquo;t that many players you can trade (as compensation) without hurting yourself. &ldquo;&hellip;An interesting quote from Caron: &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t make permanent plans in life. Only death is permanent, and you don&rsquo;t know when it&rsquo;s going to happen, and it&rsquo;s a good thing you don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;<h2>MAPLE LEAFS</h2>Promising that the extra $1.1 million in revenue will be used to bolster the club&rsquo;s sagging fortunes and pay the salary of an as-yet unknown top hockey executive, the Leafs announced a nine per cent across-the-board hike in ticket prices for next season. &ldquo;No one&rsquo;s going to get their office re-decorated,&rdquo; said director of business operations and communications Bob Stellick. He added the boost in prices, which sees the top seat raised to $40 from $36 and the cheapest to $ 16 from $ 15, won&rsquo;t deter prospective buyers. &ldquo;1 don&rsquo;t think our ticket prices have alienated our fans as much as our play,&rdquo; added Stellick&hellip;Last season, the schedule maker made the Leafs start the season with a trip through Death Valley, a.k.a. Calgary and Edmonton. Well, the Leafs 1991-92 schedule has been released and, unlike last year when they were confronted with a three-game road trip to start the year, they play four of their first five games at home. &#9632;

NEW HOME BEING BUILT FOR HAWKS

<div class="byline">BY TIM SASSONE</div>When Trent Yawney looks back at the 1990-91 season, you can bet the Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; defenseman won&rsquo;t have too many fond memories.Yawney was the odd man out on the Hawks&rsquo; defense most of the season, appearing in only 61 games. He spent the rest of his time hearing his name pop up in trade rumor after trade rumor.To top off the year, Yawney was used in only one playoff game, the last one when it was apparent the Hawks were going to lose their first-round series against the Minnesota North Stars.To his credit, Yawney never complained publicly about his situation although there were times it seemed like he had every right to let off some steam.&ldquo;I learned a lot about myself this season,&rdquo; said the 25-year-old Yawney. &ldquo;Not playing was something I hadn&rsquo;t been through before. I wasn&rsquo;t pleased that it was happening to me, but I learned a lot. I tried to be patient and supportive of the guys who were playing.&rdquo;Yawney started the season as a regular when Doug Wilson and Bob McGill were on the injured list, but after McGill returned Yawney lost his job to Czechoslovakian rookie Frantisek Kucera.Even after Wilson came back in late November and Kucera was sent to the minors, Yawney never could find a regular place in the lineup. He reportedly had words several times with coach-general manager Mike Keenan regarding his situation, although Keenan insisted his reluctance to put Yawney into the lineup was nothing personal.Privately, many Hawks questioned the way the popular Yawney was being treated by Keenan, saying he was one of the club&rsquo;s top six defenseman and should have beer, playing regularly.Does Yawney think he was treated fairly by Keenan?&ldquo;Nothing&rsquo;s fair in life,&rdquo; Yawney said diplomatically. &ldquo;These things happen. We had a lot of depth on defense and not everyone can play. My time will come.&ldquo;It was tough not playing and tough to watch every night. But it&rsquo;s all behind me now. I just want to go and take some time off and come back to training camp in the right frame of mind.&rdquo;While Keenan has hinted he&rsquo;d like to overhaul his defense this offseason, Yawney apparently isn&rsquo;t one of those players who will be moved unless he&rsquo;s included in some kind of a package for a proven scorer.Yawney has age on his side unlike Wilson, McGill, Keith Brown or Steve Konroyd. However, there&rsquo;s no question Yawney has more value on the market than either Brown, Konroyd or McGill.Yawney has lived with the trade rumors all season, so he&rsquo;s not going to spend all summer worrying and wondering about where he&rsquo;ll be playing next season.&ldquo;I hope I&rsquo;ll be back,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I like it here because it&rsquo;s a great place to play hockey. But I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s going to happen. Whatever happens, happens. My name has been thrown around all year anyway. As of now I&rsquo;m still a Chicago Blackhawk.&rdquo;If Keenan does intend to trade Yawney, he probably won&rsquo;t have much trouble finding a taker. It&rsquo;s interesting to note that while Yawney had trouble cracking the lineup in Chicago, he was asked to play for Team Canada in the recent World Championships.Yawney was reunited with Dave King, whom he played for in the 1988 Olympics when Yawney captained Team Canada.&ldquo;I know I&rsquo;m a good defenseman and that I can play in this league and help someone,&rdquo; Yawney said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to be a regular in this league and I hope it&rsquo;s with the Blackhawks. But if I have to go somewhere else, that&rsquo;s part of the game, too.&rdquo; &#9632;

YAWNEY ACCEPTS HUMBLING SEASON IN STRIDE

<div class="byline">BY GARY OLSON</div>Don&rsquo;t sell the Minnesota North Stars&rsquo; defense short.Curt Giles is the only member of the defense who&rsquo;s too short to play in the NHL and he has done it for 12 seasons. Now that he&rsquo;s 32-years-old, he&rsquo;ll probably play several more seasons being too short and too old.The North Stars&rsquo; defense has come of age en route to the Stanley Cup finals and it&rsquo;s not very old.Jim Johnson and Chris Dahlquist are greybeards at 28, Mark Tinordi and Shawn Chambers are only 24, Brian Glynn and Neil Wilkinson, just 23.And remember, just a year ago Giles was voted the Stars&rsquo; best defenseman and won the Tom Dill Memorial Cup, a team trophy, for the fourth time in five years to prove it.But as the Campbell Conference finals moved to the final two games, Giles sat in the seats and watched the Stars&rsquo; next generation finish off the defending Cup champion Edmonton Oilers.&ldquo;This is an exciting time for those guys,&rdquo; Giles said. &ldquo;I remember what it was like when it started to come together for me.&ldquo;This is a great time for the team and the organization but it&rsquo;s really something special for these kids to play as well as they are against the competition we&rsquo;ve been up against.&rdquo;Giles is still the North Stars&rsquo; captain and was presented the Clarence Campbell Bowl by NHL vice-president Brian O&rsquo;Neill after his teammates ended the Oilers&rsquo; season.Giles played with Tinordi when he first came to Minnesota in the trade that sent Brian Lawton to the New York Rangers. He stayed as his partner until Tinordi was confident enough to move out on his own. It was the same with Wilkinson and Rob Zettler.Glynn came to the North Stars from Calgary in October and grew into his job, bangers Johnson and Dahlquist arrived in a December trade with Pittsburgh, veterans with ice time that didn&rsquo;t keep pace with their age.&ldquo;Curt&rsquo;s still the leader of the defense, no matter what happens,&rdquo; Tinordi said.&ldquo;We started to come together when we finally got seven or eight guys in here who could play. Then, if you didn&rsquo;t play well you knew you wouldn&rsquo;t play.&rdquo;Giles now forces the younger players to be better because they know coach Bob Gainey can still turn to Giles and get quality defensive play. As one of three players left from the 1981 team, the last Minnesota squad to play for the Cup, it&rsquo;s hard on Giles to sit. It would be harder for him to complain.Tinordi is the Stars&rsquo; best defenseman now. He&rsquo;s finally getting the recognition he used to only get with his fists.Recently, Oilers&rsquo; coach John Muckier was asked if he might use defensive specialist Esa Tikkanen against Stars&rsquo; regular-season scoring leader Dave Gagner. Muckier said he wouldn&rsquo;t.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011092/5939313-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="568" height="844"><figcaption class="caption-body">Captain Curt Giles sat out the last two games against Edmonton.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t he (the North Stars&rsquo;) leader?&rdquo; he was asked.&ldquo;No. Mark Tinordi is their leader,&rdquo; Muckier answered.Tinordi seems certain to become one of the league&rsquo;s best defensemen if he isn&rsquo;t already. After the series, Dahlquist called him a &ldquo;triplethreat,&rdquo; a defenseman who can play defense, offense and the tough, physical game with equal ability.&ldquo;Our defense is so young we don&rsquo;t know what we&rsquo;ve accomplished,&rdquo; Tinordi said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re too stupid to know what we&rsquo;re doing. We just keep playing.&ldquo;Some of the older guys know what&rsquo;s going on but we&rsquo;re just six guys doing our jobs and having fun.&ldquo;Shawn can play offense if we&rsquo;re behind and defense if we&rsquo;re ahead; J.J. (Johnson), Chris (Dahlquist) and Wilkie can play a physical game and take some of the pressure off me. Brian Glynn keeps other teams honest with his big shot.&ldquo;But Curt is still the leader of our defense. If something needs to be said, he&rsquo;ll say it.&rdquo;<h2>MINNESOTA</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Neal Broten, Dave Gagner, Bobby Smith, Marc Bureau, Perry Berezan.LW&mdash;Gaetan Duchesne, Brian Propp, Brian Bellows, Basil McRae, Larry DePalma.RW&mdash;Stewart Gavin, Mike Modano, Ulf Dahlen, Shane Churla. Mike Craig, Doug Smail.LD&mdash;Mark Tinordi, Neil Wilkinson, Brian Glynn, Rob Zettler, Dan Keczmer.RD&mdash;Chris Dahlquist, Jim Johnson, Curt Giles.G&mdash;Jon Casey, Brian Hayward, Jarmo Myllys.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Shawn Chambers, D, arthroscopic knee surgery, day-to-day.<h3>LEADERS</h3>G&mdash;Bellows, 10. A&mdash;Bellows, 17. P&mdash;Bellows, 27. PIM&mdash;Churla, 86. &#9632;

f0017-01

PINT-SIZED DEFENSE STANDING TALL

<div class="byline">BY DAVE LUECKING</div>Although disgruntled fans have been bashing general manager Ron Caron and coach Brian Sutter on sports call-in shows, St. Louis Blues&rsquo; management is quite happy with the duo.So happy, in fact, that within two weeks of the Blues&rsquo; elimination at the hands of the Minnesota North Stars, Caron, Sutter and assistant coaches Bob Berry and Wayne Thomas received contract extensions.Caron and Sutter, whose contracts were to expire after this past season, received two-year extensions May 9.Berry and Thomas, signed through next season, received one-year extensions. All are under contract through the 1992-93 season.&ldquo;We think we&rsquo;re in as good a shape from an organizational standpoint as we have been in many years,&rdquo; chairman Mike Shanahan said.Actually, he&rsquo;d have been more accurate to say &ldquo;as we have been in our history.&rdquo;When Sutter coaches his first game next season, he will become the first man to coach the Blues in four consecutive seasons. No one has coached more games with the Blues than Sutter.And Caron just finished his eighth season and has been the Blues&rsquo; GM longer than anyone.This stability is in marked contrast to the Blues&rsquo; early years. They went through 12 coaches, made 19 coaching changes and had eight GMs in their first 16 seasons.&ldquo;Everybody&rsquo;s in tune, and everyone realizes what we need and what it takes,&rdquo; president Jack Quinn said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re very fortunate. We&rsquo;ve got good people from top to bottom.&rdquo;&ldquo;We&rsquo;re proud of what they&rsquo;ve done,&rdquo; Shanahan said.The Blues have made great strides in the Caron-Sutter regime, going from a 78-point team in Sutter&rsquo;s first season to 105 points this past season, second in the NHL overall standings and the second-best in team history.&ldquo;We had one hell of a season and we were very, very disappointed to see it end like it did,&rdquo; Sutter said. &ldquo;But we have the horses to continue on. The foundation is there. What we did this year isn&rsquo;t a freaky thing, but we have a ways to go.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going down the road in the right direction. We&rsquo;ve gone off a few times, but we&rsquo;re on the right road and we&rsquo;re going there together.&rdquo;Sutter and Caron dispelled concerns that there&rsquo;s friction between them in an organizational power struggle.&ldquo;As far as I&rsquo;m concerned, we&rsquo;re friends, and I consider myself privileged to have Brian as a friend and a hockey partner,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;We have one goal in mind, to bring the best to our fans, and hopefully, a Stanley Cup.&rdquo;Sutter called Caron &ldquo;an extremely talented hockey man.&rdquo; and said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a firm believer that success starts at the top. You need stability at the top, but it takes time. It doesn&rsquo;t happen overnight.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got the foundation. Now, we&rsquo;ve got something to build on.&rdquo;And Sutter&rsquo;s grateful for the chance to finish the job.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very excited, a hell of a lot more excited than I was three years ago,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m proud to be where we are. I&rsquo;ll never be satisfied until we win the last game.&rdquo;That would mean a Stanley Cup for St. Louis, but Sutter wants something else first.&ldquo;My goal is to play in May,&rdquo; he said.The Blues haven&rsquo;t played in May since &rsquo;86, when former coach Jacques Demers took them on an improbable ride to the final game of the Campbell Conference final against Calgary.&ldquo;Our goal is to get into the conference final; that&rsquo;s the only way to continue on the road to the Stanley Cup,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;We need to win eight games in the playoffs to get there, but we haven&rsquo;t been able to do that in the last three years.&rdquo;<h2>ST. LOUIS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>May 9: Ron Caron, GM, Brian Sutter, coach, Bob Berry, assistant coach, Wayne Thomas, assistant coach, received contract extensions through the 1992-93 season. &#9632;

SUTTER, CARON WILL BE BACK

<div class="byline">BY KEITH GAVE</div>By the time Sweden had won the 1991 World Championships, its top young defenseman, Niklas Lidstrom, had come to terms with the Detroit Red Wings on a contract that would put him in the NHL next season.That was the easy part. Much more difficult would be reaching an agreement with Lidstrom&rsquo;s Swedish club, Vasteras, which is asking a ransom for his release.Detroit general manager Bryan Murray offered Vasteras $200,000 Swiss Francs, or about $160,000&mdash;the same amount they paid for the rights to forward Johan Garpenlov.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re quite a ways apart,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;I think they&rsquo;re not sure what they should expect to get.&rdquo;Murray would not reveal how much Vasteras is demanding, other than to say the Wings believed it was far too much. A wire service report, however, said the Swedish club wants $460,000 in compensation from the Wings.Undaunted by the impasse, Lidstrom announced he would be in Detroit May 19 to sign a three-year deal worth about $800,000.It&rsquo;s doubtful the Wings and Vasteras would have an agreement by then, said Murray, who has asked NHL president John Ziegler to intervene in an attempt to secure a uniform agreement with Sweden similar to the one the league has with Finland and Czechoslovakia.Murray said it could be close to training camp before the deal with Vasteras is complete.Presently, NHL teams negotiate separately with Swedish clubs for each player who signs a contract to play in North America. Murray&rsquo;s research&mdash;he phoned several NHL clubs&mdash;showed that $200,000 Swiss francs has been the norm for such players, adding that the Wings are not eager to up the ante by signing Lidstrom, considered one of the top defensive prospects in Europe.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re the buyer in this case,&rdquo; Murray said, &ldquo;and it&rsquo;s not going to be easy. We don&rsquo;t want the Detroit Red Wings to set a new standard.&rdquo;In Lidstrom, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound rookie with Team Sweden, Murray sees the defenseman the Wings have long needed&mdash;one who makes the Wings a scoring threat each time he&rsquo;s on the ice, one who can quarterback the power play with the same efficiency he did against the world&rsquo;s best players during the World Championships.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011138/5939368-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="709" height="657"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bryan Murray would love to have Niklas Lidstrom in the lineup next season.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Lidstrom scored two goals from the point on (U.S. goaltender) John Vanbiesbrouck and he never had a chance on either one of them,&rdquo; Murray said.Lidstrom finished with three goals and six points in 10 games at the tournament.But is the Red Wings&rsquo; third choice, 53rd overall, in the 1989 entry draft ready for the NHL grind?&ldquo;Oh yes, I think he is,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;In the World Championships, he was on the ice all the time. He would be a very important player from our team&rsquo;s point of view. But whether he&rsquo;s strong enough to handle the 80-game grind, we&rsquo;ll have to see.&rdquo;Lidstrom, 21, is one of many Swedes drafted by former Wings&rsquo; chief scout Neil Smith, now the New York Rangers&rsquo; GM. Smith still covets Lidstrom, whose name often surfaces when the two clubs discuss possible trades.Murray also hoped to talk Swedish forward Bengt Gustafsson, 33, into returning to the NHL again, but didn&rsquo;t have much luck. &#9632;

f0018-01

SWEDE SKATING LIDSTROM SET TO WING INTO TOWN

<div class="byline">BY MARK HARDING</div>The silence emanating from the hallowed halls and offices of Maple Leaf Gardens these days is almost deafening.Were it not for occasional dispatches announcing the club was moving its top farm affiliate as far East as one can go (Newfoundland) and hoisting ticket prices yet again, the team&rsquo;s fans could be forgiven for thinking management had put out the &ldquo;gone fishin&rdquo; sign for the summer.After one of their worst seasons ever, in which management (read general manager Floyd Smith) made almost weekly noises (read trades) that reverberated through the NHL, virtually nothing that could be construed as a constructive sign has been done.Most significantly, of course, is the procrastination of club president Donald Giffin in naming his director of hockey operations.The 76-year-old co-executor of former owner Harold Ballard&rsquo;s estate has been promising an announcement for some time now, but the latest word is that he won&rsquo;t make the appointment until the Stanley Cup playoffs have concluded.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02850/5939399-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="702" height="795"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wendel Clark&rsquo;s status with the Leafs is one of many unanswered questions.</figcaption></div>That, of course, leads everyone to believe that the new czar of hockey at the Gardens is currently employed by another NHL club.But therein lies the stumbling block. Until Giffin makes the announcement and the new man is place, the hands of those in charge, namely Smith, are virtually bound.The contracts of coach Tom Watt and his assistant, Mike Kitchen, expire June 1, but no announcement has been forthcoming&mdash;not even a hint of what might happen.Discussions with Don Meehan, the agent who represents left winger Wendel Clark, have been non-existent. The club&rsquo;s acknowledged leader becomes a free agent July 1 and as far as can be ascertained, no talks have been held since the season ended. None are planned, either.Several key Leafs, including Daniel Marois, are heading into their option years and they, too, have been left scratching their heads.It all amounts to a great deal of uncertainty, something the Leafs hoped would not cloud their summer break.Prior to the season&rsquo;s end, a number of veterans expressed hope that the unresolved matters at management level would be taken care of expediently.The longer the air of uncertainty lingers, the greater the toll it will take on players.Management isn&rsquo;t excluded, either.Smith&rsquo;s future is definitely in limbo, yet he has no choice but to carry on as though he&rsquo;ll be at the helm again next season in the second term of a three-year deal.&ldquo;The board of governors has been very lenient where I&rsquo;m concerned,&rdquo; Smith told the Toronto Sun. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve not made it difficult whatsoever.&rdquo;Smith and his scouts recently met to mull over their strategy for the approaching June draft, something he&rsquo;s expected to be in charge of for the Leafs&mdash;but nothing is guaranteed.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve looked at certain players we&rsquo;re thinking of taking,&rdquo; said Smith, who doesn&rsquo;t get to step to the microphone until the third round as a result of trades he has made over the last two seasons. &ldquo;There are surprises and disappointments for all teams and I imagine it will run true to form again this year.&rdquo;The only real surprise would be if this entire muddled Leaf picture were to be cleared up prior to the draft. &#9632;

f0018-02

MUDDLED MANAGEMENT CONTINUES TO STAND PAT

Winning first overall in the NHL&rsquo;s regular season didn&rsquo;t pay off for the Chicago Blackhawks. But the American and International League&rsquo;s champions are riding that regular-season success to early leads in their finals.The AHL&rsquo;s Rochester Americans and the IHL&rsquo;s Peoria Rivermen both used home-ice advantage to win the opening two games of the Calder and Turner Cup finals.The Rivermen used seven goals from left winger David Bruce to beat the Fort Wayne Komets&mdash;winning 7-1 May 10 and 5-2 May 11&mdash;while the Americans beat the Springfield Indians&mdash;a 6-3 win May 9 and a 3-2 victory May 11.Bruce, who was leading the IHL in scoring when recalled late in the season, had something to prove to the Komets. Fort Wayne&rsquo;s Lonnie Loach won the scoring race followed by teammate Bruce Boudreau and Bruce.The Komets pair finished with 131 and 120 points respectively. But in 21 fewer games, Peoria&rsquo;s Bruce had 64 goals, nine more than Loach had in 81 games and 24 more than Boudreau, also in 81 games.In Game 1, Bruce scored a hat trick, getting the last three Peoria goals. And after Jim Vesey opened Game 2 with a goal at 14:52 of the first period. Bruce got the next four&mdash;two in the second and a pair in the third&mdash;in the Rivermen&rsquo;s 5-2 win.His last three goals, including his 15th of the post-season into an empty net, were unassisted&mdash;an IHL record.Although Bruce&rsquo;s goals were more than enough for Peoria to grab a 2-0 lead heading to Fort Wayne for Games 3 and 4, the Rivermen had more than that going for them.Their defense&mdash;bolstered by the return from St. Louis of goaltender Pat Jablonski and defenseman Kelly Chase&mdash;had held the explosive Komets to three goals. That&rsquo;s surprising since Fort Wayne was second only to Peoria in scoring during the regular season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011063/5939437-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="722" height="1166"><figcaption class="caption-body">Peoria&rsquo;s David Bruce scored three unassisted goals in Game 2.</figcaption></div><h2>IHL</h2>&ldquo;Jablonski has been unbelievable since he came back,&rdquo; said Peoria general manager Denis Cyr. &ldquo;Fort Wayne has been getting some quality shots, but Jablonski beat them twice and he has got five straight wins in the playoffs.&rdquo;Cyr was breathing a bit easier after the first two games of the finals.&ldquo;We lost our first two games here against Phoenix (in the West Division finals) and had to come back home and win the last two to stay alive,&rdquo; he said.Fort Wayne headed home trying to figure out a way to beat Peoria&mdash;something the Komets haven&rsquo;t done since the first puck was dropped back in October.&ldquo;We were 7-0 against Fort Wayne this year.&rdquo; Cyr said. &ldquo;But in spite of that, they&rsquo;ve been tough on us&hellip;we won two overtime games and a few were decided by just one goal.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02771/5939430-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="718" height="1166"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jody Gage scored the winner in Game 2 with two minutes remaining.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re concentrating on Game 3, we don&rsquo;t want to give them anything to build on. That&rsquo;s the big game.&rdquo;<h2>AHL</h2>If you like cliches, then you&rsquo;ll love the Calder Cup finals, because the Rochester Americans are proving two to be very true.In winning the first two games of the American League&rsquo;s best-of-seven championship series&mdash;6-3 and 3-2&mdash;the strong defense of the Americans beat the potent offense of the Springfield Indians.Rochester also showed just how valuable experience can be. Springfield, with nine players in the playoffs for the first time, had third-period leads in both games but the veteran Americans rallied late to win both.Trailing 3-2 after two periods in Game 1, Rochester scored four times for the win May 9. The first three goals came in a span of 6:03&mdash;by Don Biggs, Don McSween and Francois Guay&mdash;before Biggs scored his ninth playoff goal into an empty net with 42 seconds remaining.Two nights later, James Black&rsquo;s seventh playoff goal at 1:58 of the third period gave the Indians a 2-1 lead.But Joel Savage&rsquo;s power-play goal at 13:04 tied the score, and Jody Gage scored the gamewinner with 1:51 remaining.Asked after Game 2 if Rochester&rsquo;s experience was the difference, Indians&rsquo; goalie Kay Whitmore said, &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t think it is much until they pull off a couple wins in the third period like this. They don&rsquo;t panic and they turn it up a notch when they have to.&rdquo;But the victories over Springfield didn&rsquo;t come easy. After both, Rochester coach Don Lever said his team was lucky.&ldquo;It was strictly from our character and perserverence that we won.&rdquo; Lever said.Their defense had a lot to do with it, too.The Indians led the AHL in scoring in the regular season, tying a team record with 348 goals (4.35 per game).But against the American&rsquo;s top-ranked defense (253 goals against, 3.16 goals-against average), the Indians had only 26 shots in Game 1&mdash;center Terry Yake scored all three goals&mdash;and just 16 shots in Game 2.Indians&rsquo; coach Jim Roberts actually was happier with his team&rsquo;s offense in the second game.&ldquo;We were getting the opportunities to take shots but we were passing them up,&rdquo; Roberts said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if it&rsquo;s inexperience, or the pressure of the big playoff game and not knowing how to react.&rdquo;The Indians had plenty of time to correct deficiencies in their game before Game 3. Because the Springfield Civic Center is booked with Basketball Hall of Fame ceremonies, a circus and college graduations, the third game wasn&rsquo;t until May 18, a seven-day break. Game 4 was set for May 20.&ldquo;I would think it is to their advantage,&rdquo; Gage said. &ldquo;They can forget about the first two games and work on whatever they think they have to work on.&rdquo;&mdash;With files from Bill Pickett and Kevin Oklobzija &#9632;

f0019-01

NO PLACE LIKE HOME

<div class="byline">BY PAUL ABRAMOWITZ</div>The circle has been completed for Ned Harkness, who was named chairman of the board and co-govemor of the Capital District Islanders May 7. The position is a non-paying one, but in return Harkness will receive an undisclosed percentage of the ownership.Harkness began his coaching career 47 years ago as lacrosse coach at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute&mdash;where the Islanders play their home games. Harkness also coached college hockey teams at RPI, Cornell and Union and won three national championships. He also coached the Detroit Red Wings for part of the 197071 season and then was general manager from 1971 to 1974.When Harkness left Union College in 1977 to become president and CEO of the Olympic Regional Development Authority, he was the winningest coach in college hockey with a record of 400-124-11.&ldquo;I remember when we used to come in here with St. Lawrence University teams and Ned would turn out the lights on us at the end of practice,&rdquo; said New York Islander GM Bill Torrey. &ldquo;Now, we&rsquo;re partners and I&rsquo;m hoping he&rsquo;ll turn on the lights.&rdquo;And, put some people in the seats at the Houston Field House on RPI&rsquo;s campus. The Islanders finished next to last in the Southern Division this season with a 28-43-9 record. They were 13th out of 15 teams in attendance with an average of 2,540 per game.The franchise lost more than $500,000 and had an average of 1,113 sold tickets per game. The largest paid crowd was 2,197, the lowest 852. In 16 of the 40 home games, fewer than 1,000 tickets were sold.&ldquo;They papered the joint,&rdquo; said Harkness, who brought pro hockey to that region in 1979 when he brought Detroit&rsquo;s farm team to Glens Falls, N.Y. Harkness was the GM of the Adirondack Red Wings and director of the Glens Falls Civic Center from 1979 to 1982. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t do that. Then nobody wants to buy them. You have to make it a hot ticket.&rdquo;Harkness, who retains his Olympic job, won&rsquo;t be in the office on a daily basis. Dave Hanson, a 10-year pro who starred in the 1977 movie Slap Shot, was named executive vice president and GM of the Islanders. Hanson was GM of Gore Mountain Ski Area in North Creek, N.Y.&ldquo;I want this team to make it,&rdquo; said Capital District owner Mike Cantanucci. &ldquo;Not for the money because I don&rsquo;t need to make money on this. But I don&rsquo;t want to lose so we went and got people who could make it work and Ned is a master.&rdquo;<h2>NEW BROOME?</h2>Since entering the American League in 1977, Binghamton&rsquo;s hockey teams have always had the comfort of playing in the smallest rink in the league.The ice surface of the Broome County Arena measures 180 feet long by 85 feet wide. That could change, however.The New York Rangers, Binghamton&rsquo;s parent club, just completed the first of a five-year agreement with their farm team. Rangers&rsquo; GM Neil Smith would like to see the dimensions of the rink changed to the standard 200 feet by 85 feet.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s something we&rsquo;ll definitely have to have here to remain here long term,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something we&rsquo;re really going to have deal with in the next year to make this a long-term commitment because the players are getting bigger and stronger and this ice surface needs to be lengthened.&rdquo;The cost of such an operation is unclear but team co-owner Tom Mitchell said he thinks it&rsquo;s possible.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it would be that expensive,&rdquo; Mitchell said. &ldquo;If you look around and if it was $150,000 or $200,000 that&rsquo;s a lot of money. But at the same time it&rsquo;s not.&rdquo;Not if you can keep a good affiliate. The Rangers and Binghamton&mdash;a New York-based team about 200 miles away from its farm club in the same state&mdash;are a natural connection.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re open to doing it,&rdquo; said William Barber, the commissioner of Broome County parks and recreation department. &ldquo;Obviously, the biggest question is who is going to pay for it.&rdquo;A preliminary timetable for such a conversion would be after the 1991-92 season so it could be included in the county&rsquo;s budget for 1992. &#9632;

ISLANDERS’ PARTNER PROVES YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN

<div class="byline">BY ADAM TEICHER</div>While much of the hockey world focused on the amazing playoff success of the Minnesota North Stars, a similar story was unfolding in the International League in Fort Wayne.The Komets, one of three IHL teams operating without a full NHL affiliation, reached the Turner Cup championship series against Peoria by knocking off Indianapolis and Kalamazoo.That isn&rsquo;t the equal of Minnesota&rsquo;s feat. The Komets had a solid regular season (43-35-5, third place in the East Division).&ldquo;All we heard this season is that we weren&rsquo;t supposed to be any good,&rdquo; general manager Dave Franke said. &ldquo;I read that in a lot of articles in a lot of papers. We started at the beginning of the season just wanting to be competitive and make the playoffs.&rdquo;The IHL&rsquo;s other two independents, Kansas City and San Diego, were the only teams in the 10-team league to miss out on the playoffs. Fort Wayne&rsquo;s kind of success, mostly with free agents but also with some key NHL help, is all but extinct.Behind their high-scoring line of minor league veteran Bruce Boudreau, up and coming Lonnie Loach and ex-NHL star John Anderson and free-wheeling defenseman Brian McKee, Fort Wayne was a potent offensive force.They were suspect defensively, having won plenty of games despite allowing handfuls of goals. Yet almost overnight, they tightened up defensively, allowing Indianapolis just 17 goals in a seven-game series.That has Fort Wayne thinking Turner Cup, which the Komets last won in 1973. It could be that long ago since the faithful were this excited.&ldquo;Peoria doesn&rsquo;t know what they&rsquo;re in for,&rdquo; Franke said, talking about the fans at the Allen County Coliseum. &ldquo;This place is like a small Chicago Stadium now. They&rsquo;re going crazy, from the National Anthem right to the end of the game.&rdquo;<h2>INDY REVS UP</h2>IHL commissioner Tom Berry isn&rsquo;t certain the proposed North American League will pose any threat to the IHL in general or Indianapolis in particular.The NAHL announced last week it would put teams in six cities on the ice beginning in November. Indianapolis was one of the cities. The others are Atlanta, Miami, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Hamilton, Ont.&ldquo;Logic would speak that their plans can&rsquo;t be carried out by November,&rdquo; Berry observed. &ldquo;And over the years, having two teams in one city has not worked.&rdquo;Indianapolis Ice president Ray Compton wasn&rsquo;t panicking, either.&ldquo;If they want to come and play downtown in Market Square Arena, then we&rsquo;ll be the north side team,&rdquo; Compton said. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;re going ahead with ticket sales and advertising as usual. We&rsquo;ll wait and see what happens.&rdquo;<h2>EAGLE&rsquo;S NEST</h2>The year may have ended on a downer for Salt Lake, which despite finishing in second place in the West Division was bounced from the playoffs in four games by Phoenix in the first round.But there&rsquo;s still some excitement over next year for the Golden Eagles. After 22 seasons in the Salt Palace, they are scheduled to begin next season in the new yet-to-be named downtown arena.The arena is scheduled to open in early October, right before the beginning of the regular season.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a state of the art arena in every respect,&rdquo; GM Tim Howells said.Though basketball capacity for the NBA&rsquo;s Jazz will be about 18,000, the Golden Eagles&rsquo; will limit capacity to about 12,000. While they won&rsquo;t be gaining in seating capacity, they will be making a leap in comfort, giving Salt Lake a home to rival Milwaukee&rsquo;s Bradley Center.&ldquo;That will help to eliminate the teary eyes for the closing of the Salt Palace. There are some people around who are nostalgic about it,&rdquo; said Howells, who became the Golden Eagles&rsquo; GM last summer. &ldquo;But mostly, it&rsquo;s excitement. Almost every hockey fan in Salt Lake City is looking forward to the new place.&rdquo; &#9632;

KOMETS SURPRISE BY MAKING FINALS

<div class="byline">BY HERB ZURKOWSKY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0021-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01707/5939540-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Spokane&rsquo;s Pat Falloon led the Chiefs&rsquo; attack with three goals against Drummondville.</figcaption></div>It would be easy to read too much into the outcome of an eight-day tournament after just two days; to draw conclusions after three of a possible nine games had been played.But there could be no denying the early stages of the 1991 Memorial Cup tournament, played at Le Colisee in Quebec City, provided junior fans with more than their share of surprises.Heading into the competition, things appeared cut and dried. The Spokane Chiefs and Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds&mdash;respective champions of the Western and Ontario Leagues&mdash;appeared to be the strongest entries in the four-team tournament.Of the two participants from the Quebec League, the champion Chicoutimi Sagueneens, who rely on goaltending and defense&mdash;fundamentals rarely seen in the QMJHL&mdash;seemed competitive yet not as strong as Spokane or the Soo.Meanwhile, the Drummondville Voltigeurs, swept by Chicoutimi in the league final, figured to be a distant fourth.Sure enough, Spokane won its opening round-robin game, drubbing the Voltigeurs 7-3 May 12. But nothing else went as expected as the two QMJHL teams both defeated the Greyhounds.Drummondville opened the tournament May 11 by topping Sault Ste. Marie 4-2. The following night the Hounds were edged 2-1 by Chicoutimi.The Soo came into the Cup as the Canadian Hockey League&rsquo;s hottest team. Since Feb. 15 they&rsquo;ve gone 22-2-2, including 12-2 in a postseason which saw them capture the league pennant in six games against the defending Cup champion Oshawa Generals, the CHL&rsquo;s topranked team all season.But the two defeats against the Quebecers left Sault Ste. Marie perilously close to being the first team eliminated.However, until the final nail was hammered into his team&rsquo;s coffin, Greyhounds&rsquo; coach Ted Nolan retained hope.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re (still) ready to play,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not going to put our heads down. If it means walking in the back door to take the Cup, we&rsquo;ll take it. All season nothing was given to us. We relied on guts and grit. It&rsquo;s not over. We&rsquo;ll watch the scoreboard and hope we get a second chance.&rdquo;The Soo appeared to be in good shape against Drummondville. Heading into the third period the teams were tied 1-1. Hugo Proulx scored for the Voltigeurs and Tony lob replied for the Greyhounds.Drummondville, however, broke the game open in the third with three goals in less than three minutes. Montreal draft choice Patrice Brisebois, playing in his third consecutive Cup, started the onslaught. Claude Jutras and Ian Laperriere also scored before Rick Kowalsky got one back.&ldquo;Pat has experience,&rdquo; Drummondville coach Jean Hamel said. &ldquo;When you need a big goal&hellip;he started the whole thing. That was the biggest goal. We ask him for that effort.&rdquo;Hamel said the Greyhounds may have taken his team for granted.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re here to play and play serious,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard after you lose four games to get the confidence up, but you never know what will happen in one game.&rdquo;The following night the Soo ran into a hot goaltender in Chicoutimi&rsquo;s Felix Potvin. The Toronto Maple Leaf draft choice, who had a 2.70 goals-against average and six shutouts in 54 games, was a major reason behind the Sagueneens&rsquo; CHL-leading average of 3.18 goals-against per game.&ldquo;Any team that wins needs goaltending. When he&rsquo;s at his best, we win,&rdquo; Chicoutimi coach Joe Canale said.Stephane Charbonneau and Sebastien Parent scored for Drummondville. lob scored the Hounds&rsquo; lone goal.The Chiefs, meanwhile, didn&rsquo;t allow an 11-day layoff get the best of them. They jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead, holding Drummondville without a shot until the game was nearly 10 minutes old.The Voltigeurs battled back. Midway through the third period they trailed by just a goal, 4-3. But then Drummondville, playing its second game in 18 hours, wilted, allowing three Spokane scores.Pat Falloon, a certain first-round NHL draft choice this year, paced the winners with a hat trick. Scoring champion Ray Whitney and Boston draft choice Mark Woolf each scored a pair. Denis Chasse scored all three Drummondville goals.Referee Michel Lemieux called 206 penalty minutes&mdash;110 against the Chiefs&mdash;while ejecting seven players, including four from Spokane. &#9632;

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HOUNDS DOGGED

<div class="byline">BY BRIAN COSTELLO</div>Sherry Bassin isn&rsquo;t much of an artist, but he knows good literature when he sees it.&ldquo;This is poetic justice,&rdquo; the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds&rsquo; director of operations said after watching the team he rebuilt upset Eric Lindros and the Oshawa General in the Ontario League championship series.Bassin orchestrated the trade that sent the rights to disgruntled No. 1 OHL draft pick Lindros to Oshawa for four players, draft picks and cash 1&frac12; years ago. The Generals won the OHL title last season, but this year it was the &lsquo;Hounds, thanks in large part to the evolution of the trade.&ldquo;We brought in players who wanted to play here and they helped make the difference. This is absolute poetic justice.&rdquo;Colin Miller scored the winning goal midway through the third period and former General Joe Busillo added insurance as Sault Ste. Marie won 4-2 on home ice in Game 6 May 6 to win the best-of-seven series 4-2.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to describe this feeling,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something that stays with you the rest of your life.&rdquo;Sault Ste. Marie last won the OHL title in 1985.The loss virtually ended the OHL career of Lindros, the most ballyhooed junior player ever. He&rsquo;s sure to be the No. 1 pick of the Quebec Nordiques in the June 22 NHL draft.&ldquo;This is not the way I expected my junior career to end,&rdquo; Lindros told the Toronto Sun. &ldquo;1&rsquo;11 look back upon my two years with the Generals as a great time. I feel kind of in between (about leaving the OHL). I&rsquo;m a General and will always be a General.&rdquo;Lindros was sick with the flu most of the final series and numerous times vomited in the dressing room between shifts.<h2>GRANTED WISH</h2>Even though the Ottawa 67&rsquo;s lost in the OHL playoffs this spring, defenseman Grant Marshall can rest easy this summer knowing he won.Marshall suffered what looked to be a season-ending neck injury when checked into the boards from behind by Sudbury Wolves&rsquo; left winger Jason Young Dec. 4. There was no permanent damage, but Marshall was told he shouldn&rsquo;t consider playing again until at least September to allow the fracture of the fifth vertebrae to heal.The 17-year-old rookie spent a week in hospital, wore a protective halo for three months, attended team meetings and road trips and eventually convinced his doctor and coach he was ready to play again in the playoffs.67&rsquo;s coach-general manager Brian Kilrea had no plans to bring the 6-foot-1, 175-pounder back early, but eventually succumbed to Marshall&rsquo;s persistence. Marshall played in Ottawa&rsquo;s 7-2 playoff loss to Oshawa Apr. 20&mdash;the 67&rsquo;s last game of the season.&ldquo;I needed to play for piece of mind,&rdquo; Marshall said. &ldquo;It would have bothered me all summer wondering about that first game back. I&rsquo;m glad they gave me the chance.&rdquo;Marshall said he was nervous on his first shift, but a heavy collision with Oshawa&rsquo;s Eric Lindros was a good test for his neck.&ldquo;It was me that went after him,&rdquo; Marshall said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big boy, the biggest in the league I think. I went down but I got right back up. I knew everything was all right after that.&rdquo;Marshall admits he&rsquo;ll probably always be a bit tentative chasing a puck in the comer with an opponent on his tail, but he&rsquo;s not going to hold a grudge against Young, who was suspended the second half of the season for the check.&ldquo;What&rsquo;s done is done,&rdquo; Marshall said. &ldquo;All I can say is why? Why hit someone from behind? There&rsquo;s no need for that.&rdquo;Marshall was the 10th selection overall in the 1990 OHL priority selections and with the graduation of Joni Lehto, Chris Snell. Scott Feasby, Len DeVuono and Jeff Riccardi, he&rsquo;s expected to be a leader on the 67&rsquo;s blueline next season. &#9632;

GREYHOUNDS UPSET GENERALS, CAPTURE TITLE

<div class="byline">BY VANCE OLIVER</div>One day after resigning as coach of the Western League&rsquo;s Moose Jaw Warriors, Lorne Molleken joined forces with the rival Saskatoon Blades.Molleken, who served three years as an assistant and head coach in Moose Jaw, reached a verbal two-year agreement as coach of the Blades May 3.&ldquo;The Warriors treated me and my family very well,&rdquo; Molleken said. &ldquo;But the saddest part of the whole thing is the players. The players worked their tails off. If they hadn&rsquo;t done that, this opportunity wouldn&rsquo;t be here for me.&rdquo;Molleken steered the Warriors to a sixth place finish in the East Division this season and an upset 3-0 series sweep of the Swift Current Broncos in the first round of the playoffs. Moose Jaw then bowed in five games to the Lethbridge Hurricanes in a semifinal series.When Warriors&rsquo; general manager Greg Kvisle hinted he wanted to return behind the bench next season, Molleken promptly quit. Both had served as co-coaches before Kvisle moved upstairs late in the season. The Warriors picked up the option year on Kvisle&rsquo;s contract May 1.&ldquo;I heard he wanted to come back coaching, so I had a meeting with Greg,&rdquo; Molleken said. &ldquo;I wanted to know what my future was going to be. He basically couldn&rsquo;t answer that.&rdquo;The Blades counted on interim coach Bob Hoffmeyer returning to Saskatoon, but opted for Molleken when Hoffmeyer kept putting off his decision. Hoffmeyer replaced Terry Ruskowski Feb. 7 and has been working with a real estate appraisal office in Flint, Mich.&ldquo;Bob really never said no,&rdquo; Blades&rsquo; GM Daryl Lubiniecki said. &ldquo;He said his family is really involved in the community and it&rsquo;s pretty hard for them to pick up. He said to go ahead and pursue what we think is best.&rdquo;<h2>DAUM DROPPED</h2>A winning season wasn&rsquo;t good enough for the Prince Albert Raiders. GM Dale Engel announced May 7 that first-year coach Rob Daum has been fired.Daum guided the Raiders to fourth place in the East Division with a 38-29-5 record, before dropping three straight games to the Regina Pats in the first round of the playoffs.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t think the team did what we should have done with the kind of team we had,&rdquo; Engel said. &ldquo;I was concerned with some areas. I don&rsquo;t think we had the enthusiasm or the work ethic to make the Prince Albert Raiders&rsquo; fans happy.&rdquo;Daum was assistant coach-GM under Terry Simpson in 1989-90 and promoted to coach-GM when Simpson left to join the Winnipeg Jets last summer. The Raiders&rsquo; board of directors, however, forced Daum to relinquish his general managerial duties to Engel, the club&rsquo;s head scout Jan. 4.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01825/5939595-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="562" height="700"><figcaption class="caption-body">Former NHLer Duane Sutter is a candidate to coach the Raiders.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m obviously disappointed,&rdquo; Daum said. &ldquo;I thought we accomplished some things this year as far as statistics are concerned. We had the most points in three years.&rdquo;One candidate rumored to be in line for the Raiders&rsquo; coaching vacancy is former NHLer Duane Sutter. Sutter is currently a scout with the Chicago Blackhawks, but has expressed a desire to coach in the WHL.&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t heard anything about it,&rdquo; Sutter said. &ldquo;I would consider a junior hockey position with a team in the future, but I still have one year on my commitment with Chicago.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0022-01

MOLLEKEN LEAVES WARRIOR POST TO ACCEPT BLADES’ POSITION

<div class="byline">BY BRIAN COSTELLO</div>The St-Jean Lynx haven&rsquo;t had a winning record in three years. Maybe that&rsquo;s why when they went looking for a new boss they tracked down a man who makes winning his business.Georges Marien was named general manager of the Quebec League team in mid-April filling a position left open since Pierre Bessette departed in mid-season. Marien has just what St-Jean was looking for.In six seasons as GM-president of Montreal Bourassa of the Quebec major midget AAA league, Marien won the best organization award three times. He also served as a scout with College Francais for two seasons.&ldquo;The best way to become competitive again is through the draft,&rdquo; Marien said. &ldquo;We have the second pick overall (behind the Victoriaville Tigres) and we&rsquo;re doing a lot of scouting. We&rsquo;ll be going with a very young team next season.&rdquo;St-Jean finished last in the LeBel Division with a 21-43-6 record. The Lynx haven&rsquo;t finished above .500 since 1988-89 when they had a 41-263 record. They had 69 points the next season and 64 last year.Before the Lynx think about stocking up on young talent at the May 25 draft, Marien has to concern himself with finding a coach to replace Maurice Lemay.Former St-Hyacinthe Laser coach Norman Flynn appears to have the inside track. Marien and Flynn worked together for two seasons with the midget team.Daniel Noonan and the duo of Luc Boucher and Pierre Cliche are also on the Lynx short list. Marien said he will make a decision prior to the draft.<h2>COLLEGE SWITCH</h2>College Francais will still be College Francais next season. The question is, will the team be stationed in Longueuil or will it move to another campus in Verdun?The QMJHL team has progressively improved each of the past three seasons&mdash;from 54 points in 1988-89, to 80 points last season to 84 this season&mdash;but owner Louis Portal is concerned about low attendance totals.College Francais averaged just 700 fans at Colisee Jean Beliveau de Longueuil in 35 home games this season and even that was an increase over previous years.Don&rsquo;t blame the poor fan support on a mediocre team. College Francais finished first in the LeBel Division with a 41-27-2 record and swept the St-Hyacinthe Laser 4-0 in the first round of the playoffs before losing in four games to the Drummondville Voltigeurs in the second round.Portal said there&rsquo;s a 50-50 chance the team will play out of 1&rsquo;Auditorium de Verdun next season.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll make a decision based on which place is able to better serve our needs,&rdquo; Portal said. &ldquo;Our major concern is the audience. We need a larger audience. Longueuil has precedence right now, but I&rsquo;m accepting a counter proposal and then I&rsquo;m set to hear reaction from both sides.&rdquo;Portal said he expects to make a decision by late May. He is not considering selling the team.<h2>TOURNEY BIG SELL</h2>Despite the absence of Oshawa General superstar Eric Lindros at the Memorial Cup in Quebec City, more than 6,000 tournament ticket packages were sold in advance. Organizers had hoped the presence of Lindros would make the tournament the most successful ever. The Generals were eliminated in the Ontario League final by the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. &ldquo;Even without Lindros it&rsquo;s still going to be a great tournament,&rdquo; QMJHL president Gilles Courteau said. &#9632;

MARIEN AIMING FOR LYNX REVIVAL

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0024-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01803/5939657-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01709/5939650-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="3043" height="3579"></div> &#9632;

f0024-01

NHL PLAYOFF STATISTICS

<h2>Mon., May 6</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01767/5939758-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="594" height="1215"></div><h2>Tues., May 7</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02514/5939751-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="588" height="318"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-04297/5939744-1-eng-US/f0026-042.jpg" title="f0026-04" width="577" height="835"></div><h2>Wed., May 8</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-05227/5939737-1-eng-US/f0026-052.jpg" title="f0026-05" width="585" height="731"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-06187/5939730-1-eng-US/f0026-062.jpg" title="f0026-06" width="581" height="494"></div><h2>Thur., May 9</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-07162/5939723-1-eng-US/f0026-072.jpg" title="f0026-07" width="583" height="1126"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-08149/5939716-1-eng-US/f0026-082.jpg" title="f0026-08" width="583" height="116"></div><h2>Fri., May 10</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-09138/5939709-1-eng-US/f0026-092.jpg" title="f0026-09" width="584" height="1100"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-10131/5939702-1-eng-US/f0026-102.jpg" title="f0026-10" width="580" height="116"></div><h2>Sat., May 11</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-11127/5939695-1-eng-US/f0026-112.jpg" title="f0026-11" width="586" height="1121"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-03411/5939688-1-eng-US/f0026-032.jpg" title="f0026-03" width="1176" height="1739"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kevin Stevens has exploded offensively in the playoffs.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0026-01

PLAYOFF SUMMARIES

Behold Frank Pietrangelo, the secret weapon of the Pittsburgh Penguins.Should Tom Barrasso fail between the Penguins&rsquo; pipes in the Stanley Cup Final against the Minnesota North Stars, there&rsquo;s always that Pietrangelo fellow. Perhaps the North Stars should wish they never face Pietrangelo again. Consider the facts.The North Stars failed to score a power-play goal against Pittsburgh Penguins in three regular-season games this season. On all occasions, it was Pietrangelo who stoned them in 23 minutes, 30 seconds of power-play opportunity.Even though Barrasso looks to be the goalie of choice for Pens&rsquo; coach Bob Johnson, Barrasso didn&rsquo;t face Minnesota during the regular season.On the other hand, Pittsburgh&rsquo;s power play scored one goal in each game against the North Stars this season and averaged a power-play goal every 7:00 of opportunity.North Stars&rsquo; goalie Jon Casey appeared in two games versus the Penguins during regular season play. Minnesota had the only two-man advantage of the three-game regular season series (0-for-0:l8) and neither team had any major power-play time.TEAMS POWER PLAY I PENALTY KILLING TIME FRAMEGAMES PLAYED THROUGH 5/12/91<h2>POWER PLAY</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-12118/5939810-1-eng-US/f0026-122.jpg" title="f0026-12" width="546" height="529"></div><h2>EGA LEADERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-13115/5939803-1-eng-US/f0026-132.jpg" title="f0026-13" width="542" height="296"></div><h2>PENALTY KILLING</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-14106/5939796-1-eng-US/f0026-142.jpg" title="f0026-14" width="554" height="623"></div><h2>HOT SEAT</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-1598/5939789-1-eng-US/f0026-152.jpg" title="f0026-15" width="544" height="323"></div>Statistics copyright Anthony Puma, Moriches, N.Y., 1991 Patent pending. &#9632;

f0026-12

PENS’ SECRET WEAPON NO ANGEL O’ MERCY

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0027-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01713/5939841-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0027-01

SCOREBOARD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01744/5939872-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="553" height="611"><figcaption class="caption-body">KEVIN DUPONT</figcaption></div>Mike Milbury opened it all by calling Bob Johnson &ldquo;a professor of goonism.&rdquo;The Pittsburgh coach, not to be outdone, returned volley with the assertion that Milbury was attempting to become &ldquo;the Bobby Knight of hockey.&rdquo;Badger Bob didn&rsquo;t even have to consult his notebook for that one.And welcome, one and all, to the Stanley Cup playoffs. You know, hockey, the sport where everyone tosses around bodychecks, two-handers and invectives for four to seven games, followed by a cordial embrace at center ice for handshakes, fond farewells and a hail-fellow-well-met.Really, for anyone to walk into the middle of the Boston-Pittsburgh semifinal series, first glance would have had the uninitiated wondering if Hulk Hogan were a Bruin or a Penguin.It wasn&rsquo;t nearly as rough on the ice, where an Ulf Samuelsson check on Cam Neely was the closest thing to brutality that either club would offer.The Penguins waddled on to win the series 4-2, and the echo left behind was in part Samuelsson&rsquo;s slam, but moreso the badgering of Bob and the mild maligning of Mike.It was the Samuelsson hit that Milbury spotted as a possible rallying point for his overmatched Bruins. Even when Boston had a 2-0 series lead, it was apparent that Pittsburgh&rsquo;s forwards would dominate the series.Eventually, nothing Boston could do or say would counter the size, strength and scoring snap of strikers like Mario Lemieux, Kevin Stevens and Mark Recchi.For the sake of survival, Milbury looked for a vulnerable spot and went directly for Johnson&rsquo;s midsection. It was never like this when Johnson was coaching at Wisconsin, or Calgary, or in the safer, calmer climes of Colorado Springs when Johnson was overseeing America&rsquo;s amateur hockey programs.Revered everywhere he&rsquo;d been before Pittsburgh, the notebook-toting Johnson awoke after Game 3 to find Milbury dishing out more hits than a Top 40 disc jockey.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s obvious,&rdquo; said a cool and collected Johnson, &ldquo;that at 3:00 the Boston Bruins declared war on the Pittsburgh Penguins.&rdquo;Indeed there had been a near-military swagger in Milbury&rsquo;s speech the day after a 4-1 loss to the Penguins in Game 3. He accused Johnson and his black-and-gold Penguins of perpetrating goonism and trying to hurt his already black-and-blue players.To counter that, Milbury said, he would have the U. S. S. Battleship Lyndon Byers brought out of mothballs for Game 4.Byers hadn&rsquo;t played since mid-December and he was only 12 seconds into huffing and puffing through his-first shift when his check&mdash;Bob Errey&mdash;canned a 1-0 Pittsburgh lead.In need of a Robocop, the Bruins instead got a rent-a-cop in Byers. He had all the impact of Officer Dibble.While Military Mike spoke of goonism, the Penguins were off and going to the Stanley Cup finals. Johnson didn&rsquo;t take the bait, and his players remained disciplined to the moment Lemieux, Ltd. Co. and Inc. carried the Wales Conference metal around the Igloo before a deafening crowd.&ldquo;I think Johnson is a little bit of a fraud,&rdquo; Milbury said in one of his quieter moments before Game 4. &ldquo;Hockey players aren&rsquo;t like that. Hockey coaches aren&rsquo;t like that. They&rsquo;re not frauds&mdash;they&rsquo;re real.&rdquo;In the end, the reality was that the Penguins were too strong and Johnson too classy and controlled to stoop to some quid-pro-quo exchange with Military Mike.He either saw through Milbury&rsquo;s tactic, or simply found himself not needing to alter his ego around a former defenseman who, in his playing days, survived on feistiness and fight rather than talent.It was Milbury doing the same thing, only in a coach&rsquo;s tailored suit this time, and Johnson wouldn&rsquo;t take his eye off the prize.Beyond that, about all Johnson would say was he was disappointed in Ted Sator, Boston&rsquo;s assistant coach, for allowing Milbury to carry on like some swashbuckling Stormin&rsquo; Norman Schwarzkopf.&ldquo;If I could control everything that Mike Milbury says or does,&rdquo; responded an amused Sator, &ldquo;then I&rsquo;ve truly missed my calling. I should be doing lip-sync for Milli Vanilli.&rdquo;Finally, when Johnson and his Penguins had handed all the Bruins their discharge papers, Milbury met up with the Penguins&rsquo; coach and treated the whole thing as if it had never happened. All part of the sport, he said.&ldquo;It was all malarkey and gamesmanship,&rdquo; said Milbury. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an excellent coach.&rdquo;Wrong all along, Milbury was right in the end. But it was he who looked like the fraud. Kevin Dupont is a hockey writer for the Boston Globe. &#9632;

f0028-01

CLASSY JOHNSON LEADS PENS OVER BRUINS

Through May 6, all but one of the nine Minnesota North Stars with at least six playoff points had earned at least half of them on the power play. The North Stars&rsquo; top four scorers and the number of points on the power play: Brian Bellows, 14 of 19,73.7 per cent; Dave Gagner, 11 of 15, 73.3 per cent; Neal Broten, 10 of 14, 66.7 per cent; and Brian Propp, 12 of 14, 85.7 per cent.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02504/5939903-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="711" height="442"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dave Gagner</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0028-02

NUMBERS

<h2>OILERS</h2>GM Glen Sather said now the Oilers are eliminated his No. 1 priority is to trade Jari Kurri&rsquo;s rights. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s at the head of the list,&rdquo; said Sather. &ldquo;He was the best right winger at the World Championship. He led the scoring. I think he&rsquo;s a hell of a player.&rdquo; Kurri has issued an end of May deadline for an NHL trade or he says he&rsquo;ll resign with Milan of the Italian League&hellip;Mark Messier&rsquo;s goal against Minnesota in Game 6 was his 80th career post-season score, which moved him ahead of Jean Beliveau (79) and tied him with sidekick Glenn Anderson. Only Wayne Gretzky (93), Kurri (92), Mike Bossy (85) and Maurice Richard (82) have scored more Stanley Cup goals than the Oilers&rsquo; duo&hellip;Eight Oilers played out their options this season, but right winger Dave Brown is the only one who has expressed dissatisfaction with returning. Defensemen Steve Smith, Charlie Buddy and Jeff Beukeboom, along with forwards Esa Tikkanen, Craig Simpson, Adam Graves and Joe Murphy will all sign new contracts this summer. Messier and Anderson have also been seeking to have their contracts renegotiated.<h2>KINGS</h2>GM Rogie Vachon said he plans to contact his counterpart in Edmonton, Glen Sather, to see if he can work out a trade for Jari Kurri. But he didn&rsquo;t sound optimistic about reuniting the high-scoring winger with Wayne Gretzky. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re probably the last team on earth Sather wants to trade him to,&rdquo; Vachon said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m still going to pursue it, but I would say our chances are not very good.&rdquo; Vachon said he isn&rsquo;t interested in signing Kurri as a free agent because it would cost the Kings two first-round draft picks, or five No. 1&rsquo;s if those picks weren&rsquo;t in the top seven. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s way too expensive, especially for a 31-year-old,&rdquo; Vachon said. &ldquo;If we can work out a trade, that would be different. I certainly am interested in getting a guy like Kurri, but it&rsquo;s definitely a longshot.&rdquo;<h2>CANUCKS</h2>Whatever happened to Jason Herter? It&rsquo;s been almost two years since the Canucks picked the 20-year-old defenseman from the University of North Dakota in the first round of the entry draft, and Canuck fans could get to see him next season. Herter is indicating he might be prepared to forego his final year at UND and take a shot at making the Canucks&rsquo; roster. The Canucks say a decision on Herter will be made this summer. Herter, who was ranked No. 1 at one point by Central Scouting, was the eighth player picked in the 1989 draft, but his progress has been slowed by groin injuries in each of the past two years. His improvement hasn&rsquo;t come along as expected, and some people have questioned his dedication and ability to make it as a pro. Herter would like to make them eat their words. &ldquo;It has really been tough, being hurt and still playing and then seeing the way some people look at you. I&rsquo;m fed up with it, I really am,&rdquo; Herter said&hellip;The Canucks will open their 1991-92 schedule with back-to-back games against the expansion San Jose Sharks, starting at Pacific Coliseum Oct. 4. The addition of the Sharks to the Smythe Division means Smythe teams will now play an unbalanced schedule against division opponents. Vancouver will play Los Angeles, Edmonton and San Jose three times each at home and four times on the road. Calgary and Winnipeg visit Pacific Coliseum four times and play host to the Canucks three times. The Canucks will play only twice against Philadelphia, Buffalo and Pittsburgh next season. An added feature of the Canucks&rsquo; schedule is five Sunday afternoon dates.<h2>JETS</h2>Former Winnipeg head coach Bob Murdoch may not be out of work long. Murdoch travelled to San Jose in early May for an interview with Sharks&rsquo; GM Jack Ferreira about an assistant coaching position under George Kingston. There have also been reports out of Norway that Murdoch is a leading candidate for that country&rsquo;s national team head coaching position, a job held by Kingston until recently&hellip;The expansion Sharks have four visits to Winnipeg next season but will have made trips to 16 other NHL cities before their first appearance Jan. 12.<h2>FLAMES</h2>A total of 997 people responded to a Calgary Sun survey inviting them to play Flames&rsquo; GM. Readers were asked three questions: Do you keep a player, trade him or give him a raise? The No. 1 man on the readers&rsquo; hit list? Soviet Sergei Priakin, which is a little strange, since he only got into 24 games last season. There were 773 people that wanted to see Priakin gone. Next came Brian MacLellan (676); Sergei Makarov (582), Roger Johansson (557) and Tim Hunter (555). The most popular player? Theo Fleury. Only 24 readers wanted him traded and 721 voted to raise his $290,000 annual salary&hellip;GM Cliff Fletcher said he does expect to hear from a couple of agents wanting to renegotiate contracts on behalf of their clients. The first in line may be center Joe Nieuwendyk, who made $410,000 this season. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure that in today&rsquo;s market, I might be hearing from a few agents,&rdquo; said Fletcher. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m also pretty sure I could go away for the whole month of July and the first week of August and even if I didn&rsquo;t call in for messages, there wouldn&rsquo;t be any telephone calls from an agent. I don&rsquo;t anticipate the players and their agents wanting to move into negotiations until they know what the new collective bargaining agreements looks like.&rdquo; &#9632;

SATHER READY TO UNLOAD KURRI

<div class="byline">BY ERIC DUHATSCHEK</div>Already three weeks into next year by early May, general manager Cliff Fletcher said the commodity the Calgary Flames require is easy to identify, but much harder to acquire.They need a more aggressive blueliner, someone who&rsquo;s young and tough. Minnesota North Star Mark Tinordi, who played under their noses with the Western League Calgary Wranglers, would fit the bill nicely, but then the chances of getting him are about the same as the chances of Tinordi playing for the expansion San Jose Sharks next season. Nil.The absence of a strong-arm defenseman became painfully obvious to Fletcher during their first-round loss to the Edmonton Oilers. Even if the effectiveness of the Oilers&rsquo; twin towers, Steve Smith (6-foot-4, 215 pounds) and Jeff Beukeboom (6-foot-4, 215 pounds), faded in subsequent playoff rounds, they dominated against the Flames.With no one to keep the front of the Flames&rsquo; net clear, the Oilers&rsquo; popgun attack produced just enough offense to slip past Calgary in seven games.Accordingly, Fletcher put that commodity atop his off-season shopping list. The price will be steep because there aren&rsquo;t many quality physical defensemen around and, as a result, you may have to pay a premium to get one.Fletcher began the process of picking up the pieces in early May. He bypassed the World Championships this year, instead sending two of his lieutenants&mdash;coach Doug Risebrough and vice-president of hockey operations Al MacNeil&mdash;to watch the tournament.The sense is the Flames will not dramatically change the team that finished the regular season with 100 points, even if they did lose in the first round for the third time in five years.In order to get a quality player, you have to part with something valuable. So put yourself in Fletcher&rsquo;s spot.Do you part with center Joe Nieuwendyk? Only 24, Nieuwendyk proved to be the Flames&rsquo; most consistent playoff performer for the second year in a row. Ultimately, he may develop into the team leader, the other commodity missing from this season&rsquo;s club.Do you trade Mike Vernon? After two consecutive first-round losses, his value isn&rsquo;t at its all-time high. Besides, highly-rated prospect Trevor Kidd may not be ready to be your No. 1 goaltender this early in his career.Do you trade Gary Suter? Suter would command a pretty good price, except there is not another offensive defenseman in the organization aside from Al Maclnnis. The two work together so well on the power play.Do you trade Doug Gilmour? Joel Otto? Otto turns 30 in October, Gilmour 28 in June. The problem with both centers is they&rsquo;re worth more to the Flames than they are on the open market.Trying to get something of value for older players is difficult in a league that puts a premium on tomorrow, not yesterday. Fletcher discovered that last year when he peddled defenseman Brad McCrimmon to Detroit and right winger Joe Mullen to Pittsburgh.&ldquo;The team doesn&rsquo;t have a lot of old players; or won&rsquo;t once we get through the two expansions,&rdquo; said Fletcher. &ldquo;We have a pretty solid nucleus. The reality is there&rsquo;s such a fine line between the top seven to 10 teams in the league now as far as talent level that every year&rsquo;s going to be a struggle for every team. The era of the dynasty is gone.&rdquo;Don&rsquo;t expect Fletcher to make too many major moves. The Flames have already made nine changes from the team that won the Stanley Cup two years ago and remained competitive doing it.But Fletcher is far from done fine-tuning his roster. Win or lose, he always moves a few older players off the top and adds a couple of younger players at the bottom.So figure the two Soviet wingers, Sergei Makarov and Sergei Priakin, gone. Figure defenseman Roger Johansson gone. Figure someone&mdash;likely left wingers Brian MacLellan or Colin Patterson&mdash;sacrificed in the expansion draft.Figure in the new Swede, right winger Thomas Forslund, and left winger Kent Manderville once the Olympics end, plus Kidd&hellip;and you know what? The Flames will be competitive again next season. &#9632;

FLETCHER WANTS TO GET PHYSICAL ON DEFENSE

<div class="byline">BY TIM CAMPBELL</div>Magnified by the decision to play out his option, Scott Amiel has learned plenty about unproductive players.In his own five-goal case of 1990-91, he found out there&rsquo;s nowhere to hide.The Jets&rsquo; left winger, who&rsquo;ll be 29 by the time another season begins, suffered through a 22-point season, reaching new heights of frustration.He was frequently criticized as the epitome of the bumbling last-place Jets, an accusation he doesn&rsquo;t altogether deny.&ldquo;Everybody who plays out their option is hoping to have a big year,&rdquo; Amiel said. &ldquo;The whole year was frustrating&mdash;there was the trade, then the team getting off to a slow start and myself getting off to a slow start.&ldquo;I had a season pretty much like the Jets. It was up and down, up and down. I think it took me until the last 20 games to start playing like I could. By that time of year, it&rsquo;s tough to score goals.&rdquo;By that point, Amiel had been relegated to fourth-line defensive duties with center Mike Eagles. His fifth and final goal of the season came in Game 58, and like his team, he languished through to the bitter end.Arnied&rsquo;s conclusion to the season came with his accidental high-sticking major late in Game 79 against Vancouver. The game and final Smythe playoff spot was on the line and Amiel&rsquo;s penalty led to the eventual overtime winner.Because there&rsquo;s little market for five-goal scorers, good team men or defensive players&mdash;not to mention restrictive free-agent rules&mdash;Arniel will likely be back with the Jets in the fall.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m set for that,&rdquo; said Arniel, who had scored 17 or more goals in six of the previous seven years. &ldquo;What I want most of all, and I&rsquo;ve told Mike (Smith, Jets&rsquo; GM) this, is to prove to myself, my family, my teammates and the fans in Winnipeg that I&rsquo;m a better player than what I showed last year. I&rsquo;ve left a job undone here. I don&rsquo;t want to leave right now. I want to have some success and get some pride going again here.&rdquo;Amiel said there were two factors that left him playing out his option: Money and his move from Buffalo to the Jets in last June&rsquo;s Dale Hawerchuck-Phil Housley deal.&ldquo;Coming from the U.S., there was a huge difference in cost of living and taxes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;1 wanted the raise I thought I was going to get in Buffalo, including all these factors.&rdquo;Arniel, his agent Gus Badali and Smith could not reach an agreement, so Amiel played out the option year of his $175,000 US contract.The gamble was a failure. Amiel still wasn&rsquo;t comfortable with the trade that brought him back to Winnipeg and he mirrored the team&rsquo;s slow start.With production lacking and the team struggling, Amiel saw little ice-time on the fourth line by mid-season.&ldquo;I understood my role for the rest of the year and tried to play with it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;1 wasn&rsquo;t happy with it but I knew I wanted to contribute. We were all trying to make the playoffs.&rdquo;Amiel knows he won&rsquo;t be bargaining this summer from a position of strength. And he&rsquo;s not about to dwell on his error in the days ahead.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve already sat down and talked to Mike Smith and our thinking&rsquo;s pretty mutual in what he expected of me,&rdquo; Arniel said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never gone into a contract to negotiate on points alone. I&rsquo;ve played through three or four contracts and one of the things I&rsquo;m known for is being a good two-way player.&ldquo;There can be defensive things, penalty-killing, to your benefit. I&rsquo;m not sitting tearing my hair out because I only got five goals. I think I did a good job defensively. I know Mike Smith will be fair about it and I think we&rsquo;re on the same wavelength.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think GMs judge you just on what you did yesterday.&rdquo;Smith has gone on record saying next season the Jets want to begin introducing the new generation of youngsters that are the franchise&rsquo;s future.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s always pressure,&rdquo; Arniel admitted. &ldquo;From the first day you come into camp, the media has an outlook for the team and a pencilled-in lineup. There&rsquo;s always pressure on the veterans. Sometimes that pressure makes you play a bit better.&rdquo; &#9632;

POOR SEASON HAUNTS ARNIEL

<div class="byline">BY MIKE BEAMISH</div>While there was no official word from the top, it appears Bob McCammon&rsquo;s term with the Vancouver Canucks is coming to an end.McCammon, who has served in a scouting role since being fired as head coach Jan. 31, wasn&rsquo;t included in a meeting of the scouting staff in Haliburton, Ont., just before the start of the Memorial Cup in Quebec City.McCammon also wasn&rsquo;t invited to join the braintrust in Quebec City and wasn&rsquo;t expected to be included on the travel list of Canuck brass for the entry draft in Buffalo, June 22.In short, McCammon is no longer in the picture.There had been speculation McCammon would be given a new contract and asked to remain with the Canucks in an advisory role, possibly as director of player personnel, a job McCammon held with Edmonton before he was hired by the Canucks in 1987.McCammon, 50, was runner-up as NHL coach of the year in 1989 and given a contract extension after the Canucks almost knocked off the Calgary Flames in the first round of the playoffs. But after a 20th-place finish in 198990, McCammon was under the gun last season and it only seemed a matter of time before he was gone.Although the Canucks got off to an encouraging 17-17-4 this past season, they were 2-13-2 after Dec. 22 before general manager Pat Quinn decided he&rsquo;d had enough. So ended McCammon&rsquo;s reign as the coach with the longest continuous tenure with one club. It was only 294 games long. Quinn decided to coach the team in the interim and resuscitated the Canucks enough to qualify for the playoffs.McCammon dropped out of sight for a time but started to return to Pacific Coliseum on a regular basis in March. He was given some scouting assignments by Quinn and it was speculated he would be offered a management position.With the Toronto Maple Leafs looking for a hockey boss, McCammon&rsquo;s name was listed in the Toronto papers as a possibility.McCammon&rsquo;s name came up again in Buffalo, where the Sabres are beginning a search to fill an executive position created by GM Gerry Meehan&rsquo;s elevation to vice-president.The Sabres are said to be looking for an experienced hockey man to evaluate junior and minor-league talent. The nod could go to someone with NHL coaching experience who could step in and run the team if coach Rick Dudley falters next season. McCammon would seem to suit the job description perfectly.&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t heard anything from (other NHL clubs),&rdquo; said McCammon. &ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t have any comment other than that.&rdquo;If McCammon is through in Vancouver, his exit would sever part of the much-heralded Philadelphia connection that arrived four years ago. Quinn, McCammon and Brian Burke, all with roots in the Flyer organization, were expected to give the Canucks direction and purpose after years of drifting and ineffective leadership. While the seeds for improvement have been planted, the reality is the Canucks have finished 19th, 14th, 20th and 17th since the new regime took over.Although their differences never became apparent in public, rifts had developed between Quinn and McCammon.Center Dan Quinn, who was subsequently traded to St. Louis in March, went over McCammon&rsquo;s head to Quinn to complain about the coach who sat him out for indifferent play. Another time, with both Kirk McLean and Troy Gamble in slumps, McCammon said he wanted a goalie coach, yet Quinn never addressed the issue.When Quinn indicated he might be prepared to do something drastic to stop the Canucks&rsquo; January slide, McCammon tried to convince his boss to give him a couple of weeks to straighten things around. But he wasn&rsquo;t given the chance. Now McCammon may no longer be given a chance to work for the Canucks at all. &#9632;

McCAMMON APPEARS TO BE OUT OF THE PICTURE

<div class="byline">BY RICK SADOWSKI</div>While expressing disappointment over his team&rsquo;s inability to advance beyond the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the third consecutive year, Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; owner Bruce McNall didn&rsquo;t exactly sound despondent.&ldquo;I feel we are much further along. I feel much better about the team now than I did when we lost in the second round last year,&rdquo; McNall said.Progress for the Kings is going down in the Smythe Division finals without getting swept, as they were in 1989 by Calgary and in 1990 by Edmonton.This year, it took the Oilers six games to eliminate the Kings, with three of their four wins coming in overtime, two in double overtime.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re still going through a building process, I guess,&rdquo; McNall said. &ldquo;If we could have scored one or two more goals, we would have won the series and I think we could have gone all the way.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01739/5940030-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="709" height="855"><figcaption class="caption-body">Owner Bruce McNall was pleased with the solid play of John McIntyre.</figcaption></div>&ldquo;We were just an inch away&hellip;but that one inch seems like a mile to me now.&rdquo;The Kings did win a club-record 46 games and captured a regular-season championship for the first time in their 24-year history, but the end result was no different than in past years.The Kings have participated in seven second-round series and lost them all.&ldquo;I turned numb when we went out,&rdquo; McNall said. &ldquo;Sure, I was depressed. You can&rsquo;t help but feel that way. I mean, I&rsquo;m still upset about it, but I&rsquo;ve had a little bit of time to reflect on the season we had, and so I&rsquo;m hopeful.&ldquo;I feel we&rsquo;re a lot better as a team than at any time since I&rsquo;ve been here. I believe we&rsquo;ve got some good young players who are going to make a difference in the future.&rdquo;McNall was especially impressed with the play of left winger Mike Donnelly, who scored five goals in the playoffs&mdash;second on the team to Luc Robitaille&rsquo;s 12&mdash;and with hard-nosed center John McIntyre, who developed into a solid checker and faceoff man.&ldquo;Those guys played very well. The experience has to help them,&rdquo; McNall said.McNall added he did not believe a full-scale shakeup is in order.&ldquo;We basically went with stability this year and it worked out fairly well,&rdquo; McNall said.However, it&rsquo;s obvious the Kings need some fresh, young wheels behind the blue line. Rookie Rob Blake, Steve Duchesne and Brian Benning can move, but Marty McSorley, Tim Watters, Bob Halkidis and Rod Buskas aren&rsquo;t going to win many races for loose pucks.Even Larry Robinson, who soon will tum 40, showed more mobility than that quartet.Perhaps Darryl Sydor, a mobile 200-pound defenseman who was the Kings&rsquo; first-round draft pick last year, will be ready next season.And for all their offensive power, the Kings scored just 20 goals in the Edmonton series.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re close,&rdquo; McNall said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got better chemistry. We&rsquo;re getting there.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0030-01

OWNER/FAN McNALL APPRECIATES HIS INVESTMENT

<div class="byline">BY BOB MCKENZIE</div>Eric Lindros arrived in Quebec City on May 10. He departed four days later.The big question is whether he will be back.Lindros, of course, is the No. 1 rated prospect for the 1991 NHL entry draft, which will be staged June 22 at Buffalo&rsquo;s Memorial Auditorium. And the Quebec Nordiques hold the No. 1 pick.But the Oshawa Generals&rsquo; superstar remains non-commital as to where he will play next year.&ldquo;I have no idea,&rdquo; he said in Quebec City May 13, the day he collected his award as the premier player in the Canadian Hockey League.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s sort of scary. You&rsquo;re an 18-year-old kid who happens to do something well on the ice or whatever and you find yourself in this situation,&rdquo; said Lindros. &ldquo;In the past, a lot of the time, nobody had a choice what to do. I have a choice. There are options and I&rsquo;m grateful for that.&rdquo;He could sign with the Nordiques. He could attempt to force their hand to trade him to another NHL club. Or he could join the Olympic program. And he is keeping an eye on developments with rival leagues.In the meantime, Quebec City hockey fans gave him a warm welcome on his four-day visit during Memorial Cup week.He received a spirited standing ovation during a post-game presentation ceremony at Le Colisee. He was recognized wherever he went and encouraged by the locals to give Quebec City a try.&ldquo;They expressed hope I would come here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been treated well. I&rsquo;ve had a lot of fun.&rdquo;The Nordiques opted for the soft sell. There were no formal meetings between the club and Lindros and his agent, Rick Curran. But Nords&rsquo; president Marcel Aubut did drop into Le Colisee to pay his respects.&ldquo;He basically said, &lsquo;Hi,&rsquo; and that was about it,&rdquo; Lindros said.It had been thought the visit would create a circus-like atmosphere in a city where the media is often demanding and relentless.Lindros was the focal point of one 40-minute press conference. Though he was front-page news during his brief visit and generated as much copy as the tournament itself, he was afforded much free time and used it to experience the charm of Quebec City.Below is the NHL Central Scouting Bureau&rsquo;s final confidential rankings for the top 44 North American prospects and five goaltenders. Information includes: Rank, name, position, height, weight, birthdate, 1990-91 team and league and regular season statistics (G-A-P-P1M).<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01683/5940061-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="567" height="736"><figcaption class="caption-body">Quebec will likely call Eric Lindros&rsquo; name but will he be a Nordique?</figcaption></div><h2>FIRST ROUND</h2>1. Eric Lindros, C, 6-4 &frac12;, 228, Feb. 28, 1973, Oshawa (OHL), 71-78-149-189 in 57 games. 2. Scott Lachance, D, 6-1, 190, Oct. 22, 1972, Boston University (HE), 5-1924-48 in 31 games. 3. Scott Niedermayer, D, 6-0, 195, Aug. 31, 1973, Kamloops (WHL), 26-56-82-52 in 57 games. 4. Aaron Ward, D, 6-2, 200, Feb. 17, 1973, University of Michigan (CCHA), 8-11-19-126 in 46 games. 5. Pat Falloon, C, 5-10&frac12;, 192, Sept. 22, 1972, Spokane (WHL), 64-74-138-33 in 61 games. 6. Philippe Boucher, D, 6-2&frac12;, 189, March 23, 1973, Granby (QMJHL), 21-46-67-92 in 69 games. 7. Richard Matvichuk, D, 6-2&frac12;, Feb. 5, 1973, Saskatoon (WHL), 13-36-49-117 in 68 games. 8. Patrick Poulin, LW, 6-1, 208, April 23, 1973, St-Hyacinthe (QMJHL), 32-38-70-82 in 56 games. 9. Jeff Nelson, C, 5-11 16, 182, Dec. 18, 1972, Prince Albert (WHL), 46-74-120-58 in 72 games. 10. Brent Bilodeau, D, 6-3&frac12;, 220, March 27, 1973, Seattle (WHL), 718-25-145 in 55 games. 11. Dean McAmmond, C, 5-11, 185, June J5, 1973, Prince Albert (WHL), 33-3568-108 in 71 games. 12. Rene Corbet, C, 6-0, 176, June 25, 1973, Drummondville (QMJHL), 25-4065-34 in 45 games. 13. Martin Lapointe, RW, 5-11, 197, Sept. 12, 1973, Laval (QMJHL), 44-54-98-66 in 64 games. 14. Alex Stojanov, LW, 6-4, 220, April 25, 1973, Hamilton (OHL), 25-20-45-181 in 62 games. 15. Darcy Werenka, D, 6-1&frac12;, 210, May 13, 1973, Lethbridge (WHL), 13-37-50-39 in 72 games. 16. Glen Murray, RW, 6-2, 200, Nov. 1, 1972, Sudbury (OHL), 27-38-65-82 in 66 games. 17. Steve Staios, D, 6-0, 183, July 28, 1973, Niagara Falls (OHL), 17-29-46-115 in 66 games. 18. Tyler Wright, C, 5-11, 170, April 6, 1973, Swift Current (WHL), 41-51-92-157 in 66 games. 19. Brian Rolston, C, 6-0, 175, Feb. 21, 1973, Compuware (NAHL), 49-46-95-14 in 36 games. 20. Pat Peake, C, 6-0, 185, May 28, 1973, Detroit (OHL), 39-51-90-54 in 63 games. 21. Guy Leveque, C, 5-11, 158, Dec. 28, 1972, Cornwall (OHL), 41-52-93-34 in 66 games. 22. Eric Lavigne, D, 6-2&frac12;, 207, Nov. 4, 1972, Hull (QMJHL), 11-1 1-22-153 in 66 games.<h2>SECOND ROUND</h2>23. Yanic Perreault, C, 5-11,182, April 4, 1972, Trois Rivieres (QMJHL), 87-98-185-103 in 67 games. 24. Jason Dawe, LW, 5-10, 189, May 29, 1973, Peterborough (OHL), 43-27-70-43 in 66games. 25. Donevan Hextall, LW, 6-2, 192, Feb. 24, 1972, Prince Albert (WHL), 30-59-89-55 in 70 games. 26. Nathan Lafayette, C, 6-1, 194, Feb. 17, 1973, Kingston/Comwall (OHL), 29-35-64-35 in 63 games. 27. Jamie Pushor, D, 6-3&frac12;, 192, Feb. 11, 1973, Lethbridge (WHL), 1-13-14193 in 71 games. 28. Dennis Purdie, RW, 5-10, 196, Nov. 27, 1972, London (OHL), 33-38-71-133 in 57 games. 29. Darren Van Impe, D, 6-0, 202, May 18, 1973, Prince Albert (WHL), 15-45-60-57 in 70 games. 30. Jim Campbell, C, 6-3, 180, Feb. 3, 1973, Northwood (H. S.), 38-43-81-n/a in 24 games. 31. Mike Pomichter, C-LW, 6-1, 198, Sept. 10, 1973, Springfield (NEJHL), 61-64-125-22 in 38 games. 32. Jas-sen Cullimore, D, 6-4&frac12;, 219, Dec. 4, 1972, Peterborough (OHL) 8-1624-74 in 62 games. 33. Jamie Matthews, C, 6-1,188,May 25, 1973,Sudbury (OHL), 14-38-52-41 in 66 games. 34. Yves Sarault, LW, 6-1, 170, Dec. 23, 1972, St-Jean (QMJHL), 22-24-46-113 in 56 games. 35. Terry Chitaroni, C, 511, 200, Dec. 9, 1972, Sudbury (OHL), 28-43-71-162 in 61 games. 36. Yanic Dupre, LW, 6-0, 189, Nov. 20, 1972, Drummondville (QMJHL), 29-38-67-87 in 58 games. 37. Steve Konowalchuk, LW, 6-0, 175, Nov. 1 1, 1972, Portland (WHL), 43-49-92-78 in 72 games. 38. Craig Darby, C, 6-3, 185, Sept. 26, 1972, Albany (H.S.), 37-62-9953 in 27 games. 39. Jason Widmer, D, 6-0, 205, Aug. 1, 1973, Lethbridge (WHL), 2-12-14-55 in 58 games. 40. Francois Groleau, D, 60, 196, Jan. 23, 1973, Shawinigan (QMJHL), 9-60-69-70 in 70 games. 41. Kurt Seher, D, 6-1&frac12;, 170, April 15, 1973, Swift Current (WHL), 426-30-63 in 59 games. 42. Rich Brennan, D, 6-1, 200, Nov. 26, 1972, Tabor (Acad.), 13-37-50-91 in 34 games. 43. Jason Young, LW, 5-10&frac12;, 182, Dec. 16, 1972, Sudbury (OHL), 21-38-59-22 in 37 games. 44. Shayne Antoski, LW, 6-4, 200, Dec. 23, 1972, North Bay (OHL), 13-1629-64 in 56 games.<h2>GOALIES</h2>1. Mike Torchia, 5-11, 215, Feb. 23, 1972, Kitchener (OHL), 25-24-7, 3.96goals-against average, .891 save percentage. 2. Jamie McLennan, 60, 185, June 30, 1971, Lethbridge (WHL), 32-18-4, 3.81, .886. 3. Chris Osgood. 5-10, 155, Nov. 26, 1972, Medicine Hat (WHL), 23-18-3, 3.95, .901. 4. Rob Dykeman, 5-9, 165, Jan. 15, 1973, Cornwall (OHL), 14-21-1,4.85, .878. 5. Andrew Verner, 6-1, 195, Nov. 20, 1972, Peterborough (OHL), 22-14-7, 3.52, .897. &#9632;

f0031-01

LINDROS’ DESTINATION IS ANYONE’S GUESS

<div class="byline">BY DICK CHUBEY</div>Kevin Lowe has issued a plea to Alan Eagleson and Mike Keenan.Don&rsquo;t invite Mark Messier to the Canada Cup, please.&ldquo;He played with two knee braces and a busted thumb,&rdquo; said the veteran Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; defenseman on how his sidekick suffered through the Stanley Cup playoffs. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s comparable to Kryptonite for Superman. I think Mess has to take time to get healthy and rested. He&rsquo;s only human.&rdquo;How about the Canada Cup with training camp beginning in early August?&ldquo;Without a doubt he can&rsquo;t play in the Canada Cup,&rdquo; stressed Lowe, who himself played through three playoff rounds with a chronic tendinitis problem in his right ankle. &ldquo;1 hope for his sake, they won&rsquo;t ask him. He needs the full four months off.&ldquo;Out of respect for Mark and what he has done, hopefully he won&rsquo;t be pressured into it. He has paid his dues. He has won two Canada Cups.&rdquo;One didn&rsquo;t require a degree in medicine to realize Messier was far from right during the playoffs that abruptly ended after five games of the Campbell Conference final against the Minnesota North Stars.&ldquo;I never felt comfortable, I never felt healthy. I never felt good on the ice all year,&rdquo; admitted Messier. &ldquo;The kind of injuries I had need a year to heal. I had one knee injury all year and it was kind of ironic that I hurt the other one in the Calgary series.&rdquo;Messier wasn&rsquo;t the only Oiler playing hurt.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t remember the last time I felt comfortable or good on the ice.&rdquo; said Messier. &ldquo;But, it wasn&rsquo;t only myself. There were a number guys in our dressing room playing with injuries. Kevin Lowe shouldn&rsquo;t have been on the ice. He played on pure guts alone.&ldquo;Steve Smith (knee) and countless other guys were injured,&rdquo; added Messier.Three times during the regular season (seven games total) and twice during the playoffs (four games), Lowe&rsquo;s chronic tendinitis problem forced him to the sideline.&ldquo;It was more disappointing than anything,&rdquo; said Lowe. &ldquo;In a series like this you need to be 100 per cent. It was brutal. It was mentally tough just playing and having to concentrate all the time. There were certain things I couldn&rsquo;t do.Smith&rsquo;s minus-8 efficiency rating was the worst on the Oilers, although a knee injury suffered in the opening round was kept hush-hush from the media.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t perform up of my capabilities and I&rsquo;ve got to concern myself with getting back into shape over the course of the summer,&rdquo; Smith saidJoe Murphy also played with a sprained knee suffered in the Minnesota series, while Petr Klima had a chipped bone in his thumb, courtesy of a slash from Calgary&rsquo;s Doug Gilmour. Esa Tikkanen led the Oilers with 12 playoff goals despite a swollen ankle.&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t write about injuries,&rdquo; said Tikkanen. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter.&rdquo;<h2>EDMONTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None<h3>ROSTER</h3>C&mdash;Mark Messier, Craig MacTavish. Adam Graves, Mark Lamb, Ken Linseman.LW&mdash;Craig Simpson, Martin Gelinas, Esa Tikkanen, Joe Murphy. Kelly Buch-berger.RW&mdash;Glenn Anderson, Dave Brown, Petr Klima, Anatoli Semenov.LD&mdash;Steve Smith, Kevin Lowe, Norm Maciver, Geoff Smith.RD&mdash;Jeff Beukeboom, Charlie Huddy. Craig Muni, Chris Joseph.G&mdash;Grant Fuhr, Bill Ranford.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None.<h3>LEADERS</h3>G&mdash;Tikkanen, 12. A&mdash;Simpson. Messier, 11. P&mdash;Tikkanen, 20. PIM&mdash;Smith, 45. &#9632;

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May 24, 1991

ELSTON

ENSURING MILBURY RETURNS IS SINDEN’S TOP PRIORITY

STORM BREWING FOR FANS IN CYCLONE COUNTRY

GENERAL LINDROS WINS HAUL AT CHL JUNIOR AWARDS