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

March 3, 1995

The Hockey News March 3, 1995

<div class="byline">By Gary Olson</div>AIDS has a new spokesman from the world of sports. If you didn&rsquo;t learn from basketball star Magic Johnson or tennis legend Arthur Ashe, you now have Bill Goldsworthy.The former NHL player went public with his AIDS affliction for two reasons: His friends had already heard rumors and he hopes to deliver a message to those who believe the disease is restricted to the gay community.&ldquo;(Being identified as gay) was probably the biggest fear had as far as coming out with this,&rdquo; Goldsworthy said. &ldquo;The fact is, people think because you have AIDS, you&rsquo;re gay. That&rsquo;s false. It doesn&rsquo;t matter what you are.&rdquo;Unlike Johnson, who has tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus, Goldsworthy has full-blown AIDS. He has no idea how advanced the disease is, only that he had been feeling ill since September.Goldsworthy, 50, learned of the disease in November after being admitted to a Memphis, Tenn., hospital to be treated for blood clots in his lungs and pneumonia. He was on a road trip with the team he was coaching, the San Antonio Iguanas of the Central League.His first reaction was one of disbelief.&ldquo;I said, &lsquo;Whoa! You&rsquo;ve got the wrong guy. There must be a mistake.&rsquo;&rdquo;&ldquo;He was absolutely shocked when told him what we&rsquo;d found,&rdquo; said Dr. Emmel Golden, the Memphis physician who broke the news to Goldsworthy. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m convinced he had no idea.&rdquo;Goldsworthy and his wife, June, have been divorced for nearly 15 years. They have two children: Tammy, 26, and Sean, 23, who played for him in San Antonio. Goldsworthy has been involved in a relationship for years, but has never remarried. He said all of the people closest to him have tested negative for HIV.Goldsworthy has had an ongoing battle with alcohol dependency for years and admits drinking often impaired his judgement.&ldquo;There was a period of three to five years after my divorce when was really into the bottle and wasn&rsquo;t careful about my sexual relationships,&rdquo; Goldsworthy said. &ldquo;And there were a few times when was a scout for (the) San Jose (Sharks), after started to drink again, that wasn&rsquo;t as careful about sex as should have been.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-021152/7316615-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="974" height="2007"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bill Goldsworthy earned fans with the Goldy Shuffle.</figcaption></div>Goldsworthy began his NHL career in 1964 with the Boston Bruins and ended it in 1977 with the New York Rangers, but was best known as a Minnesota North Star. The Kitchener, Ont., native, who had 283 goals and 541 points in 771 games, was an original member of the 1967 expansion franchise and captained it for two seasons in the mid-1970s. The right winger&rsquo;s Goldy Shuffle goal celebration helped make him a fan favorite.He also played for Team Canada in the memorable Summit Series against the Soviets in 1972. He finished his career in 1979 with the Edmonton Oilers in the World Hockey Association.There is no way to determine how long Goldsworthy has to live. AIDS patients generally live three to five years after showing symptoms, but improved medication and support systems have enabled many AIDS sufferers to live longer.&ldquo;If you&rsquo;re an alcoholic with AIDS and you don&rsquo;t quit drinking, you will die very quickly,&rdquo; Dr. Golden said. &ldquo;If you get depressed and refuse to fight it, you will die fairly quickly. On the other hand, if you do the things a generally healthy person does, you can live a positive life and prolong it.&rdquo;Goldsworthy said he has stopped drinking and is coping with AZT, an anti-AIDS medication, and a portable oxygen machine. He is not financially comfortable, but will remain on the Iguanas&rsquo; payroll and receive full health benefits until his contract expires in May.He was not fired by the league-which hires and fires for all seven teams-but was replaced because he was too ill to carry out his duties.Goldsworthy has said he will accept money from the NHL&rsquo;s emergency fund for retired players and it&rsquo;s likely other former players will help out.Goldsworthy has made a point of disclosing his sexuality, but is bothered by the fact it even makes a difference.&ldquo;Why shut anybody out?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not in the homosexual world, but what about the poor people who are? They need attention too.&rdquo;Goldsworthy, meanwhile, is philosophical about his fate.&ldquo;I can live a good life, can&rsquo;t live a long life,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Every day when wake up, know have one less day to live.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m hoping and praying can enjoy every day. Who knows, they may come up with a cure.&rdquo;&mdash;With a file from Michael Ulmer &#9632;

f0007-02

IN THIS ISSUE

‘I can live a good life’

&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a professional and the women know that. They don&rsquo;t care whether you&rsquo;re ugly or good broking, fat or skinny. All that matters is that you play professional hockey.&rdquo;&mdash;Oilers&rsquo; Jason Arnott on the availability of sex for NHL players. Page 7. &#9632;

QUOTABLE

Some NHL goalies have all the luck; others don&rsquo;t. That&rsquo;s the difference between goalies whose teams score goals for them and those that don&rsquo;t. Listed are the average number of team goals scored per 60 minutes (GPG) for each of the team&rsquo;s busiest goalies during the first month of the season. Also listed are goalies&rsquo; win-loss-tie records (W-L-T) and goals-against aveages (GAA).<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-021297/7316257-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="696" height="1151"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-03974/7316250-1-eng-US/f0002-032.jpg" title="f0002-03" width="423" height="1071"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ed Belfour</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0002-02

From Wregget to Hasek: Lots to lack of offense

Harsher supplementary discipline appears to be needed to fight crime in the NHL.Players are being caught red-handed committing offenses-you can see them nightly on the television highlights-and getting away with it.It&rsquo;s the NHL version of Cops.The difference is. unlike on the TV show where you view arrests, but don&rsquo;t find out if the accused is found innocent or guilty, in the NHL you see the alleged crime and leant what judgements-if any-are passed.Clearly NHL crooks are being let off easily by director of hockey operations Brian Burke, who is in charge of on-ice discipline.Three recent incidents stand out:&#9633; Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; goalie Ed Be)four swung his goalie stick baseball-style and connected with Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; center Dean McAmmond Feb. 1. Belfour received a five-minute major for high sticking. The NHL has since included the incident on its first video to be sent to referees as one which should call for a match penalty for intent to injure.&#9633; Ron Hextall. the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; fiery goalie who has a rap sheet a mile long, punched at Washington Capitals&rsquo; right winger Rob Pearson&rsquo;s head with his blocker Feb. 13. The two were willing combatants-Pearson initiated the altercation-hut Hextall had a big advantage using his blocker as a weapon. He received a match penalty on the play.&#9633; The ugliest incident occurred Feb. 5 when Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; defenseman Ulf Samuelsson. another frequent offender, placed his stick over the head of New Jersey Devils&rsquo; center John MacLean from behind and yanked him to the ice. With MacLean down and vulnerable. Samuelsson tried to rub his face into the ice. Samuelsson received a double minor.These incidents were reviewed by the NHL. but no supplementary disciplined was imposed.The league will comment on why it disciplines a player, but will not comment on why discipline is not handed out. It is left to our own imagination to determine why Belfour. Hextall and Samuelsson were let off the hook.Perhaps it&rsquo;s time for the league to make announcements on why players are not disciplined.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-04516/7316333-1-eng-US/f0003-042.jpg" title="f0003-04" width="341" height="412"><figcaption class="caption-body">By Mike Brophy</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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NHL too soft on criminals

<div class="image-hero"><img title="Cover-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover-01982/7320163-1-eng-US/cover-012.jpg"></div>OUR SECOND ANNUAL RANKING OF MINOR-LEAGUE LOGOSRobitaille, Jagr & hot Penguins looking goodBRUINS JUST WILD ABOUT SUPER CENTER OATES &#9632;

Cover-01

SITTING PRETTY

<div class="byline">By Steve Dryden</div>Sabrematicians will have a fine appreciation of the Sabremagician.Add, subtract, multiply and divide the numbers any way you choose and the result is always the same: Dominik Hasek is the NHL&rsquo;s best goalie. He has to be. The Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; stopper received the lowest goal support of all No. 1 goalies in the NHL through the first month of the season. Buffalo shooters scored an average of 1.79 goals per 60 minutes with Hasek in goal.Incredibly, Hasek&rsquo;s goals-against average was even lower-1.50.That&rsquo;s the only reason he managed a 5-4-1 record. Only once did the Sabres score more than two goals in Hasek&rsquo;s first 10 appearances. If the inept-shooting Sabres were roaming the range more than a century ago, there&rsquo;d be more than a city named Buffalo. There&rsquo;d be buffalo. Had Hasek been around in the 1800s he might have been able to save them. He has everything else.Hasek became the first goalie in 20 years to post a sub-2.00 goals-against average last year and had a league-leading 946 save percentage this year.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011547/7316219-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="377" height="514"></div>The Hockey News set out to determine hockey&rsquo;s equivalent to a useful baseball stat-run support for pitchers. We asked sports statistician Murray Townsend to determine the average number of goals teams scored for each of their busiest goalies. Results range from a league-high 4.66 goals for the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; Ken Wregget to 1.79 for Hasek.Our numbers show two other first-string goalies had to perform miracles through the first quarter in order to secure victories for their teams. The Ottawa Senators and Washington Capitals averaged 1.88 and 1.85 goals for Don Beaupre and Olaf Kolzig, respectively.Washington&rsquo;s Rick Tabaracci, who played fewer minutes than Kolzig, suffered at the bad hands of teammates even more than him. Tabarac-ci&rsquo;s goal support was 1.75. Only Hasek can overcome that level of non-support. Witness three victories recorded by Hasek in games the Sabres were outshot by a 2-to-1 margin. That is a familiar count to fans of the Sabres. Eight of 13 games had ended by that score. &#9632;

f0002-01

Goals for goaltenders: Support your local goalie

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy and Steve Dryden</div>Glen Sather isn&rsquo;t suggesting his team is on the verge of another dynasty. But the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; president can&rsquo;t resist a smile when he talks about his budding young stars. Senior citizen Kent Nilsson grabbed headlines in Edmonton with his return to the NHL after being away nearly eight years, but it&rsquo;s the Oilers&rsquo; youngsters stealing the show. Edmonton rookies accounted for 16 of the Oilers&rsquo; first 38 goals, the highest such number and percentage (42 per cent) of total offense in the NHL. Right winger Roman Oksiuta led the way for Edmonton with seven goals, center Todd Marchant had six and right winger David Oliver, three. Filling out the top three first-year scoring groups were the St. Louis Blues (10) and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (nine). Last season, 19-year-old Jason Arnott was the Oilers&rsquo; top scorer with 33 goals. &ldquo;This is just the first wave,&rdquo; Sather said. &ldquo;We still have Ryan Smith, Jason Bonsignore. Nick Stajduhar, Mats Lindgren and Miroslav Satan on the way.&rdquo; (The jury remains out on at least three of those prospects: Bonsignore, Stajduhar and Satan.) One sign of Oilers&rsquo; inexperience is an inability to hold leads late in the game; three times they had blown leads. Nonetheless, the Oilers were hovering around the .500 mark and on a six-game unbeaten streak. Sather is reserving judgement on the Oilers&rsquo; future.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little too early to tell,&rdquo; Sather said. &ldquo;I just hope things work out the way they did in the past.&rdquo;&hellip;No. 1 overall pick Ed Jovanovski has left agent Anton Thun for Don Meehan&rsquo;s Newport group in frustration over stalled contract negotiations with the Florida Panthers. I Jovanovski said it was a family I decision to join Meehan and Pat Morris at Newport on Feb. 15. &ldquo;We think Anton&rsquo;s a great guy,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We just thought it dragged on a bit too long.&rdquo; Jovanovski said he hopes the change will expedite talks with the Panthers. Newport negotiated the deal signed by No. 2 pick Oleg Tverdovsky with Anaheim.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011775/7316302-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="371" height="369"></div>Tverdovsky has a I three-year, $4.2-million deal. If Jovanovski doesn&rsquo;t sign before I July 8, the date of the I 1995 entry draft, he &Gamma; will be subject to L entry-level salary cap I restrictions. Jovanovski said he has no intention of signing an entry-level contract. &ldquo;Tverdovsky was the No. 2 pick,&rdquo; Jovanovski said. &ldquo;Hopefully, being the No. 1 pick, I can get a little better contract. But we&rsquo;ll wait and see.&rdquo; Jovanovski was Thun&rsquo;s first No. 1 overall client. Thun declined comment on Jovanovski&rsquo;s departure; it ended a three-year relationship. Jeff O&rsquo;Neill. Thun&rsquo;s No. 5 overall pick (by the Hartford Whalers), is also unsigned-as is Morris&rsquo; No. 4 overall client, Jason Bonsignore of Edmonton. It was a good week for New-port. Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; star center Alexei Zhamnov also became a new client&hellip;The man who set up the three fastest goals in NHL history scored his second-ever hole-in-one before Christmas. Gus Bodnar, who assisted on Bill Mosienko&rsquo;s three goals in 21 seconds in 1952, recorded an ace at his winter home in Lake Placid, Fla. Bodnar, NHL rookie of the year in 1943-44, holds the record for fastest goal by Ed Jovanovski a rookie. The Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; center scored 15 seconds into his career against the New York Rangers&hellip;Coming soon to NHL referees&rsquo; TV screens: NHL Video Rulebook I. It&rsquo;s the league&rsquo;s first stab at making a video featuring actual game footage for refs to watch and learn from. Bryan Lewis, the league&rsquo;s director of officiating, was putting the finishing touches on the tape Feb. 13. The one-hour video will feature good and bad calls made during the first quarter of the season&hellip;A referee&rsquo;s initiation into the NHL occurs the night he handles his first fight-filled game. Rookie Don Van Massen-hoven&rsquo;s came Feb. 9 in Vancouver when the Canucks and Winnipeg Jets combined for 228 penalty minutes. There were 18 fighting majors. Brawling erupted after Vancouver rookie Mike Peca nailed Teemu Selanne with a late hit in the first period. &ldquo;You know you&rsquo;re eventually going to get a game like that,&rdquo; Van Massenhoven said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to get it out of the way.&rdquo;&hellip;There was an obvious omission from previous THN stories that propose formation of a full-fledged NHL rules or competition committee. Referees should also be represented in the group. THN recommends a referee (current or recently retired) be granted non-voting status along with a current player and ex-NHL executive. They would serve as advisors to the five GMs and two coaches who would make up our version of a committee entrusted with safeguarding the game&rsquo;s present and looking out for its future&hellip;Dave Keen was a peaceful NHLer; he fought just once in 18 seasons. Dave Keon Jr. is a chip off the old block. An off-ice official in Toronto, he recently stepped between Edmonton&rsquo;s Doug Weight and the Maple Leafs&rsquo; Dave Ellett who were threatening to fight in the penalty box. &ldquo;You just react,&rdquo; Keon said. &ldquo;It was no big deal.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021421/7316295-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="384" height="579"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ed Jovanovski</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03924/7316288-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="1096" height="1648"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jason Arnott is at the forefront of the Oilers&rsquo; youth movement.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0003-01

Young Oilers tops in NHL

Give some NHL players a half an inch and they&rsquo;ll take a mile.NHL rules allow a one-half inch curvature in the blades of sticks, but many players cheat by doctoring their lumber. And why not? Sure, they risk a minor penalty, but the only time a goal can be taken away is if an illegal stick was used on a penalty shot.Petr Klima of the Tampa Bay Lightning wasn&rsquo;t aware of that. He scored a goal against the Hartford Whalers Feb. 10 and when the Whalers asked for a stick measurement, Klima stepped on the blade and broke it. He received an unsportsmanlike conduct minor and 10-minute misconduct.Prior to 1969-70, there was no limit on a stick curve. That season it was set at one inch, but reduced to half an inch in 1971-72.There is no plan to return to the one-inch curve, even though scoring is down more than a goal per game from last season through the first quarter.&ldquo;The curve is limited to protect goalies,&rdquo; said Bryan Lewis, the league&rsquo;s director of officiating.It protects fans, too. Former goalie Gump Worsley recalls the havoc the big curves wreaked when he played. &ldquo;It shortened fans&rsquo; careers,&rdquo; Worsley said. &ldquo;Shooters had no idea where the puck was going.&rdquo;&mdash;Mike Brophy &#9632;

NHL not about to throw stingy goaltenders curve

<div class="byline">By Elliott Pap</div>After spending most of his life in 5 communist Russia, Vladimir Bure thought he had seen everything. But nothing, it seems, prepared him for the media coverage of his hockey-playing son.&ldquo;It wouldn&rsquo;t surprise me if I pick; up the newspaper tomorrow and read Pavel is the Emperor of China,&rdquo; said Vlad The Dad.Among others, there have been mafia blackmail stories, contract black: mail stories, holdout stories, a second marriage story, trade rumor stories and I-want-outta-here stories.The holdout story and the late signing bonus payment are the only ones that have been proven beyond any doubt.The latest furor began Feb. l0 when the New York Post ran a story claiming Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; genera I manager Pat Quinn was talking to New Jersey Devils&rsquo; GM Lou Lamoriello about a trade involving Bure an Scott Stevens. Other Devils were also named, most prominently Scott Niedermayer and Bill Guerin.&ldquo;All I&rsquo;m going to say is I&rsquo;m not going to grace a stupid story with a comment,&rdquo; Quinn fumed. &ldquo;Why should I give it any credibility at all?&rdquo;Bure, who missed two games with a flu bug that ripped through the team, surfaced to say he had no reaction to the trade rumor &ldquo;because I knew it wasn&rsquo;t true.&rdquo;Bure&rsquo;s agent, Ron Salcer, said he and team owner Arthur Griffiths had only two days earlier discussed deals involving the Russian Rocket&rsquo;s marketing rights.&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t sound to me like he was about to trade him,&rdquo; Salcer said.Griffiths told one reporter to &ldquo;give your head a shake&rdquo; when queried on the trade talk. The Canucks are scheduled to open their new arena next season and with 60-goal scorer Bure as the main attraction, the club long ago sold out 88 corporate boxes and 2,200 club seats. Bure was in return rewarded with a $25-million (U.S.) contract. He has since purchased a $2-million Vancouver home that Vladimir says is &ldquo;for the long term.&rdquo;However, these strong denials only led to further stories claiming Bure had told his Russian buddies he would force a trade because he couldn&rsquo;t stomach Canuck management, new coach Rick Ley or the fans&rsquo; reaction to his mercenary attitude.Quinn said Bure&rsquo;s purported trade request was &ldquo;completely false.&rdquo; Vancouver fans have never booed Bure and still shriek like crazy every time he touches the puck.&ldquo;I feel these stories are very unfair to the Vancouver Canucks, specifically Arthur Griffiths,&rdquo; Salcer said. &ldquo;I know Pavel has a good relationship with Arthur and he has told me on numerous occasions he likes Rick Ley as a coach. 1 also know he has the utmost respect for Pat Quinn.&rdquo;But just imagine, Pavel Bure, Emperor of China. It does have a nice ring to it. &#9632;

Bure in New Jersey? Don’t hold your breath

<div class="byline">Compiled by THN staff</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011707/7316443-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Vancouver&rsquo;s Pavel Bure has been the subject of outlandish rumors.</figcaption></div>One of the few positive by-products of the NHL lockout is the money raised by players for charity groups.The NHL Players&rsquo; Association announced its members raised an estimated $1.5 million for charities, minor hockey groups and community organizations throughout North America between November and January.More than 30 charity games were played, including the three-day 4-on-4 Challenge in Hamilton that raised $500,000 for Ronald McDonald Children&rsquo;s Charities.Kelly Chase of the Hartford Whalers and Warren Rychel of the Toronto Maple Leafs took leading roles in fundraising campaigns.Chase, one of the founders of the Gateway Hockey Program for developmentally handicapped people in St. Louis, raised an estimated $70,000, which went towards an inner-city fund, an endowment fund and United Way.Another $70,000 was raised for an arena-building fund and minor hockey in Rychel&rsquo;s hometown of Tecumseh, Ont.18-INCH CUT: An American high school player escaped death when his throat was inadvertently cut for 155 stitches by an opponent&rsquo;s skate.Joe Carista, a 16-year-old junior right winger for Whitman-Hanson High School in Rockland, Mass., had fallen to the ice Feb. 11 when a player accidentally skated over his throat.He got up and skated to the bench where his coach noticed the blood.&ldquo;If (the skate) had come any closer to the jugular, we would have lost him,&rdquo; coach Bob Corliss told The Associated Press. &ldquo;I could see the inside of his whole throat.&rdquo;Two aides put gauze pads on Carista&rsquo;s throat before an ambulance took him to hospital where he underwent 58 minutes of surgery. He was listed in stable condition. &#9632;

f0005-01

Charities benefit from NHL lockout

<div class="byline">By Brian Costello</div>Tom Renney doesn&rsquo;t take kindly to insults, but he&rsquo;s not one to wage a war of words, either.The coach of the Canadian national team wasn&rsquo;t making excuses after the organizer of the Globen Cup hockey tournament labeled Canada&rsquo;s team as awful and weak.&ldquo;Canada&rsquo;s performance against Russia was just awful,&rdquo; said tournament director Bo Tovland. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s strange Canada showed up with such a weak team.&rdquo;Canada finished last for the second time since 1993 after losing 3-1 to the Czech Republic in its final game Feb. 12. Canada lost 7-4 to Sweden and 60 to Russia in the other games.Host Sweden won the four-team tournament in Stockholm, beating Russia 5-0 in the Feb. 12 final.&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t embarrass ourselves,&rsquo; Renney said. &ldquo;I think we have to lx proud of the way we played with sue! an inexperienced lineup.&rdquo;Prior to the tournament, Canada lost three forwards: Glenn Andersor to the St. Louis Blues, Yanick Dub to the American League&rsquo;s Syracuse Crunch and Keli Corpse to the Ontario League&rsquo;s Kingston Frontenacs. Moreover, forwards Jamie Leach (separated shoulder) and Serge Boisvert (broken jaw) went down in the first game of the tournament.Tovland said he wants to talk to Canadian officials to get a guarantee they will send a better team next year.&ldquo;Canada always draws big crowds,&rdquo; Tovland said. &ldquo;Canada is No. 1 on my priority list.&rdquo;Renney said it&rsquo;s that easy.&ldquo;Everyone wants Canada to be such a powerhouse,&rdquo; Renney said. &ldquo;They think that because the NHL was out of work we&rsquo;re going to have all the best players. If (organizers) wanted us to be better, then I think they just let themselves down.&rdquo;PAYNE STEPS IN: The Canadian Hockey Association&rsquo;s new director of player personnel has a simple philosophy for what he does.&ldquo;Scouting comes down to three little words,&rdquo; Ray Payne said. &ldquo;Can he play? That&rsquo;s the bottom line.&rdquo;Payne replaces Sheldon Ferguson, who became director of player personnel for the Hartford Whalers Jan. 15.The former eastern scouting supervisor for the San Jose Sharks will be responsible for identifying players for the Canadian junior, under-18, national men&rsquo;s and women&rsquo;s teams.&ldquo;The difference for me will be identifying players for the international level as opposed to filling a need at the NHL level,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That places an emphasis more on speed and skill rather than being physically strong enough for an 84-game schedule.&rdquo;Payne added he&rsquo;ll follow along the guidelines carried forth by his successful predecessors, Ferguson and Dave Draper. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d be wise to keep in mind the old axiom, &lsquo;If it ain&rsquo;t broke, don&rsquo;t fix it.&rsquo;&rdquo; Payne said.WOMEN&rsquo;S COUNTDOWN: The Mississauga Chiefs captured the Ontario Women&rsquo;s Hockey Association senior-AA title and became the first team to qualify for the 14th annual national championship.Mississauga edged the Toronto Aeros 2-1 Feb. 12. ending the Aeros&rsquo; six-year run as provincial champions.The Chiefs will represent Ontario at the CHA tournament starting March 23 in Summerside, P.E.I.Quebec announced its select team roster for the nationals. Other provinces going with a select team format include P.E.I., New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. The other Canadian provinces will be represented by club championship teams.&mdash;with a file from Al Adams &#9632;

Uninspired Canadians draw jeers at Globen

John Mravnik claims he has come up with a formula that gives shootout &ldquo;the significance it deserves&rdquo; (THN, Feb. 3).That the NHL doesn&rsquo;t subscribe to the shootout format already gives it the significance it deserves: None.Shootouts are the antithesis of hockey-a gutless cop out. The shootout effectively takes all the effort the two teams have exerted over the course of 65 minutes and renders the whole thing moot.Is there not enough all-round skill displayed during the course of the game to suit some people? Here&rsquo;s a winning idea: Let&rsquo;s screw hockey up totally by having five sharpshooters and one goaltender and just have a 60-minute shootout.Ties don&rsquo;t kill competitiveness in hockey, they simply provide unfinished business between teams to be resolved in a rematch and acknowledge that on that particular night, both were equal to the task and had to battle to a draw.The notion that there must always be a clear-cut winner is just a bunch of arrogant garbage.D.G. Rose,Iqaluit, NWT<h2>Cold shoulder</h2>The Florida Panthers were recently practising at Piney Orchard Ice Arena-the Washington Capitals&rsquo; practice facility-and thought it would be a good opportunity to get some autographs.As the players were walking from the ice to the dressing room, asked them for their autographs and most of them ignored me.I thought the NHL was trying to get its fans back after the lockout. If this is any indication, it is not doing a very good job.Ryan Hance,Bowie, Md.<h2>Night to remember</h2>Last season, went to a Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; game hoping to see my favorite player, Marty McSorley. It was just two games after his trade back from the Pittsburgh Penguins and he had been suspended.After the game went to the Forum Club in hopes of meeting McSorley. almost gave up hope when saw some security guards telling people to get out of the way.As it turned out, they were escorting McSorley to his car. The guards told me he was rushed and had no time for me. was wearing my Penguins&rsquo; jersey with McSorley&rsquo;s name on the back and yelled to him, &ldquo;Hey, check out my jersey.&rdquo;The guards came toward me and thought they were going to throw me out, but they came to say that Marty wanted to see me.I went to see him and told him 1 was happy he was back and he said he was glad to be back because of fans like me. Then he signed my jersey and we talked a little longer.It was the greatest night of my life. Who says hockey players are unapproachable?Larry Brehm,Huntington Beach, Calif.<h2>Great reading</h2>I&rsquo;m writing to let you know how much enjoyed Jack Falla&rsquo;s column, &ldquo;Gone Scrapping,&rdquo; which appeared in the Feb. 3 issue.That column really touched a nerve. It took me back to the days when 1 cut and saved pictures and stories about the Toronto Maple Leafs when was growing up in Toronto in the late 1950s.Unlike Jack, didn&rsquo;t have a brother to rescue my scrapbooks from the trashman. do, however, have the two pictures of Dick Duff that were attached to my bedroom wall through my earliest hockey loving days.I hope you can include other pieces like Jack&rsquo;s. love reading about the players, but there is something about hockey that is very emotional. It&rsquo;s wonderful when it can be so well articulated.Chris Cakebread,Natick, Mass.<h2>Where&rsquo;s Manon?</h2>I wish Manon Rheaume would stay somewhere for a little while. She has been to Knoxville, Nashville, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, the Canadian women&rsquo;s national team, Europe and Las Vegas.I am her No. 1 fan and it upsets me to see her moving around so much. She is very talented and she needs to stay somewhere to get some playing time.Recently, drove from Charlotte, N.C., to Knoxville, Tenn., just to see her play, but she had been traded the day before. When she played for Tallahassee, was hoping to see her, but then she went to Las Vegas.So tried the last thing could think of. wrote to the Oprah Winfrey Show asking for help to meet her.Matthew Bundy, 13Charlotte, N.C.(Editor&rsquo;s note: Don&rsquo;t despair, Matthew. Rheaume is currently playing for the Las Vegas Aces, a touring independent professional team.)Make your feelings known. Fax us your comments at&nbsp;(416) 445-2501&nbsp;or write to&nbsp;Letters, The Hockey News, 85 Scarsdale Rd., Suite 100, Don Mills, Ont., M3B 2R2&nbsp;in Canada. In the U.S., write to&nbsp;Letters, The Hockey News, P.O. Box 904, Buffalo, N.Y., 14240-9947.&nbsp;Include home and business phone numbers.&nbsp;THN&nbsp;reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

Shootout gets what it deserves: Nothing

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011904/7316522-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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ELSTON

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><h2>Murphy climbs into fifth spot</h2>1. Blueline ace Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Larry Murphy becomes fifth-highest scoring defenseman with 619th point.2. Thinking ahead Windsor Spitfires took flyer on goalie Jamie Storr, now he&rsquo;s theirs.3. Hot start Quebec Nordique Wendel Clark valued for leadership, but scoring like a madman.4. Ron Francis Pittsburgh center gets 1,000th point; riding career-high 13-game point streak.5. THN top player Ex-Canadien John LeClair nets four goals, eight points in five games with Flyers.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021285/7316553-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="563" height="742"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Francis</figcaption></div><h2>Thinks quick, breaks stick</h2>1. Snap decision Tampa Bay&rsquo;s Petr Klima breaks stick rather than let it be measured for illegal curve.2. Bad rule NHL allows players to score goals with illegal sticks, except on penalty shots.3. Mighty Yucks Guy Hebert, Mikhail Shtalenkov pay price for Anaheim&rsquo;s shoddy defensive play.4. Kent can&rsquo;t Toronto hoped for big year from Kent Manderville. He &#316; had no points in 14 games.5. (Not so) Great Scott New Jersey captain Scott Stevens signs huge contract, stumbles out of gate. &#9632;

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PLUS MINUS

<div class="byline">By Michael Ulmer</div>It&rsquo;s an hour after practice at Maple Leaf Gardens and Jason Arnott, an engaging 20-year-old Edmonton Oiler has answered every question put to him.Until that is, he is asked about Bill Goldsworthy.&ldquo;Bill Goldsworthy?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know who that is.&rdquo;Bill Goldsworthy&rsquo;s name isn&rsquo;t important to Arnott. After all, Arnott was three years old when Goldsworthy last played in the NHL.What matters is the mistake Goldsworthy made one night could be repeated by any other NHL player, on any night, in any city, with fatal consequences.Arnott remembers the story when you mention AIDS. The disease is now the message and Goldsworthy its conscripted messenger.&ldquo;When I was 20 years old, I don&rsquo;t think sex involved as many multiple people as it does in the &rsquo;90s,&rdquo; Goldsworthy said from his apartment in Edina, Minn. &ldquo;Kids are having sex much younger. When I was 20, it was never thought of.&rdquo;Things are radically different for Arnott, a baby-faced millionaire.&ldquo;You go to the bars and you see women everywhere,&rdquo; Arnott said. &ldquo;Some of them you say something to them, boom, you can have them whether you want to or not.&rdquo;As titillating or unpalatable as it may seem to the rest of us, professional athletes in the 1990s have virtually limitless opportunities for sex. It is an age of wide-open sexual expression and young, fit and famous athletes are more desirable than ever.&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a professional and the women know that,&rdquo; Arnott said. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t care whether you&rsquo;re ugly or good looking, fat or skinny. All that matters is that you play professional hockey.&rdquo;But limitless opportunity also translates into heightened risk, particularly if the player is careless about condoms. Fewer than one in four sexually active men uses condoms all the time according to one U.S. study. In a story entitled &ldquo;The Burning Question,&rdquo; THN&rsquo;s Inside HOCKEY reported in 1993 there was no league-wide policy governing AIDS education, either through the NHL Players&rsquo; Association or the league itself.The National Basketball Association Players&rsquo; Association, by contrast, has a 24-hour AIDS hotline, conducts annual meetings with each team, mails information updates to players and conducts voluntary off-season seminars.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011730/7316584-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="382" height="537"></div>So whose job is it to remind players that available sex, what was once considered a discreet workplace perk, could now be a workplace hazard?Everybody&rsquo;s. The problem is, not everybody is doing it.The NHL is developing an AIDS program that would be dovetailed with a new drug and alcohol policy. Unfortunately, that program is still being worked out by the league and players through the collective bargaining agreement.&ldquo;Everything the commissioner is trying to do, in terms of employee assistance, be it AIDS education, be it drug and alcohol education, career counselling, is education-based.&rdquo; said NHL spokesman Arthur Pincus. &ldquo;The more education, the better.&rdquo;&ldquo;Both sides have to get topical information and eduction to the players,&rdquo; said NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow. &ldquo;We can do a better job with a new, more progressive approach.&rdquo;Arnott said young players quickly realize life in the NHL shouldn&rsquo;t be a sexual smorgasbord.&ldquo;The nice girls, you get their phone numbers and take them for dinners and what not,&rdquo; Arnott said. &ldquo;The real cheesy girls who go home with you in a second, those are the type of girls you&rsquo;ve got to stay away from.&rdquo;The largest proportion of AIDS carriers are homosexual males, but the incidence is dropping. In fact, the fastest growing group is in heterosexual women. It is estimated that 10 per cent of AIDS cases are heterosexual men and women.Heterosexual men are in the lowest-risk group for infection, since it is easier for a woman to contract the virus from a man than a man from a woman. The virus can enter a man&rsquo;s bloodstream through the urethra, but usually there there must be a cut, lesion or open sore on the penis. Since those are sometimes undetectable with the naked eye, a latex condom should be used.Neither Arnott nor Corson believes AIDS is strictly the province of gays, bisexuals or drug abusers.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve talked to Shayne about it, you talk to anybody whose been in the league,&rdquo; Arnott said, &ldquo;and they&rsquo;ll tell you, &lsquo;no sex without protection.&rsquo;&rdquo;Those words are of comfort to Goldsworthy. For him, there is nothing left to do but warn others and live with his mistake.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s buyer beware, that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m trying to tell people,&rdquo; Goldsworthy said. &ldquo;As for me, if the shoe fits, god-dammit, wear it.&rdquo; &#9632;

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NHL sex education everyone’s business

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div>John Muckler was sick of 2-1 hockey games.When his Buffalo Sabres played in four consecutive games ending in that score, the coach-general manager did something about it.In an effort to add offensive spark. Muckler traded for offensive-minded defenseman Alexei Zhitnik from the Los Angeles Kings. So what happened? The Sabres lost to the New York Rangers 2-1 in Zhitnik&rsquo;s debut.&ldquo;I guess a Hollywood ending would have been Zhitnik coming here and making an immediate offensive impact and helping us win in his first game,&rdquo; Muckler said. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter, we got the guy we wanted-a player feel will help change the image of our team.&rdquo;Zhitnik did make a flashy debut with the Sabres. He scored their only goal and later delivered a big hit on the Rangers&rsquo; Adam Graves, scooped the puck and dashed end-to-end, beating goalie Mike Richter with a shot that hit the post.Muckler prefers wide-open, offensive hockey. With superstar center Pat LaFontaine injured, he felt compelled to shake things up in this short season.Zhitnik, 22 and a third-year pro, veteran defen-seman Charlie Huddy, 35, and back-up goalie Robb Stauber, 27, were traded to Buffalo for disgruntled goalie Grant Fuhr, 32, and two young defensemen, Philippe Boucher, 21, and Denis Tsygurov, 23.The Sabres, lacking a defenseman with break-away speed, had become predictable and easy to stop on the breakout. The opposition was successful stopping them by sitting back waiting for the Sabres to make a low-percentage breakout pass or by simply checking the slow-rushing defenseman.The hope is Zhitnik will be much harder to stop as the Sabres move up ice and that he will improve Buffalo&rsquo;s power play. They&rsquo;re also hoping that will lead to a more productive Alexander Mogilny who had just four goals in 12 games this season.From the Sabres&rsquo; perspective, the deal clearly centered around Zhitnik. He averaged 12 goals and 50 points in his first two NHL seasons.Huddy is a responsible veteran who will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. The Sabres don&rsquo;t have faith in the goalies in their system so Stauber provides them with a capable back-up to Dominik Hasek.In swapping two defensemen for two defenseman, the deal didn&rsquo;t address Buffalo&rsquo;s lack of depth on the blueline in the organization. The fact Doug Houda was already out with a severed tendon and Buffalo lost Ken Sutton (fractured index finger on his right hand) and Craig Muni (hamstring injury) in Zhitnik&rsquo;s first game, only makes the problem worse.Muckler told Fuhr last summer he would trade him rather than leave him on the end of the bench. He kept his word and moved Fuhr to the Pacific Division where he won&rsquo;t likely come back to haunt the Sabres this season.Fuhr performed well in the NHL Players&rsquo; Association-sponsored 4-on-4 tournament during the lockout and later while touring Europe with Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s Ninety-Nine All-Stars. He sparkled in Buffalo&rsquo;s season opening 2-1 win over the New York Rangers, but was shaky in his next two starts.Buffalo considers Hasek to be the premier goalie in the NHL and his numbers (1.50 goals-against average and .946 I save percentage in 10 games) back their claim.Fuhr&rsquo;s performance is a contributing factor for the Kings, but possibly I only in the short term. I Like Huddy, he is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.Fuhr has the opportunity to win the No. 1 job from Kelly Hrudey who signed a three-year contract with the Kings last summer. Jamie Storr is considered their goalie of I the future.Boucher is the long-term key to the deal for the Kings. The 13th pick in the 1991 draft, he has potential to be a steady performer with decent offensive potential for the next decade. He has a hard shot, but lacks the footspeed to be a rushing threat.Tsygurov, a 6-foot-3, 198-pound first team all-star with Togliatti in Russia last season, had no points in four games with Buffalo.The Kings are pleased with their top four defensemen: Rob Blake, Marty McSorley, Daryl Sydor and Michel Petit. GM Sam McMaster said Boucher, Tsygurov and Sean O&rsquo;Donnell form a solid five-through-seven. He justified trading Zhitnik for a No. 5 man saying he feels Boucher has the potential to be as good as Blake.&ldquo;We wanted to build a younger and bigger team on the blueline and I&rsquo;m proud to say we did through this deal,&rdquo; McMaster said. &ldquo;And Grant gives us instant credibility in goal. When you consider those three factors, it was a very easy trade to make.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011796/7316646-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="958" height="1879"><figcaption class="caption-body">Alexei Zhitnik gives the Sabres some offense from the blueline.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Granting his wish

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div>The blueprint for Chicago Blackhawk hockey hadn&rsquo;t changed in recent memory-grinders and plodders, the more character the better.This, after all, was a team that lived and died by the 2-1 win and one-line I scoring from Jeremy Roenick and his assortment of wingers. Ultimately, the Hawks fell on their own dull sword in last year&rsquo;s playoffs by losing three 1-0 games to the Toronto Maple Leafs, &#309;But if they suffer a similar fate this year it&rsquo;s more likely to be in a gun-battle shootout. The scoring slump of a generation is over.The revitalized Hawks have two powerful offensive lines centered around Roenick and Bernie Nicholls and four top defensemen in Chris Chelios, Gary Suter, Steve Smith and Eric Weinrich.Early-season success evokes memories among Hawk faithful of 1966-67, the last year they led the league in scoring. After 13 games this year they had scored 52 goals, second only to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and were first in the Central Division.Dirk Graham and Sutter brothers Rich and Brent still provide the character. but only their work ethic-not their style&mdash;is representative of these Hawks. IThat point was inadvertently driven home by coach Darryl Sutter lamenting his team&rsquo;s missed opportunities in a 4-2 loss to Maple Leafs Feb. 13.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been trying to be in a posttion where one or two goals don&rsquo;t decide the hockey game,&rdquo; Sutter said. But in any other year, that&rsquo;s exactly where the Hawks wanted to be.The Hawks&rsquo; surprising start was accomplished while playing more road games-10 out of 13-than any team in the league. The Hawks had six wins on a recent eight-game road trip.Patrick Poulin and Tony Amonte are youngsters who can keep up with Roenick, while Paul Ysebaert and Joe Murphy have played well with Nicholls.&ldquo;In practice we&rsquo;re doing a lot more flow drills, more transitional stuff from offense to defense, more puck movement,&rdquo; said Murphy, who had eight goals in eight games before missing three with a groin injury.&ldquo;Transition is based on how skilled your players are in moving the puck,&rdquo; Darryl Sutter said.Nicholls, who promised Sutter he&rsquo;d be a point-a-game man when he signed last summer as a free agent, has been even better, scoring 17 points in 13 games, including four goals against the Vancouver Canucks Feb. 5.The biggest single area of improvement is the Blackhawk power play, ranked 19th and 16th overall the past two seasons. After 13 games it was clicking at a league-best 31.1 per cent.The Hawks say Darryl Sutter has given them more offensive freedom as long as they mind defensive responsibilities. The same holds true for the power play. &ldquo;Darryl has basically said it&rsquo;s our power play, do what you want with it, just score,&rdquo; Nicholls said.There are other reasons this could be the year of the Hawk.&#9633; The reformation of Chelios. Chelios has always been able to control the play-as long as he stayed in control on the ice. So far he has done both and has been Chicago&rsquo;s best player at both ends of the rink with three goals and 14 points. &ldquo;Game in and game out, it&rsquo;s not even close,&rdquo; Sutter said.Notable was Chelios&rsquo; paltry penalty total of eight minutes, &ldquo;l&rsquo;m going to play aggressive and try to be as mean as can, but l&rsquo;m going to have to find a line between being mean and taking penalties.&rdquo;&#9633; Lineup stability. All key players were healthy and the top two lines and defense pairings have remained largely untouched since training camp. &ldquo;Knowing you&rsquo;re going to be back with the same guy the next night, you can sit down after the game and decide what you have to change and what you have to do the same,&rdquo; Steve Smith said. &#9632;

Blackhawks take flight with revamped offence

<div class="byline">By Jay Greenberg</div>Two-plus years later, the Eric Lindros deal looks so successful for the Quebec Nordiques Marcel Aubut would certainly do it again.Of course, that&rsquo;s exactly what he did in June, 1992, trading Lindros and then 20 minutes later doing it again. Had arbitrator Larry Bertuzzi seen no fair answer but to clone Lindros and give one to the Philadelphia Flyers and the other to the New York Rangers, the Nordiques would have walked away with so many players they would never lose another game.As it is, they drop about one out of 12, thanks in part to the truckload they received from Philadelphia. Ron Hextall and Kerry Huffman are gone, but Peter Forsberg, Mike Ricci, Chris Simon and Jocelyn Thibault are valuable Nordiques directly attributable to the Lindros trade while Wendel Clark, Sylvain Lefebvre, Bob Bassen, Uwe Krupp and Adam Dead-marsh have been acquired in spinoff trades involving pieces obtained in the big deal.Meanwhile, the Flyers had 2,350 tickets remaining the morning of a recent game. Those who bought them had no reason to be happy with the purchase, either. That evening the Flyers completed 120 consecutive shutout minutes at the hands of the Ottawa Senators and Florida Panthers. Lindros was producing barely more than a point a game. Ricci would have worked a lot cheaper to do that much.In shooting the wad for the next generation&rsquo;s great player, the once-proud Flyers were prepared to take another step backwards to take two forward. But limping along in a three-legged race has been no picnic. Their slow progress hasn&rsquo;t been 100 per cent Lindros&rsquo; fault, only 110. For $3.5 million a year, he has been expected to carry Stewart Malgunas on his back and Ryan McGill, too.Terry Murray, the third Flyers&rsquo; coach in three years, is praising Lindros&rsquo; improved work away from the puck, but five years away from the last playoff berth, the fans are looking for improvement, period.It is easy to forget the last championship team built around the player-of-a-generation hardly turned the comer by Mario Lemieux&rsquo;s third season. At that stage, Lemieux had not learned how to apply himself every night and it looked like the Dan Frawley era in Pittsburgh would never end.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011767/7316708-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="377" height="531"></div>But once the Penguins, by Year 7 of the Lemieux era, finally had accumulated enough to go deep into the playoffs, they didn&rsquo;t disprove the axiom that other things being relatively equal, the team with the best player gets the Cup.The Flyers are still working on the relatively equal part. But they are getting there. General manager Bob Clarke made a good trade with the Montreal Canadiens even if Recchi was the best talent in the deal. The Flyers received a B-plus defenseman in Eric Desjardins, plus size, strength and some of Recchi&rsquo;s offense in John LeClair. Even if Gilbert Dionne doesn&rsquo;t grow up, LeClair and Desjardins will compensate for Recchi, who felt his function without the puck didn&rsquo;t go much beyond waiting for it to come back to him.With Desjardins, Garry Galley, Dmitri Yushkevich, Kevin Haller and the promising Chris Therien, the Flyers can now go five deep with major league defenseman for the first time in the Lindros era.LeClair, Lindros and Mikael Renberg have the makings of an oversized and overpowering top unit. Craig Mac-Tavish has added stability to what had been immature and undersized checking units. A scorer to go with Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour on the second line is now needed and the reclamation of Hextall is an obvious key, but even if the Flyers get only average goaltending, they have enough to make the playoffs.As for Lindros, he didn&rsquo;t do himself any favors by picking up a few pounds during the lockout, but at any age, and at 21 especially, you live and learn.The Flyers, meanwhile, know the first team to the finals doesn&rsquo;t win. The idea is to win the finals and that is almost always done by the team with the best player. Only if that turns out to be Forsberg will the Flyers ever have to acknowledge they made a huge mistake.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021288/7316701-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="508" height="873"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Hextall</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0010-01

Jury out on Lindros until first Cup won

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div>Mike Gartner got off lucky. Just ask Scott Campbell.When Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; defense-man Bryan Marchment caught the Gartner with a spectacular open-ice hit Feb. 3, all Gartner suffered was a partially collapsed lung and headache. It was painful and inconvenient to be sure-Gartner was forced to take the train from Edmonton to Toronto because his injury prevented him from flying.But it wasn&rsquo;t as devastating as the time Marchment clocked Camp-bell.Marchment, playing for the Ontario League&rsquo;s Belleville Bulls in 1988-89, hit Campbell of the Peterborough Petes so hard, he knocked a semester&rsquo;s worth of studies from his opponent&rsquo;s head.Campbell suffered a serious concussion and amnesia-with enough memory loss he was excused from writing his high school exams.&ldquo;It took me a month before 1 started to feel half-normal again,&rdquo; said Campbell who plays for the Muskegon Fury of the Colonial League. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve still got a copy of the video tape from that game, but 1 don&rsquo;t watch it too often.&rdquo;Marchment has the reputation as one of the NHL&rsquo;s most effective open-ice hitters. It&rsquo;s a reputation he cherishes. His modus operandi is usually the same-catch his opponent crossing center or the blueline with his head down as he releases or prepares to take a pass.Only New York Islanders&rsquo; defenseman Darius Kasparaitis is as adept as Marchment at rocking a foe&rsquo;s world in similar fashion.&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to be aware of him every time he&rsquo;s on the ice,&rdquo; said Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; left winger Dave Andreychuk. &ldquo;A lot of guys run around and don&rsquo;t really do much. Marchment has great timing. And most of his hits aren&rsquo;t dirty.&rdquo;Twice this season Marchment has knocked opponents out of commission: Gartner and center Bob Corkum of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. The Corkum hit-an elbow to the head-was illegal and Marchment received a five-minute major. The Gartner hit was within the rules.Dubbed the Windy City Hitman by Chris Chelios when the two were teammates with the Chicago Blackhawks, Marchment was accused of trying to injure his opponents with low-bridge hits early in his career, but he says he has changed his approach.&ldquo;I used to hit a lot of guys low and I took a lot of grief for it,&rdquo; Marchment said. &ldquo;I changed my style a bit when I joined the Blackhawks. Now I aim higher.&rdquo;Maple Leaf players seem to be his favorite targets. His battles with former Toronto captain Wendel Clark, who accused Marchment of trying to take his knees out, are well documented. He was also fingered for kneeing Peter Zezel and Glenn Anderson, causing injuries both times.Marchment is with his fourth NHL team. Drafted 16th overall by the Winnipeg Jets in 1987, he played just 37 games over three seasons with them before being traded to Chicago in 1991.He spent three seasons with the Hawks and last year with the Hartford Whalers before being awarded to the Oilers last summer as compensation for the Steven Rice signing.When teams acquire Marchment, it isn&rsquo;t for his scoring ability. It&rsquo;s to keep the opposition honest. He had 16 goals, 56 points and 768 penalty minutes in 228 NHL games entering this season; no goals, one point with 43 penalty minutes in 13 games this season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve played on four teams and with the exception of Winnipeg, who drafted me, every team I go to has players come up to me and tell me how glad they are to now be playing with me instead of against me,&rdquo; Marchment said. &ldquo;I have to play this way to stay in the league. I&rsquo;m not Phil Housley or Al Maclnnis so my offense won&rsquo;t keep me up.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011587/7316739-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="579" height="899"><figcaption class="caption-body">All of Bryan Marchment&rsquo;s hits are hard and most are legal.</figcaption></div>In spite of his aggressive style and the claims he&rsquo;s a dirty player, Marchment has only been suspended by the NHL once-for two games last season after he smashed Gartner, then a member of the New York Rangers, from behind into the net at Madison Square Garden.Marchment is still angry about the suspension and said the hit this season on Gartner was a pay back. He later said he was sorry Gartner was injured.Gartner blames himself for the injury.&ldquo;Normally I don&rsquo;t admire my passes, but that time I watched the puck for an extra second and paid the price,&rdquo; Gartner said.Marchment used to be constantly on the prowl for the big hit, even at the expense of his defensive play. It often left him out of position, stranded in the neutral zone, and allowed the opposition to break in 2-on-1. Marchment said former Chicago coach Mike Keenan helped cure him of that habit, although he makes the occasional exception.&ldquo;There are still times,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if I think my team needs to be picked up, I&rsquo;ll go for the big hit and I don&rsquo;t care if I get caught out of position.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0011-01

Bruising Marchment Oil City Hitman

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div>Twenty-nine-goal gunners have never looked so good or been so hard to find.A total of IO players-including the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; Jaromir Jagr. Boston Bruins&rsquo; Cam Neely, St. Louis Blues&rsquo; Brett Hull and Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; Sergei Fedorov-were on pace for the magical mark with eight or more goals after 12 games.What&rsquo;s so magical about 29 goals?Well, 29 goals in 48 games is the equivalent of hitting the 50-goal standard in 84 games.Other players on pace at the season&lsquo;s one-quarter mark were Joe Murphy of the Chicago Blackhawks, Ray Sheppard of Detroit, Rick Tocchet of the Los Angeles Kings, Ray Ferraro of the New York Islanders, Wendel Clark of the Quebec Nordiques and Petr Klima of the Tampa Bay Lightning.Last season nine players scored 50.Here are 12 more things you need to know at the NHL&rsquo;s one-quarter point when all but one of the league&rsquo;s 26 teams had played 12 games. (The Vancouver Canucks, off to a slow start in more ways than one, had played only 11 games.)1. Scoring is down over a goal a game from the quarter-point last season, from 6.7 per game to 5.5. Why? &ldquo;Everybody&rsquo;s approaching this season as a playoff,&rdquo; said Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; goalie Bill Ranford. &ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s the bottom line.&rdquo;Oilers&rsquo; general manager Glen Sather said it takes bigger players longer to start back up after the 105day lockout layoff, although that doesn&rsquo;t explain the poor starts experienced by such stars as Wayne Gretzky (two even-strength points; and Doug Gilmour (three goals).2. Bet on the under in Buffalo games. Eight of the Sabres first 12 games ended in 2-1 scores. &ldquo;We play it too safe, trying to hang on for the tie,&rdquo; said Sabres&rsquo; coach-GM John Muckler. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the wrong attitude for this team to have.&rdquo;3. It has been the best of times for Pittsburgh and Quebec, two cities which share a tale of unmitigated success. The Penguins started on a nearly perfect 11-0-1 run, while the Nordiques had more points at the quarter-pole this 48-game season (22) than it did at the quarter-pole of last year&rsquo;s 84-game campaign (17).4. Quebec also made the biggest jump in quarter-season winning percentage, from .404 to .917. The Philadelphia Flyers showed the biggest free-fall, from .619 to .375, followed closely by the Canucks. After 11 games Vancouver was at .363, compared to .571 last season.5. Atlantic teams went fishing. None had a winning record (including the disappointing Stanley Cup-champion New York Rangers) and only one, the Florida Panthers, had a winning record against the Northeast Division.6. The Washington Capitals put their fans through capital punishment. The team scored on just six per cent of its shots and averaged fewer than two goals a game. The league averages were 9.6 and 2.8.7. The player of the quarter-season is Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Jaromir Jagr. Other top performers include Pittsburgh center Ron Francis, Chicago defenseman Chris Chelios, Boston defenseman Ray Bourque and Buffalo goalie Dominik Hasek.8. An early surprise Calder candidate is the Lach Net Monster.&rsquo; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to start jumping on my own bandwagon,&rdquo; said Bruins&rsquo; goalie Blaine Lacher, who boasted a 2.29 goals-against average in eight games, &ldquo;but if I keep playing like this I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;ll be a problem-until the playoffs. Then they&rsquo;ll start asking, &lsquo;Can he win in the playoffs?&rsquo;&rdquo;Todd Marchant of the Oilers surprised defensemen with his speed and six goals while rugged Denis Chasse of St. Louis racked up nine points, 45 penalty minutes and a plus-8.9. Teemu Selanne, Keith Tkachuk and Alexei Zhamnov of the Winnipeg Jets were all among the league&rsquo;s top 10 scorers. Problem is, the rest of the team only had 14 goals. Meanwhile, the Jets were one point out of the Central Division cellar and out of a playoff spot. The last team to miss the playoffs with three top-10 scorers was the 1961-62 Red Wings with Gordie Howe, Alex Delvecchio and Norm Ullman.10. Teams made major deals at a 2-to-1 ratio compared to last year. There were two biggies: John LeClair, Gilbert Dionne and Eric Desjardins from the Montreal Canadiens to Philadelphia for Mark Recchi; and Grant Fuhr, Denis Tsygurov and Philippe Boucher from Buffalo to Los Angeles for Alexei Zhitnik, Robb Stauber and Charlie Huddy. The only comparable deal in 1993-94 was a three-way trade featuring the Rangers, Hartford Whalers and Blackhawks involving, among others, Steve Larmer, Bryan Marchment and Patrick Poulin.11. Ken Wregget started every game in goal for Pittsburgh through the first quarter. So did Patrick Roy in Montreal and Trevor Kidd for the Calgary Flames.12. Several prominent players were missing in action. Craig Simpson of Buffalo, Neal Broten of the Dallas Stars, Bob Kudelski of Florida, Chris Pronger of the Whalers, Radek Bonk of the Ottawa Senators and Scott Stevens of the New Jersey Devils each accomplished little. &#9632;

In 1995, 29 in 48=50

<div class="byline">By Kevin Dupont</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011708/7316801-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="379" height="532"></div>One month into the downsized NHL season, some random thoughts and potshots with winter &rsquo;95 soon to be a fleeting memory:&#9633; One minute Bobby Holik is going to be an NHL superstar with the Hartford Whalers, the next he&rsquo;s skating with Mike Peluso and Randy McKay, on a combination New Jersey Devils&rsquo; coach Jacques Lemaire jokingly refers to as his &ldquo;goon line.&rdquo; Funny. Except if you&rsquo;re Holik.&#9633; Will the last ex-Edmonton Oiler left standing in Los Angeles please fold up the lawn chairs and put away the shuffleboard equipment. Dishing away the likes of Alexei Zhitnik and Luc Robitaille is not two giant steps toward a Stanley Cup.&#9633; Tired of the neutral zone trap? Ditto Tom McVie, the Bruins&rsquo; assistant coach, who suggests this novel concept for such boring games: &ldquo;You let everyone into the building for free, then make them pay to get out. You&rsquo;d make a fortune.&rdquo;&#9633; Alexei Yashin. Pavol Demitra. Alexandre Daigle. Radek Bonk. I don&rsquo;t care if the Ottawa Senators win only five games this season (am I being generous?), it&rsquo;s finally a franchise to take seriously. I think John Ferguson deserves more credit than a lot of neonie realize.&#9633; If you see Dmitri Kvartalnov somewhere in the Swiss Alps, pass along this address: 150 Causeway Street, Boston, MA, 02114. Tell him all is forgiven and there&rsquo;s a vacancy-a huge vacancy-on left wing.&#9633; Pavel Bure for Scott Stevens? Yeah, okay. And here&rsquo;s another: Jeremy Roenick for Al Maclnnis, not to mention Jaromir Jagr for Ray Bourque and the island of Manhattan for a few strings of beads.&#9633; I&rsquo;m so old, I remember when NHL linesmen helped referees make the blatant calls that happened beyond the refs field of vision. But hey, that&rsquo;s when referees and linesmen were working for nearly the same money.&#9633; In Finland, the top scorer on each team wears a gold helmet. How about this in the NHL? The lowest-producing forward on each team skates with a dunce cap, or wears his numbers (0-0-0) across the back of his sweater.&#9633; If you see numbers (0-0-0) across the back of his sweater.&#9633; By this time next year, the new Montreal Forum will be up and running, as well as the Palladium in Ottawa and the Shawmut Center in Boston. Cry if you must, but think about this: How many times after going to a game have you gone home and talked about the building?<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021284/7316794-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="506" height="880"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Juneau</figcaption></div>&#9633; Mark Tinordi will be lucky if he leaves hockey without being remembered as hockey&rsquo;s Jack Tatum. Legitimate hitters do not have to be headhunters.&#9633; Now do the Rangers realize they didn&rsquo;t have to shovel all that money to Mark Messier?&#9633; I want to see a team in Denver and I want to see it tomorrow. And if it means moving the Winnipeg Jets there, I want to see it today.&#9633; Am 1 wrong, or is Joe Juneau fast becoming the Craig Janney of the Washington Capitals. That doesn&rsquo;t make him a bad player. It just makes him a top-notch second-liner making first-line money.&#9633; The Toronto Maple Leafs have all the skill anyone would want with Doug Gilmour and Mats Sundin. Now, if they want to win, they&rsquo;ll go out and get Trevor Linden.&#9633; The sagging attendance figures around Canada, especially in Vancouver and Edmonton, say the folks up there took the lockout personally. Good for you. I like a country with passion and a sense of right and wrong. We used to be that way, too. Now send us Alan Eagleson, please.&#9633; The NHL wants to get its game going overseas with a Pan-European Super League (shape, schedule and format to be announced). I don&rsquo;t know about you, but I&rsquo;m not sure PESL (pronounced peasel) is the best name they could find.&#9633; The 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team is now incorporated and known as Miracle on Ice Enterprises. No lie. For the right price, they&rsquo;ll come and do a gig at a rink near you. Just make sure there&rsquo;s enough Geritol on ice.&#9633; No Mario Lemieux. No Kevin Stevens. No Tom Barrasso. You just knew Eddie Johnston would find a way to make it work. &#9632;

f0014-01

It’s time to take Senators seriously

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div>Don&rsquo;t let Mike Ridley&rsquo;s low profile fool you into thinking he&rsquo;s not a high-octane player.Ridley&rsquo;s offensive peers are the likes of Dino Ciccarelli, Ron Francis and Mike Gartner. He outscored all of them the past four years, averaging 73 points a season.Shocked? Don&rsquo;t be.&ldquo;He has been one of the better players in that Patrick Division for years,&rdquo; said Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; general manager Cliff Fletcher.The Leafs were looking for depth at center when they acquired Ridley from the Washington Capitals for winger Rob Pearson on draft day.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011344/7316832-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="578" height="788"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Ridley is the Capitals&rsquo; third-leading all-time scorer.</figcaption></div>Ridley, 31, has provided that and more over an amazingly consistent, if anonymous, career. He has nine consecutive 20-goal seasons, is strong on faceoffs and committed defensively. He was one of seven players who led his team last season in power-play and shorthanded goals.But his name doesn&rsquo;t conjure up images of greatness because for all the goals he has scored-256 entering this season-fame has never been a driving motivation.&ldquo;This is my 10th year, so l&rsquo;m not trying to make some kind of name for myself now,&rdquo; he said.It&rsquo;s unlikely he will.Toronto reporters scurried off to Sweden to track down Mats Sundin after the blockbuster Wendel Clark trade was announced on draft day. Ridley, acquired moments later, wandered into Toronto with all the fanfare of an Egyptian nomad in a sandstorm.Ridley&rsquo;s presence allowed Leafs&rsquo; coach Pat Bums to move Sundin to right wing on a line with Doug Gilmour. The Leafs&rsquo; original plan projected Sundin backing up Gilmour at center, but a lack of scoring necessitated a change.&ldquo;(Ridley) gives Pat the flexibility of moving Mats to the wing, which couldn&rsquo;t have been done without Ridley,&rdquo; Fletcher said. The ripple effect allowed left winger Dave Andreychuk to move to Ridley&rsquo;s line Feb. 6. The pair was still together five games later.Sundin, riding Gilmour&rsquo;s shotgun, led the team with 14 points after 15 games. Andreychuk and Ridley were tied for second, each with four goals and 11 points, one ahead of Gilmour.But there was a shuffling of the lines after a 4-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers. Ridley was moved to the third line-flanked by right winger Terry Yake and left winger Kent Man-derville-before a Feb. 18 game against the St. Louis Blues.Ridley broke into the NHL in 1985 as a free agent with the New York Rangers after being named top player in Canadian university hockey with the Manitoba Bisons.Two years later he was shipped to Washington, where he found a year-round home and eventually became the club&rsquo;s third-leading all-time scorer.&ldquo;Sometimes you didn&rsquo;t notice if the guy ended the night with four points or a couple of goals,&rdquo; said former Capitals&rsquo; teammate Randy Burridge. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just the way he plays.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0017-01

Ridley delivers consistency and anonymity

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-021031/7316870-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="574" height="911"><figcaption class="caption-body">Guy Hebert</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011380/7316877-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="163" height="161"></div>The Mighty Ducks of I Anaheim&rsquo;s goalies went into last season fully pre pared to give up four or five goals and skate off the ice knowing they had done their best.But a remarkably disciplined and gritty defense helped the Mighty Ducks finish as one of eight teams with a goals-against average under 3.00. Their goalies had a combined save percentage over .900.This year? Guy Hebert&rsquo;s great numbers have turned to mush, and his average bulged as high as 4.79.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s kind of like reverse order,&rdquo; Hebert said. &ldquo;This is what we thought would happen last year. What&rsquo;s important this year is how many wins we get. Let the numbers fall where they may. 1 think (former Duck Ron Tugnutt) and I said that all last year, and (Mikhail Shtalenkov) too.&ldquo;Neither me nor Mike ever feel the average is reflection of what we do. When it&rsquo;s good, it&rsquo;s a result of our team defense, going down to block shots, playing the trap.&rdquo;Hebert&rsquo;s play faltered as the trust between a goalie and the defense in front of him became strained.He made a career-high 43 saves against the Edmonton Oilers Feb. 12 and was the No. 1 star. But the Ducks were shut out 2-0 by Bill Ranford.A goalie can do only so much.&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve had to make incredible saves,&rdquo; said right winger Peter Douris. &ldquo;Of all the things you could say about our team, you don&rsquo;t hear anybody saying our goaltending isn&rsquo;t good.&rdquo;Coach Ron Wilson has been alternating goalies, in part because of the shortened season-and maybe because neither deserves to face so much rubber night after night.&ldquo;It has been difficult for our goalies,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re facing a lot of quality shots and it forces them to back into the net because they don&rsquo;t trust the defense. It&rsquo;s not a reflection of the goaltenders&rsquo; play; it&rsquo;s a reflection of the people playing in front of them.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Rookie left winger Paul Kariya had to sit out a Feb. 12 game at Edmonton because of a sore back that was diagnosed as a sprain. He had seven points in seven games, but was held without a point in his next four. One reason is he&rsquo;s getting attention from every opponent. Kariya wondered if his back problem might be &ldquo;just cumulative. I&rsquo;ve had a lot of crosschecks,&rdquo; he said.Defenseman Tom Kurvers was acquired to bolster the power play, but the power play was the NHL&rsquo;s worst and Kurvers was struggling defensively. Despite scoring three goals, he was minus-8. &ldquo;The first four games he was fine,&rdquo; Ron Wilson said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to see Tommy get a little desperate in his play. It&rsquo;s not exactly that he&rsquo;s too comfortable, maybe he&rsquo;s sort of frozen. He&rsquo;s thinking so much that he has over-analyzed his own play.&rdquo;&mdash;Robyn Norwood<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03723/7316863-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="577" height="911"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tom Kurvers</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0018-02

Defense resting, so goalies getting no rest this season

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-04463/7316908-1-eng-US/f0018-042.jpg" title="f0018-04" width="161" height="161"></div>It&rsquo;s a unique season in the NHL, so why not make a unique move?The Boston Bruins did so on Feb. 16, when word leaked out of Stockholm that they would sign 35-year-old former Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; right winger Mats Naslund to a contract for the balance of the season, conditional on him passing a physical.Naslund has been out of the NHL since 1990 and out of organized hockey since last spring. He is expected to earn about $400,000 (U.S.) for the balance of this season.&ldquo;We think this is worth it,&rdquo; said Bruins&rsquo; general manager Harry Sinden said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a world-class player.&rdquo;In any other season, Naslund wouldn&rsquo;t have bothered rejoining the NHL and said he doubts he&rsquo;ll return next year. Current conditions, however, make it worth the trip.&ldquo;If it hadn&rsquo;t been for the lockout and the short season, I probably wouldn&rsquo;t be doing this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Otherwise, there would be no interest on my part. The travel schedule, with all the games in the east, made it easy for me, too.&rdquo;He said it may take time for him to find his NHL groove. &ldquo;My weight is not up,&rdquo; he said Feb. 16. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been skating every day with the junior team I&rsquo;ve been coaching. If I&rsquo;m a week away or 10 days, I don&rsquo;t know. It&rsquo;s up to Boston to decide.&rdquo;The Bruins are renting Naslund, who has been training horses in Sweden, in hopes the former 100-point scorer can bolster a spotty offense. He&rsquo;ll probably become the newest candidate to play the left side on the Adam Oates-Cam Neely line. Mariusz Czerkawski (twice), Mikko Makela and Ted Donato all had opportunities in Boston&rsquo;s first 12 games, but none could hold the job.&ldquo;We need someone to help Adam and Cam, particularly on the power play,&rdquo; Sinden said.In eight seasons with the Canadiens from 1982-83 to 1989-90, Naslund scored 243 goals and 612 points in 617 games. He also played for Sweden&rsquo;s gold-medal team at the 1994 Winter Olympics.NOTEBOOK: Less than 10 days after he asked the Bruins to trade him, Boston promoted goalie John Blue from the Providence Bruins of the American League to the parent club because No. 1 goalie Blaine Lacher strained a hamstring&hellip;Paul Stanton, who made a similar request the same day as Blue, got his wish when Boston dealt him to the New York Islanders for future considerations.Boston embarked on an eight-game road trip with a 2-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Feb. 12, but a 5-3 loss two nights later against the Pittsburgh Penguins infuriated nearly everyone. &ldquo;We should be ashamed of ourselves, after the way we&rsquo;ve been playing,&rdquo; said captain Ray Bourque. &ldquo;We just let them come at us.&rdquo;&mdash;Mike Loftus &#9632;

f0018-04

Naslund airlifted to prop up souttering offensive attack

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011275/7316946-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="564" height="969"><figcaption class="caption-body">Craig Muni</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02934/7316939-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="158" height="159"></div>About the same time the Buffalo Sabres got the defenseman they needed in a trade, they lost two more to injuries.The day after they traded away two young rearguards in the deal that brought offensive defenseman Alexei Zhitnik, defensive defenseman Charlie Huddy and backup goaltender Robb Stauber to Buffalo, the Sabres lost Craig Muni and Ken Sutton.Muni suffered a severe hamstring pull and Sutton fractured the index finger on his right hand in a 2-1 loss Feb. 15 to the New York Rangers. Those injuries came just five days after the Sabres lost defenseman Doug Houda to a tom tendon in his left hand during a 2-1 loss to the New York Islanders.Normally, injuries to the defense were not a problem to the Sabres this season. They were looking for ways to get Philippe Boucher more ice time and Denis Tsygurov more development prior to the injuries, but those players went to the Los Angeles Kings, along with goalie Grant Fuhr.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll just have to get through it,&rdquo; said Sabres&rsquo; coach-general manager John Muckler. &ldquo;We got two defensemen in the deal and we expected to play Zhitnik a lot. Charlie is a veteran. He can handle the work.&rdquo;Zhitnik should help the attack, especially in carrying the puck out of the defensive zone and on the power play.NOTEBOOK: The Sabres&rsquo; offense continued to fire blanks through mid-February. Alex Mogilny had four goals in 13 games, three on the power play. None were game winners and none came against teams above .500. Derek Plante had just one goal in 13 games as did Craig Simpson and Yuri Khmylev.&mdash;Jim Kelley &#9632;

f0019-01

Hurts haunt rearguards

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-03623/7316977-1-eng-US/f0019-032.jpg" title="f0019-03" width="159" height="160"></div>When the tally reached 10, Calgary Flames&rsquo; coach Dave King stopped talking about injuries.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m trying not to think about it,&rdquo; King said. &ldquo;If you do, you can turn a short season into an awfully long one.&rdquo;The Flames&rsquo; early-season injury woes forced King into doing what he does best-improvise a lineup from night to night.For one game-a Feb. 13 date with the St. Louis Blues-the damage report read like this: Defensively, they were missing Phil Housley, Frank Musil and Trent Yawney. Up front they were without Gary Roberts, Michael Nylander, Ron Stem, Sheldon Kennedy, Sandy McCarthy, Kelly Kisio and Todd Hlushko, a minor-league call-up.Against the Blues, the Flames had five minor-leaguers in the lineup plus three players who started the season in the press box.Three days later, McCarthy was back in the lineup after recovering from his knee injury and a hernia operation.To King, it appeared as if the Flames&rsquo; players were using the injuries unconsciously as a means of excusing average performance. The Flames were 6-5-2.Following the 4-2 loss to the Blues, King said: &ldquo;We need more guys to be more competitive. The first thing you have to have is a love to win. The second thing is you have to hate to lose. If you think about that long enough, you begin to understand the difference.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Flames received a scare when center Robert Reichel was rear-ended into the boards by Denis Chasse of St Louis. Reichel went in head-first, but escaped with seven stitches in his forehead and a headache&hellip;Gary Roberts made a side trip to Cleveland to consult with a specialist about the burners he&rsquo;d been experiencing in his neck and shoulders following contact. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t seem to be getting any better,&rdquo; Roberts said. &ldquo;We want to see if it is more than just the nerve damage that occurred last season.&rdquo;&mdash;Eric Duhatschek &#9632;

f0019-03

King of pain experiencing some temporary difficulty

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-05360/7317008-1-eng-US/f0019-052.jpg" title="f0019-05" width="558" height="982"><figcaption class="caption-body">Patrick Poulin</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-04476/7317015-1-eng-US/f0019-042.jpg" title="f0019-04" width="158" height="159"></div>Chicago Blackhawks general manager Bob Pulford isn&rsquo;t known as a wheeler-dealer. Yet it&rsquo;s six of Pulford&rsquo;s deals over the past two years that have helped make the Hawks younger, quicker, more skilled and ultimately better.Since February of 1993, Pulford has acquired Joe Murphy, Patrick Poulin, Gary Suter, Paul Ysebaert, Tony Amonte and Bernie Nicholls at the expense of Igor Kravchuk, Dean McAmmond, Steve Larmer, Bryan Marchment, Jocelyn Lemieux, Frantisek Kucera, Brian Noonan and Stephane Matteau.That&rsquo;s six players with the ability to make an impact offensively in exchange for one. Larmer was 32 and wanted out of Chicago anyway.All six of those pickups played key roles in helping the Hawks get off to a 8-4-1 start.&ldquo;There was no master plan,&rdquo; Pulford said. &ldquo;But the one thing we were worried about was we felt we were getting too old. We wanted to get younger and by doing so we felt we&rsquo;d also get faster.&rdquo;Pulford admits he has had to sacrifice much of the Hawks&rsquo; physicalness in order to acquire the skilled players.&ldquo;Maybe that&rsquo;s a bit of a hole on our team now, although (Bob) Probert would certainly fill a lot of those problems,&rdquo; Pulford said.NOTEBOOK: Bob Probert cleared a hurdle in his comeback attempt when his deportation case was terminated by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. The hearing took place Jan. 30, although the INS didn&rsquo;t acknowledge Probert&rsquo;s case had been closed until Feb. 15. Probert still must get approval from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to play once he completes his substance-abuse program.The Hawks gave up on defenseman Karl Dykhuis, their 1990 No. 1 draft pick, trading him to the Philadelphia Flyers Feb. 16 for minor-league rearguard Bob Wilkie&hellip;It will take three months to level Chicago Stadium. Demolition began Feb. 3.&mdash;Tim Sassone &#9632;

f0019-05

Trader Bob dealing well

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011167/7317046-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="159" height="160"></div>Bob Gainey&rsquo;s line juggling wasn&rsquo;t questioned last year.There was no need to when the Stars were rolling up a franchise-best 42 wins. But with the team off to a horrible start in the 1995 season, the musical chairs strategy is under the microscope, even by Gainey.&ldquo;Some of these things are problems individuals have and some of them are inflicted upon them by me when we change people around and put people in different areas,&rdquo; Gainey said. &ldquo;It creates a little hesitancy and confusion, so 1 have to take some responsibility.&rdquo;But Gainey added that the players also needed to shoulder some of the blame.&ldquo;Is the problem, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m not playing well, because of the people who are around me,&rsquo; or should it be, T need to play well and bring the people around me up with me&rsquo;&rdquo;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a Catch-22,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re playing well, then you&rsquo;re not going to want to change things. But if you&rsquo;re not playing well, how do you justify keeping a line together?&rdquo;The hottest line of late may have resulted from the largest changes. Dave Gagner was moved from right wing to center, Trent Klatt from left wing to right wing and Mike Kennedy from right wing to left wing. They accounted for 24 shots and four goals in their first two games together.NOTEBOOK: Dave Gagner signed a four-year contract extension worth a total of $5.4 million&hellip;In a 60 loss to the Calgary Flames Feb. 11, the Stars drew game-long boos and even a few articles of debris from a sold-out crowd at Reunion Arena. Last season, the fans rarely booed. &ldquo;It was definitely noticeable,&rdquo; said right winger Russ Courtnall. &ldquo;They had every right, but no we didn&rsquo;t hear that last year.&rdquo;They haven&rsquo;t stayed away, though, with the 16,924-seat Reunion Arena a sellout for four of the first six home games, despite the Stars&rsquo; 1-5-0 record at home.&mdash;Mike Heika &#9632;

f0020-01

Gainey’s constant changes fail to net winning results

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03557/7317077-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="561" height="981"><figcaption class="caption-body">Terry Carkner</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02805/7317084-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="156" height="156"></div>As the Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; player representative, defenseman Terry Carkner endured head-aches and stress during the lockout.The stress and anxiety returned with a force after the Feb. 4 game when the Red Wings informed him he would not play in any more games until his contract dispute was settled.Carkner believes he renegotiated his deal to a two-year contract worth $800,000 a season. The deal, he and agent Larry Kelly said, was agreed to with former general manager Bryan Murray last spring. But the Red Wings contend there is no signed agreement and senior vice-president Jimmy Devellano offered Carkner a two-year deal worth $600,000 a season.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re still paying him,&rdquo; Devellano said, &ldquo;but we have no record of any new contract.&rdquo;The league requested all documents from the Red Wings. Carkner supplied the league with a letter from Murray dated in September-after Murray was let go-that says the two parties had agreed to a new contract. If the league and NHL Players&rsquo; Association cannot come to a solution, an arbitrator could be called in.&ldquo;I was always under the opinion that I had a contract,&rdquo; Carkner said.&ldquo;We agreed to the new deal in the grey area when Bryan was fired. As far as I&rsquo;m concerned, I have a deal.&rdquo;This would have been Carkner&rsquo;s option year, but since he did not sign his option papers, the Wings could only play him in five games before being forced to sit the defenseman out. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve definitely had enough of the business aspect of this game,&rdquo; Carkner said.NOTEBOOK: Sergei Fedorov&rsquo;s four-goal performance in Detroit&rsquo;s 44 tie with the Los Angeles Kings Feb. 12 was a personal best. Fedorov had a chance to win the game with a penalty shot in overtime, but was stopped by Kelly Hrudey&hellip;Bob Rouse needed more than 30 stitches to close a cut to the back of his right ear after teammate Slava Kozlov&rsquo;s skate cut him during a Feb. 14 practice.&mdash;Cynthia Lambert &#9632;

f0020-03

No contract for Carkner

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-04359/7317122-1-eng-US/f0020-042.jpg" title="f0020-04" width="557" height="970"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bill Ranford</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-05200/7317115-1-eng-US/f0020-052.jpg" title="f0020-05" width="159" height="158"></div>There is grey hair at the temples now and Bill Ranford just turned 28.Goaltending will do that to you. Losing will do it quicker. And Ranford has done too much of that in the last two years.But good things come to those who wait.It took two years and 72 losses, but the Edmonton Oilers appear ready to help out their go-to goalie. He looks ready to reciprocate, even if it doesn&rsquo;t sound like it.&ldquo;Every day has been a mystery out there, just trying to stop the puck and feeling uncomfortable doing it,&rdquo; Ranford said after a 4-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs Feb. 15. &ldquo;l&rsquo;m still not there.&rdquo;Ranford has been there for the last two years, waiting for his teammates to arrive, all the while enduring the 45-shot barrages, the standard 3-1 defeats, the ballooning goals-against average, the plummeting win-loss record, the frustration of knowing that help was not on the way any time soon. Through it all he was their runaway MVP, the reason they weren&rsquo;t even worse.&ldquo;When you go through a time where you think you can&rsquo;t win,&rdquo; said Oilers&rsquo; assistant coach Ron Lowe, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s very tough. But one thing about Billy, you never saw him quit.&rdquo;Ranford was 5-4-2 this season, but more importantly was 3-0-2 in their Oilers&rsquo; six-game unbeaten joyride to the top of the Pacific Division.NOTEBOOK: Jason Arnott responded to his first benching as an Oiler with a powerful two-goal performance against Toronto Feb. 15. He had sat out the third period of a 2-0 win over the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim Feb. 12&hellip;Attendance at the Edmonton Coliseum reached another franchise low of 10,309 against the Winnipeg Jets on Feb. 9.&mdash;Dan Barnes &#9632;

f0020-04

Ranford’s rut no problem

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02544/7317160-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="585" height="909"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brian Benning</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01927/7317167-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="162" height="160"></div>All general manager Bryan Murray did was make a few phone calls and buy the contract of a minor league defenseman. But those actions indicated a shakeup on the Florida Panthers&rsquo; blueline was imminent.Murray is unhappy with the sloppy play of his defense, which is lacking someone who can play the point on the power play. He purchased the contract of Jason Woolley from the Detroit Vipers of the International League and confirmed he had discussions with his former employers, the Detroit Red Wings, about the availability of veteran Terry Carkner.Who can blame Murray for being frustrated? Brian Benning, minus-7, and Joe Cirella, minus-4, sat out three straight games and Gord Murphy played his poorest game of the season Feb. 15 against the Ottawa Senators.Woolley, a 6-foot, 185-pounder who was a third-round draft pick by the Washington Capitals in 1989, had nine goals and 36 points in 48 games with the Vipers.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s an offensive player whose skating is good enough and he made an additional case for himself because we need offense on the power play from the left point,&rdquo; Murray said.Along with the injured Keith Brown-who was due back in late February-and Dallas Eakins, who was recalled Feb. 8 from the Cincinnati Cyclones of the IHL, the Panthers had 10 defenseman.And that didn&rsquo;t include the possible addition of Carkner, whom Murray acquired from the Philadelphia Flyers when he was the Red Wings&rsquo; GM.Murray said he was busy working the phones.&ldquo;At this point I&rsquo;ve talked to most every team,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;We have nine guys on defense and we&rsquo;ll have 10 when Keith (Brown) gets back. Obviously, we can&rsquo;t keep 10 defensemen. We&rsquo;ll keep eight and decisions will be based on performance.&rdquo;Eakins will likely be headed back to Cincinnati. The question was whether the Panthers would go with younger defensemen such as Paul Laus, Brent Severyn and Woolley over veterans such as Cirella and Benning.NOTEBOOK: Leading scorer Stu Barnes was cut Feb. 15 above and below the left eye by the stick of the Ottawa Senators&rsquo; Pat Elynuik. He is sidelined until the first week of March&hellip;Bob Kudelski had just two goals-both in one game against the Tampa Bay Lightning-in his last 25 games. He was sat out for three consecutive games.Right winger Scott Mellanby, the only Panther to score 30 goals last year, was struggling with only one goal&hellip;Left winger Jeff Daniels was assigned to Detroit of the IHL.Goalie Mark Fitzpatrick recorded his second shutout as a Panther, a 2-0 blanking of Ottawa.&mdash;Dave Joseph<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-03322/7317153-1-eng-US/f0021-032.jpg" title="f0021-03" width="583" height="907"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mark Fitzpatrick</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0021-02

Murray hopes to shake up defense corps with moves

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-04233/7317198-1-eng-US/f0021-042.jpg" title="f0021-04" width="158" height="157"></div>There&rsquo;s no denying the statistics.The Hartford Whalers finished 22-23-5 last season when Geoff Sanderson scored at least a point. They were 4-24-4 when he didn&rsquo;t.&ldquo;Obviously, when he scores we have a little more success,&rdquo; Whalers&rsquo; head coach Paul Holmgren said after his club beat the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 Feb. 15. &ldquo;I talked to him (Feb. 14) and he was beside himself. He didn&rsquo;t know what he was doing wrong, what he was doing right. He was lost. He needed the reinforcement he got.&rdquo;The reinforcement was Sanderson&rsquo;s third career hat trick and the Whalers&rsquo; first at home since Feb. 28, 1993.Sanderson, who scored a club-leading 87 goals over the previous two seasons, had scored only one goal in 10 previous games before doubling his season output against Patrick Roy.&ldquo;Andrew Cassels and myself have been struggling all year,&rdquo; Sanderson said after the Whalers snapped a six-game winless streak. &ldquo;Goal scoring comes in waves and when your wave comes in you&rsquo;ve got to ride it as long as you can.&lsquo;That first goal I scored lifted a ton off my back. It&rsquo;s a weird game. I just came to the rink and said I&rsquo;m not going to worry about it. I&rsquo;m just going to have some fun.&rdquo;In early February, Holmgren was begging Sanderson to shoot more. He was only getting a couple of shots on goal per game. Against Montreal, Sanderson had a whopping 11 shots.Putting Steven Rice on a line with Cassels and Sanderson paid dividends for Holmgren.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve lost so many games (six) by one goal. And when you&rsquo;re a scorer, it&rsquo;s such a disappointment,&rdquo; Sanderson said. &ldquo;Cass and me felt like we were the biggest disappointments in the league this year. That&rsquo;s not a lot of fun.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Whalers held some intense trade talks on a three-way deal with the St. Louis Blues and Vancouver Canucks to acquire center Craig Janney, sources close to the talks said. A holdup over Janney&rsquo;s salary and Murray Craven&rsquo;s free-agency status could kill the deal.Rumors persisted that right winger Pat Verbeek was being dangled as trade bait by the Whalers. He scored both Hartford goals in a 5-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins Feb. 16.Defensemen Glen Wesley and Chris Pronger were supposed to be the offensive leaders on the Hartford blueline this season, but it&rsquo;s Frantisek Kucera who has been registering the points. Wesley and Pronger had combined for one goal and three points in 23 games. Kucera, meanwhile, had two goals and nine points in 14 games.&mdash;Jeff Jacobs &#9632;

f0021-04

Sanderson’s timely hat trick provides much-needed boost

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-011054/7317229-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="162" height="160"></div>All Kelly Hrudey needed was a trade rumor to get his competitive juices flowing.Even before the Los Angeles Kings acquired goalie Grant Fuhr and defensemen Denis Tsygurov and Philippe Boucher from the Buffalo Sabres in a Feb. 14 trade, Hrudey was playing his best hockey in a long time. The deal sent defensemen Alexei Zhitnik and Charlie Huddy and goalie Robb Stauber to the Sabres.&ldquo;I just love competition,&rdquo; Hrudey said. &ldquo;I think my competitiveness has always been my No. 1 quality. I like to play and I like to win.&rdquo;Kings&rsquo; fans were upset with the deal, flooding radio shows with protests over the loss of Zhitnik, a slick skater who averaged 12 goals and 50 points his first two NHL seasons.That Hrudey was hot-he had stopped 128 of 135 shots and was undefeated over a three-game period-had fans wondering why the Kings would trade for another goalie.General manager Sam McMaster defended the deal, saying depth in goal is crucial with the Kings playing on back-to-back days 10 times.&ldquo;I worry about the injury issue,&rdquo; McMaster said. &ldquo;You spend millions to build your franchise and an injury (to a goalie) could ruin your year. This gives coach (Barry) Melrose the opportunity to put in a top-notch goalie every night of the week.&rdquo;McMaster said he would not have made the deal unless both Boucher, 21, and Tsygurov, 23, were included.NOTEBOOK: Newly acquired Randy Burridge was installed on Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s line and picked up his first goal Feb. 12 against the Detroit Red Wings. &ldquo;He has always been a spark plug and I thought we needed a little bit of a spark,&rdquo; said Sam McMaster&hellip;Gretzky took 23 shots without scoring a goal in an eight-game period.Right winger Jari Kurri became the second European and 98th player to appear in 1,000 career NHL games when he played Feb. 11 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.&mdash;Rick Sadowski &#9632;

f0022-01

Hrudey views Fuhr trade as exciting challenge

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03530/7317260-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="572" height="984"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mark Lamb</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02741/7317267-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="162" height="160"></div>They&rsquo;ve had a flower and a rocket. Now, the most famous franchise in hockey has a lamb.The Montreal Canadiens acquired Mark Lamb, a stocky center not known for scoring goals, from the Philadelphia Flyers for an undisclosed amount of cash Feb. 10.The Canadiens are Lamb&rsquo;s sixth NHL team and third in just more than a year.&ldquo;Nobody wants to be known as a suitcase,&rdquo; said the 30-year-old Lamb. &ldquo;The circumstances weren&rsquo;t right for myself (in Philadelphia).&rdquo;They should be in Montreal, where he is reunited with coach Jacques Demers. Lamb played one season for the Detroit Red Wings under Demers.Drafted by the Calgary Flames in 1982, Lamb is best known for his five seasons with Edmonton, helping the Oilers win a Stanley Cup in 1990.He was claimed in the 1992 expansion draft by the Ottawa Senators where he briefly served as captain before being dealt to Philadelphia late last season for Claude Boivin and a minor leaguer.Lamb said he noticed an immediate difference between the Canadiens, Stanley Cup winners in 1993, and the Flyers, who have failed to make the playoffs five straight seasons.&ldquo;This team doesn&rsquo;t think about making the playoffs-they think about winning the Stanley Cup,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;You can tell the difference on a team that has won the Cup. It&rsquo;s in the attitude. There&rsquo;s a certain cockiness in a good way that shows confidence.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Rookie Brian Savage&rsquo;s knee injury forced the Canadiens to seek help from their American League team in Fredericton. Craig Darby was summoned for a three-game stint before being returned and replaced by Craig Conroy&hellip;Goalie Patrick Roy, reflecting on the Canadiens&rsquo; mediocre first quarter, said expectations may be t&infin; high for this season&rsquo;s team. &ldquo;Maybe we&rsquo;re not as good as people think,&rdquo; Roy said. &ldquo;The team right now can&rsquo;t finish in the top group of teams. We&rsquo;re going to fight for a playoff spot.&rdquo;&mdash;Herb Zurkowsky &#9632;

f0022-03

Lamb sees difference

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-04361/7317305-1-eng-US/f0022-042.jpg" title="f0022-04" width="545" height="929"><figcaption class="caption-body">Scott Stevens</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-05272/7317298-1-eng-US/f0022-052.jpg" title="f0022-05" width="152" height="153"></div>From super hero to joker in one season? Not if Scott Stevens can help it. After a memorable season in which he led the league at plus-53, finished second to Ray Bourque in the closest Norris Trophy voting ever and walked away with a four-year deal worth $17.1 million, Stevens found himself searching to regain lost form.With one quarter of the shortened schedule over, the New Jersey Devils&rsquo; captain was minus-6 with no goals and one assist.&ldquo;I think a lot of times I&rsquo;ve been trying to do too much,&rdquo; Stevens said. &ldquo;Because of the person I am, that&rsquo;s always been one of my downfalls. I want to do too much.&rdquo;There was no lack of theories about his problems. They ranged from bitterness over the significant money lost during the lockout, unhappiness about being forced to play in New Jersey after signing a free-agent deal with the St. Louis Blues or the pressure of following his monster season.Coach Jacques Lemaire said he wasn&rsquo;t worried.&lsquo;The team didn&rsquo;t win or score at the start and he tried to do different things,&rdquo; Lemaire said. &lsquo;That&rsquo;s where it backed him up. Time will put him where he was. He&rsquo;s a guy who takes care of himself.&rdquo;Stevens said there was no bitterness when the Devils exercised their right to match St. Louis&rsquo; offer.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not unhappy. Not at all,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was looking forward to coming back here.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Ken Daneyko&rsquo;s fourth-degree criminal sexual contact charge was downgraded to a disorderly person offense. The case will go to municipal court in Wayne, N.J., instead of a grand jury.&mdash;Rich Chere &#9632;

f0022-04

Great Scott struggling

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01947/7317336-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="162" height="163"></div>This has been a tough season for Benoit Hogue.He has suffered a number of bumps and bruises, but the biggest hit of all was put on him by teammate Pat Flatley when they collided during a game against the Montreal Canadiens Feb. 4. Hogue missed the next game with a shoulder injury and wasn&rsquo;t effective after.&ldquo;He has been in and out,&rdquo; said coach Lome Henning of Hogue&rsquo;s play. &ldquo;When he&rsquo;s on, he&rsquo;s unbelievable. We&rsquo;d like to see him on all the time.&rdquo;Hogue had three goals in the first six games, then went without a goal over the next six. He&rsquo;s not crazy about the way he is playing.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not like I&rsquo;m not trying,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been trying to stay away from the play so I can get the puck. I need to go in, get the puck and make something happen.&rdquo;The Islanders need Hogue to play better. He is a vital player, seeing a bunch of ice time. He is a strong penalty killer and has been playing the point on the power play this season. The 28-year-old left winger had a career-high 37 goals last season, but the Islanders weren&rsquo;t happy with his inconsistent play.NOTEBOOK: Bob Nystrom&rsquo;s No. 23 will be retired in a pre-game ceremony April 1. His number will hang in Nassau Coliseum along with three legendary Islanders of the Stanley Cup era, Denis Potvin, Billy Smith and Mike Bossy. Nystrom, 42, scored the biggest goal in Islander history on May 24, 1980, the overtime goal against the Philadelphia Flyers that won the Islanders their first of four straight Stanley Cups. In his 14-year career with the team he played in 900 games and had 235 goals, 278 assists and 1,248 penalty minutes. Vladimir Malakhov has worn the No. 23 sweater for the past three seasons, but will give it up and wear 92.&mdash;Jeff Williams &#9632;

f0023-01

Islanders need more from Hogue

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02622/7317367-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="161" height="157"></div>Coach Colin Campbell had seen enough.His New York Rangers had just settled for a 2-2 with the Montreal Canadiens after blowing a third-period lead. It was another average effort in a season filled with too much mediocrity for a defending Stanley Cup champion.Campbell let his players know after the game an average effort won&rsquo;t be tolerated.&ldquo;He has been loud like that before,&rdquo; said defenseman Brian Leetch, &ldquo;but maybe he was loud for a longer period of time.&rdquo;Virtually every night, Campbell has seen his team make just enough bone-head plays, or get lazy at just the wrong time, to make this season a mammoth struggle.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re playing like a .500 team right now,&rdquo; Leetch said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re kind of just hanging around, collecting some points, but not playing great.&rdquo;Fortunately, not great has been good enough in the weak Atlantic Division, where 14 points in 14 games had the Rangers in first place. That&rsquo;s small consolation for Campbell, however.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a trend developing and it&rsquo;s quite obvious,&rdquo; Campbell said. &ldquo;We work hard for a win on the road, then we come home and relax. When we relax we get sloppy.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Left winger Adam Graves was hospitalized for two days for treatment of a severe infection in a lacerated elbow. It forced Graves to miss the Feb. 11 game at Tampa Bay, which ended his streak of 311 consecutive starts.Left winger Stephane Matteau was benched for the second and third periods of the Lightning game. &ldquo;Matty was just a little slow,&rdquo; Colin Campbell said. &ldquo;When they&rsquo;re going north, he&rsquo;s going south. We can talk about it all we want, but there comes a point when we can&rsquo;t live with more of his sluggishness.&rdquo;&hellip;Goalie Glenn Healy earned his first win since March 9 of last season in the Tampa Bay game.&mdash;Rick Carpiniello &#9632;

f0023-02

Campbell’s patience wearing thin

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-011021/7317398-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="158" height="158"></div>Fed up with losing and a lack of offensive production, Ottawa Senators&rsquo; coach Rick Bowness was threatening to lower the boom on his two young stars in the making.After the team&rsquo;s 2-0 loss to the Florida Panthers Feb. 15, which dropped its record to 1-9-2, Bowness threatenbed to sit down Alexei Yashin or Alexandre Daigle or both.&ldquo;Inconsistent play is killing us,&rdquo; Bowness said. &ldquo;Selfish play hasn&rsquo;t helped the hockey club, l&rsquo;ve had enough with a couple of guys&rsquo; attitudes on this team.&rdquo;&ldquo;There are a lot of guys playing consistent hockey who are not scoring goal. They&rsquo;re not scoring goals, but they&rsquo;re not hurting the hockey club with inconsistent play. It&rsquo;s not just a wakeup call. It&rsquo;s reality. They&rsquo;re hurting the hockey club.&ldquo;You can only scream and yell so many times, l&rsquo;ve had enough one-on-one meetings. They continue to do what they want to do. I&rsquo;m not going to tolerate it.&rdquo;Daigle had been the club&rsquo;s most consistent player through the first six games or so, but his production tailed off.Yashin has been criticized for holding on to the puck too long. He was given performance bonuses for game-tying and winning goals as part of his contract renegotiation deal.NOTEBOOK: Captain Randy Cunneyworth and alternates Chris Dahlquist and Troy Murray held an emotional players-only meeting after the Florida loss. &ldquo;The message was to start caring,&rdquo; Cunneyworth said. &ldquo;Know your role. Find something you can do for the team and your teammates.&rdquo;The Senators finally shipped out defenseman Brad Shaw, an original Senator. He was loaned to the Atlanta Knights of the International League. &ldquo;I think they all hurt, but this one probably hurts the most,&rdquo; said Shaw, who captained the junior Ottawa 67&rsquo;s to the Memorial Cup in 1984. &ldquo;I still feel I can help, but I just didn&rsquo;t get much of a chance to show that.&rdquo;&mdash;Chris Stevenson &#9632;

f0024-01

Bowness says star Alexes ‘hurting the hockey club’

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03465/7317429-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg" title="f0024-03" width="569" height="985"><figcaption class="caption-body">Eric Lindros</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02697/7317436-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="163" height="161"></div>With the exception of a few dominant games, Eric Lindros was a disappointment for the Philadelphia Flyers in the first quarter of the season.Lindros looked like he was snapping out of his slump Feb. 4 when he figured in all four goals in the Flyers&rsquo; 4-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres. But things went downhill from there.He sustained a five-stitch cut on his right cheekbone when he was clipped by Ottawa Senators&rsquo; defense-man Sean Hill&rsquo;s stick Feb. 6. Then he took 20 more stitches in his upper lip when New Jersey Devils&rsquo; Claude Lemieux high-sticked him Feb. 11.But Lindros, who had four goals and 15 points in 14 games, wasn&rsquo;t making excuses. He just played poorly, didn&rsquo;t score for six straight games and finally was pulled off the Flyers&rsquo; top line in a 4-2 loss to the Quebec Nordiques Feb. 16.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t going,&rdquo; Lindros said, &ldquo;l&rsquo;ve been out of sync for a while.&rdquo;Critics were skeptical of Lindros&rsquo; post-lockout conditioning, then he battled the flu for a couple weeks. Coach Terry Murray sat Lindros for a few shifts in a 3-0 loss to the Florida Panthers Feb. 9, then pulled him off the John LeClair/Mikael Renberg unit against the Nordiques.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t seeing the things I wanted from him,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;I have to get him going at a higher level.We have two big wingers playing at a high level and we need a center doing the same thing.&rdquo;Lindros said learning Murray&rsquo;s new system isn&rsquo;t the problem.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you can take it that far,&rdquo; Lindros said. &ldquo;Everybody has to adapt to it.&rdquo;This is Lindros&rsquo; first prolonged scoring slump in the NHL. &ldquo;But everybody goes through it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;ll be getting out of it soon.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: John LeClair had his first career hat trick in a 5-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning Feb. 14&hellip;The Flyers&rsquo; 3-1 win at New Jersey Feb. 11 ended a 13-game (0-12-1) winoless streak at the Meadowlands dating back to March 20, 1990.&mdash;Wayne Fish &#9632;

f0024-03

Tough start for Lindros

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-04303/7317474-1-eng-US/f0024-042.jpg" title="f0024-04" width="567" height="967"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tomas Sandstrom</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-05202/7317467-1-eng-US/f0024-052.jpg" title="f0024-05" width="159" height="158"></div>It was hard to find fault with anything Tomas Sandstrom did after the Pittsburgh Penguins acquired him from the Los Angeles Kings last season-mostly because it was hard to find evidence Sandstrom had done anything.He was all but invisible during the 27 regular-season games-getting six goals and 17 points-and completely vanished in the playoffs, going scoreless in six games.&ldquo;Last year was screwed up from Day 1,&rdquo; Sandstrom said. &ldquo;I go crazy when I think about it.&rdquo;The prevailing sentiment in Pittsburgh last spring was Sandstrom wouldn&rsquo;t be back this season.His contract was up and the only way the Penguins could retain rights to compensation was by offering him a 15 per-cent raise to just over $1 million. No one expected Pittsburgh general manager Craig Patrick to even consider doing that.Except Patrick, who said, &ldquo;there was never any doubt in my mind,&rdquo; he wanted Sandstrom again.After 13 games, Patrick&rsquo;s seven-figure investment in Sandstrom looked like a shrewd move.Sandstrom, who filled in on a line with John Cullen and Joe Mullen after Kevin Stevens broke his left ankle, had six goals, 12 points and was playing superbly in his own end.NOTEBOOK: Luc Robitaille had the third four-goal game of his career during a 5-2 victory against the Hartford Whalers Feb. 16&hellip; Larry Murphy earned his 916th career point Feb. 14 against the Boston Bruins to pass Bobby Orr and take over fifth place on the all-time scoring list for defensemen.A second set of x-rays on Kevin Stevens&rsquo; injured left ankle revealed a fracture that should sideline him until mid-March.&mdash;Dave Molinari &#9632;

f0024-04

Penguins stop doubting Tom

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01918/7317512-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="568" height="967"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wendel Clark</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02592/7317505-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="163" height="160"></div>Wendel Clark&rsquo;s leadership qualities have never been so evident: He picked up at least a point in each of his first 10 games.As a bonus, Joe Sakic is playing the best hockey of his career as Clark&rsquo;s center.Firmly entrenched as a Nordique, Clark can&rsquo;t seem to shake his days as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs.Clark has heard grumblings from Toronto that Maple Leafs&rsquo; coach Pat Bums feels his team was playing with less passion than last season. Are they missing Clark more than they admit?&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not up to me to comment on the situation in Toronto,&rdquo; Clark said. &ldquo;The Leafs are playing .500 hockey, but I know they&rsquo;ll bounce back.&rdquo;If Clark doesn&rsquo;t want to talk about the impact he&rsquo;s having on the Nordiques, assistant coach Joel Quenneville sure will.&ldquo;Wendel without a doubt is a very important leader,&rdquo; Quenneville said. &ldquo;He has proven he can score the important goals and force others on the team to do so themselves.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Tough guy Chris Simon is taking notes. Out with back problems, Simon said he didn&rsquo;t like opposing fighters getting nasty with a few of his teammates while he wasn&rsquo;t there to protect them. Kelly Chase of the Hartford Whalers knocked out Sylvain Lefebvre and had a couple of fights with Adam Foote while Mike Peluso of the New Jersey Devils jumped rookie Adam Deadmarsh. &ldquo;These guys seem very brave when I&rsquo;m not playing,&rdquo; Simon said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll see how they react when I&rsquo;m back.&rdquo;&hellip;An investment group in Phoenix, Ariz., the Arizona Hockey Coalition, is interested in buying the Nordiques and moving them there.&mdash;Kevin Johnston &#9632;

f0025-01

Clark makes big impact

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-03384/7317543-1-eng-US/f0025-032.jpg" title="f0025-03" width="159" height="160"></div>Although Craig Janney had 190 points the past two seasons and a career average of 1.15 points per game, his career with the St. Louis Blues is in no-man&rsquo;s-land.Coach-general manager Mike Keenan said Janney probably wouldn&rsquo;t play unless someone got injured. Keenan gave Janney a less-than-ringing endorsement when asked about his status.&ldquo;Undetermined,&rdquo; Keenan said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a Blue. That&rsquo;s about it.&rdquo;Keenan also admitted for the first time he was trying to trade Janney.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking at some of the possibilities, but there&rsquo;s not a great deal of interest in him,&rdquo; Keenan said.Keenan said salary, not skill, was the problem in trading Janney. Janney was to have earned $1.8 million if this had been a full season. Next season, Janney will top $2 million.&ldquo;He makes a hell of a lot of money,&rdquo; Keenan said. &ldquo;His salary is a deterrent.&rdquo;Although a deal with the Hartford Whalers fell through because the Whalers wanted the Blues to pick up a chunk of Janney&rsquo;s contract, the Blues might be willing to eat part of it if the deal is right. The Montreal Canadiens, who are trying to deal defenseman Mathieu Schneider, may be interested.Keenan said Janney won&rsquo;t play unless there&rsquo;s &ldquo;a drastic change&rdquo; in Janney&rsquo;s approach to his program.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s buying into something that we feel&hellip;will be successful,&rdquo; Keenan said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s resisting the change. It&rsquo;s up to him. It&rsquo;s not up to us.&rdquo;Janney. 27, had two goals and seven points in eight games.NOTEBOOK: The Blues were awaiting a league ruling in the arbitration hearing that will determine whether Murray Craven of the Vancouver Canucks is a free agent with or without compensation. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an option,&rdquo; Mike Keenan said.Although the Blues were last in the league in penalty killing going into their game with Calgary Feb. 13, they killed five penalties, including two five-minute majors, in a 4-2 win.&mdash;Dave Luecking &#9632;

f0025-03

Janney walks gangplank away from Keenan’s shin

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-05173/7317574-1-eng-US/f0025-052.jpg" title="f0025-05" width="559" height="978"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Rathje</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-04240/7317581-1-eng-US/f0025-042.jpg" title="f0025-04" width="161" height="158"></div>San Jose Sharks&rsquo; defenseman Mike Rathje is starting to live up to the billing that came with being the third overall pick in the 1992 NHL entry draft.Rathje has been brought along slowly by the Sharks. He played 47 games as a rookie last season.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a lot more confident,&rdquo; said coach Kevin Constantine. &ldquo;Last year, he would play a game where he would excite you, and then one where he didn&rsquo;t play very well. His poise with the puck, his physical play and practice habits have all improved.&rdquo;Rathje, 20, said he feels more like a part of the team now.&ldquo;They used me sparingly last year, but I learned a lot,&rdquo; Rathje said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a lot stronger, quicker and more confident.&rdquo;The NHL lockout came at a good time for Rathje, who recovered from abdominal surgery to repair a hole in his stomach wall. He played six games with the Kansas City Blades of the International League before rejoining the Sharks.The 6-foot-6, 220-pound Rathje has demonstrated he can deliver a big hit, and Constantine has used him in power-play situations because of his hard shot.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s great to get to play on power plays and kill penalties,&rdquo; Rathje said. &ldquo;I just have to stay ready and be stable out there.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: In his first two starts this season, backup goalie Wade Flaherty established a franchise record for consecutive scoreless minutes by going 116:23 between goals in back-to-back games against the Vancouver Canucks. Flaherty helped the Sharks to a 1-1 tie on Feb. 11 and a 3-1 victory on Feb. 15. He was a surprise starter in the Feb. 15 game after Arturs Irbe jammed his right foot on a step at his Bay Area home&hellip;Center Igor Larionov suffered a groin strain during the Feb. 15 game against Vancouver and was expected to miss at least two games. The Sharks were 3-15-6 when Larionov was out of their lineup last season and 30-20-10 when he played.&mdash;Mike Weaver &#9632;

f0025-05

Sophomore fitting in

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-011019/7317612-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="161" height="161"></div>Forget about fighting for first place. As the Tampa Bay Lightning moved into the second quarter of this truncated season, many of its players were fighting for their jobs.The sudden concern, which came despite a .500 start and brief stint as sole possessor of first place in the Atlantic Division, was the result of a Valentine&rsquo;s Day 5-2 massacre at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers.Trading in his kid gloves for iron fists, Terry Crisp tore into his charges for the first time in his three-year stint as Lightning coach and promised changes if things didn&rsquo;t improve.&ldquo;This is our third season and this kind of effort will no longer be tolerated.&rdquo; Crisp said. &ldquo;When you pull on that sweater, I want an effort. And if 1 don&rsquo;t get it, then by golly I&rsquo;m going to make changes.&rdquo;Crisp began making changes that night, benching second-line center Chris Gratton and rookie Alexander Selivanov. The next day, he shuffled lines for the first time this year.The most significant change came on the first line, where Selivanov was replaced by leading scorer Petr Klima. Klima had been a fixture on a line with Gratton and right winger Danton Cole, but that unit now looks more like a checking unit, with Mikael Andersson taking Klima&rsquo;s place.&ldquo;Petr has been working hard at both ends of the ice, so let&rsquo;s give him some credit,&rdquo; Crisp said. &ldquo;He has earned his spot.&rdquo;Selivanov was moved to the third line and it may not be long before he and others are moved out. In particular, Crisp appeared concerned with the play of rookies Eric Charron and Cory Cross and veterans Shawn Chambers. Marc Bergevin and Cole.NOTEBOOK: Denis Savard recorded his 800th career assist during the loss to the Flyers. Savard is 15th on the all-time list in assists&hellip;Goalie Wendell Young, who was playing this season with the International League&rsquo;s Chicago Wolves, was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins Feb. 16 for future considerations.&mdash;Roy Cummings &#9632;

f0026-01

Stragglers burned to Crisp as coach shakes up roster

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-03547/7317643-1-eng-US/f0026-032.jpg" title="f0026-03" width="573" height="983"><figcaption class="caption-body">Warren Rychel</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02689/7317650-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="158" height="158"></div>The Toronto Maple Leafs went to war this season not realizing they were short of ammunition.A mediocre start revealed several shortcomings in the lineup, notably on the blueline and in the toughness department.The latter, which was worsened by a season-ending shoulder injury to Ken Baumgartner, was partially addressed Feb. 10 when left winger Warren Rychel was acquired from the Washington Capitals for a conditional draft pick. The Capitals had picked up Rychel earlier that day from the Los Angeles Kings for left winger Randy Burridge.Rychel, 27, found out about the deal while in Toronto with the Kings preparing for a game against the Maple Leafs, but didn&rsquo;t play until Feb. 13 against the Chicago Blackhawks.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great opportunity for me to be on a winner,&rdquo; Rychel said. &ldquo;Pat Bums is a hard-nosed coach and I think I&rsquo;m his kind of player.&rdquo;Rychel piled up more than 600 penalty minutes the past two seasons, but the additions of Rick Tocchet, Troy Crowder and Matt Johnson-made him expendable.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re down two guys in Baumgartner and (Bill) Berg and we think we got a player in between them,&rdquo; said assistant general manager Bill Watters. &ldquo;We think Warren is a good mixture of both players.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Disgruntled defenseman Drake Berehowsky, scratched for seven of Toronto&rsquo;s first 13 games, has asked to be traded. The Leafs have said they&rsquo;ll try to accommodate their first-round pick in 1990, but general manager Cliff Fletcher said he wants something significant in return&hellip;Backup goaltender Damian Rhodes became the first Toronto goalie other that Felix Potvin to play a minute this season when he started Feb. 10 in Detroit. Rhodes, who won his first NHL game at Joe Louis Arena in March, 1991, stoned the Red Wings in a 2-1 triumph&hellip;Left winger Kent Man-derville was pointless in 14 games this season.&mdash;Damien Cox &#9632;

f0026-03

Tough Warren commissioned

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-04387/7317688-1-eng-US/f0026-042.jpg" title="f0026-04" width="569" height="971"><figcaption class="caption-body">Josef Beranek</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-05283/7317681-1-eng-US/f0026-052.jpg" title="f0026-05" width="160" height="157"></div>The Vancouver Canucks, who have had a history of first-round draft failures, unloaded another one when Shawn Antoski was dealt to the Philadelphia Flyers for Czech left winger Josef Beranek.Antoski was the 18th overall pick in 1990 and the Canucks&rsquo; second first-rounder behind Petr Nedved, last year&rsquo;s high-profile departure.Trevor Linden (1988) is the only contributing first-round pick still with the team since Pat Quinn took over in 1987.Antoski spent three seasons in the minors, but was no better than a fourth-liner and tough guy when he made the big club last year. The 24-year-old from Toronto left with one goal and three assists in 86 games.In Beranek, the Canucks receive skill to replace departed free agent Murray Craven. Beranek had a career-high 28 goals and 49 points last season and chipped in five goals and 10 points in 14 games this season prior to the trade.&ldquo;We had an opportunity to get a guy who has a little bit of a scoring touch.&rdquo; Quinn said. &ldquo;We gave up size and strength but we think we&rsquo;re adequate in that area.&rdquo;Beranek, 25, said he found it difficult leaving Philadelphia.&ldquo;But I look forward to playing with Vancouver,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I saw them last year play for the Stanley Cup. The last two years 1 didn&rsquo;t play playoffs.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Captain Trevor Linden recorded his 400th career point with the Canucks&rsquo; goal in a 1-1 tie with the San Jose Sharks Feb. 11&hellip; Rookie center Mike Peca, who fractured his right cheekbone with a hellacious hit on Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; Teemu Selanne Feb. 9, may only be out until early March rather than late March.&mdash;Elliott Pap &#9632;

f0026-04

Shawn gone for Beranek

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01965/7317719-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="163" height="163"></div>Two-time Norris Trophy winner Rod Langway, who hasn&rsquo;t played competitively since Feb. 21, 1993, is attempting a comeback of sorts with the Richmond Renegades of the East Coast League.Langway, 37, parted company with the Washington Capitals on less than friendly terms after the 15-year yeter-an was told he would no longer be playing every game because the club wanted to work younger legs into the lineup. Langway was six games short of his 1,000th NHL contest.Craig Laughlin, Richmond general manager and a former teammate of Langway with the Montreal Canadiens and Capitals, said Langway&rsquo;s performance would be assessed on a game-by-game basis. &ldquo;I told him I didn&rsquo;t want to put his life in jeopardy for a minor league team,&rdquo; Laughlin said.ECHL teams are allowed to dress three veterans. Langway will be used as a player and defensive tutor.Laughlin and team president Harry Feuerstein said there were no immediate aims for Langway to attempt an NHL return.The Renegades are averaging 5,700 fans a night and Feuerstein denied this was a publicity stunt to fill more seats.&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t do publicity stunts with a team that&rsquo;s in first place,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;Stunt assumes there&rsquo;s some sham involved, that something&rsquo;s wrong. The reality is Rod wants to play and promote the game.&rdquo;Langway has spent the past two years perfecting his golf game.NOTEBOOK: The Capitals completed the first quarter of their schedule winless (0-6-2) on the road. In their first 12 games overall, they scored a league-low 22 goals, only nine at even strength&hellip;The team sent video to the NHL seeking redress after defenseman Jim Johnson received a two-handed slash across his left wrist from the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; Eric Lindros Feb. 13&mdash;Dave Fay &#9632;

f0027-01

Langway long way from NHL in ECHL

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02618/7317750-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="163" height="160"></div>As they struggled to find some semblance of a defensive game, the Winnipeg Jets got a boost from an unexpected source.Nikolai Khabibulin, the 22-year-old goaltender from Sverdlovsk, Russia, made six starts in a stretch of seven games and helped the Jets post a winning record on their longest road trip of the season.Khabibulin is a rookie pro who spent the lockout with the American League&rsquo;s Springfield Falcons. He posted his first NHL win Feb. 6 in Calgary against the Flames and followed up with wins over the St. Louis Blues and Dallas Stars. By the time the team&rsquo;s five-game road trip was done, he had brought home seven of 10 points.&ldquo;He plays a little like (Patrick) Roy, kind of half-butterfly, half-stand up,&rdquo; said coach-general manager John Paddock. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very quick and he&rsquo;s a competitor. He has challenged Chevy (Tim Cheveldae) ever since training camp.&rdquo;Paddock, however, said his rookie netminder had not supplanted Cheveldae on the team&rsquo;s depth chart.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to ride a hot goalie when we get one, but one good week doesn&rsquo;t make anybody a No. 1 goalie,&rdquo; Paddock said.Khabibulin&rsquo;s hot run ended with a 5-1 home-ice loss to the Detroit Red Wings Feb. 15. It left him with a 3-31 record, 3.20 goals-against average and .889 save percentage.Khabibulin credits Jets&rsquo; goalie coach Pete Peeters for his progress.&ldquo;He has been teaching me to come out and challenge the shooters,&rdquo; Khabibulin said. &ldquo;In Europe, we tend to stay back in our net. The players are also smarter here. You have to come out and challenge them and cut off angles.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Center Alexei Zhamnov caught fire with five goals and 16 points in an eight-game stretch through Feb. 16.&mdash;Tim Campbell &#9632;

f0027-02

Rookie Khabibulin surprising savior

<div class="byline">By Steve Dryden Editor-in-Chief</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-011002/7317781-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jaromir Jagr feeds fellow Penguin and linemate Luc Robitaille sardines. Ordinarily, the two birds of prey feast on NHL goalies.</figcaption></div>PITTSBURGH-Jaromir Jagr faces the prospect of early retirement.If he maintains an early-season pace that has taken him to the top of the scoring race, his best season in the NHL could also be his last.That is, if Jagr lives up to his word.&ldquo;I told my dad I want to be the best player (in the world) for just a little bit,&rdquo; Jagr says, &ldquo;and then I&rsquo;m going to quit.&rdquo;He laughs at the thought.Jagr has exploded from the blocks this season-scoring 13 goals and 15 assists as the Pittsburgh Penguins piled up 12 wins in their first 13 games-and gone from heartthrob to Hart-throb, but he entertains no illusions of grandeur despite what others think.&ldquo;Right now, he&rsquo;s the best player in the league.&rdquo; says Penguins&rsquo; head coach Eddie Johnston.&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not,&rdquo; Jagr says. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think so. I wish one day I would be. That&rsquo;s my dream. You cannot say the best player in the world after 10 games. That&rsquo;s bad.&rdquo;Maybe so, but few dispute Jagr has been the NHL&rsquo;s player of the quarter-season and is the early favorite for the Hart Trophy as the league&rsquo;s most valuable player.Does that mean Penguins&rsquo; general manager Craig Patrick faces a voluntary retirement to accompany one that may yet be forced upon Mario Lemieux?&ldquo;Hopefully he wants to prove it over a long period of time,&rdquo; Patrick says with a grin. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s becoming the best player in the league for sure.&rdquo;Everybody on the Penguins agrees-with the notable exception of Jagr.The dashing fifth-year right winger insists on a reality check. He scoffs at the notion of scoring 48 goals in 48 games-pointing out he has never scored more than 34 in 81 games-and says he is two to three years away from being a legitimate contender for the scoring championship.&ldquo;Maybe one day I would think about it-it&rsquo;s going to happen,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;but not right now I&rsquo;m not good enough for it. I know I&rsquo;m not good enough. Now I want to win the Stanley Cup.&rdquo;With an NHL record-threatening, 13-game undefeated streak to open the season, the Penguins are strong challengers for their third Cup in five years. (Each of the three other teams to open so successfully have won the Cup.)And with 28 points in 13 games, Jagr was or pace for 103 points, four more than a career-high 99 points in 80 games last season.&#9633; &#9633; &#9633;The 6-foot-2, 208-pound Czech&rsquo;s best years may be ahead of him, but one of his best assets is behind him.Jagr uses his gluteus maximus to maximum effect. He employs his posterior to protect the puck, particularly coming off the boards, and it&rsquo;s usually a bummer for would-be checkers.&ldquo;If you cannot play in the corners I don&rsquo;t know if you can be good in the NHL,&rdquo; Jagr says.Typically, Jagr corrals the puck along the wall, extends his 747 arms and turns his rear end to defenders-holding them at bay with extraordinary lower-body power. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen anybody with the thighs and buttocks he has in terms of strength,&rdquo; Patrick says.Those huge thighs and hefty hind end-combined with burgeoning upper-body muscle-make Jagr a pillar of strength with the puck.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen him skate with (225-pound New York Rangers&rsquo; defenseman Jeff) Beukeboom on his back,&rdquo; says Penguins&rsquo; defenseman Larry Murphy, &ldquo;and it was like he was skating with an extra sweater.&rdquo;Teammates kid him about the size of his derriere.&ldquo;They tell me 1 have the biggest butt,&rdquo; Jagr says. &ldquo;1 always use it. I always played like that in the comers. My dad always taught me you&rsquo;ve got to protect all the time. He taught me how to protect it.&rdquo;Jagr has one-half swimmer&rsquo;s physique-with a sculpted chest and tightly-woven stomach-and one-half running back&rsquo;s physique-with a thick undercarriage.He works relentlessly to improve overall strength and concentrates on his lower body. Jagr credits his father for insisting upon a strict training regimen during his teenage years. Jaromir Sr., kept a close eye on his son&rsquo;s hockey career, pushing him to make the most of skills few others on the planet possess.Dedication has never been a concern.&ldquo;He has always been a hungry kid,&rdquo; Patrick says. &ldquo;He has always wanted more.&rdquo;Exhibit A: Jagr&rsquo;s eating habits. &ldquo;I can eat everything,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I eat so much sugar and stuff like that. I still get so low body fat. I don&rsquo;t understand it.&rdquo;Exhibit B: Jagr&rsquo;s work ethic. He has to be dragged off the ice after practice-in part because of his pursuit of excellence and in part because he has a passion for the game.&ldquo;l&rsquo;ve always loved hockey,&rdquo; Jagr recently told the Penguins&rsquo; Report newspaper, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;ve never loved it this much.&rdquo;&#9633; &#9633; &#9633;Boston Bruins&rsquo; general manager Harry Sinden is standing in the Civic Arena press box when a reporter approaches.&ldquo;Can I get you later on Jagr?&rdquo; he asks.&ldquo;If he doesn&rsquo;t get to us first,&rdquo; replies Sinden.Sixty-eight seconds into the Feb. 14 game, Jagr accepts a pass from Murphy and fires a wrist shot between Boston goalie Vincent Riendeau&rsquo;s legs.Jagr deflects a Len Barrie shot past Riendeau for goal No. 2 and completes his second career hat trick-both have been against Boston-with an empty-net goal 0.3 seconds before the game ends.His second goal turns out to be his fifth winner of the season (in a 5-3 victory) and puts him on pace to surpass former Quebec Nordique Michel Goulet&rsquo;s NHL recorded high of 16 game-winners in 1983-84. The league doesn&rsquo;t keep records on game-winning goals and it is a long shot, at best, Jagr could do in 48 games what Goulet did during an 80-game season.More significant is that it is the second consecutive game Jagr scores an empty-net goal. He says they&rsquo;re the first two of his career. Jagr, notoriously lackluster in his attention to defense, is not accustomed to being on the ice in game-saving situations.The late, late, late goal against Boston is awarded after it goes to video review. It completes a four-point game for Jagr, who turns 23 the following day, yet his performance is ordinary. He has been better, more dominant, more spectacular, but less productive in other games.That Jagr has filled the scoring vacuum left by the absence of Lemieux is not surprising. He is one of the league&rsquo;s most gifted players. But what is mildly unexpected is his emergence as a goal-scorer alongside center Ron Francis, an early-season standout, and left winger Luc Robitaille.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a magnificent talent,&rdquo; Francis says.Jagr has always had premium skills and possesses an excellent wrist shot, but he hasn&rsquo;t been goal-directed in the past. He has been just as likely to dish a pass as finish one.That tendency has changed just as dramatically as his ice time. Jagr routinely plays 23 minutes a game-up from 18 to 19 last year-and was averaging five shots per game.&ldquo;Before I never thought about goals,&rdquo; Jagr says. &ldquo;I always played not to have fun, but to play my best. It was success to me just to beat the guy to make a good pass. Now I know, if you want to win the game, you&rsquo;ve got to score goals.&ldquo;Before with Mario here that&rsquo;s why I could do it. Everybody knew Mario was going to score goals. &lsquo;Mario here, OK. Let him do it. We know he can do it.&rsquo;&rdquo;Jagr must now shoulder the responsibility for scoring goals-especially with Kevin Stevens sidelined by an ankle injury and Robitaille starting slowly. He is well-suited to the task.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s only a handful of guys,&rdquo; says Washington Capitals&rsquo; GM David Poile, &ldquo;that you really sit up in your seat and become either excited or worried about-depending on your viewpoint-when they get the puck. He&rsquo;s a guy who can make it all happen when he gets it because of his size, his strength and his outside speed.&rdquo;Johnston would like his left-shooting ace to shoot much more and would prefer Jagr weren&rsquo;t so generous on 2-on-ls. The coach says Jagr can back off opposing defensemen with his speed and should snap off more wrist shots from scoring range.But Jagr can&rsquo;t resist passing the puck. In the closing seconds of the second period against Boston, Jagr and Tomas Sandstrom bear down on Bruins&rsquo; defenseman Ray Bourque.Jagr, the NHL&rsquo;s leading goal-scorer, fakes a shot and tries to send a backhand pass around Bourque, the best defenseman of his era. The superstar flattens out on the ice and pinwheels to block the puck. No shot on goal.&#9633; &#9633; &#9633;Jagr says he can&rsquo;t explain his blossoming as a goal-scorer.He doesn&rsquo;t study his own game-never watching himself on video because it makes him uncomfortable-and has no desire to unlock the secret to his new success. He fears that might break the spell. &ldquo;It just happened,&rdquo; Jagr says. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to find out how it happened. Maybe I won&rsquo;t score anymore.&rdquo;Jagr arrives at the arena armed with more than natural ability and strength, he comes with faith in God and three necklaces-all worn to bring good luck. One of them is a gold cross.&ldquo;When I come here, some people told me sometimes it&rsquo;s better to be lucky than good,&rdquo; Jagr says. &ldquo;I thought about it. Maybe they&rsquo;re right.&rdquo;He doesn&rsquo;t attend church, nor does he belong to a specific denomination: &ldquo;I just believe in God.&rdquo; Adherence to religious belief was not sanctioned in the former Czechoslovakia, but Jagr maintained a quiet faith rooted in companionship with his grandmother, Jarmila.&ldquo;When I was young,&rdquo; Jagr recalls, &ldquo;we had a farm and my parents worked on the farm all the time and I spent so much time with my gramma and she believed in God. She would bring me to the little school.&ldquo;She would come for me from the school. They don&rsquo;t have the buses like here. She always talked about my grandfather, about the war, about the communists coming. That&rsquo;s where I got the number from.&rdquo;No. 68 recalls the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia that was crushed by an invasion of Russian tanks. It was also the year Jagr&rsquo;s grandfather died. On a February night in Pittsburgh, it stands for something else-the number of seconds Jagr needs to start the Penguins on the way to yet another victory. &#9632;

f0028-01

HEART TO HART

<div class="byline">By Dave Molinari</div>Most observers scratched the Pittsburgh Penguins from the list of the league&rsquo;s elite teams when Mario Lemieux announced he was sitting out 1994-95.With Lemieux gone, it was believed a team in decline after two early playoff exits was in danger of disintegrating. And if losing Lemieux didn&rsquo;t seal Pittsburgh&rsquo;s doom, having No. 1 goalie Tom Barrasso miss most of the regular season after undergoing wrist surgery seemed to guarantee a forgettable season.But the Penguins went 12-0-1 and were closing in on the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; NHL record of 15 games without a loss to start a season.Pittsburgh&rsquo;s opening burst was a consummate team effort, complemented by stellar individual performances. The Penguins showed a new-found passion for sound team defense, putting as much emphasis on preventing goals as they did on scoring them.The team had surrendered an average of just 2.68 goals per game, which, if it stood up. would be the lowest in franchise history. The primary beneficiary of the Penguins&rsquo; new interest in defense is goalie Ken Wregget-he had played every minute of the team&rsquo;s first 13 games-but anything extra Pittsburgh did for him was returned tenfold.And stressing good defensive work didn&rsquo;t slow the Penguins&rsquo; offense. They led the league in goals and boasted the NHL&rsquo;s top scorer in Jaromir Jagr. Even without Lemieux and Stevens, the Penguins still had six point-per-game players. Jagr, Ron Francis, Joe Mullen. John Cullen, Tomas Sandstrom and Luc Robitaille were averaging at least a point a night.Still, the Penguins insist they have no delusions about what it will take to remain successful.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve played well and we&rsquo;ve obviously won a lot of games, but we have to be careful now,&rdquo; said defenseman Larry Murphy. &ldquo;We have to improve our game, just as everybody is striving to. If we&rsquo;re at this level at the end of the season, it&rsquo;s not going to be good enough. We have to elevate our game. We have to try to stay better than the rest of the pack.&rdquo; &#9632;

Surprise, surprise!

<div class="byline">By Michael Ulmer</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-011001/7317850-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"></div>He is trusty and musty, good to the kids, but not to be trifled with when rutting season comes around.Mick E. Moose is clearly the logo of the 1990s.Mick is the erstwhile emblem of the International League&rsquo;s expansion Minnesota Moose. If Wayne Gretzky played in the IHL, he&rsquo;d probably refer to Minnesota as a Mick E. Moose franchise. They&rsquo;d take that as a compliment, considering Mick is also the gold medalist in The Hockey News&rsquo; second annual hunt for the best minor pro logo.Mick was the clear winner over last year&rsquo;s favorite, Rowdy the River Rat, official emblem of the Albany River Rats of the American League. While the Rats fell just short of repeating, the Cincinnati Cyclones&rsquo; logo was once again judged to be the worst of the 44 logos in the AHL, IHL or East Coast League.THN&rsquo;s rankings are arbitrary and unscientific, unconnected with sales figures and completely subjective. This is not brain surgery, as evidenced by the fact that the ranking was done by members of THN&rsquo;s editorial staff. This is what we like based on overall design, color scheme, lettering and the team&rsquo;s name. Teams were judged on the basis of logo sheets provided by the leagues.Logos for the Adirondack Red Wings, Binghamton Rangers, Fredericton Canadiens, P.E.I. Senators, Providence Bruins and St. John&rsquo;s Maple Leafs of the AHL were not ranked because they are derived from the parent team&rsquo;s NHL logos. The ECHL&rsquo;s Nashville Knights were also not included because their logo is identical to the parent Atlanta Knights of the IHL.The Moose won because they managed to create a figure which is entrancing and assertive without being obnoxious. Earlier designs with a pumped-up moose and a moose bearing his teeth were rejected before team management settled on Mick.Mick is the only logo depicted outdoors, a natural enough circumstance for Minnesota. The color scheme, a backdrop of deep green and an earthy brown, perfectly compliments Mick the Moose&rsquo;s stomping grounds. No teal, no silver, just an easy purple surrounded by outdoor colors for a state crazy for the outdoors.Moose was the name of choice for 1031 fans in a name the team contest, finishing almost 200 votes ahead of Mustangs. Other choices of note were Mallards, Wizards, Bobcats and Tomcats.<h2>HOCKEY NEWS TOP 10 LOGOS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02665/7317843-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="600" height="1591"></div><h2>HOCKEY NEWS 2ND ANNUAL LOGO RANKING</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-03459/7317836-1-eng-US/f0030-032.jpg" title="f0030-03" width="600" height="3098"></div>For Moose marketers, coming up with a logo that would be popular with both diehards and neophytes was not as easy as it seemed.&ldquo;When we started our market research, we found most people thought of the International League as goon hockey, something right out of Slap Shot&rdquo; said the Moose&rsquo;s director of advertising and promotions Richard Romano. &ldquo;We felt if we had a tough, aggressive logo, we&rsquo;d get the real hockey fans, but we&rsquo;d lose the hockey Moms and the people who would shy away from beer and fighting on the ice.&rdquo;The trick was also to create a moose with the right degree of attitude.&ldquo;If you look at Mick,&rdquo; Romano said, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s friendly, but there&rsquo;s some slyness to him, he might trip you as you go by. He looks like he has got something on you.&rdquo;The Moose&rsquo;s projected sales of $350,000 in merchandise has long since been shelved. By season&rsquo;s end they expect sales to reach the $1 million figure. &#9632;

f0030-01

Moose on the loose: Minnesota logo No. 1

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02593/7317902-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="593" height="806"><figcaption class="caption-body">Paul Lawless of Cincinnati wears minor pro hockey&rsquo;s worst logo.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-03430/7317895-1-eng-US/f0031-032.jpg" title="f0031-03" width="1765" height="1827"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brian Rolston is a sharp dressed man as an Albany River Rat.</figcaption></div><h2>HOCKEY NEWS 2ND ANNUAL LOGO RANKING</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01919/7317888-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="577" height="2181"></div>Others among our top 10:&bull;You dirty Rat, you finished a very close second. For sheer chutzpa, Rowdy takes the cake.&bull; The Chicago Wolves, another expansion entry, grabbed third place based on a streamlined logo. The Wolves&rsquo; logo was a distant third, but points were given for the creation of a mascot that wasn&rsquo;t redone to look like a pumped up person.&bull; Three classics, the Milwaukee Admirals, Rochester Americans and Hershey Bears grabbed the next three of the next four spots, proving there is no reason to tamper with classics. In this era of teal and aqua, we found something refreshing in simplicity,&bull; The Phoenix Roadrunners, another longstanding emblem, took sixth for three very good reasons. We liked the cartoon, the Roadrunner was among our very best Hot Wheels and the bird looks in profile and physique an awful lot like Wayne Gretzky.&bull; We gave the Detroit Vipers points for aggressiveness, but Freudian considerations kept it out of the top five.&bull; The Houston Aeros&rsquo; logo was a solid ninth. The World War II motif was spiffy, but the logo could have used a hockey reference somewhere.&bull; The new Syracuse Crunch, our lOth-place choice, proved you&rsquo;ve got to be as strong as Supermen to wear canary yellow.Now a word about our bottom three:&bull; We felt the logo for the Cape Breton Oilers looked far too much like an x-ray bearing very bad news.&bull; The Toledo Storm logo is awful, the lettering is indecipherable, the hockey stick looks like one of those cheesy National Inquirer paste-up jobs and the perspective is so bad it was probably peeled off the inside of a pyramid.&bull; There are only a handful of incongruities with the Cincinnati Cyclones&rsquo; logo, our two-time gold medalist in the worst logo competition.First, real goalie masks don&rsquo;t have eyebrows, but do have air holes on both sides. Older goalie blockers had Os, not Cs cut out of the leather. Real goalies play with sticks that have a shaft. Real goalies have arms that are roughly the same length.The Cyclones, however, are laughing all the way to the bank. The sale of Cyclones&rsquo; material will rival that of the Moose, even though the Cyclones&rsquo; logo is five years old. When we named the Cyclones as last year&rsquo;s worst logo winner, mail orders went through the roof. ESPN2 devoted an inte&pi;nission feature to the logo.When told the Cyclones were again last, director of marketing Craig Jenkins was ecstatic. He says the logo grows on you. We&rsquo;ll take him at his word.&ldquo;When I first saw it, I was working for Nashville in the East Coast League and I said &lsquo;My God, what in the world have they done? This is horrible.&rsquo; But you know what, our merchandise sells because it&rsquo;s unique. It&rsquo;s not just another tornado on a shirt.&rdquo;<h2>1993-94 NHL SALES RANKING</h2>The NHL doesn&rsquo;t reveal figures on the dollar value of merchandising sales, but Team Licensing Business (TLB) magazine compiled a team ranking based on 1993-94 sales in Canada and the United States. According to TLB. the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim ranked first among the 26 teams; the Washington Capitals were last. Teams are listed in order of TLB rankings.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-04318/7317881-1-eng-US/f0031-042.jpg" title="f0031-04" width="612" height="2919"></div> &#9632;

f0031-02

Cyclones worst dressed for second straight year

<div class="byline">By Dave Eminian</div>One of minor pro hockey&rsquo;s elite point producers wants to make a point in federal court.Michel Mongeau, an International League regular-season and playoff MVP, filed a lawsuit in Peoria against the Cleveland Lumberjacks&rsquo; corporation, Cleveland Pro Hockey, Inc., and defenseman Chris Tamer, seeking $3.35 million in damages for the hit that smashed Mongeau&rsquo;s face Feb. 27 of last season.The 29-year-old Peoria Rivermen center and his wife, Chantal, made the announcement Feb. 10. The suit includes $2 million J in compensatory damages for the player $ plus $1 million in punitive damages; and $250,000 in compensatory damages for the the player Mongeau&rsquo;s wife, plus $100,000 in i punitive damages.Tamer was assessed a major crosschecking penalty and ejected from the 1994 game. He received a one-game suspension from then-commissioner Tom Berry. Peoria won a protest and Tamer was suspended for the remainder of the season, which amounted to four games. By then, Tamer had been recalled by the Pittsburgh Penguins.Mongeau was hospitalized with seven facial fractures, including a broken nose, upper jaw, left cheek, and both eye sockets.He required surgical repairs and seven months of rehabilitation. Mongeau said he still experiences headaches and that numbness on one side of his face from nerve damage is permanent.Mongeau leads Peoria in scoring, but his statistics aren&rsquo;t as prolific as in past years.&ldquo;I feel uncomfortable doing this, which is why I needed time to think it over,&rdquo; said Mongeau, who signed a five-year $625,000 deal with Peoria last season. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like going after another player this way, but it was a dangerous hit-one that (Tamer) has never apologized to me for or admitted he was wrong in doing. This is not just about the money.&ldquo;Maybe this lawsuit will lead to outlawing dangerous hits like the one he gave me. I think I have a point to make.&rdquo;Mongeau, in legal papers, alleges Tamer built up speed and &ldquo;recklessly&rdquo; skated into his rear and struck him from behind, then forced him face-first into the back support beam of the goal.The lawsuit claims Tamer and Lumberjacks&rsquo; coach Rick Paterson were aware that the elimination of Mongeau from the game and season was a substantial benefit to their team. It also states the Lumberjacks, by fighting Rivermen attempts to seek a greater penalty against Tamer, sanctioned his allegedly reckless conduct.The Lumberjacks and Tamer, through a spokesman, declined comment. IHL commissioner Bob Ufer declined comment.TALK NET: Bob Ufer was asked if there was any danger the league could split amid reports some owners favor competition with the NHL while others want to pull back to the days of a primary developer.I&rsquo;ve had talks with every owner and they agree we cannot pursue our strategy if we buy NHL players,&rdquo; Ufer said. &ldquo;While I am commissioner, I will not allow teams to sign NHL players. The USFL came unglued when they signed Herschel Walker. If we did that, it would be more than destabilizing. It would be devastating.&rdquo;I-OPENERS: Sources say owners are paying Bob Ufer a $300,000 salary for his leadership through a boom period that has made the IHL the fastest-growing league in pro sports&hellip;The IHL plans to charge $4 million per franchise in its upcoming European expansion, but those fees could be paid over 10 years.San Antonio has the inside track to be the IHL&rsquo;s 20th team, with Sacramento and Baltimore not far behind.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-011007/7317933-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="261" height="304"></div> &#9632;

f0034-01

Mongeau seeking millions from Lumberjacks, Tamer

<div class="byline">By Kevin Oklobzija</div>When the Worcester IceCats began operations, the blueprint they had appeared to ensure just one thing for their inaugural season: disaster.They weren&rsquo;t granted a franchise until May 9. They didn&rsquo;t have a nickname or coach until June. They weren&rsquo;t able to secure an NHL affiliation, forcing them to play as an independent.And because of their late start-up, only nine weekend dates were available in the 12,300-seat Centrum in the central Massachusetts city.Yet as the AHL season reached the three-quarter pole, Worcester proved to be a successful new franchise, at least off the ice.While winning has been difficult-the 14-31-9 record through 54 games was predictable for an independent-the IceCats ranked seventh in attendance with an average draw of 5,466.They drew more than 11,000 fans three times in a three-week span, including a sellout of 12,-316 Feb. 10. That was the ninth-largest crowd in AHL history.&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t have a team until May, we didn&rsquo;t have a name until June, we didn&rsquo;t start selling tickets until July, so we&rsquo;re pleased to have the largest crowd in the AHL in 25 years,&rdquo; said Ice-Cats&rsquo; executive vice-president Peter Ricciardi.The IceCats figure to exceed attendance expectations of about 225,000 for the season, laying a foundation for what promises to be a better team next season when they have NHL affiliation.&ldquo;There will without question be an affiliation next season,&rdquo; Ricciardi said. &ldquo;Jimmy (Roberts, the coach/general manager) and Roy (Boe, the owner) can&rsquo;t go a day without the phone ringing from some NHL team.&ldquo;We offer something special: players can play in front of 10,000 fans under a coach who has coached in the NHL and for an owner who has owned an NHL team. They&rsquo;ll have a good feel for what&rsquo;s ahead of them in the NHL.&rdquo;EXPENSIVE HELP: What once was a suspect part of the Hershey Bears-defense-has now become I their strength.The parent Philadelphia Flyers demoted defensemen Jeff Finley, Shawn Anderson and Stewart Malgunas recently.Malgunas is on a two-way contract, but on one-way deals are Anderson, who earns $350,000, and Finley at $250,000.That gives the Bears the AHL&rsquo;s highest priced twosome, surpassing the Rochester Americans&rsquo; tandem of Sergei Petrenko ($325,000) and Markus Ketterer ($250,000).HODSON BETTER: Statistically, Kevin Hodson is having an off year. The Adirondack Red Wings&rsquo; goalie was 13-13-7 with a 3.45 goals-against average and .897 save percentage.He ranked 16th in GAA, compared to last season when he finished second at 2.94 with a 20-10-5 record and .905 save percentage.But Adirondack coach Newell Brown said the numbers are misleading.&ldquo;The mark of a good goalie is the ability to keep his team in the game long enough to give them a chance to win,&rdquo; Brown said.&ldquo;He did that a lot, we just weren&rsquo;t strong enough to win some of those games.&rdquo;AHL TIDBITS: Cornwall Aces&rsquo; third-year defenseman Mike McKee, who played 48 NHL games last season, was forced to retire because of recurring concussions. He sustained his fourth concussion in two years Jan. 20.Saint John Flames&rsquo; rookie goalie Dwayne Roloson posted his first pro shutout, stopping 36 shots in a 6-0 win over the St. John&rsquo;s Maple Leafs Feb. 8&hellip;There have been 77 sellouts league-wide, surpassing last year&rsquo;s total of 69.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02685/7317964-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="279" height="269"></div><h2>Madison joins Colonial clan</h2>The Colonial League has awarded an expansion franchise for 1995-96 to Madison, Wise.A 10th franchise-in Moline, 111.&mdash;is expected to be added by mid-March. Madison and Moline join the league at a cost of $250,000 each.The new team in Madison has no nickname or colors yet, but principal owner Andrew Wilhelm of Cleveland said the search has begun for a coach and general manager.Despite the presence of the University of Wisconsin&rsquo;s successful hockey team in Madison, league officials aren&rsquo;t worried about competing with the collegians. They feel there&rsquo;s enough of a fan base in the community of 320.000 to support a minor pro team.&ldquo;The Colonial League looks at the addition of Madison as a major feather in the league&rsquo;s cap.&rdquo; said commissioner Mike Forbes.Madison will play in the 8,500-seat Dane County Coliseum, which will be the CHL&rsquo;s biggest arena. The league, with four teams in Michigan, three in Ontario and one in New York, expanded west for two reasons. It wanted a team closer to Thunder Bay. Ont., and didn&rsquo;t want to compete with the East Coast League.&mdash;Brendan Savage &#9632;

f0034-02

New IceCats warming up thanks to Worcester fans

<div class="byline">By John Packett</div>Players in the East Coast League are on the verge of banding together in a union to seek greater benefits from owners of the 18 teams.The Professional Hockey Players&rsquo; Association, which represents players in the American and International Leagues, announced Feb. 13 it has filed a certification petition with the National Labor Relations Board in Pittsburgh for the purpose of representing the more than 300 players employed in the ECHL.Larry Landon, executive director of the PH-PA, met with players on 17 of the 18 teams as of mid-February. He said there has been overwhelming support for the idea.&ldquo;Since the inception of the ECHL, the players have expressed tremendous interest in representation from the PHPA,&rdquo; Landon said. &ldquo;Given the players&rsquo; resolve, the PHPA anticipates recognition from either the ECHL ownership or certification via the NLRB election process.&rdquo;The next step in the process is for a hearing to be scheduled by the labor relations board.&ldquo;What the plavers are looking for. in one word, is fairness,&rdquo; said Richard Evans, director of the PHPA&rsquo;s legal and business affairs. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s something we have to determine; what is fair for the players, owners and fans.&rdquo;The ECHL, which began operations in 198889 and has had inquiries about unionization in the past, issued a brief statement and said it has an attorney working on the case.&ldquo;The league is cooperating with the NLRB so that a prompt and orderly resolution can be reached,&rdquo; said ECHL vice-president Richard W. Adams. &ldquo;The ECHL intends to abide by labor laws, as it has always done in the past, when the PHPA unsuccessfully sought representation certification.&ldquo;The league has confidence in its players and their commitment to the best interests of pro hockey.&rdquo;While no one with the PHPA would describe the kind of benefits the players have discussed, a player who requested anonymity said there are three main issues.They are: abolishment of the three-year rule, which states a team cannot have more than three players with three or more years experience; full medical benefits year-round instead of just during the season; and an increase in per diem on the road. Players receive $18 in meal money per day, compared to $36-$4O in the AHL and IHL.Another issue is the pay scale of the ECHL, which has a salary cap of $6,000 per team per week-an average of about $333 per player per week. Over the course of a 22-week season, the average salary is $7,326. The IHL&rsquo;s average salary, by comparison, is $62,000.Players now receive free housing during the season and pre-and post-game meals.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what the problems are,&rdquo; said Hampton Roads Admirals&rsquo; owner Blake Cullen. &ldquo;I think we&rsquo;ve addressed everything as far as insurance, housing, wages. I don&rsquo;t know what else they&rsquo;re looking for. Right now, we&rsquo;re a little bit in the dark as to exactly what course we should take.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03535/7317995-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="474" height="316"></div> &#9632;

f0034-03

Players supportive in early steps to form union

<div class="byline">By Jim Cressman</div>Sometimes, when you take a shot in the dark, you hit something.That&rsquo;s what happened to the Windsor Spitfires when they obtained goalie Jamie Storr from the Owen Sound Platers in an Ontario League deal Jan. 26.Even though Storr, 19, was in the NHL with the Los Angeles Kings, Spitfires&rsquo; general manager Mike Awender took a flyer. Awender figured if Storr did return to the OHL, he&rsquo;d rather have the goalie playing for him than against him.Awender&rsquo;s instincts were right on. The Kings returned Storr to junior after making a blockbuster trade with the Buffalo Sabres Feb. 14. Grant Fuhr&rsquo;s arrival in L.A. was Storr&rsquo;s ticket to Windsor.The Spitfires, in a dogfight with the Detroit Jr. Red Wings for first in the West Division, were delighted.&ldquo;If we hadn&rsquo;t done it, someone else would have (such as the Wings, who were also bidding for Storr),&rdquo; Awender said of why he made the deal with no guarantee Storr would return.The Spitfires sent veteran center Mike Loach to the Platers along with a fourth-round pick in 1996 and a swap of seventh-round picks.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re talking about having a world-class goalie here,&rdquo; Awender said of Storr, who won back-to-back World Junior Championships with Canada. &ldquo;With Jamie and Travis Scott, we have an outstanding - tandem that will be as good, if not better, than anybody in the league.&rdquo;Storr, the Kings&rsquo; first-round pick in 1994, was 1-3-1 with a 3.88 goals-against average.&ldquo;Sam (McMaster, the Kings&rsquo; GM) said Jamie is disappointed about coming back to junior again, but I understand that, given the competitor he is,&rdquo; Awender said. &ldquo;I think once he settles in, he&rsquo;ll do a tremendous job. I&rsquo;d be disappointed if he wasn&rsquo;t disappointed. You want a young man who&rsquo;s competitive and wants to make it back up there.&rdquo;SIN-BIN PUNCH&cup;P: The OHL issued 18 games in suspensions to seven players after a penalty box brawl in Windsor between the Spitfires and Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds Feb. 9.The Spitfires lost D.J. Smith for four games, while Ed Jovanovski and penalty leader Adam Young got two games each. Joe Van Volsen of the Soo was suspended four games, while Chad Grills. Brad Baber and Matt O&rsquo;Dette each got two games.The fighting began on the ice and carried into the penalty box, where timekeeper Borden Hildebrand was cut for eight stitches on the leg by a skate. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been carrying on all season and I guess the emotions got the better of us,&rdquo; Van Volsen said.The suspensions hurt the Spitfires as they were humbled 7-2 the next night by the lowly Sarnia Sting. The Greyhounds, despite losing their top three scorers (Van Volsen, Baber and Grills had 74 goals and 186 points), beat the London Knights 5-2 the next night.CENTS APPEAL: The North Bay Centennials appealed to OHL commissioner Dave Branch to reinstate defenseman Steve McLaren for the playoffs.McLaren, 20, was suspended the rest of the season for a hit from behind into the boards that put Ottawa 67&rsquo;s Jure Kovacevic in hospital Dec. 4 with a fractured vertebra in the middle of his back and a broken rib.Kovacevic, 18, was told Feb. 10 by doctors in Toronto he won&rsquo;t be able to play this season.&ldquo;They said the bone hasn&rsquo;t healed and there&rsquo;s way too much of a risk,&rdquo; Kovacevic said. &ldquo;I was mentally there, but my back wasn&rsquo;t ready.&rdquo;AROUND THE OHL: Peterborough Petes&rsquo; goalie Chad Lang celebrated his 20th birthday in style, with a 4-1 upset victory over the North Bay Centennials Feb. 11. Lang made 35 saves as the Petes beat the Cents for the fourth time this year.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01947/7318026-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="711" height="243"></div> &#9632;

f0035-01

Spitfires hit jackpot with return of stopper Storr

<div class="byline">By Stuart Cowan</div>The new-look St-Jean Lynx has become one of the hottest teams in the Quebec League since acquiring Frederic Cassivi in a trade with the Halifax Mooseheads.After the Jan. 4 deal to get the 19-year-old goalie, the Lynx went 10-3-0, including an 8-3 victory over the St-Hyacinthe Laser Feb. 12. St-Jean also picked up 20-year-old defenseman Claude Filion in the trade and gave up 18-year-old forwards Eric Houde and Daniel Payette.Cassivi earned the win against the Laser, improving his record to 7-2-0 with one shutout and a 2.90 goals-against average since the trade. With Halifax, where he shared duties with 17-year-old Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Cassivi was 9-12-1 with a 4.62 average.&ldquo;I knew I was going to be traded at Christmastime,&rdquo; said Cassivi, a 6-foot-2, 195-pounder who was the Ottawa Senators&rsquo; ninth-round pick at last year&rsquo;s NHL draft. &ldquo;I knew one of us was going to be traded and it was probably&rdquo; going to be me because I&rsquo;m older.&rdquo;The deal for Cassivi is one of several made by Lynx general manager Pierre Creamer, who has almost totally rebuilt the team since taking over prior to this season. Of the 23 players on the Lynx roster as of Feb. 12, only six were with the team last year when it finished a disappointing 29-37-6 and was bounced in the first playoff round by the Sherbrooke Faucons.The Lynx also has a new coach this year in Claude Therien and new ownership group headed by Leo-Guy Morissette.The Lynx had been talking with Halifax coach-GM Clement Jodoin about Cassivi&rsquo;s availability since the middle of October before finally pulling off the deal.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big goalie,&rdquo; Therien said. &ldquo;And he&rsquo;s a good kid; he has a very good attitude. He&rsquo;s quick and he&rsquo;s a winner. That&rsquo;s the type of goalie we need here.&rdquo;Cassivi is happy to be in St-Jean.&ldquo;We have a lot of depth,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We probably don&rsquo;t have the best first line in the league, but I think we can put all four lines on the ice and they do a good job.&rdquo;Lynx forward Steve Brule was the league&rsquo;s player of the week ending Feb. 13 after getting three goals and nine points in three wins. The New Jersey Devils&rsquo; sixth-round draft pick in 1993 had 39 goals and 89 points in 55 games.With a 31-21-5 record, the Lynx was virtually assured of only its fourth winning season since entering the QMJHL in 1982-83.HAPPY ANNIVERSARY: Gilles Courteau celebrated his ninth anniversary as president of the QMJHL Feb. 13.Courteau, 37, is the ninth president in the 26year history of the league and has held the post longer than anyone else. Courteau took over from Guv Morissette in 1986.BISONS HONOR TURGEON: The Granby Bi sons were scheduled to retire Pierre Turgeon s No. 7 prior to a home game against the Val d&rsquo;Or Foreurs Feb. 19.Turgeon starred with the Bisons in 1985-86 and 1986-87, scoring 116 goals and 268 points in 127 games. He was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1987 NHL draft by the Buffalo Sabres and was traded to the New York Islanders in 1991.STREAK SNAPPED: Chicoutimi Sagueneens&rsquo; left winger Alexei Lojkin saw his 29-game point streak end in a 2-0 loss to the Laval Titan Feb. 12. Laval goalie Sebastien Charpentier made 37 saves for his second shutout.Lojkin, a 20-year-old native of Minsk, Russia, had 31 goals and 59 points during the streak. The 5-foot-9, 170-pounder was passed over at last year&rsquo;s NHL entry draft after posting 40 goals and 107 points as a rookie.LAPOINTE SAYS NO: Former Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; defenseman Guy Lapointe turned down an offer from Moncton team president John Graham to become the GM of the franchise, which will enter the league next season.Lapointe, who is a scout with the Calgary Flames and based in Quebec, was reluctant to move to the Maritimes.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-02666/7318057-1-eng-US/f0035-022.jpg" title="f0035-02" width="586" height="293"></div> &#9632;

f0035-02

Lynx purring right along since arrival of Cassivi

<div class="byline">By Rob Vanstone</div>While many 18-year-old players are pondering whether to opt into the NHL&rsquo;s new entry draft for 19-year-olds, Brandon Wheat Kings&rsquo; center Marty Murray may enjoy the privilege of being drafted twice.Murray has yet to sign with the Calgary Flames, who selected him in the fourth round (96th overall) of the NHL&rsquo;s 1993 draft.If Murray does not sign by June 1, he will be eligible for the 1995 draft. If that&rsquo;s the case, he&rsquo;s sure to be a high-profile pick.&ldquo;Going back into the draft is an option,&rdquo; said Murray, 19. &ldquo;I hope to sign with Calgary. But if something happens and they don&rsquo;t make me a good enough offer, that&rsquo;s an option.&rdquo;Murray had 31 goals and 103 points in 50 Western League games this season.The 5-foot-9, 170-pounder missed seven games while playing for Canada at the World Junior Championship. Murray was named the top forward at that tournament.&ldquo;My draft position could go up, but the team that picked me would have me in a tough situation, knowing I want to turn pro,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;They could sign me for less money than other second-rounders or wherever I&rsquo;d get drafted.&ldquo;Right now, negotiations with Calgary are going slowly. They&rsquo;ve got some big contracts to work out with Joe Nieuwendyk and Robert Reichel. Sometime in the next month, we&rsquo;ll get a little more serious about it.&rdquo;WITT&rsquo;S END: Holdout defenseman Brendan Witt won&rsquo;t be joining Brandon.To be eligible for the stretch run, Witt was required to sign a Canadian Hockey Association registration card by Feb. 10.Brandon did not receive notification that Witt had signed the card, which was forwarded to his Edmonton-based agent, Mark Hall.Witt has been idle since Oct. 1, when the NHL lockout began. He has been unable to reach a contract agreement with the Washington Capitals, who selected him 11th overall in the 1993 draft. Like Marty Murray, he is a candidate to go back into the draft for 1995.Witt was named the WHL&rsquo;s top defenseman last season with the Seattle Thunderbirds. After Witt refused to rejoin Seattle, the Thunderbirds dealt his major junior rights to Brandon Feb. 2 for conditional bantam picks.&ldquo;We would have liked him to come, but at the same time, it allows us to keep a first-and third-round pick,&rdquo; Wheat Kings&rsquo; general manager Kelly McCrimmon told the Brandon Sun.&rdquo; SHIN&Scaron;KE DEAD: Bill Shinske, a former WHL general manager with the Estevan Bruins and Brandon, died Feb. 13 in Estevan. Sask.Shinske, who was 64 years old, died of liver failure.The Brandon native got involved with the Bruins in the early 1960s under the tutelage of Scotty Munro. Shinske became the Bruins&rsquo; GM in 1968 and held that post during the team&rsquo;s WHL heyday.In 1971, he and Ernie McLean bought the franchise from Munro and moved it to New Westminster, B.C., where the Bruins won three Memorial Cups.After selling the franchise to Nelson Skalbania, Shinske went into private business. He returned to the WHL in 1986 to become Brandon&rsquo;s GM. Shinske held that post until he resigned in the spring of 1989.Less than a month later. Shinske returned to Estevan to serve as GM with the Bruins&rsquo; Saskatchewan Jr. League franchise. Shinske held that post at the time of his death.&ldquo;He goes back almost to the beginning of hockey in Estevan,&rdquo; SJHL president Wayne Kartusch said. &ldquo;He seemed to always be around when there was a game in Estevan.&ldquo;He was a good, solid hockey man. He played the game hard both on the ice and off and he was respected for his honesty and integrity.&rdquo;In recent months, the Bruins paid tribute to Shinske by keeping his name on game sheets, even though he was t&infin; ill to fulfill his duties as GM.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-03542/7318088-1-eng-US/f0035-032.jpg" title="f0035-03" width="362" height="364"></div> &#9632;

f0035-03

Unsigned King Murray looking to re-enter draft

<div class="byline">By Chris Miller</div>Before the Western Collegiate Hockey Association season began, Minnesota coach Doug Woog decided he would abandon the rotation system and go with one goalie.That proved to be good news for senior Jeff Callinan, who won the job in pre-season. Callinan led the WCHA with a 2.68 goals-against average as the second-place Gophers prepared for a last-ditch run at league-leading Colorado College.&ldquo;Last year, I always played on Friday night and sat out Saturday,&rdquo; Callinan said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s different preparing for 120 minutes instead of 60. In a way, it&rsquo;s a little less pressure. You realize you have a chance to make up for your mistakes and that keeps you from getting too uptight.&rdquo;Callinan was claimed in the fifth round of the 1990 NHL draft by the St. Louis Blues despite playing in only six games as a freshman. The 22-year-old from Mound, Minn., alternated the next two years and had decent goals-against averages, but sub-par save percentages.This season, his .894 save percentage was third-best in the league.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve always had a pretty good defense and sometimes you don&rsquo;t see a lot of shots,&rdquo; Callinan said. &ldquo;I think any goalie would tell you they&rsquo;re more comfortable when they&rsquo;re getting steady work. Sometimes it&rsquo;s more of a challenge when you&rsquo;re out of the action for a couple of minutes then you get a flurry.&rdquo;<h2>WCHA</h2>COACH HOSPITALIZED: Minnesota-Duluth coach Mike Sertich was hospitalized after he fainted on the bench during a game against Minnesota.Sertich, 48, collapsed early in the third period of his team&rsquo;s 4-l loss at Mariucci Arena in Minneapolis Feb. 11. He was assisted to the training room where doctors determined he had heart palpitations. Sertich spent the next three days in hospital undergoing a series of tests, including a coronary angiogram.&ldquo;l&rsquo;m not sure what happened,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I turned around and wasn&rsquo;t there. Doctors don&rsquo;t think it was a heart attack, but they are concerned about what may have caused the fainting.&rdquo;After tests failed to pinpoint the problem, Sertich was released Feb. 15 and advised to rest. In his 13th season at UMD, Sertich has no history of heart problems, but had two back operations in 1993. The four-time WCHA coach of the year hadn&rsquo;t determined when he would return to practice. Assistant coach Jim Knapp ran the team in Sertich&rsquo;s absence.LEADER SUSPENDED: Jason Prokopetz of Michigan Tech, who leads the WCHA in penalty minutes, was suspended by the league for one week after running Minnesota backup goalie Jeff Moen late in an 8-1 loss Feb. 4.Prokopetz, a first-year player with three seasons of eligibility, had two goals and 132 penalty minutes in 27 games. &#9632;

Callinan’s performance keeps him in top spot

<div class="byline">By Tom Boggle</div>Leave it to a Baker to come up with the recipe for ending Dartmouth College&rsquo;s winless streak.Sophomore goalie Scott Baker, out of the lineup with an ankle injury since Jan. 21, returned to action Feb. 10 and led the Big Green to its first weekend sweep of the season.The native of Chepachet, R.I., who spent the entire 1993-94 season on Dartmouth&rsquo;s junior varsity team, allowed eight goals in two nights upon his return, but his presence made all the difference as the Big Green swept RPI and Union by scores of 7-3 and 6-5.Dartmouth, 4-10-2 in Eastern College Athletic Conference play this season, hadn&rsquo;t won a game in 1995, suffering through an 0-10-1 stretch that dated back to Dec. 30.&ldquo;We got a big monkey off our back and having Scott back had a lot to do with it,&rdquo; said Dartmouth coach Roger Demment. &ldquo;He had played steadily up until his injury. The other kids have a lot of confidence when he&rsquo;s in the net.&rdquo;Baker had taken the No. 1 job away from sophomore Ben Heller just before Christmas and had started seven games, but then sprained his ankle in a 6-3 loss to St. Lawrence Jan. 21. He had a 4.07 goals-against average prior to his injury.The sweep put Dartmouth, which began the season with a 3-0-1 record, right back in the hunt for a playoff berth.&ldquo;We weren&rsquo;t as strong in goal as we had hoped to be and when you&rsquo;re not solid in that position, it&rsquo;s tough to make the other things work,&rdquo; said Demment. &ldquo;But I really think we&rsquo;re more of a .500 club than a 6-13-2 (overall) team.&rdquo;<h2>ECAC</h2>TOP ROOKIE: The most overlooked player at Clarkson is freshman goalie Dan Murphy.Murphy made 69 saves, including 41 in a 6-3 win over Princeton, as the Golden Knights became the first ECAC team to clinch a playoff berth by sweeping Yale and Princeton Feb. 1011. In 26 games this season, Murphy had a 3.34 goals-against average and .889 save percentage.&ldquo;Our goalie is overlooked by a lot of people because everyone is watching what&rsquo;s happening in front of him,&rdquo; said Clarkson coach Mark Morris, referring to impressive scorers Claude Morin, Marko Tuomainen and Patrice Robitaille. &ldquo;But (Murphy) has pulled a lot of games out of the fire for us this year.&rdquo;FREAKISH FRIDAYS: RPI can&rsquo;t shake the Friday night blues. The 7-3 loss to Dartmouth gave the Engineers a 1-5-0 record in league games played on Fridays. The only win was a 71 victory over Clarkson Nov. 11.Vermont sophomore Martin St-Louis is usually the Catamounts&rsquo; set-up man, but he found out how the other half lives when he came up with his first career hat trick in an 8-1 win against Union Feb. 10. After 26 games in overall play this season, St-Louis had 18 goals and 56 points. &#9632;

Baker’s prize formula nets Big Green sweep

<div class="byline">By Matt Carlson</div>One-plus-two has equalled a better officiating system in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.While other National Collegiate Athletic Association leagues run games with two referees and one linesmen, the CCHA began the 199495 season using one referee and two linesmen. On Nov. 21, CCHA coaches unanimously voted to retain the system, which empowers linesmen to make penalty calls behind the play.Coaches are happy with the decision.&lsquo;The one referee system is the only way to go,&rdquo; said Michigan State coach Ron Mason. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s easier to find a few good referees than quite a few. The calls are more consistent and with the back linesman being able to make calls, it&rsquo;s like having a referee and a half.&rdquo;Miami coach Mark Mazzoleni, who was an assistant at Minnesota and saw Western Collegiate Hockey Association officiating, also prefers the one-plus-two approach.&lsquo;The trailing linesmen have done a good job,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;With one referee, you don&rsquo;t have to adjust to two personalities or styles.&rdquo;Dave Fisher, the CCHA&rsquo;s coordinator of officials, said &ldquo;the NCAA is missing the boat&rdquo; by not converting to the one-plus-two system for all competition. &ldquo;All the rest of the world uses it except the NCAA,&rdquo; he said.&ldquo;Ninety per cent of the penalties are around the puck,&rdquo; Fisher added. &ldquo;One referee can see those. With the linesman able to make the call behind the play, the referee can concentrate on looking up the ice and following the play.&rdquo;<h2>CCHA</h2>THUSS-BUDGET: Miami senior goalie Chuck Thuss continues to shine.He stopped 33 Michigan State shots in a 3-2 Redskins&rsquo; overtime win at East Lansing Feb. 10. The following night, Thuss blocked all 37 Spartan attempts as Miami edged MSU 1-0.&ldquo;He has pro written all over him,&rdquo; Ron Mason said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s every bit as good as (former Lake Superior State Laker and current Boston Bruin Blaine) Lacher. He covers the net well, covers up well and has good instincts.Thuss, a 23-year-old free agent, lowered his league-leading goals-against average to 2.67 and improved his CCHA-best save percentage to .907.TENNIS, ANYONE?: Maybe the UIC Flames should be kicked out of their home arena, the 8,802-seat UIC Pavilion, more often.Because of a women&rsquo;s tennis tournament, the Flames had to move their Feb 10-11 home series against first-place Michigan to the Seven Bridges Ice Arena in suburban Woodridge, Ill. The teams split a pair of close 5-4 games.&ldquo;If they played like that every night, they&rsquo;d be in second place,&rdquo; said Michigan coach Red Berenson.UIC also sold out the 1,600-seat main arena in the three-rink complex, owned partly by Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; star Jeremy Roenick. &#9632;

Coaches still convinced one ref better than two

<div class="byline">By Larry Mahoney</div>The Northeastern University Huskies have taken full advantage of the first-year shootout format in Hockey East.A 1-0 shootout win over Providence following their 4-4 tie Feb. 10, made the Huskies a perfect five-for-five in shootouts this season. The reason behind NU&rsquo;s shootout success?&ldquo;Good coaching,&rdquo; joked coach Ben Smith.With tongue still firmly in cheek, Smith added &ldquo;we&rsquo;re making an (instructional) video.&rdquo;Two of the obvious keys to Northeastern&rsquo;s success have been goalies Mike Veisor and Todd Reynolds.Veisor made nine shootout saves in the win over Providence and three apiece in 3-2 shootout wins over Maine and Providence. Reynolds made all five saves in a 1-0 shootout win over Merrimack and three in a 3-2 triumph over Maine.&ldquo;They are both obviously pretty good on breakaways,&rdquo; Smith said.The top sniper has been freshman center Scott Campbell, who has converted on four of six attempts including three winners.Despite his team&rsquo;s success, Smith is not an advocate of the new shootout formula. He voted for it when the league&rsquo;s coaches decided to award two points for a win and a shootout win and one for a tie, but doesn&rsquo;t like the new formula of five points for the win, three for a shootout win and two for a tie.<h2>HOCKEY EAST</h2>&ldquo;I know it&rsquo;s entertaining, but I don&rsquo;t like it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There are better ways to award a point.&rdquo;.900 MARK: He is one of Hockey East&rsquo;s I smallest goalies at 5-foot-9, 170 pounds. But Merrimack College sophomore Mart&iacute;n Legault leads the league in save percentage at .900.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s quick and he comes out and challenges you,&rdquo; said Maine sophomore center Tim Lovell after watching Legault make 27 saves in a 3-2 Maine win Feb. 12.Legault was 12-20-2 a year ago with a 3.77 goals-against average and .892 save percentage. This season, he was holding down a 3.51 GAA and a 7-12-4 record.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve tried to challenge the shooters more and be more aggressive, especially on high shots,&rdquo; Legault said.BEANPOT WIN: Jack Parker and his Boston University Terriers won the final of the Beanpot Tournament with a 5-1 win over Boston College at Boston Garden Feb. 13.Parker is the winningest Beanpot coach with 31 wins in 44 games. He has won 10 Beanpots as a coach in 22 years and as a player at BU he won three titles.Senior goalie Derek Herlofsky was the Beanpot MVP as he made 51 saves in two games for a .944 save percentage.Northeastern defeated Harvard 4-2 to take the consolation crown. &#9632;

Shootout king Huskies quickest draw in town

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01886/7318320-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="474" height="446"></div><h2>STANDINGS</h2>NHL STATISTICS THROUGH GAMES OF FEB. 16/9548-GAME REGULAR SEASON(PCT) PERCENTAGE OF ACTUAL POINTS VERSUS POSSIBLE POINTSEASTERN CONFERENCE NORTHEAST DIVISION<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02609/7318313-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg" title="f0038-02" width="836" height="946"></div><h2>THE PLAYOFF RACE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-03489/7318306-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="830" height="640"></div><h2>OVERALL</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-04383/7318299-1-eng-US/f0038-042.jpg" title="f0038-04" width="482" height="867"></div><h2>HOME AND ROAD RECORDS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-05296/7318292-1-eng-US/f0038-052.jpg" title="f0038-05" width="1021" height="865"></div><h2>CONFERENCE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-06253/7318285-1-eng-US/f0038-062.jpg" title="f0038-06" width="464" height="875"></div><h2>RESULTS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-07231/7318278-1-eng-US/f0038-072.jpg" title="f0038-07" width="509" height="1352"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-1696/7318271-1-eng-US/f0038-162.jpg" title="f0038-16" width="362" height="379"></div><h2>TEAM PENALTIES</h2>PIM-TOTAL PENALTY MINUTES INCLUDING (BMI) BENCH PENALTY MINUTES; AVG-AVERAGE PENALTY MINUTES PER GAME.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-12132/7318264-1-eng-US/f0038-122.jpg" title="f0038-12" width="370" height="773"></div><h2>POWER PLAY</h2>ADV-TOTAL ADVANTAGES; PPG-POWER-PLAY GOALS; PCT-POWER-PLAY GOALS DIVIDED BY TOTAL ADVANTAGES.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-13120/7318257-1-eng-US/f0038-132.jpg" title="f0038-13" width="391" height="777"></div><h2>PENALTY KILLING</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-14111/7318250-1-eng-US/f0038-142.jpg" title="f0038-14" width="391" height="777"></div><h2>TOP SCORERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-08197/7318243-1-eng-US/f0038-082.jpg" title="f0038-08" width="609" height="727"></div><h2>TOP DEFENSEMEN</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-09178/7318236-1-eng-US/f0038-092.jpg" title="f0038-09" width="594" height="175"></div><h2>TOP SCORERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-10157/7318229-1-eng-US/f0038-102.jpg" title="f0038-10" width="610" height="289"></div><h2>LEADERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-11143/7318222-1-eng-US/f0038-112.jpg" title="f0038-11" width="621" height="361"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-15103/7318215-1-eng-US/f0038-152.jpg" title="f0038-15" width="1068" height="1835"><figcaption class="caption-body">Chris Chelios is one of the league&rsquo;s top scoring defensemen.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0038-01

HOW WINNERS PLAY THE GAME. ™

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01546/7318561-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg"></div>KEY TO ABBREVIATIONSStatistics provided by National Hockey League: No.&mdash; uniform number; GP-games played; G-goals; A-assists; P-points; +/- - plus/minus; PIM-penalties; PP-power-play goals; SH-short-handed goals; GW-game-winning goals; GT-game-tying goals; S-shots; Pct-shooting percentage. Players indicated by an asterisk (&ldquo;) are eligible for the Calder T rophy.<h2>MIGHTY DUCKS OF ANAHEIM</h2><h2>BOSTON BRUINS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02343/7318554-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg" title="f0040-02" width="1011" height="633"></div><h2>BUFFALO SABRES</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-03246/7318547-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="1028" height="823"></div><h2>CALGARY FLAMES</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-04194/7318540-1-eng-US/f0040-042.jpg" title="f0040-04" width="1017" height="756"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-05167/7318533-1-eng-US/f0040-052.jpg" title="f0040-05" width="1031" height="163"></div><h2>CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-06148/7318526-1-eng-US/f0040-062.jpg" title="f0040-06" width="1032" height="689"></div><h2>DALLAS STARS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-07134/7318519-1-eng-US/f0040-072.jpg" title="f0040-07" width="1022" height="678"></div><h2>DETROIT RED WINGS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-08122/7318512-1-eng-US/f0040-082.jpg" title="f0040-08" width="1012" height="702"></div><h2>EDMONTON OILERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0997/7318505-1-eng-US/f0040-092.jpg" title="f0040-09" width="1013" height="717"></div><h2>FLORIDA PANTHERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1090/7318498-1-eng-US/f0040-102.jpg" title="f0040-10" width="1016" height="298"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1181/7318491-1-eng-US/f0040-112.jpg" title="f0040-11" width="1042" height="462"></div><h2>HARTFORD WHALERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1276/7318484-1-eng-US/f0040-122.jpg" title="f0040-12" width="1024" height="658"></div><h2>LOS ANGELES KINGS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1372/7318477-1-eng-US/f0040-132.jpg" title="f0040-13" width="1032" height="961"></div><h2>MONTREAL CANADIENS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1461/7318470-1-eng-US/f0040-142.jpg" title="f0040-14" width="1024" height="779"></div><h2>NEW JERSEY DEVILS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1559/7318463-1-eng-US/f0040-152.jpg" title="f0040-15" width="1014" height="442"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01451/7318456-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="1016" height="289"></div><h2>NEW YORK ISLANDERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02271/7318449-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="1016" height="721"></div><h2>NEW YORK RANGERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-03205/7318442-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="1021" height="676"></div><h2>OTTAWA SENATORS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-04172/7318435-1-eng-US/f0041-042.jpg" title="f0041-04" width="1033" height="767"></div><h2>PHILADELPHIA FLYERS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-05155/7318428-1-eng-US/f0041-052.jpg" title="f0041-05" width="1019" height="838"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-06145/7318421-1-eng-US/f0041-062.jpg" title="f0041-06" width="1017" height="189"></div><h2>PITTSBURGH PENGUINS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-07131/7318414-1-eng-US/f0041-072.jpg" title="f0041-07" width="1021" height="649"></div><h2>QUEBEC NORDIQUES</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-08110/7318407-1-eng-US/f0041-082.jpg" title="f0041-08" width="995" height="676"></div><h2>SAN JOSE SHARKS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0984/7318400-1-eng-US/f0041-092.jpg" title="f0041-09" width="998" height="679"></div><h2>ST. LOUIS BLUES</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1066/7318393-1-eng-US/f0041-102.jpg" title="f0041-10" width="1031" height="839"></div><h2>TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1158/7318386-1-eng-US/f0041-112.jpg" title="f0041-11" width="1016" height="211"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1247/7318379-1-eng-US/f0041-122.jpg" title="f0041-12" width="1031" height="465"></div><h2>TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1340/7318372-1-eng-US/f0041-132.jpg" title="f0041-13" width="1024" height="756"></div><h2>VANCOUVER CANUCKS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1437/7318365-1-eng-US/f0041-142.jpg" title="f0041-14" width="1018" height="717"></div><h2>WASHINGTON CAPITALS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1534/7318358-1-eng-US/f0041-152.jpg" title="f0041-15" width="1024" height="695"></div><h2>WINNIPEG JETS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1630/7318351-1-eng-US/f0041-162.jpg" title="f0041-16" width="1047" height="677"></div> &#9632;

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NHL STATISTICAL REPORT

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01479/7318599-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg"></div><h2>GOALTENDING</h2>KEY TO ABBREVIATIONSStatistics provided by National Hockey League; Rk-overall rank; No.-uniform number; GP&mdash;games played; MIN&mdash;minutes played; GAA&mdash;goals&mdash;against average; W&mdash;wins; L&mdash;losses; T&mdash;ties; ENG&mdash;empty&mdash;net goals; SO&mdash;shulouts; GA&mdash;goals against; SA&mdash;shots against; SV%&mdash;save percentage. Players indicated by an asterisk (*) are eligible for the Calder Trophy. Overall rank is based on goals-against average with ties broken using the following criteria: minutes played, save percentage and wins.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02317/7318592-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="2051" height="1446"></div> &#9632;

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NHL GOALTENDING STATISTICS

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NHL SUMMARIES

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NHL TRANSACTIONS

NHL affiliates are listed under AHL team names.Players must have appeared in three games to be listed.<h2>ADIRONDACK RED WINGS</h2>(Detroit)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-01186/7319595-1-eng-US/f0049-012.jpg" title="f0049-01" width="604" height="865"></div><h2>ALBANY RIVER RATS</h2>(New Jersev)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-02130/7319588-1-eng-US/f0049-022.jpg" title="f0049-02" width="607" height="655"></div><h2>BINGHAMTON RANGERS</h2>(Rangers)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-0384/7319581-1-eng-US/f0049-032.jpg" title="f0049-03" width="588" height="810"></div><h2>CAPE BRETON OILERS</h2>(Edmonton)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-0473/7319574-1-eng-US/f0049-042.jpg" title="f0049-04" width="619" height="729"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-0547/7319567-1-eng-US/f0049-052.jpg" title="f0049-05" width="599" height="295"></div><h2>CORNWALL ACES</h2>(Quebec)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-0636/7319560-1-eng-US/f0049-062.jpg" title="f0049-06" width="602" height="849"></div><h2>FREDERICTON CANADIENS</h2>(Montreal)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-0727/7319553-1-eng-US/f0049-072.jpg" title="f0049-07" width="587" height="872"></div><h2>HERSHEY BEARS</h2>(Philadelphia)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-0817/7319546-1-eng-US/f0049-082.jpg" title="f0049-08" width="616" height="969"></div><h2>P.E.I. SENATORS</h2>(Ottawa)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-0916/7319539-1-eng-US/f0049-092.jpg" title="f0049-09" width="601" height="271"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-1013/7319532-1-eng-US/f0049-102.jpg" title="f0049-10" width="612" height="622"></div><h2>PORTLAND PIRATES</h2>(Washington)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-1110/7319525-1-eng-US/f0049-112.jpg" title="f0049-11" width="600" height="943"></div><h2>PROVIDENCE BRUINS</h2>(Boston)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-128/7319518-1-eng-US/f0049-122.jpg" title="f0049-12" width="610" height="880"></div><h2>ROCHESTER AMERICANS</h2>(Buffalo)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-138/7319511-1-eng-US/f0049-132.jpg" title="f0049-13" width="598" height="876"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-147/7319504-1-eng-US/f0049-142.jpg" title="f0049-14" width="615" height="153"></div><h2>SAINT JOHN FLAMES</h2>(Calgary)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-156/7319497-1-eng-US/f0049-152.jpg" title="f0049-15" width="602" height="769"></div><h2>ST. JOHN&rsquo;S MAPLE LEAFS</h2>(Toronto)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-166/7319490-1-eng-US/f0049-162.jpg" title="f0049-16" width="592" height="874"></div><h2>SPRINGFIELD FALCONS</h2>(Hartford/Winnipeg)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-176/7319483-1-eng-US/f0049-172.jpg" title="f0049-17" width="606" height="992"></div><h2>SYRACUSE CRUNCH</h2>(Vancouver)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-186/7319476-1-eng-US/f0049-182.jpg" title="f0049-18" width="593" height="479"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-194/7319469-1-eng-US/f0049-192.jpg" title="f0049-19" width="602" height="371"></div><h2>WORCESTER ICECATS</h2>(Independent)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-204/7319462-1-eng-US/f0049-202.jpg" title="f0049-20" width="590" height="928"></div><h3>GOALTENDING</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-212/7319455-1-eng-US/f0049-212.jpg" title="f0049-21" width="604" height="2026"></div> &#9632;

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

NHL affiliates are listed under IHL team names.<h2>ATLANTA KNIGHTS</h2>(Tampa Bay)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-01187/7319780-1-eng-US/f0050-012.jpg" title="f0050-01" width="616" height="716"></div><h2>CHICAGO WOLVES</h2>(Independent)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-02121/7319773-1-eng-US/f0050-022.jpg" title="f0050-02" width="609" height="667"></div><h2>CINCINNATI CYCLONES</h2>(Florida)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-0368/7319766-1-eng-US/f0050-032.jpg" title="f0050-03" width="592" height="634"></div><h2>CLEVELAND LUMBERJACKS</h2>(Pittsburgh)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-0457/7319759-1-eng-US/f0050-042.jpg" title="f0050-04" width="600" height="739"></div><h2>DENVER GRIZZLIES</h2>(Islanders)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-0537/7319752-1-eng-US/f0050-052.jpg" title="f0050-05" width="601" height="396"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-0630/7319745-1-eng-US/f0050-062.jpg" title="f0050-06" width="615" height="349"></div><h2>DETROIT VIPERS</h2>(Independent)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-0721/7319738-1-eng-US/f0050-072.jpg" title="f0050-07" width="608" height="777"></div><h2>FORT WAYNE KOMETS</h2>(Independent)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-0815/7319731-1-eng-US/f0050-082.jpg" title="f0050-08" width="608" height="773"></div><h2>HOUSTON AEROS</h2>(Independent)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-0913/7319724-1-eng-US/f0050-092.jpg" title="f0050-09" width="600" height="461"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-109/7319717-1-eng-US/f0050-102.jpg" title="f0050-10" width="598" height="355"></div><h2>INDIANAPOLIS ICE</h2>(Chicago)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-117/7319710-1-eng-US/f0050-112.jpg" title="f0050-11" width="601" height="676"></div><h2>KALAMAZOO WINGS</h2>(Dallas)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-126/7319703-1-eng-US/f0050-122.jpg" title="f0050-12" width="596" height="824"></div><h2>KANSAS CITY BLADES</h2>(San Jose)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-136/7319696-1-eng-US/f0050-132.jpg" title="f0050-13" width="640" height="726"></div><h2>LAS VEGAS THUNDER</h2>(Independent)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-145/7319689-1-eng-US/f0050-142.jpg" title="f0050-14" width="606" height="672"></div><h2>MILWAUKEE ADMIRALS</h2>(Independent)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-154/7319682-1-eng-US/f0050-152.jpg" title="f0050-15" width="611" height="727"></div><h2>MINNESOTA MOOSE</h2>(Independent)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-164/7319675-1-eng-US/f0050-162.jpg" title="f0050-16" width="618" height="701"></div><h2>PEORIA RIVERMEN</h2>(St. Louis)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-174/7319668-1-eng-US/f0050-172.jpg" title="f0050-17" width="606" height="696"></div><h2>PHOENIX ROADRUNNERS</h2>(Los Angeles)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-184/7319661-1-eng-US/f0050-182.jpg" title="f0050-18" width="612" height="364"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-194/7319654-1-eng-US/f0050-192.jpg" title="f0050-19" width="598" height="444"></div><h2>SAN DIEGO GULLS</h2>(Anaheim)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-204/7319647-1-eng-US/f0050-202.jpg" title="f0050-20" width="598" height="733"></div><h3>GOALTENDING</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-214/7319640-1-eng-US/f0050-212.jpg" title="f0050-21" width="603" height="2175"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-224/7319633-1-eng-US/f0050-222.jpg" title="f0050-22" width="584" height="909"><figcaption class="caption-body">Cleveland&rsquo;s Jock Callander</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-234/7319626-1-eng-US/f0050-232.jpg" title="f0050-23" width="577" height="672"><figcaption class="caption-body">Peoria&rsquo;s Martin Hamrlik</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

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SCOREBOARD

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div>One topsy-turvy college season does not a pro career make, and for that Landon Wilson is thankful.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t reach my goals that I set at the beginning of the season,&rdquo; said the 19-year old son of Dallas Stars&rsquo; assistant coach Rick Wilson. &ldquo;I really haven&rsquo;t played consistent hockey. Every time I get going I get hurt or kicked out.&rdquo;Wilson is the 6-foot-2, 213-pound University of North Dakota right winger some people consider the sleeper in the Wendel Clark-Mats Sundin blockbuster trade between the Quebec Nordiques and Toronto Maple Leafs.His style has been compared to that of Owen Nolan, a possible future teammate with the Nordiques, though his sophomore season with the Fighting Sioux has been about as frustrating as Nolan&rsquo;s injury-plagued season a year ago.The Western Collegiate Hockey Association favorite for player of the year in the pre-season coaches&rsquo; poll was eighth on his team in scoring with three goals, 16 points and I Of penalty minutes while playing in only 22 of his team&rsquo;s 30 games. The Hobey Baker media hype is a distant memory; he won&rsquo;t even be considered for the conference all-star team.But the reasons for his troubies-aggressive play, feistiness, a refusal to back down-are the same reasons the Nordiques and NHL scouts are still bullish on the 1993 first-rounder, selected 19th overall by the Leafs.&ldquo;All we think is he has great potential for the future,&rdquo; said Nordiques&rsquo; general manager Pierre Lacroix.The Nordiques believe Wilson&rsquo;s development would be quickened if he left North Dakota to get used to a longer pro season, but they&rsquo;re not about to push the issue.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt in my mind (it would help),&rdquo; Lacroix said. &ldquo;If he does it and it&rsquo;s against his will it&rsquo;s the wrong decision.&rdquo;Contrary to rumors, Wilson sees himself returning for his junior year at North Dakota next season. He said the college experience is a learning one, both on and off the ice.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just going to make that decision (to turn pro) when I feel comfortable,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When the time comes I&rsquo;ll know it.&rdquo;Part of the problem this season has been Wilson&rsquo;s game isn&rsquo;t exactly suited to the U.S. college rulebook. Suspensions are handed out for fights and mount for repeat offenders-one game for the first fight, two for the second, and so on.Wilson said a college scrap sometimes amounts to little more than a few punches thrown, which his heat-of-the-moment fury can&rsquo;t always prevent from happening. He had missed six games due to suspensions.&ldquo;You come into this league knowing the rules, but sometimes you do what you have to do,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You can only take so much.&rdquo;More games were lost with a broken left arm sustained when he careened into a goalpost during a December tournament in Alaska. He missed three weeks but did play for the United States in the World Junior Championship, where he had three goals, five points and a team-high 37 penalty minutes in seven games.Wilson&rsquo;s high profile and outstanding freshman season in 1993-94 (18 goals. 34 points) make him a marked man in addition to the chippiness and high sticks that come with the full faceshields worn in U.S. college.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s shadowed quite a bit, but he&rsquo;s got to find a way to break loose,&rdquo; said North Dakota coach Dean Blais.&ldquo;(When) things set you back, you&rsquo;ve just got to strive harder,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t make the rules.&rdquo;A raging bull doesn&rsquo;t always play by them, either. In Quebec, that&rsquo;s why they like him. &#9632;

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March 3, 1995

‘I can live a good life’

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