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

May 10, 1996

The Hockey News May 10, 1996

<h2>STANDINGS</h2><h3>Round Robin Group A</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1182/6298891-1-eng-US/f0030-112.jpg" title="f0030-11" width="500" height="198"></div><h3>Group B</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1276/6298884-1-eng-US/f0030-122.jpg" title="f0030-12" width="496" height="194"></div><h3>Results</h3>April 21: Russia 2, Germany 1; Czech Republic 3, Sweden 1; Canada 3, Slovakia 3; Finland 1, Norway 1. April 22: USA 5, Austria 1; Italy 6. France 5; Russia 6, Slovakia 2. April 23: USA 4, Germany 2; Italy 4 Norway 0; Canada 4, Austria 0; Czech Republic 4, Finland 2 April 24: Germany 5, Canada 1; Sweden 2, France 1; Norway 2, Czech Republic 2. April 25: Austria 2, Slovakia 1; Finland 6, France 3; Russia 3, USA 1; Sweden 3, Italy 3. April 26: Russia 6, Canada 4; Germany 3 Austria 0; Finland 9, Italy 2.<h2>GAME SUMMARIES</h2><h3>SUNDAY, APRIL 21</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1372/6298877-1-eng-US/f0030-132.jpg" title="f0030-13" width="498" height="696"></div><h3>MONDAY, APRIL 22</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1467/6298870-1-eng-US/f0030-142.jpg" title="f0030-14" width="500" height="500"></div><h3>TUESDAY, APRIL 23</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1565/6298863-1-eng-US/f0030-152.jpg" title="f0030-15" width="509" height="194"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1652/6298856-1-eng-US/f0030-162.jpg" title="f0030-16" width="505" height="870"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1750/6298849-1-eng-US/f0030-172.jpg" title="f0030-17" width="500" height="90"></div><h3>WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1840/6298842-1-eng-US/f0030-182.jpg" title="f0030-18" width="505" height="683"></div><h3>THURSDAY, APRIL 25</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1933/6298835-1-eng-US/f0030-192.jpg" title="f0030-19" width="503" height="787"></div> &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0003-027/6299194-1-eng-US/s0003-022.jpg" title="S0003-02" width="878" height="3566"><figcaption class="caption-body">JAROMIR JAGR Right wing Pittsburgh (NHL)JAMIE STORR Goaltender Phoenix (IHL)JOE THORNTON Center Sauft Ste. Marie (OHL)</figcaption></div>Jaromir Jagr, 24, has established himself as one of the NHL&rsquo;s top offensive talents. His 149 points placed him second in scoring behind only superstar teammate Mario Lemieux.The Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; puckstopper of the future finished his rookie pro season with a 3.08 goals-against average and 89.7 save percentage in 48 games with Phoenix.A 6-foot-4,185-pound Ontario League rookie, Joe Thornton, 16, has showed the skill to emerge as a candidate for the No. 1 overall choice in the 1997 NHL entry draft. &#9632;

S0003-02

OUR THREE STARS

<div class="byline">By Jim Smith</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-04156/6298150-1-eng-US/f0021-042.jpg" title="f0021-04" width="159" height="162"></div>When he is healthy, New York Islanders&rsquo; defenseman Rich Pilon is a ferocious bodychecker.The problem is Pilon, 28, has been healthy for only 320 games in his eight seasons and 119 over the past four.&ldquo;A lot of it is the way he plays,&rdquo; said Islanders&rsquo; trainer Ed Tyburski. &ldquo;He plays every game, every practice, every pregame skate, as if it&rsquo;s the last game of the Cup finals. A lot of guys hate him and that includes our guys. Guys hunt him down. They want to get him back.&rdquo;Pilon, a native North American from Saskatoon, was an Islanders&rsquo; seventh-round pick in the 1986 NHL entry draft. He played at least 60 games in three of his first four seasons, but has had nothing but bad luck since then.Coming off a shoulder injury which limited him to 28 games in 1993-94, he suffered groin, ankle and wrist injuries which forced him to miss 28 games in lockout-shortened 1994-95. Recovering from surgery to repair a broken left wrist, he missed the first 18 games this season, then suffered a groin injury in practice and missed 12 of the next 15.Pilon played seven games in late-December and early-January, then hit a rut in a morning skate, slid into the boards and jammed his surgically-repaired wrist, stretching ligaments and forcing him to miss two games.He returned to play eight games, suffered a hip flexor in a Feb. 4 game against the Dallas Stars and missed four more. He aggravated the hip injury in a March 3 game against the Winnipeg Jets and missed the last 19 games of the season.Coach-GM Mike Milbury said he will meet with Tyburski to see what can be done to keep Pilon healthier. Tyburski recommends Pilon take more practice days off and spend them on off-ice training. Pilon said he will be happy to do that, but don&rsquo;t expect him to ever coast in practice.&ldquo;My belief has always been that what you do in practice converts into the game,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I finish my checks in practice. I shouldn&rsquo;t. I should be saving myself.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: After serving a three-game NHL suspension, rookie right winger Todd Bertuzzi finished the season with four goals, six points and lots of body checks in his last four games. That gave him totals of 18 goals and 39 points in 76 games. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way it should have been all year round,&rdquo; Bertuzzi said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty happy with the way it finished off.&rdquo;&hellip;The Islanders had a league-high 528 man-games lost to injuries this season&hellip;Rookie left winger Nicklas Andersson received a one-year extension at $300,000 and had this year&rsquo;s salary pro-rated at $400,000 from Feb. 7-to-April 13&hellip;Left winger Andreas Johansson got his first NHL point (an assist) in the last game of the season against Montreal. &#9632;

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NHL TEAMS

All-out style makes Pilon fragile Isle

<div class="image-hero"><img title="S0002-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0002-0114/6299101-1-eng-US/s0002-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Petr Nedved (Photo by John Hay/BBS)</figcaption></div>When Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr are your team mates, a 45-goal, 99-point season can easily be overlooked.So it is with Pittsburgh Penguins left winger Petr Nedved, even though he was on fire in the playoffs. He had six goals, tied for NHL best, through four games of the team&rsquo;s opening-round series against the Washington Capitals&mdash;including the fourth-overtime game-winner April 24. The 3-2 game, which lasted 139 minutes and 15 seconds, was the third-longest in history.Still, Nedved doesn&rsquo;t mind playing third fiddle.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s Mario and there&rsquo;s Jags&mdash;they&rsquo;re the top two players in the National Hockey League, so that doesn&rsquo;t bother me,&rdquo; says the 25-year-old native of Liberec, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just happy with the season I&rsquo;ve had.&rdquo;The 1995-96 season was the most settled for Nedved, whose hockey life has been an interesting one.Start with Jan. 2, 1989, when he defected to Canada at 18 after a midget tournament in Calgary.Young Nedved was alone in a strange country, with nothing but his hockey talent and a dream to play in the National Hockey League.&ldquo;It was the biggest decision of my life,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;leaving my parents behind and coming here at such a young age. And something could have happened that would come between me playing in the National Hockey League.&rdquo;Instead, he only enhanced his reputation with a Western League rookie record 145 points as a member of the Seattle Thunderbirds. That led to his selection, second overall, by the Vancouver Canucks in the 1990 NHL entry draft.Nedved admits he wasn&rsquo;t ready when he stepped in with the Canucks in 1990-91 and put together modest seasons of 16 and 37 points in his first two years.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s not many players who come in at 18 or 19 and know what&rsquo;s going on,&rdquo; he says.The third year, he broke through for 38 goals and 71 points. Things appeared to be going fine, but a bit-L ter contract dispute developed.So he joined the 1994 Canadian Olympic team. Nedved&rsquo;s participation helped Canada to a silver medal.&ldquo;That summer, I&rsquo;d become a Canadian citizen,&rdquo; he recalls. &ldquo;It was perfect timing. And it was the greatest experience.&rdquo;After the Olympics, the Canucks allowed Nedved to join the St. Louis Blues as a &ldquo;free agent&rdquo;&mdash;although the Blues had to send players to Vancouver as compensation.His stay with St. Louis was short. When the Blues signed Mike Keenan as their coach-general manager, Nedved went to the New York Rangers as part of the compensation. In New York, he scored only 23 points in 46 games.&ldquo;The best thing for them and for me was that they traded me.&rdquo;That happened in August 1995, whne the Rangers moved him to Pittsburgh. Now, Nedved&rsquo;s game has matured, and he gives much of the credit to coach Ed Johnston.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a great coach,&rdquo; Nedved says. &ldquo;He also lets the players play. He doesn&rsquo;t try to make somebody who&rsquo;s not something into something else.&rdquo; &#9632;

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HAPPY OT HERO

Who&rsquo;s most likely to go first in this year&rsquo;s NHL entry draft? What&rsquo;s the draft strategy of your favorite team? Find out that and much more in the leading draft authority, THN Draft Preview. &#9632;

UPCOMING IN THN

<h2>WESTERN CONFERENCE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-021140/6296656-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="555" height="465"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011397/6296649-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="433" height="2131"></div><h2>EASTERN CONFERENCE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-03830/6296642-1-eng-US/f0002-032.jpg" title="f0002-03" width="545" height="461"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-04606/6296635-1-eng-US/f0002-042.jpg" title="f0002-04" width="396" height="496"><figcaption class="caption-body">Petr Nedved, tied for the playoff goal lead, ends the third-longest NHL game.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-05442/6296628-1-eng-US/f0002-052.jpg" title="f0002-05" width="369" height="798"></div><h2>PLAYOFF SURPRISE</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-06321/6296621-1-eng-US/f0002-062.jpg" title="f0002-06" width="397" height="495"><figcaption class="caption-body">Olaf Kolag becomes super sub for Washington, posting a 94.7 save percentage.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS

<h2>Petr the Great helps Pens fly</h2>1. Petr Nedved Pittsburgh&rsquo;s other sniper scores six goals in four games, including four-OT winner April 24.2. Gino Odjick Vancouver enforcer scores two game-winners against Colorado.3. Craig Ludwig Veteran Dallas shot-blocker earns another one-year contract with well-deserved $150,000 raise.4. Music ban IIHF bans playing of vulgar song at World Championship in Vienna.5. Tampa Bay fans Set back-to-back attendance records with crowds of 25,945 and 28,183 at ThunderDome.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-07207/6296694-1-eng-US/f0002-072.jpg" title="f0002-07" width="324" height="452"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gino Odjick</figcaption></div><h2>Another year, another loss</h2>1. Flickering Flames Swept by Chicago, Calgary still hasn&rsquo;t won playoff round since winning Stanley Cup in 1989.2. Listen for goals NHL&rsquo;s failure to use audio on video replay means goals that should count are being waved off.3. Minus Mats Toronto&rsquo;s Mats Sundin registers minus-5 in 5-1 loss to St. Louis April 23.4. Diving epidemic It&rsquo;s an eyesore in regular season and it gets worse in playoffs. This year is no exception.5. Canuckleheads Team Canada embarrassed 5-1 by no-name German squad at World Championship.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-08105/6296687-1-eng-US/f0002-082.jpg" title="f0002-08" width="323" height="453"><figcaption class="caption-body">Craig Ludwig</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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PLUS MINUS

<div class="byline">By Steve Dryden Editor-In-Chief</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-0969/6296725-1-eng-US/f0002-092.jpg" title="f0002-09" width="341" height="422"></div>Everybody says Mike Gartner isn&rsquo;t a playoff scorer. Everybody was wrong April 25.Gartner scored three goals-including the winner in overtime-in a 5-4 victory over the St. Louis Blues. It came after another spate of criticism aimed at Gartner and other highly paid Toronto Maple Leafs for not delivering during the playoffs. On this night, Gartner, a devout Christian, delivered Toronto from evil. Had they lost, the Leafs would have been eliminated from the playoffs. Instead, Gartner got the opportunity to face &ldquo;God Himself&rsquo; (Toronto coach Nick Beverley&rsquo;s sarcastic nickname for Wayne Gretzky) and the rest of the Blues another game. Gartner and the rest of the Nimrods (Beverley&rsquo;s sarcastic nickname for the Leafs after Game 4) prevailed because of opportunism and grittiness.Neither characteristic has often been associated with Gartner during the playoffs. His game is outside speed and shooting, but in this game he scored all three goals from the edge of the crease, the war zone where bad things happen to good people. Looking on from behind the Blues&rsquo; bench was Mike Keenan, the man who traded Gartner away from the New York Rangers before they won the 1994 Stanley Cup. (Ironically, the player Keenan traded for-Glenn Anderson-scored the overtime winner in Game 4 of the Toronto-St. Louis series.)Gartner, 36 and a two-time Canada Cup champion, has been labeled a playoff underachiever. He doesn&rsquo;t like the assessment and did not think his clutch performance particularly unusual: &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ve done it in the past, but sometimes those things get forgotten.&rdquo; As for his playoff record? &ldquo;If someone&rsquo;s asking the question,&rdquo; Gartner said, &ldquo;have they done their homework and have they looked at past performances? Have they looked into the statistics, have they dove into it and how bad is it? In most cases they don&rsquo;t know because it&rsquo;s second- and third-hand. I realize that in many cases perception is reality.&rdquo;The stats say this: Gartner is the NHL&rsquo;s second-leading active goal-scorer (behind only &ldquo;God Himself&rsquo;) with 664 in 1,290 career games. That represents an average of .51 goals per game. He had 41 goals in 109 career playoff games, an average of .38 goals per game. The 25-per-cent dropoff in production tied him with the Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; Steve Yzerman for the highest such mark among the top 10 active scorers. The rest of the story is this: Gartner is among the game&rsquo;s unique talents-he may be the fastest player ever-and though he&rsquo;s not perfect, he&rsquo;s a pretty good brand of imperfect. &#9632;

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Clutch playoff performance part of ‘reality’

<div class="byline">By Brent Hurst and Ken Campbell</div>The Colorado Avalanche had home mountain advantage against the Vancouver Canucks, but it&rsquo;s unclear what, if any, edge it provided in the Western Conference quarterfinal series. Although Vancouver is known for its stunning mountain backdrop, Denver&rsquo;s elevation (5.280 feet) is a mile higher than downtown Vancouver (elevation: nine feet). Those not used to the Mile High City&rsquo;s oxygen-thin air often experience a shortness of breath and faster heartbeat because the cardiovascular system has to work harder than in oxygen-rich air. The University of Colorado Health Sciences Center estimates it takes 24-72 hours to adapt to the higher elevation in Denver. Perhaps it&rsquo;s not surprising then the Canucks lost Game 1 at McNichols Arena, won Game 2 two nights later and dropped Game 5 after returning from Vancouver. Colorado coach Marc Crawford downplayed any suggestion elevation would be a significant factor because hockey players are in excellent physical shape. The Canucks, however, appeared to be keeping their shifts short, for example, usually lasting no more than 45 seconds in the third period of Game 5. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t really feel that fatigued,&rdquo; said Canucks&rsquo; defenseman Jyrki Lumme. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t go for long shifts. Keep them short. I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s going to give them too much of an advantage.&rdquo; The Avalanche&rsquo;s home winning percentage this season (.670) wasn&rsquo;t as good as the team mark (.875) in 1994-95, the team&rsquo;s last year in Quebec&hellip;The NHL has taken on a new meaning at the filled-to-capacity ThunderDome, where the underdog Tampa Bay Lightning hosted the Philadelphia Flyers. There, the signature letters stand for &ldquo;Not Here to Lose&rdquo;&hellip;The change from uniform scheduling (i.e. Western and Eastern Conference games on alternating nights) has made the playoffs virtually unfollowable without a day planner. It totally disrupts the rhythms of the sport. Plus, two days between first round games disrupts any sense of momentum or excitement. Building availability has created scheduling problems and TV demands (i.e. Fox wants four Sunday afternoon games) have complicated the schedule. The upshot, according to the NHL, though, is more games than ever are on TV because east and west schedules can be blended&hellip;A clever idea from Toronto reader Paul Gallagher, who is fed up with faceoff marathons. Gallagher suggests faceoff men be given warnings each time they are thrown out of draws. Once a player received three warnings-ejected from three faceoffs, in other words-he wouldn&rsquo;t be allowed to take any more faceoffs in the game. Do we hear two warnings and you&rsquo;re out&hellip;Add a 6-foot-3, 185-pound center to the list of remarkable prospects available in the 1997 NHL entry draft. Jason Ward of the as-yet unnamed Erie, Pa., franchise (previously the Niagara Falls Thunder) was a big hit in his Ontario League debut. Some say he could be the No. 1 pick next year. Ward had 50 points and 139 penalty minutes in 64 regular season games. He stepped it up during the playoffs with six goals and 10 points in 10 playoff games. He also demonstrated big-time commitment in the Thunder-Guelph Storm series when he left Game 2 on a stretcher (with a mild concussion and deep back bruise), but returned two days later for Game 3&hellip;League GMs have had a look at the new computer stats program that logs everything from origin of shots to the sequence of plays to individual players&rsquo; icetime. It will be a dandy resource for fans and media when unveiled (hopefully next season), but one GM summed up objections to the latter stat: &ldquo;All it will do is cost us money and aggravation.&rdquo; The complaint is dissemination of ice time will give players one more bargaining chip at the negotiating table and the media one more means of identifying potentially disenchanted players for comment. Neither beef matters. Players and fans should have access to that information and, in time, it will be accepted and essential to evaluating players&hellip;An Associated Press account of the April 24 seven-period game between the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins: &ldquo;As Washington and Pittsburgh entered the fourth overtime of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal, only two questions remained: Who would win? And would the Zamboni run out of gas before the players did?&rdquo;&hellip;One look at the results of The Hockey News Supreme Pool suggests Ron Teshima is a hockey genius. Out of the 13,000 entries we received this season, Teshima had the top two. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a hockey god. We&rsquo;re not worthy,&rdquo; said his wife, Laura. &ldquo;He has this little black book and he writes everything down. I&rsquo;m sure he could do a master&rsquo;s thesis in hockey.&rdquo; Teshima, a 47-year-old postal clerk from Lethbridge, Alta., begs to differ. &ldquo;I just got plain lucky,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t even figure out the system for points.&rdquo; Whatever, Teshima&rsquo;s team that included superstar Mario Lemieux and such lesser lights as Igor Korolev. Scott Mellanby and Norm Maciver was good for 2,161 points, 27 more than his second-place team. Teshima picked up the first prize of $10,000 and an NHL arena tour for six for finishing second. And what does he plan to do with the money? &ldquo;The old lady has it all figured out,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be lucky if I have enough for a little party.&rdquo; The way Laura sees it, she deserves it. &ldquo;I hate hockey,&rdquo; she<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011548/6296763-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="372" height="370"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021253/6296756-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="1141" height="1653"><figcaption class="caption-body">NHL fans are seeing more playoff action on TV than ever before. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Coping with air up there

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div>The first words out of Don Cherry&rsquo;s mouth during the first Coach&rsquo;s Comer of Hockey Night In Canada&rsquo;s coverage of the first playoff game this season were a condemnation of the officials.My first thought? Oh no, here we go again.It&rsquo;s the playoffs, break out the crying towels. Care for a little cheese with that whine?Cherry isn&rsquo;t alone. Players, coaches and management deflect all that goes wrong in their day on to the officials. Referees&rsquo; IQs. they would have you believe, go down as the temperature rises. Don&rsquo;t believe it.If you start with the premise referees are human and will occasionally make mistakes, then everything will be fine. Remarkably, few have grasped that concept. The NHL hierarchy can live with it; it&rsquo;s the nature of the beast-just as there will always be goalies who mishandle the puck and give it away and defensemen who get caught up the ice at the wrong time.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03832/6296794-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="345" height="417"></div>That&rsquo;s not to mention coaches whose teams get caught with too many men on the ice.&ldquo;Going into it, expectations for refs are incredibly high, if not impossibly high,&rdquo; says NHL senior vice-president Brian Burke. &ldquo;The media and fans demand perfection. Human perfection is nearly impossible to attain in any endeavor. Officiating is so subjective. The difference between a clean check and penalty is a fraction. Our guys do a great job &ldquo;Bryan Lewis, the NHL&rsquo;s director of officiating, says his men in stripes are trained and their performances monitored, just like the players.&ldquo;You can take tape of any game, watch it closely and you will see the referee make mistakes,&rdquo; Lewis says. &ldquo;You can do the same thing with right wingers and see guys who miss their checks and make bad passes.&rdquo;Check the tape from recent years and you&rsquo;ll find Kerry Fraser not calling a high stick by Wayne Gretzky on Doug Gilmour; Andy Van Hellemond waving off goals because he felt the puck entered the net after the whistle; and Paul Stewart failing to call a penalty on Nick Kypreos for falling on Grant Fuhr. All senior refs; all missed or bad calls. And the sun rose the next day.So, what can we reasonably expect from officials? &ldquo;An honest effort,&rdquo; Lewis says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all.&rdquo; &#9632;

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COLUMNISTS

Let’s cut refs a little slack

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011567/6296832-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="313" height="400"><figcaption class="caption-body">Nick Kypreos</figcaption></div>A weekly compendium of significant events and developments (April 19-26).April 19: NHL suspends Toronto left winger Nick Kypreos one game for failing to avoid a collision with St. Louis goalie Grant Fuhr after being cross-checked by Blues&rsquo; defenseman Chris Pronger in a game April 18. Fuhr injures knee on the play.St. Louis left winger Glenn Anderson scores his fifth career playoff overtime goal to move into second place among all-time leaders in OT, one behind Maurice (Rocket) Richard.April 22: Central Army of Russia fires longtime coach Viktor Tikhonov.April 24: Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Petr Nedved scores at 19:15 of the fourth overtime period to end third-longest playoff game in NHL history. Nedved also scores in third period to force overtime.Canada loses 5-1 to Germany at World Championship tournament in stunning upset.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021400/6296825-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="310" height="400"><figcaption class="caption-body">Viktor Tikhonov</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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DEPARTMENTS

Nedved’s goal ends overtime marathon

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011480/6296894-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Glenn Anderson needs one more overtime goal to make history. (Photo by Tim Parker)</figcaption></div>Glenn Anderson has never met Maurice Richard.But if he scores one more overtime goal in the playoffs, Anderson will join Rocket in the NHL record book.Anderson&rsquo;s fifth career playoff overtime goal April 21, which gave the St. Louis Blues a 3-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, moved him into second place on the NHL&rsquo;s all-time list of playoff overtime heroes, one behind the Rocket&rsquo;s record of six.Dale Hunter of the Washington Capitals, Joe Murphy of the Chicago Blackhawks and Stephane Richer of the New Jersey Devils had four apiece.Anderson, whose 93 goals in the playoffs ranks fourth on the all-time list and should be his ticket into the Hall of Fame, said there isn&rsquo;t one OT goal that stands out above the others.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re all big,&rdquo; he said.A part-time player the past two seasons who has hinted this might be his last, Anderson welcomes the opportunity to tie Richard. And so does his pal Wayne Gretzky, who assisted on Anderson&rsquo;s fifth overtime goal and is the all-time assists leader in the playoffs with 245.&ldquo;We were joking around and he mentioned he would be feeding me if I was ever out there with him in that situation,&rdquo; Anderson said.Here are some other memorable overtime highlights:&#9633; Boston&rsquo;s Mel (Sudden Death) Hill scores three overtime goals to help the Bruins defeat the New York Rangers in the 1939 semifinal.&#9633; Mud Bruneteau&rsquo;s goal after 116 minutes and 30 seconds of overtime ends the longest game in NHL history as the Montreal Maroons edge the Detroit Red Wings 1-0 March 3, 1936.&#9633; Brian Skrudland of the Montreal Canadiens scores nine seconds into overtime in a 3-2 win over the Calgary Flames in the shortest overtime ever.&#9633; In 1993, 28 of 85 playoff games are decided in overtime. After losing their opening game of the &rsquo;93 playoffs in overtime to the Quebec Nordiques, the Montreal Canadiens win 10 straight overtime games to set records for most overtime wins in a row and most in one playoff year.&#9633; Petr Nedved&rsquo;s goal at 19:15 of the fourth overtime period lifts the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 3-2 win over Washington April 24, 1996. It is the third longest game in history.(See pg. 30 for list of longest games in NHL history.) &#9632;

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Anderson chasing Rocket’s OT mark

<div class="byline">By Alan Adams</div>After years of talking about it, and even a false start or two, European hockey officials are going ahead with a 20-team, 12-country professional league.During the World Championship in Vienna, the International Ice Hockey Federation announced the European Hockey League would begin play this fall. The format calls for the 20 teams to play a total of 72 games from September to January.Only two reigning national champions will be included in the inaugural season-Lulea of Sweden and Jokerit Helsinki of Finland. But plans call for all of Europe&rsquo;s champions and other top-finishing clubs to be phased in over several years.The format also calls for an NHL club to come to Europe for part of its training camp beginning in September, 1997. That NHL team will play in a three-team Super Cup tournament against the EHL and in an older competition known as the European Cup.IIHF president Rene Fasel said he is aiming for an annual Super Cup that would eventually have the Stanley Cup champions against Europe&rsquo;s best clubs.Fasel also said the NHL is looking into having American League teams tour Europe and play against EHL teams.But the idea of having AHL teams tour Europe does not sit well with IIHF vice-president Kalervo Kummola of Finland.&ldquo;We do not want second-class North American teams here,&rdquo; he said.The first week of the World Championship produced some surprising results and memorable moments. Consider:Germany beat Canada; the Czech Republic tied Norway; Sweden tied Italy; and Austria beat Slovakia.And how about the upstart Italians? They were tied with the Czechs in B Group after three games of competition. (See pg. 30 for World Championship summaries and statistics.)While the tournament is in Vienna, the Slovaks are the unofficial hosts. Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is about an hour&rsquo;s drive from the Austrian city.Slovakia&rsquo;s first game of the tournament was historic because it marked the first time the country has appeared in the A Pool. And for the game against Canada, the stands in the 10,000-seat Stadthalle were filled to the brim with partisan Slovaks, including the country&rsquo;s prime minister and nine cabinet ministers.For the first time in its history, there was a coup d&rsquo;etat at the World Championship.Viktor Tikhonov was fired as coach of the Central Army team while he was in Vienna.But Tikhonov didn&rsquo;t sound too worried about his future.&ldquo;I expected it,&rdquo; Tikhonov said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not worried. I&rsquo;ll be back.&rdquo;The firing was announced in Moscow by Col. Alexander Baranovsky, head of sports operations for Central Army who had tried repeatedly to oust Tikhonov over the club&rsquo;s fading fortunes.Also dismissed was Central Army GM Viktor Gushin.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a coup, just like an African country,&rdquo; said Serge Levin, the Los Angeles-based player agent who is a consultant to Russia&rsquo;s entry at the 12-team world tournament. &ldquo;Get them while they are out of the country&middot;&rdquo;Robert Petrovicky&rsquo;s World Championship was short.Petrovicky was suspended by the Dallas Stars when he abruptly left the team&rsquo;s International League farm club, the Michigan K-Wings, during their playoffs to compete in the international event.He played in two games for Slovakia while the NHL and International Ice Hockey Federation conducted an investigation.Before any decision was announced about his status, the Slovak team told Petrovicky to return to North America rather than risk discipline against his team.&ldquo;We do not need a dispute with the NHL and the IIHF,&rdquo; said Slovak GM Dusan Pasek. &#9632;

Euro-league unveiled

<div class="byline">Compiled by THN staff</div>Mario Lemieux would appear to be a natural for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy. What could be more remarkable than his perseverance in coming back from a one-year health-related layoff?But because of a rule that prohibits players from winning the Masterton more than once, the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; center is not eligible this year. Lemieux won the award in 1993.The Masterton Trophy is given to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication. Members of the Professional Hockey Writers&rsquo; Association nominate one player from each team.A winner will be selected by a poll among the 26 chapters of the PHWA and announced at the NHL awards. An annual scholarship of $2,500 is given to the Masterton scholarship fund in honor of the recipient.Notable players in the running for this year&rsquo;s trophy include Gary Roberts of the Calgary Flames, Grant Fuhr of the St. Louis Blues and Randy Burridge of the Buffalo Sabres. (See pg. 30 for a complete list of Masterton nominees.)HOCKEY NIGHT? The CBC said it will endeavor to keep airing playoff games if its employees decide to strike.Workers cast ballots in late-April on whether to give their unions a strike mandate. Counting of votes was to begin April 28.CBC employees have been without a contract since 1993.The unions and management would be in a legal strike/lockout position May 3. The most contentious issue being negotiated is management&rsquo;s desire to contract any work it chooses. The unions want assurances some work will always be in-house.Ironically, the CBC may be best-equipped to air games in a strike if no Canadian clubs are involved. &ldquo;We would obviously pick up American broadcasts,&rdquo; said CBC public relations director Tom Curzon.WORLD SUMMIT: Boston will be the site of the World Hockey Summit, July 11-13.The purpose of the USA Hockey international symposium is to foster a greater level of understanding, knowledge and support for hockey.More than 300 leaders from every segment of the hockey community attended the first World Hockey Summit in 1993. &#9632;

Lemieux ineligible for second Masterton

I&rsquo;m tired of hearing and reading all the comparisons of this year&rsquo;s Detroit Red Wings to the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens.Did anyone notice that the Red Wings lost 13 games this season, while the 1976-77 Habs lost only eight?The Canadiens played in an era when the talent wasn&rsquo;t as watered down as it is now. The Wings have had an incredible season to be sure, but to compare them to the great Montreal team of 1976-77 is a stretch to say the least.Plus, the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup that year. The Red Wings haven&rsquo;t won anything yet.Terry Mann,&nbsp; Woodstock, N.B.<h2>Asterisk needed</h2>When is The Hockey News going to bring up the fact that the Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; win record does not equal the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; win record of 1976-77?In my opinion, the Wings&rsquo; record of 62 wins merits an asterisk.Three of the Red Wings&rsquo; wins came in overtime, but the Canadiens didn&rsquo;t have the luxury of overtime. That leaves the Wings with 59 regulation-time wins, one short of Montreal.Can you imagine if that Montreal team had five extra minutes to play those 12 games they tied? If that was the case, the record would probably be 65.Detroit deserves congratulations on its fine season, but as far as I&rsquo;m concerned it was not a record-breaking one.Eric Osten,&nbsp; St. Clair Shores, Mich.<h2>Save the Whale</h2>This message goes out to all hockey fans. Please save the Whale.After years of mediocrity, the Whalers are on the verge of becoming a contender. Don&rsquo;t let them get away. I would be such a shame for the team to move and become a contender in front of new fans who don&rsquo;t appreciate the team and its history.Good luck to the Save the Whale campaign.Dave Perkins,&nbsp; Vancouver, B. C.<h2>Canada insulted</h2>The NHL and Fox dealt a huge insult to Canadian hockey viewers on April 20. Thanks to Fox, a Canadian tradition was disregarded to boost American ratings.Neither the Montreal Canadiens nor Toronto Maple Leafs were on Hockey Night in Canada that Saturday night. Since the Canadiens were playing the New York Rangers and Fox wanted the game, it was moved to Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile, the Leafs&rsquo; game against the St. Louis Blues moved to Sunday night so HN1C would have a game in prime time involving a Canadian team.It was ironic that the only game we got to see involved the Colorado Avalanche, who used to be the Quebec Nordiques until they fell victim to &ldquo;NHL-the business.&rdquo;Shi Davidi,&nbsp; Toronto, Ont.<h2>Stars disappeared</h2>A longtime tradition has disappeared from Hockey Night in Canada.Whatever happened to watching the three stars take their bows after the game? Foster Hewitt and Danny Gallivan must be rolling over in their graves.What bothers me most is HNIC then has the nerve to use the phrase, &ldquo;The tradition continues.&rdquo;J. Loreto,&nbsp; Livonia, Mich.<h2>Bring up Ftorek</h2>After watching his New Jersey Devils miss the playoffs, GM Lou Lamoriello has some decisions to make.There is still hope for the future. The losses of Claude Lemieux and Chris Terreri didn&rsquo;t help, but that&rsquo;s not enough of a reason to explain their downfall.I believe Jacques Lemaire&rsquo;s ego was the problem. By not having enough respect for his players, he lost their respect and confidence in return.Lamoriello has made successful call-ups from the Albany River Rats of the American League before. This time he should call up a coach. Hey Lou, bring in Robbie Ftorek and make hockey fun and exciting again in New Jersey.Adam Levine,&nbsp; Kendall Park, N. Y.<h2>Heartless Devils</h2>Now that the unthinkable has happened, it is time to assess what went wrong with the New Jersey Devils.The obvious answer was that they didn&rsquo;t have heart. The evidence is there. The Devils had a great record against plus-.500 teams and were one of the worst against sub-.500 teams. They did all this with a team that was much more potent offensively than last year&rsquo;s.Jacques Lemaire should re-think his philosophy and realize he does not have all the answers. He never had the imagination to rebuild a system around his players.The Devils need an overhaul. Ken Daneyko, John MacLean and Martin Brodeur are the only Devils who shouldn&rsquo;t be on the trading block this summer.Wells Aitken,&nbsp; Quincy, Mass.<h2>Move deadline up</h2>I don&rsquo;t think the trading deadline should be so late in the season. It seems unfair to me that players who have helped put their team in a good position are sent packing just before the season ends.Why bother watching the first 70 games when it seems there will be a bunch of different players there when the playoffs roll around?Even if my New York Rangers do well, it will be tainted. I don&rsquo;t think of Jari Kurri, Shane Churla and Marty McSorley as Rangers yet.Ray Seeback,&nbsp; Blue Point, N. Y.<h2>It&rsquo;s Miller time</h2>One player who never seems to get mentioned in the Selke Trophy talk is Kelly Miller of the Washington Capitals. He is one of the best defensive forwards in the league.I&rsquo;ve been watching him for years and I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ve ever seen him out of position. He&rsquo;s always up against the best players in the NHL and it&rsquo;s no coincidence they seem to score less in Washington than anywhere else.Miller is not flashy, just very capable. His offensive numbers aren&rsquo;t great, but I think he embodies what the Selke Trophy means like no other player.John DiDonato,&nbsp; Annapolis, Md.<h2>Reid & Ranford</h2>Two Boston Bruins deserve credit for the team making the playoffs this season.The first is Dave Reid. No. 17 has been one of the most underrated players on the Bruins this season. The shorthanded specialist is overlooked by many, but he was so valuable this season.The second player is Bill Ranford. After Blaine Lacher&rsquo;s confidence was destroyed and Craig Billington couldn&rsquo;t produce, Ranford came in and singlehandedly solved the Bruins&rsquo; goaltending problems.Wesley Budakowski,&nbsp; Winnipeg Man.Make your feelings known. Fax us your comments at&nbsp;(416) 340-1641.&nbsp;Write to&nbsp;Letters, The Hockey News, 777 Bay St., Suite 2700, Box 148, Toronto, Ont., M5G 2C8&nbsp;in Canada. In the U.S., write to&nbsp;Letters, The Hockey News, P.O. Box 904, Buffalo, N.Y., 14240-9947.&nbsp;E-mail us at <a href="mailto:THN@transc.com">THN@transc.com</a>. Include home and business phone numbers.&nbsp;THN&nbsp;reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

This year’s Red Wings can’t match ’77 Habs

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011656/6296997-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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ELSTON

There are surprising similarities between the 1961 Stanley Cup winning Blackhawks and 1996 Stanley Cup aspiring Blackhawks. Here are some key players from both teams:All-time great Glenn Hall was the original butterfly goalie; Ed Belfour has adopted the same style. Legend has it Hall threw up before most games. Belfour simply throws temper tantrums-in 1993-94 he had 63 penalty minutes. Hall was an 11-time all-star; Belfour will never equal him, but is considered one of the best in the game come playoff time. Hall. 64, is currently a goaltending consultant with the Calgary Flames.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-021010/6297101-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="244" height="304"><figcaption class="caption-body">Glenn Hall</figcaption></div>Pierre Pilote and Chris Chelios are carbon copies. &ldquo;He has got a mean streak like I had,&rdquo; Pilote said. Pilote was the power play quarterback, rushing defenseman and fearless hitter all in one; he had 15 points during Chicago&rsquo;s 12 playoff games in 1961. Pilote won three Norris Trophies during his career; Chelios is expected to win his third this season. Pilote, 64 recently sold his farm and moved to Elmvale, Ont.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-03657/6297094-1-eng-US/f0007-032.jpg" title="f0007-03" width="245" height="303"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pierre Pilote</figcaption></div>That wasn&rsquo;t &lsquo;Boo&rsquo; they were chanting, it was &lsquo;Mooooose!&rsquo; At 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, Elmer (Moose) Vasko was perhaps the biggest player of his era, and the battle cry emanated from the Chicago Stadium rafters every time he lumbered up the ice. Steve Smith is 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds. Both clear(ed) the front of the net with obvious enthusiasm. Vasko, 60, is in semi-retirement in Chicano.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-04444/6297087-1-eng-US/f0007-042.jpg" title="f0007-04" width="247" height="308"><figcaption class="caption-body">Elmer Vasko</figcaption></div>Let&rsquo;s get one thing straight: Eric Daze is no Bobby Hull. Hull liked to carry the puck while Daze goes to open spaces and awaits the feed. But the 6-foot-4,215-pound rookie-of-the-year candidate is the closest thing to the Golden Jet this year&rsquo;s Hawks have: a hulking. swooping scorer on the wing. Hull&rsquo;s howitzers led to 31 goals during the 1960-61 season. Daze had 30 this year. Hull, 57, is a regular on the banquet circuit.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-05311/6297080-1-eng-US/f0007-052.jpg" title="f0007-05" width="245" height="305"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Hull</figcaption></div>We wanted to compare Stan Mikita to Jeremy Roenick, but the fifth-highest scorer in history says he&rsquo;s more like Bemie Nicholls. &ldquo;I had two speeds and so does Bernie, slow and stopped,&rdquo; Mikita said. They share great playmaking skills and a nasty edge. Mikita reportedly cut down on rough play when his young daughter asked why he was always alone on the bench. Mikita, 55, runs a Chicago plastics business.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-06239/6297073-1-eng-US/f0007-062.jpg" title="f0007-06" width="245" height="306"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stan Mikita</figcaption></div>Speed was the weapon that allowed 155-pound right winger Ken Wharram to survive; a wicked wrist shot allowed him to prosper. Same with 190-pound left winger Tony Amonte. Wharram had a magical bond playing alongside Mikita throughout the 1960-61 season; Amonte has had a bond with Roenick since the two attended high school together at Thayer Academy in Braintree, Mass. Wharram, 62, is retired in North Bay, Ont.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-07181/6297066-1-eng-US/f0007-072.jpg" title="f0007-07" width="243" height="302"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ken Wharram</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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Hawks past and present

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011503/6297035-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rested and refreshed after sweeping Calgary, it&rsquo;s full steam ahead for Blackhawks&rsquo; stars Chris Chelios and Jeremy Roenick. (Photo by Rocky Widner)</figcaption></div>Chris Chelios never got to see the 1961 Stanley Cup winning Chicago Blackhawks in their glory. Not then, not now.He was born in Chicago in January, 1962-eight months after the Hawks defeated the Detroit Red Wings in six games to win their first Cup since 1938.This season 15 of the 18 surviving members of that team came back to Chicago. It wouldn&rsquo;t have been such a big event if not for the fact no Chicago team has been able to win in 35 years since.There was a ceremony on the ice before a March game against the New York Islanders, but for some reason Chelios doesn&rsquo;t understand, the players weren&rsquo;t allowed to come out to the bench to see it. While more than 21,000 fans stood and cheered, Chelios and a few teammates stood unseen in the walkway, trying to get a taste of what it would be like.&ldquo;I know everybody says it, but I have that dream I don&rsquo;t know how many times a week,&rdquo; Chelios said. &ldquo;Bringing the Cup down Madison Avenue-I could quit if that happened.&rdquo;After the game the &rsquo;61 alumni visited the dressing room. Hawk great Pierre Pilote found veteran center Denis Savard doing pushups and the spry 64-year-old dropped to his hands and feet and joined in beside him. Until they prove otherwise, this is as close as the bond gets between past and present in Chicago-sharing sweat, but not memories.Chicago has only three Cups in its 70-year history-the fewest of any Original Six team. Only Detroit&rsquo;s 41 years without a Cup keeps the focus off Chicago&rsquo;s streak of futility.How long is 35 years? Long enough ago that playoff money actually meant something. After the first period of the final game, with the score tied 1-1, Chicago coach Rudy Pilous appealed to his players by pointing out the financial gain of winning the Cup instead of finishing second was $1,000.They should have been able to keep it flowing in. Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita were on their way up, goalie Glenn Hall was in his prime and Pilote and Moose Vasko were the foundation of a solid defense. It didn&rsquo;t happen. &ldquo;We tried to play too much offensive hockey (in following years),&rdquo; Pilote says. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t play that style, that defensive type of hockey you need in the playoffs.&rdquo;Some saw the drought coming. The Blackhawk faithful who formed the NHL&rsquo;s first fan club in 1944 called themselves the Standbys-as in stand by their boys. It would end up giving them sore feet to go along with their broken hearts.If the Blackhawks are to break the streak this year, their first-round sweep of the Calgary Flames was the kind of disciplined hockey they&rsquo;ll have to play. Chicago has both the talent to compete&hellip;and the temperament to self-destruct.Just listen to the names. Bob Probert, Enrico Ciccone, Jim Cummins; Chelios, Ed Belfour, Cam Russell. The six of them together had 29 fewer penalty minutes this season than the entire Boston Bruins team. Chicago was the second-most penalized team in the league in no small part because one-third of the Hawks&rsquo; roster could go loopy at any time.That&rsquo;s exactly what happened on April 7. The Hawks turned a pre-&rsquo;playoff game against Detroit into a battle of manhood, which they won judging by their 95 penalty minutes to Detroit&rsquo;s 63. They lost the game 4-1.Against Calgary, though, it didn&rsquo;t happen. Chicago won primarily because it had more talent, but it&rsquo;s the way the Hawks won, by keeping their cool in the face of obvious provocation, checking their tempers while finishing their checks, that is impressive.It suggests there may be more in common with the &rsquo;61 team than just the tomahawks on their shoulders.The 1961 team finished in third place out of six teams, but upset the heavily favored five-time defending Cup champion Montreal Canadiens in the semifinal. If the Hawks make it to the final they&rsquo;ll likely have to go through Detroit, also the league&rsquo;s best team, in the semifinal.The &rsquo;61 Hawks won because they all committed to the cause. A 22-year-old Bobby Hull talked about the importance of backchecking after coach Rudy Pilous convinced him it was as crucial as scoring goals.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it was the best club we ever had,&rdquo; Pilote says, &ldquo;but it was the best club (how) we pulled together. Everybody was playing for each other.&rdquo;Chelios was playing for his teammates when he refused to retaliate after Calgary&rsquo;s Sandy McCarthy rained punches on his head in Game 3. McCarthy jumped Chelios from behind.It was a show of restraint that impressed the oldtimers.&ldquo;You are humbled in front of millions of people and you have to take it,&rdquo; said 1961 star center Mikita. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll never forget it, so there&rsquo;s going to be a payback somewhere, but for him to just walk away, it&rsquo;s incredible.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011569/6297028-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="1196" height="1882"><figcaption class="caption-body">Hulking Eric Daze makes a sizeable contribution to Chicago&rsquo;s attack. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div>Been there, done that.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been on both sides of it,&rdquo; Chelios said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s much I could have done anyway. When it comes down to it, winning is more important than getting even.&rdquo;Probert set the tone in Game 1 by turning down McCarthy&rsquo;s challenge to battle by just skating away.&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve taken it upon themselves, the Proberts and the Ciccones and the Cummins, that we&rsquo;re not going to be the team that loses because of dumb penalties,&rdquo; said Hawks&rsquo; coach Craig Hartsburg.&ldquo;We need Probie on the ice. For him just to go out and fight for the sake of just to fight, it doesn&rsquo;t help our team and he knows that. It just shows that our players are committed to trying to do the right thing.&rdquo;The Hawks&rsquo; long line of tough guys stretches through the ages, from Reg Fleming (on the 1961 team) to Keith Magnuson and Phil Russell to Ciccone and Cummins today. Owner Bill Wirtz has never been terribly good at marketing or catering to fans-they had to line up at Chicago movie theatres to watch the 1971 final on pay per view because Wirtz refuses to put home games on television-so the tough play is seen as a way to keep fans coming to the rink in a town where players, because of poor media coverage, are relatively low profile.&ldquo;I think it makes for a more honest hockey player, because when one of these guys is out there you never know where he&rsquo;s at,&rdquo; said Magnuson, president of the Blackhawks&rsquo; alumni association. He should know-this is the guy who took karate and boxing lessons in preparation for his NHL career.Many things have to happen if the Hawks are to advance. Belfour will have to continue to play well in goal; Jeremy Roenick has to stay healthy and play the best hockey of his career and Chelios needs to hold up under tough physical punishment and continue to log 30-35 minutes of ice time a game.And they&rsquo;ll have to continue to avoid wars they can win on the battlefield, but not on the scoreboard.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a long playoff battle,&rdquo; Hartsburg said. &ldquo;There are going to be times when that discipline is not quite there.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s what Chicago&rsquo;s opponents are counting on. The masses of the hockey world-Blackhawk fans in particular-are standing by. &#9632;

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THE SCORE

Will drought end?

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011497/6297132-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Talented Valeri Kamensky gives both opponents and the media fits. (Photo by Art Foxall/BBS)</figcaption></div>Four years-and one broken ankle, wrist and leg-after Valeri Kamensky arrived, the NHL finally got a glimpse of him.It was worth the wait.&ldquo;He is definitely a world-class, top player,&rdquo; said Colorado Avalanche coach Marc Crawford. &ldquo;He has tremendous speed and the ability to skate at full speed with the puck and make deadly moves 1-on-l.&rdquo;Kamensky, 30, is also one of the reasons the Avalanche had the NHL&rsquo;s second most potent attack this season with 326 goals. The Pittsburgh Penguins set the pace with 362.Playing on a line with budding superstar Peter Forsberg at center and pesky Claude Lemieux on the right side, Kamensky finished with career highs in games (81), goals (38), assists (47) and points (85). He was the NHL&rsquo;s fifth-highest scoring left winger behind Paul Kariya (108) of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Petr Nedved (99) of the Penguins, John LeClair (98) of the Philadelphia Flyers and Keith Tkachuk (98) of the Winnipeg Jets.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not as good as (my linemates),&rdquo; Kamensky told the Rocky Mountain News. &ldquo;Forsberg is a good passer and Lemieux is a good shooter. I&rsquo;m a bit of both, so we complement each other.&rdquo;For a time it looked as though the only category the 6-foot-2 and 198-pound right-shooting left winger would ever challenge to lead was injuries.Kamensky, who joined the Quebec Nordiques as a 25-year-old international star in 1991, broke his leg during an exhibition game that year and was limited to 23 games as an NHL freshman. The next year he fractured his wrist and, while skating in a noncontract drill with his wrist in a cast, stepped on a puck and broke his ankle. He played in just 32 games.His combined totals after four years were 60 goals and 153 points in 171 games.&ldquo;Naturally, I was very frustrated with all the injuries,&rdquo; Kamensky said. &ldquo;An athlete has only so many years and I felt like I was losing my years. Especially when you break your leg at 25, an age when you are expected to blossom.&rdquo;Kamensky, dubbed the Russian Wayne Gretzky during his years with the Soviet Red Army, served notice opening night this season things would be different. He scored the first goal in Avalanche history and later notched the winner as Colorado beat the Detroit Red Wings 3-2. The second goal was signature Kamensky-he took the puck at the left boards, cut to the net through two defenders, was crunched in the process, but got a shot off, beating Mike Vernon at 16:07 of the third period.He then went six games without scoring, but drew seven assists in that span. Kamensky had two three-goal games and six two-goal efforts. Clearly, his time had arrived and only an injury would get in his way. But unlike other years, he managed to stay healthy.Kamensky&rsquo;s slow rise to prominence caused some to question his potential in the NHL. A rocky relationship with the Quebec media developed, which prompted Kamensky to shun the spotlight.After scoring a brilliant goal against the San Jose Sharks Jan. 27, the gamewinner when he held the puck for a painfully long time before moving into a better position to shoot and depositing a backhander, his singular response to queries from reporters was: &ldquo;I move, I move, I move&hellip;I shoot.&rdquo;Kamensky insists on using an interpreter during interviews, which he rarely grants, even though he could get by on the English he has picked up in five years of living in North America. In fact, he often starts to answer questions before his translator relays the query.&ldquo;I think he got burned a few times in Quebec and now he just can&rsquo;t be bothered,&rdquo; Crawford said.&ldquo;His English is fine,&rdquo; said teammate Mike Ricci. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s one of the guys. He jokes around a bit. and he can take a joke.&rdquo;Media relations aside, Kamensky looks like a player who could perform at a high level well into his 30s. In five playoff games, Kamensky had three goals and eight points. He took a 13-stitch cut near his eye in Game 1 of the first-round series against the Vancouver Canucks, but returned to the contest.&ldquo;Because he is such a great skater, I can see him playing at this level for another six or seven years,&rdquo; Crawford said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s like Glenn Anderson of old going to the net; he plays a fearless game and you can&rsquo;t get him off his game.&rdquo; &#9632;

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FEATURES

Kamensky thrives now, bad breaks are history

<div class="byline">By Stan Fischler</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-021064/6297163-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="382" height="502"></div>Impertinent thoughts on pertinent playoff subjects:&#9633; Since the Islanders are into logo-changing, how about sticking a maple leaf-as in Toronto-over the mariner the next time around. The Leafs have done a good job of helping to replenish the Islanders.&#9633; &ldquo;Everyone knows the Capitals are a team that never stops working,&rdquo; said Joe Juneau. They&rsquo;d work even better, Joey baby, if you&rsquo;d drop in a playoff penalty shot once in a while.&#9633; When are those disgusting Detroit octopithrowers going to get a life and realize the sea animals belong either in the water or on a plate.&#9633; Steve Kasper deserves another year behind the Bruins&rsquo; bench and it&rsquo;s up to Harry Sinden to back the rookie coach who, at least, kept the Bruins&rsquo; playoff streak alive.&#9633; Paul (I Am The Show) Stewart&rsquo;s refereeing received prominent coverage in Toronto and New York after he botched both the Leafs-Blues playoff game April 18 and the Habs-Rangers game April 23. Such attention should make Stewart deliriously happy while the NHL brass should be stewing, big-time.&#9633; Did the Devils miss the playoffs because they didn&rsquo;t have Larry Robinson or did the Kings miss the playoffs because they had Larry Robinson?&#9633; The phoniest &ldquo;news break&rdquo; of the playoff season was ESPN&rsquo;s ridiculous claim the Whalers would announce their move to Nashville in mid-April.&#9633; When Wendel Clark was an Islander he looked like he felt like playing in one out of four games. Nothing has changed since he moved to Toronto.&#9633; As a protective device, hockey gloves haven&rsquo;t improved in 40 years. Ask Shawn (Broken Hand) Chambers.&#9633; The best reason to root for Pittsburgh is so Eddie Johnston doesn&rsquo;t get canned.&#9633; No matter how you shake it, the endless warm weather in Tampa Bay and Miami gives the Lightning and Panthers a big home-ice advantage over their visitors. A day in humid Florida turns any sane northerner bonkers.&#9633; Roman Hamrlik is one good spanking away from being a star. The question: who&rsquo;s the right guy to deliver the whack, Terry Crisp or Wayne Cashman?&#9633; Calgary may be bye-bye, but the prospects of Jarome Iginla playing a full season in 1996-97 should soothe the hearts of anguished Flames&rsquo; fans.&#9633; By far the most underrated Canadien is Marc Bureau. You won&rsquo;t find many better faceoff men, either.&#9633; How long do you figure it will be before Mario Tremblay&rsquo;s champagne personality turns to flat seltzer in the eyes of his players? Answer: one year, minimum.&#9633; Give Daren Puppa credit for having a sense of humor. After an Eric Lindros&rsquo; bomb hit the goalie&rsquo;s mask and knocked him down while the puck flew into the seats, Puppa observed, &ldquo;I had my head in the game.&rdquo;&#9633; The splendid Penguins-Capitals four overtime marathon was marred by referee Dan Marouelli&rsquo;s endless blundering. 1. Mario Lemieux never should have been ejected; 2. Todd Krygier originally should have been penalized for spearing Lemieux; 3. Joey Juneau&rsquo;s overtime penalty shot was a wrong call. Chris Tamer did not deliberately move the net from its moorings; 4. Considering the fouls Marouelli overlooked from that point on, the call against Jim Johnson leading to the winning power play goal by Petr Nedved was a bit much. &#9632;

f0009-02

Isles should adopt Leafs’ logo

<div class="byline">By Jay Greenberg</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011561/6297201-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="378" height="530"></div>In the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; defence, there have been worse ideas in the history of mankind than bringing Pierre Turgeon to Montreal. The Bay of Pigs was one, the New Democatic Party was another. Things didn&rsquo;t go particularly well for Doug Risebrough after he traded Doug Gilmour, either.Even in the annals of hockey, there have been worse choices of leadership than sticking a &lsquo;C&rsquo; on Turgeon&rsquo;s chest. We would take Turgeon as a captain over Mel Bridgman as a GM any day.Still, watching Turgeon and his failing hands being chased by the torch-bearing citizens of Montreal, we can&rsquo;t help but think this is the worst working relationship since Mike Keenan and Neil Smith.Certainly, it is good for business to have a Francophone offensive star in Montreal. But we will remind the Canadiens they won without one in 1986 and 1993. Also, that Turgeon stands about as tall on the pedestal as Arto Blomsten. How do you take a player with a fuel-tanker level of talent and a cigarette-lighter level of competitive fire and expect him to succeed in the most highly-stressed position in sports?Okay, maybe we exaggerate a little. Being Bob Pulford&rsquo;s publicist is probably no day at the beach, either. But we can&rsquo;t help but think how much easier Turgeon&rsquo;s life would be in San Jose. Or, better yet, if he could be the No. 2 center on a good team, the niche we predict Turgeon will find once the Canadiens swallow a chunk of his $3.6 million (U.S.) contract and get him the hell out of Montreal.This is painful to watch. As good as Turgeon is at avoiding traffic on the rink, one practically must take a number to get to his stall after a playoff game. By the time we rephrase the question: &ldquo;Why are you such a dog?&rdquo; for the 77th time, the poor guy looks like he has just gone 60 minutes against Dale Hunter.&ldquo;I guess I can take my jock strap off,&rdquo; Turgeon said one day to La Presse&rsquo;s Rejean Tremblay after another in a daily series of feeding frenzies. &ldquo;You guys are finished with your low blows.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021168/6297194-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="456" height="868"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pierre Turgeon</figcaption></div>Uh, not so fast. In addition to all his other faults, Turgeon is a boring interview, too. &ldquo;I go out and do the best I can do,&rdquo; he politely says.This brings us to the basic question of how one should define the best Turgeon can do.Sure, Turgeon had a 58-goal, 74-assist season when the New York Islanders went to the semifinals (but without him from the quarterfinals on). When asked, teammates and ex-teammates have praised the guy for wanting to win. They just never say how much. There is a Mark Messier cut-your-eyes-out-if-you-dare-look-at-that-net-behind-me level of wanting to win. And there is a Craig Janney as-long-as-the-Ottawa Senators-still-might-want-me-I-really-can&rsquo;t-lose level of wanting to win.As a player, Mario Tremblay lived to perforate your liver. Then he became a radio guy who gave spit baths to microphones when talking about soft players like Turgeon. Now, Tremblay is the coach of the Canadiens and has to watch what he says or he, too, will wind up in Colorado.&ldquo;I am not a journalist anymore,&rdquo; Tremblay said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m the head coach of the Montreal Canadiens. I will defend Pierre Turgeon. He is a friend. He is a nice man.&rdquo;Right. And Eddie Johnston was a nice guy to trade Ron Francis for John Cullen. Just once, maybe, Turgeon should put on a Rudy Poeschek face and tell the Montreal fans what they do with those boos while he&rsquo;s trying to score with the goalie pulled. (&ldquo;Never saw anything like that before,&rdquo; said Kevin Lowe, who is in his 17th season.) Perhaps Turgeon should skate over to Ron Corey&rsquo;s seat at the Molson Centre and tell him where to go.On second thought, maybe Turgeon shouldn&rsquo;t. That would be almost as dumb as Serge Savard&rsquo;s trading for Turgeon in the belief that he would blossom with the responsibility inherent in being the Canadiens&rsquo; best player. Certainly, it would be almost as stupid as everyone who criticized Islanders&rsquo; GM Don Maloney the day he traded Turgeon for somebody unwilling to to play for the Islanders (Kirk Muller) and still probably moved the franchise ahead. &#9632;

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Turgeon something to ‘C’, but not as Hab

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div>The Florida Panthers may not have the talent to win the Stanley Cup this season, but they certainly have the Drive.The Panthers normally play their home games at the Miami Arena on Third Avenue, but the street has been named Stanley Cup Drive for the duration of the playoffs.Meanwhile, fans in the Sunshine State have been driven into a frenzy.The Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning qualified for the playoffs for the first time in their franchise histories this season and have captured the hearts of fans. And no matter what happened in the first round, for a week in the middle of April, Florida was the center of the hockey world.Top-rated talk jock Neil Rogers of WIOD in Miami devotes the better part of his four-hour shift to talking hockey Monday to Friday. In Tampa Bay, hockey fans rock to the tune of Kick Ice Boogie, a song about the Lightning recorded to the tune of the Brooks and Dunn country smash hit Boot Scootin&rsquo; Boogie..Tampa Bay, meanwhile, established an NHL playoff attendance record April 21 when a crowd of 25,945 watched them take a 2-1 series lead with an overtime win in Game 3 over the Philadelphia Flyers. The Lightning broke the mark two nights later when 28,183 showed up to watch the Flyers tie the series.The Panthers won their first two games at home and were leading the Boston Bruins 3-1 in their first-round series.&ldquo;As soon as we won in overtime against Philly (in Game 2), the whole city got captivated,&rdquo; said Lightning right winger Brian Bellows. &ldquo;I read where one guy who had never been to a game got a ticket to the first game in Tampa because he figured it was the place to be. He said he loved it. And this is a guy who sat two football fields away from the ice.&rdquo;Long suffering Tampa fans who have endured years of mediocrity from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League finally had something to cheer about.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re kicking Philadelphia&rsquo;s ass, aren&rsquo;t we?&rdquo; bubbled Marisa Seaton, receptionist at radio station QI05 in St. Petersburg when the Lighting was up 2-1. &ldquo;Hey, we may as well enjoy it while we can; we&rsquo;ll never have this with the Bucs.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-03735/6297232-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg" title="f0010-03" width="958" height="1948"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tampa Bay Lightning fans turned out in record numbers. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div>Certainly there are few who would have foresaw the emergence of both teams so quickly. To put it into perspective, the Lightning and Ottawa Senators entered the league in 1992, the Panthers and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim the next year. The Senators have stumbled and bumbled their way to four straight last-place finishes and the Ducks, while on the cusp, haven&rsquo;t been to the dance yet.Bellows has seen it all. As a member of the Minnesota North Stars, he went to the final in 1990-91. He said it took getting to the semifinal before fans there got as worked up. He was a member of the Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens in 1992-93 and said while winning the championship is the ultimate, there is a high price to be paid in a city where a three-game scoring slump by Pierre Turgeon is cause for a fan revolt.Hockey in Florida is fun; not life or death.The Lightning has a decided advantage over the Panthers in terms of turning game day into a festival because of the location and design of their home rink, the ThunderDome. Located in downtown St. Petersburg, the building has a seating capacity for hockey of 26,000.Fans who attend games can kick the day off with a tailgate party in the parking lot that surrounds the ThunderDome and take advantage of the Fanland Activity Center, which features a variety of activities including a slapshot booth, table hockey games and street Lightning hockey demonstrations. The team will be taking all those features with them to the 19,500-seat Ice Palace in downtown Tampa next season.The Panthers, who missed the playoffs by a point in each of their first two seasons, have plans for a new arena, but in the meantime, they play in the cramped Miami Arena-seating capacity: 14,703. There are no tailgate parties since fans consider it a triumph just getting in and out of the area safely.&ldquo;Our offices are in Fort Lauderdale, 45 miles north of the Miami Arena, and our practice facility is in Pompano, 15 miles north of Fort Lauderdale,&rdquo; said Greg Bouris, the Panthers&rsquo; director of media relations. &ldquo;We have to service three communities.&rdquo;For fans in Florida, the service this season has been excellent. In April, the sun was shining, the boys were winning, life was great.&ldquo;Hey, you should be down here,&rdquo; Bellows said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s 88 degrees and the sun is shining. Think I&rsquo;ll take my daughter to the beach.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Season in the sun

<div class="byline">By Tom McMillan</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011522/6297263-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="379" height="498"></div>In the cramped and steamy visitors dressing room at USAir Arena, between the third and fourth overtimes of what would become the third longest game in NHL history, Mario Lemieux took one for the team. Again.He served pizza.&ldquo;The world&rsquo;s highest-paid waiter,&rdquo; joked GM Craig Patrick.Lemieux dished out the food during Game 4 of the Pittsburgh Penguins-Washington Capitals series for the simple reason it was available and the boys were hungry. They hadn&rsquo;t eaten since their pre-game meal at about 12:30 p.m. The game started at 7:38 p.m. and Lemieux himself had been ejected for instigating a fight with Todd Krygier in the second period, about four hours earlier. So John Welday, the team&rsquo;s strength and conditioning coach, grabbed some of the pizzas that were waiting for the charter flight back to Pittsburgh and offered them to the exhausted troops. And Lemieux served.Maybe it was meaningless, or maybe it was symbolic, but back in Pittsburgh a day later it was being viewed as another of the many ways Lemieux imposed his will and imprint on this rampaging series.We knew all about his motivation after sitting out the entire 199495 season. And yet after claiming his fifth NHL scoring title and setting himself up for a third MVP award, Lemieux was strangely silent in the first five periods of the series, collecting just three second assists.So he did what any of the game&rsquo;s all-time great scorers would do in that situation. He started hitting. Yes, hitting.He slammed a shoulder into a startled Mark Tinordi. He hit Tinordi a few more times near the end of the second period of Game 2, dished out some occasional physical punishment in the third, and when it was over-with the Caps leading the series 2-0-at least we knew Lemieux wasn&rsquo;t going down without a fight.&ldquo;I think what you saw there,&rdquo; said Penguins&rsquo; coach Eddie Johnston, &ldquo;was his leadership. And his intensity. He wasn&rsquo;t happy with the way things were going and here we were ready to go on the road. He wanted to change things.&rdquo;Despite his size-6-foot-4 and 220 pounds-Lemieux never has been a physical player. He fought little Gary Lupul of the Vancouver Canucks in his first home game as a Penguin back in 1984 and he got one-punched by Bobby Gould of the Caps a few years later, but mostly his aggression has been taken out against opposing goalies.But what we saw in Game 3 of his first-round series was a different Lemieux, an inflamed Lemieux, a superstar adjusting to the circumstances. Trailing 2-0 on the road against a physically inferior opponent, he began to take charge-physically and vocally.In the first period he barked angrily at the players on the bench. He gestured to teammates, offering advice and instructions. He positioned players on the ice. He also had four assists and a few solid checks in a 4-1 victory. Much of this continued into Game 4 until his controversial ejection.Forced to play the rest of the game without its banished leader, Pittsburgh came back from a 20 deficit and won it after 79 minutes of overtime, but only after getting regular advice from Lemieux in the room between periods.&ldquo;He was talking to Jags (Jaromir Jagr), coming up with different things,&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;Go wide. Try this. He was still very much into the game.&rdquo;You could tell. He even served the pizza. &#9632;

f0012-01

Lemieux dishes out passes, hits, pizza

B324: Captains-Nine Great Toronto Maple LeafsSince the Toronto Maple Leaf club was formed in 1927, fifteen men have worn the &ldquo;C&rdquo; above their hearts. THN columnist Michael Ulmer has chosen the nine who shone on and off the ice. Hap Day, Dave Keon, Darryl Sittler, Wendel Clark and Doug Gilmour are only a few of the men featured in this fascinating history of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Each book has been personally autographed for The Hockey News by Michael Ulmer. (225 pp.)THN Price: $27.95 + $5.00 p&h<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021239/6297329-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="414" height="978"></div>B312:The Last Hurrah-A Celebration of the End of Hockey&rsquo;s Greatest Era: 1966/67The book is a fond and fascinating visit back to the most pivotal hockey season in memory, the 1966/67 season-a swan song for a long-gone sporting era: a time when teams travelled by train, when nearly every hockey fan rooted for one of two teams, when the &ldquo;playoffs&rdquo; meant ten exhilarating games. 1967 marked the end of a great era in hockey; the very next year brought expansion to the NHL and with it a changing of the guard from names like Howe and Beliveau to Orr and Esposito. The book captures a remarkable period in hockey history. (288 pp.)THN Price: $28.9+ $5.00 p&h<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03813/6297322-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="345" height="515"></div>B309:The Leafs-Brian McFarlane&rsquo;sOriginal SixFrom the naming of the team in 1926 to the death of Harold Ballard in 1991, The Leafs recounts the heroics and hijinks of dozens of the team&rsquo;s great characters: Ace Bailey, Conn Smythe, Darryl Sittler, Tiger Williams and many, many more. The book brings to life unforgettable moments like: the opening of Maple Leaf Gardens, the 13 Stanley Cup wins-and even the worst loss in team history! This is the first book in a series on Original Six teams. (208 pp.)THN Price: $24.95<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-04472/6297315-1-eng-US/f0012-042.jpg" title="f0012-04" width="334" height="460"></div>B314:The Home Team-Fathers, Sons and HockeyNational pastime, rite of passage, family tradition-hockey is integral to the lives of fathers and sons, and much of what happens between them starts to unfold the very first time a father leads his little one onto the ice. The book features in-depth interviews with many of hockey&rsquo;s best-known names-Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, The Drydens, and The Howes-exploring the special father and son relationships that, when it comes to hockey, are truly the ties that bind. (320 pp.)THN Price: $29.9+ $5.00 p&h<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-05338/6297308-1-eng-US/f0012-052.jpg" title="f0012-05" width="329" height="457"></div>B317: In the Crease-Goaltenders Look at Life in the NHLWith interviews from the game&rsquo;s greatest players, In the Crease lets you get up-close and personal with goaltending legends and present day heroes. The stories of 40 goaltenders including; Tony Esposito, who explains why he refused to speak to anyone including his family on game days and Ken Dryden, who recalls the 1976 Stanley Cup finals in which he and the Canadiens won a grudge match against the Philadelphia Hyers. A unique perspective from the men who view hockey from the net out. (356 pp.)THN Price: $29.95+ $5.00 p&h<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-06279/6297301-1-eng-US/f0012-062.jpg" title="f0012-06" width="373" height="466"></div>B311 A Breed ApartFor hockey fans and particularly goaltending fans. A Breed Apart-An Illustrated History of Goaltending is essential to any hockey library. This beautiful deluxe coffee table book, illustrates the rich tradition shared by goaltenders throughout hockey history. The book showcases an incredible collection of photographs and artifacts laced together with the historical research of best-selling author Douglas Hunter. From Georges Vezina to Patrick Roy, A Breed Apart illustrates the compelling role the goaltender has played and continues to play in the world&rsquo;s fastest sport. (208 pp.)THN Price: $40.00+ $6.00 p&h<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-07242/6297294-1-eng-US/f0012-072.jpg" title="f0012-07" width="386" height="428"></div>B310 The Spirit of the GameFrom hockey&rsquo;s earliest days, photography has documented the passions evoked by this ever-changing game and its great stars. The Spirit Of The Game uses 300 superb photos to tell hockey&rsquo;s multilayered story and celebrates those qualities that make the game matter to those who watch and play it. The Hockey Hall of Fame&rsquo;s entire photo collection-all 500,000 images of it, was the resource from which this pictorial history was created. This is the first photo book to organize the story of hockey both chronologically and thematically, cutting across time lines and team-by-team organization. A must have for any hockey library. (232 pp.)THN Price: $48.00+ $6.00 p&h &#9632;

f0012-02

BESTSELLERS LIST for 1996

<div class="byline">By Cynthia Lambert</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-021019/6297367-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="575" height="766"><figcaption class="caption-body">Scotty Bowman</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011433/6297374-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="161" height="161"></div>What would the playoffs be without a controversy that involved Scotty Bowman and an injured player?The difference this year is Bowman did the reverse of what teams, players and members of the media have come to expect. Before the start of Game 3 of the Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; first-round series against the Winnipeg Jets, Bowman released a statement saying goaltender Chris Osgood suffered a slight abdominal strain and was unable to play. Mike Vernon played that night in Detroit&rsquo;s 4-1 loss. Vernon also was in the net for Game 4 and by that time the real injury information began to surface.&ldquo;Yeah, I&rsquo;m healthy,&rdquo; Osgood said, though he stopped short of confirming perfect health. &ldquo;I probably could have played (in Game 3). But it&rsquo;s a strong point of our team that we have a lot of depth. The team plays well in front of either one of us, so it&rsquo;s not an issue.&rdquo;It didn&rsquo;t become an issue until Osgood didn&rsquo;t start Game 4. The move was questioned since Osgood was in net for Detroit&rsquo;s wins in the first and second games of the series. In those two games Osgood gave up one goal.&ldquo;(Osgood) has been good at home,&rdquo; Bowman said. &ldquo;And we knew there would be a big reaction from the fans (in Winnipeg).&rdquo;Osgood, who went along with the injury ruse, was frustrated with his early role as the home goalie, but stopped short of saying he was angered by Bowman&rsquo;s goaltending decisions. Osgood chalked it up to an overprotective coach.&ldquo;I think he has done that for three years,&rdquo; Osgood said. &ldquo;He has brought me along slowly. Is he doing the same thing now? I don&rsquo;t know. I guess I&rsquo;m just the home goalie.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Right winger Dino Ciccarelli suffered a broken nose when he collided with teammate Martin Lapointe during a practice April 25. &ldquo;It was my fault,&rdquo; Ciccarelli said. &ldquo;I was testing some new skates and I just didn&rsquo;t see where I was going.&rdquo; Shortly after the collision, Ciccarelli got into a shoving match with tough guy Stu Grimson, but both players downplayed the incident&hellip;The Red Wings picked up the option on coach Scotty Bowman&rsquo;s contract for next season. He&rsquo;ll earn $950,000&hellip;The Wings signed their top American League goalie, Kevin Hodson, to a three-year deal that takes effect next season. It is a one-way contract that averages about $400,000 per year. Hodson spent most of 1995-96 with Adirondack.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-03769/6297360-1-eng-US/f0013-032.jpg" title="f0013-03" width="574" height="763"><figcaption class="caption-body">Chris Osgood</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0013-02

Bowman employs curious home-road goalie rotation

<div class="byline">By Tim Campbell</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-04661/6297405-1-eng-US/f0013-042.jpg" title="f0013-04" width="160" height="160"></div>Chad Kilger&rsquo;s first-ever post-season goal in his first-ever NHL playoff contest was important not just because it won a game, but because it gave a glimpse of his future.That future, of course, will be in Phoenix, but the 19-year-old&rsquo;s third-period goal that stood up as the winner in a 4-1 triumph over the Detroit Red Wings April 21 gave Winnipeg&rsquo;s white-clad fanatics a final cherished memory.Kilger had watched the first two games of the series from the press box before coach Terry Simpson inserted him into the lineup.&ldquo;We put him in because things weren&rsquo;t working,&rdquo; Simpson said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a big, strong guy and if he can get his skating game going, he can be a big help, which he was. I think the experience is good for him, now and for sure for the future.&rdquo;Kilger said the feeling from breaking a 1-1 deadlock was &ldquo;special.&rdquo; It had been less encouraging early in the series.&ldquo;You always want to be playing,&rdquo; said Kilger, who came to the Jets from the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim via the Teemu Selanne deal in February. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little frustrating watching, but I understand that&rsquo;s the way it goes in (your rookie) year.&ldquo;I watched the first two games and just tried to pick up as much as I could, all the playoff atmosphere.&rdquo;Kilger had spent much of the previous two weeks trying to work himself out of some unproductive and faulty offensive play. He paid particular attention to his shooting technique.&ldquo;I guess you get into some bad habits during practice,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was all arms instead of following through. That was affecting me.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Game 3 and 4 of the Detroit series were sellouts at Winnipeg Arena and again featured the traditional &ldquo;white-noise&rdquo; crowds&hellip;The Jets added a fourth 19-year-old player to their lineup for Game 4, playing right winger Craig Mills, who had been recalled from Belleville of the Ontario League April 22. Mills played the first four games of the regular season with the Jets before being returned to Belleville&hellip;Right winger Dallas Drake was injured late in Game 3 of the series and was believed finished for the season with knee-ligament damage&hellip;Until Detroit&rsquo;s six-goal outburst in Game 4, Jets&rsquo; goalie Nikolai Khabibulin had given the Wings fits. Even in that game, it took four power-play goals to inflict the damage. &#9632;

f0013-04

Kilger’s post-season debut memorable and revealing

<div class="byline">By Adrian Dater</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021156/6297436-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="558" height="961"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Sakic</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011513/6297443-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="158" height="159"></div>Joe Sakic grew up a Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; fan in his native Burnaby, B.C. It&rsquo;s probably safe to say, however, Canucks&rsquo; fans weren&rsquo;t all that enamored of him.Sakic had six goals through the first five games of the Colorado Avalanche&rsquo;s first-round series with the Canucks, including three in his best playoff game ever-a 5-4 overtime win in Game 5.Sakic scored two crucial goals in the contest, one to tie the game 4-4 and the overtime winner.As usual, Sakic-trying to win a playoff series for the first time in his career-downplayed his contribution, but managed a smile when asked if he was always a Canucks&rsquo; fan.&ldquo;Only as a kid,&rdquo; Sakic said.Most of Sakic&rsquo;s goals in the series came on trademark wrist shots. Shooting off the wrong foot, Sakic often catches goalies off-balance with his quick, accurate release.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t relax for one second when he&rsquo;s on the ice,&rdquo; said Canucks&rsquo; goalie Corey Hirsch. &ldquo;His shot is deadly.&rdquo;Not only was Sakic scoring goals, but he was playing with a physical edge, something he has been criticized for lacking over his career.&ldquo;No, he&rsquo;s a tough, tough player,&rdquo; said goalie Patrick Roy. &ldquo;He was just unbelievable in (Game 5). Without him, we lose that game.&rdquo;Sakic, as always, just shrugs off any praise that comes his way.&ldquo;I just want to win a playoff series and go to the next round,&rdquo; Sakic said.NOTEBOOK: Avalanche coach Marc Crawford ripped into his team, and left winger Chris Simon in particular, after a poor performance in Game 2. While Crawford was berating his team in practice for not being physical enough against the Canucks, Simon shook his head. Crawford then chewed out Simon in front of the team. When the tirade ended, Simon smashed his stick on a crossbar and later got on his knees and didn&rsquo;t move for at least 10 minutes. Simon later downplayed the incident. &ldquo;Sometimes, in the game of hockey, those things happen,&rdquo; he said&hellip;Defenseman Uwe Krupp, coming off a serious knee injury, had assists in each of the first five games against Vancouver. &#9632;

f0014-02

Sakic thrives at right time

<div class="byline">By Elliott Pap</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03794/6297474-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="160" height="158"></div>When he was fired as Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; coach in late March, Rick Ley made himself very unavailable to the local media, telling one reporter who tracked him down that he had &ldquo;nothing to say.&rdquo;Three weeks later, Ley was a little more talkative when scouting Canuck farmhands on the American League&rsquo;s Syracuse Crunch. He told the Syracuse Post Standard Vancouver&rsquo;s problems were caused by a leadership vacuum.&ldquo;The players didn&rsquo;t play for one another,&rdquo; Ley said. &ldquo;Our team seemed to lack leadership. That&rsquo;s what it comes down to, leadership in the dressing room.&rdquo;By not naming names. Ley essentially pointed the finger at captain Trevor Linden and rotating alternates Dana Murzyn, Pavel Bure, Dave Babych, Alexander Mogilny and Tim Hunter. The comments were made with the Canucks deeply involved in their first-round playoff series against the Colorado Avalanche.&ldquo;It disappoints me to see that,&rdquo; Linden said. &ldquo;The timing is not good. I don&rsquo;t want to comment on it too much. But we&rsquo;ve never pointed fingers. I never pointed the finger at Rick.&rdquo;Bure also seemed perplexed by Ley&rsquo;s remarks.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to know what he meant,&rdquo; Bure said. &ldquo;Trevor has been working hard as he always does. Alex has played well all the time. Dana will be the first guy there to step in if there&rsquo;s trouble and he does it better than probably anybody.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: After scoring just three goals in 55 regular season games, Canuck enforcer Gino Odjick scored three times in Vancouver&rsquo;s first four playoff games. Two of the goals were game-winners. &ldquo;I guess every dog has his day,&rdquo; Odjick said&hellip;Another surprise was center Josef Beranek, who collected a goal and an assist in Game 4 against the Avalanche after being a healthy scratch for 14 of 15 games. It was Beranek&rsquo;s first goal since Jan. 6&hellip;Ex-Canuck Petr Nedved&rsquo;s playoff heroics in Pittsburgh did not go unnoticed by coach-GM Pat Quinn, who drafted Nedved second overall in 1990. Nedved was never happy with his ice time in Vancouver. &ldquo;He was going to get that ice time here, he was just too impatient,&rdquo; Quinn said. &#9632;

f0014-03

Ley says leadership void at heart of Canuck woes

<div class="byline">By Tim Sassone</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04533/6297505-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="159" height="159"></div>Joe Murphy backed up his words in the Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; first-round playoff sweep of the Calgary Flames.Murphy, who proclaimed himself a &ldquo;big-time&rdquo; player earlier in the season after a spat over ice time with coach Craig Hartsburg, had four goals and two assists in the four games against Calgary.It was Murphy who ended Game 4 in triple overtime when he scored at 10:02 of the sixth period to cap a successful first round.&ldquo;He has talked about it for a long time and he did it for us,&rdquo; Hartsburg said.Murphy&rsquo;s overtime goal was the fourth of his playoff career, leaving him two shy of Maurice Richard&rsquo;s all-time record.Murphy got the Blackhawks started on the right foot in the series against Calgary when he scored twice to lead Chicago to a victory in Game 1. His playoff effort helped make up for a so-so regular season that saw him score 22 goals.&ldquo;I enjoy the competition and the pressure (of the playoffs) and I love to win,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;I think I can take my game to another level.&rdquo;The Blackhawks need Murphy to score if they&rsquo;re going to challenge in the Western Conference.&ldquo;When Joe Murphy plays his best hockey, there&rsquo;s not many players better then he is coming off the wing shooting the puck with his speed,&rdquo; said center Jeremy Roenick. &ldquo;Hopefully, Murph is on a mission and the rest of the team will follow.&rdquo;Led by Murphy, Roenick, Eric Daze and Tony Amonte, the Blackhawks had too much skill up front for the Flames in their series. They outscored Calgary 16-7 and scored four power play goals (in 21 chances) to the Flames none.&ldquo;Special teams and discipline were the key to the series,&rdquo; said defenseman Chris Chelios. &ldquo;(The Flames) have a big team and they tried to do some things to intimidate us, but it didn&rsquo;t work.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Center Jeremy Roenick had two goals and three assists in the first round series against Calgary, showing no signs of being bothered by his sprained ankle&hellip;The triple-overtime game against the Flames, lasting 50:02 of extra time, was the fourth-longest in Blackhawks&rsquo; history&hellip;Defenseman Steve Smith was making good progress toward a possible return in the second round from his broken leg&hellip;Defenseman Eric Weinrich&rsquo;s four-point effort in Game 3 against Calgary was a career best for the rearguard&hellip;With 33 playoff victories, goaltender Ed Belfour moved past Glenn Hall into second place in the club record book. Tony Esposito leads the franchise with 45 career wins. &#9632;

f0014-04

‘Big-time’ performance from Murphy

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011400/6297536-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="162" height="161"></div>On his first day on the new job, Jarome Iginla arrived at the Canadian Airlines Saddledome just after noon on a Sunday, equipment bag in hand.He quickly adjourned to the Calgary Flames&rsquo; offices, signed his first-ever NHL contract then went to the dressing room for introductions.Someone said, &ldquo;Never mind that now. Get dressed.&rdquo; So Iginla suited up and within the hour, was in the line-up for the Flames&rsquo; playoff game against the Chicago Blackhawks, the third in the series.Coach Pierre Page installed him at center on the No. 1 line with Theo Fleury and German Titov. Iginla acquitted himself well and then in his second start, two nights later, scored the only Flames&rsquo; goal in a 2-1 triple overtime loss to the Blackhawks, a defeat that eliminated Calgary in four consecutive games.It was a heady 72 hours for Iginla, acquired from the Dallas Stars in the Joe Nieuwendyk trade.&ldquo;It was a great learning experience. I couldn&rsquo;t believe I was actually out there, getting some shifts,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It felt really good. It gave me a lot of confidence.&rdquo;Page liked what he saw of Iginla in a short period of time.&ldquo;An 18-year-old looked as poised as anybody on the ice,&rdquo; Page said. &ldquo;Every time we had a faceoff in our own end, I kept putting two centermen out there, but I only replaced him once.&rdquo;Iginla played two years with the Western League&rsquo;s Kamloops&rsquo; Blazers&rsquo; for Don Hay, the Flames&rsquo; assistant coach. Hay ran Iginla through the Flames&rsquo; playing system in the minutes before his debut.&ldquo;It was a wild 24 hours,&rdquo; Iginla said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re down because you lost out (in Kamloops). Then you&rsquo;re back up because you&rsquo;re excited about getting here and playing.&rdquo;After his two-game NHL introduction, Iginla was expected to join the American League&rsquo;s Saint John Flames for the remainder of their playoffs.NOTEBOOK: Center Jarome Iginla&rsquo;s contract is the highest agreed to since the NHL installed the rookie salary cap. The deal is for three years at the maximum allowable figure, $850,000 (U.S.). Iginla will also receive a $500,000 bonus if he wins the Calder Trophy. For 100 points in a season, he could earn up to $600,000 more&hellip;Veteran defenseman Zarley Zalapski played the final three months of the season with what may prove to be a tom abdominal muscle. The plan is for two months of rest. Surgery has been ruled out for the time being&hellip;A quartet of Flames become unrestricted free agents July 1-centers Corey Millen and Bob Sweeney, right winger Jocelyn Lemieux and defenseman Kevin Dahl. &#9632;

f0015-01

Iginla gives fans solid sneak peek

<div class="byline">By Dave Luecking</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-02976/6297567-1-eng-US/f0015-022.jpg" title="f0015-02" width="163" height="161"></div>After a two-season absence, Wayne Gretzky has returned to familiar turf-the Stanley Cup playoffs.The Los Angeles Kings missed the 1994 and 1995 playoffs after losing in the Stanley Cup final in 1993. They missed again this season, which is why Gretzky is now a St. Louis Blue.The Blues acquired him for three players and two draft picks Feb. 27. They weren&rsquo;t the best team in the playoffs; they weren&rsquo;t even considered a serious contender, but at least they were there.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s fun for me,&rdquo; said Gretzky, who was among the league leaders with nine points-all assists-in the first five games of the Blues&rsquo; first-round series with the Toronto Maple Leafs. &ldquo;The regular season is fun, but it really doesn&rsquo;t mean anything. You&rsquo;ve got to get in the playoffs,&rdquo;The last few seasons in Los Angeles weren&rsquo;t fun at all.Blues&rsquo; coach-GM Mike Keenan sees fire and determination in Gretzky this post-season.&ldquo;Just look in his eyes,&rdquo; Keenan said. &ldquo;Before the game, they&rsquo;re glazed over. He wouldn&rsquo;t even know it. He&rsquo;s focused.&rdquo;Gretzky couldn&rsquo;t even watch the playoffs the years he sat out.&ldquo;Makes me sick to my stomach,&rdquo; Gretzky said. &ldquo;I watched a little bit when the Rangers won (in 1994) because of Mark Messier, but it&rsquo;s really difficult to watch. It&rsquo;s really, really hard if you&rsquo;re not playing. It&rsquo;s awful. It&rsquo;s a bad feeling.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: When goaltender Grant Fuhr went down with tom right knee ligaments in Game 2 against Toronto, the Blues were thought to be finished. But Jon Casey emerged from the shadows and won Games 3 and 4, allowing only three goals on 53 shots. &ldquo;Jon has played great,&rdquo; Fuhr said. &ldquo;People forget he has taken a team to the finals (Minnesota, 1991). He doesn&rsquo;t get enough credit.&rdquo;&hellip;Although he faces major reconstructive surgery and a lengthy rehab, Fuhr was clinging to the hope he could play again this season&hellip;injuries have been a major problem and not even one of their team doctors could escape them. Dr. Aaron Birenbaum. the Blues&rsquo; internist, suffered a broken hip in a fall at Toronto&rsquo;s Maple Leaf Gardens. &#9632;

f0015-02

Gretzky where he belongs: back in NHL post-season

<div class="byline">By Damien Cox</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-04516/6297598-1-eng-US/f0015-042.jpg" title="f0015-04" width="569" height="963"><figcaption class="caption-body">Nick Beverley</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-03705/6297605-1-eng-US/f0015-032.jpg" title="f0015-03" width="159" height="160"></div>Like a hitter determined not to get cheated in his only at-bat, Nick Beverley is making sure his first NHL coaching experience includes all the trimmings.Far from being just a caretaker, Beverley has shuffled his lines, criticized his players-calling them &ldquo;nimrods&rdquo; at one point-messed around with his goalies, played some greenhorns, sat out an expensive veteran or two and clashed with the experienced Mike Keenan.But Beverley, who is not expected to coach the club next season, might have gone a little over the top in late-April when, with the Leafs trailing the St. Louis Blues 3-1 in their Western Conference series after a disgraceful 5-1 loss at the Kiel Center, he guaranteed victory in Game 5.While the successful prediction didn&rsquo;t exactly carry all of the drama of a Joe Namath or Mark Messier guarantee, it did make for some intrigue.&ldquo;At the time I said that,&rdquo; Beverley said, &ldquo;I was way out there somewhere.&rdquo;The prediction was part of a tirade during which Beverley blasted the NHL, referee Andy Van Hellemond, Wayne Gretzky-&rdquo;God Himself&rsquo;-and his own skaters.In reference to pulling Felix Potvin for the third period in that match, Beverley said he did it to &ldquo;wake the other nimrods up.&rdquo;The next day, he offered an apology to NHL officials and Van Hellemond and quipped his &ldquo;nimrods&rdquo; comment was used in reference to its biblical origins.NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Rob Zettler, who was scratched for the final 13 games of the regular season and first four of the playoffs, replaced Dimitri Yushkevich for Game 5.&hellip;Defenseman Mathieu Schneider suffered a badly cut left eyelid in Game 2. In full gear, Schneider hailed a cab outside Maple Leaf Gardens to visit an opthamologist at a local hospital, then returned to don a visor and play the third period&hellip;Center Doug Gilmour, a former St. Louis Blue, was branded the &ldquo;dirtiest player in the NHL&rdquo; by the St. Louis media during the series&hellip;Left winger Todd Warriner potted his first NHL playoff goal April 25&hellip;Right winger Mike Gartner recorded his third playoff hat trick in the Game 5 win over St. Louis. &#9632;

f0015-04

Coach gets his licks in

<div class="byline">By Dave Molinari</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-021012/6297636-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="566" height="966"><figcaption class="caption-body">Petr Nedved</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011297/6297643-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="160" height="161"></div>Petr Nedved has had an impeccable sense of timing with the Pittsburgh Penguins.That was apparent even before he scored the goal that ended the third-longest game in NHL history.Nedved put together his most productive season, setting personal highs for goals (45), assists (54) and points (99). And he did it while playing out the final year of a contract featuring a base salary of $1.4 million.With Nedved a restricted free agent this summer, it&rsquo;s hard to imagine Pittsburgh won&rsquo;t do everything within reason to bring him back.Nedved had six goals in the first four games of the Pittsburgh-Washington Capitals series, including one that was downright historic. His goal at 19:16 of the fourth overtime that gave the Penguins a 3-2 victory against Washington in Game 4 and ended the longest game in the NHL since 1933.As for next season, Nedved said he is not at all worried about being able to reach a contract agreement.&ldquo;This is the most fun year for me&rdquo;, Nedved said. &ldquo;I have no desire to go anywhere else. I hope to stay.&rdquo;If he doesn&rsquo;t, it won&rsquo;t be because the Penguins don&rsquo;t recognize his value.Coach Ed Johnston labeled him &ldquo;a potential 35- to 50-goal guy every year now,&rdquo; and lavishly praised Nedved&rsquo;s work on faceoffs and killing penalties.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s still young.&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to get stronger. Every aspect of his game will get better.&rdquo;Including the financial one.NOTEBOOK: Goalie Ken Wregget preserved Pittsburgh&rsquo;s chance to win Game 4 by stopping a Joe Juneau breakaway at 15:44 of the second overtime. &ldquo;The puck bounced and he didn&rsquo;t get much wood on it,&rdquo; Wregget said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m fortunate. It could have been over right there.&rdquo;&hellip;Pittsburgh announced its ticket prices for next season and there are hefty increases. At-the-gate prices will range from $15 to $60, while season-ticket holders will pay from $15 to $55 per game&hellip;Center Richard Park was added after his junior team, Belleville, was eliminated from the Ontario League playoffs. Park had four goals and six assists in 56 games before being returned to the Bulls. He had 18 goals and 30 points in 14 playoff games with Belleville. &#9632;

f0016-02

Nedved plays for security

<div class="byline">By Dave Fay</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03753/6297674-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="162" height="161"></div>As April 24 turned into April 25, the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins played the third longest game in NHL history.Game 4 of the series lasted until 2:17 in the morning, six hours and 39 minutes of running time after it started. At 79:15 of overtime, with Capitals&rsquo; defenseman Jim Johnson in the penalty box for hooking Jaromir Jagr, Petr Nedved ended the game with his sixth goal in four games, 3-2 Pittsburgh.It was hardly that simple. Washington goalie Olaf Kolzig is normally the backup, but was dusted off for the playoff series because Jim Carey has trouble with Pittsburgh.Kolzig was sensational in the longest game, but so was Ken Wregget at the other end. Wregget came in at the start of the second period when Tom Barrasso had back spasms.Kolzig stopped 62 shots, Wregget 61.Washington&rsquo;s Joe Juneau had the first penalty shot in playoff competition. That came at 15:44 of the fifth period, but the puck rolled on him as he bore down on Wregget Chris Tamer had been called for delay of game by referee Dan Marouelli when he reached behind Wregget to stop a Juneau shot from crossing the line and accidentally dislodged the net.It might have ended earlier if Mario Lemieux had been around, but he was ejected-for only the second time in his career-at 19:23 of the second period for instigating a fight after slashing Todd Krygier.NOTEBOOK: The memorable Capitals-Islanders game of April 18-19, 1987, went 68:47 of overtime, lasted six hours and 19 minutes and also ended 3-2. Caps Michal Pivonka and Kelly Miller played in that game, as did Pittsburgh assistant coach Bryan Trottier&hellip;Defenseman Jim Johnson broke his foot in Game 1 of the playoffs, but the break came in such a location that lacing on a skate actually makes the foot feel better than trying to walk in a shoe. Nolan Baumgartner, just recalled from Kamloops of the Western League, dressed as the seventh defenseman&hellip;Coach Jim Schoenfeld, with a patchwork lineup because of a run of injuries, was keeping the identity of his starting goalie secret until game time. &#9632;

f0016-03

Loser Kolzig sensational in history-making game

<div class="byline">By Wayne Fish</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-04548/6297705-1-eng-US/f0016-042.jpg" title="f0016-04" width="159" height="160"></div>Eric Lindros always says there&rsquo;s a right time and place to send a message.In this case, the time was Game 5 of the Philadelphia Flyers-Tampa Bay Lightning series. The place was the CoreStates Spectrum.And the message? It was delivered to Lightning defensemen Igor Ulanov and Michel Petit, who had been taking liberties with the Flyers&rsquo; captain for the better part of three games.Lindros, still nursing a bruised kneecap from a questionable hit by Ulanov in Game 2, settled the score early with the Lightning player, separating him from his helmet with a thunderous hit into the boards barely six minutes into the game.Less than 30 seconds later, Captain Crunch leveled Petit on the other side of the rink, leaving him in a heap.Those hits set the tone. The roar that went up from the display propelled the Flyers to a 4-1 win and a 3-2 series lead.Even Lightning coach Terry Crisp had to admit what&rsquo;s fair is fair.&ldquo;Eric has taken some hits,&rdquo; Crisp said. &ldquo;He has taken his share and gave some back. This is the NHL. He&rsquo;s allowed to check like other players.&rdquo;Flyers&rsquo; coach Terry Murray said his team got a lift from Lindros.&ldquo;The hits were big,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;Eric has been a marked guy from the start. He has taken his share of late hits, cheap hits.&rdquo;Lindros said he just wanted to make sure the Flyers took full use of their home-ice advantage.&ldquo;After the big win in Game 4 (a 41 win at Tampa Bay April 23), you&rsquo;re coming back home and you don&rsquo;t want the mindset to be that just because you&rsquo;re at home, you&rsquo;re automatically going to win,&rdquo; Lindros said.The Lightning spent so much time running around after the Flyers that Philadelphia picked up 13 power plays and scored on three of them.&ldquo;Eric sparked it,&rdquo; said Ron Hextall. &ldquo;They weren&rsquo;t very happy with the hits Eric put on them. They seemed to be running around after that.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Left winger John LeClair missed one game after spraining his left ankle in Game 2. He returned in Game 4 April 23 and scored two goals. In Game 5, he added another, giving him 15 goals in 13 games as a Flyer against Tampa Bay&hellip;Right winger Mikael Renberg scored his first goal since Jan. 15 in the 41 win in Game 5. Renberg sustained an abdominal injury Jan. 22 and has been hampered by it ever since&hellip;The Flyers and their new ownership (a partnership of Comcast cable television and Spectacor) announced the formation of an all-sports regional cable TV station, to begin operation in October, 1997. The station will carry Flyers games, as well as Phillies baseball and 76ers basketball. &#9632;

f0016-04

Lindros hits also jolt teammates

<div class="byline">By Roy Cummings</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011150/6297736-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="161" height="160"></div>One reads the Wall Street Journal. The other doesn&rsquo;t read anything but a restaurant menu.One loves the outdoors-fishing, boating, darting around on his jet skis. The other says he hates the outdoors, especially the beach.One watches CNBC, mostly for that running stock report that crawls across the bottom of the screen all day. The other watches action movies. All day if possible.Brian Bellows, a budding stock analyst, and Alexander Selivanov, a budding couch potato, couldn&rsquo;t be much different-off the ice, that is.On the ice, they have a lot in common. Both have a deadly scoring touch and both have shown a flair for the dramatic, especially where overtime is concerned. One forces it, the other settles it.That&rsquo;s what happened in Games 2 and 3 of the Tampa Bay Lightning&rsquo;s first-round matchup with the Philadelphia Flyers.In Game 2, Selivanov set up the overtime with a late goal in regulation and Bellows ended it with a goal in nine minutes into overtime. In Game 3, Bellows forced the overtime and Selivanov settled it with a goal just two minutes into the extra session.&ldquo;That is our job. To score goals,&rdquo; Selivanov said. &ldquo;We do our job, we win. Very simple.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s not all that simple for Bellows, a veteran of 14 NHL seasons and 10 playoff runs, including one that resulted in him taking a sip from the Stanley Cup in 1993 with the Montreal Canadiens.As the most experienced playoff performer on a team short on experience of any kind, Bellows is not only responsible for scoring big goals, but also to show most everyone else how to score in, prepare for and just plain play in a Stanley Cup playoff game.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a learning experience and since I&rsquo;ve been through it, I feel like it&rsquo;s my responsibility not to get too far up or too far down,&rdquo; Bellows said. &ldquo;To kind of let them know what to expect.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Lightning established a new all-time attendance mark when it drew 28,183 to the ThunderDome for Game 4 of its Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with the Flyers. The Lightning held the old record as well&hellip;After missing two games because of a bad back, goaltender Daren Puppa returned to the lineup against the Flyers in Game 5&hellip;Center Brian Bradley, bothered by a sore knee the last month of the season, denied a report that suggested he would have to have an operation on the knee after the season&hellip;Defenseman Roman Hamrlik, who had a confrontation with coach Terry Crisp earlier in the series over playing time, missed Game 5 in Philadelphia because of the flu. &#9632;

f0017-01

Odd couple combines for critical goals

<div class="byline">By Rick Carpiniello</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02872/6297767-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="158" height="160"></div>When the New York Rangers acquired JariKurri, Marty McSorley and Shane Churla from the Los Angeles Kings at the trading deadline, all the attention was focused on the first two players.They were the ones expected to boost the Rangers&rsquo; chances for a Stanley Cup. But, while Kurri had played well without the puck, he had done almost nothing with it and McSorley was in and out of the lineup with a nagging groin injury.That left Churla, a tough guy, to salvage the trade.&ldquo;Shane might not score for the next 32 years, but he has been very effective and done a great job for us,&rdquo; said coach Colin Campbell during the Rangers&rsquo; first-round playoff series against the Montreal Canadiens.While offense certainly isn&rsquo;t his forte, Churla scored a huge goal in Game 4 against Montreal. It snapped a 1-1 tie in a game the Rangers went on to win 4-3 to even the series 2-2.Nobody wanted to talk about the goal, though.&ldquo;(Churla) can play on any of the teams I&rsquo;ve ever played on,&rdquo; said captain Mark Messier. &ldquo;He has the heart of a lion.&rdquo;Along with his tenacity, Churla, known for his pugilistic skills, was handling himself with great restraint.&ldquo;Sometimes during the regular season you handle things differently,&rdquo; Churla said. &ldquo;But as far as that stuff in the playoffs, we have to stay disciplined. You have to eat a lot of that and turn the other cheek.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Center Mark Messier, playing in pain with tom rib cage cartilage, scored the 103rd playoff goal of his career, breaking a second-place tie with teammate Jari Kurri on the all-time list. Only Wayne Gretzky (110) has more playoff goals&hellip;Defenseman Brian Leetch. playing with a badly bruised instep, went to a milder pain killer before Games 3 and 4 in Montreal. The results were vastly improved showings from Games 1 and 2&hellip;Left winger Adam Graves scored five goals, four on the power play, in the Rangers&rsquo; first four playoff games. The rest of the team had six in that span&hellip;Before sweeping Games 3 and 4 at the Molson Centre, the Rangers had won once in Montreal since 1983 (120-3). &#9632;

f0017-02

Churla pleasant surprise with major contributions

<div class="byline">By Herb Zurkowsky</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-04467/6297798-1-eng-US/f0017-042.jpg" title="f0017-04" width="559" height="961"><figcaption class="caption-body">Andrei Kovalenko</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03636/6297805-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="160" height="160"></div>The Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; Russian Tank had a Russian roulette type season in 1995-96. Sometimes he was armed, sometimes he wasn&rsquo;t.It was more of the latter for left winger Andrei Kovalenko in the first round of the playoffs-he had no points through four games of the Canadiens&rsquo; series against the New York Rangers.Were it not for four penalty minutes and four shots on net, the Canadiens might be inclined to check Kovalenko for a pulse.The Canadiens, who lost left winger Martin Rucinsky late in the season with a sprained knee, could have used Kovalenko&rsquo;s offense.&ldquo;We need more from him,&rdquo; said coach Mario Tremblay. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve tried putting him on track. I&rsquo;ve talked nice to him. I&rsquo;ve talked hard to him. I&rsquo;ve tried lots of things.&rdquo;The 5-foot-10, 200-pound Kovalenko came to the Canadiens from the Colorado Avalanche in the Patrick Roy deal last December. A decent corner man with offensive potential, Kovalenko was asked at the time to describe his style. He said he had been dubbed the &ldquo;Russian Tank&rdquo; while playing in Quebec.Kovalenko scored 28 goals and 56 points in 77 games during the season. In 51 games with Montreal, he 17 goals and 34 points.He had stretches of productivity, but there were also occasions in which he was a non-factor. He completed the season with two goals and an assist over his final nine games.NOTEBOOK: Upset with the play of captain Pierre Turgeon, Molson Centre spectators repeatedly booed him during Game 3 against the Rangers. Finally, in the fourth game, Turgeon scored his first playoff goal&hellip;A Montreal TV official was unhappy with the NHL&rsquo;s decision to schedule two Canadiens&rsquo; home playoff games on Sunday afternoon, instead of the traditional Saturday night, to appease the U.S.-based Fox network. &ldquo;We can now call it the American National Hockey League,&rdquo; said Charles Ohayon, programming director for Radio-Canada, the French-language network of the CBC. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lack of loyalty and respect for a market that always supported hockey. It&rsquo;s maddening to see Canada&rsquo;s national sport brushed aside like this.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0017-04

Winger goes into the Tank

<div class="byline">By Dave Joseph</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02876/6297843-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="575" height="909"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tom Fitzgerald</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011190/6297850-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="161" height="161"></div>According to GM Bryan Murray, forwards Tom Fitzgerald and Bill Lindsay exemplify Florida Panther hockey.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s in-your-face hockey,&rdquo; Murray said.Fitzgerald, the 6-foot-l penalty killing specialist who scored six shorthanded goals this year, and Lindsay, a 5-foot-l 1 Dennis the Menace on skates who added three more shorthanded goals, jumpstart the Panthers when they need it most. Usually, they do it by creating havoc while crashing the boards and their opponents. The two did an excellent job of that while giving the Panthers a 3-1 lead in their first-round series against the Boston Bruins.The job, Lindsay admits, can have its drawbacks; like having to drop your gloves against Eric Lindros, getting chopped by Mario Lemieux or chased by Jeff Beukeboom.&ldquo;But you have to be willing to pay the price,&rdquo; said Lindsay, 24. who scored a career-high 12 goals this season. &ldquo;I guess the chippy part is my style, it&rsquo;s what keeps me in the league. I had to find my niche, because it definitely wasn&rsquo;t scoring.&rdquo;Fitzgerald, 27, who played several years with the New York Islanders before being the first forward taken by the Panthers in the expansion draft, has played every forward position while logging large chunks of time penalty killing.Panthers&rsquo; coach Doug MacLean, whose club was 0-7-1 when Lindsay was not in the lineup, said, &ldquo;If you look back at the games we&rsquo;ve really been successful in, (Fitzgerald and Lindsay) have really been important.&rdquo;So important that just before the end of the regular season, MacLean had what he called &ldquo;a mini-meeting&rdquo; with Fitzgerald and Lindsay, reminding them of how important it is for them to play aggressively.While Fitzgerald&rsquo;s contributions haven&rsquo;t surprised Murray, he admits Lindsay has been a bit of a surprise.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re tough kids, a no-fear factor with them,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;I knew Tommy when he played with the Islanders. I knew he was a hard-nosed kid; he&rsquo;d fight you, run into you. I knew Billy was a hard-working guy, but a bit limited. I didn&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;d give us as much as he has.&rdquo;Said Lindsay; &ldquo;You do what you can to turn the game around.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Right winger Ray Sheppard had four goals in the first four games against Boston&hellip;Panther fans have taken a page from Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; fans, waving white towels during the team&rsquo;s playoff run&hellip;The Panthers new 20,000-seat arena will be built in the city of Sunrise, 15 minutes west of Fort Lauderdale. The cost of the project will be $212 million. There will be 800,000 square feet and three concourses. Design and pre-construction is expected to be done by September, and the building is expected to open in October of 1998. The building will be located next to Sawgrass Mills, which is billed as the world&rsquo;s largest outlet mall. Owner H. Wayne Huizenga wanted the building in Fort Lauderdale, but fans wanted the building in Sunrise.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03606/6297836-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="574" height="909"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bill Lindsay</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0018-02

Fitzgerald, Lindsay at home with feisty in-your-face style

<div class="byline">By Mike Loftus</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-04377/6297881-1-eng-US/f0018-042.jpg" title="f0018-04" width="159" height="158"></div>It was difficult for the Boston Bruins to watch Bill Ranford surrender six goals-five on the first 12 shots he faced-in Game 1 of their first-round series against the Florida Panthers at Miami Arena.The Bruins, however, knew they had played poorly in front of their No. 1 goalie and planned to support him more in Game 2.That made it harder to hear Ranford couldn&rsquo;t play because of a new problem in a tender right ankle that has plagued him for months.The story had a happy ending: An MRI revealed tendinitis, but no structural damage.Ranford was back for Games 3 and 4 and probably for as long as Boston could stay alive.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no fracture or anything like that,&rdquo; said Bruins&rsquo; coach Steve Kasper. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s good news. Any time you have something like that, you&rsquo;re worried about the worst.&rdquo;The Bruins thought Ranford, who was still dealing with the pain from a sprain he sustained while playing for the Edmonton Oilers, was finally healthy.He became the same workhorse he was as an Oiler, starting the Bruins&rsquo; final 18 games (12-3-2) and 29 of the last 31 to help them finish fifth in the Eastern Conference.The new problem cropped up during the four-day break between Games 1 and 2 of the Florida series.&ldquo;It felt like a structural inability to move,&rdquo; Ranford said. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t a pain issue. What bothered me more than anything was the inability to do what you need to do on the ice. I had no stability in the ankle.&rdquo;A diagnosis of tendinitis helped the Bruins treat it better.Ranford lost Game 3 4-2, but made several strong saves a night later to win his first playoff game since 1992. The Oilers missed the playoffs the next three years so Ranford had no opportunity to expand on his 25 career post-season victories coming into this season.&ldquo;It was very frustrating not being able to play because this is a big time of year,&rdquo; Ranford said.&ldquo;Nobody wants to work as hard as we did to make the playoffs to go out early. I think it almost took more out of me not being able to play (Game 2). It was hard.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Coach Steve Kasper, worried about using someone who hadn&rsquo;t played in two years and perhaps fearful the big defenseman&rsquo;s presence was becoming a distraction, essentially told injury-plagued Al lafrate to wait until next year (if the Bruins re-sign him). &ldquo;It&rsquo;s unrealistic to think someone can step in after that much time off and be able to perform,&rdquo; Kasper said. Assistant GM Mike O&rsquo;Connell, however, said a long playoff might change the club&rsquo;s thinking. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve waited for Al to come to us and say he&rsquo;s ready,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Connell said. &ldquo;That hasn&rsquo;t happened, but you never say never.&rdquo;&hellip;Boston&rsquo;s 0-2 start contributed to tiny crowds at 17,565-seat FleetCenter. Only 14,922 showed up for Game 3, and about 100 fewer than that came to Game 4. &#9632;

f0018-04

Bruins relieved Ranford’s ankle injury just tendinitis

<div class="byline">By Robyn Norwood</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02656/6297912-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="562" height="978"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Wilson</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-01986/6297919-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="162" height="162"></div>Ron Wilson knows as well as anybody the NHL record for mid-season coaching changes set this season could easily be nine instead of eight.The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim coach survived two nasty stretches during the season, then guided the Ducks to a 12-3-2 stretch run after the arrival of Teemu Selanne that left the team only a point shy of the playoffs.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad it wasn&rsquo;t somebody else behind the bench when Teemu got here,&rdquo; Wilson said.Just how close it came to being someone else is hard to say. GM Jack Ferreira smiled and said, &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll never know. It&rsquo;s all water under the bridge now.&rdquo;Wilson was more blunt.&ldquo;Apparently they were going to fire (the coaching staff) and changed their minds,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;People decided they were being emotional about it and not logical.&rdquo;Things have turned dramatically for Wilson since then. He was behind the bench for the U.S. team at the World Championship and is a favorite for the World Cup job. That could lead to the 1998 Olympic job.In addition, Wilson-who received a one-year extension in a faint vote of confidence early in the season-is in line for a second one-year extension this summer.The terms of the first extension called for the Ducks to offer an additional year after the season, or else give Wilson permission to talk to other teams.NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Milos Holan cleared a major hurdle in his recovery from a bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia when he was released from hospital April 25. Holan, 24, spent two months at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif., after undergoing the procedure Feb. 21. The usual stay is six weeks and Holan had been ahead of schedule, but suffered a setback in his recuperation. &ldquo;He had a little dip, which happens a lot with non-related donors,&rdquo; said Rich Winter, Holan&rsquo;s Edmonton-based agent. &ldquo;He had a little rejection, but he has overcome it.&rdquo;&hellip;Center Steve Rucchin had surgery on his right middle finger April 23. He broke the finger March 19, but played with the injury the rest of the season. &#9632;

f0020-02

Wilson lives to tell tale

<div class="byline">By Jim Kelley</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03442/6297950-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="162" height="162"></div>Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; management, particularly GM John Muckler, liked the progress the team made in 1995-96, but made no promises for the future.&ldquo;The playoffs are the first step,&rdquo; Muckler said of a team that missed by 15 points. &ldquo;I look at the potential for the team and the potential says we are going to improve. How much we&rsquo;re going to improve, I don&rsquo;t know. It&rsquo;s definitely our goal to try to make the playoffs.&ldquo;Our whole game plan is to build a team that is going to become a contender. A contender to me is in the top five. That&rsquo;s why we made the decisions we made to go into transition. Rather than be a good hockey club, we want to be a contending hockey club.&rdquo;When that might be is anyone&rsquo;s guess. Muckler downplayed the possibility of making any major trades to accelerate the rebuilding program that in his eyes is a year old, but in the eyes of most critics is at a dozen years and counting.The most likely new players for next season&rsquo;s roster are already in the system. Muckler said highly rated center prospects Curtis Brown and Keith Primeau should earn berths on the 1996-97 squad.The GM also said the team would look at the free agent market, but noted signing a restricted free agent is difficult. He also didn&rsquo;t hold out much hope of signing an unrestricted free agent if that player commanded a top dollar.NOTEBOOK: Center Pat LaFontaine passed on the World Championship, but has committed to the World Cup for the U.S. in the fall&hellip;Goalie Dominik Hasek injured a knee ligament in the late stages of the regular season, but will not need surgery and is recovering with the aid of a brace&hellip;Defensemen Mark Astley and Alexei Zhitnik and forwards Matthew Barnaby, Jason Dawe and Derek Plante are restricted free agents&hellip;GM John Muckler said he hopes to re-sign Hasek to a longterm extension. Hasek has one year left on his contract and could become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 1997&hellip;Muckler is also hopeful of re-signing unrestricted free agent left winger Randy Burridge. &#9632;

f0020-03

Making playoffs next step in GM’s recovery program

<div class="byline">By Mike Helka</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-04275/6297981-1-eng-US/f0020-042.jpg" title="f0020-04" width="160" height="160"></div>Dallas Stars&rsquo; GM Bob Gainey was on his most important fact-finding mission of the summer at the World Championship in Vienna, Austria, as he surveyed the future of Czech goal tender Roman Turek.The 26-year-old Turek appears ready to take a shot at the NHL and the Stars are at a point where they are seriously studying their goaltending options. With both parts of their existing tandem-Andy Moog and Darcy Wakaluk-about to become unrestricted free agents, the time might never be better to see what Turek has to offer.&ldquo;He has really come along at a very good pace and we&rsquo;d only bring him over if we were very serious,&rdquo; said assistant GM Les Jackson. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an important time for both him and us.&rdquo;The 6-foot-3 Turek played this season for Nurmberg of the German Elite League and finished with a 3.34 goals-against average during the regular season and a 2.10 GAA in the playoffs. He was the No. 1 Czech Republic goalie for the World Championship and is expected to back up Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; star netminder Dominik Hasek at this summer&rsquo;s World Cup.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s really making big strides there and at 26, he&rsquo;s getting to the point where he needs to come over,&rdquo; Jackson said of the Stars&rsquo; sixth pick (113th overall) in the 1990 entry draft. &ldquo;We want to see what he can do against the NHL players.&rdquo;The Stars would love to wait to see what Turek can do in the World Cup against the best international competition before signing him to an NHL contract, but they probably can&rsquo;t wait that long.And if the Stars do jump in with both feet on a contract, they&rsquo;ll make the battle for jobs next season very interesting. Manny Fernandez, the team&rsquo;s top goaltender with the Michigan K-Wings of the International League, has regained his edge and also expects to make a run at the NHL club.The 36-year-old Moog said he would like to stay with the Stars, which could leave Wakaluk as the odd-man out in Dallas.NOTEBOOK: The Stars and NHL filed a complaint with the International Ice Hockey Federation after center Robert Petrovicky left Michigan without permission on the eve of the International League playoffs to join the Slovakia entry at the World Championship. Petrovicky, the Wings&rsquo; leading goal scorer, was suspended by the Wings&hellip;Defenseman Craig Ludwig agreed to terms on a one-year contract extension, with his salary jumping to $700,000 from $550,000&hellip;Ludwig, goalies Darcy Wakaluk. and Andy Moog and defenseman Richard Matvichuk had arthroscopic surgery following the season to clean up cartilage debris in their knees. Left winger Bob Bassen had surgery to tighten looseness in his shoulders. &#9632;

f0020-04

Gainey visits Austria to scout Roman

<div class="byline">By Ban Barnes</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-05149/6298012-1-eng-US/f0020-052.jpg" title="f0020-05" width="159" height="160"></div>It wouldn&rsquo;t be easy for Zdeno Ciger to turn his back on the NHL, but that&rsquo;s exactly what he may do.The Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; left winger, who had a breakthrough year and finished second in team scoring, says the nomadic life of an NHL player isn&rsquo;t for him and he may play out the rest of his career in Europe.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what I&rsquo;m going to do. I talk to my wife,&rdquo; Ciger said. &ldquo;She doesn&rsquo;t know what she wants to do. Maybe we go to Europe. I didn&rsquo;t make a decision. I&rsquo;m just thinking.&rdquo;Ciger could play for tax-free money in Switzerland, for example, and be close to his homeland in Slovakia. Or he could play in Slovakia for Dukla Trencin, as he did during the lockout and even after the NHL resumed playing.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m different guy. This isn&rsquo;t my life here. This is just my work here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s getting tough. I have to do something for the future. I can&rsquo;t be just thinking year after year. Maybe I want more kids. But my wife doesn&rsquo;t want to do that because we&rsquo;re always travelling, we don&rsquo;t know where we&rsquo;ll be.&rdquo;The restricted free agent hasn&rsquo;t ruled out returning to Edmonton, but he holds out no guarantees.&ldquo;If (GM Glen Sather) offer me something, maybe I have to stay. But everyone knows it&rsquo;s going to be tough. He doesn&rsquo;t like to pay some money,&rdquo; Ciger said. &ldquo;If I&rsquo;m going to pay the price to stay here I need to get something really interesting.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Oilers are reportedly negotiating with Copps Coliseum officials to move their American League franchise to Hamilton from Sydney, N.S. The Cape Breton Oilers saw attendance plummet by 500 fans per game this season in a building that holds just over 4,600. Edmonton GM Glen Sather would not confirm the negotiations and said he was still exploring ways to stay in Sydney. However, several sources said the Oilers will indeed move their farm operation to Hamilton before the AHL deadline of May 8. The Oilers&rsquo; players and coaches made a $10,000 donation to a scholarship fund set up in the memory of Mark Goodkey, a University of Alberta defenseman who died after being hit in the neck by a slapshot. &#9632;

f0020-05

Nomadic NHL lifestyle might send Ciger to European roots

<div class="byline">By Michael Arace</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-07106/6298043-1-eng-US/f0020-072.jpg" title="f0020-07" width="561" height="975"><figcaption class="caption-body">Geoff Sanderson</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-06119/6298050-1-eng-US/f0020-062.jpg" title="f0020-06" width="160" height="160"></div>Say the words &ldquo;Hartford Whalers&rdquo; and &ldquo;left winger in the same sentence and Brendan Shanahan&rsquo;s name immediately pops to mind.But in Shanahan&rsquo;s shadow, Geoff Sanderson quietly assembled one of his finest seasons.&ldquo;What Geoff has done is become a more complete player,&rdquo; said Whalers&rsquo; GM-president Jim Rutherford. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s much better in his own end, he&rsquo;s checking better and his transition game improved. Despite the fact that he didn&rsquo;t score on a consistent basis down the stretch run, I really think he was one of our most consistent players.&rdquo;Sanderson, 24, looked to be on pace for his third 40-goal season before he hit his second slump. He had just four goals in the last 16 games and finished with 34 goals and 65 points. But he still managed to strengthen his bargaining power as he enters restricted free agency.&ldquo;He still scores a lot of goals, but he really added that other dimension to his game,&rdquo; said coach Paul Maurice, &ldquo;He has become a lot more of a grinder and still allowed himself the same opportunities.&rdquo;Sanderson only missed one game in 1995-96, a testament to his conditioning regimen. He&rsquo;ll keep pumping iron as his agent, Steve Bartlett, and Rutherford attempt to hammer out an agreement. Sanderson doesn&rsquo;t expect to sign a new contract for some time, however.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if it goes on right until training camp,&rdquo; he said.NOTEBOOK: Owner Peter Karmanos said he might be amenable to extending a &lsquo;Save the Whale&rsquo; season-ticket drive deadline beyond May 1 provided momentum remained strong. The campaign, which had a goal of 11,000, was at about 6,300 after one month. Drive organizers remained guardedly optimistic. They said the corporate portion of the campaign-a key to success-wouldn&rsquo;t be felt until the final week. &ldquo;I am encouraged by the numbers,&rdquo; Karmanos said. &ldquo;We are in the middle of a very special exercise. We are trying to prove that a small market can support a professional hockey team. We will consider an extension if we get close. We don&rsquo;t have a plan to pull up the trucks and run over the mayor on the way out.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0020-07

Strong season for Sanderson

<div class="byline">By Lisa Dillman</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02407/6298081-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="560" height="977"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rogie Vachon</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01753/6298088-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="159" height="162"></div>The Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; massive on-ice rebuilding process briefly took a backseat to day-to-day business operations when the team named a new president.As expected, the Kings hired former CEO of U.S. Skiing, Tim Leiweke, April 23. His three-year deal could earn him as much as $450,000 per year.Leiweke, 39, who was also previously president of the National Basketball Association&rsquo;s Denver Nuggets, succeeds Rogie Vachon, who was given the newly created job of chief hockey operations officer. Bob Sanderman remains as team governor and Leiweke and Vachon will be alternate governors.Vachon, who said he has had nine jobs with the Kings, has seemingly done everything in the organization except fly the team charter.&ldquo;It has been at least six months since I got a new title,&rdquo; Vachon joked.Leiweke, meanwhile, said he wants the Kings to be a &ldquo;role-model franchise&rdquo; within two years.&ldquo;This is by far the greatest challenge I&rsquo;ve taken on and I&rsquo;m not taking it lightly,&rdquo; Leiweke said. &ldquo;What brought me out here is the vision and the commitment the owners have for the L.A. Kings.&rdquo;&ldquo;I know the No. 1 task I must bring back to this organization is a positive environment with a vision that&rsquo;s consistent, so that we do not have the chaos that the staff and the organization and players had to deal with over the past three years.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Team governor Bob Sanderman said the owners have narrowed their options for a new arena site to either Inglewood or Los Angeles. There are three locations in the city of Los Angeles: downtown at Union Station on land owned by the Catellus Development Company; the Convention Center; and in Chinatown, south of Dodger Stadium on land owned by Southern Pacific Railroad. The lone site in Inglewood is at Hollywood Park near the existing Forum. To attain the goal of opening the new facility by Sept. 1, 1999, construction would most likely have to start by the summer of 1997. Sanderman hopes to announce a final site this summer. But before that, the owners will likely hire an architectural firm. &#9632;

f0021-02

Exec brings new attitude

<div class="byline">By Rich Chere</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-03219/6298119-1-eng-US/f0021-032.jpg" title="f0021-03" width="160" height="160"></div>The brawling approach that made Mike Peluso so valuable to the New Jersey Devils on the ice the past three seasons nearly prompted GM Lou Lamoriello to send the Crash Line left winger packing after his late-season disagreement with coach Jacques Lemaire.But Peluso, who seemed to patch up his differences with Lemaire and Lamoriello prior to the Devils&rsquo; disappointing finish, remains worried he will become the first casualty in the team&rsquo;s summer overhaul.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really know what (the Devils&rsquo;) plans are. I&rsquo;d like to be back next year,&rdquo; Peluso said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really know what I did that was so bad, really. When the team is losing, I tend to bring some energy. Sometimes it was negative energy.&rdquo;He was apparently a hurricane of controversy during a March 29 team meeting in Pittsburgh during which Lemaire berated his players for their play in a 4-4 tie against the St. Louis Blues the previous night. Asked by the coach if he would have been happier had he been traded, Peluso either misunderstood the question or spoke out of frustration and answered yes.Peluso apologized to Lemaire, but was sent back to New Jersey on a commercial flight five hours before the team charter. Only several phone calls to Lemaire and GM Lou Lamoriello saved Peluso from being banished for good. Whether it was enough to keep him around for another season remains to be seen.NOTEBOOK: There was speculation a shakeup among coach Jacques Lemaire&rsquo;s assistants was in the works. Chris Nilan was expected to be retained, but Dennis Gendron&rsquo;s status was unclear. Another assistant was expected to be added in hope of regaining what was lost when Larry Robinson left&hellip;Goalie Martin Brodeur was persuaded to play for Team Canada in the World Championship by his father, Denis. Denis was the goalie for the Canadian Olympic team at the Winter Games in Italy in 1956&hellip;Missing the playoffs figured to hurt the team financially, especially since nine players are set to earn well in excess of $1 million next season. At $950,000, center Neal Broten is close enough to call it 10. &#9632;

f0021-03

Peluso’s status still unclear after flare-up with Lemaire

<div class="byline">By Chris Stevenson</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-05128/6298181-1-eng-US/f0021-052.jpg" title="f0021-05" width="160" height="162"></div>It was easy to put two and two together and come up with $20 million.There was Marcel Aubut, former Quebec Nordiques&rsquo; governor, sitting in the luxury suite of Senators&rsquo; majority owner Rod Bryden at a game near the end of the season.Bryden has made no secret of the fact he&rsquo;s looking for a partner willing to invest about $20 million in the organization. Aubut would seem to be a good fit. A media-friendly Quebecois owner might help the Senators more deeply penetrate their bilingual market.It made for some juicy speculation.But the fact of the matter, said Bryden, is Aubut was simply visiting the Corel Centre for the first time. Aubut isn&rsquo;t his $20 million man.Despite the success the Senators enjoyed at the gate after their move to the Corel Centre, Bryden said there&rsquo;s still plenty of room in the building that needs to be filled, including that room in the owners&rsquo; suite. He would like to increase his season-ticket base from 9,300 to 13,000, but would settle for about 10,500-11.000 next season.In order to do that, Bryden knows he needs a better product on the ice and that means spending more money-something he said he is prepared to do.&ldquo;I think (GM) Pierre (Gauthier) feels the budget he has been given for the coming years gives him an opportunity to at least meet the objective (of challenging for a playoff spot),&rdquo; Bryden said.NOTEBOOK: Don Meehan, the agent for junior defenseman Wade Redden, said he was encouraged by early contract discussions he&rsquo;d had with GM Pierre Gauthier. Redden, picked second overall by the Islanders in the 1995 NHL entry draft, was obtained as part of the deal that sent Ottawa&rsquo;s first pick in that draft, Bryan Berard, to the Isles&hellip;Free agent goaltender Damian Rhodes said he was not worried about coming to agreement on a new contract with the Senators. He&rsquo;ll probably double his annual take from the $575,000 he made last season&hellip;Among the 13 free agents the Senators will have this season, defenseman Chris Dahlquist and right wingers Scott Levins and Rob Gaudreau are not expected to return. &#9632;

f0021-05

Bryden’s $20 million question: who will invest in franchise?

<div class="byline">By Dan Wood</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-0790/6298212-1-eng-US/f0021-072.jpg" title="f0021-07" width="559" height="967"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brian Sutter</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-06106/6298219-1-eng-US/f0021-062.jpg" title="f0021-06" width="159" height="161"></div>Former NHL coaches Robbie Ftorek and Brian Sutter are the early favorites to be behind the San Jose Sharks&rsquo; bench next season.The Sharks&rsquo; head coaching position officially became open April 19 with the announcement that the club would conduct a formal job search. Jim Wiley, who served as interim coach after the Dec. 2 firing of Kevin Constantine, will receive consideration for the fulltime position, said GM Dean Lombardi.Lombardi planned to begin conducting interviews in late April and it seemed a good bet that Ftorek and Sutter would be given opportunities.Ftorek, 44, likely won&rsquo;t be visiting San Jose any time soon, however. The coach of the defending American League champion Albany River Rats is involved in the AHL playoffs after his team fashioned a league-best 54-19-7 regular-season record. That brought his&rsquo; eight-year AHL mark to 292-195-68.&ldquo;Eventually, when the season is over, if someone is interested in talking to me, I&rsquo;d most definitely be interested in talking to them,&rdquo; said Ftorek, who coached the Los Angeles Kings to a 65-56-11 mark in 1 1/2 seasons.Sutter, 39, was fired after the Boston Bruins lost to the New Jersey Devils in the first round last season. He also coached the St. Louis Blues from 1988 to 1992 and has a record of 273-197-66 in seven NHL seasons. He was the NHL&rsquo;s top coach in 1990-91.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d certainly be interested in the San Jose situation,&rdquo; Sutter said.NOTEBOOK: GM Dean Lombardi spent much of his time after the season attempting to re-structure San Jose&rsquo;s scouting staff. The Sharks were hoping to sign former New York Islanders&rsquo; GM Don Maloney as a pro scout.&hellip;Assistant coaches Mark Kaufman and Derek Eisler will have the remaining two years of their contracts honored, but have been given permission to seek employment elsewhere, the club said&hellip;Lombardi was working with Mike Barnett, the agent for Owen Nolan, in an attempt to sign the big right winger to a new contract. Nolan, who led the Sharks in scoring this season with 33 goals and 69 points in 81 games, is scheduled to enter his option year in 1996-97 at a salary of $1.15 million. &#9632;

f0021-07

GM Lombardi seeks coach

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01878/6298250-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0022-01

CLASSIFIED

<div class="byline">By Kevin Oklobzija</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0023-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01780/6298281-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Sullivan gets a lot of breakaways by using speed and smarts. (Photo by Paul Angers/BBS)</figcaption></div>Kenn Sullivan remembers his day of epiphany. It was the fall of 1992 and he and his son Steve were walking out of the Sault Memorial Gardens. Steve had just signed a contract with the Sault Greyhounds of the Ontario League.&ldquo;As we were walking out,&rdquo; recalled the elder Sullivan, &ldquo;Steve said, &lsquo;OK Dad, now I&rsquo;ve made it. Never say I&rsquo;m too small to make it again.&rsquo;&rdquo;It wasn&rsquo;t that Sullivan didn&rsquo;t think his son had the heart. It&rsquo;s just that when you hear the same thing over and over, you begin to believe it. &ldquo;I always thought Steve had the skills, there was never any doubt about that,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I was in the 99 per cent who thought he was just too small.&rdquo;Sullivan hasn&rsquo;t grown much since then-he&rsquo;s listed at 5-foot-9 and 160 pounds-but the dissenters are in the minority now. In two seasons, the Albany River Rats&rsquo; 21-year-old center has proven to be the American League&rsquo;s best player. Sullivan is a superior skater, has great instincts, sees the ice with 2020 vision and-as his 251 penalty minutes in two AHL seasons will attest-is afraid of no one.&ldquo;Everyone always told me I was too small,&rdquo; Sullivan said. &ldquo;But I want to prove to myself that they&rsquo;re wrong. I have nothing against them, people can think what they want, but that&rsquo;s still the way I play, that I have to prove to myself that they&rsquo;re wrong.&rdquo;He has convinced himself-and a lot of other people in the hockey world.&ldquo;No matter what he has been told about his size, no matter how many times people told him he was too small, his heart was going to overcome it,&rdquo; said Adirondack Red Wings&rsquo; coach Newell Brown. &ldquo;He has a huge heart and he plays with so much pride. He&rsquo;s just a great player.&rdquo;He is a great player who in the beginning was thought to be too small to play major junior-a great player who wasn&rsquo;t drafted until the ninth round, 233rd overall, by the New Jersey Devils in 1994.&ldquo;Every year I ask David Conte (the Devils&rsquo; scouting director) what we have coming in to Albany,&rdquo; said River Rats&rsquo; coach Robbie Ftorek, &ldquo;and he said, &lsquo;We&rsquo;ve got a guy you&rsquo;re going to love. He&rsquo;s not very big, but you&rsquo;re going to love him.&rsquo;&rdquo;That Ftorek was only 5-foot-10 and 155 pounds when he played certainly didn&rsquo;t hurt Sullivan&rsquo;s chances. In fact, some people see a young Ftorek wearing Sullivan&rsquo;s No. 14 sweater.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see myself, but my wife does,&rdquo; Ftorek said. &ldquo;We had one of those meet-the-players skate-along things and afterward my wife said, &lsquo;You know, he reminds me of you.&rsquo; &ldquo;He is scoring like Ftorek did. As an AHL rookie, Sullivan scored 31 goals and 81 points. This season, he scored 33 goals and 75 points in 53 games. He was plus-40 and played in the AllStar Game for the second year.&ldquo;When other players sneak around behind the defense, you might call it cheating,&rdquo; Brown said. &ldquo;With him, it&rsquo;s just great timing. I&rsquo;ve never seen a guy get so many breakaways.&rdquo;Cut from his tryout with the Greyhounds in 1991, Sullivan was invited him back to camp in 1992 and this time he made the team.The Greyhounds won the Memorial Cup in Sullivan&rsquo;s rookie season in 1993 with Sullivan scoring the winning goal in the championship game. Last spring, Albany won the Calder Cup.In 1994-95, Sullivan had earned a spot with the River Rats, but he wasn&rsquo;t happy with the contract the Devils offered. In fact, he sat out the first game of the season because he hadn&rsquo;t signed.&ldquo;It was frustrating because I thought I had a good camp and was doing what they wanted me to do,&rdquo; Sullivan said. &ldquo;I finally signed a two-year contract. Then after the season, they signed me for another three years.&rdquo;The contract didn&rsquo;t guarantee Sullivan NHL playing time, however. It took until February before the Devils gave Sullivan a promotion.&ldquo;Lou (Devils&rsquo; GM Lamoriello) always calls and asks who&rsquo;s playing well, who deserves to go up,&rdquo; Ftorek said. &ldquo;A lot of times they have a specific need, but I always say, &lsquo;You know, Lou, Sully&rsquo;s our best player.&rsquo; &ldquo;The Devils called up Sullivan and he played in 16 NHL games, scoring five goals and nine points, including a goal in his first game. He was sent back to the River Rats for the playoffs after New Jersey&rsquo;s season ended.&ldquo;In the back of your mind you&rsquo;re hoping for the chance and I never told myself it wasn&rsquo;t going to happen,&rdquo; Sullivan said. &ldquo;When I did go up it was a dream come true. You&rsquo;re always wondering if your talents are good enough. All you want is a chance to prove it. And I know now I can.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0023-01

Hockey a passion for little superstar

<div class="byline">By Kevin lole</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02495/6298312-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="382" height="506"></div>Some musings as we take a short skate through the International League:&#9633; The Kansas City Blades were the darkhorse choice of many in the International League to at least get to the Western Conference final, if not to advance all the way to the Turner Cup final.But that became more difficult with hulking center Viktor Kozlov&rsquo;s decision to play for Russia in the World Championship rather than for Kansas City in the early stages of the IHL playoffs.The San Jose Sharks, the Blades&rsquo; parent club, assigned Kozlov to Kansas City at the conclusion of the NHL regular season.&ldquo;They wanted him to play in the playoffs here because of the intensity and because they wanted him in the North American style game,&rdquo; said Kansas City GM Doug Soetaert.But Kozlov and agent Paul Theofanous had other ideas. They wanted to go to Vienna and the World Championship. Guess who won.Soetaert said Kozlov would return to the Blades at the conclusion of the World Championship if the Blades are still alive.But that became a much dicier proposition without the man one IHL coach calls &ldquo;the Mario Lemieux of our league.&rdquo;&#9633; It used to be you couldn&rsquo;t tell the players without a scorecard, but in the case of the IHL, you can&rsquo;t tell the league without one. Again next season, the league will have a considerably different look.The Atlanta Knights are all but certain to wind up in Quebec City and the Peoria Rivermen franchise will likely land in San Antonio. The Los Angeles Ice Dogs have announced plans to move to Long Beach, Calif., the Minnesota Moose are on their way to Winnipeg and the Grand Rapids Griffins will debut as an expansion team next season.Then there&rsquo;s the Phoenix Roadrunners. Their owner, Lyle Abraham, claims he will stay in Phoenix, but the competition is the NHL&rsquo;s Phoenix Coyotes. Don&rsquo;t be surprised if Abraham&rsquo;s franchise winds up in San Diego.&#9633; One of the nicest stories this season was the performance of San Francisco Spiders&rsquo; winger John Purves, a recovering alcoholic who battled his demons to put together a superb season.Playing on a team not gifted with exceptional offensive skills, Purves finished second in the league with 56 goals and led the circuit with nine short-handed markers.Purves realizes he&rsquo;s not likely to get another crack at the big time, but he played hard night in and night out anyway and was a key factor in San Francisco&rsquo;s strong second half.&#9633; One has to wonder what a minor pro coach must do to get a second crack at coaching in the NHL when Utah&rsquo;s Butch Goring is overlooked for NHL vacancies. Over the past three seasons, Goring&rsquo;s teams have won the IHL regular season title twice, one Turner Cup, never finished with fewer than 49 wins or 102 points and posted a 158-65-21 mark, a winning percentage of .691.Goring was considered for NHL jobs with the Los Angeles Kings, Buffalo Sabres and Florida Panthers last season, but came up short each time.&#9633; You have to admire the grit shown by 20-year-old Phoenix goalie Jamie Storr, who returned to the team after missing three weeks because of the death of his mother, Keiko.His first assignment was to go into the nets with his team trailing 2-0 in a best-of-five series against the regular season champion Las Vegas Thunder. He had a unique outlook on the game.&ldquo;The way I look at it, it will be the first game my Mom sees me play from Heaven,&rdquo; Storr said. &#9632;

f0023-02

Blades not sharp without Kozlov

<div class="byline">By Dave Eminian</div>Another league, another best defenseman award for Greg Hawgood.In his first year in the IHL, the Las Vegas Thunder rearguard was named winner of the Governors&rsquo; Trophy, which is awarded annually to the league&rsquo;s outstanding defenseman. He&rsquo;ll add the trophy to the one he won in 1987-88 with the Kamloops Blazers as the Canadian Hockey League&rsquo;s top defenseman and the 199192 award as the American League&rsquo;s top rearguard.Hawgood, 27, scored 20 goals and 85 points and was plus-43 with a powerhouse Las Vegas team. His point total was second-best among IHL blueliners while the plus-minus figure was second-best among all players.But Hawgood, who has played 314 NHL games over seven seasons, doesn&rsquo;t see this award as necessarily translating into a reward at the big-league level.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if it makes a difference to people up there (in the NHL),&rdquo; Hawgood said. &ldquo;There are a lot of good players who won awards in this league last year and they&rsquo;re still here. And there are guys up there you think can&rsquo;t even play the game. You can&rsquo;t worry about that. All you can do is try to play well every night.&rdquo;There weren&rsquo;t many bad nights on a Las Vegas team that posted the league&rsquo;s third-best ever point total (122), and the slick Hawgood was a big reason for that success, along with blueliner Jean-Marc Richard, who won the Governors&rsquo; Trophy in 1991-92 with the Fort Wayne Komets.&ldquo;Hawgood is the Paul Coffey of this league and Richard is the Ray Bourque,&rdquo; said Las Vegas coach Chris McSorley. &ldquo;Hawgood gives you more speed and offense (like Coffey) and Richard gives you both offense and defense.&rdquo;WHAT&rsquo;S IN A NAME?: The IHL&rsquo;s board of governors voted unanimously April 22 to release the nickname, logo and colors of the Peoria Rivermen to Bruce Saurs, who will be co-owner of Peoria&rsquo;s expansion East Coast League team next season.All 19 team names, logos and color schemes are the marketing property of the IHL and Peoria needed permission from the league to transfer its 12-year-old name and one-year-old logo to the ECHL.&ldquo;The Rivermen name has a proud tradition in Peoria,&rdquo; Saurs said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s more important to central Illinois than it would be to the IHL as a property. What were they gonna do with the thing?&rdquo;Saurs, sole owner of the outgoing IHL team, was close to completing a sale to a Texas investor who plans to move the IHL franchise to San Antonio. The hangup is an arena lease-which the team does not have yet. The franchise would play a month at the Alamo Dome and the rest of the season at a secondary venue yet to be named.Saurs could end up retaining ownership of up to 35 per cent of the IHL San Antonio venture.<h2>IHL PLAYOFFS</h2>WESTERN CONFERENCE EASTERN CONFERENCE FIRST ROUND (Best of Five)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01853/6298343-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="816" height="248"></div>PLAYOFF HIGHLIGHTS (APRIL 19-25): Peoria&rsquo;s Keith Osborne had four goals in two wins over Milwaukee&hellip;Chris Kontos&rsquo; overtime goal gave Cincinnati a 2-0 series lead over Atlanta&hellip;Jim Storm and Travis Richards had overtime winners as Michigan controlled Cleveland 3-0. Zac Boyer assisted on both goals&hellip;Defenseman Kevin Wortman had a goal and four assists in Fort Wayne&rsquo;s Game 1 win over Orlando. Goal-scoring leader Craig Fisher missed Orlando&rsquo;s first two games. &#9632;

f0024-01

LEAGUES

Top defenseman award tells us Hawgood he is

<div class="byline">By John Packett</div>The Roanoke Express almost stopped chugging one day in April. But the franchise appears to be moving full steam ahead again.A dispute over GM Pierre Paiement&rsquo;s involvement with the expansion franchise in Biloxi, Miss., led to the removal of John Gagnon as Roanoke&rsquo;s president-even though Gagnon still owns 50 per cent of the franchise.The team&rsquo;s offices were closed April 19 as club officials searched for documents linking Paiement to Biloxi. Paiement and Gagnon launched the Mississippi franchise in January, but Paiement announced Feb. 19 he had removed himself from the Biloxi deal because of conflict of interest concerns expressed by Roanoke&rsquo;s other co-owners.After admitting to his partners April 23 that he had remained involved with Biloxi, Paiement backed out of Biloxi to keep his job in Roanoke.&ldquo;My involvement (with Biloxi) was inappropriate,&rdquo; Paiement told the Roanoke Times. &ldquo;It was an issue my partners and I disagreed on. After discussions with them, I realized I was wrong and they were right. It&rsquo;s a good thing I have partners to tell me when I step out of line.&rdquo;The new president of the Express is Richard Macher, a Roanoke restauranteur who owns less than 10 per cent of the franchise.CHANGING LOGOS: The Wheeling Thunderbirds, who have had their nickname since 1988, have been informed that their nickname has been federally trademarked by the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western League.In addition, the club&rsquo;s logo has been found to be an inverse of the logo copyrighted by the National Football League&rsquo;s Philadelphia Eagles.Consequently, the West Virginia team will hold a &ldquo;name-the-team&rdquo; contest, and plans to announce it and the new logo in mid-June.WAR FLARES UP: The Dayton Bombers sued Hara Arena, the Dayton Ice Bandits hockey team and Ticketmaster April 22, claiming the Bandits used the Bombers&rsquo; season-ticket list to solicit their own season tickets for 1996-97.The Ice Bandits, a Colonial League expansion team, moved into Hara Arena when the Bombers shifted their operations to the Nutter Center on the campus of Wright State University. The Bombers are seeking to have the Ice Bandits stop using their season-ticket list. A hearing is set for May 3.NEWEST CHIEF: The Johnstown Chiefs announced the hiring of Scott Allen as the team&rsquo;s director of player development/assistant coach April 23. Allen, who assumes his duties May 1, will become the first full-time assistant coach in the club&rsquo;s nine-year history.Allen, 30, has been playing minor-league hockey for 10 years, most recently with the Fort Worth Fire of the Central League.The Chiefs are also changing their logo and uniform for next season. After eight years of the traditional &lsquo;J&rsquo; with an Indian skating logo, the club has decided to promote a new look.<h2>ECHL PLAYOFFS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02574/6298374-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="810" height="404"></div>PLAYOFF HIGHLIGHTS (APRIL 19-25): Charlotte&rsquo;s Phil Berger scored in 10 straight playoff games as the Checkers downed Tallahassee&hellip;Jacksonville advanced to the best-of-seven final with a 5-4 deciding game victory over Toledo. &#9632;

f0024-02

GM Expresses desire to remain in Roanoke

<div class="byline">By Kevin Oklobzlja</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0024-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03371/6298405-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg"></div>Steve Shields broke into pro hockey in 1994 with superior credentials, having won more games than any goalie in U.S. college history.But two months into his rookie year with the American League&rsquo;s Rochester Americans, critics were wondering if the University of Michigan grad used a bigger puck or a smaller net.Shields lost his first six starts, had a goals-against average approaching 6.00 and was headed to the East Coast League after the Syracuse Crunch lit him up for 10 goals in one game.&ldquo;I was doubting myself,&rdquo; he said.Now, 17 months later, Shields has erased the doubt and has shooters asking for a bigger net.Shields was the main reason the Americans were ahead of the Adirondack Red Wings 2-0 in the first round. He allowed just one goal in Games 1 and 2, stopping 61 shots. That included a penalty shot by Ryan Duthie in Game 2 when the score was tied 1-1.&ldquo;Steve has come so far that I don&rsquo;t think you can point out many superb saves because he&rsquo;s always in position so he&rsquo;s making every save look easy,&rdquo; said Americans&rsquo; left winger Dixon Ward.The 6-foot-3, 210-pound Toronto native went 20-172 this season with a 3.57 GAA and 89.1 save percentage. After Jan. 1, he was 16-8-2 with a 2.89 GAA.The reason for his turnaround?&ldquo;Opportunity,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;m getting more of an opportunity to play&rdquo;While the demotion to the ECHL last season hurt Shields&rsquo; pride, he welcomed the chance to grow.&ldquo;From the time I went down to South Carolina, I knew what I wanted to do,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I wanted to improve at a steady pace and get better. I still have a lot to improve on, but at least I&rsquo;m making progress.&rdquo;THOROUGH-SHARKS?: The expansion Lexington Thoroughblades will announce their NHL affiliation May 16.&ldquo;That gives time for the University of Kentucky basketball hoopla to die down,&rdquo; said Thoroughblades&rsquo; vice-president Eric DeGregorio of the U.S. college hoops champs, with whom the team will share Rupp Arena.Thoroughblades&rsquo; officials aren&rsquo;t commenting, but sources maintain it will be the San Jose Sharks.MARKS FALL: Here&rsquo;s a recap of the records that were broken or tied during the season.The Springfield Falcons set three: most shutouts (10), most road shut-outs (five) and best penalty killing percentage (86.5).The Albany River Rats set a record for consecutive road wins (13), St. John&rsquo;s Maple Leafs&rsquo; goalie Marcel Cousineau&rsquo;s 13 ties are a record and Carolina Monarchs&rsquo; Brad Smyth and Binghamton Rangers&rsquo; Peter Ferraro tied a record for power play goals (27).AHL TIDBITS: Sources say the Pittsburgh Penguins have purchased the Cornwall Aces franchise from the Colorado Avalanche. Colorado&rsquo;s prospects will play for the Hershey Bears next season, so the Avalanche doesn&rsquo;t need the Cornwall franchise. Pittsburgh now must find a city in which to place the franchise&hellip;Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; assistant GM Bruce MacGregor said the team will evaluate the future of its Cape Breton Oilers franchise. The parent team will decide whether it is economically feasible to stay in Sydney, N.S. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking at all the options,&rdquo; he said.<h2>AHL PLAYOFFS</h2>PLAYOFF HIGHLIGHTS (APRIL 19-25): Defending champion Albany was at the brink of elimination. J.F. Labbe stopped 23 shots and Christian Matte, Jozef Marha and Anders Myrvold scored goals as Cornwall blanked the River Rats 3-0 to take a 2-1 lead&hellip;Ed Ward&rsquo;s overtime goal gave Saint John a 2-1 win over St. John&rsquo;s, evening their series 11&hellip;Scott Humeniuk scored two goals and fellow defensemen Peter Laviolette and Denis Chervyakov each scored one as Providence surprised goals-against leader Springfield with a 6-3 win&hellip;Mike Fountain stopped 27 shots, posting the first playoff shutout in Binghamton by a visiting goalie as the Crunch evened the series 1-1. The night before. Peter Ferraro scored one goal and assisted on five as the Rangers won 8-5. &#9632;

f0024-03

Shields Rochester’s final piece of protection

<div class="byline">By Jim Cressman</div>Bert Templeton took a chance when he agreed to become coach and GM of the Ontario League&rsquo;s expansion Barrie Colts.He&rsquo;d never started from scratch in his career. He didn&rsquo;t know what it was like to go out and hit the pavement in search of players and prepare for a draft without so much as a foundation.Templeton did a remarkable job, leading the Colts to the third-best expansion record in Canadian Hockey League history, and was named OHL executive of the year.It&rsquo;s the second time he has won the award, the first in 1991-92 with the North Bay Centennials. But he said the second time was better because of the significance of winning with an expansion team.&ldquo;If you have any skill as a coach or administrator, you should not be scared to take that somewhere else and reapply it,&rdquo; said Templeton, who left the Centennials in 1994 after 13 seasons.It wasn&rsquo;t until a few months later he took the Barrie job and guided the Colts to a 28-31-7 record this season. It was the most wins by an OHL expansion team.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m more than happy with how things unfolded,&rdquo; Templeton said.MOE&rsquo;S THEIR MAN: The London Knights chose former NHL defenseman Moe Mantha as their new coach, replacing Tom Barrett, who died April 2.Mantha, 35, coached the Columbus Chill of the East Coast League the past two seasons after two years as an assistant with the American League&rsquo;s Hershey Bears. He retired from the NHL in 1992 after a 12-year career with five teams.&ldquo;I had a good talk with (Knights&rsquo; president) Doug Tarry and they&rsquo;re tired of moving people around their office,&rdquo; Mantha said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve brought in high-profile people and they want to show the players, parents and fans we&rsquo;re stable now.&rdquo;The Knights had the worst record in CHL history this season, 3-60-3, and have had four coaches and five GMs in two years.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve talked to some NHL scouts and they say there&rsquo;s a lot of good young players here. All they need is a good coach,&rdquo; Mantha said. &ldquo;This is a great opportunity and my one ambition is to coach in the NHL.&rdquo;The Knights have the first pick in both the OHL and CHL import drafts.ROOKIE ALL-STARS: First team: Chris Thompson, Barrie, G; Richard Jackman, Sault Ste. Marie, Nick Boynton, Ottawa, D; Joe Thornton, Sault, C; Adam Colagiacomo. London, RW; Alexandre Volchkov, Barrie, LW.Second team: John Hultberg, Kingston, G; Brian Campbell, Ottawa, Mike Lankshear, Guelph, D; Boyd Devereaux, Kitchener, C; Justin Davis, Kingston, RW; Ryan Christie, Owen Sound, LW.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01764/6298443-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="580" height="677"><figcaption class="caption-body">Peter Schaefer&rsquo;s Brandon Wheat Kings aren&rsquo;t satisfied just yet.</figcaption></div><h2>PLAYOFFS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-03311/6298436-1-eng-US/f0025-032.jpg" title="f0025-03" width="926" height="556"></div> &#9632;

f0025-01

Templeton tops after work with expansion Colts

<div class="byline">By Rob Vanstone</div>The Kamloops Blazers got an early summer for the first time since 1993.The Spokane Chiefs needed six games to oust Kamloops in the best-of-seven West Division final.Spokane advanced to the Western League final against the Brandon Wheat Kings, thwarting the Blazers bid for a third consecutive Memorial Cup title.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s awfully tough to lose,&rdquo; said Kamloops left winger Hnat Domenichelli. &ldquo;We were underdogs and Spokane is a very good team, but any time you lose, it&rsquo;s definitely disheartening.&rdquo;Spokane (50-18-4) won the West&rsquo;s regular-season title with 104 points, six more than second place Kamloops (48-22-2).&ldquo;We always thought we had a chance,&rdquo; Domenichelli said. &ldquo;Once we got into the playoffs, we thought experience would be able to carry us a long way.&rdquo;Kamloops had not lost a playoff series since the Portland Winter Hawks eliminated the Blazers in the 1993 West Division final.Chiefs&rsquo; GM Tim Speltz applauded Kamloops and its fans. Spokane polished off the Blazers by winning 6-2 in Kamloops April 20.&ldquo;The ovation we got from their fans was so classy,&rdquo; Speltz said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;d think their fans would be spoiled and that they wouldn&rsquo;t know how to lose. The ovation both teams got was second to none. Most of it was for Kamloops, but we felt part of it.&rdquo;PODOLLAN PISTOL: Spokane right winger Jason Podollan had a league-high 18 playoff goals entering the league final.Podollan had 10 goals over the last four games against Kamloops.&ldquo;He has risen to another challenge,&rdquo; Tim Speltz said. &ldquo;He challenged himself and got on one of those rolls that you hope somebody gets on. If not for Jason Podollan, we flat-out simple would not be playing anymore.&rdquo;A second-round draft pick of the Florida Panthers in 1994, Podollan was almost speechless.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what I was doing differently,&rdquo; Podollan said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m playing on a good team.&rdquo;BRANDON&rsquo;S BEST: Brandon needed six games to eliminate the Prince Albert Raiders in the East-Central Division final.Brandon (52-19-1) had 105 points, one more than Spokane, during the regular season.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s of celebrating going on, but we&rsquo;ve still got one more series to win,&rdquo; said Kings&rsquo; left winger Peter Schaefer.Prince Albert, with a 47-19-6 record, had five fewer points than Brandon.&ldquo;Why did we fall into (losing)?,&rdquo; Raiders&rsquo; coach Chris Stewart said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s lots of unanswered questions that I&rsquo;ll mull over during the summer.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02488/6298481-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="579" height="676"><figcaption class="caption-body">Alain Vigneault says his Harfangs deserve all the credit.</figcaption></div><h2>PLAYOFFS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-04196/6298474-1-eng-US/f0025-042.jpg" title="f0025-04" width="930" height="546"></div> &#9632;

f0025-02

Blazers’ bid to three-peat comes up shy

<div class="byline">By Stuart Cowan</div>Heading into the Quebec League semifinals, Beauport Harfangs coach Alain Vigneault said he didn&rsquo;t think the Hull Olympiques, the defending President&rsquo;s Cup champions, respected his team as much as they should.They do now.The Harfangs, who finished 25 points behind Hull, totally outplayed the Olympiques, beating them 5-2 April 23 to win the series 4-1. Beauport outshot Hull an average of 47-28 per game and outscored them 26-15 to advance to the final for the first time in the franchise&rsquo;s six-year history.&ldquo;We had so many injuries and it played a big factor,&rdquo; said Olympiques&rsquo; GM Charlie Henry, who counted defenseman Jan Nemecek, goalie Jose Theodore and forwards Martin Menard and David-Alexandre Beauregard among his walking wounded. &ldquo;We got beat by a good club and a well-rested club.&rdquo;Meanwhile, Granby made its first trip to the final after 15 years in the league. The Predateurs, who were regular-season champions, pounded Chicoutimi 12-1 April 23 to win their series 4-1 while outscoring the Sagueneens 38-17.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re very confident,&rdquo; said Predateurs&rsquo; coach Michel Therrien. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not only offensively that we were able to produce, but defensively also.&rdquo;Granby won the season series with Beauport 3-0-1, but the teams hadn&rsquo;t met since Dec. 1. Vigneault didn&rsquo;t replace Joe Canale as Harfangs&rsquo; coach until Dec. 26, when the team was struggling with a 18-19-2 record. The Harfangs went 19-7-5 under Vigneault to win the Dilio Division title and were 12-3 in the playoffs heading into the final.Henry said Beauport deserves to be in the final.&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t forget, they were picked to finish in first place at the start of the year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They, like us, had injuries, but theirs were early. They had them at the right time.&rdquo;While Vigneault gets much of the credit for Beauport&rsquo;s success, he says he hasn&rsquo;t done it alone.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s satisfying for me and it&rsquo;s satisfying for the whole program,&rdquo; said the man who was fired as an assistant coach with the NHL&rsquo;s Ottawa Senators Nov. 20. &ldquo;This hasn&rsquo;t been a one-man show. Everybody has worked together. The players are the ones that play. The coach doesn&rsquo;t play.&rdquo;TITAN STAYING PUT: Laval Titan owner/GM Leo-Guy Morrissette announced his team won&rsquo;t be moving to Baie Comeau next season, as had been rumored, and that Pierre Pelletier will be back as coach.Baie Comeau is expected to be granted an expansion team for next season at a cost of $650,000, bringing the number of teams in the league to 15. Meanwhile, the St-Hyacinthe Laser&rsquo;s transfer to Rouyn-Noranda for next season is all but a done deal.<h2>PLAYOFFS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-05154/6298512-1-eng-US/f0025-052.jpg" title="f0025-05" width="932" height="540"></div> &#9632;

f0025-05

Harfangs stun Olympiques to gain final berth

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01830/6298550-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Panther goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck&rsquo;s crease was a high-traffic area in the playoff series with the Bruins.</figcaption></div>REVOLUTIONARY REPLACEMENT BLADE SYSTEM.<h2>KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS</h2>Statistics provided by National Hockey League: PLAYER-listed by uniform number, position (F-forward; D-defenseman: G-goalie), name; GP-games played; G-goals; A-assists; P-points; +/-9plus/minus; PIM-penalties; PP-power-play goals; SH-short-handed goals; GW-game-winning goals; OT-overtime goals; S-shots; PCT-shooting percentage. Players indicated by an asterisk (*) are eligible for the Calder Trophy.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01782/6298543-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="3063" height="3513"><figcaption class="caption-body">Vincent Damphousse and Mike Richter got to know each other well in the first round.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0026-01

LOUISVILLE LOCJAW

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01815/6298581-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0028-01

NHL PLAYOFF GOALTENDING STATISTICS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02545/6298626-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="352" height="304"></div>CONFERENCE QUARTERFINALS Philadelphia Flyers 3 T. Bay Lightning 2 Game 1, April 16. Philadelphia 7 Tampa Bay 3: Eric Lindros and Pat Falloon each score a goal and add two assists for the Flyers. Lightning goalie Daren Puppa is pulled after giving up four goals on 14 shots. Flyers&rsquo; right winger Mikael Renberg is scheduled to return from an abdominal muscle injury, but misses the game for the birth of his daughter.Game 2, April 18&nbsp;Tampa Bay 2 Philadelphia 1 (OT): Brian Bellows&rsquo; goal at 9:05 of overtime is the winner, but the real story is the number of injuries suffered by Flyers&rsquo; forwards. John Druce and Joel Otto leave the game with sprained knees. Legion of Doom member John LeClair suffers a sprained ankle. Fellow Doomer Lindros also leaves the game for a time with a sore knee, but returns.Game 3, April 21&nbsp;Tampa Bay 5 Philadelphia 4 (OT): Playing before a Stanley Cup playoff record crowd of 25, 945, the Lightning takes the series lead on a goal from 1994 Flyers&rsquo; draft pick Alexander Selivanov at 2:13 of overtime. Two goals by defensive specialist Rob Zamuner in the second period erase a two-goal Flyers&rsquo; lead and Bellows forces overtime with his second goal of the series at 18:41 of die third.Game 4, April 23&nbsp;Philadelphia 4 Tampa Bay 1: The Lightning establishes another playoff attendance record, but sends 28,183 fans home unhappy as LeClair&rsquo;s two goals powers the Flyers to victory. Puppa sits out his second straight game with back spasms.Game 5, April 25&nbsp;Philadelphia 4 Tampa Bay 1: The Flyers build a 4-0 lead in the chippy affair and only a shorthanded goal by Tampa&rsquo;s John Cullen at 17:59 of the third period prevents goalie Ron Hextall from recording his first post-season shutout since his rookie year in 1986-87.Montreal Canadiens 2 NY Rangers 2 Game 1, April 16&nbsp;Montreal 3 New York 2 (OT): Going head-to-head with Rangers&rsquo; captain Mark Messier, Montreal&rsquo;s Vincent Damphousse scores two goals, including the game-winner at 5:04 of the first overtime.Game 2, April 18&nbsp;Montreal 5 New York 3: The Rangers go 0-for-9 on the power play. And that&rsquo;s not even the bad news. Giving up two shorthanded goals by Damphousse and Saku Koivu is their undoing. Damphousse scores two goals for the second straight game.Game 3, April 21&nbsp;New York 2 Montreal I: The Rangers ride a pair of first period power play goals by Adam Graves all the way to victory. Messier continues to play despite being hampered by a rib injury and assists on both goals.Game 4, April 23&nbsp;New York 4 Montreal 3: Graves strikes again. A pair of goals in the second period, his fourth and fifth of the series, pace the Rangers. Goalie Mike Richter, plays brilliantly as Montreal outshoots the visitors 31-19.Wash. Capitals 2 Pittsburgh Penguins 2 Game 1, April 17 Washington 6 Pittsburgh 4: Backup goalie Olaf Kolzig shuts down the Penguins the final 28:51 as Washington overcomes a three-goal deficit. Pittsburgh leads 2-0 after three minutes and 4-1 at 11:09 of the second when Capitals&rsquo; starter Jim Carey is pulled. Todd Krygier scores two goals for the Capitals.Game 2, April 19&nbsp;Washington 5 Pittsburgh 3: Washington coach Jim Schoenfeld comes back with Kolzig and the backup netminder rewards him with a sterling effort. The Capitals rally from a two-goal deficit and prevent the league&rsquo;s top two snipers, Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, from scoring.Game 3, April 21&nbsp;Pittsburgh 4 Washington 1: Lemieux sets up all four goals as the Penguins claim their first win of the series. Washington outshoots Pittsburgh 39-19, but Carey continues to struggle against Penguins&rsquo; shooters.Game 4, April 24&nbsp;Pittsburgh 3 Washington 2 (4OT): Need a storyline? How about Lemieux being ejected for instigating a fight in the second period? Or Washington&rsquo;s Joe Juneau being awarded the first penalty shot ever in overtime in the Stanley Cup playoffs-and missing? Petr Nedved forces overtime with the lone goal of the third period and scores the winner at 19:15 of the fourth overtime frame.Florida Panthers 3 Boston Bruins 1 Game 1, April 17&nbsp;Florida 6 Boston 3: Ray Sheppard, who was a acquired to bolster the Panthers&rsquo; offense, delivers in the opening game of playoffs with two goals. Florida jumps out to a 3-0 lead in the first nine minutes for the first playoff victory in franchise history.Game 2, April 22&nbsp;Florida 6 Boston 2: Panther&rsquo;s goalie John Vanbiesbrouck continues to sparkle for the Panthers who are outshot 39-28, but take a 2-0 series lead. Sheppard leads the way again with a goal and three assists.Game 3, April 24&nbsp;Florida 4 Boston 2: Jody Hull scores to give the Panthers the lead after 30 seconds and they cruise to victory. Most of the 14,922 who attend at the 17,565-seat FleetCenter leave the building by time Boston&rsquo;s Rick Tocchet scores a meaningless power play goal with 58 seconds remaining.Game 4, April 25&nbsp;Boston 6 Florida 2: Two goals and two assists by Adam Oates help the Brtiins avoid being swept for the first time since the Buffalo Sabres dusted them in four straight in 1992-93. Boston limits Florida to 20 shots on goal.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-04271/6298619-1-eng-US/f0028-042.jpg" title="f0028-04" width="348" height="299"></div>CONFERENCE QUARTERFINALS Detroit Red Wings 3 Winnipeg Jets 1 Game 1, April 17&nbsp;Detroit 4 Winnipeg 1: Four unanswered goals in the third period give the regular-season champion Red Wings an easy victory. Despite being outshot 21-11 through 40 minutes, the Phoenix-bound Jets hold a 1-0 lead on a goal by Alexei Zhamnov. The Red Wings score four goals in 5:40 to secure the victory.Game 2, April 19&nbsp;Detroit 4 Winnipeg 0: A shorthanded goal by defenseman Paul Coffey is all the Red Wings need. Three second period goals, including another shorthanded effort by Doug Brown, gives the Wings an easy win.Game 3, April 21&nbsp;Winnipeg 4 Detroit 1: Winnipeg goalie Nikolai Khabibulin is nearly unbeatable and the Red Wings&rsquo; power play comes up empty in four tries as the hometown Jets pull off a shocker. Keith Tkachuk, whose undisciplined play hurt the Jets in Games 1 and 2, scores a goal and an assist.Game 4, April 24&nbsp;Detroit 6 Winnipeg 1: A sellout crowd of 15,557 all dressed up in their playoff whites cheers loudly, but the Red Wings won&rsquo;t be denied. Sergei Fedorov paces the Wings with four assists.St. Louis Blues 3 Tor. Maple Leafs 2 Game 1, April 16&nbsp;St. Louis 3 Toronto 1: Wayne Gretzky draws assists on all three goals and goalie Grant Fuhr makes 33 saves. Toronto comes out banging-left winger Wendel Clark delivers his hardest hit as a Leaf since being reacquired from the New York Islanders, decking Brett Hull-but the Blues demonstrate more poise in the end.Game 2, April 18&nbsp;Toronto 5 St. Louis 4 (OT): The Blues lose Fuhr and the game. Fuhr suffers a serious knee injury after Toronto left winger Nick Kypreos is cross-checked by Chris Pronger and falls into him. With Jon Casey in the Blues&rsquo; net and the Blues a man short thanks to a too many men on the ice penalty. Mats Sundin scores the winner at 4:02 of overtime.Game 3, April 21&nbsp;St. Louis 3 Toronto 2 (OT): Glenn Anderson&rsquo;s fifth career overtime goal lifts the Blues to a come-from-behind 3-2 win. Toronto leads 2-0 early in the second period. Anderson, who sat out the first two games of the series, pulls to within one of Rocket Richard&rsquo;s record six overtime goals.Game 4, April 23&nbsp;St. Louis 5 Toronto 1: Gretzky draws three assists, giving him eight in the series, and Shayne Corson scores two goals for the Blues. Toronto out-shoots the Blues 42-34, but Blues&rsquo; backup Casey, subbing for the injured Fuhr, is superb.Game 5, April 25&nbsp;Toronto 5 St. Louis 4 (OT): Three goals by Mike Gartner, including the overtime winner at 7:31 on the power play, keep the Leafs alive. Sundin leaves the game in the third period with a knee injury after Pronger, who took a shot in the face, wipes him out in a collision as he drops to the ice.Colorado Avalanche 3 Van. Canucks 2 Game 1, April 16&nbsp;Colorado 5 Vancouver 2: Peter Forsberg scores twice and sets up two more goals for the Avalanche. Claude Lemieux, last year&rsquo;s playoff MVP with the New Jersey Devils, kicks off the post-season with three assists.Game 2, April 18&nbsp;Vancouver 5 Colorado 4: Corey Hirsch becomes the first Vancouver goalie other than Kirk McLean since 1991 to start a playoff game and makes the most of it blocking 28 shots for the win. Enforcer Gino Odjick paces the Canucks with two goals.Game 3, April 20&nbsp;Colorado 4 Vancouver 0: Patrick Roy rebounds from a shaky performance in Game 2 and records his sixth career post-season shutout by making 28 saves. Forsberg&rsquo;s power play goal at 11:49 of the opening period is the difference.Game 4, April 22&nbsp;Vancouver 4 Colorado 3: Odjick&rsquo;s third goal of the series-equalling his regular season output-is the game winner. The Canucks fall behind 2-1 after 24 minutes, but three second-period goals lift them to victory.Game 5, April 25&nbsp;Colorado 5 Vancouver 4 (OT): Joe Sakic&rsquo;s third goal of the game 51 seconds into overtime is the winner. Two power play goals by Trevor Linden in the second period give the Canucks a 3-2 lead. Linden completes his hat trick in the third to put his team ahead 4-3. but Sakic forces overtime with a goal at 14:07.Chicago Blackhawks 4 Calgary Flames 0 Game 1, April 17&nbsp;Chicago 4 Calgary 1: Joe Murphy erases the memory of an unspectacular regular season with two goals and an assist in Game 1. The Hawks receive a boost when center Jeremy Roenick returns to the lineup for the first time since spraining his ankle March 17 and draws an assist on a third period goal by rookie Eric Daze.Game 2, April 19&nbsp;Chicago 3 Calgary 0: Ed Belfour makes 33 saves and Roenick scores his first goal in five weeks to lead the Hawks. The Flames outshoot the Blackhawks 33-32, but wilt as the game progresses and are outshot 13-5 in the third period.Game 3, April 21&nbsp;Chicago 7 Calgary 5: The Blackhawks build a 5-0 lead by 2:29 of the second period, but the Flames pull to within a goal by 5:51 of the third. Daze gets the Hawks back on track with his second goal of the game and third of the series at 13:12 and Murphy scores the eventual game-winner 28 seconds later.Game 4, April 23&nbsp;Chicago 2 Calgary 1 (3OT): Murphy&rsquo;s fourth goal of the series and second game winner at 10:02 of triple overtime ends the playoffs&rsquo; first marathon. Calgary rookie Jarome Iginla, playing in his second NHL game, gives Calgary a 1-0 lead at 5:53 of the second period.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-03386/6298612-1-eng-US/f0028-032.jpg" title="f0028-03" width="1500" height="1733"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wendel Clark&rsquo;s Leafs and Al Maclnnis&rsquo; Blues went to overtime in three of five games.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0028-02

GAME-BY-GAME NHL PLAYOFF SYNOPSIS

<h2>NOTE</h2>Unofficial game summaries provided by National Hockey League; (shots on goal/plus-minus); SA-shots against; GA-goals against; ENG-empty net goals; Dec-decision, charges to goaltenders of record when winning goal is scored.<h2>FRIDAY, APRIL 19</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-05215/6298804-1-eng-US/f0028-052.jpg" title="f0028-05" width="487" height="2336"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01711/6298797-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="490" height="1243"></div><h2>SATURDAY, APRIL 20</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02462/6298790-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="492" height="1040"></div><h2>SUNDAY, APRIL 21</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-03292/6298783-1-eng-US/f0029-032.jpg" title="f0029-03" width="491" height="1031"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-05181/6298776-1-eng-US/f0029-052.jpg" title="f0029-05" width="489" height="1665"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-06148/6298769-1-eng-US/f0029-062.jpg" title="f0029-06" width="485" height="1662"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-07123/6298762-1-eng-US/f0029-072.jpg" title="f0029-07" width="485" height="1371"></div><h2>MONDAY, APRIL 22</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-08107/6298755-1-eng-US/f0029-082.jpg" title="f0029-08" width="487" height="206"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-0999/6298748-1-eng-US/f0029-092.jpg" title="f0029-09" width="490" height="1664"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1090/6298741-1-eng-US/f0029-102.jpg" title="f0029-10" width="487" height="1964"></div><h2>TUESDAY, APRIL 23</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-1184/6298734-1-eng-US/f0029-112.jpg" title="f0029-11" width="487" height="1438"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01809/6298727-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="500" height="2479"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02544/6298720-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="506" height="1984"></div><h2>WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-03372/6298713-1-eng-US/f0030-032.jpg" title="f0030-03" width="499" height="401"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-04262/6298706-1-eng-US/f0030-042.jpg" title="f0030-04" width="502" height="2247"></div><h2>THURSDAY, APRIL 25</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-05189/6298699-1-eng-US/f0030-052.jpg" title="f0030-05" width="496" height="142"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-06152/6298692-1-eng-US/f0030-062.jpg" title="f0030-06" width="504" height="2476"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-07128/6298685-1-eng-US/f0030-072.jpg" title="f0030-07" width="508" height="2476"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-08116/6298678-1-eng-US/f0030-082.jpg" title="f0030-08" width="507" height="407"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-04207/6298671-1-eng-US/f0029-042.jpg" title="f0029-04" width="1998" height="1782"><figcaption class="caption-body">Now you see &rsquo;em: Trevor Kidd, right, and the Flames were bounced in four games by Murray Craven&rsquo;s Blackhawks.</figcaption></div><h2>OVERTIME GAMES</h2>Here are the 10 longest games in NHL history. Information includes the player who scored the game winner and the length of overtime played minutes.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-09102/6298664-1-eng-US/f0030-092.jpg" title="f0030-09" width="502" height="729"></div><h2>MASTERTON NOMINEES</h2>Here are the 26 nominees for this year&rsquo;s Masterton Trophy. The honor will be presented at the NHL awards.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-1089/6298657-1-eng-US/f0030-102.jpg" title="f0030-10" width="502" height="914"></div> &#9632;

f0028-05

NHL SUMMARIES

<h2>BOSTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>April 22: Scott Bailey, G, recalled from Providence (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Adam Oates, Ted Donato, Ron Sutter, Jozef Stumpel. LW-Todd Elik, Dave Reid, Cam Stewart, Shawn McEachern, Tim Sweeney. RW-Rick Tocchet, Steve Heinze, Sandy Moger, Marc Potvin. LD-Kyle McLaren, Don Sweeney, Steve Staios, Philip Von Stefenelli. RD-Ray Bourque, Jon Rohloff, Dean Chynoweth, John Gruden. G-Bill Ranford, Craig Billington, Scott Bailey.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Al lafrate. D, sore right knee, indefinite. Joe Mullen, RW, sprained ligament, left knee, day-to-day. Cam Neely, RW, sore right hip, indefinite. Rick Zombo, D, fractured right foot, indefinite.<h2>CALGARY</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>April 21: Jarome Iginla, C, signed multiyear contract. April 24: Marty Murray, C, assigned to Saint John (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Jarome Iginla, Michael Nylander, Dean Evason, Cory Stillman, Bob Sweeney, Claude Lapointe. LW-German Titov, Paul Kruse, Mike Sullivan, Pavel Torgajev. RW-Theo Fleury Ron Stem, Jocelyn Lemieux, Sandy McCarthy, Sheldon Kennedy. LD-Steve Chiasson, Trent Yawney, Tommy Albelin, Cale Hulse. RD-Zariey Zalapski, James Patrick, Kevin Dahl. G-Trevor Kidd, Rick Tabaracci.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Jamie Huscroft, D, pulled groin, day-to-day. Corey Millen, C, pulled groin, indefinite. Gary Roberts, RW, stiff neck, indefinite.<h2>CHICAGO</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>April 24: Ivan Droppa, D, assigned to Indianapolis (IHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Jeremy Roenick, Bernie Nicholls, Denis Savard, Steve Dubinsky. LW-Tony Amonte, Murray Craven, Bob Probert, James Black. RW-Eric Daze, Joe Murphy, Jeff Shantz, Jim Cummins, Sergei Kriovkrasov. LD-Keith Carney, Gary Suter, Cam Russell. RD-Chris Chelios, Enrico Ciccone, Eric Weinrich. G-Ed Belfour, Jeff Hackett.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Steve Smith, D, cracked left fibula, day-to-day. Brent Sutter, C, sprained right ankle, day-to-day.<h2>COLORADO</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Peter Forsberg, Joe Sakic, Mike Ricci, Stephane Yelle, Troy Murray, Dave Hannan. LW-Valeri Kamensky, Chris Simon, Rene Corbet, Warren Rychel. RW-Claude Lemieux, Scott Young, Adam Deadmarsh, Mike Keane. LD-SylvainLefebvre, Sandis Ozolinsh, Adam Foote, Uwe Krupp. RD-Curtis Leschyshyn, Alexei Gusarov, Jon Klemm, Craig Wolanin. G-Patrick Roy, Stephane Fiset.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None.<h2>DETROIT</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>April 20: Jamie Pushor, D, assigned to Adirondack (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-lgor Larionov, Steve Yzerman, Keith Primeau, Kris Draper, Wes Walz. LW-Vyacheslav Kozlov, Bob Errey, Tim Taylor, Greg Johnson, Stu Grimson. RW-Sergei Fedorov, Darren McCarty, Dino Ciccarelli, Kirk Maltby, Doug Brown, Mathieu Dandenault. LD-Slava Fetisov, Paul Coffey, Nicklas Lidstrom. RD-Vladimir Konstantinov, Marc Bergevin, Mike Ramsey, Bob Rouse. G-Chris Osgood, Mike Vernon.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Martin Lapointe, RW, sprained left knee, day-to-day.<h2>FLORIDA</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>April 14: Steve Washbum, C, David Nemirovsky, RW, and Mike Casselman, LW, recalled from Carolina (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Rob Niedermayer, Stu Barnes, Tom Fitzgerald, Brian Skrudland, Martin Straka, Steve Washbum. LW-Johan Garpenlov, Dave Lowry, Bill Lindsay, Gilbert Dionne, Mike Casselman. RW-Scott Mellanby, Ray Sheppard, Jody Hull, Radek Dvorak, Mike Hough, Dave Nemirovsky. LD-Ed Jovanovski, Terry Carkner, Jason Woolley, Geoff Smith. RD-Paul Laus, Robert Svehla, Magnus Svensson, Rhett Warrener. G-John Vanbiesbrouck, Mark Fitzpatrick.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Gord Murphy. D, non-displaced fracture of right foot, indefinite.<h2>LOS ANGELES</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>April 23: Tim Leiweke named team president. Rogie Vachon named chief hockey operations officer.<h2>MONTREAL</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Vincent Damphousse, Saku Koivu, Pierre Turgeon, Marc Bureau. LW-Mark Recchi, Brian Savage, Andrei Kovalenko, Donald Brashear. RW-Valeri Bure, Turner Stevenson, Chris Murray, Oleg Petrov. LD-Lyle Odelein, Peter Popovic, David Wilkie. RD-Stephane Quintal, Patrice Brisebois, Rory Fitzpatrick, Craig Rivet. G-Jocelyn Thibault, Pat Jablonski.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Benoit Brunet, LW, bruised right shoulder, day-to-day. Vladimir Malakhov. D, tom left knee ligaments, indefinite. Martin Rucinsky, LW, sprained right knee, indefinite.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01750/6298922-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="998" height="1473"><figcaption class="caption-body">A groin injury forced Ranger Marty McSorley to miss time.</figcaption></div><h2>N.Y. RANGERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Mark Messier, Sergei Nemchinov, Niklas Sundstrom, Ken Gemander, Daniel Lacroix. LW-Adam Graves, Sergio Momesso, Luc Robitaille, Bill Berg, Darren Langdon. RW-Pat Verbeek, Alexei Kovalev, Jari Kurri, Shane Churla. LD-Brian Leetch, Ulf Samuelsson, Kevin Lowe. RD-Jeff Beukeboom, Alexander Karpovtsev, Bruce Driver, Doug Lidster. G-Mike Richter, Glenn Healy.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Marty McSorley, D, strained groin, day-to-day.<h2>PHILADELPHIA</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>April 19: Jim Montgomery, C, recalled from Hershey (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Eric Lindros, Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour, Joel Otto, Bob Corkum, Jim Montgomery. LW-John LeClair, Dan Quinn, Shjon Podein, Shawn Antoski, Russ Romaniuk, Dan Kordic. RW-Dale Hawerchuk, Pat Falloon, Mikael Renberg, Trent Klatt. LD-Chris Therien, Petr Svoboda, Kerry Huffman. RD-Eric Desjardins, Kjell Samuelsson, Karl Dykhuis. G-Ron Hextall, Garth Snow.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Rob DiMaio, RW, sprained right knee, indefinite. John Druce, RW, sprained left knee, indefinite. Kevin Haller, D, fractured right thumb, indefinite.<h2>PITTSBURGH</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>April 22: Richard Park, C, recalled from Belleville (OHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Mario Lemieux, Ron Francis, Bryan Smolinski, Chris Wells, Richard Park. LW-Petr Nedved, Kevin Miller, Dave Roche, Joe Dziedzic, Brad Lauer, Dave McLIwain. RW-Jaromir Jagr, Tomas Sandstrom, Glen Murray, Alek Stojanov. LD-Chris Tamer, Francois Leroux, J.J. Daigneault. RD-Sergei Zubov, Dmitri Mironov, Neil Wilkinson, Chris Joseph. G-Tom Barrasso, Ken Wregget.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Ian Moran, D, shoulder surgery, indefinite. Ed Patterson, RW, disk surgery, indefinite.<h2>ST. LOUIS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Wayne Gretzky, Peter Zezel, Adam Creighton, Craig MacTavish. LW-Shayne Corson, Geoff Courtnall, Stephane Matteau, Tony Twist, Basil McRae, Greg Gilbert. RW-Brett Hull, Glenn Anderson, Brian Noonan, Steve Leach, Rob Pearson. LD-Murray Baron, Charlie Huddy, Jay Wells. RD-AI Maclnnis, Chris Pronger, Christer Olsson. G-Jon Casey, Bruce Racine.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Grant Fuhr, G, tom knee ligaments, out for season. Mike Hudson, LW, pinched nerve, indefinite. Igor Kravchuk, D, pulled hamstring, day-to-day.<h2>TAMPA BAY</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Brian Bradley, Chris Gratton, John Cullen, Aaron Gavey. LW-Rob Zamuner, Jason Wiemer, Shawn Burr, Paul Ysebaert. RW-Mikael Andersson, Brian Bel-lows, Alexander Selivanov, Patrick Poulin, John Tucker. LD-Roman Hamrlik, Igor Ulanov, Cory Cross. RD-David Shaw, Michel Petit, Bill Houlder, Rudy Poeschek, Chris LiPuma. G-Daren Puppa, Jeff Reese, Derek Wilkinson.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None.<h2>TORONTO</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Doug Gilmour, Kirk Muller, Brandon Convery, Mark Kolesar. LW-Wendel Clark, Dave Gagner, Todd Warriner, Nick Kypreos. RW-Mike Gartner, Tie Domi, Mike Craig. LD-Todd Gill, Mathieu Schneider, Jamie Macoun, Rob Zettler. RD-Larry Murphy, Dave Ellett, Dmitri Yushkevich. G-Felix Potvin, Don Beaupre.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Wayne Presley. RW, hip flexor, day-to-day. Mats Sundin. RW, right knee strain, day-to-day.<h2>VANCOUVER</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Trevor Linden, Cliff Ronning, Mike Ridley, Jesse Belanger, Josef Beranek, Jim Dowd. LW-Martin Gelinas, Esa Tikkanen, Markus Naslund, Gino Odjick. RW-Alexander Mogilny, Russ Courtnall, Mike Sillinger, Jim Sandlak, Joey Kocur, Tim Hunter. LD-Bret Hedican. Dana Murzyn, Frantisek Kucera, Dean Malkoc, Jassen Cullimore. RD-Jyrki Lumme, Leif Rohlin, Adrian Aucoin. G-Kirk McLean, Corey Hirsch.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Dave Babych. D, bruised right foot, day-to-day. Pavel Bure, RW, right knee surgery, indefinite.<h2>WASHINGTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>April 21: Patrick Boileau, D, and Sergei Tertyshny, D, recalled from Portland. Nolan Baumgartner, D, recalled from Kamloops (WHL). April 25: Boileau, Richard Zednik, RW, and Martin Gendron, RW, assigned to Portland.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Dale Hunter, Michal Pivonka, Joe Juneau, Mike Eagles. LW-Jeff Nelson, Todd Krygier, Stefan Ustorf, Kevin Kaminski. RW-Kelly Miller, Peter Bondra, Pat Peake, Andrew Brunette. LD-Mark Tinordi, Steve Poapst, Sergei Tertyshny. RD-Sylvain Cote, Sergei Gonchar, Nolan Baumgartner. G-Jim Carey, Olie Kolzig.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Craig Berube, LW, sprained right knee, indefinite. Eric Charron, D, hip flexor, day-to-day. Calle Johansson, D, broken right wrist, earty-May. Jim Johnson, D, broken right foot, indefinite. Keith Jones, LW, groin tear, day-to-day. Ken Klee, D, sprained knee ligament, late-April. Steve Konowalchuk, LW, broken left hand, indefinite. Stewart Malgunas, D, dislocated left shoulder, indefinite. Joe Reekie. D, bruised left foot, day-to-day. Brendan Witt, D, broken left wrist, indefinite.<h2>WINNIPEG</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>April 22: Craig Mills, RW, recalled from Belleville (OHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Alexei Zhamnov, Craig Janney, Mike Eastwood, Chad Kilger, lain Fraser. LW-Keith Tkachuk, Igor Korolev, Darrin Shannon, Kris King, Jim McKenzie. RW-Ed Olczyk, Shane Doan, Mike Stapleton, Denis Chasse, Craig Mills. LD-Teppo Numminen, Dave Manson, Craig Muni, Dallas Eakins. RD-Jeff Finley, Norm Maciver, Oleg Tverdovsky. G-Nikolai Khabibulin, Dominic Roussel.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Dallas Drake, RW, sprained knee, indefinite. Randy Gilhen, C, arthroscopic right knee surgery, indefinite. &#9632;

f0031-01

NHL ROSTERS AND TRANSACTIONS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0032-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01797/6298953-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Talented Jean-Yves Roy continued to be an offensive force in the playoffs for the Prince Edward Island Senators.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0032-01

AMERICAN LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0033-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01720/6298984-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Wolves are counting on sniper Steve Maltais to come through in the post-season.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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May 10, 1996

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

OUR THREE STARS

All-out style makes Pilon fragile Isle

HAPPY OT HERO