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

March 14, 1997

The Hockey News March 14, 1997

<div class="byline">By Dave Luecking</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-06212/6784188-1-eng-US/f0026-062.jpg" title="f0026-06" width="570" height="902"><figcaption class="caption-body">Chris Pronger</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-05255/6784195-1-eng-US/f0026-052.jpg" title="f0026-05" width="161" height="162"></div>Critics scoffed when Mike Keenan, the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; former coach-GM, acquired defenseman Chris Pronger and compared him to some of the best defensemen ever to play the game.And other than a strong finish last season, Pronger&rsquo;s play never matched Keenan&rsquo;s hype.But there were recent signs of hope. Pronger carried a heavy load on the Blues&rsquo; defense while Al MacInnis was out with a dislocated left shoulder. Pronger missed one game himself with a spider fracture of the left wrist, but ignored the pain because the Blues needed him. He played 42 minutes in one game, a 2-2 tie with the Detroit Red Wings.&ldquo;I really think he&rsquo;s to the point where he can be one of the top defensemen in the game for many years to come,&rdquo; said coach Joel Quenneville. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very close to being in that group right now.&rdquo;Pronger&rsquo;s game started to take off when Quenneville took over. The new coach installed a defensive system and gave players specific roles. A former NHL defenseman, Quenneville also gave Pronger something he hadn&rsquo;t gotten a lot of with Keenan-coaching.&ldquo;(Quenneville) helps out with positioning and gives me little defensive tips,&rdquo; said Pronger, who had six goals and 25 points in 62 games. &ldquo;We never practised those things when Mike was here. It was all fitness and drills. Once you learn a system, you know your spot on the ice and do your job. It makes things so much easier.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Right winger Jim Campbell sustained a sprained thumb Feb. 25 in a 3-2 loss at Tampa Bay. He was out on a day-to-day basis&hellip;After a 7-3-0 start under coach Joel Quenneville. the Blues leveled out with a 3-3-4 stretch before losing three in a row through March 4 to fall to 10-9-4 under the new coach. The three-game losing streak was part of an overall five-game winless streak (0-3-2)&hellip;Defenseman Al MacInnis returned Feb. 25 after missing nine games with a dislocated shoulder&hellip;Left winger Tony Twist missed three games in late-February with a stomach virus. He shed 12 pounds while he was out&hellip;Right winger Sergio Momesso played in one of Quenneville&rsquo;s first 18 games, then played five in a row. &#9632;

f0026-06

NHL TEAMS

Large raves for Pronger

<div class="byline">By Mike Dudurich</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-03472/6784119-1-eng-US/f0026-032.jpg" title="f0026-03" width="574" height="895"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jaromir Jagr</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02597/6784126-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="162" height="158"></div>The 14-game unbeaten streak seemed like ancient history. First place was becoming more and more of a dream.Times were tough for the Pittsburgh Penguins, who ended February losing seven of eight games.But there was worse news. In a 4-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings Feb. 27, Jaromir Jagr, the league&rsquo;s leading goalscorer, aggravated a groin injury that has dogged him throughout the season.&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t look good, guys,&rdquo; Jagr said. &ldquo;I had one other (groin pull) like this in Czecho and I was out for a month and a half. I can hardly walk.&rdquo;If Dr. Jagr&rsquo;s prognosis is more accurate than coach Eddie Johnston&rsquo;s, (he said Jagr would miss a couple of weeks), the struggling Penguins faced a trouble-filled final 20 games of the season.In a recent seven-game stretch, the Penguins scored four goals once, two goals twice and one four times. That&rsquo;s hardly the kind of output a team that struggles on defense can expect to win games with.&ldquo;Somebody has to pick up the slack,&rdquo; said center Petr Nedved, who had not scored in seven games. &ldquo;Losing Jags hurts big. He&rsquo;s our big offensive force.&rdquo;At the close of February, Mario Lemieux had four of the Penguins&rsquo; last six goals, but had not dominated.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking for a guy like Petr to get hot,&rdquo; Johnston said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to need to score five or six goals some night, or get a big night from somebody in the net to break out of this.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Before getting hurt, right winger Jaromir Jagr went to Toronto to have Bauer build a skate that will better support his flat right foot. Until that one was ready, Jagr wore a pair of center Mario Lemieux&rsquo;s skates. Jagr has maintained his skates made him susceptible to groin injuries&hellip;After getting his 499th career goal Feb. 18 against Florida, right winger Joe Mullen failed in his next two games to get No. 500 and was scratched in the next game&hellip;Through their Feb. 27 game in Detroit, the Penguins had lost 254 mangames to injury or illness. Last year, they lost 233-man games all season&hellip;The Penguins finished February with a 4-7-0 record after winning the first three games of the month. &#9632;

f0026-03

Goals hard to come by

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0045-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01248/6785197-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0045-01

IN THIS ISSUE

INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

<div class="byline">By Tom Boggie</div>Since 1975, the first year freshmen were allowed to play in the Ivy League, Harvard has had its share of outstanding rookie goalies.But J.R. Prestifilippo may just be the best ever. He has already been the busiest. Prestifilippo played in his 26th game of the season Feb. 22 and made a career-high 41 saves in a 6-3 loss to St. Lawrence.Only Grant Blair played in as many games (26) during his rookie year at Harvard and Prestifilippo still had two games on the schedule.Prestifilippo joins an honor roll of freshman goalies which includes Wade Lau, the first freshman to ever start in goal for the Crimson (1978); Blair, who won the Eastern College Athletic Conference goaltending title in his rookie year (1982); and Chuckie Hughes, who was in goal when Harvard won its only U.S. college Division I national championship (1989).&ldquo;We thought J.R. had a lot of ability, but we never projected him to do this,&rdquo; said Harvard coach Ronn Tomassoni. &ldquo;He has been a rock.&rdquo;Prestifilippo, a seventh round draft pick of the New York Islanders in 1996, is another in a string of outstanding college goalies to come out of Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Conn. He follows in the footsteps of former Harvard goalie Aaron Israel and former Boston College standout Scott LaGrand.Prestifilippo arrived at Harvard at an opportune time.&ldquo;After Tripp Tracy graduated, the job was up for grabs,&rdquo; Tomassoni said. &ldquo;J.R. came in and established himself early.&rdquo;In fact, sophomore Peter Zakowich, the backup, left the team midway through the year because he wasn&rsquo;t getting enough playing time.Through 26 games, Prestifilippo had recorded 705 saves, the sixth-highest single-season total in Harvard history. Blair&rsquo;s single season record of 789 wasn&rsquo;t out of reach.RECORD STREAK: Union junior goalie Trevor Koenig broke the ECAC record for consecutive shutout minutes when he extended his streak to 198 minutes, 44 seconds in a shocking 7-1 win over Cornell Feb. 21.Prior to giving up a power-play goal to the Big Red, Koenig had shut out Dartmouth and Vermont by 2-0 scores. After the win over Cornell, he held Colgate to one goal in a 1-1 tie.In the process, Koenig dropped his goals-against average to 1.83, best in the nation.CLASS ACT: Clarkson wasn&rsquo;t called for a single penalty in its 4-2 win over Harvard Feb. 21. The last time the Golden Knights played a penalty-free game was March 10, 1962&hellip;Princeton junior goalie Erasmo Saltarelli only had to make 15 saves as the Tigers stunned Vermont 2-0 Feb. 22&hellip;St. Lawrence senior center Joel Prpic finally recorded the first hat trick of his career in the Saints&rsquo; 6-3 win over Harvard Feb. 22. &#9632;

LEAGUES

Who’s this Prestifilippo? Just another rookie gem

<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/f0002-04686/6782830-1-eng-US/f0002-042.jpg" title="f0002-04" width="347" height="434"></div>Now that Patrick has fallen from sainthood to flavor-of-the-month status (lemon-Lalime), the race for rookie of the year is wide open again. Who will it be: Jarome Iginla, Jim Campbell, Bryan Berard, Janne Niinimaa? Maybe Lalime, still.Only this much we know: the winner, whomever it may be, was on pace to record the lowest full-season point total since the Atlanta Flames&rsquo; Willi Plett won the Calder Trophy with 56 points in 1977. Twenty years later, Atlanta is on the verge of re-joining the NHL as an expansion team, the relocated Flames have the leading rookie scorer and Plett is a man for all seasons and weather conditions in Woodstock, Ga.He owns and operates Willi&rsquo;s Sports Park and Pub on Hwy. 92 north of Atlanta. On this day in late February, it&rsquo;s 70 degrees Fahrenheit and raining, so the pool tables are hopping and so is Plett. The former bruiser who recorded six 20-goal seasons and scored 222 goals over a 13-year career, works seven days a week and runs hundreds of people through his batting cages and driving range each day. Plett, 41, has never heard of Iginla, whose 43 points in 63 games projects to 56 over a full season. If the Flames&rsquo; right winger were to win the Calder with that many points, he would have the fewest since Plett, who played 64 games and aced out injured New York Rangers&rsquo; freshman Don Murdoch in Calder voting.Winning the Calder is not something Plett thinks about often, although he has a constant reminder prominently displayed. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sitting here looking at the plaque,&rdquo; Plett says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s up on the wall on our sports bar. It&rsquo;s between a Coor&rsquo;s Light and Miller Beer sign.&rdquo; There is no greater place of honor. Plett, who scored 33 goals, was a surprise winner. He wasn&rsquo;t a highly touted junior and started that awardwinning season in Tulsa of the Central League. &ldquo;The only thing that really sticks out,&rdquo; Plett recalls,&rdquo;is that I was very fortunate in that when they did call me up, I played with the two best players on the team. If I had been stuck on the fourth line with other players it never would have happened.&rdquo;Plett was teamed with Eric Vail and Tom Lysiak and they were named the &lsquo;Downtown Connectors&rsquo; for reasons Plett can&rsquo;t recall. They were re-dubbed the &lsquo;Calder Connection&rsquo; in deference to shared glories: Vail won the Calder in 1975 and Lysiak finished second in 1974. All three live in the Atlanta area today. They may yet be re-united. With more teams on the horizon and player needs rising, the new Atlanta team might have to bring the trio out of retirement. It could be a &lsquo;Connection to the Past.&rsquo;<h3>PLUS</h3><h2>Now that&rsquo;s lot of offside calls</h2>1. (Two) Grand linesman Linesman Ray Scapinello becomes first official to work 2,000 NHL regular season games.2. Need a winner? Call Mike Mike Modano of Dallas scores ninth gamewinning goals; had set up nine more.3. Oh brother L.A. Kings win three straight, brothers Jan and Roman Vopat net winning goals in all three.4. Hot stopper Former NHLer Don Beaupre 11-0-1 with two shutouts for St. John&rsquo;s in AHL since Jan. 5.5. Big zero Brantford&rsquo;s Paul Krake makes 67 saves, 36 in second period, in 10 Colonial League win over Port Huron.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-021232/6782823-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="328" height="460"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Modano</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-03915/6782816-1-eng-US/f0002-032.jpg" title="f0002-03" width="327" height="460"><figcaption class="caption-body">Don Beaupre</figcaption></div><h3>MINUS</h3><h2>J.J. Daigneault did a big no-no</h2>1. What a quack Mighty Duck defenseman J.J. Daigneault suspended 10 games for slashing ref Don Koharski.2. Lookout! Vancouver&rsquo;s Donald Brashear suspended four games for punching L.A.&rsquo;s Ian Laperriere from behind.3. Hockey doesn&rsquo;t kneed this Philadelphia&rsquo;s Michel Petit suspended for kneeing Florida&rsquo;s Johan Garpenlov.4. Head games San Jose&rsquo;s Bernie Nicholls cross-checks Florida&rsquo;s Ed Jovanovski in head.5. Dayton disaster Dayton Ice Bandits of Colonial League outscored 33-7 in four losses, hadn&rsquo;t won since Feb. 2. &#9632;

f0002-04

Unique Calder connection could happen

<div class="byline">Bob McKenzie Associate Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011651/6782868-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="343" height="430"></div>RYE, N. Y.-The last thing Wayne Gretzky wants is for his 1998 Olympic status to become an issue.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it should be an issue and people who try to make it one now are just looking for controversy,&rdquo; the 36-year-old superstar said in an interview with The Hockey News at the New York Rangers&rsquo; practice facility. &ldquo;The only issue is whether you deserve to be there when they pick the team. If you don&rsquo;t deserve to be there, you don&rsquo;t go.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s difficult to argue with that irrefutable logic. That said, when Canada goes to Nagano in less than a year looking to reclaim international hockey glory, all things being equal. Wayne Gretzky should be on the team.No matter what? Well, no, of course not. If Gretzky&rsquo;s game has gone so far south at the time roster decisions are being made-sometime between Aug. 1 and Dec. 1, depending on the backroom politicking-no one, including Gretzky, expects any free rides to be issued.But based on his play this season-17 goals and 78 points in 63 games, his 21-game goalless drought duly noted-if Gretzky isn&rsquo;t among Canada&rsquo;s 12 best forwards, he&rsquo;s not going to be too far off the mark.And if it&rsquo;s at all a close call, then the decision should be elementary: Wayne&rsquo;s World should include Japan.Gretzky a charity case? Hardly. But perhaps he is owed a little something.From the time he entered the NHL in 1979, no one has meant more to the game or business of hockey than Gretzky. And for this, he has been honored and rewarded. But those around him have generally profited as much or more than Gretzky himself.The 1998 Winter Games will be a unique event, the first occasion when the world&rsquo;s best (NHL) players represent their country at an Olympiad.Simply because it&rsquo;s the Olympics, the focus will transcend the game itself. It will be huge, a stage like no other. Ironic, too, given that the format (a 10-day tourney without benefit of any preparation) puts the Olympics second to the World Cup in the Integrity Sweepstakes.Still, there&rsquo;s no disputing the platform Nagano will give to the NHL brand of hockey-just as there&rsquo;s no arguing Gretzky has been the game&rsquo;s world-wide trademark for almost 20 years now.Can hockey throw a party the magnitude of Nagano, arguably the game&rsquo;s highest profile event ever, and not invite The Great One? Perhaps, but for that to happen there should be compelling evidence of Gretzky&rsquo;s inability to perform at that level.&ldquo;What happens over the next eight months is what will totally decide who belongs to play there,&rdquo; Gretzky said. &ldquo;If I excel this year and next year, then that&rsquo;s the decision they have to make-whether I belong or not. If I don&rsquo;t, so be it. They just have to pick the best team and go with it.&rdquo;No one is suggesting Gretzky should be the focal point or first-line center. (Least of all. the guy who once infuriated Gretzky by writing that he was skating like he &ldquo;had a piano on his back&rdquo; and then put together leaguewide player ratings that had the thirtysomething star as fortysomething.)Unquestionably, age and Gretzky&rsquo;s lack of physical prowess have combined to erode some of his magnificent gifts. He would be the first to admit it, just as he and Mark Messier would be the first to suggest Canada&rsquo;s young bucks (Eric Lindros and Joe Sakic, to name two at center) have to shoulder the load this time around.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021319/6782861-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="1185" height="2065"><figcaption class="caption-body">Unless Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s game goes completely south, he should go east for the Olympics. (Photo by Rocky Widner)</figcaption></div>Yet there&rsquo;s still no better mind in the game today than Gretzky&rsquo;s. And when all is said and done in roster selection for the Canadian team, don&rsquo;t be surprised if creativity and hockey sense are precious commodities.Canadian Olympic team GM Bob Clarke has talked about the need for role players on the 1998 team. Usually, that term is associated with checkers and penalty killers and the like. But there may also be the need for a power play specialist and no one sees the ice any better than No. 99. If the Rangers had a few wingers who could finish, Gretzky would be battling Mario Lemieux for the scoring lead.Yet his game is not without perils, especially against big, strong and fast opponents (i.e. Team USA) and on an international-size surface that puts a premium on speed.Still, it would nice to think that after years of Gretzky carrying the game on his back, the Canadian Olympic team could legitimately carry The Great One on what would be his final quest for glory.&ldquo;The game has been great to me,&rdquo; Gretzky said. &ldquo;The game doesn&rsquo;t owe me anything.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s open to debate, not unlike the issue of his Olympic status. &#9632;

f0003-01

DEPARTMENTS

One Great Olympian

Although negotiations won&rsquo;t begin in earnest until the off-season, the NHL Officials&rsquo; Association has already submitted to the NHL a comprehensive proposal for a new collective agreement.Both sides are hoping they can avoid the bitter 17-day strike of 1993 that saw the NHL use replacement officials.&ldquo;We like to think the climate is a lot better now than it was then.&rdquo; said one whistle-blower. &ldquo;Last time, (NHL commissioner) Gary Bettman was new to the league. He didn&rsquo;t know us. We didn&rsquo;t know him. There&rsquo;s some familiarity now.&rdquo;In fact, Bettman has taken a hands-on approach with the NHL zebras. The commissioner has routinely taken part in quality control conference calls and gone out of his way, along with NHL senior vice-president Brian Burke, to support the refs and linesmen in the face of growing criticism from players and coaches.Morale appears to be as high as it has ever been among the officials, but they know there&rsquo;s a big difference between getting a warm, fuzzy feeling from the league and a pay hike.Impending negotiations are not being publicly discussed by either side. Bettman said it&rsquo;s something that will be addressed in the summer. Toronto lawyer Harry Radomski, who will head up the officials&rsquo; negotiating team (along with NHLOA president Terry Gregson and a committee of Bill McCreary, Don Koharski, Brian Murphy, Swede Knox and Steve Walkom), refused comment.But sources told THN the officials haven&rsquo;t proposed any radical changes to the existing agreement. They&rsquo;re just looking for more of every-thing-money, benefits etc.-within the existing framework.The feeling on both sides is that the major restructuring battles were fought last time and now they&rsquo;ll simply skirmish over issues that aren&rsquo;t black and white so much as green. &#9632;

Officials to work early on contract

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011667/6782923-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="319" height="409"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mario Lemieux</figcaption></div>A weekly compendium of significant events and developments (Feb. 2128).Feb 21: Rangers&rsquo; center Wayne Gretzky ends 21-game goalless streak with goal against Hartford.Feb. 22: Pittsburgh center Mario Lemieux scores two goals in 5-2 loss to Chicago to pass ex-Blackhawk great Stan Mikita and move into sixth place on NHL all-time scoring list with 1,468 points.Feb. 25: Toronto trades center Doug Gilmour, defenseman Dave Ellett and third round pick in 1999 entry draft to New Jersey for center/left winger Steve Sullivan, defenseman Jason Smith and junior prospect center Alyn McCauley.Vancouver left winger Donald Brasher suspended four games for sucker-punching Ian Laperriere of Los Angeles.Feb. 26: Anaheim defenseman J.J. Daigneault suspended 10 games for slashing referee Don Koharski.Gilmour scores one goal, four points in debut with Devils in 5-3 win over Islanders.Linesman Ray Scapinello becomes first NHL official in history to work 2,000 regular season games. &#9632;

f0004-01

Lemieux continues to climb all-time scoring list

Gosh, thanks Steve Dryden. In the Feb. 28 issue, you pompously proclaim that The Hockey News will &ldquo;continue to fight the good fight&rdquo; against fighting in the NHL. I also see that you managed to promote your lonely crusade in your &ldquo;Blueprint for an improved NHL&rdquo; in the same issue.You tell us THN will continue this campaign despite &ldquo;the utter silence on this issue from league and team officials.&rdquo; Well, Steve, you missed two other groups who seem unconcerned that fighting continues-the majority of your own columnists and, more important, the fans.It must be tough to be a visionary, Steve, to be the only one who understands. If only those dam fans understood that you know more about this than they do.Mike Power,&nbsp; Fredericton, N.B.<h2>Give us a break</h2>When are you guys at THN going to get off your anti-fighting crusade? It seems THN is the only one in North America that keeps bringing up this topic.Leave the game alone and spend more time giving us fight results, with analysis.Jeff Cooke,&nbsp; Fairport, N. Y.<h2>Brutal game</h2>I recently watched a game between the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers and I was appalled by all the fights. What really disgusted me was that everybody seemed to enjoy the fight and nobody wanted them to stop but the two linesmen.Why does the NHL allow players to fight? Does that make hockey cooler? I know a lot of people who don&rsquo;t like hockey, but almost all of them enjoy watching fights. If that&rsquo;s what kind of new fan the NHL is attracting, I fear for the future of the game.The NHL bills itself as the coolest game on earth. But as far as I&rsquo;m concerned, it&rsquo;s the most brutal game on earth.Fan Xiao,&nbsp; Chestnut Hill, Mass.<h2>Insult to Canada</h2>With the rejection of the Hamilton bid, Gary Bettman and the NHL have managed to insult all Canadians.Not only did the league allow two Canadian franchises to move, it has now denied our country the right to at least make it past the first round of expansion decisions.Luc Bertran,&nbsp; Fort Erie, Ont.<h2>Going due south</h2>With the recent rejection of the Hamilton expansion bid, it&rsquo;s clear to see the direction in which the NHL is heading.Major League Baseball is a U.S.based league with a couple of token Canadian teams. The National Basketball Association is a U.S.-based league with a couple of token Canadian teams.It appears we&rsquo;ll soon be able to say the same thing about the NHL.It makes no sense to consider cities such as Atlanta and Minneapolis-St. Paul where the NHL has already flopped and ignore a proven hockey hotbed with an NHL-calibre arena.Gary Mosher,&nbsp; Marystown, Nfld.<h2>Why pick Woody?</h2>I had a big problem with your ranking of minor pro logos (THN, Feb. 14).How can you say things such as,&rdquo;The latest in a long line of campy cartoon characters,&rdquo; &ldquo;Now it&rsquo;s just a cookie-cutter snarling animal,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Looks like a knockoff from an Underdog cartoon,&rdquo; and then go and vote for the Phoenix Woody Woodpecker look-alike to the No. 1 spot?Perhaps you should list them in order of sales or, better yet, let the fans vote for them.Until then, I have to agree with Tab Brockman of the Louisville RiverFrogs. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a B.S. list.&rdquo;Todd Shaw,&nbsp; Manchester, N.J.<h2>Spike rules</h2>I really enjoyed your minor pro logo ranking, but I have a bone to pick with your ranking on the canine logos.You correctly pointed out the 34th-ranked Hamilton Bulldogs&rsquo; logo is a knockoff of Spike, the Long Beach Ice Dogs&rsquo; logo, but then you proceeded to rank Hamilton&rsquo;s dog 18 spots ahead of Long Beach&rsquo;s.Anybody can clearly see Long Beach&rsquo;s dog is the tougher of the two. Spike would kick the Hamilton Bulldog&rsquo;s butt any day of the week.Richard Kolostian,&nbsp; Long Beach, Calif.<h2>No fashion shows</h2>I, for one, would much rather see statistics and profiles from European leagues in your newspaper than a logo fashion show. But then again, I&rsquo;m a hockey fan, not a marketing executive.Mike Dorn,&nbsp; Los Angeles, Calif.Make your feelings known. Fax us your comments at&nbsp;(416) 340-1641&nbsp;or write to&nbsp;Letters, THN, 777 Bay St, Suite 2700, Box 148, Toronto, Ont, M5G 2N8&nbsp;in Canada. In the U.S., write to&nbsp;Letters, THN, P.O. Box 904, Buffalo, N.Y., 142409947.&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;

THN urged to listen to fans on fight issue

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011597/6783002-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0005-01

ELSTON

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-021147/6783033-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="594" height="900"></div>The California Golden Seals and Philadelphia Flyers made a trade in the summer of 1974: right winger (and future Conn Smythe winner) Reggie Leach to the Flyers for center Larry Wright, right winger Al MacAdam and a 1974 first round draft pick. The deal went off smoothly, except for one hitch.The deep pockets of the renegade World Hockey Association made it uncertain whether players drafted by NHL clubs would report. California selected a junior named Ron Chipperfield, who, as it turned out, had already signed with the WHA. Fortunately, Seals&rsquo; GM Garry Young foresaw that possibility and had arranged that if he couldn&rsquo;t sign the pick, Philly would replace him (heh, heh, heh).Fast forward to December. California languished at the bottom of the Adams Division, but Philadelphia had its own problems, like fending off the Atlanta Flames for the Patrick Division lead. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been talking to Philadelphia for months now,&rdquo; moaned Seals&rsquo; president Munson Campbell,&rdquo;but we just can&rsquo;t seem to agree on that &lsquo;mutually agreed upon player.&rsquo;&rdquo;Three weeks later the mystery man finally arrived in Oakland-minor-league defenseman George Pesut. Yes, that George Pesut (92 career games, three goals). If only Philly would have played fair and sent them back Reggie Leach&hellip; &#9632;

f0005-02

Seals take a bath

<div class="byline">By Bob McKenzie Associate Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011773/6783078-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="411" height="438"></div>UNIONDALE, N.Y.-The New Jersey Devils were good-no, make that very good-before they picked up Doug Gilmour and Dave Ellett.Care to venture a guess what that makes them now?Yes, suffice to say they&rsquo;re much improved after the Feb. 25 transaction that sent little Steve Sullivan (an explosive part-time forward), big Jason Smith (no better than No. 6 on the Devils&rsquo; blueline) and unsigned draftee Alyn McCauley to the Toronto Maple Leafs for the two veterans and their own third-round pick in the 1999 draft.Much improved indeed.&ldquo;I think you&rsquo;re looking at the team to beat in the East,&rdquo; a New York Islander player said as the Devils&rsquo; team bus pulled out of Nassau County Coliseum on Feb. 26, the night Gilmour debuted with a goal and three assists in a 5-3 victory over the Isles.Another Islander player just nodded in agreement.Fast forward to the next afternoon, at the New York Rangers&rsquo; practice facility in Rye, N.Y. Wayne Gretzky was on the ice, saying cheese during a photo session, when he was asked if he&rsquo;d seen Gilmour and the Devils in action the night before.&ldquo;Yup,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They were pretty good, weren&rsquo;t they?&rdquo;He smiled, weakly at that, and gave a little shake of the head that left no doubt as to his assessment of a team the Rangers had beaten twice and tied once this season.That is, the Devils just got a lot better while the other Eastern Conference contenders, everyone from the Philadelphia Flyers to Florida Panthers to the Rangers, were still just talking about how they could improve themselves before the March 18 trade deadline.The next move belongs to one of Bob Clarke, Brian Murray, Neil Smith, Craig Patrick or John Muckier. Gentlemen, start your engines. The real 1996-97 NHL race is just now getting under way.Hey, isn&rsquo;t that Happy Gilmour driving the pace car?&ldquo;If we can improve ourselves, we will,&rdquo; Clarke said of the Flyers&rsquo; ongoing efforts to acquire a solid defenseman to bolster their impressive lineup. &ldquo;But we can&rsquo;t start chasing rainbows because the Devils went out and made a deal. The Devils were a good team without Gilmour. He&rsquo;ll help them, no question, but it certainly doesn&rsquo;t guarantee them the Stanley Cup.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021211/6783071-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="1936" height="2311"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Devils think Dave Ellett will be more effective for them than he was for Toronto. (Photo by Scott Leary/BBS)</figcaption></div>The Flyers, even if they don&rsquo;t make a deal, will be tough, though there are questions about goaltending and defensive depth. The Panthers should never be counted out, but their lineup cries out for a playmaker of Adam Oates&rsquo; calibre. Whether they can outbid the Vancouver Canucks for the available Boston Bruins&rsquo; center remains to be seen, but the Devils&rsquo; acquisition of Gilmour suggests they should spare no expense.The Pittsburgh Penguins have fallen on hard times of late, what with Patrick Lalime&rsquo;s return to earth and Jaromir Jagr&rsquo;s groin pull. The Sabres will go as far as Dominator Dominik Hasek takes them.Then there are the Devils, who had a 13-game unbeaten streak snapped just prior to the Gilmour-Ellett deal and posted consecutive wins in their first two games with them.The Devils stack up well against every Eastern foe, including the favored Flyers. With the possible exception of The Dominator, Martin Brodeur is as good a goalie as there is in the East. The Devils&rsquo; defensive unit, comprised of Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer, Lyle Odelein, Ken Dan-eyko, Shawn Chambers, Ellett and Kevin Dean is big, strong, tough and talented-arguably the best in the conference.Up front, they have an impressive blend of speed and size-Bobby Holik is the poster boy-and pressure-treated experience that allows them to play four lines and not get overwhelmed by the Legion of Doom or anybody else. The only shortcoming was their inability to score goals.Only Florida had a better goals-against average (2.27) than the Devils&rsquo; mark of 2.30. But the Devils&rsquo; offensive output was a miserly 2.70 goals per game, identical to the Islanders and better than only the San Jose Sharks (2.60).Their patented team defense and good goaltending notwithstanding, the Devils would sorely be tempting fate to think that output good enough to get to the Cup final.Enter Gilmour.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the missing link,&rdquo; said Devils&rsquo; winger Steve Thomas.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been waiting for this all year,&rdquo; added defenseman Lyle Odelein. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re excited. We can score some goals. The only real superstar this organization has ever had is Martin Brodeur, a goalie. Getting Dougie has us talking about the Cup and that&rsquo;s what it&rsquo;s all about.&rdquo;Whoa there, big fella. Wash your mouth out with Jersey&rsquo;s finest toxic waste. It is very un-Devil like to be talking like that, but damned if even low-key GM Lou Lamoriello isn&rsquo;t a bit giddy himself these days.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a real sense of excitement with our team making this deal,&rdquo; Lamoriello said. &ldquo;We were a good team (without Gilmour and Ellett). We&rsquo;re better now.&rdquo;By a longshot. Think about it. Prior to Gilmour&rsquo;s arrival, the Devils&rsquo; leading scorer was Holik, with 14 goals and 47 points in 59 games. Gilmour walked into the dressing room prior to his first game against the Islanders and before putting on his skates, became the team&rsquo;s leading scorer with 15 goals and 60 points in 61 games. By the end of his first night on the job, the four-point effort, he had a 16-point lead on Holik. That gap will only increase.&ldquo;Doug has what I like to call sheer ability,&rdquo; Lamoriello said. &ldquo;He makes the other players around him so much better and he does it without sacrificing defense. He&rsquo;s exceptional on faceoffs. He&rsquo;s terrific on the power play and can kill penalties. He competes, he leads and now he&rsquo;ll be doing all that on a team that competes right along with him. We&rsquo;ve filled a hole on our team and we did it without disrupting our roster.&rdquo;If Lamoriello can barely contain his anticipation of what Gilmour will mean to the team, it&rsquo;s nothing compared to how Gilmour himself feels.He&rsquo;s on a Cup contender, not a messed-up Leaf team that has been in a death spiral. He&rsquo;s in a market where anonymity is virtually guaranteed and out of the fishbowl existence in Toronto that finally took its toll on him emotionally. He&rsquo;s out of the spotlight off the ice, directly into it on the ice.In fact, his one request to Leafs&rsquo; GM Cliff Fletcher was to not be traded to a Canadian team for that very reason.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m really excited,&rdquo; Gilmour said the day after his home ice debut (when he scored an empty-net goal in a 4-1 win over Buffalo). &ldquo;I want to be an impact player here. I want to make a difference. I know there&rsquo;s going to be a lot of talk about contending for the Cup, but we can&rsquo;t get ahead of ourselves. It&rsquo;s going to take some time to get comfortable. The rest will take care of itself, but I will say this. This is a confident team, a big team, a strong team and a fast team.&rdquo;Gilmour was on a roll when he left the Leafs-five goals and 22 points in 15 games-and there&rsquo;s no reason for him not to continue in Jersey. What he lacks in natural goal-scoring ability, he more than makes up for in creating scoring chances for others.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011611/6783064-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="2137" height="1513"><figcaption class="caption-body">Doug Gilmour became the Devils&rsquo; leading scorer the instant he was traded to the team from the Leafs. (Photo by Brian Winder/BBS)</figcaption></div>Devils&rsquo; coach Jacques Lemaire wasn&rsquo;t sure with whom Gilmour would line up on a regular basis, but he knows he wants balance. In Gilmour&rsquo;s debut, he started with Bill Guerin, but ended up with old linemate Dave Andreychuk. In his second outing, he was with John MacLean. Many are waiting to see how Lemaire reacts to having a player of Gilmour&rsquo;s offensive abilities. As solid as No. 93 is defensively, he likes to improvise on offense and that doesn&rsquo;t always lend itself to Lemaire&rsquo;s famous/infamous rigidity.Mind you, the Devils don&rsquo;t play the trap nearly as much as has been suggested-they forecheck hard when the opportunity is there-and Gilmour was quick to realize it.&ldquo;My defensive role here is more aggressive here than it was (in Toronto),&rdquo; Gilmour said. &ldquo;And because the defense here is so good, I don&rsquo;t have to come back to the net to get the puck on a breakout. My spot is out by the blueline. That&rsquo;s great.&rdquo;Even Gretzky marvels at that aspect of the Devils. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re a really defensive team,&rdquo; Gretzky said,&rdquo;but on their breakouts, the forwards are all high and the defenseman makes the long pass (from behind the goal line). It&rsquo;s not what you&rsquo;d expect.&rdquo;If Gilmour&rsquo;s debut was any indication, Lemaire actually likes the idea of having a player who thinks the game offensively on a whole other level.&ldquo;Guys who are open are going to get the puck when he&rsquo;s on the ice,&rdquo; Lemaire said. &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t had a player like that on this team. We&rsquo;re not changing our style, but when he&rsquo;s on the ice, he&rsquo;s in control. He controls the game. He made a pass to Bill Guerin, there were, what, three players between them and still he made the pass. I said to the guys, &lsquo;I haven&rsquo;t seen this. It&rsquo;s nice to see.&rsquo;&rdquo;It is, Lamoriello said of Gilmour&rsquo;s vision, a &ldquo;Godgiven talent.&rdquo; And to think he plays on the Devils.Ellett may be the forgotten man in the deal, forgotten by all but Lamoriello and the Devil players. He, too, made an early impact, setting up one power play goal in his first game and scoring one in his second.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m really big on Dave Ellett and what he&rsquo;ll mean to our power play,&rdquo; Lamoriello said. &ldquo;What we&rsquo;ll be able to do better than Toronto could is slot him better. He doesn&rsquo;t have to be a top three defenseman on this team. He can play No. 4, 5 or 6 and because he&rsquo;ll be asked to do less, there&rsquo;ll be nights where he steps up and is the best defenseman on the ice.&rdquo;The key, however, is Gilmour, who gives the Devils a creative dimension the likes of which they&rsquo;ve never had.The skeptics suggest it will somehow get stifled by Lemaire, but the coach maintains he has but one concern.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll pay the price if other guys start to play like that,&rdquo; Lemaire said.Other teams will no doubt make moves. They&rsquo;ll get better, too.But you have to give the Devils their due. They were good before. They&rsquo;re better now. Much better, and with a Killer instinct to boot.<div class="sidebar">Gilmour &lsquo;really excited&rsquo; &#9632;</div>

f0006-01

FEATURES

Missing Link?

<div class="byline">By Lance Hornby</div>With each passing day, the sexual abuse scandal at Maple Leaf Gardens was growing and the hockey team&rsquo;s proud image was shrinking.It&rsquo;s the building&rsquo;s present-day ownership that&rsquo;s now under attack as it was gradually revealed that warnings of inappropriate behavior by staff years ago were either ignored or not checked thoroughly. The charges against a longtime usher still working in the Gardens and investigation of other employees has the whole city wondering how widespread this sex-for-souvenirs tragedy had taken root.When the Gardens board finally did address the situation after a week of leaving the mess in the hands of Leafs&rsquo; GM Cliff Fletcher, point man Brian Bellmore was not convincing in his handling of the crisis.It became clear there was some knowledge upstairs that one or more of its workers could be sexual offenders perhaps as far back as 1988. Management at first claimed it knew nothing until 1993, when a $1.75 million lawsuit was launched by alleged victim Martin Kruze.Metro Toronto Police are now looking into more than 80 complaints against a total of eight alleged perpetrators, including two men who&rsquo;ve been charged and one deceased employee.In a new development, two women have said they were molested as underaged fans either at the Gardens or by one of its employees.Gordon Stuckless, 47, a former equipment handler, and John Paul Roby, a 54-year-old usher, are in custody facing 50 to 60 charges each. George Hannah, who was involved in the Toronto Marlboros junior operation before he died in 1984, has been identified by alleged victims.Calls to police have come in from as far away as Vancouver, the Maritimes and Connecticut, but the wheels were put in motion by the 34-year-old Kruze. The Toronto man broke his three-year-old deal confidentiality agreement with the Leafs, who&rsquo;d paid him $60,000 after his lawsuit alleged abuse in the 1970s.Bellmore, a lawyer, said the Leafs were skeptical of Kruze&rsquo;s story after internal checks proved nothing. Bellmore said they paid him the $60,000 because it would be more costly to go to court.It was also revealed Barry Bingham sent the Gardens a letter in 1988 warning them Stuckless had been charged with assaulting his teenage son two years earlier. But it may not have been until late Gardens president Donald Giffin received a second letter from the worried mother of another boy that Stuckless was fired in 1990.Former Marlboro goalie Lloyd Dyson claimed Hannah&rsquo;s activities were well known around the team in the mid-70s and that he knew of two players Hannah had victimized. &#9632;

Gardens sex abuse victims step forward

<div class="byline">By Brian Costello</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011666/6783133-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Linesman Ray Scapinello became the first NHL official to work in 2,000 regular season games, Feb. 26 in Toronto. (Photo by Claus Andersen/BBS)</figcaption></div>Ray Scapinello had been dreading game No. 2,000 for a while. It wasn&rsquo;t the venue, the matchup or even the sobering realization of passing time.&ldquo;I just wanted to get the presentation over with,&rdquo; said the self-effacing linesman, who received a crystal carving from NHL vice-president Jim Gregory in a pre-game ceremony Feb. 26. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not into the hoopla. I just wanted to get on with the game.&rdquo;Scapinello, 50, became the first NHL official to work 2,000 regular season games when the Toronto Maple Leafs hosted the Washington Capitals. The Guelph, Ont., native recently passed linesman Ron Finn, who retired last year after 1,980 NHL games.Three other linesmen are closing in on the 2,Q00-game plateau. Leon Stickle was at 1,949, Gerard Gauthier 1,923 and Swede Knox 1,830.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always prided myself in keeping in shape,&rdquo; said the 26-year NHL official who is a two-handicap golfer. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never had a weight problem. I&rsquo;m fortunate in that I&rsquo;ve never been injured. Never missed a game.&rdquo;Scapinello debuted in 1971-72, when the California Seals had a team, Guy Lafleur was a rookie, Bobby Orr the top player and the Boston Bruins Stanley Cup champs.&ldquo;The players are so much bigger now,&rdquo; Scapinello said. &ldquo;Clark Gillies (6-foot-3, 215 pounds) used to be the biggest. Now each team has a half dozen guys that size and some bigger. The talent has improved too. I sometimes find myself staring at them.&rdquo;NHL supervisor of officials Wally Harris said Scapinello hasn&rsquo;t slowed a bit over the years and has worked 15 Stanley Cup finals because of his excellent judgement.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s small, but well built,&rdquo; Harris said. &ldquo;While some officials go over top to break up a fight, you&rsquo;ll see Ray go from underneath.&rdquo;Scapinello says working Game 7 of the 1994 Stanley Cup final between the New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks is the highlight of a career that is still far from over.&ldquo;A friend asked me a while back where I had been lately,&rdquo; Scapinello said. &ldquo;When I told him I just worked the game he was at watching, he said he didn&rsquo;t even notice me out there. Not being noticed is the biggest compliment an official can get. When you do notice us it&rsquo;s for the wrong reasons.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0008-01

Official Scapinello hits 2,000 plateau

<div class="byline">Compiled by THN staff</div>Quebec is taking its youngest team ever to the Canadian Women&rsquo;s Hockey Championship this year, no thanks to France St-Louis and Denise Caron.St-Louis is a 38-year-old forward and Caron a 35-year-old goalie. Both are key players for Equipe Quebec, a provincial all-star team that will try for its fourth straight title at the championship in Richmond, B.C., March 6-9.Due in large part to players such as St-Louis and Caron, Quebec has dominated this event. Teams from La Belle Province have won six of the past 10 national championships, with Quebec forward Danielle Goyette, St-Louis and Caron being on all the winning teams. Sherbrooke won three straight titles from 1988 to 1990.Quebec will face stiff challenges from Ontario (represented by the Toronto Aeros), Alberta (Edmonton Chimos) and New Brunswick (Maritime SportsBlades) this year, but coach Daniele Sauvageau is confident.&ldquo;Most of these players have been together for a few years so there is good chemistry,&rdquo; Sauvageau said.Other teams taking part are Prince Edward Island (PEI Esso Tigers), Manitoba (Selkirk Motor Hotel Storm), British Columbia (Britannia Blues) and Saskatchewan.For some of the players, the event will serve as a tune-up to the World Women&rsquo;s Championship, slated for March 31 to April 6 in Kitchener, Ont.USA Hockey will hold its national women&rsquo;s championship April 9-13 in Boston.HOCKEY SHOW:&nbsp;Hockey Night In Canada will likely broadcast a pregame show before its weekly Saturday night doubleheader next season.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re convinced in talking to sponsors and viewers there is a demand for such a show,&rdquo; said HNIC producer John Shannon.The CBC made a request with all Canadian NHL teams to start Saturday games at 7 p.m., which would allow its pre-game show to begin at 6:30. Shannon said HNIC host Ron MacLean will definitely host the new show. &#9632;

Quebec geared for women’s nationals

<div class="byline">By Alan Adams</div>Canada&rsquo;s Fix on Six may be over before it begins.Winner of the World Junior Championship the past five years, Canada is threatening to boycott the 1998 event in Finland because of proposed format changes and earlier starting date.&ldquo;If the dates and format go as you are recommending, we may have to consider pulling out of the tournament,&rdquo; said Canadian Hockey vicepresident Bob Nicholson in a fax to the Finnish Ice Hockey Federation.The Toronto Star reported the Finns want the tournament to start Dec. 21, five days earlier than usual, and conclude Jan. 2, two days prior to the normal finishing date.Starting the tournament four days before Christmas would be a hard sell to junior team owners because they would lose their star players to the national team for a longer period.&ldquo;We cannot lose our sensitivity to club operators,&rdquo; said Canadian Hockey League president Dave Branch.In addition, the Finns would do away with the medal-round format which replaced a round-robin schedule two years ago. Instead, there would be two round-robin schedules. The first would see all 10 teams compete, with the bottom team in each of two pools being eliminated to a relegation round. The remaining eight teams would compete in another round-robin, with the gold medal decided on total points.Canada has the support of the United States, said Scott Monahan, manager of the junior development program for USA Hockey.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t support the plan to go back to a round-robin or change the date,&rdquo; Monahan said.In order to be implemented, the proposals would have to be passed by the International Ice Hockey Federation during the World Championship. &#9632;

Canada threatens boycott

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011583/6783219-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="377" height="533"></div>When Adam Oates took the opportunity to spout off about what he perceives as the shortsightedness and ineptitude of the Boston Bruins&rsquo; front office, he did something you&rsquo;ll rarely see-make that hear-in the NHL.He told the truth.Of course, in speaking his mind, the veteran center had an ulterior motive: he wants out of Boston. Doing the unthinkable, telling it like it is, will serve to hasten the process.If you follow the NHL, or any professional sport for that matter, you know there is quite often a distinct difference between what a person says and what he really means. It&rsquo;s called The Lying Game.For instance:They say:&nbsp;We are not actively trying to trade him. He is an integral part of our organization and we want him to be here when we turn things around.They mean: How many times does this guy expect us to re-negotiate his contract? He&rsquo;s 30-something and his best days are behind him. Give us a player and a first round pick and he&rsquo;s outta here.They say:&nbsp;We couldn&rsquo;t believe he was still available when we drafted him; he was the highest rated guy on our list.They mean: We were picking 32nd overall and haven&rsquo;t had a first round draft choice in three years. We&rsquo;ll be thrilled if this guy can tie his own skates.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-021117/6783212-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="506" height="1010"><figcaption class="caption-body">Adam Oates</figcaption></div>They say:&nbsp;This trade was not a salary dump.They mean: We&rsquo;re in danger of missing the playoffs and ownership ordered us to cut $1 million from the budget.They say:&nbsp;He&rsquo;s what we need.He&rsquo;s a left defenseman and he&rsquo;s tough. He just turned 36. He can come in and give us experience.They mean: Our young defenseman aren&rsquo;t there yet and with the playoffs on the horizon, we&rsquo;re in deep trouble.They say:&nbsp;If we can get into the playoffs we are the type of team that could do a lot of damage.They mean: If we can get into the playoffs maybe I&rsquo;ll have a chance at holding onto my job.They say:&nbsp;He is our coach now and we have faith in his ability to lead our team out of this predicament.They mean: Three more losses and he&rsquo;s outta here.They say:&nbsp;The ref didn &lsquo;t do us any favors, but he wasn&rsquo;t the reason we lost.They mean: That stupid S.O.B. put us shorthanded six times and gave us just two power plays.They say:&nbsp;It&rsquo;s not for me to say what we should do to improve the team. I&rsquo;m just a player, those decisions are for management.They mean: They give me two plumbers for wingers and expect me to score 50 goals? Any idiot can see we don&rsquo;t have enough talent around here to win.They say:&nbsp;He&rsquo;s a big kid who only needs to get his confidence before he starts scoring goals.They mean: He&rsquo;s scared out of his mind and only scored goals in junior because he was bigger than the other kids.They say:&nbsp;We&rsquo;re not thinking about trading him because we still think we have a shot at the playoffs.They mean: Of course we&rsquo;re shopping him, but if we admit it, then our fans will know we&rsquo;ve given up on this season.They say:&nbsp;Our officials are the best in the world.They mean: Why can&rsquo;t these guys just check their personalities at the door and become robots like we&rsquo;ve asked them to?They say:&nbsp;We want to make this work; we really want to keep the team here.They mean: We&rsquo;ll make the conditions of our staying outrageous and impossible to meet so we can be on the next train out of town to a larger, more lucrative center in one of the top TV markets in America.They say:&nbsp;All applicants will be considered on the basis of their proposals.They mean: Stay home Hamilton, don&rsquo;t waste your time.They say:&nbsp;We think he can be more than just a fighter.They mean: As long as our goon can beat their goon, he has a job. &#9632;

f0009-01

COLUMNISTS

To tell the truth, we never tell a lie

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div>The year-and-a-half leading up to 1997 was the worst time of Joe Nieuwendyk&rsquo;s life.But it was through dealing with misery, specifically the loss of his mother, Joanne, to cancer in November, the 30-year-old center for the Dallas Stars gained a renewed love and appreciation for his craft.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m feeling a lot better these days,&rdquo; Nieuwendyk said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just so glad to get 1996 over with. It was a tough year, especially with my mom&rsquo;s situation, but I&rsquo;m at the point now where I have learned a lot and I can put things in perspective.&ldquo;With all that happening-being traded, adapting to a new team and then my mom&rsquo;s death-I was emotionally and physically drained. Now hockey is an escape for me.&rdquo;The reality for the Stars is Nieuwendyk is back. His return to form is a key reason Dallas has rebounded from missing the playoffs last season to challenging for the Western Conference title.That Nieuwendyk was playing so well is welcome news for him and the team. His career the previous few years was less than spectacular.The NHL rookie of the year in 1987-88 when he collected a surprising 51 goals and 92 points, Nieuwendyk was a fixture with the Calgary Flames and captain from 1991 until a contract dispute led to his being traded to the Stars last year. Prior to the trade, Nieuwendyk&rsquo;s production had tailed off, mostly due to injuries. After scoring 197 goals in his first 243 NHL games (.81 goals per game), he slipped to 131 goals in 310 games (.42 per game).Nieuwendyk didn&rsquo;t make a good impression with the Stars last season. Starting the year late because of his holdout in Calgary, he never got into a groove and finished with 14 goals and 32 points in 52 games. Suddenly, he was looking very much like an ordinary Joe. Dallas was looking for someone to take the pressure off center Mike Modano, the Stars&rsquo; lone star in the Lone Star State, but Nieuwendyk didn&rsquo;t come through.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011642/6783250-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="584" height="858"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Nieuwendyk has had a lot to cope with on and off the ice.</figcaption></div>Making the situation worse was the fact the Stars gave up promising youngster Jarome Iginla, along with veteran Corey Millen, to get Nieuwendyk. While Iginla was leading Canada to the World Junior Championship and proving himself to be one of the best prospects outside the NHL last season, Nieuwendyk was doing his part to make the deal look ridiculously lopsided in Calgary&rsquo;s favor.Determined to get things back on track, Nieuwendyk worked hard last summer to prepare for 1996-97. He was the Stars&rsquo; best player in training camp and had two assists in the season opener against the defending Stanley Cup-champion Colorado Avalanche before suffering another injury. This time it was fractured rib cartilage, thanks to a crushing hit delivered by Peter Forsberg. Nieuwendyk missed the next 12 games and it was while he was out he learned of his mother&rsquo;s illness. She died Nov. 15.&ldquo;One thing my mother&rsquo;s situation taught me was injuries are just a temporary thing,&rdquo; Nieuwendyk said. &ldquo;I used to get so frustrated and down when I was out with injuries. Mine was a very minor thing compared to what my mom was going through.&ldquo;When I got hurt, it was almost like a blessing in disguise. I was able to go home four or five times to be with my mom.&rdquo;Slowly, things were coming together for Nieuwendyk. A broken nose suffered earlier this year when he took a puck in the face slowed him a bit, but otherwise Nieuwendyk has become the dependable two-way force the Stars were seeking. And he has been scoring regularly.He had 25 goals in 48 games. Over a full 82-game season, that projects to 43 goals, which puts him close to the level he was at in his most productive years.&ldquo;He is playing with a lot of energy, doing all the things he did during his successful years in Calgary,&rdquo; said Stars&rsquo; coach Ken Hitchcock. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s one of the few players on our team who can drive the puck to the net from down low. And he does so much more for the team than just score. In our 4-3 overtime win against Detroit (Feb. 14) he won three faceoffs cleanly in the Red Wings&rsquo; end in the dying minutes of the game.&rdquo;He also scored twice.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m really focused now,&rdquo; Nieuwendyk said. &ldquo;Our team is doing well and I just love going to the rink; it doesn&rsquo;t matter if it&rsquo;s a game or practice. We have a great bunch of guys and hockey is fun again.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-01

Old Flame Nieuwendyk shining brightly for Stars

Center Joe Nieuwendyk&rsquo;s return to form is one reason why the Dallas Stars have enjoyed success this season.Here are three others:&#9633; Depth A year ago, losing wingers Greg Adams (neck, back spasms) and Jere Lehtinen (sprained knee) for extended periods as has happened this season would have killed the team. But the addition of quality veteran forwards Pat Verbeek and Dave Reid, as well as the continued emergence of youngsters Jamie Langenbrunner, Grant Marshall and Todd Harvey, have made it easier for the Stars to face injury adversity.Verbeek hasn&rsquo;t been scoring at the pace he did a year ago with the New York Rangers (41 goals in 69 games) and Harvey is struggling offensively, but both contribute physically.&#9633; A new twist on defensive Play The players met prior to the start of the season and decided to pay strict attention to where the puck is played while in the offensive zone. That means no more blind passes from behind the net to the front that often result in turnovers and no shots from bad angles that lead to the puck leaving the zone.The Stars have been one of the NHL&rsquo;s best defensive teams this season and they believe it has as much to do with their play behind the other team&rsquo;s blueline as it does in their own end.&ldquo;The players gave the coaching staff a mandate to make people accountable for their mistakes,&rdquo; said Stars&rsquo; coach Ken Hitchcock.&#9633; Andy Moog The veteran goaltender, scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent after this season, has been playing remarkably. After an off-year when he was 1319-7 with a 2.99 goals-against average, Moog was 26-12-3 with a 2.18 GAA. His save percentage of 91.2 was 12th in the league. &#9632;

How Dallas has done it

<div class="byline">By Stan Fischler</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011480/6783312-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="381" height="536"></div>The Answer Man has returned after a refresher course at Linesman&rsquo;s School where he finally learned why the striped ones hold the puck for 40 minutes before dropping it. (They want to look good on TV.)Q:&nbsp;Why do the Buffalo Sabres keep reminding me of the late Fred Shero&rsquo;s Broad Street Bullies?Missie Conduct,&nbsp; Sockcherry, Ont.A: Like the 1970s&rsquo; Philadelphia Flyers, the Sabres are mis-named. Actually, they should be called the Piranhas because skating against Ted Nolan&rsquo;s naughty sextet is like diving into a school of crazed, fish, especially at Marine Midland Arena. Matthew Barnaby bites from the left, Rob Ray chomps from the right and Brad May swallows the remaining pieces of the opposition. When the Sabres are through with most teams, there&rsquo;s nothing left but the bones. Anyone who underestimates Buffalo as a Stanley Cup threat can&rsquo;t spell H-A-S-E-K, who, by the way, is very similar to a Philly goalie of yesteryear named Bernie Parent.Q: How is it Kiel Center, Corel Centre, United Center and FleetCenter all look so blandly alike from the inside?Alex Neversmile,&nbsp; Pulford, III.A: Have you ever stopped to think that there really is only one new NHL arena and it is secretly trucked from city to city every night with a new logo slapped on the front just to make fans think it&rsquo;s different.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-021058/6783305-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="509" height="887"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Yzerman</figcaption></div>Q: Is there an NHL owner who would dare touch Mike Keenan with a 10-foot pole or an 11-foot hockey stick?Conn Mann,&nbsp; Icebiter, Alta.A: A walnut such as Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; owner Steve Stavro could relate to a cashew like Keenan. Stavro&rsquo;s humpty club would respond to the collective Keenan clubhouse catharsis for one season. After that, approximately 18 players and the entire province of Ontario would be in revolt against Iron Mike.Q: Why are the Detroit Red Wings so quietly happy over being ignored as playoff contenders?Scott Chinout,&nbsp; Bowmanville, Mich.A: With little to no pressure, the Steve Yzerman-led Wings will breeze through three rounds to reach the finals. And if the New Jersey Devils manage to get that far, the Devs will whip the Wings in three straight; the fourth game will be reserved for public skating.Q: What ABCs must Joel Quen-neville learn if he intends to reach DEF as coach of the St. Louis Blues?Robert Hull,&nbsp; Bananablade, Miss.A: The ABCs are as follows: a) Quenneville may be St. Louis coach in name, but the name of the game at Kiel Center is Brett Hull; b) the Golden One owns St. Louis the way Stan Musial once did when he played for the Cardinals; c) what Brett wants, Brett gets faster than Ron Caron or the mayor.Q: Did Jeremy Roenick ever make it to Arizona?R. Pulfordo, Blackhawko, N.M.A: He&rsquo;s in Phoenix, all right, but you just have to look a bit harder than you did in Chicago. Usually, Roenick can be found counting his money somewhere between the hamlets of Tkachuk and Janney while he pines for his halcyon days in the Windy City.Q: Is Avalanche president Pierre Lacroix the genius that Avalanche GM Pierre Lacroix believes he is?T. Crosstobear, Pike&rsquo;s Pique, Colo.A: GM Lacroix told president Lacroix he was responsible for the Avalanche&rsquo;s Cup win. Actually, Pierre lucked into a pile of maturing aces acquired from Quebec and obtained by another, smarter Pierre named Gauthier.As agent Don Meehan so aptly notes,&rdquo;Gauthier built the team that Lacroix inherited. What Lacroix has done could have been done by a Zamboni driver.&rdquo;Q: Shouldn&rsquo;t fans be tickled the Fox Network has brought back the Toys &lsquo;R Us glow puck for another season?Tessie Henhouse, Blurryeye, Calif.A: No. The only ones who should be happy are North America&rsquo;s optometrists, opticians and opthal-mologists. They will have doubled their business because of that wonderful asset to hockey known as Fox-Trax. &#9632;

f0011-01

Beware of Piranhas at Buffalo Marina

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011601/6783350-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Not many pucks have escaped the grasp of goalie Jeff Hackett (also pictured below). (Photo by John Giamundo/BBS)</figcaption></div>Jeff Hackett used to live in Elmhurst, Ill., a Chicago suburb far removed from the heat of the action. No more.This summer he moved into upscale digs in the towering John Hancock Building, in an 89th-floor apartment vacated by departed center Bernie Nicholls. Hackett can look out the window and see helicopters fly below him. There&rsquo;s Soldier Field, the Lincoln Center, Sears Tower, the United Center. He stares down and the city core is right there, staring back at him.All eyes on Hackett. Get used to it, pal.After three years of waiting on the outskirts, the humble 28-year-old from London, Ont., is now at the core of the city and the Chicago Blackhawks. He said he hasn&rsquo;t felt the pressure intensify since the Jan. 25 trade of disgruntled goalie Eddie Belfour to the San Jose Sharks; it has been too much of a whirlwind and he has had no time to reflect on how far he has come.The trade was made partly out of economic necessity-Belfour is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season-but it couldn&rsquo;t have happened had Hackett not put up Belfour-in-his-prime-like numbers: a 2.15 goals-against average (tied for second overall) and 92.5 save percentage (second).Hackett says people who want to put their stock in statistics should go play tennis or golf or some other sport where you don&rsquo;t have to depend on anyone but yourself, but he knows he has earned the chance.&ldquo;My career hasn&rsquo;t always been the easiest,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t say I&rsquo;ve been given anything.&rdquo;He certainly wasn&rsquo;t given a lot of respect this season from Belfour. Hackett says the much-publicized dressing room incident between the two, when Belfour reportedly told Hackett to stay away from him and that he was still the No. 1 goalie, was &ldquo;really, really, really blown out of proportion.&rdquo; He still considers Belfour a friend and is appreciative of all he learned from him.But when asked to describe their relationship off the ice, Hackett demurred.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021290/6783343-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="462" height="682"></div>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather not say anything on it. It&rsquo;s nothing negative, it&rsquo;s nothing positive. I just don&rsquo;t want to say the wrong thing to upset anyone.&rdquo;He wasn&rsquo;t given any defense until he arrived in Chicago from the Sharks, in the summer of 1993 for a third round draft choice. Before that, during the really down periods, he believed his fate was to be buried under rubber in the 1992-93 Siege of San Jose. He was also playing through mononucleosis because he had just signed a new contract and felt it was his duty to carry on. The combination almost killed him.Hackett ended up that season with a 2-30-1 record, a 5.28 goals-against average and 85.6 save percentage, quite possibly the most demoralizing season for a goalie since Michel Belhumeur&rsquo;s 0-24-3 for the 1974-75 Washington Capitals. It&rsquo;s the kind of year that would stick with a less determined sort like a criminal record.&ldquo;At one point (in San Jose) he thought he was about cooked,&rdquo; said Ken Hackett, Jeff&rsquo;s father and part-owner of a construction business in London, Ont. &ldquo;He said that to me only a month ago. He thought at one point he was on the verge of going down into the minors and never getting back.&rdquo;The whole experience affected him profoundly-Ask any Blackhawk for the team&rsquo;s hardest-working player and Hackett&rsquo;s name is the odds-on favorite to be mentioned.Dallas Stars&rsquo; forward Todd Harvey surprised Hackett by roofing a shot on the short side in tight for the only goal in a 1-0 Dallas win Feb. 25. The next day, assistant coach Newell Brown fired dozens of pucks at Hackett from exactly the same spot. If the goal had been scored last season, the job would have fallen to assistant coach Dirk Graham. Every goal scored against him, he replays in practice the next day.&ldquo;Jeff is the first one on the ice and the last one to leave,&rdquo; said coach Craig Hartsburg. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just a fact.&rdquo;&ldquo;When you go through something like (San Jose),&rdquo; Hackett said,&rdquo;you have to start to believe the only way you get through things is through hard work. It scares me, to tell you the truth. I never want to go through that again. I don&rsquo;t take any of the success I&rsquo;ve had for granted.&rdquo;It has given Hackett a deep appreciation for his situation in Chicago, where he feels a strong lure because of the Original Six team&rsquo;s tradition.&ldquo;Probably too much,&rdquo; Ken said. Before the all-star break Hackett signed a new contract averaging $950,000 (plus games played bonuses) over the next three seasons. It also included a revision for this season that should net him $800,000 including bonuses, up from the $450,000 he was scheduled to earn.It&rsquo;s not a lot for a No. 1 goalie, but Hackett says money isn&rsquo;t his priority. The priority is his new four-month old son, Montana.Yep, Montana. As in Joe. One of Hackett&rsquo;s heroes. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good kid,&rdquo; Hackett said. &ldquo;He looks like a Montana.&rdquo;And like his namesake, he has great timing, arriving just when life for Dad is looking up. &#9632;

f0012-01

Hackett’s stock on rise

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03837/6783381-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="381" height="500"></div>Expectations for a Stanley Cup ran high last summer when the Winnipeg Jets landed in the Valley Of The Sun.In some minds, the Jets duplicated in their flight to Phoenix, the same journey that carried the Quebec Nordiques to Colorado and new, previously unattainable heights.The expectations increased exponentially when the free-spending owner, Richard Burke, opened up his wallet so the Phoenix Coyotes could trade for Mike Gartner and sign a bevy of the available free agents-Cliff Ronning, Brad McCrimmon and Darcy Wakaluk. They positively soared on the news the Coyotes acquired Jeremy Roenick away from the Chicago Blackhawks, surrendering the talented, but flighty Alexei Zhamnov in the exchange.So why were the Coyotes, 63 games into the season, sporting exactly the same record-28-31-4-as last year, when they were the chic-less Winnipeg Jets?Some NHL teams-the Buffalo Sabres, Florida Panthers, New Jersey Devils-evolve into more than the sum of their parts. Through the first five months of this season, the Coyotes were less than the sum of theirs.A team with Roenick, Gartner, Keith Tkachuk, Oleg Tverdovsky, Teppo Numminen and the emerging goaltending talent, Nikolai Khabibulin, should not be flirting with a playoff spot in early-March. It should be home and cooled out by now.That the Coyotes are on the same development path as the Avalanche is a reasonable assumption. They are not, however, at the same point on the development curve. The challenge for the Stanley Cup will not begin in earnest until Chad Kilger, Shane Doan and other young prospects evolve into above-average NHLers.For now, though, there should be enough quality players in their lineup to distance themselves from all the truly mediocre teams in the Western Conference.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s pressure, but it&rsquo;s fair pressure.&rdquo; Roenick said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question we have the talent in here. We should dominate. So the pressure that&rsquo;s put on is there only because of the talent we have in here. It&rsquo;s very, very important that we play to the level that we can play to. And when we do&hellip;I&rsquo;m telling you. there isn&rsquo;t a team in our conference that wants to play us in the first round. We could do a lot of damage.&rdquo;That presumes the Coyotes will qualify for the playoffs, something that appeared to be a foregone conclusion in October. There was no way of predicting, however. Craig Janney would sink so deep into coach Don Hay&rsquo;s doghouse so as to produce his worst offensive season.Janney&rsquo;s limitations defensively are well-known, but for all the uneasy relationships he has had with various coaches and teams, he somehow always found a way to chip in a point a game.As for Roenick, until recently, he has not played with the same straight-ahead style that characterized his early years in Chicago and contributed to his reputation as one of the most complete players in the game.Redemption for a mediocre season could come, as it frequently does, in the playoffs. And then, of course, all will be forgiven. This too, is the way of the hockey world now, a world full of second, third and fourth chances that enables teams to dip and drop and skid along without much consistency before, maybe, getting their act together and proving all the pundits wrong.You gotta love it. &#9632;

f0012-03

Coyotes counting on big playoff

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div>Either the hotel room service just got a whole lot better or there&rsquo;s something funny going on after players kiss their wives and girlfriends goodbye and head for the airport.No, we&rsquo;re not talking about hanky panky, here-get your mind out of the gutter. That&rsquo;s not where it belongs anyway, because life on the road isn&rsquo;t so bad anymore.Road kill, in fact, has taken on a whole new meaning for a bunch of NHL teams. As in, if they&rsquo;re playing on the road, they&rsquo;ll kill you.That applies to teams such as the Philadelphia Flyers, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Detroit Red Wings, but it&rsquo;s usually true the top teams will beat up on the competition in anybody&rsquo;s backyard, including their own. What&rsquo;s really interesting is that on a leaguewide basis, the facts about life away from home have rarely been better. Three-quarters of the way through the season, road teams were winning at a.453 clip&mdash;the second-best mark of the past 15 seasons. (See accompanying table.)The starkest cases are the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks, the NHL&rsquo;s unofficial road warriors, who can choose to be positive or peeved at their predicament. They each had winning records on the road-not bad considering they were both floating around the.500 mark overall. Which means of course, their home records-13-17-3 and 11-17-3, respectively-were nothing to write home about.Blues&rsquo; coach Joel Quenneville was as stumped as a felled tree as to why his team had been playing so well away from Kiel Center. &ldquo;If we knew that we wouldn&rsquo;t only have won just two of our last seven home games,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You like to play the same way all the time. I don&rsquo;t think you should be changing your game be it at home or on the road.&rdquo;But it is only human for players, when playing at home, to feed off their fans&rsquo; enthusiasm and use it to inspire them to make great individual plays.&ldquo;I think sometimes players are more focused on the need to play as a team playing on the road,&rdquo; said Hawks&rsquo; coach Craig Hartsburg. &ldquo;I know that&rsquo;s true with our team.&rdquo;Flyers&rsquo; coach Terry Murray has another theory: the league-wide shift toward defensive play makes it easier for road teams to capitalize on the impatience of a home team that knows it must not only win, but entertain the crowd.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011589/6783412-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="970" height="2573"><figcaption class="caption-body">Nicklas Lidstrom Detroit Red Wings (Photo by Brian Winder/BBS)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;In Detroit, I think we have felt the pressure to put on a show instead of just being safe, dumping the puck out off the glass,&rdquo; agreed Wings&rsquo; defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom. Lidstrom said the Wings feel more comfortable at home, but that hasn&rsquo;t necessarily translated into greater success.According to Murray, today&rsquo;s huge salaries increase the pressure to score in front of a home crowd. So players gamble and take chances. The defensive schemes used by most NHL teams today are designed precisely to take advantage of turnovers that result from such impatience.Back in the 1980s. though, most teams were modeling their futures on the high-flying Edmonton Oilers. &ldquo;The only problem with that,&rdquo; Murray said,&rdquo;is they had a couple of guys nobody else could get their hands on.&rdquo; But if both teams in a game are trying to run-and-gun, the home team has the advantage of playing in supportive surroundings.Hartsburg feels there&rsquo;s little sense any more of a visiting team being in enemy territory until the post-season arrives.Intimidating buildings such as Chicago Stadium and Boston Garden are gone. And with so many teams and so many players who have been teammates at some point in their careers, players are starting to feel at home on the road.They may golf and train together in the summer, see each other at players&rsquo; association meetings and hockey schools, get traded for one another and make a convenient swap in living accommodations. There&rsquo;s less sense of being on rival turf when you&rsquo;re living in the rival&rsquo;s house. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s just not that feeling around the league until playoffs start that it&rsquo;s a war,&rdquo; Hartsburg said.It&rsquo;s a possibility. Or with Chicago, perhaps the answer is as simple as what you see is what you get. Tony Amonte, James Black, Enrico Ciccone and Jim Cummins all have hair down to their shoulders. They just look like roadies.<h2>Road to Success</h2>This year&rsquo;s road league-wide road winning mark would be the second-highest in at least 15 years if maintained the rest of the season. Listed here are the past 10 seasons, the top road team and NHL-wide road winning percentage. &#9632;

f0014-01

Road sweet road

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div>Scoring goals is a hoot&hellip;when your team is winning.So when Peter Bondra sat stonefaced in the visitor&rsquo;s dressing room at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim after scoring three goals Dec. 13, he was not dissatisfied with his own performance. Rather, his Washington Capitals had just suffered their fifth straight loss and Bondra was struggling to find any enjoyment in his personal success. He had done his job well, as usual, but it was not enough.&ldquo;When you score a hat trick you know you have made a contribution,&rdquo; Bondra said. &ldquo;But when your team loses the game, what do your goals mean? I want to be happy and that means our team has to win more.&rdquo;That, unfortunately for Bondra and the Capitals, has become an all-too-familiar scenario. The 2430-7 Capitals have been in a fight with the Ottawa Senators, Tampa Bay Lightning, Montreal Canadiens and Hartford Whalers for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference most of the season.If they don&rsquo;t make it, don&rsquo;t blame Bondra. Since the start of the 1994-95 season, only one player-Jaromir Jagr of the Pittsburgh Pen-guins-has scored more goals than the Capitals&rsquo; star right winger, 139 compared to 122.Jagr has a distinct advantage. The opposition can&rsquo;t afford to concentrate only on defending against him. The Penguins also have scoring stars Mario Lemieux, Petr Nedved and Ron Francis.The Capitals? Well, there&rsquo;s Joe Juneau. You know, the talented center who rarely shoots the puck. They also have Steve Konowalchuk. He was the Capitals&rsquo; second leading goal-scorer last season with 23-less than half the number of goals Bondra scored.Bondra&rsquo;s 52 goals in 1995-96 represented 27 per cent of the Capitals&rsquo; offense in games he played and led the NHL in that department for the second straight year. The year before, he topped the NHL, scoring 25 per cent of the Capitals&rsquo; goals in games he played.This season it&rsquo;s more of the same. Bondra continues to be Washington&rsquo;s only scoring threat.He had 36 goals in 57 games compared to Juneau, who was second with 14 goals in 44 games. The discrepancy, 22 goals, was the largest of any between teams&rsquo; first and second leading goal-scorers. (See pg. 36 for more on team scoring discrepancies.)<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011376/6783443-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="972" height="1969"><figcaption class="caption-body">Peter Bondra is second in NHL goals scored since 1994-95. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div>It&rsquo;s an old notion, but oh, so true: stop Peter Bondra and you stop the Washington Capitals.&ldquo;The amazing thing about Peter&rsquo;s success this year is he has done it virtually without a No. 1 line left winger,&rdquo; said Washington coach Jim Schoenfeld. &ldquo;Chris Simon would be his left winger, but he has been out for a month with a bad back. Even his center, Michal Pivonka, has been out for a couple of months, so on most nights it&rsquo;s Peter against the other team&rsquo;s top defensive pairing and top checking line.&rdquo;Over his first three years in the NHL, Bondra showed decent progress, scoring 12, 28 and 37 goals. Then, in 1993-94, he slipped to 24 in 69 games.&ldquo;I had a very disappointing year and I decided something had to change,&rdquo; Bondra said. &ldquo;I decided I needed to get stronger, especially in my upper body. Not to run over people, but to stay on my feet when I get hit and to help me get to where I want to be when I&rsquo;m carrying the puck.&rdquo;Getting stronger helped him take his scoring to the next level. (He scored at 60-goal paces the next two seasons). But his real strength is skating. Bondra won the fastest skater competition at the NHL All-Star Game in January. And even though the competition was a little watered down-defending champion Mike Gartner wasn&rsquo;t present and speedster Paul Coffey declined to participate-it was a good indicator of how fast Bondra is.&ldquo;Speed is his greatest asset,&rdquo; Schoenfeld said. &ldquo;When he&rsquo;s going, he&rsquo;s as exciting a player to watch as there is in the league. And he&rsquo;s very difficult to defend. Defensemen are forced to back up or they risk getting burned. When they back up, he has such a quick release, he can beat them with his shot. He&rsquo;s the complete scoring machine.&rdquo;Schoenfeld said he has to be conscious of not overplaying Bondra for fear of wearing him out, but likes to use him when the Capitals are a man short. Bondra had already equaled last year&rsquo;s total of four shorthanded goals. Bondra said the situation in the game dictates his approach.&ldquo;If we&rsquo;re down a goal or two, you look for the opportunity to bum the other team&rsquo;s defensemen,&rdquo; Bondra said. &ldquo;If their defenseman makes a mistake, you have to punish him. On the other hand, you have to remember why you are out there-to kill the penalty.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0016-01

Bondra vs. the world

<div class="byline">By Robyn Norwood</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011231/6783474-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="160" height="161"></div>The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim&rsquo;s playoff hopes got a boost when GM Jack Ferreira patched a tattered defense by trading for veteran J.J. Daigneault.Two games later, they took a blow when Daigneault was handed a 10-game suspension for slashing referee Don Koharski Feb. 23.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just very disappointing for me,&rdquo; Daigneault said. &ldquo;I just got here and I wanted to help the team so much and contribute. I don&rsquo;t think I had any intent to strike the official.&rdquo;The length of the suspension was determined by the NHL rule that calls for an automatic 10 games if a player &ldquo;deliberately applies physical force to an official&hellip;without intent to injure.&rdquo;&ldquo;Although the initial slash by Mr. Daigneault appeared to be reactionary after the collision with referee Koharski, the contact was serious enough to warrant a suspension,&rdquo; said NHL senior vice-president Brian Burke. &ldquo;The second slash, although there was no contact made, was clearly deliberate.&rdquo;Daigneault would have gotten 20 games if Burke felt there were intent to injure.&ldquo;You wonder if the punishment fits the crime, when what may have been accidental contact with a ref is punishable by 10 games,&rdquo; said defenseman Ken Baumgartner, vice-president of the NHL Players&rsquo; Association. &ldquo;You get an incident where a player goes crazy and throws a linesman around in an altercation and it often goes unpunished.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Right winger Jari Kurri scored his 593rd NHL goal Feb. 23 and needed only seven to become the eighth NHL player to score 600. But the goal was only Kurri&rsquo;s 10th this season, so it might prove difficult to reach the 600-goal mark this season. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how many games I have left to do that,&rdquo; said Kurri, who turns 37 in May, but wants to play one more season. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to push, push, push to get that done.&rdquo;&hellip;Center Kevin Todd broke a 27-game goal drought Feb. 23. &ldquo;It was a big relief,&rdquo; said Todd, who had a dollar bill taped into the handle of his stick as encouragement from his wife, Dana. &ldquo;She told me to wrap it up and put it in my hand, kind of to take my mind off it. Maybe you can buy one.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0017-01

Daigneault gets 10 games for slash on ref Koharski

<div class="byline">By Mike Loftus</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03671/6783505-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="573" height="903"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bill Ranford</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02929/6783512-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="160" height="158"></div>Adam Oates may be going, Rick Tocchet too. But recent evidence suggests Bill Ranford has come back.Boston&rsquo;s No. 1 goalie played his sixth straight game Feb. 27 after missing 20 with a shoulder injury caused by a cyst on his back, but Ranford&rsquo;s 28-save performance in a 6-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning was only the second in which he truly looked like his old self.&ldquo;In the last half of the Washington game (3-3 tie against the Capitals Feb. 24), I started to react to the puck a little better,&rdquo; said Ranford, who halted an 06-1 slide against Tampa Bay with his first win since blanking the Lightning 3-0 Dec. 19. &ldquo;Still, there are plenty of things I&rsquo;m rusty at-handling the puck, moving with the puck, making proper decisions. You&rsquo;ve got to do those things without thinking.&rdquo;Ranford, who signed a contract extension through 1999-2000 just after he got hurt, felt anyone who thought he could turn Boston&rsquo;s season around upon his return was not realistic.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure people realize how difficult it is to come back,&rdquo; Ranford said. &ldquo;I had about four days of full practice before I played and there are things you just don&rsquo;t see in practice like traffic or those bang-bang plays in front of the net.&rdquo;Ranford anticipates off-season surgery to remove the cyst that caused ms problems. It was drained in January to alleviate pressure on nerves which caused him pain and weakness in his left shoulder.NOTEBOOK: Center Adam Oates, cheered during every shift in his first FleetCenter appearance since criticizing Bruins&rsquo; management Feb. 18 in Colorado, responded with three assists to help the Bruins beat Tampa Bay 6-2 to halt an 0-8-2 skid. &ldquo;I was nervous,&rdquo; Oates said. &ldquo;It was a different feeling. Kind of like opening-night jitters-or closing night.&rdquo; Oates and right winger Rick Tocchet, who can become an unrestricted free agent in the off-season, both expect to be traded before the March 18 deadline&hellip;Right winger Steve Heinze, who had 17 goals in 30 games before suffering knee and abdominal injuries Dec. 17, was to learn March 4 if he needed season-ending surgery&hellip;The Bruins were scheduled to face the Islanders four times in March. &#9632;

f0017-03

Slow return for Ranford

<div class="byline">By Jim Kelley</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-04491/6783543-1-eng-US/f0017-042.jpg" title="f0017-04" width="162" height="162"></div>Wayne Primeau plays a near regular shift with the Buffalo Sabres, but the first round pick in the 1994 entry draft believes his real time in the NHL is still coming.He&rsquo;s not alone.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good kid,&rdquo; said assistant coach Paul Theriault of the Sabres&rsquo; No. 4 center. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s willing to put the effort in on the fundamentals he needs to be a player. This kid has got it. It&rsquo;s just going to take a little time.&rdquo;&ldquo;You can just tell with some people. I know his family too, they&rsquo;re a hard working bunch. He&rsquo;ll be OK.&rdquo;Not everyone else is so sure. They look to Primeau and wonder why, in 1997, he&rsquo;s still such a long way away from making a real contribution when they were always told he was just around the comer.Last year, Primeau was the Sabres&rsquo; top prospect and the 20th best player outside the NHL, according to The Hockey News&rsquo; Future Watch. This year, he was the Sabres&rsquo; third-best and the 38th-ranked player outside the NHL.It was always Primeau who was coming-Primeau and Curtis Brown or Primeau and Rumun Ndur. Primeau was always the first name in the bigger, stronger, faster speeches that started the day the Sabres were eliminated from the 1995 playoffs in five games.His critics argue he was up with the Sabres because of those promises and he should really be back with the Rochester Americans of the American League with Brown and Ndur, learning his craft.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had expectations on me all my life,&rdquo; Primeau said. &ldquo;My brother (Keith) is in the NHL (with the Hartford Whalers), so that&rsquo;s a big part of it, but I put pressure on myself, too. People expect me to make it and I hope to prove people wrong. It&rsquo;s different with a guy my size (6-foot-3). My brother went through the same thing when he was my age. It does take a little time.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Sabres&rsquo; 12-game unbeaten streak, third longest in franchise history, came to an end Feb. 27 in New Jersey. The Devils, who had a 13-game unbeaten streak end earlier in the week, beat the Sabres 4-1 in New Jersey. The end came hard for the Sabres, who were without injured defensemen Richard Smehlik and Garry Galley. It was the Sabres&rsquo; first loss in more than a month, with the bulk of the games played at Marine Midland Arena in Buffalo&hellip;Right winger Donald Audette is not a big fan of the league&rsquo;s tight policy on crease calls. Audette lost two goals in one game because a member of the Sabres was ruled to be in the crease and figures he had lost five goals this season. &#9632;

f0017-04

Primeau up, but still not near prime

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011167/6783574-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="158" height="158"></div>It has been an uneven season for Calgary Flames&rsquo; captain Theo Fleury, with a tew isolated highs and a series of uncharacteristic lows.The latest manifestation of Fleury&rsquo;s struggles was a season-high 11-game goal-scoring slump that began Feb. 5 and was still active as of Feb. 27.Things got so bad Flames&rsquo; coach Pierre Page benched Fleury for the second half of the second period of a 5-2 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes Feb. 26. Fleury missed 11 shifts in all and one time-when he jumped off the bench to go on the ice with his regular line-mates-was called back to the bench by Page.En route, Fleury smashed his stick against the boards and broke it. With less than a minute to go in the period, after Jamie Huscroft received an instigating minor, Fleury went to the penalty box to serve the two-minute infraction. Afterwards, Fleury said he did it on his own initiative, not under orders from the coaching staff.Both Fleury and Page downplayed the benching. Fleury acknowledged his play up to that point in the game had been &ldquo;awful&rdquo; and said: &ldquo;I have to look at myself in the mirror and be better. When the puck is not following you around, you have to go get it.&rdquo;Page said the move was a wake-up call for the rest of the team. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sending a message to them,&rdquo; Page said. &ldquo;We keep asking the same guys to make a difference.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Coach Pierre Page finally vented his frustration at the team&rsquo;s travel schedule, calling it,&rdquo;the worst in the league. I think the organization has to face it. It&rsquo;s totally inconsiderate for the demands of the game. It&rsquo;s twofold. The travel is bad and we have to prepare ourselves better.&rdquo;&hellip;Center Aaron Gavey was admitted to hospital Feb. 27 for precautionary reasons. on the fears he had suffered an attack of appendicitis. There was no immediate word on how many games, if any, he&rsquo;d miss&hellip;Right winger Sandy McCarthy set a target date of either March 7 against Florida or March 9 against Tampa Bay for his return after having been limited to just 17 games this season because of a recurring left ankle injury. &#9632;

f0019-01

Page sends wake-up call by sitting slumping Fleury

<div class="byline">By Adrian Dater</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-03556/6783605-1-eng-US/f0019-032.jpg" title="f0019-03" width="575" height="892"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Ricci</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02841/6783612-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="159" height="155"></div>For once there are stories in the Denver newspapers about Mike Ricci that don&rsquo;t have to to with his grunge hairdo, his teeth (or lack thereof) or how cute teenage girls think he is.The most appropriate thing written about Ricci recently surrounded what good hockey he was playing for the Colorado Avalanche.Since the Avs moved from Quebec to Denver, Ricci has endured lots of personal frustration. Whether it was his ailing back or goalies making spectacular saves on him, nothing much went right for Ricci.Ricci salvaged an otherwise bad 1995-96 season with a solid playoff performance in the Avs&rsquo; Stanley Cup run, but ran into the same problems the first half of the 1996-97 season.His numbers were down and he was spending time on the injured list again. So the Avalanche training staff put Ricci on a new strength and conditioning program. The result: Ricci looks strong again on the ice. The 25-year-old center hit the double-figure mark in goals for the first time since coming to Colorado with his 10th goal Feb. 28 against the Dallas Stars.Ricci scored two goals, including the game-winner in overtime, in the Avalanche&rsquo;s 4-3 victory over the Edmonton Oilers Feb. 21.On the winner, he held his ground in the slot with Rem Murray leaning on his back.&ldquo;I feel stronger out there and things are going better,&rdquo; Ricci said. &ldquo;It feels good to contribute.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Uwe Krupp missed his fourth straight game Feb. 28 with tendinitis in his left elbow&hellip;Since they both came back from injuries, centers Peter Forsberg and Joe Sakic combined for two goals in 19 games. Forsberg had just two goals in his previous 25 games. Before they were hurt, they challenged for the league scoring title&hellip;The day their first child, Christopher, was bom, right winger Yves Sarault and his wife, Rhonda, had their house flooded by more than 12,000 gallons of water from a broken washing machine after they rushed to the hospital for the birth&hellip;Goalie Patrick Roy paid $15,000 for an autographed Michael Jordan jersey at a recent Denver charity dinner/auction. &#9632;

f0019-03

Ricci comes on stronger

<div class="byline">By Tim Sassone</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-04432/6783643-1-eng-US/f0019-042.jpg" title="f0019-04" width="159" height="157"></div>Talk about bad luck.Jeff Shantz was playing the best hockey of his brief career for the Chicago Blackhawks when the 23-year-old center suffered a sprained left knee Feb. 25 against the Dallas Stars.Shantz, who was injured on a hit by Stars&rsquo; left winger Bill Huard, was expected to be out anywhere from two to six weeks.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s disappointing, but what can you do?&rdquo; Shantz said.The Hawks are going to miss Shantz, who was finally showing he could produce some decent offensive numbers in the NHL after a so-so first 3-1/2 seasons in the league.Starting in late-January, Shantz had 11 points in a 13-game stretch. Shantz, picked 36th overall in the 1992 entry draft, had only 54 points in his first 175 games.&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;m playing more now like I did in junior when I was drafted,&rdquo; said Shantz before his injury. &ldquo;This is how I used to play.&rdquo;Coach Craig Hartsburg saw enough good things from Shantz to put a goal-scorer such as Eric Daze at right wing on his line. That&rsquo;s something Hartsburg wouldn&rsquo;t have dreamed of doing as recently as several months ago.&ldquo;His confidence with the puck and physically is a lot better than I&rsquo;ve ever seen it,&rdquo; Hartsburg said. &ldquo;You can see him take it and try and beat guys wide now. He&rsquo;s looking to beat people now when earlier he would just get rid of it.&rdquo;Shantz registered back-to-back seasons of 89 and 83 points for the Regina Pats in the Western League. He was used mainly as a penalty killer and fourth-liner during his first three seasons in Chicago.&ldquo;Hartsy has shown a lot of confidence in me and it&rsquo;s easier when people show confidence in you,&rdquo; Shantz said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m feeling a lot better than before, but it&rsquo;s a tough thing to explain. When I get the puck now, I feel I can do something with it.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: No team in the NHL had a greater disparity between the times it was shorthanded and times it was on the power play than the Hawks. They were shorthanded 60 more times than on the power play through Feb. 25. &ldquo;I actually expect it now,&rdquo; said coach Craig Hartsburg. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no sense griping about it. We just have to deal with it.&rdquo; Said left winger Tony Amonte: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the curse of the Hawks.&rdquo;&hellip;Defenseman Steve Smith was close to being cleared to play, but Hartsburg wasn&rsquo;t sure where he&rsquo;d fit in. Smith missed 36 of 38 games with his back problem&hellip;The Hawks were said to have an interest in Calgary center Dave Gagner and Boston center Adam Oates. &#9632;

f0019-04

Knee ailment puts Shantz on sidelines

<div class="byline">By Mike Heika</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011052/6783674-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="160" height="159"></div>The numbers still don&rsquo;t paint Mike Modano as the superstar the Stars were hoping he would become.He was 23rd in NHL scoring and wasn&rsquo;t close to the 50-goal, 100-point season he routinely sets as his own expectation.But Modano has contributed to numbers that are much more important than goals and assists. He has become a consistent force both offensively and defensively. And through a season that has had its share of injuries, he has been one of the true constants in the team&rsquo;s success.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s two different players now,&rdquo; said Stars&rsquo; coach Ken Hitchcock. &ldquo;He has his speed and he still plays a finesse game, but he also brings some grit to the team. It&rsquo;s a sign of his maturity that he&rsquo;s adjusting his game to the game that&rsquo;s out on the ice.&rdquo;Modano missed just one game this season due to injury and that broke a 119-game consecutive games streak. While at various times, the team has been without Joe Nieuwendyk, Greg Adams, Jere Lehtinen and Derian Hatcher, it has come to rely on Modano.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s just playing a real consistent game out there,&rdquo; said Brent Gilchrist, who played on Modano&rsquo;s left wing during the two-month absence of Adams with a neck injury. &ldquo;You just come to expect that he&rsquo;s going to be good every night.&rdquo;Which wasn&rsquo;t always a given in the past. &ldquo;I think the World Cup helped a lot,&rdquo; Modano said. &ldquo;It was a humbling experience to see the greatest players in the world and just how hard they worked, despite all their talent.&rdquo;Modano&rsquo;s hard work has paid off in a few key numbers, the least of which were his 26 goals and 59 points in 62 games. But he was plus-28 after recording a minus-12 last season.He also had nine game-winners to lead the NHL and had assisted on nine other game-winners.NOTEBOOK: Dallas had to deal with a rash of minor injuries in late-February. Along with the longer-term problems of right winger Jere Lehtinen (sprained knee) and left winger Greg Adams (neck spasms), defenseman Richard Matvichuk pulled a groin, defenseman Craig Ludwig developed a hip flexor injury and left winger Benoit Hogue had fluid on his elbow. The Stars were without all five in a 1-0 win over Chicago and a 6-2 win over Colorado Feb. 27&hellip;The Stars broke the franchise record for road wins (set in 199394) with their 20th on Feb. 27&hellip;The Stars were 4-8-2 at home at one point this season and had coach Ken Hitchcock seriously worried. Since the all-star break, they were 7-1-0 at Reunion Arena. &#9632;

f0020-01

Modano finally force at both ends

<div class="byline">By Cynthia Lambert</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02702/6783705-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="161" height="160"></div>When Mike Ramsey got the call from Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; coach Scotty Bowman early in February, he thought it was a joke.&ldquo;All I could think about was the Chevy Chase movie, Summer Vacation, where he jumps into the cold pool and just keeps saying, &lsquo;This is crazy, this is crazy.&rsquo;&rdquo;But once reality set in, the 36-year-old Ramsey figured, why not?&ldquo;Scotty caught me off guard a little bit,&rdquo; Ramsey said. &ldquo;I said yes because it&rsquo;s a unique opportunity for me. But I&rsquo;m telling you, when I retired last spring, I fully intended on staying retired.&rdquo;Ramsey, who left the game at the end of last season after 16 mostly stellar years (the last two with Detroit), was running a sporting goods store in suburban Minneapolis. He had been skating on a senior league team twice a week.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not worried about my competitiveness,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The question is, will I be able to compete the way I want to compete?&rdquo;Ramsey began practising Feb. 25 and is targeting March 19 as a return date. If, however, after three weeks of practice, Ramsey or the team believes he can&rsquo;t return to productive playing, he will merely go home. If he sticks, he will make $150,000 for the balance of the season and playoffs.&ldquo;Physically I knew I couldn&rsquo;t and didn&rsquo;t want to play an 80-game schedule,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But this is unique and that&rsquo;s why it excites me.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Center Steve Yzerman was highly critical of referee Rob Shick after a 2-2 tie in St. Louis Feb. 22. &ldquo;I understand that refereeing is a difficult job. And I always thought Rob Shick was a good referee,&rdquo; Yzerman said. &ldquo;After the game I went up to him and told him he did a disgraceful job. And it was.&rdquo; NHL vice-president Brian Burke hadn&rsquo;t reviewed the comments as of Feb. 28, but said he would welcome a conversation with Yzerman on officiating. &ldquo;Steve is a classy guy and a good player,&rdquo; Burke said. &ldquo;If he wants to call and talk about things. I would definitely listen to what he had to say.&rdquo;&hellip;After returning from his hamstring injury, goalie Chris Osgood was 5-1-0. That followed a 1-3-1 record preceding his ailment. &#9632;

f0020-02

Unique offer from Detroit entices Ramsey comeback

<div class="byline">By Dave Joseph</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-04298/6783736-1-eng-US/f0020-042.jpg" title="f0020-04" width="577" height="896"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ray Sheppard</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03472/6783743-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="161" height="157"></div>Just how itchy was Bryan Murray&rsquo;s trigger finger?With the trade deadline fast approaching, the Florida Panthers&rsquo; GM was in a quandary. Should he stick with the same players that took the team to the Stanley Cup final last season or roll the dice to get offensive help?The smart money says Murray gambles.After bowing out of the Paul Coffey sweepstakes earlier this season and being unable to swing a deal for Doug Gilmour, Murray was still searching for help. Disgruntled Boston Bruins&rsquo; center Adam Oates is likely at the top of Murray&rsquo;s list. But for what price?&ldquo;If someone asks for our top one, two or three players, we&rsquo;re not going to make a deal,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;But if someone says a draft pick, young prospect or someone we can play without&hellip;we owe it to our veteran guys to give them the best chance to win.&rdquo;Murray had discussions with the Toronto Maple Leafs about Gilmour, but the Leafs obviously decided the package the New Jersey Devils offered was sweeter.&ldquo;The dilemma we have is we haven&rsquo;t acquired assets like, say, the (Colorado) Avalanche or the Devils,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been able to stockpile over the years. It&rsquo;s harder for the Panthers to give up draft picks because we&rsquo;re a young franchise.&ldquo;But we want to give our players the best possible chance to win now and take that next step. We&rsquo;ll continue having conversations with a variety of people.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: February has never been kind to the Panthers. The franchise has never had a winning record during the month and ended February this season 3-55&hellip;The Panthers snapped a six-game winless streak (0-4-2) Feb. 27 with a 3-2 overtime victory over St. Louis. Center Rob Niedermayer scored the game winner&hellip;Right winger Ray Sheppard returned Feb. 27 after missing 12 games with a knee injury. The Panthers were 2-5-5 during Sheppard&rsquo;s absence. Sheppard celebrated his return by scoring his 21st goal of the season&hellip;Goalie Mark Fitzpatrick had allowed only 10 goals in a six-game span, but the Panthers scored just eight goals in those games&hellip;The Panthers led the league in ties with 15. &#9632;

f0020-04

Does Murray feel lucky?

<div class="byline">By Dan Barnes</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-05163/6783774-1-eng-US/f0020-052.jpg" title="f0020-05" width="161" height="159"></div>The Edmonton Oilers say they can play with the big boys in the Western Conference.The numbers say they can&rsquo;t.The Oilers were 0-8-2 against the Colorado Avalanche, Detroit Red Wings and Dallas Stars and outscored 48-20 by the three teams ahead of them in the west. Meanwhile, they were 1-2-0 against the St. Louis Blues, who were battling Edmonton for the fourth seed.The Oilers were 0-4-1 against the Avs, 0-2-1 against the Wings and 0-20 against the Stars. They were scheduled to meet Detroit and St. Louis once more each and play two more games against Dallas.The numbers looked bad and in some games against their top competition in the conference the Oilers have looked awful, beaten 7-3 and 6-1 by Dallas.In others, particularly against Colorado, the Oilers came close. They lost the last game of the five-game series in overtime after Joe Sakic scored the equalizer with just one second left in the third period.&ldquo;To lose it like that, it&rsquo;s tough to deal with,&rdquo; said center Rem Murray,&rdquo;but at least we know we can compete with them if we ever meet up with them again. Hopefully we&rsquo;ll get another shot.&rdquo;Coach Ron Low said he wouldn&rsquo;t be afraid to match up with the defending Stanley Cup champs in the playoffs.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t care about meeting anybody in a seven-game series. It wouldn&rsquo;t bother me to play Colorado in a seven-game series. I just want to play a seven-game series.&rdquo;Many of the games against the top three were chock full of playoff intensity and the Oilers maintain they are learning what it takes to be successful in the post-season because of games like that.&ldquo;Kevin Lowe said it after the (overtime loss to Colorado). &lsquo;That&rsquo;s playoff hockey, taking punches in the head, turning the other cheek,&rsquo;&rdquo; said blueliner Jeff Norton. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s lessons learned.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Oilers lost right David Oliver on waivers to the Rangers Feb. 22&hellip;When injuries started to finally take their toll in February, the Oilers&rsquo; lineup included six rookies, including three on defense: Sean Brown. Dan McGillis and Greg de Vries. The forwards were Mike Grier, Rem Murray and Mats Lindgren&hellip;For the third time this year, left winger Ryan Smyth went six games without a goal. With 27, he was second to right winger Andrei Kovalenko (29) in team goals&hellip;Lindgren has been scouted by Swedish hockey executives looking at candidates for their 1997 World Championship and 1998 Winter Olympics teams. Lindgren will play at this year&rsquo;s worlds if the Oilers are an early playoff casualty. &#9632;

f0020-05

Edmonton can’t beat best of west

<div class="byline">By Jerry Higgins</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01823/6783805-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="163" height="160"></div>When the season started, Kent Manderville didn&rsquo;t know if he&rsquo;d be playing in the NHL. His contract was bought out last summer by the Edmonton Oilers and he had all the makings of another &ldquo;high draft pick goes sour&rdquo; story.By late-February, he was playing a vital role in trying to get the Hartford Whalers into the playoffs for the first time since 1991-92.Manderville, 26, was doing what he does best. He&rsquo;s not a big goal-scorer, but he&rsquo;s a defensive demon and effective penalty killer. He was playing desperate hockey and, in his case, it led to productive hockey. Coach Paul Maurice couldn&rsquo;t take him out of the lineup, even though he had only two goals and six points in 23 games.&ldquo;I worry about that every game and I&rsquo;m playing with that fear,&rdquo; said Manderville, who was recalled in December after 23 games with the Springfield Falcons of the American League. &ldquo;There are sleepless nights, but on the ice I guess I have that little extra spark.&rdquo;Manderville, a second round draft pick of the Calgary Flames in 1989, knows his job description can change at any time with the Whalers. He can play a wing as well as center, which he did in a 2-2 tie with the Chicago Blackhawks Feb. 26. He scored a goal, killed penalties and was named the game&rsquo;s No. 1 star.&ldquo;I am very happy with the way Kent Manderville is playing,&rdquo; Maurice said. &ldquo;He has something to offer us.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Versatile center Kent Manderville&rsquo;s play kept center Mark Janssens and right winger Robert Kron in the press box when they were ready to return after a month on the sideline with knee injuries. However, right winger Sami Kapanen re-injured his left knee Feb. 26 when he was accidentally hit by the helmet of Chicago defenseman Eric Weinrich, who was knocked to the ice by Hartford center Jeff O&rsquo;Neill&hellip;The Whalers started an important seven-game homestand on the right foot, going 2-0-1 in the first three games. Seven players scored in a 7-2 win over the Rangers Feb. 21 and goaltender Sean Burke stopped 28 shots in a 2-0 win over Washington Feb. 22. Kapanen had both goals. &#9632;

f0021-01

Desperate hockey makes Manderville key Whaler

<div class="byline">By Helene Elliott</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-03253/6783836-1-eng-US/f0021-032.jpg" title="f0021-03" width="573" height="897"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stephane Fiset</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02451/6783843-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="163" height="158"></div>Advice wasn&rsquo;t listed on the menu when Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; goalie Stephane Fiset and goalie coach Don Edwards sat down for a friendly lunch one day in Calgary, but the words of wisdom Edwards served were worth the price of a filet mignon.Edwards told Fiset, who had struggled with his confidence and his technique at various times this season, he was staying back in his net too far and should be more aggressive. Fiset agreed and by making some adjustments, helped put the Kings back into the Western Conference playoff race.In a 10-game stretch that began Feb. 3, Fiset stopped 305 of 324 shots (a 94.1 save percentage) and recorded a 1.88 goals-against average. That included a 4-0 victory over the Vancouver Canucks, his third shutout this season and ninth of his career.Fiset praised his teammates&rsquo; defensive play, especially for reducing the number of shots he faces each game.&ldquo;I feel just great right now,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I try to keep the team in the game and make the big save. It&rsquo;s very important for the goalie, me or Byron (Dafoe) to make the big save and give confidence to the players.&rdquo;A 6-3 victory over the Edmonton Oilers Feb. 27 gave him confidence the Kings can make up ground and finish in the top eight. They stood three points form the final playoff berth through Feb. 27. &ldquo;It makes the job easier when we score lots of goals,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If we keep playing like this we&rsquo;re going to be in good shape.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Kings lost center Yanic Perreault for the rest of the season when an MRI on his bruised ribs revealed a congenital kidney obstruction that requires surgery. Dr. Lawrence Paletz said it would be necessary to remove the obstruction to ensure the kidney would not die. Perreault, who was to undergo the procedure March 7, is expected to make a full recovery and return next season&hellip;Defenseman Rob Blake was on the sidelines again, this time with tendinitis in his left knee. He was out on a day-to-day basis&hellip;Until center Ed Olczyk scored against Edmonton Feb. 27, the Kings were the only team without a 20-goal scorer&hellip;The Kings killed 28 consecutive penalties and 57 of 60 before Edmonton&rsquo;s connected during a 5-on-3 advantage Feb. 27. &#9632;

f0021-03

Fiset sizzles at right time

<div class="byline">By Herb Zurkowsky</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01954/6783874-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="162" height="161"></div>Through all the injuries, losing streaks and inferior play, at least the Montreal Canadiens had each other.But perhaps no more.The Canadiens were a team in turmoil and disarray heading into the final 20 games of the regular season. Teammates were beginning to criticize each other with more frequency.It began with Turner Stevenson, who said: &ldquo;Some guys don&rsquo;t come to play.&rdquo;And then, following an embarrassing 5-1 loss on home ice to the Toronto Maple Leafs, Mark Recchi said: &ldquo;Nobody cares. We don&rsquo;t have enough guys who care about winning. I don&rsquo;t care if you don&rsquo;t feel good, you&rsquo;ve got to play hard.&rdquo;While both Stevenson and Recchi avoided criticizing specific players, it was becoming obvious that a chasm exists on this team.&ldquo;We all get along outside the rink,&rdquo; said Brian Savage. &ldquo;Obviously, there are times when there are tensions between players. That&rsquo;s part of being a team. Even if you don&rsquo;t get along with a guy off the ice, you still have to be best friends on the ice.&rdquo;Earlier this season, there were anonymous quotes from players criticizing coaches and teammates. At one point, the players reportedly had no confidence in assistant coach Yvan Cournoyer, who no longer is behind the bench during games and has taken on more scouting assignments. At another, it was the goaltending tandem of Jocelyn Thibault and Pat Jablonski that came under fire. The Canadiens got rid of Jablonski, replacing him with rookie Jose Theodore.As the Canadiens embarked on a three-game Western Canada road trip, they were clinging to the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Montreal was seven games below.500.&ldquo;Our situation is critical right now,&rdquo; admitted captain Vincent Damphousse. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure we all understand the situation we&rsquo;re in and I don&rsquo;t know why that&rsquo;s the case. Off the ice, there are no problems. But on the ice, we&rsquo;re not playing as a team.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Despite claims by Montreal GM Rejean Houle that he wasn&rsquo;t actively pursuing trades, there continued to be numerous rumors surrounding the team. It was speculated the Canadiens were talking with the Rangers about backup goaltender Glenn Healy and left winger Luc Robitaille. Among the players New York covets is power forward left winger Shayne Corson&hellip;Center Vincent Damphousse recorded his 500th career assist on a goal by defenseman Jassen Cullimore against Vancouver Feb. 25. Damphousse scored his 300th career goal earlier this season&hellip;Toronto talked to the Canadiens about acquiring goalie Pat Jablonski, who cleared waivers Feb. 4 and was sent home, but remains Montreal property until the end of the season. The Leafs were willing to part with minorleague goalie Don Beaupre. They wanted Jablonski for their American League affiliate in St. John&rsquo;s, although Jablonski has said he has no desire to play in the minors. &#9632;

f0022-01

Team besieged with bitter turmoil turns sniping power on each other

<div class="byline">By Rich Chere</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02656/6783905-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="161" height="159"></div>Dave Ellett never minded being labeled the &ldquo;throw-in&rdquo; to the Doug Gilmour trade.In fact, the veteran defenseman was able to joke about it.&ldquo;(Gilmour) was the throw-in, not me,&rdquo; Ellett said before collecting three points in his first two games with the New Jersey Devils, including the winning goal on the power play against the Buffalo Sabres Feb. 27.There was no doubt as to what the deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs was all about, but in acquiring Ellett along with Gilmour, the Devils may have received more than GM Lou Lamoriello bargained for.&ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s going to help a lot,&rdquo; said coach Jacques Lemaire. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s smooth, he has experience and he has a good shot. He moves the puck to the right people. We play a simple game and he finds it easy to play.&rdquo;&ldquo;The change of scene is exactly what I needed,&rdquo; said the 32-year-old Ellett. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m really looking forward to this.&rdquo;While the NHL waited to see whether Gilmour would be traded to New Jersey, the Florida Panthers or Philadelphia Flyers, Ellett quietly pondered his own future. An unrestricted free agent after this season, he suspected his time with the Leafs was also nearing its end.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t really know I was part of the trade until a couple of days before it happened,&rdquo; Ellett said of the deal which sent him and Gilmour to the Devils for defenseman Jason Smith, center Steve Sullivan and prospect Alyn McCauley. &ldquo;But I felt there was probably a good chance I&rsquo;d be traded at some point of the season because of my contract situation.&rdquo;Ellett said he&rsquo;s not going to let his uncertain status interfere with his commitment to winning.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just glad to be here,&rdquo; Ellett said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a thing 4-1/2 feet high called the Stanley Cup. Obviously, nothing is guaranteed or easy, but I look at this lineup as the best team I&rsquo;ve been associated with as far as having a chance to win a Stanley Cup.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The addition of center Doug Gilmour and Bobby Carpenter&rsquo;s return from a strained neck left coach Jacques Lemaire with too many centers. The odd man out most nights figured to be center Peter Zezel, but Lemaire said he&rsquo;ll insert him into the lineup and rest Carpenter when the team plays on back-to-back nights&hellip;GM Lou Lamoriello. who dislikes high numbers, asked Gilmour to wear uniform No. 9, but respected the center&rsquo;s wishes and broke club policy when Gilmour asked for No. 93, the number he wore with Toronto&hellip;Right winger John MacLean scored the team&rsquo;s first goal on a penalty shot in a 4-1 win over Buffalo Feb. 27 since Doug Brown on Nov. 23, 1991&hellip;Goaltender Mike Dunham&rsquo;s 35.7-second appearance in Tampa Feb. 22 gave him 19 of a targeted 25 appearances this season. If Dunham doesn&rsquo;t reach that mark, he will become an unrestricted free agent&hellip;The Devils&rsquo; unbeaten streak ended at 13 games (6-0-7) with a 3-1 loss against the Lightning Feb. 22. &#9632;

f0022-02

Newcomer Ellett more than happy to be ‘other’ guy in Gilmour trade

<div class="byline">By Jim Smith</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01845/6783936-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="160" height="159"></div>Rich Pilon is one-quarter Cree Indian and usually goes by the nickname Chief. After he scored his sixth goal in nine seasons on a right-circle snap shot, however, his New York Islander teammates kiddingly began calling him &ldquo;Moose&rdquo;-Mark Messier&rsquo;s nickname.The surprise shot beat Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; goalie Patrick Lalime high on the far side in the first period of a 4-1 Islanders&rsquo; victory at Nassau Coliseum Feb. 23. It was Pilon&rsquo;s 355th career game.Pilon also held Mario Lemieux to one assist, was plus-2, fought with Penguins&rsquo; left winger Dave Roche and broke the nose of ex-teammate Darius Kasparaitis by ramming him face-first into the ice with an unpenalized check.&ldquo;Very few players come to the game with the intensity Richie brings,&rdquo; said coach Rick Bowness. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a mean player, one of the meanest in the league. And he&rsquo;ll play his game against anybody in the league. Lots of guys are tough at home, but Richie will play the same way, no matter who we&rsquo;re playing against or where we&rsquo;re playing.&rdquo;On what might have been Lemieux&rsquo;s last shift in a Coliseum game before his expected retirement this summer, Pilon said he apologized for the Jan. 10 stickswinging incident with the Penguins&rsquo; captain for which Pilon drew a two-game suspension.&ldquo;I said, &lsquo;No hard feelings over the high stick,&rsquo;&rdquo; Pilon said. &ldquo;He said, &lsquo;It&rsquo;s OK. It was my fault, too.&rsquo;&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Dennis Vaske, recovering from a second concussion in 12 months, practised for the first time in three months Feb. 25&hellip;GM Mike Milbury said the club&rsquo;s play in a five-game span ending March 2 would determine whether he will go for a playoff spot or start trading veterans and give up the hunt&hellip;After center Derek Armstrong was demoted to Utah of the International League, coach Rick Bowness used Dan Plante as a fourth line center&hellip;The club&rsquo;s $165-million transfer of ownership and cable television rights from John O. Pickett to John Spano was unanimously approved by the NHL board of governors. Spano indicated he is also buying out the 10 percent share of minority investors who had run the team the past 3-1/2 years. &#9632;

f0023-01

Pilon scores like Messier, makes nice with Lemieux

<div class="byline">By Chris Stevenson</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-03374/6783967-1-eng-US/f0023-032.jpg" title="f0023-03" width="571" height="895"><figcaption class="caption-body">Damian Rhodes</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02538/6783974-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="161" height="158"></div>The Ottawa Senators&rsquo; first playoff drive was hitting more than its share of potholes.After a decent run which had seen them pull into a tie for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, the Senators&rsquo; inexperience came to the fore as they blew several late leads.Against the Colorado Avalanche Feb. 23, the defending Stanley Cup champs scored three goals in less than 2-1/2 minutes to hand Ottawa a crucial 4-3 loss. Three nights later, the Senators had a 5-4 lead over the Philadelphia Flyers, but gave up four unanswered goals in an 8-5 loss.&ldquo;I think there&rsquo;s a good lesson to be learned from losing to a team like the Avalanche,&rdquo; said captain Randy Cun-neyworth. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it was one or two guys. It was a handful of guys who didn&rsquo;t know how to handle (the pressure).&rdquo;Both of the tough losses against elite teams came without No. 1 goaltender Damian Rhodes. He was forced to leave the Colorado game after taking a shot on a tendon in his lower leg. Ron Tugnutt came on for the third, but could only be blamed on one of the goals. He started against the Flyers, but was pulled in favor of Mike Bales after allowing four goals on 10 shots in the first period.The injury to Rhodes came at a time when he was playing his most consistent hockey of the season. Rhodes was expected to miss a couple more games before returning for the Senators&rsquo; west coast swing, which starts in Anaheim March 5.NOTEBOOK: Left winger Dennis Vial suffered a setback in his recovery from a broken right ring finger. The pins had to be removed after the finger became infected and Vial is now not expected back until late-March&hellip;Defenseman Sean Hill began skating as he works on coming back from a tom anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Hill, who has been out since midOctober, could return for the playoffs if the Senators make it that far&hellip;Defenseman Stan Neckar, injured in the same game as Hill, was still experiencing some swelling in his right knee, but was hopeful of getting on skates in early-March&hellip;The Senators drew 18,245 for their meeting with Philadelphia Feb. 26, their third-straight home crowd in excess of 18,000. &#9632;

f0023-03

Team learns with losses

<div class="byline">By Rick Carpiniello</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-04266/6784005-1-eng-US/f0023-042.jpg" title="f0023-04" width="161" height="159"></div>Just when it looked like the New York Rangers might be taking an upturn, they went into another bigger nosedive.Following a pair of emotional ties with the rival New Jersey Devils, the Rangers were bombarded 7-2 by the Hartford Whales and trounced by the Philadelphia Flyers in perhaps the most lopsided 2-1 game ever played. The Rangers were outshot 37-15 in the contest and 155-85 in four games against the extra large Flyers this season.&ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t fared too well, other than learning that (goalie Mike) Richter&rsquo;s from another planet,&rdquo; said center Wayne Gretzky. &ldquo;Other than that we&rsquo;ve got to get our act together.&rdquo;The act had certainly turned sour as the Rangers were winless in seven (0-5-2) and wondering if they really had any chance to make a Stanley Cup run.&ldquo;We were trying to play hard, I guess,&rdquo; said coach Colin Campbell after the Flyers&rsquo; game. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to have to do something. An effort like that is unacceptable to our fans and our ownership. Maybe that&rsquo;s all we can give.&rdquo;Campbell&rsquo;s admission sounded like a plea for new players. But GM Neil Smith, who earlier seemed ready to part with a first round draft pick to get right winger Rick Tocchet from the Boston Bruins, had changed courses. The first-rounder was off the table, although Smith did say,&rdquo;We will try to improve the team.&rdquo;The most obvious scapegoat was the slumping Luc Robitaille, who wasn&rsquo;t even getting close to the net for good scoring chances. Robitaille hadn&rsquo;t scored a goal in eight straight games. Captain Mark Messier was also slumping, collecting just two assists during the winless skid before leaving the lineup with a sore back.The ominous numbers were piling up for the Rangers, who occupied the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference and were two games over.500 as February drew to a close.NOTEBOOK: The Rangers claimed 25-year-old right winger David Oliver off waivers from Edmonton Feb. 22. The move was recommended by George Burnett, coach of the Rangers&rsquo; American League affiliate in Binghamton. Burnett coached Oliver while the two were in the Oilers&rsquo; organization&hellip;Left winger Sylvain Blouin was hospitalized briefly for an infection in his right hand. Blouin suffered the deep gash and infection from punching New Jersey defenseman Reid Simpson in a Feb. 19 bout&hellip;Center Wayne Gretzky snapped a career-worst 21-game goalless streak when he connected on a long deflected slapshot Feb. 21 against Hartford&hellip;The Rangers had scored just seven times over a six-game stretch. &#9632;

f0023-04

Rangers not looking like contenders

One knock on the Detroit Red Wings the past few years was their lack of size up front.Some would suggest trading away Keith Primeau for Brendan Shanahan was a sideways step in that regard, but there is no denying the additional offensive contribution Shanahan has made.The rugged right-shooting left winger leads the Red Wings in goals with 40 and is the Dodge Trucks Player of the Month for February.Shanahan was leading all NHL goal scorers for the month of February with 14 goals in 13 games. Three were game-winners and he chipped in seven with the opposition shorthanded. In one five-game stretch Shanahan scored nine goals including back-to-back hat tricks against the Pittsburgh Penguins Feb. 8 and the San Jose Sharks the following night.Shanahan was especially dangerous on the road where he had 10 goals and 14 points in seven outings.The Red Wings were 8-2-3 in the month.Shanahan had back-to-back 50-plus goal seasons for the St. Louis Blues in 1992-93 and 1993-94 and is on pace for 55 this year.Others who enjoyed an outstanding February and received consideration for Player of the Month were John LeClair of the Philadelphia Flyers, Martin Gelinas of the Vancouver Canucks and Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils.LeClair scored 11 goals and 20 points in 12 games and Gelinas tallied 12 goals and 17 points in 13 games. Goalie Brodeur had a 7-1-4 record with a sparkling 1.54 goals-against average and one shutout.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01825/6784057-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="713" height="1027"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01928/6784050-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="978" height="1187"></div><h2>FACTS & STATS</h2>Player: Brendan ShanahanTeam: Detroit Red WingsPosition: Left wingAge: 28<h3>SEASON TOTALS:</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02622/6784043-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="990" height="178"></div><h3>FEB TOTALS (TO FEB. 27):</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03405/6784036-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg" title="f0024-03" width="990" height="166"></div> &#9632;

f0025-01

PLAYER Of THE MONTH

<div class="byline">By Wayne Fish</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01906/6784088-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="162" height="160"></div>If they gave out an award for best backup goaltender-sort of a Vezina Jr.-the Philadelphia Flyers might have the favorite.The tongue-in-cheek question Flyers&rsquo; fans were asking themselves in late-February was: Who would be nominated, Garth Snow or Ron Hex-tall?Coach Terry Murray said Hextall is his No. 1 goaltender, but after Snow started four of five games and ran his personal unbeaten streak to 15 games (10-0-5), people were starting to wonder.Snow was in goal for both ends of a Feb. 22-23 sweep of the Florida Panthers and New York Rangers, which was something of a surprise.Hextall, who signed a new three-year, $7-million contract before the season, has been bothered by a sore neck and back, but has not missed any practice time and said the injuries weren&rsquo;t enough to keep him out of game action.&ldquo;Ron Hextall is our No. 1 goaltender, there is no gray area in that,&rdquo; Murray said.Snow, who makes $325,000 this season on a contract that expires this summer, has been saying all the right things. He knows the Flyers are still Hextall&rsquo;s team.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way it has been all year,&rdquo; Snow said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way it is. That&rsquo;s my role and I accept it. I&rsquo;d rather be a backup here than a starter in the minors.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Twenty days after putting together a team-record 16-point game, the Flyers&rsquo; Legion of Doom line registered a 15-point effort in an 8-5 win at Ottawa Feb. 26. Center Eric Lindros tied a career high with six points (one goal, five assists), as did right winger Mikael Renberg (two goals, three assists). Left winger John LeClair notched his sixth career hat trick. The Flyers believe Lindros assisted on the other two goals and asked for a review. The seven assists would tie an NHL record&hellip;Defenseman Michel Petit was suspended two games after receiving a five-minute major for kneeing Florida&rsquo;s Johan Garpenlov Feb. 22&hellip;Left winger Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour played in his team record 300th consecutive game at Ottawa. &#9632;

f0026-01

Hextali still No. 1 in net, Snow’s streak closes gap

<div class="byline">By Bob McManaman</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-04339/6784157-1-eng-US/f0026-042.jpg" title="f0026-04" width="161" height="158"></div>Keith Tkachuk tied the knot and when he did, he effectively got rid of the slack in the rope that nearly hung him.The Phoenix Coyotes captain married his girlfriend from Winnipeg, Chantal Oster, Feb. 28 and announced he is a new man, finally all grown up at age 24.&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t be the player that I am if it hadn&rsquo;t been for her, I&rsquo;ll tell you that much,&rdquo; Tkachuk said. &ldquo;You focus more on hockey when you have someone at home, when you&rsquo;re taking care of yourself and she&rsquo;s taking care of you.&rdquo;Tkachuk said the wild party days, which once nearly ended his life during a rollover car accident two years ago, are now history. He said he has re-dedicated his life to hockey and his new wife, a mature move that only figures to make Tkachuk and the Coyotes that much more dangerous on the ice.&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t exactly live the best life,&rdquo; said Tkachuk, who had 37 goals and 65 points in 63 games. &ldquo;I did a lot of immature things that 19-, 20-year-old kids do. When you&rsquo;re that age, living by yourself with nobody to turn to, it can be tough. Especially for a kid with a lot of money, being single.&ldquo;But that&rsquo;s all behind me now. I&rsquo;m a married man and I&rsquo;m going to start a family with Chantal. Whatever happened, happened before. I can&rsquo;t live in the past. I&rsquo;m moving on now. The bottom line is, I&rsquo;m just glad I am the way I am now. I&rsquo;m proud of myself.&rdquo;So are his teammates from Winnipeg who accompanied him in the franchise&rsquo;s move to Arizona. They see a more determined and focused Tkachuk these days, evident in his excellent play for Phoenix this season.As assistant captain Kris King recently put it,&rdquo;If this team is going to go anywhere, Keith is going to be the guy who takes us there. He is the leader of this hockey team, plain and simple.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Backup goalie Darcy Wakaluk, who had already missed two months after cartilage damage to his right knee, underwent a second arthroscopic surgery because of intense swelling and fluid buildup in the joint and now will be sidelined until at least mid-March. He was expected to return after the all-star break. In his absence, Nikolai Khabibulin appeared in 23 straight games&hellip;Defenseman Dave Manson&rsquo;s poor plus-minus rating (minus-27), was an easy target for disgruntled fans in Phoenix. &ldquo;If they think it&rsquo;s an easy game for a minute, tell them to come on down to the rink,&rdquo; Manson said&hellip;Defenseman Jeff Finley missed the team&rsquo;s two-game swing to Calgary and Vancouver after his father died of a heart attack. &#9632;

f0026-04

Tkachuk grooms for success

<div class="byline">By Dan Wood</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-07186/6784226-1-eng-US/f0026-072.jpg" title="f0026-07" width="162" height="158"></div>Viktor Kozlov has a long way to go to threaten the record of the NHL&rsquo;s all-time ironman, Doug Jarvis, but the big left winger has earned that distinction among the San Jose Sharks.Kozlov established a franchise record when he appeared in his 118th consecutive game Feb. 25 against the Florida Panthers. He set up both Sharks&rsquo; goals, marking his second consecutive two-assist performance, in a 2-2 tie with the Panthers.The previous team record of 117 consecutive games was set by former San Jose defenseman Doug Zmolek from 1992 to 1993 and matched by former Sharks&rsquo; left winger Gaetan Duchesne from 1993 to 1995. Jarvis established the NHL standard of 964 straight games from 1975 to 1987.Kozlov, San Jose&rsquo;s first pick in the 1993 NHL entry draft, has truly become a fixture in the Sharks&rsquo; lineup.&ldquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t think of him as an ironman, but he&rsquo;s one of those guys you never see in the medical room.&rdquo; said San Jose coach Al Sims. &ldquo;I guess that&rsquo;s how you get those streaks. No. 1. he&rsquo;s hard to hit and No. 2, when you do hit him, he&rsquo;s 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds.&rdquo;Kozlov, 22, entered this season with just eight goals and 21 points in 78 NHL games. Through 61 games this year, he was the Sharks&rsquo; fourth-leading scorer with 12 goals and 33 points.NOTEBOOK: Center Bernie Nicholls, one of only five players to appear in San Jose&rsquo;s first 61 games, was suspended two games by the league for a match penalty assessed in overtime of a 2-2 tie at Florida Feb. 25. The penalty came for a cross-checking incident against Panthers&rsquo; defenseman Ed Jovanovski. Nicholls cross-checked Jovanovski in the face&hellip;Goaltender Ed Belfour. sidelined since Feb. 1 because of a sprained knee ligament, was close to returning to the lineup. Coach Al Sims was hopeful Belfour could play Feb. 28 at Hartford or March 1 at Toronto&hellip;Veteran defenseman Al Iafrate, out since Feb. 5 because of sciatic nerve damage in his back, was not responding well to treatment. There&rsquo;s a good chance Iafrate will have to undergo seasonending surgery. &#9632;

f0026-07

Kozlov establishes new Sharks’ ironman record

<div class="byline">By Roy Cummings</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01863/6784257-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="162" height="162"></div>The last thing you want to do when trailing the playoff pack by eight points is start a youth movement.The Tampa Bay Lightning had no choice, however. Injuries to veterans Brian Bradley, John Cullen, Paul Yse-baert, Daren Puppa and Igor Ulanov forced the Lightning to ice a team comprised mostly of Generation Xers. And, surprisingly, the kids revived the team&rsquo;s chances of playing beyond April 15.&ldquo;The kids are really carrying us,&rdquo; said Lightning coach Terry Crisp after his team went on a 5-0-1 streak. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve really stepped it up, which is a great sign. I mean Jason Wiemer has stepped up and Chris Gratton is playing great. And kids like Jeff Toms, he&rsquo;s really showing us what he has got and Brantt Myhres, he&rsquo;s showing us he can play, too.&rdquo;All of the aforementioned were getting prominent icetime on one of the team&rsquo;s top three lines. And all contributed to the team&rsquo;s resurgence with either a key goal or assist.Wiemer, for instance, had two goals in a 4-3 victory over the San Jose Sharks Feb. 23. Gratton had the game winner in a 3-1 victory over the New Jersey Devils the day before.Toms, centering the third line, was playing strong defensively and had two assists during the streak. And Myhres, who had moved to the top line alongside Gratton, scored the winner against the Sharks.But all those accomplishments paled in comparison to those of rookie center Daymond Langkow.Langkow, who had just a goal and an assist in his first 28 games, had three goals and 11 points in seven games, including nine during the unbeaten streak, and was clearly the spark behind the Lightning&rsquo;s rocket-like ride back through the standings.&ldquo;(Langkow) has just been playing so well,&rdquo; Crisp said. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter where we play him, wing or center, or who we put him with, he gets the job done.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Rookie goalie Corey Schwab helped in the resurgence as well. After replacing Rick Tabaracci at the start of the second period, he earned the victory against San Jose Feb. 23. The appearance was only his second in a month and the victory was his first since Jan. 9&hellip;Center Daymond Langkow became only the second Lightning player ever named player of the week. He was named for the period ending Feb. 23. Langkow was the first non-goalie rookie named since Florida&rsquo;s Jesse Belanger in the final week of January, 1994&hellip;When right winger Mikael Andersson scored just 13 seconds into a 3-2 victory over St. Louis, it marked the fourth time this year that the Lightning had scored within 22 seconds of the opening faceoff. &#9632;

f0027-01

Kids keep playoff hopes alive

<div class="byline">By Damien Cox</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02539/6784288-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="162" height="160"></div>It was like a hostage exchange, two for two, carried out at a private airport outside downtown Toronto.As New Jersey Devils&rsquo; owner John McMullen&rsquo;s private jet touched down, Steve Sullivan and Jason Smith, the newest members of the Toronto Maple Leafs stepped off. Minutes later, Doug Gilmour and Dave Ellett, the newest Devils, stepped on and the plane took off into the dark night. The four men exchanged a few words as they passed in the night Feb. 25. just hours after a five-player deal had been consummated.&ldquo;(Gilmour) wished me luck,&rdquo; Sullivan said. &ldquo;He said there&rsquo;s no better place to play hockey than Toronto.&rdquo;The next night, Sullivan and Smith played in their first games as Leafs, with Sullivan picking up an assist and Smith paired with veteran Jamie Macoun.While the Leafs are hoping Smith adds strength and steadiness, they&rsquo;re hoping the 5-foot-8 Sullivan adds pizzazz to a spiritless squad and insisted the forward be included in the deal.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to replace Doug Gilmour,&rdquo; Sullivan said. &ldquo;It was a five-person trade. It just happened to be one forward for one forward.&rdquo;The deal also included unsigned junior Alyn McCauley going to the Leafs and a third round pick in the 1999 entry draft pick going to Jersey. McCauley, the Ottawa 67&rsquo;s star center and last year&rsquo;s Ontario League MVP, could be the key to the deal over the long haul. He&rsquo;ll have a good shot at making the Leafs next fall.With D.J. Smith. Jeff Ware and Marek Posymk already in the system, the Leafs hope Jason Smith can be part of the Leaf blueline for years to come.While Devils&rsquo; coach Jacques Lemaire maintains Smith has all the tools, he doesn&rsquo;t know how far they&rsquo;ll take him.&ldquo;(Smith) just stopped developing,&rdquo; Lemaire said. &ldquo;He was the same player at 23 he was four years ago.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Center Kirk Muller is one of the likelier Leafs to be moved before the trading deadline. Muller said he hopes it doesn&rsquo;t happen&hellip;The Leafs immediately began negotiations with center Alyn McCauley&rsquo;s agent, Pat Morris, on a contract. The Devils never offered McCauley more than the standard qualifying offer they needed to make to retain his rights after he was drafted 79th overall in 1995&hellip;Defenseman Jason Smith took No. 25, while center Steve Sullivan took No. 11&hellip;The third round pick that went to New Jersey in the Doug Gilmour trade was the Devils&rsquo; selection dealt to Toronto last winter in the Dave Andreychuk swap&hellip;Defenseman Dimitri Yushkevich and his wife are expecting triplets. &#9632;

f0027-02

McCauley could be key pick-up

<div class="byline">By Elliott Pap</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02601/6784319-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="312" height="414"><figcaption class="caption-body">Trevor Linden</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01905/6784326-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="162" height="161"></div>Among the many problems dogging the Vancouver Canucks in February, none was more surprising than the goal drought of captain Trevor Linden.A perennial 30-goal scorer, Linden managed just one the entire month and entered March with only six on the season. A knee injury robbed Linden of 24 games in December and January, but he still had appeared in 38 games by the end of February.He was on pace to finish the season with nine goals and was scoring at a rate that would have left him with 13 had he played the entire 82-game schedule.&ldquo;This is a frustrating time from a personal and playing standpoint,&rdquo; said Linden, whose 33 points put him fifth in team scoring. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to use the injury as an excuse. Offensively, I&rsquo;m not feeling good right now. I don&rsquo;t like the way I&rsquo;m seeing things.&rdquo;Linden&rsquo;s problems mirrored the problems of the team. The Canucks were 4-9-0 in February despite playing just two teams with winning records (the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings).At one point, they fell as low as 10th in the Western Conference playoff scramble, but occupied the eighth and final post-season berth position entering games of Feb. 28.&ldquo;When you struggle to win and struggle personally, you put pressure on yourself,&rdquo; said Linden, who is in his ninth NHL season. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something I have to turn around by myself. Physically, I&rsquo;m not feeling good and it&rsquo;s not a whole bunch of fun.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just the scoring. Scoring is just one part of the game. There&rsquo;s numerous other parts that have to be done properly.&rdquo;Linden was having trouble winning faceoffs, was overhandling the puck and passing at inappropriate times. The only goal he did score in February was a fluke as San Jose Sharks&rsquo; goaltender Wade Flaherty deflected a Linden shot from the comer between his own legs.&ldquo;We all measure success by pretty much one method,&rdquo; said Canuck coach Tom Renney. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s points and, in a lot cases, goals. Trevor has played hard, but like everybody on this team, he needs to shoot more. He certainly needs a lift.&rdquo;Linden&rsquo;s lowest goal total during his career, not counting the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season, was 21 in 73 games in 1989-90. He has managed to score at least 30 goals in every other year, except the lockout year in which he had 18. That total translated to 31 in an 82-game schedule.NOTEBOOK: Right winger Russ Courtnall, who stands to become an unrestricted free agent July 1, rejected a two-year contract offer from the Canucks. The offer contained a pay cut of about $200,000. Courtnall is making $1,485 million (U.S.) this season. &ldquo;Maybe it was just a joke,&rdquo; said Courtnall, who had nine goals in 43 games. &ldquo;My agent laughed and I laughed.&rdquo;&hellip;Left winger Martin Gelinas tied a team record shared by seven others when he scored four goals against Phoenix in a 6-2 Vancouver win Feb. 27&hellip;Left winger Donald Brashear was suspended four games by the NHL for sucker-punching Los Angeles center Ian Laperriere in a game Feb. 22. &ldquo;I was sticking up for my teammates,&rdquo; Brashear said&hellip;The Canucks were a horrible 0-6-0 in Saturday night road games and had been outscored 30-5 in those contests. In three of the losses, they were shut out&hellip;Backup goaltender Corey Hirsch had been in net for three opposition shutouts in a seven-game stretch (1-6-0). &#9632;

f0028-02

Captain Linden struggling through worst goal-producing year of career

<div class="byline">By Dave Fay</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-04302/6784357-1-eng-US/f0028-042.jpg" title="f0028-04" width="312" height="412"><figcaption class="caption-body">Sergei Gonchar</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-03427/6784364-1-eng-US/f0028-032.jpg" title="f0028-03" width="160" height="159"></div>As the Washington Capitals tumbled toward the finish line, they were fairly sure of two things: offense wasn&rsquo;t going to get this team into the playoffs and the defense had better tighten up if it was going to push the club into post-season for the 15th straight year.That the Capitals were having trouble scoring was not news. They were tied for last overall with the San Jose Sharks in goals scored (2.57 goals pergame average).That they were having a more difficult time keeping pucks out of their net, especially late in games, is a new development. The team stood 10th overall in that category (2.81 goals per game average).It is a situation that might not get any better in the immediate future. The latest to join the club&rsquo;s extensive list of injured players was defenseman Sergei Gonchar, who suffered a sprain of the medial collateral ligament in his left knee Feb. 26 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.That meant the club had three frontline defenders on the shelf for extended periods of time. Gonchar joined Mark Tinordi (broken right ankle) and Joe Reekie (broken right heel). Gonchar, who will be a restricted free agent when the season ends, is expected to be out until the playoffs start-if the Capitals make it.The relative ease with which opponents were scoring was a combination of several factors. Chief among them was goaltending is not as strong as it has been in the recent past. Its inability to steal a game here and there turned minislumps into real slumps.&ldquo;Everybody has videotape so if you have a flaw they&rsquo;re going to find it and try to exploit it,&rdquo; said coach Jim Schoenfeld. &ldquo;You do that with any goaltender because it&rsquo;s such an important position. That&rsquo;s why you have to try not to change your game, but just keep adding to it.&rdquo;Schoenfeld said they&rsquo;ve introduced some new things for Jim Carey and Olie Kolzig, but they want them limited to practice until they become a full reaction-type tool instead of something that requires thought.Carey entered the last game of February with a 17-17-3 mark, 2.74 goals-against average and 89.4 save percentage. Kolzig was 7-3-4, with a 2.65 GAA and 90.4 save percentage.Much of the damage done by opponents was coming late. The club was being outscored by 20 goals in the third period, the period when the team traditionally mustered up enough offense to pull games out of the fire.That trend was reversed this season, leaving the Caps struggling to stay with the pack.NOTEBOOK: The Capitals were beaten 2-0 by Hartford and goaltender Sean Burke Feb. 22, the fifth time the club had been shut out this season. It was blanked just five times all last season&hellip;With the Capitals struggling to get back in the playoff picture, rookie center Anson Carter vowed he would not be nervous in first game in Toronto, his hometown. But he admitted after the 3-1 win Feb. 26,&rdquo;I was. I never thought the possibility would be there for me to be nervous. I tried to concentrate on other things, like getting the two points we needed, but I couldn&rsquo;t help it.&rdquo;&hellip;Center Dale Hunter had 38 points in 61 games. He had only 37 in 82 games last season&hellip;Center Andrei Nikolishin returned after missing eight games with a bulging disc. Still no clue on when left winger Chris Simon&rsquo;s bad back will allow him to return&hellip;Right winger Peter Bondra had a total of 21 shots in back-to-back games against Boston (12) and Toronto (nine), but didn&rsquo;t score. &#9632;

f0028-04

Washington unable to Cap games as tough third periods prove costly

<div class="byline">By Kevin Dupont</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01900/6784395-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Travis Roy, back with the Boston University Terriers as a video co-ordinator, is hopeful he&rsquo;ll be able to shed his wheelchair and joystick for skates and a hockey stick someday. (Photo by Steve Babineau/Sports Action)</figcaption></div>Travis Roy is a student again, a freshman, living the college life at Boston University.Now some 16 months removed from his horrific on-ice accident-when a piece of his spinal column shattered in a head-first collision with the boards-he is finding his way through life with the aid of a wheelchair and the same dogged determination that helped him realize his dream of playing Division I collegiate hockey.Roy&rsquo;s college hockey career lasted only 11 seconds. In his very first shift as a Boston University Terrier Oct. 20, 1995, he went racing down the right wing, lined up North Dakota defenseman Mitch Vig and threw himself full force into a bodycheck. Vig moved slightly, eluding most of the hit, and the top of Roy&rsquo;s head drove straight into the boards.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s two angles of it,&rdquo; recalled Roy, reviewing in his mind the video replays that TV newscasts aired for weeks after his injury. &ldquo;You never see my head hitting the boards-you never see the actual impact-which is a good thing. I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d want to see it. I don&rsquo;t think that anybody would really like to see it.&rdquo;In the months that followed, Roy endured spinal surgery and two lengthy hospital stays that totaled nearly six months. He has regained only minimal movement in his right arm, which enables him to operate the motorized wheelchair that zips him around BU&rsquo;s busy urban campus. Along with his studies at BU-a three-course load of liberal arts-he also undergoes constant physical and occupational therapy.Roy says he believes he&rsquo;ll walk again, skate again, return to play the game he loves.&ldquo;Along with working my (wheelchair) joystick, I&rsquo;ve started to feed myself, which is a huge step,&rdquo; Roy said. &ldquo;To be able to go down to the (school) cafeteria and be able to feed myself&hellip;it&rsquo;s a lot better than having my aide feed me or my friend feed me-things that draw more attention than I want.&rdquo;Roy can be found most days now at Walter Brown Arena, the home of the Terriers and the place where the accident occurred. He isn&rsquo;t listed as a forward anymore, but as video co-ordinator, a position coach Jack Parker has established for Roy, enabling him to remain connected to the team and share in the dressing room fraternity.Much like an assistant coach, Roy shuttles back and forth between the stands and the dressing room during games. He can offer advice, share a joke, commiserate in a loss. In February, he made his way to center ice at the FleetCenter, basking in the warmth of yet another Beanpot victory by the Terriers, embraced by Parker and his teammates in one of the more emotional moments of the new building.&ldquo;If there was a good thing to come out of this,&rdquo; Parker said,&rdquo;it gives you a little faith in mankind again&hellip;that other people do care.&rdquo;There was an outpouring of public financial support in the months after the accident that should assure that Roy has a comfortable life. More than $2 million has been contributed to his support fund. He requires around-the-clock healthcare, not only the constant physical therapy sessions, but assistance in getting washed and dressed every morning. Life going forward will be expensive.His own finances now in order, Roy and his trustees began in October directing money to the Travis Roy Foundation-a charity aimed at assisting others with spinal cord injury and aiding in research. A combination of his own willpower and a strong belief in the prospects of research make Roy feel that he one day will recover in full.&ldquo;Hopefully,&rdquo; Roy said,&rdquo;(the money) will help out with some of the funding, as well as for research and the equipment to help out in both areas to improve the quality of life&hellip;as well as get life back to where we all were before our accidents.&rdquo;Roy, now 21, grew up a rink rat in Yarmouth, Me. His lifelong dream was to come to BU, play for the Terriers and maybe one day make it to the NHL.One moment, all too brief, Roy was living out the simple pleasure of fulfilling a lifelong desire. A moment later, the pleasure was cut short; everything that was simple had turned complex.&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t lose track of the simple things-of what you might call simple things,&rdquo; said Roy, when asked what the experience has taught him. &ldquo;Such as to have a family, to have a job, to be walking to class. I wish people would enjoy life more and not be so worried about what they don&rsquo;t have&hellip;and be more grateful for what they do have.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0030-01

Roy making progress

<div class="byline">By Chris Miller</div>Dave Paradise is one of the most dangerous penalty-killers in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. The St. Cloud State senior has nine career shorthanded goals.But for his first three seasons, Paradise was frequently unavailable for penalty-killing duties because he was in the box himself. Paradise had 243 penalty minutes during that time and it irritated coach Craig Dahl.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a different kid this season,&rdquo; Dahl said. &ldquo;Basically, he wasn&rsquo;t working as hard as he should. He was taking shortcuts. We had a talk this spring and I let him know about it.&rdquo;Paradise had only 36 PIM this season and was leading the WCHA with 18 goals entering the final weekend.&ldquo;(Dahl) was on me for dumb penalties,&rdquo; Paradise said. &ldquo;He made the point I can still play a physical game without getting penalties.&ldquo;Getting chances to score shorthanded is something I can do, but how can I do it when I&rsquo;m in the penalty box? It was a good point.&rdquo;Led by high-scoring forwards Paradise, Sacha Molin. Matt Cullen and Mark Parrish, the Huskies appeared headed for a national playoff berth. St. Cloud State had a lot of growing pains last season when it finished eighth with a young lineup, but has rebounded this year.Paradise, 23, comes from a storied Minnesota hockey family. His father, Larry, and uncle Dick played college hockey at Minnesota.Another uncle, Bob, had an eight-year NHL career.Dave should finish his career among the top 10 in career scoring at St. Cloud.&ldquo;My freshman year I got to play with a lot of good players and got real comfortable,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My sophomore and junior years, basically, things were at a standstill, a little disappointing.&ldquo;I wanted to finish with a strong senior season.&rdquo;ONE BIG MAN: Freshman center Bud Smith was the leading scorer for Northern Michigan despite being, at 5-foot-8 and 155 pounds, one of the league&rsquo;s smallest players.So what did Smith think when he got to school last fall and met A.J. VanBruggen, the Wildcats&rsquo; 6-foot-6,230-pound winger?&ldquo;The first time I saw him, he was wearing this NMU Athletics sweatshirt and I thought, &lsquo;He has to be a football player,&rsquo;&rdquo; Smith said.QUICK AND PAINLESS: North Dakota clinched at least a tie for the WCHA title by sweeping Alaska-Anchorage 2-0 and 4-0 Feb. 21-22. Freshman goalie Aaron Schweitzer posted the shutouts, facing a total of only 37 shots.The second game was noteworthy because there were no penalties, only the second time that has happened in league history.Anchorage continued an incredible streak of discipline, lowering its average penalty minutes per game to 6.03. &#9632;

Paradise’s angelic play big boon for St. Cloud

<div class="byline">By Paul Harris</div>It might be a surprise to some that Ohio State has landed a spot in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs, but Buckeyes&rsquo; coach John Markell isn&rsquo;t among them.Ohio State&rsquo;s 8-3 win over Michigan State Feb. 23 clinched seventh place for the Buckeyes and a quarterfinal playoff series at either Lake Superior State or Miami March 7-9.&ldquo;We expected to make the playoffs,&rdquo; Markell said. &ldquo;I think everyone else expected us not to make it. We came out of the pre-season polls and everyone picked us to finish at the bottom.&rdquo;Though the Buckeyes had a conference mark of only 9-15-3 (12-22-1 overall) with two games left, they were on a six-game unbeaten streak (5-0-1), the longest since 1985-86.The reason for the late surge was the maturation of a team bereft of seniors. Of particular importance was the development of freshman goalies Ray Aho and Tom Connerty.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had other freshmen play better, too,&rdquo; Markell said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough on the goalies because there&rsquo;s nobody else behind them. If you&rsquo;re a defenseman or a forward, if you make a mistake there&rsquo;s somebody else behind you.&rdquo;The freshman who received the most attention was center Hugo Boisvert. The native of St-Eustache, Que., was second on the team in scoring with 11 goals and 37 points in 34 games. Senior left winger Chad Power was the leading scorer with 21 goals and 40 points.OUT IN STYLE: The Michigan Wolverine seniors played their final regular season home game at Yost Ice Arena, Feb. 22.The nine seniors: wingers Jason Botterill, Mike Legg and Warren Luhning; centers John Madden and Brendan Morrison; and defensemen Peter Bourke, Chris Frescoin, Harold Schock and Blake Sloan went out with a 4-4 tie with Lake Superior State.The class of 1997 was one victory away from tying the school record of 127 career victories (over a four-year period) set by last season&rsquo;s graduating class. Not only has the unit been successful on the ice, but the five Canadian forwards and four American defensemen are great friends off the ice.&ldquo;I remember the first night we were in the dorm together, it just seemed to click,&rdquo; Sloan said. &ldquo;Everyone assumed a role.&rdquo;The previous night was also eventful. The Wolverines defeated Lake Superior 8-0 to clinch the regular season CCHA title. Their conference record was 20-2-3 with two games left.EIGHTH IS ENOUGH: Alaska-Fairbanks secured the eighth and final playoff spot with a 21 victory over Ferris State Feb. 23. The Nanooks travel to Michigan for a best-of-three quarterfinal March 7-9. Sophomore center Jeff Trembecky scored the winning goal and was the offensive player of the week for the period ending Feb. 23. He had three goals and three assists in two games. &#9632;

Buckeyes shock league with surge into playoffs

<div class="byline">By Larry Mahoney</div>He has been a goaltending coach for the Boston Bruins, sports information director at his alma mater of Harvard and commissioner of the Eastern College Athletic Conference&rsquo;s hockey operations.Forty-five year old Joe Bertagna was named the new commissioner of Hockey East on Feb. 25. He will leave the ECAC June 1 and take over the commissionership of Hockey East July 1.Bertagna, who signed a three-year deal as commissioner, currently oversees all hockey operations in the ECAC including Division I, II and III in men&rsquo;s play and the women&rsquo;s division.&ldquo;What they want is for me to come up with ideas so, hopefully, I&rsquo;ll drive them crazy with ideas,&rdquo; said Bertagna, whose ideas include adding a 10th team so &ldquo;Everybody will be playing Saturdays in February like they should be.&rdquo;Bertagna would also like to see the tournament champs and runners-up in Hockey East and the ECAC play a tournament after the league tournaments. He will try to secure a TV deal for the league and said he feels Hockey East will again be on New England Sports Network (NESN) next season. Hockey East has been without a commissioner since Merrimack College athletic director Bob DeGregorio resigned in the fall.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy,&rdquo; said Maine coach Shawn Walsh. &ldquo;No. 1, Joe is a hockey man. No. 2, he has no direct ties to any Hockey East institution.&rdquo;Walsh said the league needs direction and Bertagna&rsquo;s most important initial chore will be to secure a television contract to replace the NESN deal that ends after this season. NESN had televised Hockey East games since the league&rsquo;s inception in 1984.&ldquo;He is well-known and well-respected throughout the hockey community and his expertise will only further enhance the greatness of Hockey East,&rdquo; DeGregorio said.BEARS ROAR: Maine isn&rsquo;t going to any post-season tournaments this year as the result of sanctions for numerous National Collegiate Athletic Association violations, but the Bears made a strong statement they will be a formidable team next season with a sweep of powerful Boston University Feb. 21-22.Maine beat the Terriers 3-0 and 7-2 to complete a sweep of the three-game series.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve become a great program again,&rdquo; Sean Walsh said. &ldquo;I tip my hat to those kids wearing that (Maine) jersey. It&rsquo;s too bad the league&rsquo;s athletic directors voted us out of the playoffs (54 last summer). I think we could add a lot to the Hockey East playoffs.&rdquo;&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve proven we&rsquo;ve been the best team in Hockey East since Christmas,&rdquo; said senior defenseman Jason Mansoff&rsquo;, referring to Maine&rsquo;s 13-2-0 mark in its past 15 Hockey East games. &#9632;

Bertagna has big plans in running Hockey East

<div class="byline">By John Packett</div>The Knoxville Cherokees, with the worst record in the East Coast League, didn&rsquo;t wait until the end of this season to prepare for 1997-98.Knoxville hired Shawn Jones as the new GM Feb 24. The next day, they fired coach Barry Smith, who has directed the Cherokees&rsquo; fortunes the past five seasons. Knoxville was 1735-2 and in last place in the East Division.The most damaging piece of evidence in Smith&rsquo;s portfolio was the club&rsquo;s 1-22-0 road record. The Cherokees lost 18 straight road games, the third-longest skid in ECHL history and eight short of the league record.According to co-owners Warren Payne and Dr. John Staley Jr., the moves were made with the &ldquo;future in mind. Barry is a great person and has done a good job, but we were ready to take this team in a different direction.&rdquo;The Cherokees named Jack Capuano, an assistant for the Tallahassee Tiger Sharks, to replace Smith as coach. Capuano was in his second season with Tallahassee, which was leading the South Division.&ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t a time I want to leave (Tallahassee),&rdquo; Capuano said,&rdquo;but I had no other option and didn&rsquo;t want to jeopardize my chance with Knoxville. I&rsquo;m excited.&rdquo;Smith, whose club was on a three-game winning streak after ending a 12-game losing string, was 130-116-24 with Knoxville and led the Cherokees to first place overall in 1993-94.Jones came to Knoxville from the National In-Line Hockey Association, where he served as executive director since 1993.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01894/6784522-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="373" height="392"></div>TRADE FEVER: Most ECHL teams were dealing before the Feb. 24 trade deadline.The defending champion Charlotte Checkers, struggling in fifth place in the East, made a two-for-two deal with the Wheeling Nailers, sending center Kimbi Daniels and winger Darcy Mitani for defenseman Chad Nelson and center Derek Crimin.The Peoria Rivermen dealt center Mike Barrie to the Birmingham Bulls for defenseman Brendan Creagh and winger Max Williams. The Baton Rouge Kingfish gave up forwards Stephane Charbonneau and Kevin McKinnon for defenseman Mike Muller of the Mississippi Sea Wolves.JOHNSTOWN HALL: The Johnstown Chiefs launched the Johnstown Hockey Hall of Fame and inducted five members March 1.Those enshrined were former Johnstown Jets&rsquo; players Don Hall and Dick Roberge, former Jets&rsquo; GM and coach, the late John Mitchell, former Jets&rsquo; GM and former GM and co-owner of the Chiefs, the late John Daley, and former co-owner of the Chiefs, Henry Brabham.COAST LINES: The Louisiana IceGators&rsquo; league-high 10-game winning streak was halted in a 5-4 loss to Charlotte Feb. 23. The IceGators&rsquo; 20th sellout of 11,700 witnessed the setback&hellip;South Carolina right winger Ed Courtenay was player of the week for the period ending Feb. 23 after scoring six goals and 12 points in four games. Courtenay led the ECHL with 46 goals and 89 points in 53 games. &#9632;

f0032-01

Cherokees hope coaching change solves road woes

<div class="byline">By Kevin Oklobzija</div>The NHL season was a month old and Daniel Goneau was the rookie surprise.With seven goals in 12 games for the New York Rangers, the left winger was making an impact on a team loaded with stars.But then reality-and the rest of the league-caught up with him and soon Goneau became a part-time player. Over his next 29 games, he scored only three goals and in early January was assigned to the Binghamton Rangers of the American League.&ldquo;It was hard because everybody&rsquo;s dream is to play in the NHL,&rdquo; said Goneau, New York&rsquo;s 1996 second round draft pick. &ldquo;(At training camp) I never thought about the AHL. Probably nobody believed me, that I was ready for the NHL, but I did. Then sometimes something goes wrong.&rdquo;It stayed wrong for much of his first month in Binghamton. He scored only two goals in 14 games.&ldquo;He had some quick success in the NHL and then he scored a couple goals in his first two games down here and maybe he thought it would be easy,&rdquo; said Binghamton assistant coach Mike Busniuk.Goneau has rediscovered his touch, the one that helped him score 54 goals and 105 points in the Quebec League last year and 11 goals and 33 points in the playoffs to help the Granby Pre-dateurs win the Memorial Cup.As February came to a close, Goneau had four goals during a modest five-game point streak and was creating opportunities for himself and linemates. His season totals were six goals and 12 points in 19 games.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s skating hard, going hard to the net, working hard along the boards and that&rsquo;s why he&rsquo;s having success,&rdquo; Busniuk said.&ldquo;He has to be skating and getting on the other team. He&rsquo;s not a big guy (6-feet, 194 pounds) but he likes to hit and when he&rsquo;s hitting, that&rsquo;s when he&rsquo;s most effective.&rdquo;TOUGH SELL: A year ago. Brian Loney could do no wrong with the Syracuse Crunch, scoring 34 goals in 48 games and playing in the AHL All-Star Game.But what was it worth on the restrictive Group II free agent market after the season? Nothing, really. With no other offers, Loney resigned with the Vancouver Canucks to play in Syracuse one more year, after which he&rsquo;ll be an unrestricted Group VI free agent.Except that&rsquo;s not as good as it sounds because Loney has found the goaltenders much tougher this season. The fourth-year right winger had only 12 goals in his first 48 games and was at 18 nearing the end of February.&ldquo;I had a good year last year when I needed one, but if you&rsquo;re a Group II free agent and you&rsquo;re a minor leaguer, good luck,&rdquo; Loney said.Also in his mind is the realization that his NHL dream may be over.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t see Vancouver calling me up the way right wing is up there (with Pavel Bure, Alexander Mogilny, Russ Courtnall and Gino Odjick),&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;d have a better chance playing goalie.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02616/6784553-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="425" height="425"></div>RECOVERY ROAD: Hamilton Bulldogs&rsquo; goalie Steve Passmore was player of the week for the period ending Feb. 23 after posting three consecutive one-goal victories and a 95.6 save percentage.Battling to overcome a rare muscle cramping disorder that cut short his first two seasons, Passmore defeated the Adirondack Red Wings 5-1 Feb. 19 before beating the Fredericton Canadiens 5-1 and 3-1 Feb. 21 and 23.AHL TIDBITS: The sophomore slump for Saint John Flames&rsquo; right winger Jesper Mattsson is over. After scoring just three goals in the first 30 games, he had 14 in his next 19&hellip;Rochester Americans&rsquo; rookie left winger Curtis Brown, demoted in December by the Buffalo Sabres, was starting to produce. After just two goals in his first 15 games, he had eight in 11&hellip;The Kentucky Thoroughblades posted the season&rsquo;s most remarkable third-period outburst at Syracuse Feb. 19 against Frederic Cassivi. Trailing 3-1 after two periods, the Thoroughblades scored seven times on nine shots (the last was an empty-net goal) to win 8-5&hellip;Albany River Rats&rsquo; goalie Peter Sidorkiewicz tied Ken Holland for second place on the AHL&rsquo;s all-time victory list at 142 when he came in relief for a 6-2 win over Syracuse Feb. 26. Sam St. Laurent holds the record of 164. &#9632;

f0032-02

Rookie Goneau finds form with second-class Rangers

<div class="byline">By Kevin lole</div>The Fort Wayne Komets, who are the International League&rsquo;s oldest franchise, will remain in the league thanks to an improved financial outlook.GM/co-owner David Franke said the Komets have lost money three successive seasons and will do so again this year. The Franke family was blunt and admitted it was considering a move to a more inexpensive league, such as the East Coast League, should things not improve financially for the franchise.The Komets have struggled financially as the league has been transformed from a primarily midwestem-based league in small markets to a national league seated in top 30 U.S. markets.But Franke said the family has pledged to keep the Komets in the IHL for several seasons to come.&ldquo;We have made a commitment,&rdquo; Franke said.He said two factors aided the Komets. First, the collective bargaining agreement with the Professional Hockey Players&rsquo; Association has put controls on player costs and will allow the franchise to compete with the bigger, more well-heeled clubs.The salary cap is at $1.4 million this year and will slide to $1.3 million next year and $1.2 million in 1998-99. Earlier in the decade, teams were spending well over $2 million on player salaries, which led to a sea of red ink.&ldquo;Clearly, our cap is working,&rdquo; Franke said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re three-quarters of the way through the season and probably 85 per cent of the teams are living with it and staying within the guidelines.&ldquo;But it&rsquo;s obvious that the teams in our league are respecting it. There have been buyout and trades to keep teams under the cap. Teams are working to stay within it and it&rsquo;s a positive for us because it was absolutely essential for the small-market franchises like Fort Wayne to have that to continue to exist in this league.&rdquo;Franke also said a proposed expansion of the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum would be critical to the Komets. The Coliseum Commission is considering an expansion that would add 2,000 seats, 20 luxury boxes and replace the wooden seats with theater-style seats.In addition, Franke said the Komets have a clause in their lease that states they pay no rent for games in which they have a turnstile count of 5,000 or more.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03431/6784584-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="382" height="433"></div>ZOMBO RETIRES: Phoenix Roadrunners&rsquo; defenseman Rick Zombo, a 12-year NHL veteran, announced his retirement Feb. 21The North Dakota Fighting Sioux grad played 652 NHL games with the Detroit Red Wings, St. Louis Blues and Boston Bruins. He scored 24 goals and 154 points before his demotion to the IHL this season.The 33-year-old native of Des Plaines, Ill., already has a second career in progress. Zombo has written a children&rsquo;s book, which includes a coloring section and series of games. Zombo drew the pictures himself and collaborated with a friend on mazes and word puzzles.The Roadrunners are handling distribution of the book, but he is hoping to find a major distributor to give it wide exposure.CAN&rsquo;T BEAT &lsquo;EM: The Detroit Vipers were stingy foes during a 12-game winning streak.The Vipers had allowed a total of just 18 goals, an average of 1.50 goals per game, during the run.It had been 22 games since coach Steve Ludzik&rsquo;s team allowed more than three goals. In addition, the Vipers were superb killing penalties, killing 59 of 62 opposition power plays during the winning streak.Goalie Jeff Reese was named IHL goalie of the week for the period ending Feb. 23 after leading the Vipers to a 2-1 win over the Indianapolis Ice Feb. 20 and a 3-2 victory over the Cincinnati Cyclones Feb. 23.NEW IN NEW ORLEANS: IHL commissioner Bob Ufer said the league plans to go forward with its plan to expand to New Orleans despite an East Coast League franchise that is moving into the Louisiana city.Ufer said Rob Couhig, the owner of TripleA baseball&rsquo;s New Orleans Zephyrs, bought into the New Orleans IHL expansion franchise group headed by Glenn Hart. A new arena is expected to be ready for 1999-2000. &#9632;

f0032-03

Komets still losing money, but vow to keep Fort open

<div class="byline">By Jim Cressman</div>Jake McCracken arrived in Sault Ste. Marie hoping to start 10 Ontario League games.As a 16-year-old rookie goalie who played Jr. B in St. Thomas, Ont., he didn&rsquo;t anticipate any more icetime than that with the Greyhounds as backup to 19-year-old Michal Podolka. As the regular season entered its final two weeks, McCracken had started 22 games and was a major factor in his team&rsquo;s drive for first in the West Division.Playing in 28 of 59 games, he had a 13-3-5 record; it&rsquo;s the first time in four years the Greyhounds have two goalies with double-digit wins. Podolka was 20-14-4. The 1992-93 tandem was Kevin Hodson (18-5-2) and Dan Tanevski (1410-2) and the Greyhounds won the Memorial Cup that season.&ldquo;I came here with no pressure on me,&rdquo; said McCracken, the top-rated goalie in last year&rsquo;s OHL draft. &ldquo;Now there&rsquo;s a little.&rdquo;He was the second goalie taken, going 30th overall. His 3.35 goals-against average was best among rookies and already has NHL scouts talking about him for the 1998 entry draft.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not even going to think about that yet,&rdquo; he said.Greyhounds&rsquo; coach Joe Paterson said chief scout Luke Williams was excited when McCracken was still available. The plan was to bring the rookie along slowly, especially after McCracken came to training camp recovering from mononucleosis.&ldquo;As a coach, you can only go by what your scouts tell you,&rdquo; Paterson said. &ldquo;Luke was high on Jake and I can see why. He&rsquo;s very mature, serious about hockey and school. He has a burning desire to win.&rdquo;REALIGNMENT: The expansion Toronto St. Michael&rsquo;s Majors will be in the East Division next season, with the North Bay Centennials going to the Central from the East and the Erie Otters moving to the West from the Central.It&rsquo;s expected the league will go to a two conference, four division format in 1998-99 when Brampton and Mississauga join, bringing the number of teams to 20.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01806/6784615-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="696" height="236"></div>Commissioner Dave Branch decided realignment when the governors couldn&rsquo;t agree, but his breakdown upset at least two West GMs.The Otters will play only 28 intra-division games with 38 outside their division. Twenty-four of those will be in their former division, the Central, while the other West teams each play 12-14 games against the Central.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s like Erie&rsquo;s not a part of (the West) division,&rdquo; said London Knights&rsquo; GM Paul McIntosh. &ldquo;If they&rsquo;re playing that many games in that division, keep them in that division.&rdquo;Greyhounds&rsquo; GM Dave Mayville couldn&rsquo;t understand why his team will play the Otters only twice while the other West teams will each play Erie six times.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no equity,&rdquo; Mayville said, also questioning why the Otters have four games with the Majors while the other West teams each play St. Mike&rsquo;s twice.Branch said there is a method to his apparent scheduling madness.&ldquo;Many adjustments have to be made as we work toward 1998-99 and Erie has the most difficult adjustment,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;In all likelihood, Erie will return to some semblance of the Central Division in &rsquo;98-99 and I wanted to retain some familiarity for Erie fans and the other cities in the Central.&rdquo;MAKING HAY: Guelph Storm left winger Dwayne Hay, sidelined Jan. 23 with shoulder surgery, has been told by doctors he&rsquo;ll be able to resume playing in late-April if the Storm is still alive. Hay learned shortly after his injury that the injury-riddled Washington Capitals, who drafted him in 1994, were going to call him up on an emergency basis&hellip;The Greyhounds lifted a team-imposed suspension on defenseman Richard Jackman Feb. 25, two weeks after he broke curfew a third time this season. He missed six games. &#9632;

f0033-01

McCracken rises to challenge with Greyhounds

<div class="byline">By Stuart Cowan</div>Goalie Francis Larivee finally played in his first game with the Granby Predateurs Feb. 23, putting an end to the longest running soap opera in the Quebec League.Larivee, who made 34 saves in a 7-1 win over the Beauport Harfangs, hadn&rsquo;t played since Dec. 3, when he was a member of the Laval Titan. The Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; second round draft pick in 1996 got off to a rough start this season in Laval, posting a 6-11-1 record and 4.44 goals-against average. After being repeatedly benched, he asked to be traded and that&rsquo;s when the soap opera began.While Larivee sat at home, Laval GM Leo-Guy Morrissette shopped the goalie around, but claimed he couldn&rsquo;t make a satisfactory deal. Meanwhile, the Kelowna Rockets of the Western League expressed an interest in the 19-year-old Montreal native.That&rsquo;s when Larivee&rsquo;s agent, Gilles Lupien, asked Morrissette to put Larivee on waivers, claiming he had reached a deal with the GM and league president Gilles Courteau that Larivee would clear waivers and be able to report to Kelowna. Courteau denies ever making such a deal with Lupien, saying that doing so would contravene league rules.There were also reports that if Larivee was claimed by another team, Lupien and the player&rsquo;s parents would pay a sum of money to Leo-Guy Morrissette. Some estimates ran as high as $50,000, but Lupien said it was only $30,000.The Moncton Wildcats ended up claiming Larivee on waivers Jan. 9 and immediately traded him to Granby for a ninth round pick at the midget draft. Larivee refused to report to Granby and instead flew to Kelowna, where he practised with the Rockets from Jan. 24 to Feb. 12, hoping Granby would eventually give up his rights. But that didn&rsquo;t happen.&ldquo;I wanted Larivee,&rdquo; said Granby GM Jean-Claude Morrissette, Leo Guy&rsquo;s brother. &ldquo;We had a better team with him than without him.&rdquo;Lupien claimed Jean-Claude&rsquo;s decision to acquire Larivee was part of a family feud with his brother, who is considered the black sheep of the Morrissette family.Meanwhile, Larivee grew more frustrated. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m in a war I can&rsquo;t control,&rdquo; he said at the time. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s pretty sad that I can&rsquo;t play.&rdquo;Finally, on Feb. 19, Larivee decided to give in and report to Granby.&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t an easy decision,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But after talking to my agent and the Maple Leafs, we all agreed the best decision would be to go there. The Maple Leafs want me playing, so really there wasn&rsquo;t much of a decision to make.&rdquo; The question now is how much will Larivee play? The Predateurs already have two solid goalies in Frederic Henry and Danny Lavoie.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-02553/6784646-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="577" height="287"></div>THANK YOU, RANGERS: If the Hull Olympiques end up winning the Memorial Cup this season they&rsquo;ll have to send a thank you card to the New York Rangers.The Rangers returned center Christian Dube to Hull Jan. 29 to get some much-needed ice time that he wasn&rsquo;t getting in New York while playing behind Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier.Well, Dube was getting as much ice time as he could handle in Hull and responded with 13 goals and 25 points in 12 games as the Olympiques posted an 9-1-2 record.&ldquo;He has been everything we expected and more,&rdquo; said Hull GM Charlie Henry, who gave up $50,000, plus a third round midget draft pick in 1997 and a first-and third-rounder in 1998.DAMPHOUSSE HONORED: The Laval Titan honored Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; captain Vincent Damphousse by retiring his sweater.Damphousse wore No. 21 with the Titan from 1983-84 to 1985-86. Damphousse scored 109 goals and 323 points in 204 regular season games with Laval. The ceremony was held Feb. 19.Damphousse becomes the fourth Laval player to have his number retired, joining Mike Bossy (No. 17), Mario Lemieux (No. 66) and the late Neil Carnes (No. 19). &#9632;

f0033-02

Larivee’s wait finally over as Predateurs win battle

<div class="byline">By Rob Vanstone</div>The Kelowna Rockets were finally experiencing liftoff.Kelowna won eight times in a nine-game span to improve its Western League record to 30-33-2. The surge allowed Kelowna to clinch a West Division playoff spot.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a light at the end of the tunnel-and it isn&rsquo;t a train,&rdquo; Rockets&rsquo; GM-governor Bruce Hamilton said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll battle right through.&rdquo;Hamilton attributed much of Kelowna&rsquo;s recent success to 19-year-old goalie Aaron MacDonald, whom the Rockets acquired from the Calgary Hitmen in mid-January.&ldquo;He has been the key guy,&rdquo; Hamilton said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve won 12 of 16 games and Aaron has been on the horse every night. He&rsquo;s going to stay on the horse. Aaron is a steadying influence and a popular guy in the dressing room.&rdquo;The Florida Panthers picked MacDonald in the second round of the 1995 NHL entry draft.MacDonald has worked closely with Panthers&rsquo; goaltending coach Billy Smith, a former New York Islander star.&ldquo;The greatest bonus is that, when you get a goalie drafted by Florida, you get Billy Smith,&rdquo; Hamilton said. &ldquo;He was here for eight days and he was excellent with both our goalies (MacDonald and Chris Noble). You don&rsquo;t get help like Billy Smith walking around every day.&rdquo;The best thing is that most of the Rockets are walking around, for a change.Injuries crippled the team for all of January and part of February. Kelowna often dressed four or five players fewer than the maximum 20.&ldquo;We were playing short,&rdquo; Hamilton said. &ldquo;We were beat up in January. We played 17 games in 31 days and took some lickings.&rdquo;The Rockets are also encouraged with news off the ice.Progress was made toward a new arena in Kelowna. Axor Development of Montreal is to present a financing proposal to Kelowna civic officials by March 15.If all goes according to plan, an 8,300-seat rink will be ready by the fall of 1998. In the meantime, Kelowna plays at the 2,000-seat Memorial Arena.&ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t heard anything to indicate it won&rsquo;t go ahead,&rdquo; Hamilton said. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ve maintained all along when there&rsquo;s dirt moving, I&rsquo;ll believe it. I&rsquo;m optimistic.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-03411/6784677-1-eng-US/f0033-032.jpg" title="f0033-03" width="356" height="359"></div>SLOW TO HEAL: The Spokane Chiefs were still awaiting the return of rookie left winger Yegor Mikhailov.Mikhailov, 18, was injured when the Chiefs&rsquo; bus went off the highway near Cranbrook, B.C., Jan. 19.&ldquo;He banged his head,&rdquo; said Chiefs&rsquo; GM Tim Speltz. &ldquo;It could be a while. He&rsquo;s having headaches and he&rsquo;s not real strong.&rdquo;Mikhailov, whose father Boris is a former Russian star, had 10 goals and 20 points in 45 games.&ldquo;There is some light-headedness,&rdquo; Speltz said. &ldquo;He has to be symptom-free before he plays again.&rdquo;Mikhailov also sustained a severe laceration to his right hand-between the thumb and forefinger-in the accident. That wound has not completely healed.EXTRA DUTY: The Prince Albert Raiders tied a league record by playing their 19th overtime game this season.Prince Albert, which was 6-5-8 in overtime, earned a share of the record with the 1988-89 Regina Pats, who went 4-9-6 in extra sessions.At 26-30-8, Prince Albert had eight games remaining to break the record.NOTEBOOK: Regina&rsquo;s home-ice undefeated streak reached 27 games (25-0-2) Feb. 26. Regina had not lost at home since the Brandon Wheat Kings won 4-3 in overtime Oct. 6&hellip;Peter Schaefer had seven points, including four goals, when Brandon beat the visiting Hitmen 11-4 Feb. 23&hellip;Brandon defenseman Gerhard Unteriuggauer left the Wheat Kings briefly to help the Austrian national team qualify for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Unteriuggauer, 20, has been invited to play for Austria in the Olympics. &#9632;

f0033-03

MacDonald’s hot streak lifts Rockets into playoffs

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-01856/6784708-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0035-01

THE WORLD’S FIRST REVOLUTIONARY REPLACEMENT BLADE SYSTEM

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0036-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01809/6784739-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brett Hull St. Louis Blues</figcaption></div>Bill Guerin&rsquo;s goal against Dominik Hasek Feb. 27 did more than help the New Jersey Devils to a 4-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres. It also tied him for the team lead in goals; both Guerin and Dave Andreychuk had 21 goals. The Devils were the only team in the NHL whose top two goal-scorers had the same number of goals. At the other end of the spectrum were the Washington Capitals whose top goal-getter, Peter Bondra, had 22 more goals than runner-up Joe Juneau. The score: 36-14. Only one other NHL team, Tony Amonte&rsquo;s Chicago Blackhawks, had as many as 20 goals separating the first and second scorers. Shown here are the differences in goal output between the top two players on each team. Included are goal totals as of Feb. 27. &#9632;

f0036-01

Devils revel in even scoring

The NHL season reached the three-quarter pole Feb. 26 with the playing of game No. 800. We added in the week&rsquo;s remaining games and determined seasonending leaders in goals, assists, points and penalty minutes. Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; star Jaromir Jagr had groin problems that threatened to sideline him for as as long as five weeks, so we haven&rsquo;t included him in projected season-ending numbers. He was first in goals (45) and second in points (87) and would score 62 goals and 119 points at those paces. We have more faith in the health of Mario Lemieux, his superstar teammate. Lemieux is expected to announce his retirement after this season; if so, he is going out with a bang. Here are the projected 82-game totals and their significance.MOST POINTS: I 31, Mario Lemieux, Pitsburgh (4354-97 in 58 games). Lemieux was on pace to claim his sixth and last scoring title and complete a symmetrical pattern to his half-dozen Art Ross Trophies. He won two in a row (1988, 1989), missed two, won two (1992, 1993), missed two and would win two (1996, 1997) if successful this season. Only four players were on pace to finish with 100 points-Lemieux, Teemu Selanne (109), Wayne Gretzky (101) and Paul Kariya (100). Brendan Shanahan would miss by a point. The last time there were so few 100-point men (over a full year) was 19 seasons ago when only three players hit triple digits in 1977-78. Guy Lafleur won the scoring title with, you guessed it, 132 points.HOST COALS: 59, Lemieux. Lemieux would leapfrog past injured teammate Jaromir Jagr to earn the goal-scoring title for the third and last time. It would be his sixth 50-plus season. Brendan Shanahan (54) and John LeClair (53) were also on pace to hit the magic mark. Four others-Peter Bondra, Brett Hull, Teemu Selanne and Keith Tkachuk-could be expected to exceed their season-long averages down the stretch if 50 remained in reach. (Bondra was on pace for 49; Hull, Selanne and Tkachuk 48.)MOST ASSISTS: 79, Wayne Gretzky, New York Rangers (61 in 63 games). If Gretzky finished with 79 assists, that would give him the same number of career assists (1,850) as No. 2 all-time scorer Gordie Howe had points (801-1,049-1,850). Count on Gretzky finding a way to get 80 if he&rsquo;s close. This would be the 15th playmaking title of his peerless career.MOST PENALTY MINUTES: 401, Gino Odjick, Vancouver (296 in 56 games). Odjick hasn&rsquo;t maintained the early-season pace that would have seen him eclipse Dave Schultz&rsquo;s 1974-75 NHL record 472. But he was on pace to join the 400 club along with Schultz, Paul Baxter and Mike Peluso.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02561/6784805-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="265" height="335"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mario Lemieux</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-03463/6784798-1-eng-US/f0036-032.jpg" title="f0036-03" width="264" height="335"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jaromir Jagr</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-04351/6784791-1-eng-US/f0036-042.jpg" title="f0036-04" width="267" height="334"><figcaption class="caption-body">John LeClair</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-05295/6784784-1-eng-US/f0036-052.jpg" title="f0036-05" width="266" height="335"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brett Hull</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-06257/6784777-1-eng-US/f0036-062.jpg" title="f0036-06" width="266" height="333"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Gretzky</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-07236/6784770-1-eng-US/f0036-072.jpg" title="f0036-07" width="264" height="334"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gino Odjick</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0036-02

Mario and Gino: Points & Penalties

Twenty used to bring one thought quickly to mind in the NHL-the number of goals considered decent production for above-average players. All that has changed with the explosion in goal-scoring. The equivalent today would probably be 30. As for the No. 20, many now think of goaltenders more than goal-scorers. Legendary Russian goalie Vladislav Tretiak wore that number and new San Jose Sharks&rsquo; goalie Eddie Belfour has adopted it in honor of Tretiak, his coach with the Chicago Blackhawks. &#9632;

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-08216/6784874-1-eng-US/f0036-082.jpg" title="f0036-08" width="399" height="609"><figcaption class="caption-body">Terry Sawchuk</figcaption></div>Andy Moog is fewer than 100 wins from all-time leading goalie Terry Sawchuk, but it&rsquo;s Patrick Roy who has the inside track on one day surpassing the legend. Moog, 37, has been terrific for the Dallas Stars this season, adding 26 victories to increase his career total to 352, sixth all-time and three shy of Rogie Vachon at No. 5. The St. Louis Blues&rsquo; Grant Fuhr was seventh at 346 (including 26 this season). Colorado Avalanche superstar Roy&rsquo;s 30 wins gave him 341. At only 31, Roy appears a lock to one day pass Sawchuk for the all-time lead. He is expected to have several productive seasons ahead and will likely be within double digits of Sawchuk by 1996-97&rsquo;s end. Listed are career years, games and wins. Active goalies are listed with their teams.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-09201/6784867-1-eng-US/f0036-092.jpg" title="f0036-09" width="748" height="296"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-10190/6784860-1-eng-US/f0036-102.jpg" title="f0036-10" width="756" height="297"></div> &#9632;

f0036-08

Moog climbs all-time ladder

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0037-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01725/6784926-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Peter ForsbergBrian SavageKeith CarneyBernie NichollsDonald BrashearAndreas DackellZiggy Palffy of the Islanders is on pace for a career high in goals (45) and points (88). (Photo by Scott Leary/BBS)</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01792/6784919-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="3105" height="3523"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Sillinger leads Vancouver with three shorthanded goals and is eighth in the league. (Photo by Layne Murdoch/BBS)</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01755/6784912-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="3329" height="3841"></div><h2>NHL GOALTENDING STATISRICS</h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01459/6784905-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="3111" height="1040"></div> &#9632;

f0037-01

NHL STATISTICAL REPORT

<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; Decdecision, charges to goaltenders of record when winning goal is scored.<h2>FRIDAY, FEB. 21</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02296/6785111-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg" title="f0040-02" width="500" height="1989"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-03214/6785104-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="504" height="2358"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-04170/6785097-1-eng-US/f0040-042.jpg" title="f0040-04" width="500" height="796"></div><h2>SATURDAY, FEB. 22</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-05147/6785090-1-eng-US/f0040-052.jpg" title="f0040-05" width="500" height="1488"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-06129/6785083-1-eng-US/f0040-062.jpg" title="f0040-06" width="498" height="2355"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-07116/6785076-1-eng-US/f0040-072.jpg" title="f0040-07" width="503" height="2352"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-08104/6785069-1-eng-US/f0040-082.jpg" title="f0040-08" width="499" height="2357"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01381/6785062-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="496" height="497"></div><h2>SUNDAY, FEB. 23</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02233/6785055-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="497" height="2939"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-03170/6785048-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="495" height="3503"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-04144/6785041-1-eng-US/f0041-042.jpg" title="f0041-04" width="1519" height="1976"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Modano had a field day against Edmonton Feb. 23, scoring a goal and three assists. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-05129/6785034-1-eng-US/f0041-052.jpg" title="f0041-05" width="497" height="1481"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-06119/6785027-1-eng-US/f0041-062.jpg" title="f0041-06" width="490" height="1478"></div><h2>MONDAY, FEB. 24</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-07106/6785020-1-eng-US/f0041-072.jpg" title="f0041-07" width="499" height="1408"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0885/6785013-1-eng-US/f0041-082.jpg" title="f0041-08" width="491" height="1113"></div><h2>TUESDAY, FEB. 25</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0962/6785006-1-eng-US/f0041-092.jpg" title="f0041-09" width="495" height="2320"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01387/6784999-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="494" height="3477"></div><h2>WEDNESDAY, FEB. 26</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02253/6784992-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="498" height="3397"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-03194/6784985-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="492" height="3472"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-04152/6784978-1-eng-US/f0042-042.jpg" title="f0042-04" width="491" height="321"></div><h2>THURSDAY, FEB. 27</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-05135/6784971-1-eng-US/f0042-052.jpg" title="f0042-05" width="500" height="3082"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-06122/6784964-1-eng-US/f0042-062.jpg" title="f0042-06" width="494" height="3475"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-07110/6784957-1-eng-US/f0042-072.jpg" title="f0042-07" width="494" height="1726"></div><h2>WHL AWARD NOMINEES</h2>The Western League announced individual team nominees tor player of the year and for rookie of the year. The player of the year winner will be announced March 18. The rookie of the year will be announced in March. The individual team nominees for player of the year are:Brandon-Peter Schaefer, Calgary-Brad Moran. Edmonton-John Kachur, Kamloops-Randy Petruk, Kelowna-Brett McLean, Lethbridge-Byron Ritchie, Medicine Hat-Mark Polak, Moose Jaw-Donovan Nunweiier, Portland-Todd Robinson, Prince Albert-David Van Drunen, Prince George-Joel Kwiatkowski, Red Deer-B. J. Young. Regina-Lars Pettersen, Saskatoon-Cory Sarich. Seattle-Patrick Marleau, Spokane-Trent Whitfield, Swift Current-Sergei Varlamov. Tri-City-Brian Boucher.The individual team nominees for top rookie are:Brandon-Brad Tworik, Calgary-Matt Kinch, Edmonton-Chad Kletzel, Kamloops-Wade Burt, Kelowna-Scott King, Lethbridge-Matt Demarski, Medicine Hat-Jason Chimera, Moose Jaw-Donovan Nunweiier, Portland-Andrej Podkonicky, Prince Albert-Evan Lindsay. Prince George-Blair Betts. Red Deer-Stephen Peat, Regina-Brad Stuart, Saskatoon-Garrett Prosofsky. Seattle-Bret DeCecco, Spokane-Brad Ference, Swift Current&mdash;Michal Rozsival, Tri-City-Petr Sachl.<h2>OLYMPIC SCHEDULE</h2>The 14-team field for the 1998 Olympic Winter Games has been set. Eight teams will play in preliminary round, with the top two advancing to the Championship Round to face automatic qualifiers Canada. Czech Republic, Finland. Russia. Sweden and the United States. The groupings for the qualifying round are as follows: Group A: Austria, Italy. Kazakhstan. Slovakia: Group B: Belarus, France, Germany. Japan.The tentative tournament schedule is as follows: February 7: Italy vs Kazakhstan; Austria vs Slovakia: France vs Belarus: Germany vs Japan. February 8: Austria vs Kazakhstan; Slavakia vs Italy February 9: Germany vs Belarus; Japan vs France. February 10: Kazakhstan vs Slovakia; Italy vs Austria; Belarus vs Japan; France vs Germany. February 11: A4 vs B4; A3 vs B3; A2 vs B2.Championship RoundGroup A: Canada, Sweden, USA. A1 Group B: Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, B1.February 13: USA vs Sweden; Canada vs A1; Finald vs Czech Rep.; B1 vs Russia. February 14: A1 vs USA; Sweden vs Canada. February 15: Russia vs Finland; Czech Rep. vs B1. February 16: Russia vs Finland; Czech Rep. vs Russia: Finland vs B1: Sweden vs A1. February 18: Quarterfinals. February 20: Semifinals. February 21: Bronze Medal Game. February 22: Gold Medal Game. &#9632;

f0040-02

NHL SUMMARIES

NHL ROSTERS AND TRANSACTIONS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0044-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01308/6785166-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0044-01

AMERICAN LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0046-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01242/6785228-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

Search for your favorite player or team

March 14, 1997

Large raves for Pronger

Goals hard to come by

INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

Who’s this Prestifilippo? Just another rookie gem