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.

February 6, 1998

The Hockey News February 6, 1998

<div class="byline">By Ken Campbell</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="S0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0005-0128/6951763-1-eng-US/s0005-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Shannon Miller knows she&rsquo;s under enormous pressure to lead Canada&rsquo;s women to the gold medal. (Photo by Dan Hamilton/VPS)</figcaption></div>Ray Bennett, her assistant coach, begged her to talk to them about the power play. Clare Drake, adviser emeritus, firmly instructed her to talk about defensive zone coverage.But this was Shannon Miller&rsquo;s show.She said no, turned on her heels and walked into the dressing room to address the Canadian troops. They had just come off the ice, tied with USA after three periods in the gold medal game of the World Women&rsquo;s Championship and looked dreadful for most of the third period. They were panicking big-time and even the veterans had the deer-in-the-headlights thing going.Instead of reaming her team, the head coach walked into the room and began playing with a huge ball of tape she had one of the team&rsquo;s physiotherapists make. All through the tournament they talked about the team being a snowball of momentum.&ldquo;I lifted it over my head and said, &lsquo;Girls, this snowball is about to turn into an avalanche,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go out there and kick the sh&mdash;out of the United States and let&rsquo;s enjoy it.&rdquo;After that, the players were standing and laughing and clapping and chanting. &ldquo;If you know hockey and you watch that overtime, we were confident,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;We were in their end instead of playing with fear.&rdquo;Nancy Drolet eventually scored on a scramble to win the game and Canada&rsquo;s fourth straight gold medal. But those four medals will tarnish quicker than a dimestore ring if Canada loses the real gold medal in its expected Olympic showdown with the U.S.The pressure is immense. In fact, given its past dominance, Canada&rsquo;s women are under more pressure to win than its men. &ldquo;If we lose, there&rsquo;s no question that I&rsquo;ll take the fall,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;People will annihilate us, annihilate me specifically. We&rsquo;d all like to be the underdog, but is there any greater challenge than being the best in the world and have everyone gunning for you? None that I can think of and I love it.&rdquo;Of course pressure is a relative thing for Miller. A cop who walked the beat in Calgary from 1988 until she took a leave of absence in 1995, Miller has worked undercover in the city&rsquo;s Hooker Stroll, helped bust up a computer theft ring, been shot at and stood outside a bathroom door while a teenager threatened suicide. The 17-year-old boy was drunk and had just totalled his Dad&rsquo;s car. A suicide note was on the kitchen table. Without backup, Miller and her partner entered the house, where the kid pointed a rifle at them before dropping it and running into the bathroom.&ldquo;So we went upstairs behind him and his friend tells the sergeant outside, &lsquo;He has a handgun as well,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;So I&rsquo;m standing to the side of the door talking to him and the SOB fires two shots right through the door and says, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m gonna kill you if you don&rsquo;t leave me alone!&rsquo;Now I wouldn&rsquo;t be dumb enough to stand in front of the door, but some people would.&rdquo;Miller was bom in 1963 in Melfort, Sask. Her parents were both athletes and Miller was good but not great in hockey, volleyball, basketball and track and field.She followed her Dad, Elmer, around everywhere and idolized him. But at the same time, she felt humiliated when, as a high school coach, he would throw chairs across the basketball court or kick over garbage cans in fits of rage. Elmer died of cancer when Shannon was 14 and for the next 10 years, Miller was as volatile as her father.&ldquo;His players liked him and feared him at the same time,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But I remember a lot of things I didn&rsquo;t respect. Around the time I was 24, I started to realize it wasn&rsquo;t cool to lose your temper and start throwing punches in hockey. It&rsquo;s not cool to be wanting to beat people up on the street or be part of the violence on the street.&rdquo;Miller directed her energies to police work and coaching. In 1994-95, she approached then-Calgary Flames&rsquo; coach Dave King and he allowed her to sit in on coaches&rsquo; meetings, video breakdown and game night routines.Since 1995, Miller has been the head coach at the Olympic Oval in Calgary, an elite program that identifies and develops top players. So when she goes against the likes of Ben Smith (five years at Northeastern University, assistant coach with the 1988 U.S. Olympic men&rsquo;s team) and Finland&rsquo;s Raumo Korpi (head coach of Tappara men&rsquo;s team, 1986 World Championship, 1987 Canada Cup) Miller is not the least bit afraid of being outcoached.&ldquo;In eight years. I&rsquo;ve probably done what the average coach would do in 15,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;If you decide you want to be the best coach in the world, you&rsquo;d better go out and find the best coaches.&rdquo;Miller is a skating contradiction. She is supremely confident-&rdquo;I can read my team; I was bom with that gift and it makes me a better coach and a better person&rdquo;-but ends almost all of her statements in the form of a question as though she&rsquo;s unsure of what she&rsquo;s saying. Rookies come into camp thinking she&rsquo;s a dragon lady, but discover she has a good sense of humor and a soft side. She takes pride in keeping her emotions in check, but admits she became unglued after the championship loss to USA in the Three Nations Cup.She had the guts to cut Manon Rheaume last year and then challenged Rheaume to go out this year and prove her wrong. This year, even more controversy ensued when Miller cut Angela James, a four-time World Champion and one of the greatest players in women&rsquo;s hockey history.Canadian Hockey women&rsquo;s manager Glynis Peters has watched Miller rise through the ranks and has been impressed with Miller since she entered the program as an assistant with the 1992 World Championship team.&ldquo;Shannon&rsquo;s values are like something you&rsquo;d read on a sampler of a pioneer home-integrity, honesty and trust,&rdquo; Peters said. &ldquo;When she puts her trust in you, she will look you in the eye and say, T trust you.&rsquo; Then she challenges you to be accountable for it.&rdquo;Hayley Wickenheiser, who has been coached by Miller for seven years, also attests to her coach&rsquo;s brutal honesty.&ldquo;Shannon has come a long way in coaching,&rdquo; Wickenheiser said. &ldquo;She knows the game and knows what we need to win. She just knows, she reads people very well. She&rsquo;s very honest, if she doesn&rsquo;t like you, she&rsquo;ll tell you. She doesn&rsquo;t beat around the bush with it.Miller could go back to the Calgary Police Service after the Olympics, but doesn&rsquo;t see a future there. She wants to stay on as the women&rsquo;s high performance coach and be behind the bench in 2002. By that time she thinks there will be a women&rsquo;s pro league and she&rsquo;ll be in demand.But in the short term, Miller isn&rsquo;t looking beyond Feb. 18, the day after the gold medal game.&ldquo;I hope I have a hangover,&rdquo; she said. &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

Now it’s Miller’s Time

<div class="byline">By Helene Elliott</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-04421/6950242-1-eng-US/f0018-042.jpg" title="f0018-04" width="163" height="159"></div>Leading the Los Angeles&rsquo; Kings defensemen last year at plus-3 didn&rsquo;t guarantee Jan Vopat his job this season.In fact, as the Kings looked to become bigger and more physical, Vopat spent the first six games as a spectator, unable to crack a defense corps that had added veteran Garry Galley over the summer.After two weeks of inactivity Vopat, 24, was eager to get back on the ice and he spoke to coach Larry Robinson.&ldquo;I talked to Larry and I was pretty pleased they sent me down,&rdquo; said Vopat, who was assigned to Utah of the International League. &ldquo;I needed to play, and they used me on penalty killing, on the power play and everything. That&rsquo;s what I need.&rdquo;And when the Kings lost three defensemen-Doug Zmolek was idled by a concussion, Philippe Boucher had the flu and Mattias Norstrom was suspended-they needed Vopat again. They recalled him Jan. 11 and he has responded admirably, playing a conservative, smart defensive game.Vopat, who had four goals and nine points in 33 games with the Kings last season, didn&rsquo;t have any points in his first four games, but was plus-2 and was playing with poise in the defensive end and making quick outlet passes. That was enough to keep him in the lineup and leave the Kings with two extra defensemen after Zmolek, Boucher and Norstrom were eligible to return.&ldquo;He has been pretty steady,&rdquo; Robinson said of Vopat, whom he has played mostly with Galley. &ldquo;He has improved his strength. Before, he was getting muscled off the puck too much and he has improved that.&rdquo;Vopat credited Galley for some of his success. &ldquo;He is always there for me and I try to be there for him.&rdquo; Vopat said. &ldquo;We talk a lot and communicate well.&rsquo;Said Galley: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s steady. We don&rsquo;t do anything fancy, really. We&rsquo;re just doing our jobs.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: GM Dave Taylor said he has had talks with Detroit about unsigned free agent center Sergei Fedorov, but indicated no deal was imminent. Taylor said he believed Detroit was still trying to re-sign Fedorov&hellip;Left winger Luc Robitaille&rsquo;s assist in a 3-1 win over Florida Jan. 22 gave him 431 as a King, tying him with Bernie Nicholls for fourth place on the club&rsquo;s career assist list. He was also within two points of becoming the sixth left winger in NHL history to record 1,000 points&hellip;Left winger Vladimir Tsyplakov tied his career high with a five-game scoring streak&hellip;Right winger Dan Bylsma missed three games to be with his wife, Mary Beth, after their first child was stillborn. &#9632;

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NHL TEAMS

Vopat there when Kings need him

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011629/6949849-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Players such as Ray Bourque, Peter Forsberg and Ed Belfour put on an entertaining show in Vancouver. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>VANCOUVER&ndash;The temptation would be to say grit won out over skill, but that would be lying.No matter what changes the NHL institutes to its All-Star Game format-this year, for the first time, it was North America versus the World-it remains a non-hitting game of shinny. And in the case of this year&rsquo;s tilt, a fairly entertaining one at that.A goal by Mark Messier, who celebrated his 37th birthday with dramatic flair, proved to be the winner as the North American side edged the World team 8-7 Jan. 18. Messier took a slick pass through a crowd from old pal Wayne Gretzky and roofed a backhand shot over the shoulder of goalie Nikolai Khabibulin. The goat on the play was ex-Gretzky and Messier teammate Jari Kurri who messed up in his defensive coverage.&ldquo;I told (Gretzky) in the faceoff, T backcheck all those years for you and that&rsquo;s how you treat me? In my last All-Star Game? You made me look bad, awful bad,&rdquo; Kurri joked.Much was made over the fact Olympic-snubbed Messier looked pretty good skating at left wing on a line with Gretzky and Eric Lindros, both of whom are going to Nagano. His inspired performance was definitely a throwback, but does not change the fact the last two times Messier stepped up to the plate when it really mattered, the World Cup and last season&rsquo;s playoffs, he struck out.League officials hoped the new format would lead to more spirited physical play, and there were more nudges along the boards than usual, but no major collisions.&ldquo;You think guys are going to go out there and hammer each other in an exhibition game?&rdquo; said Phoenix Coyotes&rsquo; captain Keith Tkachuk. &ldquo;Not a chance. We&rsquo;re not out there trying to hurt each other. That would be dumb.&rdquo;The closeness of the score kept things interesting, though the World team threatened to make it a blowout in the early going. Four minutes into the first period, it had built a 3-0 lead on the fastest two goals from the start of an All-Star Game and a mystery goal by Teemu Selanne. He rifled a shot in under the crossbar behind North American starter Patrick Roy, but the puck came out quickly and play continued. At the first stoppage of play, the goal was confirmed by video replay.&ldquo;I knew it was in,&rdquo; Selanne said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I raised my arms.&rdquo;Selanne, an avid car collector, added a 1998 Dodge Durango truck when he was named most valuable player. He scored three goals.North America&rsquo;s comeback from the 3-0 deficit was the biggest in All-Star Game history. The excitable Tkachuk led the North American attack with two goals. Singles went to John LeClair, Scott Niedermayer, Lindros, Tony Amonte and Theoren Fleury.Gretzky, named the No. 1 NHL player of all-time by THN in mid-January, drew two assists, the first of which moved him past Mario Lemieux into sole possession of first place in All-Star Game scoring. Gretzky has 12 goals and 22 points in 17 games.Messier also got his name in the record books. His assist on Lindros&rsquo; second period goal pulled him into a tie with three others for most career all-star assists with 12.On the other hand, by allowing three goals in the first period, Roy has surrendered more goals (24) than any goalie in all-star history.Jaromir Jagr, Kurri, Igor Larionov and Igor Kravchuk scored the other World goals.Players, coaches and trainers from the winning team split a prize of $250,000 (U.S.).The afternoon got off to an unusual start when lyrically challenged rocker Bryan Adams flubbed the words to the Canadian national anthem. His droning version of O Canada cut like a knife&hellip;through listeners&rsquo; heads. &#9632;

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FEATURES

World-class shinny

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0042-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01412/6951498-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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SCOREBOARD

<h2>Selanne nets three for World</h2>1. Big wheel World Team&rsquo;s Teemu Selanne wins truck as NHL All-Star Game MVP with three goals.2. Willie O&rsquo;Ree NHL&rsquo;s first black player hired to help with Hockey Diversity Task Force run by NHL/USA Hockey.3. Stand Pat&hellip;take a bow Rangers&rsquo; Pat LaFontaine&rsquo;s scores against Philadelphia for 1,000th career point.4. Ready or not IHL shaves time off games by allowing players set time to get ready for faceoff, then dropping puck.5. That&rsquo;s fast Jeff Lazaro wins ECHL fastest skater event in 13.395 seconds, 0.17 seconds faster than winning NHL time.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021355/6949260-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="326" height="460"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pat LaFontaine</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03886/6949253-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="327" height="461"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jeff Lazaro</figcaption></div><h2>Bryan&rsquo;s song hits sour note</h2>1. Cuts like a fork Canadian rock star Bryan Adams blows lyrics to his country&rsquo;s national anthem at NHL all-star game.2. Cheap shot(s) Phoenix&rsquo;s Michel Petit sucker punches Vancouver&rsquo;s Scott Walker-twice-while Walker being held.3. Knee jerk Phoenix veteran Rick Tocchet knees and injures Edmonton&rsquo;s Ryan Smyth.4. What ever happened to&hellip;Geoff Sanderson on 17-game goalless streak, including eight since joining Vancouver.5. Road kill Quebec League&rsquo;s Cape Breton struggling on road, drop 23 games in a row. &#9632;

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PLUS MINUS

<div class="byline">By Steve Dryden Editor-in-Chiet</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-04487/6949298-1-eng-US/f0003-042.jpg" title="f0003-04" width="349" height="433"></div>Sirpa Selanne, read no further. The following contains information your husband would prefer you did not know.Teemu Selanne, the 1998 NHL All-Star Game MVP, was rewarded with a truck for a three-goal effort against North America-thus solidifying his reputation as hockey&rsquo;s ultimate driving force. The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim right winger, who led the league in goals with 35 in 50 games as the Olympic break approached, has an abiding passion for all things vehicular.He is a clandestine racer under the pseudonym &ldquo;Teddy Flash&rdquo; in Finland and collects cars and trucks with an enthusiasm equalled only by the zeal with which he assembles gaudy goal totals. Before leaving for the AllStar Game, Selanne told teammates he would be driving home-a prediction the superstar would fulfill with a hat trick that included one goal confirmed by video review. His excitement at being named MVP was slightly diminished at the prospect of seeing Sirpa on his return. &ldquo;My wife&rsquo;s going to be mad,&rdquo; Selanne grinned mischievously. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think even she knows how many (cars) I have.&rdquo; Not until the cameras were off and the scrum disbanded did Selanne admit to a total of 23 vehicles.Selanne and fellow Finns Saku Koivu, Jere Lehtinen and Jari Kurri were the world side&rsquo;s best players, much more inspired than Scandinavian brethren Peter Forsberg and Mats Sundin. Each was more effective in a speaking role. Asked what the official language of the world bench was, Sundin said, &ldquo;There was all sorts of stuff going on-you should have listened to that.&rdquo; Conversations were conducted in Swedish, Russian, Finnish, Czech and English. (It&rsquo;s unlikely the unofficial language of professional sport-profanity-crept in.)The us-against-them format was a moderate success. It provided a rare opportunity for the arch-enemy Canadians and Americans to be on the same side in international competition and motivated a higher percentage of players than usual to break a sweat. As per normal, the game was played under oldtimer rules (no hitting, no slapshots, no doing anything that could possibly affect one&rsquo;s ability to earn a living), but there was a hint of passion. Not the kind demonstrated in the U.S.-Canada Olympic women&rsquo;s game two days earlier. But a measurable amount, however small. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re never going to have a hitting game,&rdquo; Forsberg said. &ldquo;This is as close as it gets.&rdquo; The result-15 goals between the two teams-represented the second-fewest in eight years. We should be grateful for small mercies.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011692/6949291-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="1721" height="2425"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Brian Babineau/SA)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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All-Star Game played under oldtimers rules

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011690/6949329-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="315" height="411"><figcaption class="caption-body">Luc Robitaille</figcaption></div><h2>January</h2><h3>JANUARY</h3>Wed., Jan. 28: Jason Arnott makes his first return appearance to the Edmonton Coliseum as a member of the New Jersey Devils.Wed., Jan. 28: The Quebec League All-Star Game is in Montreal at the Molson Centre.Wed., Feb. 4: The United League All-Star Game is at Port Huron, Mich.<h2>February</h2>Fri., Feb. 7: The men&rsquo;s preliminary round begins at Winter Olympics in Nagano.Sun., Feb. 8: The NHL begins a 16-day winter break shutdown. Play resumes Feb. 25.Sun., Feb. 8: Canada and the U.S. each play their first games as women&rsquo;s hockey becomes an Olympic sport for the first time. The gold-medal game is Feb. 17.<h2>February</h2>Tue., Feb. 10: The International League AllStar Game is at Orlando and the American League All-Star Game at Syracuse, N.Y.Fri., Feb. 13: Canada and the U.S. play their first round-robin games in the men&rsquo;s tournament. The gold-medal game is Feb. 22.<h2>Milestones</h2><h3>MILESTONES</h3>600 goals: Dino Ciccarelli of Florida needed three goals to hit the 600 mark. Vancouver&rsquo;s Mark Messier needed 10.1,000 assists: Ron Francis of Pittsburgh needed 21 assists to become the seventh player in NHL history to record 1,000.1,000 points: Los Angeles&rsquo; Luc Robitaille needed two points to hit the 1,000 mark. St. Louis&rsquo; Al Maclnnis needed 19. &#9632;

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DEPARTMENTS

CALENDAR

<div class="byline">Bob McKenzie Associate Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-021174/6949391-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="351" height="432"></div>For the traditionalists who would give no quarter-not one or two or three or four-Brian Burke has but one word of advice.Relax. Period. As in one, two, three.The NHL senior vice-president was reacting to the uproar that followed after the league said it is exploring the possibility of going from three 20-minute periods to four 15-minute quarters, an issue that was first raised a couple of years ago at the behest of the Fox television network.&ldquo;No one said this is something we&rsquo;re going to do,&rdquo; Burke told THN. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something we&rsquo;re going to look at. The International League is going to experiment with it and we&rsquo;re going to study it. If that offends some members of the Flat Earth Society who don&rsquo;t want to consider any changes, so be it. But I&rsquo;m telling you it&rsquo;s nothing more than an experimental proposal so everyone should just relax and see where it goes.&rdquo;The experiment is tentatively set for March 2627 in Las Vegas, featuring two games between the Las Vegas Thunder and Detroit Vipers. One, perhaps both games, will be televised.The preliminary plan is to play a 15-minute quarter with a brief break-somewhere between three to seven minutes-to allow two Zambonis to dry-scrape the ice. Then the second 15-minute quarter will be played.There will be a 15-minute half-time intermission-with a normal flooding of the ice-followed by a third and fourth quarter routine that mirrors that of the first and second quarters.The impetus for the move from periods to quarters is it will speed up the game and fit in a two-and-a-half hour television window instead of the current three-hour slot. The average NHL game, from puck drop to final buzzer, is now about two hours, 40 minutes.Burke, however, claims the experiment is not primarily a broadcast-driven consideration.&ldquo;The first question is, &lsquo;Do the fans in the building like it?&rdquo; Burke said. &ldquo;The second question is, &lsquo;Do the players like it?&rsquo; The third question is, &lsquo;Can the ice take it?&rsquo; We&rsquo;ll have (NHL ice consultant) Dan Craig there to monitor it. Only after we&rsquo;ve answered those questions will we get into whether it&rsquo;s good for the broadcasters and the television audience.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011633/6949384-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="2051" height="1200"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pat LaFontaine scored his 1,000th career point on this play in the third period, Jan. 22 against Philadelphia. Could he score his 1,100th next year in the fourth quarter? (Photo by Scott Levy/BBS)</figcaption></div>IHL chief operating officer Doug Moss, former president of the Buffalo Sabres, said every facet of the game must be examined.&ldquo;Not just the fans, players, ice and TV,&rdquo; Moss said. &ldquo;What about the coaches, the concessions? There has to be a comprehensive study.&rdquo;Unquestionably, Fox wants the game played in less time, ostensibly to make it more attractive to non-traditional fans in the U.S. That, and the network doesn&rsquo;t want to have to pre-empt any of its prime-time programming for a late afternoon hockey game running over. Of course, there&rsquo;s no such quick-finish expectation for the mainstream sports such as football and baseball.The irony is Fox, by introducing 18-minute intermissions instead of the traditional 15-minute break and running four 90-second commercial breaks per period instead of the usual four 70-second breaks, has been directly responsible for increasing the length of the NHL games that are televised on that network.And if four quarters is a good idea for U.S. television, that&rsquo;s not necessarily the case for Canadian TV.&ldquo;I love change, I&rsquo;m not close-minded,&rdquo; said John Shannon, executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada on the CBC. &ldquo;I would look at bigger nets and moving the goallines, any of that. And I&rsquo;m all for speeding up the game, but I would suggest the length of the game is not based on having two intermissions.&rdquo;Shannon has practical considerations, too. A normal HNIC broadcast has 36 minutes of commercial inventory during a one-game, three-hour slot. He doesn&rsquo;t see how he&rsquo;ll get all that inventory in during a four-quarter, one-intermission game, although Shannon was under the impression there wouldn&rsquo;t be any significant break between the first and second and third and fourth quarters.&ldquo;And if they do have four- or five-minute breaks, are they really any further ahead at the end of the night?&rdquo; Shannon said.Clearly, tradition aside, there&rsquo;s the rub. If four-quarter games are to be practical, there has to be a quick turnaround after the first and third quarters. Otherwise, the time-saving benefit is minimized or lost completely.There are other considerations, though.Only the NHL, and some minor-league venues, operate with two Zambonis, which are necessary to efficiently treat the ice in a four-quarter format. If the NHL went to four quarters, it may not be practical or feasible for all the other levels of the game-from minor pro to junior to college to minor hockey-to do the same. Does the NHL want to be the only hockey loop radically altering the format of the game? Does it make any sense to stand alone?Burke is right on one count, though. There&rsquo;s no harm in trying something different-so long as there&rsquo;s no hidden agenda to forge ahead on this no matter what.Besides, if the NHL is serious about reducing the length of time necessary to play a game, it might want to follow a less radical IHL move.Starting Jan. 15, the IHL issued a directive to its officials to speed up the game by dropping the puck more quickly on faceoffs. Now, the official blows the whistle to signal he&rsquo;s ready. Five seconds later, no matter what, the puck is dropped.Early returns indicate IHL games are now, on average, 10 to 15 minutes shorter, well under the two-and-a-half hour mark.That common-sense move should be tried before anyone tries rejigging the basic format of the game. &#9632;

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NHL’s quarterly report

With scoring down and the perception the entertainment value is plummeting with it, the NHL&rsquo;s current climate is one of change.Note one important distinction, though. The time may be ripe to consider change, but our game is still a bastion of conservatism. Change will not necessarily come easily.The game is not fatally flawed. It needs a tune-up, not an overhaul and that should be the premise as the NHL examines a variety of suggestions/innovations from its committee of seven GMs. They will be considered at the GMs&rsquo; meeting Feb. 2-4. Here&rsquo;s a look at them and the likelihood of them being implemented in the near future:&#9633; Moving the goalline, now 11 feet from the boards, to 13 or 14 feet. This would allow for more sustained offensive pressure through the impact of a smaller neutral zone. Odds: 3:2. It&rsquo;s coming.&#9633; Two-referee system. It&rsquo;s as much a labor/business issue as hockey, but an extra set of eyes is needed. Odds: 9:2. It&rsquo;s coming.&#9633; Elimination of the center red line except for icing. The college rule is supposed to open up the neutral zone. Odds: 10:1. It&rsquo;s a possibility, but don&rsquo;t bet the farm.&#9633; Allow two-line passes only if the puck carrier crosses a (ringette) line (across the top of the faceoff circles). It&rsquo;s a fine compromise to abolition of the red line. Odds: 10:1.&#9633; Give each team one point for a tie and then play overtime to encourage the quest for victory. Sure beats a shootout. Odds: 25:1.&#9633; Prohibit goalies from leaving the crease and/or handling the puck behind the net. It would create more puck battles, but moving the goalline out would likely have the same effect. Odds: 50:1.&#9633; Players must serve full two-minute minors. For now, that&rsquo;s too dramatic. Odds: 50:1.&#9633; Abolish offside once the puck carrier crosses center red line. Too radical. Odds: 75:1.&#9633; Mandatory forechecking. That&rsquo;s tough to enforce. Odds: 75:1.&#9633; Increase the size of the nets. Goalies are bigger, but this goes too far. Goalie equipment legislation is more likely. Odds: 100:1. &#9632;

Hockey rules, but change necessary

<div class="byline">By John Davidson Inside the NHL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011816/6949446-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="316" height="382"></div>Until Kevin Constantine came on the scene, the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; franchise identity of the 1990s could be summed up in a tidy, three-word, forward-looking phrase: Go for goal.And why not? There&rsquo;s nothing wrong with extolling puck pursuit over prevention when you have Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Ron Francis and Peter Nedved on your side. But take away the game&rsquo;s best individual talent ever and a solid second-line center and something&rsquo;s got to give.Constantine, former coach with the San Jose Sharks and a Calgary Flames&rsquo; assistant, knew that when he took over as Pens&rsquo; coach this season, but so did the players. They came to camp aware there had to be changes and the remaining stars-Jagr and Francis-were committed to winning. That, along with sensational play fron comeback goalie Tom Barrasso, is a main reason why the Pens have become the fifth-best defensive team in the league using the same basic lineup (minus Lemieux and Nedved) that was 25th a year ago.But how do you make everyone buy in? It didn&rsquo;t happen right away; the Pens were 8-9-4 after 21 games, then went 17-6-5 in their next 28. Some players sat on the fence early before Constantine&rsquo;s on-ice strategy and some new thinking on communication kicked in.Constantine doesn&rsquo;t like to use the word &ldquo;system&rdquo; in describing how his team plays because it&rsquo;s too negative and restricting.Instead, he breaks the game down into facets-hard work, power play, penalty kill, neutral zone regrouping, offensive play with and without the puck, defensive zone play-all of which a team has to execute well to have success. Specific instructions are easier to follow. In practice, captain Francis takes the lead in drills and others follow. Constantine also took a page from Pittsburgh Steelers&rsquo; coach Bill Cowher in a 45-minute phone conversation the two had (at Constantine&rsquo;s initiative) before the season: Talk less for greater effect.In San Jose, Constantine used to give 80 per cent of the coaching staff speeches during team meetings, but now assistants Mike Eaves and Don Jackson talk more than he does. He has realized players get tired of hearing the same voice, that being well organized is just as important as giving orders. And as the Pens keep winning, he&rsquo;s not defensive about saying so, either. &#9632;

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Coach wins by letting others do talking

<div class="byline">By Bruce Garrioch</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021241/6949477-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Fiver Alexandre Daiale says what he needs most is a return to basics.</figcaption></div>He was billed as Alexandre The Great, he left town as Alexandre the Grate.Hired as an 18-year-old by a struggling franchise which badly needed a hero to act as its poster boy and carry it to salvation, the Ottawa Senators finally-officially-gave up on Alexandre Daigle.Traded to the Philadelphia Flyers Jan. 17 for right winger Pat Falloon, injured center Vaclav Prospal and a second round selection in the 1998 NHL entry, the Senators and Daigle hoped a fresh start would do both sides good.After signing a five-year, $12.25million (Cdn.) contract with the club on a warm June day in 1993, the young French junior superstar could never live up to the expectations heaped upon him by the franchise, fans and media.While he was a popular player because of his personality off the ice, his contract ended up being a noose around the franchise&rsquo;s neck. As one Ottawa headline declared: &ldquo;He was the Can&rsquo;t Miss Kid, Who Did.&rdquo;His arrival was supposed to help put the financing for the $200 million Corel Centre in place. It didn&rsquo;t. Daigle was expected to contribute even more on the ice with thrilling speed and exciting offense. He didn&rsquo;t.&ldquo;From the time Daigle was drafted in Ottawa, the weight of the whole franchise has been on his shoulders,&rdquo; said Senators&rsquo; left winger Shawn McEachern. &ldquo;For an 18-year-old, for anyone, that&rsquo;s tough. A fresh start should be great for him.&rdquo;Perhaps, the move is what Daigle needed most for his struggling career. He was drafted No. 1 overall ahead of the likes of Chris Pronger, Chris Gratton, Paul Kariya and Rob Niedermayer for a reason. Mainly it was star quality.But after a decent rookie season, Daigle was never the same. He didn&rsquo;t use his speed, teams found out his skills were flawed, his moves predictable and he shied away from physical play.Speed is Daigle&rsquo;s greatest quality. It&rsquo;s the reason he got another chance with the Flyers. However, after his first year in Ottawa it basically disappeared. He wouldn&rsquo;t use his speed to get the puck and that made him ineffective.Based on the past three seasons, Daigle&rsquo;s skills are questionable at best. He broke Mario Lemieux&rsquo;s scoring records in junior, but his best season in the NHL was 26 goals. (He had seven in 40 games this season). That&rsquo;s not good enough for one of the highest paid players on the team.Daigle&rsquo;s patented move was to skate down the right wing boards, stop close to the top of the opposing faceoff circle and then look for the pass. With all the scouting that goes on, it didn&rsquo;t take opponents long to pick up on it.The biggest question about Daigle is his commitment. He refused to go get the puck in the comer and there is some talk in Ottawa he doesn&rsquo;t really have any interest in being a hockey player.&ldquo;There was just too much pressure on him,&rdquo; said an NHL player personnel director. &ldquo;That franchise expected the world of him and then they found out that he wasn&rsquo;t a committed hockey player. It all came so easy for him.&ldquo;What really bothered me was his unwillingness to compete. He was a tough player in junior, he even used his stick to send a message the odd time. You didn&rsquo;t see that in the NHL. He never showed an ounce of toughness.&rdquo;Perhaps, a move to the Broad Street Behemoths will be just what Daigle needs to jumpstart his stalled career. It couldn&rsquo;t hurt. He&rsquo;ll play with better players and won&rsquo;t have to worry as much about physical abuse.In his debut against the Buffalo Sabres, Daigle picked up an assist playing on a line with John LeClair and Gratton. The Flyers are hopeful the performance was the start of good things to come.&ldquo;(Selected No. 1) you get a lot of ice time right quick without earning it,&rdquo; Daigle said. &ldquo;You start at 18 and you&rsquo;re there right away without building up. In a way 20 goals (the first year) was not enough because I was the first pick overall.&ldquo;This will be good for my parents. It will get a lot easier for them because in Montreal, with the media, they were always defending me. The last month (in Ottawa) was really tough, I was distracted. Maybe I wasn&rsquo;t as focused as I should be. I tried to do other things, like defense. I need to go back to basics and use my speed to get to the net.&rdquo;On a team which has LeClair, Eric Lindros, Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour, Gratton, Paul Coffey and an already healthy supporting cast, Daigle&rsquo;s role will be a lot more limited than it was in Ottawa. The Flyers gave up a lot in Prospal and Falloon, but GM Bob Clarke felt taking on the remaining $4 million on Daigle&rsquo;s contract was worth the risk.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got a place for Alex,&rdquo; Clarke said. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t need Alex to be great. We need Alex to be the best player his ability allows him to be. If his ability makes him great, then that&rsquo;s what he&rsquo;s supposed to be.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Daigle’s promise unfulfilled

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div>There&rsquo;s a question that has been nagging at you for some time, but you don&rsquo;t know where to turn. That former NHLer who played for the Havana Tropicals in Miami Beach&rsquo;s Tropical Hockey League in 1938-39- the league&rsquo;s only year of operation-what was his name again?If this is you, Emie Fitzsimmons is your man.The 56-year-old hockey historian and statistics nut recently quit his stats job with the American League&rsquo;s Fredericton Canadiens to put in eight-hour days searching through obscure microfiche in preparation for the October launch of Total Hockey, a projected 1,800-2,000-page book filled with the career statistical biographies of every NHLer in history and perhaps 1,000 others who coulda&rsquo;, shoulda&rsquo; or woulda&rsquo; played there, but didn&rsquo;t.&ldquo;Once it&rsquo;s out,&rdquo; Fitzsimmons said, &ldquo;it should be the bible.&rdquo; (No disrespect intended to the good folks at The Hockey News, we&rsquo;re sure.)Fitzsimmons, a retired air traffic controller, works in a 8-by-12-foot room in his house in Fredericton, N.B., which he calls &ldquo;the best utilized space you&rsquo;ve ever seen in your life.&rdquo;Thirty years ago he started taking pictures of every AHL player to pass through Fredericton. He has already donated 15.000 of his 30,000 photo collection to the Hall of Fame.His personal goal is to find career stats for every player in every North American pro league in history.Said Fitzsimmons: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just trying to preserve every player for alltime.&rdquo; &#9632;

Preserving players for all-time

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div>VANCOUVER&ndash;U.S. goalie Sarah Tueting didn&rsquo;t say a word. She didn&rsquo;t need to.The setting was the post-game news conference at Vancouver&rsquo;s GM Place Jan. 16 and Canada had just beaten the Americans in a 2-1 thriller before 14,944 fans-the largest ever to attend a women&rsquo;s hockey game.As Canadian coach Shannon Miller explained about how her team earlier &ldquo;failed to show up&rdquo; for the final of the Three Nations Cup, an embarrassing 3-0 loss to the U.S. Dec. 20, Tueting rolled her eyes and shook her head.It was as if to say, &ldquo;What about our effort? Doesn&rsquo;t that count for anything?&rdquo;As the media quizzed Miller, U.S. coach Ben Smith and players Lesley Reddon, Karen Nystrom and Cammi Granato-Tueting was present, but wasn&rsquo;t asked any questions-it was clear listening to each of them: This game meant much to women&rsquo;s hockey, but it was also just one more step before the two favorites meet in the Olympics.Familiarity breeds contempt. Clearly the Canadians and Americans are sick of facing each other in exhibitions, even though they realize they provide one another with the best competition. Miller said she had hoped to meet Team USA six or seven times leading up to the Olympics, but 13?Canada held a 6-5 advantage in the series after the U.S. rebounded with a 4-3 overtime win Jan. 20. The Americans have established they are never an easy touch. The gap between the two women&rsquo;s hockey powers has not diminished, it has disappeared.&ldquo;This win was a big one,&rdquo; Miller said. We needed it, especially after what happened the last time we played. The key for us is to gain momentum heading into the Olympics.&rdquo;The game was part of the NHL&rsquo;s all-star weekend and gave women&rsquo;s hockey a platform it has never enjoyed before. Nystrom opened the scoring for Canada midway through the second period. Jenny Schmidgall tied it eight minutes later after taking a great feed from Karyn Bye, the best individual in the game. Canadian MVP Nystrom scored the winner in the third period. &#9632;

Gap disappears between women’s teams

<div class="byline">Compiled by THN staff</div>Minnesota&rsquo;s 2000-2001 NHL expansion team will be known as the Minnesota Wild.&ldquo;We think it best represents what Minnesota hockey fans hold most dear,&rdquo; the team&rsquo;s chief executive officer Jac Sperling said in making the announcement Jan. 22. &ldquo;Our rugged natural wilderness, the premier brand of hockey that&rsquo;s native to Minnesota and the great enthusiasm of our fans.&rdquo;The Wild name was suggested in a name the team contest in which thousands of fans participated. Colors are red, green, gold and brown.Earlier expansion team announcements were the Nashville Predators (1998-99) and Columbus Blue Jackets (2000-2001). Yet to name its expansion team is Atlanta (1999-2000).SUPER SKATER: New Jersey Devils&rsquo; defenseman Scott Niedermayer won the fastest skater competition at the NHL SuperSkills event. Nieder-mayer raced around the ice in 13.56 seconds, edging Peter Bondra of the Washington Capitals. Mike Gartner of the Phoenix Coyotes holds the record of 13.386 seconds, set in 1996.Typical of this season&rsquo;s NHL, the winner wasn&rsquo;t declared until officials went upstairs to check the video. Even then there was some doubt as to whether Niedermayer actually finished first. It looked like Bondra crossed the finish line first, even though Nieder-mayer&rsquo;s time was quicker.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t get a chance to practise this event so it&rsquo;s hard to come up with a strategy,&rdquo; Niedermayer said. &ldquo;The biggest thing is you want to keep your speed up so you don&rsquo;t cut too tight in the corners.&rdquo;A shootout goal by Mighty Ducks of Anaheim sniper Teemu Selanne gave the World team a 13-12 SuperSkills win over the North Americans.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011651/6949556-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="627" height="538"></div>St. Louis Blues&rsquo; defenseman Al Maclnnis won the other marquee event, the hardest shot competition. His blast of 100.4 miles per hour gave him his fourth hardest-shot title, but was well off the record of 105.2 mph set by Al lafrate in 1993.The World&rsquo;s Dominik Hasek won the goalie competition, making 13 saves in the rapid fire event.KING FOR A DAY: Wayne King needs a raise.Not from his boss. He needs to learn to raise the puck-although he&rsquo;s never likely to have the chance to win $5 million by doing so again.King, a 37-year-old electronics technician from Dayton, Ohio, had the chance of a lifetime when he took four shots (from 31 feet) at four targets placed in the comers of the net in eight seconds during the all-star SuperSkills event. He stood to win a million dollars per hit and a bonus of $1 million if he hit all four.Unfortunately, King missed all four, never once raising the puck off the ice. He took home $10,(XX) for participating in the event, sponsored by Norelco.&ldquo;I was nervous,&rdquo; King said. &ldquo;Actually I wasn&rsquo;t too bad until all the players started gathering around me. I didn&rsquo;t know they were going to do that.&rdquo;King, who played shinny, but no organized hockey, as a kid, was informed Jan. 14 he had been selected to shoot and the next day was flown to Dallas, where he was given a lesson by Dallas Stars&rsquo; center Mike Modano.He worked out with members of the local Dayton Bombers of the East Coast League. He practised shooting for two hours a day prior to the contest.King&rsquo;s hopes were raised when, during a test run with ESPN (which broadcast the SuperSkills competition) the day before the event, he shattered the top left target. There would be no repeat performance.&ldquo;When I let the second shot go, I knew it wasn&rsquo;t going to happen,&rdquo; King said. &ldquo;I was a little disappointed, but I guess it just wasn&rsquo;t meant to be.&rdquo;HEROES OF HOCKEY: Old players don&rsquo;t die, they just show up at Heroes of Hockey games during the NHL&rsquo;s all-star weekend. Thank heavens.The old guys managed to provide a few laughs by replacing slapshots with slapstick. The comedy pitted ex-Vancouver Canucks against a team of retired NHLers in two 15-minute periods.Two goals by Darryl Sittier gave Heroes of Hockey a 3-2 win. Lee Fogolin had the other Heroes&rsquo; goal. Darcy Rota scored once for the Canucks and Tiger Williams scored on a penalty shot and then, to the hometown crowd&rsquo;s delight, rode his stick in celebration. &#9632;

f0007-01

Wild about hockey in Minnesota

<div class="byline">Compiled by THN staff</div>Alan Eagleson was formally disbarred by the Law Society of Upper Canada Feb. 22 because of his convictions for fraud in Canada and mail fraud in the U.S.Society member Gavin MacKenzie said disbarment-meaning Eagleson cannot practise law-shows the Society&rsquo;s &ldquo;unambiguous disapproval&rdquo; of Eagleson&rsquo;s behavior.Eagleson is serving an 18-month sentence for defrauding Hockey Canada, the NHL Players&rsquo; Association, the NHL and Labatt Breweries of hundreds of thousands of dollars.Eagleson&rsquo;s status as a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and Order of Canada are also in jeopardy.OFFICIAL CLEARED: Charges have been dropped against a former hockey official who was a suspect in the murder of Russian Ice Hockey Federation president Valentin Sych.Investigators found insufficient evidence to support charges against Robert Cherenkov, president of a defunct Russian League.Sych was gunned down outside his home April 22 as he and his wife were getting in their car.FAR TO GO: The Nashville Predators&rsquo; season ticket count is up to 7,000 with another 5,000 to go.The NHL expansion team must sell 12,000 season tickets by March 31 or face severe penalty, perhaps forfeiture of the franchise.Team president Craig Leopold said he was encouraged by 1,000 tickets sold in one week prior to the all-star break.NHLPA ADDS RACER: The NHLPA will be faster than ever thanks to a sponsorship agreement with Boesel&rsquo;s McCormack Motorsports team.The NHLPA&rsquo;s logo will be included on Raul Boesel&rsquo;s car as an associate sponsor this year. &#9632;

Eagleson disbarred by Society

I believe that hockey needs some changes to bring back speed and scoring. But the NHL&rsquo;s idea to experiment with making a game four quarters instead of three periods is simply ridiculous.Just imagine all the records of the past that would be nullified. One example is goals in a period. All the past period feats would become almost impossible to break.But the most important thing is that three periods instead of four quarters is what makes hockey unique. It&rsquo;s sad to see our great Canadian sport fall victim to the desire to make money.Jason Graves, Kentville, N.S.<h2>Game just fine</h2>I have been attending NHL games since the early 1960s and following it on television since 1952.The game today is better now than ever. Players today are bigger, faster and more skilled.I only wish certain journalists would quit knocking today&rsquo;s game.Garry Robinson,&nbsp; Pembroke, Ont.<h2>Mac the Shark</h2>In the Dec. 26 issue, reader Joanna Truedsson said she hoped John MacLean would be traded to a team that appreciates him.He was. Johnny Mac is now a San Jose Shark.The team and fans certainly appreciate him. Dave Lowry, who was wearing No. 15, gave it up before MacLean reported for his first practice.It&rsquo;s too bad the New Jersey Devils didn&rsquo;t appreciate what a great player he is, but San Jose players and fans know they just got one.Abigail Emmons, Sacramento, Calif.<h2>Go for extra point</h2>There has been a lot of talk recently about the incredible number of tie games in the NHL.So before Gary Bettman and the NHL board of governors do something drastic to ruin the game, here is a simple change: eliminate overtime altogether and award three points for a win.Michael Sovereign, Waterloo, Ont.<h2>A true hero</h2>I just wanted to tell you about a real hero in the NHL-Tony Amonte of the Chicago Blackhawks.My son plays mite hockey and Amonte is his favorite player. Last year we got to meet him at a game and have seen him five or six times since that first meeting. Every time we meet, Tony is more interested in my son&rsquo;s progress in school and on the ice. He calls my son by name and always has a few minutes after the game to talk.He has made my son feel very special.Hats off to Mr. and Mrs. Amonte for bringing up a son who has never forgotten that this game is for kids and the importance of heroes.Pat Tanzillo, Los Angeles, Calif.<h2>For shame, THN</h2>Borje Sahning not among The Hockey News&rsquo; Top 50 NHL Players of All-Time? Shame on you.Isaac Silva, Hamilton, Ont.<h2>Where&rsquo;s Parent?</h2>How can THN publish a list of the Top 50 NHL Players of All-Time and omit one of the greatest goalies of all-time, Bernie Parent?Mark Pucker, Philadelphia, Pa.<h2>Gimme a break</h2>In each of the past 18 seasons (with the exception of the lockout year), this guy has scored 30 or more goals. In that time, he has had nine 40-goal seasons and a 50-goal season.He is fifth among all-time goal scorers and will likely end his career behind only Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe. He has played in the AllStar Game seven times.This kind of performance-not to mention his consistency and character-can&rsquo;t get Mike Gartner into the Top-50 NHL Players of All-Time? Give me a freakin&rsquo; break!Larry Lloyd, Phoenix, Ariz.<h2>Now the present</h2>All right guys, now that your Top 50 list is in the books, I think you should spend a little more time on your Top Players of the Present list.How in the world could you leave John LeClair of the Philadelphia Flyers off your short list for the Hart Trophy (THN, Jan. 16)?As of the all-star break, he was tied for the league lead in goals, third in points, was well on his way to a third straight 50-goal season and is the workhorse for the Flyers. All this and he&rsquo;s not even playing with Eric Lindros anymore.C&rsquo;mon guys, put the history books down for a minute and watch some TV.Ted Fischl, Nazareth, Pa.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., 14240-9947. 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;

NHL needs change, but not four quarters

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011707/6949635-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0008-01

ELSTON

Hey, bus driver The next time NHL players complain about a delayed flight, they might want to consider the recent travails of the Kamloops Blazers. Because of an ice storm, bus transmission problems, a flat tire and a jack-knifed tractor trailer, they spent 38 of 55 hours on two buses making their way from Portland, Ore., to Regina, Sask.Eye on the &lsquo;I&rsquo; Ex-Buffalo Sabre president Doug Moss&rsquo;s move into the executive suite of the International League has helped to warm up the relationship with the NHL, which previously had been icy under commissioner Bob Ufer. Ufer is still heading up the I, but Moss is providing a buffer that will likely lead to more co-operative efforts with the NHL.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021315/6949666-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="371" height="575"><figcaption class="caption-body">Marc Crawford</figcaption></div>New name, old name Colorado Avalanche coach Marc Crawford was given a new name when he coached the World Team at the NHL All-Star Game against Team North America. &ldquo;It was Crawfordgedov,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Basically it&rsquo;s what I heard all my life when I played, &lsquo;Crawford, get off!&rdquo;Sign of the times How does Russ Conway really feel about disgraced former NHLPA head Alan Eagleson? Asked by a member of the media to autograph a copy of his book Game Misconduct (now available with a new ending) Conway scribbled: &ldquo;Thanks for all your interest in helping the public finally realize what a crook Alan Eagleson really is, with appreciation Russ Conway.&rdquo;The trading post The goaltending trade market is relatively soft, but if Carolina can find a taker on Kirk McLean, he&rsquo;ll be moved. Trevor Kidd is No. 1. It makes no sense to have a No. 2 making $2.45 million. The Islanders and Calgary could use a veteran netminder, but may not want to pay the price. &#9632;

f0008-02

What you need to know about the 1997-98 season

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011680/6949697-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Philadelphia&rsquo;s Eric Lindros will be a leader on Team Canada, but he&rsquo;s not the only one. (Photo by John Giamundo/BBS)</figcaption></div>Big Eric Lindros. Big, dark, brooding, intimidating Eric Lindros.The 6-foot-4, 236-pound Lindros can chop you down with a stare. Or, if he&rsquo;s not in the mood to answer questions, which happens periodically, and his mind seems to wander, rarely making eye contact with his interrogator, he can give you the willies.Did he hear me ask the question, the reporter wonders?That&rsquo;s one side of the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; superstar. Then there&rsquo;s Eric Lindros the cut up, the down-to-earth fun guy. There is definitely a boy inside the man.After the NHL All-Star Game Jan. 18 in Vancouver, an 8-7 win for the North America allstars over the World all-stars, Lindros was quizzed about the victory.&ldquo;We lost the skills competition; we had to have a team meeting,&rdquo; comes his straight-faced answer.Reporters huddled around him feverishly writing what he says in their notepads as he speaks. Team meeting, good stuff.Um, guys. He was just joking. A team meeting because they lost the skills competition? Come on.Maybe they don&rsquo;t laugh because they&rsquo;re intimidated. Imagine cracking up at something you thought The Big E intended to be humorous and then have him bark, &ldquo;What&rsquo;s so funny?&rdquo; That would be death.Lindros admits he sometimes plays games with reporters.&ldquo;It happens so often,&rdquo; Lindros says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll crack a joke, but I keep a straight face and there&rsquo;s no reaction at all. Sometimes when I say things like that I&rsquo;m cracking up inside. My teammates know when I&rsquo;m joking. And I have a few friends who understand my sense of humor. But it&rsquo;s dark. Sometimes it&rsquo;s a little wild.&rdquo;Lindros, the intimidator, the joker, the hockey star is about to take center stage. Center stage of the world, that is. He knows the routine. Been there, done that.This could be the greatest year of his life. Having gotten his contract situation resolved-he agreed on an extension that will pay him $7.5 million this season and $8.5 million the next-Lindros is free to concentrate on his game.His Flyers are trying to get back to the Stanley Cup. They hope to redeem themselves after being embarrassed in the final last season, losing four straight to the Detroit Red Wings. It was a final in which Lindros didn&rsquo;t play particularly well, scoring just one meaningless goal in the final game when Red Wings&rsquo; fans had already begun celebrating.Then there&rsquo;s the matter of the Winter Games in Nagano, Japan in February. Imagine, a gold medal and Stanley Cup in the same year. Only former New York Islanders&rsquo; defenseman Ken Morrow knows that feeling.Lindros, unlike Morrow in 1980, will be a central figure on both his teams. Expectations for him will be sky high.As if there wasn&rsquo;t going to be enough pressure on his hulking shoulders just being involved, when the Canadian team was announced in Ottawa Nov. 29, the little kid who skated out on the ice at the Corel Centre with No. 88 on his jersey to represent Lindros, was also wearing the &lsquo;C&rsquo;. For Lindros, it was a huge C-prise.With so many veteran players on Team Canada, wasn&rsquo;t it a little too early and presumptuous on Canadian GM Bob Clarke&rsquo;s behalf to hand the reigns to Lindros?&ldquo;He&rsquo;s at the top level of players in hockey,&rdquo; says Clarke, also president and GM of the Flyers. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s has passed (Wayne) Gretzky and Messier and the other older players. He has Olympic experience, Canada Cup experience, World Junior experience. He captained his team to the Stanley Cup final. It&rsquo;s his time.&rdquo;Lindros, who turns 25 six days after the gold medal game, has considerable international experience as Clarke suggests. He played in the World Junior Championship three times, twice winning gold, and helped Canada win a silver medal at the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France. He scored five goals and 11 points in eight games that year.Stocked with stars and leaders, Team Canada is Eric Lindros&rsquo; team, make no mistake about it. Mark Messier, considered one of the greatest leaders in team sports of all-time, didn&rsquo;t even make the club.And Canada, like the Flyers, is also on a mission to make amends for its most recent outing, a humbling loss to the United States in the gold medal game of the World Cup in 1996.When told American Tony Amonte said Canada is the favorite for the gold in Nagano, Lindros smiles and offers, &ldquo;Look at Tony blowing it (World Cup win) off already.&rdquo;Lindros was in Tampa Bay for a game against the Lightning the night the Canadian Olympic team&rsquo;s roster was announced. He got the word from Flyers&rsquo; coach Wayne Cashman, an assistant with Team Canada. He had no idea he was to be the team&rsquo;s captain.&ldquo;Cash told me who was on the team before the game,&rdquo; Lindros recalls. &ldquo;Then he goes, &lsquo;Oh, by the way, you&rsquo;re captain.&rsquo; I was floored. That&rsquo;s Cash&rsquo;s sense of humor.&rdquo;Eric Lindros&rsquo; very being is about pressure and expectations. It has been that way since he burst on the scene as a 15-year-old monstrous Can&rsquo;t Miss Kid.&ldquo;If you&rsquo;re asking which is worse, that&rsquo;s easy,&rdquo; Lindros says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s pressure, definitely. My own personal pressure. I&rsquo;m probably harder on myself than anyone else.&rdquo;That said, Lindros accepts his role of captain, but knows it&rsquo;s not a one-man show, whether the public agrees or not.&ldquo;Listen, our job is to go over there and win,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;You just do what you can. One thing I think people are truly missing, and I mean this, is there are so many captains on this team. We&rsquo;ve got Ray Bourque who has been a great leader in the Boston organization for so long. We have Joe Sakic, Steve Yzerman, Brendan Shanahan has been a leader everywhere he has played.&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t take that as my shying away from the responsibility of being captain, because I&rsquo;m not at all. But I think back to the Canada Cup (in 1991) and it was Dirk Graham who threw his skate (against a wall) and went at it with (coach) Mike Keenan. That was a turning point.&rdquo;Lindros has shown more consistency this season. There have been times in his career when he just doesn&rsquo;t seem to be into the game. Clarke said those nights are fewer and farther between.The famed Legion of Doom-Lindros, John LeClair and Mikael Renberg-is no more, (&ldquo;It died when Mikael was traded.&rdquo; Eric says), and his new linemates are Rod Blind&rsquo;Amour and Trent Klatt.There was a 10-game stretch in November when he didn&rsquo;t score-the longest drought of his career-but the Flyers were 6-3-1 in that span so nobody, least of all Lindros, panicked. In 46 games Lindros had 21 goals and 55 points, tied for fourth-highest in the league.&ldquo;To me, Eric is a far better player this year because of the learning experience of playing in the Stanley Cup final last year,&rdquo; Clarke says. &ldquo;His whole game has come along. His skating is better; not that it was ever bad. His shooting is better. He tries different things in games because of the confidence he has.&rdquo;Lindros hopes to be on a high going into the Olympics. The loss to the United States in the World Cup left a bad taste in his mouth.Other members of Team Canada acknowledge Lindros&rsquo; importance to the team, but like Clarke and Lindros himself, insist it&rsquo;s going to take a total team effort to bring home gold.&ldquo;Eric&rsquo;s leadership is important, but you can&rsquo;t ask him to do it all,&rdquo; says Red Wings&rsquo; left winger Shanahan. &ldquo;Sometimes you don&rsquo;t want to step on guys&rsquo; toes when you&rsquo;re on a team that has 12 other captains on it, players you admire and respect. I&rsquo;m sure Eric will speak up when he thinks it&rsquo;s necessary, but too much is made of what the captain says. It&rsquo;s a team; he&rsquo;s one player.&rdquo;One big, strong, intimidating-and sometimes pretty funny-guy. &#9632;

f0010-01

Captain Canada

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011513/6949735-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="388" height="538"></div>It can be difficult to fully comprehend Viacheslav Fetisov as he translates his Russian thoughts into English words, even though he makes a wonderful effort to be understood.So imagine how challenging it is to read between the lines when he speaks. I&rsquo;ll do it anyway. He didn&rsquo;t say it outright, but I&rsquo;m pretty certain the 39-year-old Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; defenseman regrets that he will not play for Russia in the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano.Fetisov tries to hide that fact by saying he&rsquo;ll be happy to take a break from action during the Olympics and cheer his team on, watching the games on TV. He&rsquo;s just not very convincing when he says it.Fellow Red Wing and countryman Igor Larionov, who elected to boycott the Olympics, came right out and said if he had to make the decision again, he&rsquo;d go to Nagano. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t regret it, but if I could take back time, maybe I would think twice and go back and play,&rdquo; Larionov said.Phoenix Coyotes&rsquo; goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, on the other hand, is sticking by his guns; he said he has no regrets about blowing off the Games. Khabibulin is still upset with some of the Russian players he feels didn&rsquo;t take the World Cup of Hockey seriously and chose to party harder than they played.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-021080/6949728-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="520" height="889"><figcaption class="caption-body">Viacheslav Fetisov</figcaption></div>But with Fetisov, who is equal parts of shyness and humility, you never quite know for sure.One minute he stands firm by what he says is his decision not to play; the next he claims he wasn&rsquo;t asked to be a part of the Russian Olympic team.At a meet-the-press gathering in Vancouver the day before the NHL All-Star Game, Fetisov made it known his nose was out of joint because he visited Russia for a month last summer (including one week of parading around with the Stanley Cup) and nobody from the Russian Ice Hockey Federation even inquired as to whether he&rsquo;d play in the Olympics or not.Perhaps they didn&rsquo;t because he has not hidden his displeasure with the way the federation has operated and his distaste for former national team coach Viktor Tikhonov.Fetisov said if he was asked to play in the Olympics, he&rsquo;s not sure what his answer would have been. Yet he offered, &ldquo;To be in the game as long as I have been and to be a part of it (Olympics) again would be great. But the decision was made for me.&rdquo;Sounds like a yes to me.Missing this year&rsquo;s Olympics will do nothing to diminish Fetisov&rsquo;s storied career. He has already played in three Olympics, in 1980, 1984 and 1988, winning two gold medals and one silver.He was the Soviet player of the year in 1982, 1986 and 1988. He played 12 years in the Russian Elite League, in four of which he won the Pravda Trophy as the league&rsquo;s top scoring defenseman. Three times(1984, 1986 and 1990) he won the Gold Stick as Europe&rsquo;s top player. The long-time captain of the Central Red Army team, he played in the World Championship 11 times.After five full seasons with the New Jersey Devils, Fetisov was dealt to, the Red Wings for a third round pick and has continued to be an effective performer.Who knows, maybe Fetisov wasn&rsquo;t invited simply because the Russians wanted to go with younger legs. Canada is leaving Mark Messier home for precisely that reason.It&rsquo;s hard to believe the Russians couldn&rsquo;t use him. Their defense for the Olympics consists of Alexei Gusarov, Dimitri Yushkevich, Darius Kasparaitis, Alexei Zhitnik, Igor Kravchuk and the Mironov brothers, Dmitri and Boris. Good, but far from great. Vladimir Malakhov and Sergei Zubov would have helped, but they turned down invitations to play.There is no question Fetisov would have provided a stabilizing influence in the dressing room and on the ice.And any way you look at it, it&rsquo;s a shame he&rsquo;s not a part of the NHL&rsquo;s first full participation in the Olympic Games.&ldquo;A decision like this is supposed to be pretty simple,&rdquo; Fetisov said, &ldquo;but it never is.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0011-01

COLUMNISTS

Fetisov will be missed by Russians

<div class="byline">By Jay Greenberg</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021310/6949773-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="346" height="434"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011640/6949766-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="1797" height="1241"><figcaption class="caption-body">Guy Lafleur was reborn as a New York Ranger only days after being voted in to the Hockey Hall of Fame.</figcaption></div>Alan Eagleson isn&rsquo;t the first guy convicted of stealing from the game to be enshrined in its Hall of Fame.The late Harold Ballard was nailed for stealing from Maple Leaf Gardens&rsquo; till and still is a member in good standing as he lies six feet under, not nearly as deep a hole as he put the franchise in with his mismanagement.They are probably going to kick Eagleson out, despite the fact his contributions to the game dwarf Ballard&rsquo;s, no matter how much the NHLPA founder stole. Even if the committee voting in Ballard rationalized he already had paid his debt to society, if you leave him in and remove Eagleson, you create a terrible double standard.Of course, it&rsquo;s not the first time the Hall has applied one or failed even to maintain the single standard of demanding greatness from all it selects. Halls of Fame should be above those kinds of questions, above almost all kinds of questions. Like: What was the rush to put in Eagleson while he was still in office? Or what was the big hurry to immediately enshrine Mario Lemieux? He probably is not coming back, but conceivably could to join Guy Lafleur and Scotty Bowman, who returned as mortals after being voted immortal.The three-year waiting period really should be a five-year period, maybe even a seven-year period, so people can&rsquo;t come back. The only bad stuff we know about Lafleur is he drove too fast, which certainly would not have been enough to keep him out, but then the only really bad stuff we knew about Eagleson in 1989 was he had a good working relationship with most of the owners and was condescending towards his constituents.The larger point is, if you are making a Hall of Fame a shrine for the creme de la creme, you need time to put their credentials in perspective. That goes for players, too, who are increasingly getting in on numbers that are almost as large as the ones Honored Builders wear on their shirts in The Big House.The higher go the stats, the lower go the standards. We thought of this a couple weeks ago when Don Sutton, a better-than-average pitcher who won 324 games by lasting 23 seasons, was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.Now, there is a lot to be said for longevity and consistency, but not if they trample other, higher, criteria. Sutton was the baseball equivalent of Mike Gartner, who will retire as one of five players to score 700 goals and be an automatic selection three years after he quits. He shouldn&rsquo;t be. Gartner is at least an arguable case. His playoff statistics (22 goals, 48 points in 57 games) suggest he is not the abject choker he has been portrayed to be, but his teams didn&rsquo;t win many playoff series and we can&rsquo;t recall a single one he was a main reason they did.Truly great players lift their clubs. They make players around them better. At their peaks, they were the best at their position or won multiple major awards. Big numbers alone don&rsquo;t impress me. Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s and Lemieux&rsquo;s were made even more staggering because of what they did for guys like Brett Callighen, B.J. MacDonald and Warren Young, who couldn&rsquo;t even stay in the league playing with other centers. We&rsquo;re not just picking on Gartner. Dino Ciccarelli will finish with more than 600 goals. So, with good health, may Luc Robitaille. Dave Andreychuk has broken 500. Joe Mullen has 502, more than Lanny McDonald, who is already enshrined with 18 goals fewer than Dale Hawerchuk took to retirement. These were all good players who came along in higher scoring eras than their predecessors. But none of them were among the best who ever lived. We are into an era where 40 goals, not 50, are a superb season. So you can&rsquo;t be mesmerized by numbers. Statistics, damn lies and a few convicted liars thrown into the mix. diminish the honor that the real visionaries, off and on the ice, earn when they are elected to a Hall of Fame. Michel Goulet, with 548 career goals, didn&rsquo;t get nominated in his first year of eligibility. Either that&rsquo;s an indication standards are tightening, or just another sign something is wrong with the process. Goulet&rsquo;s was too good of a career not to be considered. And too few people, only 15, make the call.Generally, however, too many have gotten in. You can&rsquo;t undo what&rsquo;s been done, so maybe Eagleson should stand as a reminder you need for time to pass before you can pass muster as a legitimate Hall of Famer. &#9632;

f0012-02

Boot Alan Eagleson out? No, just change standards

<div class="byline">By Mike Smith</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011532/6949818-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="384" height="537"></div>I had many questions when asked by The Hockey News to list my choices for the 50 best NHL players of alltime.How to compare players decades ago with those of today? Who would and would not make my list? How to judge players of different times and positions with a similar standard? Could I be fair in my judgment? Who would be No. 1?The toughest question was who would be first on my list. It was quickly obvious it could be no one other than Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr or Wayne Gretzky. Yet, deciding between them was anything but easy. What could be said of one could be said for all three. Looking at statistics was not the answer. Would you take one over the other two to play on your team? It would be a tortuous decision. I decided to look at the game itself to distinguish between what appeared to be three equally great players.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-021079/6949811-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="460" height="701"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bobby Orr</figcaption></div>Hockey is a game of two eras, neither of which is totally distinct. The original game was played in an up-and-down fashion, characterized by low scoring and tight checking. Fiftygoal-scorers were a rarity. It was a defensive game. The players were Canadians. The NHL was compromised of six teams which grew to 12 after the first expansion of 1967.The contemporary game&rsquo;s style is as much across the ice surface as it is up and down. Until very recently, scoring was in and checking-well, that was part of the original game. Fiftygoal-scorers came to be expected. It became an offensive game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-03804/6949804-1-eng-US/f0013-032.jpg" title="f0013-03" width="463" height="698"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Gretzky</figcaption></div>The players now come from around the world. The NHL has grown to 26 clubs, soon to be 30. If the original game was Canadian, the contemporary game is global, a EuroNorth American hybrid.Gordie Howe, for me, is the best player of the original game. His game was reflective of his era. He was dominant offensively, defensively and physically. His style, quiet, no flash, spoke loudly of his ability. His teams won. He was everything you looked for in a player: big, strong, tough, durable, and good, real good.Wayne Gretzky, selected No. 1 by the Top 50 voting panel, has been the best player of the contemporary game. In an era of high scoring, he scored the most, nearly every year. His style was one of intense focus.With his unique ability to play the game comes a vision to see a game us mere mortals do not. His name became synonymous with his era&rsquo;s game. And his teams won. He brought with him an air of excitement. We knew great things were going to happen.Bobby Orr began his career in the era of the original game. When he was finished the contemporary game was in place. He brought to the NHL a new and different game, and so the NHL began to change with his arrival. There was a new future on the horizon. A defenseman scoring 100 points, once never dreamed of, became a reality with Orr. He did things that made us think we were seeing the eighth wonder of the world. After Orr, hockey became on offense-oriented game. His influence took the original game and ushered in a new era.Gordie Howe set the standards of excellence. Bobby Orr transformed those standards. Wayne Gretzky perfected the new standards.I selected Bobby Orr as the best player of all-time. As the transformation player, he alone affected the total game. Several players transformed their positions. Maurice Richard did it for goal-scoring wingers. Jacques Plante did it for goalies by leaving the confines of the crease. Gordie Howe may well have been hockey&rsquo;s first pure power forward. Wayne Gretzky took playmaking to new altitudes. But it was Bobby Orr who changed the game.-For that, he stands alone. The player who actually transformed hockey deserves the recognition of No. 1.Mike Smith is associate GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs. &#9632;

f0013-01

Why Orr got my nod as No. 1 on Top 50

<div class="byline">By Cammy Clark</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011500/6949880-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="163" height="161"></div>Mighty Ducks of Anaheim captain Paul Kariya didn&rsquo;t brood about not being at the NHL AllStar Game. Instead, he put the three days off to good use.&ldquo;It was a good chance for me to reflect about what I was doing right and wrong,&rdquo; Kariya said.Kariya&rsquo;s return Dec. 12, after missing the first 32 games due to his contract dispute, was expected to be the big lift the Ducks needed to get them back to the playoffs.But after surviving fairly well without him, going 11-15-6 on the shoulders of Teemu Selanne&rsquo;s 23 goals, the Ducks record was worse after Kariya&rsquo;s return. They went 4-10-2 during his first 16 games back.Kariya&rsquo;s personal numbers were good, with nine goals and nine assists. But he was the first to admit, &ldquo;I can play better.&rdquo;Ducks&rsquo; coach Pierre Page had asked Kariya and linemate Teemu Selanne to be more vocal.While Kariya said he is trying to be a more vocal leader this season, he also said, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t be a rah rah cheerleader in the dressing room and not come through on the ice. The best way I can lead is on the ice.&rdquo;Kariya had two great performances in his first two games after the break, netting the third hat trick and second five-point night of his career in an 8-3 win over the Florida Panthers and a goal and two assists in a 4-3 road triumph against the Colorado Avalanche.NOTEBOOK: Left winger Tomas Sandstrom is now the top scoring Swede of all-time in the NHL with 820 points, having passed Thomas Steen who retired with 817&hellip;Ducks&rsquo; rookie center Matt Cullen made the most of a seven-game stint in the minors with 11 goals and six assists that helped earn him a spot in the American League All-Star Game. The Ducks recalled him Jan. 20 and he scored his first NHL goal Jan. 21&hellip;The NHL overturned an instigator penalty on defenseman Jason Marshall in the Jan. 14 game against Colorado, which meant his two-game suspension for having three instigator penalties in a one-year period was lifted. The NHL ruled Marshall was provoked by a suckerpunch from Colorado&rsquo;s Claude Lemieux. &#9632;

f0015-01

Kariya knows he must lead Ducks into playoff position

<div class="byline">By Jim Kelley</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-03749/6949911-1-eng-US/f0015-032.jpg" title="f0015-03" width="582" height="894"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dominik Hasek</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-021047/6949918-1-eng-US/f0015-022.jpg" title="f0015-02" width="164" height="158"></div>Given how little was said about the undertaking, one would get the impression Dominik Hasek wasn&rsquo;t thrilled about the Buffalo Sabres picking up the option on his contract.That&rsquo;s not the case according to both Hasek and Sabres&rsquo; GM Darcy Regier.&ldquo;There was no dissent on their part and I don&rsquo;t want to speak on their behalf, but I think it was something they wanted done,&rdquo; Regier said of the deal that binds the World All-Star team goaltender to another season in Buffalo.The club exercised the option for the 1998-99 season at Hasek&rsquo;s current rate of $4 million. Hasek agreed to the clause when he signed two seasons ago. Hasek had a clause in his contract that gave the club the option to pick up an extra year if the Sabres made the playoffs in either this season or last.Regier also noted there was and will be talk of a major extension of Hasek&rsquo;s time with the Sabres.&ldquo;There was talk of extending and entering into a new agreement,&rdquo; Regier said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve already had very preliminary discussions on that. It was my sense they were receptive to that, but everything comes at a price and so it remains to be seen.&rdquo;Hasek had given a decidedly low-key response to the extension and left the impression he was only sort of happy with it and there were other markets in which he could make more money, such as Philadelphia. He later indicated he was only making the point he&rsquo;s aware there are different market sizes in the NHL and left it at that.NOTEBOOK: The Sabres were on something of a roll. They went 2-1-1 on a four-game road trip and then hit the break with an easy win over Vancouver Jan. 15. They lost 3-0 in Philadelphia Jan. 20 in their first game back after the All-Star Game, but then beat division and conference rival Carolina 2-1 Jan. 21&hellip;The team matched a season high for goals scored with six in the 6-2 win over Vancouver. It also matched a season high with four in a period (the second)&hellip;The line of Curtis Brown centering right winger Michal Grosek and left winger Matthew Barnaby has started to produce some offense. Brown had the winner against Carolina and Barnaby had two great scoring chances at Philadelphia. Grosek had a seven-game point streak. &#9632;

f0015-03

Hasek happy with deal?

<div class="byline">By Mike Loftus</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-04549/6949949-1-eng-US/f0015-042.jpg" title="f0015-04" width="163" height="158"></div>Sergei Samsonov could have been disappointed by the all-star break&rsquo;s intrusion upon the best spurt of his brief NHL career.His reaction to six days without a game and four full days off the ice offered the latest proof that Samsonov is no average NHL rookie. In fact, the Boston Bruins think he might be the league&rsquo;s best.&ldquo;Sure, I was on kind of a streak,&rdquo; Samsonov said when he and his teammates returned to work, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s nice to get some rest for the next half. We have a lot of important games coming, and it&rsquo;s a tough schedule, so it was important to get rested.&rdquo;That practical attitude didn&rsquo;t surprise coach Pat Bums, even though it came from a 19-year-old.&ldquo;Sergei&rsquo;s a pretty determined guy,&rdquo; said Bums, who began touting the stocky Russian left winger as a Calder Trophy candidate just before the break. &ldquo;You very rarely see him fooling around, joking out at practice. He&rsquo;s serious when it comes to the hockey business.&rdquo;The Bruins nabbed Samsonov with the eighth pick of the 1997 entry draft, knowing because of his experience with the Detroit Vipers of the International League that he probably had a better chance of first-year success than center Joe Thornton, whom the Bruins selected first overall.It took much of the first half, but Samsonov proved the Bruins&rsquo; instincts correct. Playing with center Jason Allison and right winger Dimitri Khristich, Samsonov went on a four-game scoring streak (3-3-6) which included goals in three straight games and the first three-point game of his career (all assists) Jan. 8 against Phoenix.The spurt extended Samsonov&rsquo;s most consistent stretch of the year. He scored nine of his 20 points and half his eight goals in a nine-game span through Jan. 21.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m feeling a little more comfortable than at the start of the season,&rdquo; Samsonov said.NOTEBOOK: The Bruins opened a critical stretch of 10 games in 18 days with a 4-2 loss Jan. 21 at Montreal that ended a 4-0-3 unbeaten streak. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve explained it to them,&rdquo; said coach Pat Burns of Boston&rsquo;s schedule between the all-star and Olympic breaks. &lsquo;Ten games, 18 nights, nine conference games, six division games, five games home, five games away&hellip;what more can I tell them?&rdquo;&hellip;The Bruins became the last team to allow a shorthanded goal in the loss to Montreal&hellip;The Bruins, by far the NHL&rsquo;s least-penalized team, extended a streak of successful penalty kills to 26 straight over 10-plus games through Jan. 21&hellip;Right winger Anson Carter&rsquo;s goal at Montreal, his sixth of the season, was his first on the road. &#9632;

f0015-04

Samsonov spurts into Calder race

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011414/6949980-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="163" height="161"></div>The disintegration of the Calgary Flames continued the week after the All-Star Game with two more losses, their 27th and 28th of the season. Now it looks as if this edition might eclipse the franchise record for defeats-41- by mid-March.How bad was it? Marty McInnis, who hadn&rsquo;t scored a goal since Nov. 5 and had just six points in his next 27 games, remained among the team&rsquo;s scoring leaders. Defensively, the Flames were one of only three NHL teams to surrender more than three goals per game.The logic behind introducing four more rookies into a lineup that also includes five second-year players was to see gradual improvement over time. In fact, just the opposite occurred. Since Christmas, they had faltered badly and effectively fell out of the playoff race in the Western Conference.&ldquo;The games will go by faster in the second half,&rdquo; said center Andrew Cassels. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t keep saying, &lsquo;We&rsquo;ll do it next game.&rsquo; We&rsquo;ve got to step up. Everybody has got to pole-vault their game up another level, from the goalies right out to the forwards.&rdquo;Said James Patrick: &ldquo;The coaching staff has preached all year to try and learn something out of the setbacks and adversity-and that&rsquo;s all we can do.&rdquo;Among the NHL&rsquo;s three worst teams (with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Vancouver Canucks), only the Flames hadn&rsquo;t made a significant trade or a front-office change.NOTEBOOK: Left winger Jarome Iginla, who&rsquo;d never missed a game in his career because of injury, fractured the third metacarpal bone in his left hand in a Jan. 21 game against Los Angeles and will be out until at least late February. The injury ended Iginla&rsquo;s consecutive games-played streak at 132. Said Iginla: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never ever been injured in my hockey-playing life.&rdquo;&hellip;Top goalie prospect Jean-Sebastien Giguere would probably be in line for a promotion with Rick Tabaracci injured and Dwayne Roloson struggling (16 goals against in his previous three starts through Jan. 21), but he was injured as well. Giguere had a 2.29 goals-against average when he hyperextended his knee playing for Saint John of the American League. &#9632;

f0016-01

Flames fall out of race, futility record up next

<div class="byline">By Steve Polltl</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03811/6950011-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="581" height="899"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gary Roberts</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-021089/6950018-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="162" height="160"></div>Gary Roberts came into the season worried about a neck injury that forced him to retire after the 1995-96 season. Thankfully, it&rsquo;s fine. Too bad he couldn&rsquo;t say that for the rest of his body.Roberts played the first month of the season with a broken foot. Then he missed six games with an abdominal strain. And now, the Carolina Hurricanes&rsquo; veteran could be out until late February with a muscle strain in his rib cage that just wasn&rsquo;t getting better.&ldquo;He did not have the improvement I had hoped he would over the all-star break,&rdquo; coach Paul Maurice said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not good news.&rdquo;Roberts said doctors couldn&rsquo;t rule out a possible muscle or ligament tear.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough to tell exactly what the problem is,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Obviously, it has been a frustrating year. I&rsquo;d like to think it&rsquo;s a possibility I&rsquo;d see a couple of games before the Olympic break, but with the way I feel, I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;With nine goals and 29 points in 40 games, Roberts was still third on the team in scoring. But prior to going out with an injury he had scored just two goals in his past 18 games.The injuries took their toll. At times, he has looked a step slow on the ice. In one 14-game stretch, Roberts was a minus in eight games.&ldquo;I always said when I came back to play I would never get down on myself because I know what I&rsquo;ve gone through,&rdquo; Roberts said, &ldquo;and I know how lucky I am to get back to this stage. Things were a lot worse last year than they are this year.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: So, who wants to room with right winger Nelson Emerson on the road this week? His past five room-mates-Paul Coffey. Andrew Cassels, Geoff Sanderson, Jeff Brown and Pat Jablonski-have either been traded or sent to the minors. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s some kind of curse,&rdquo; he said&hellip;The Hurricanes scored power play goals in just two of 11 games&hellip;Center Jeff O&rsquo;Neill, after failing to score in 14 straight, had three goals in two games, including two in a 4-2 road win over Ottawa Jan. 22&hellip;The victory over Ottawa at the Corel Centre marked the first time the &lsquo;Canes had protected a one-goal, third-period lead in a road win&hellip;Outshooting their opponents doesn&rsquo;t mean much for Carolina-the team was 4-14-2 when it did. &#9632;

f0016-03

Roberts’ rib causes pain

<div class="byline">By Tim Sassone</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-04597/6950049-1-eng-US/f0016-042.jpg" title="f0016-04" width="161" height="158"></div>Another Chicago Blackhawk veteran has turned his back on unrestricted free agency.Bob Probert decided against testing the open market next summer when he agreed to a three-year contract extension Jan. 22.It&rsquo;s believed the 32-year-old Probert will earn $1.8 million next season followed by years at $2 million and $2.2 million. Probert is making $1.6 million in the last year of a four-year deal he signed as a free agent in 1994.&ldquo;Absolutely, it was there,&rdquo; Probert said of unrestricted free agency. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m definitely happy in this city and I like playing here. The organization has been great with me. They gave me another chance when things didn&rsquo;t look too good. I want to thank the Blackhawks&rsquo; organization and (owner) Mr. (Bill) Wirtz for believing in me.&rdquo;The Hawks signed Probert as a free agent four years ago despite his long history of drug and alcohol abuse. He spent his first year with the team in a rehab center in California, but has been clean ever since.&ldquo;Bob has come a long way,&rdquo; said GM Bob Murray. &ldquo;We think he&rsquo;s doing just fine.&rdquo;Murray said getting Probert tied up before next summer was a priority.&ldquo;We believe there would have been lots of teams interested,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;He has fit in well here.&rdquo;Probert did the contract with Murray himself, bypassing an agent.&ldquo;It got a little rough at the end and I&rsquo;m sure there were a lot of calls to the Players&rsquo; Association,&rdquo; Murray said, &ldquo;but we got it done. I&rsquo;m sure the Players&rsquo; Association told him not to sign it because they wanted to get the numbers up.&rdquo;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s something I wanted, a three-year contract,&rdquo; Probert said. &ldquo;I did it myself because that&rsquo;s how comfortable I am with this organization.&rdquo;Earlier this season, defenseman Eric Weinrich signed a three-year contract extension rather than become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.NOTEBOOK: Rookie left winger Dmitri Nabokov responded to being a healthy scratch in back-to-back games by scoring two goals in four games. &ldquo;They told me to play stronger with the puck one-on-one, finish more checks and play hard,&rdquo; said Nabokov. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m trying to do what they want.&rdquo;&hellip;After starting the season 0-7-0, the Hawks failed in two attempts to reach the. 500 mark. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re in the playoff race, that&rsquo;s the important thing,&rdquo; said coach Craig Hartsburg. &ldquo;To us., 500 is just a number.&rdquo;&hellip;The groin injuries to center Brent Sutter and goalie Chris Terreri were expected to keep them out until after the Olympic break&hellip;Center Greg Johnson was in the midst of a 23-game goal drought. &#9632;

f0016-04

Probert negotiates own deal

<div class="byline">By Adrian Dater</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011266/6950080-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="165" height="158"></div>Valeri Kamensky has turned down the captaincy of the Russian Olympic team once, but the Colorado Avalanche left winger will take the job by default if need be.&ldquo;If they don&rsquo;t have one and they tell me, &lsquo;Please take it,&rsquo; I&rsquo;ll do it,&rdquo; Kamensky said.Kamensky, having another solid season for the Avs, earlier turned down an offer to captain the Russian team, saying he wouldn&rsquo;t feel comfortable in the role.Kamensky has captained Russian national teams in the past, but never an Olympic team. He was part of the gold medal-winning Soviet Union team in 1988 in Calgary.A decision may not be made about the captaincy until the team convenes in Nagano, Japan. If Kamensky doesn&rsquo;t take it, fellow Russian and Avs teammate Alexei Gusarov might. Gusarov would be the oldest player for the Russians, although he doesn&rsquo;t seem overly interested in the title, either.Kamensky is enjoying life more in the public eye, though. He was selected to the World team at the recent NHL AllStar Game-his first as a pro-based on his 16 goals and 37 points in 46 games.&ldquo;It was a good time. It was something I&rsquo;ve never had before in the NHL, so it&rsquo;s something I won&rsquo;t forget.&rdquo;Kamensky couldn&rsquo;t speak a word of English just three years ago; now he&rsquo;s making commercials. His latest is for a local car dealer that also featured Denver Broncos&rsquo; lineman Neil Smith.Kamensky even did well on media day at the All-Star Game, holding court before a crush of reporters. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m more comfortable in the league now,&rdquo; he said.NOTEBOOK: The Avs lost consecutive games to Dallas and Anaheim after the all-star break, extending a winless streak to three (0-2-1)&hellip;With the Pepsi Center expected to open for 1999-2000, the Avs formally applied to host an All-Star Game soon after that&hellip;Right winger Keith Jones skated with the team for the first time since tearing knee ligaments last April. Jones said he will play for Hershey of the American League during the Olympic break and wants to return to the Colorado lineup Feb. 25 against Phoenix. &#9632;

f0017-01

Kamensky’s English improved, but still reluctant Russian captain

<div class="byline">By Mike Heika</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02959/6950111-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="164" height="159"></div>Injury problems continued to mount for the Dallas Stars, yet they continued to use their depth to battle through a list that was becoming quite long.Defenseman Richard Matvichuk was the latest victim. His left knee was wrenched when he caught an edge while being crushed by St. Louis Blues&rsquo; forward Kelly Chase Jan. 14. His anterior cruciate ligament was snapped-the same one on which Matvichuk had surgery in 1994, forcing him to miss most of the 1994-95 season.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s really unfortunate because he was having a heck of a year,&rdquo; said Stars&rsquo; coach Ken Hitchcock. &ldquo;Matty has really stepped up to become a big part of our top four.&rdquo;Matvichuk&rsquo;s offensive contributions are always going to be somewhat limited, although he had 11 points through 49 games, almost matching the 12 he had in 73 games last season. But it was his defense that had picked up. Paired with Derian Hatcher, Matvichuk was playing between 20 and 22 minutes a game and typically against the opposition&rsquo;s best forwards.&ldquo;The thing about his minutes is they&rsquo;re all defending minutes-he&rsquo;s not playing on the power play at all,&rdquo; Hitchcock said. &ldquo;What we have to do now is work to cover those minutes by spreading them out throughout our defense.&rdquo;The two most likely candidates to see their ice time increase were Craig Muni and Shawn Chambers. Muni, who had been a spot contributor throughout the season-particularly when Darryl Sydor had moved to forward-became a regular. Chambers has battled two minor injuries this season, but paired with Hatcher and was expected to push his minutes to 25-27 a game from 20.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve covered things so far this year by playing as a team and Bob (Gainey) has done a good job giving us enough players to do that,&rdquo; said veteran Craig Ludwig. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s any one of us who doesn&rsquo;t think he can do more.&rdquo;Matvichuk may or may not be back with the team this season. Because the ACL is detached, it would require season-ending surgery to re-attach it. However, teammate Joe Nieuwendyk has played with a detached ACL for seven years and that&rsquo;s the plan Matvichuk is going to attempt.&ldquo;Joe has done it, so I&rsquo;m hoping I can too,&rdquo; Matvichuk said. &ldquo;I have to strengthen the other ligaments and see how it holds up.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Stars made a statement to themselves in a three-week span in January, beating New Jersey (4-3 in OT), tying Detroit (3-3), beating St. Louis (2-1 in OT) and beating Colorado (3-2). &ldquo;I think we&rsquo;re definitely on the ladder toward becoming a better team and it&rsquo;s showing because we&rsquo;re playing better hockey at critical times in critical games,&rdquo; said coach Ken Hitchcock&hellip;Defenseman Sergei Zubov recorded his 300th career point in his 355th game Jan. 11&hellip;When right winger Todd Harvey recently missed five games with a knee injury, it was the longest stretch he has ever missed at any level, he said&hellip;Goalie Roman Turek was 3-1-0 and yielded four goals in his past four starts. &#9632;

f0017-02

Down-on-luck rearguard Matvichuk hopes ACL injury won’t end season

<div class="byline">By Cynthia Lambert</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03691/6950142-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="164" height="160"></div>Vladimir Konstantinov&rsquo;s progress is not only measured in the number of steps he can now take, but also tn the kind of things he&rsquo;s hoping to do.Konstantinov, who suffered a severe brain trauma in the June 13 limousine crash that ended his career and nearly ended his life, was considering attending the Jan. 18 All-Star Game in Vancouver at the invitation of the NHL at the urgings of some of his Detroit Red Wing teammates.Though his mobility is still limited and he can only speak a few words at a time, Konstantinov was on the brink of accepting the invite. But because of the great distance he would have had to travel-from Florida to Vancouver-Konstantinov&rsquo;s doctors and his wife, Irina, thought better of the idea and canceled the plans.&ldquo;It would (have been) an opportunity to send a message to the world that people can get better,&rdquo; Wings&rsquo; forward and all-star Igor Larionov said. &ldquo;Vlady needs some stimulation, some hope. What better way to get that than to have 20,000 people giving him a standing ovation?&ldquo;It is understandable that he did not come. But everybody wants him back and to see him. It would (have been) good for him to see all of these players. What would it mean to him to see Eric Lindros, a guy he hit every time he had a chance, come over to him and put his hand on his shoulder and tell him it&rsquo;s good to see him?&rdquo;But Konstantinov couldn&rsquo;t come, so some of the Wings took that message to Konstantinov on all-star weekend. Coach Scotty Bowman, associate coach Dave Lewis, trainer John Wharton and center Doug Brown flew to Florida to see Konstantinov.Just days before the visit, Konstantinov walked 12 steps on his own. But with them there, he took 75 steps while being guided by a physical therapist and Wharton.&ldquo;All we really did was balance his weight,&rdquo; Wharton told the Detroit Free Press. &ldquo;He held all 195 pounds up and kept going for about 75 steps. It was emotional for us because it was way more than anybody expected after the accident. It&rsquo;s good to see that he keeps pushing through barriers and breaking through walls in his progress.&rdquo;Konstantinov was considering attending the Red Wings&rsquo; visit to meet President Bill Clinton at the White House Jan. 30.NOTEBOOK: When Detroit lost 3-0 to Toronto Jan. 21, it marked the second time this season the Wings dropped back-to-back games. They had lost the night before at New Jersey 3-1. Entering the Jan. 24 game against Philadelphia, the Wings were 3-4-2 for 1998&hellip;Center Kris Draper, out since the Dec. 17 with a dislocated left thumb, had his cast removed Jan. 20 and was fitted with a removable brace. He was hoping to return before the Olympic break&hellip;Unsigned free agent center Sergei Fedorov continued to skate with the Ontario League&rsquo;s Plymouth Whalers. Wings&rsquo; GM Ken Holland said he had not received any offers for Fedorov that made him strongly consider a trade. &#9632;

f0017-03

Konstantinov makes great progress, but can’t make trip to All-Star Game

<div class="byline">By Dan Barnas</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011297/6950173-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="161" height="160"></div>The end is nearing for Kevin Lowe, but he will fight it all the way.As an inner ear virus threatens to end his career, he tries new therapies, sees new doctors and aims always at getting healthy enough, if not to play again, then certainly to feel normal again.&ldquo;Yes, I feel bad and I&rsquo;m sad. I&rsquo;m truly sad,&rdquo; Lowe said. &ldquo;I can appreciate slowing down as a player and not being what I was 10 years ago, but this is totally different. I&rdquo;m not ready (to quit).&rdquo;There has never been any quit in Lowe, 38, but there may not be enough strength of will even in him to beat the virus that has stolen all but five of the season&rsquo;s first 48 games from him and threatens to take them all. It may just take more time than he has left.Initially, it was supposed to take six or eight weeks. Then he was due back shortly after Christmas. As time dragged on, GM Glen Sather traded for soon-to-be-33-year-old Bobby Dollas, an experienced, composed, solid veteran. Sather said he made the move in part because he didn&rsquo;t know if Lowe would be back at all this season.While Lowe, a 19-year NHL veteran, waits to see what fate holds for him, he continues to practise with the team, skating for awhile on left wing with Bill Huard on the right side and Tony Hrkac at center. &ldquo;I figured I&rsquo;d try it all before I call it a career,&rdquo; he chuckled.NOTEBOOK: Left winger Ryan Smyth was lost to the Oilers until at least mid-March with a tom ligament in his left knee after a hit from Phoenix right winger Rick Tocchet Jan. 20. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the worst knee-on-knee contact I&rsquo;ve ever seen,&rdquo; said GM Glen Sather, who saw plenty from his own players, former Edmonton defensemen Craig Muni and Bryan Marchment. Tocchet was suspended two games by the NHL for the hit&hellip;Commissioner Gary Bettman said he expects an offer to purchase the Oilers to come from outside Edmonton before the end of January. When the outside bid is made, the local Edmonton group headed by Bruce Saville will have 30 days to come up with the $70 million (U.S.) price tag on the team. &#9632;

f0018-01

Perplexing inner ear virus could spell end of Lowe era

<div class="byline">By Michael Russo</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03669/6950204-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="578" height="896"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dino Ciccarelli</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02963/6950211-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="161" height="158"></div>GM Bryan Murray figures he pulled off the steal of a lifetime.On Jan. 16, he traded two players, Mark Fitzpatrick and Jody Hull, who rarely saw the light of day in NHL rinks this season, to the Tampa Bay Lightning for right winger Dino Cic-carelli and offensive defenseman Jeff Norton. At the very least, Murray figures he got two guys who will play.Murray and Ciccarelli, meanwhile, have had a long relationship. Murray traded for Ciccarelli, the ninth all-time goal scorer in NHL history, twice before-once in Washington and the other time in Detroit. He believes Ciccarelli will give the Panthers that quick fix that will end their baby steps and quickly produce a jumpstart up the Eastern Conference ladder.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a gritty, competitive guy,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;He brings offense and determination. He will be a real good example to the rest of the players.&rdquo;Ciccarelli, well aware the Lightning was ultimately going to trade him, said he was surprised he was dealt so soon.&ldquo;I figured it would at least go until February or March,&rsquo; Ciccarelli said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very excited. I&rsquo;m not going in there trying to change too many things. I&rsquo;m going to try and be a leader as far as work ethic and my approach to playing the game.&rdquo;Ciccarelli has another year left on his contract, but it&rsquo;s his option whether he wants to exercise it. He has until June 30 to let the Panthers know if he wants to stay here or test the unrestricted free agency market.NOTEBOOK: The trade of goalie Mark Fitzpatrick cleared the way for promotion of Kevin Weekes. GM Bryan Murray said his scouts believe Weekes, who was playing well with Fort Wayne of the International League this season, is the best goalie outside the NHL&hellip;Center Rob Niedermayer&rsquo;s injury-plagued season continued when he underwent arthroscopic knee surgery Jan. 19 to remove tom cartilage from his left knee. It&rsquo;s the third time he has been on injured reserve this season and he is expected to be out until after the Olympic break&hellip;The Panthers&rsquo; 3-1 loss to Los Angeles Jan. 22 dropped them to 0-5-4 in their previous nine games, which ties a club record for longest winless streak&hellip;The Panthers were (0-11-5) against the Western Conference. &#9632;

f0018-03

GM thrilled with ‘theft’

<div class="byline">By Herb Zurkowsky</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011203/6950273-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="164" height="160"></div>So, how do you like the trade so far?Patrick Poulin, acquired by Montreal from the Tampa Bay Lightning in a six-player deal Jan. 15, scored the winning goal in the Canadiens&rsquo; 4-2 victory against the Boston Bruins Jan. 21. It was Poulin&rsquo;s first game for his new team-the fourth for which he has played in his still young career.&ldquo;I could only wish for a game like this,&rdquo; said Poulin, whose shorthanded goal late in the second period was his third score this season.&ldquo;I was hoping to play well, but to score a goal in my first game? I haven&rsquo;t scored in a while and it takes a lot of pressure off getting one in my first game.&rdquo;Defensemen Igor Ulanov, acquired in the same trade, had a less auspicious start. Twelve minutes into the opening period, Ulanov crashed into his defense partner, Peter Popovic, in the neutral zone, suffering a sprained left knee. Ulanov will be out until late-February.&ldquo;Bad things happen. It was the wrong time and the wrong place,&rdquo; Ulanov said.Ulanov has a penchant for open-ice hits and was attempting to dismantle Steve Heinze, who had his head down. Instead, Ulanov crashed into the 6-foot-6, 239-pound Popovic. It might have been the Swedish rearguard&rsquo;s best check of the season.&ldquo;It was a good opportunity for a hit,&rdquo; Ulanov said. &ldquo;Peter saw me at the last second, but it was too late. After it happened I was mad&hellip;speechless.&rdquo;Popovic called the incident a freakish accident-the kind of thing that can happen when two players, unfamiliar with each other&rsquo;s styles, are playing their first game together.&ldquo;I saw him too late and we collided,&rdquo; Popovic said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an unfortunate situation. I hope it&rsquo;s not too bad.&rdquo;The injury rekindled memories of Robert Dirk. Acquired by the Canadiens from the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in January, 1996 for Jim Campbell, the defenseman fractured his shoulder blade in his first game with Montreal and was released two months later.NOTEBOOK: Center Marc Bureau was disappointed when GM Rejean Houle said newcomer Patrick Poulin would be the team&rsquo;s third-line center. &ldquo;They said they&rsquo;re looking for a faceoff guy. I thought they had one,&rdquo; Bureau said of himself. &ldquo;I proved I can play there and deserve to play there.&rdquo;&hellip;Defenseman Jassen Cullimore, claimed on waivers by Tampa Bay after the Habs acquired defenseman Igor Ulanov, couldn&rsquo;t hide his bitterness toward Montreal management. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t get the chance here this year,&rdquo; said Cullimore, who began the season with tom cartilage in his left shoulder and, after recovering, played only three games. &#9632;

f0019-01

Poulin, Ulanov experience joy and sprain in Montreal debuts

<div class="byline">By Rich Chere</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02873/6950304-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="163" height="159"></div>Goal-scoring slumps never much concerned Dave Andreychuk, because the veteran left winger was always able to knock in a power play goal and regain the magic that may someday earn him a spot in the Hall of Fame.But well into his 16th NHL season, there were fears Andreychuk might have lost that scoring touch.Since he notched his 500th goal on March 15 last season, little has gone right. Andreychuk has battled injuries and a slump that had him on pace to match a career-low in goals (14) this season for the New Jersey Devils.&ldquo;The chances have been there for him. It just doesn&rsquo;t go in sometimes,&rdquo; said teammate Doug Gilmour. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve all been through it.&rdquo;Including the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season and an abbreviated rookie campaign, Andreychuk has averaged 34 goals per season. His single-season high was 54 (1992-93 with the Buffalo Sabres/Toronto Maple Leafs) while his previous low of 14 came in 43 games during his freshman year (1982-83) with Buffalo. He admitted he felt pressure to start putting the puck in the net.&ldquo;Yeah, but not just me. Everybody wants to stay in the lineup,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got guys in the press box capable of playing for a lot of teams. That&rsquo;s not a bad thing to have. It makes their (Devils&rsquo; coaches) decisions tougher.&rdquo;With Andreychuk, Brian Rolston, Petr Sykora, Patrik Elias and rookie enforcer Krzysztof Oliwa all left wingers, coach Jacques Lemaire faced the difficult decision of scratching a player who deserved to be playing.Unlike Elias, Andreychuk was not likely to be sat out.&ldquo;The kid (Elias) has a chance to become the best rookie. Too bad I can&rsquo;t keep him in the lineup every night,&rdquo; Lemaire said. &ldquo;The reason is simple. We have experienced hockey players on our club that have to play. If you take them out, it&rsquo;s the wrong thing to do. An example is Andy.&ldquo;If I pull an older player, it&rsquo;ll be to give him a rest.&rdquo;And so Andreychuk struggled on.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had lots of chances in the last few games. I felt like I was going to the net a little more. Pucks will start going in as long as I&rsquo;m getting chances,&rdquo; he said.NOTEBOOK: GM Lou Lamoriello was believed to have offered center Jason Arnott and defenseman Scott Niedermayer in a trade for right winger Jaromir Jagr when Pittsburgh was having trouble signing him. Lamoriello made numerous calls to Penguins&rsquo; GM Craig Patrick in an effort to get Jagr&hellip;Center Doug Gilmour reported nothing new on contract talks, prompting speculation the Devils aren&rsquo;t willing to pay him the two-year, $10-million deal he was seeking&hellip;Coach Jacques Lemaire said defenseman Ken Daneyko would not practice with the team or play until after the Olympic break&hellip;Sticking to team policy, the Devils did not plan to promote left winger Patrik Elias as top rookie for the Calder Trophy&hellip;Right winger Scott Daniels, known primarily as a fighter, impressed Lemaire with his &ldquo;surprisingly good hockey instincts.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0019-02

Andreychuk struggles to find renowned scoring touch of old

<div class="byline">By Jim Smith</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-03581/6950335-1-eng-US/f0019-032.jpg" title="f0019-03" width="162" height="160"></div>Eric Fichaud&rsquo;s season-ending left shoulder surgery gave Wade Flaherty a chance to challenge Tommy Salo as the New York Islanders&rsquo; starting goaltender. Unfortunately for Flaherty, he promptly fell on his face.Flaherty, 30, was 16-5-3 with a 1.79 goals-against average and a. 936 save percentage with Utah of the International League when the Islanders recalled him Jan. 9. He went 1-1-1, allowing four goals, while starting the last three games before the all-star break.But after the break, Flaherty allowed three goals in the first 14:05 and was yanked for Salo in what became a 5-2 loss against the Chicago Blackhawks.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s pretty obvious Tommy is the No. 1 goalie,&rdquo; Flaherty said.Salo, meanwhile, was bitter over having been pulled for Fichaud in an 8-2 home loss to the Montreal Canadiens Jan. 8 and then having to watch Flaherty start four straight games. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel like the No. 1 goalie,&rdquo; Salo said. &ldquo;Of course I&rsquo;m disappointed when I don&rsquo;t play.&rdquo;Coach Rick Bowness was just looking for somebody to stop the puck. The way things were going, that might not happen until 1997 first-round pick Roberto Luongo arrives, possibly as early as next season.Fichaud, 22, pronounced a franchise goalie by GM Don Maloney when he arrived in an April, 1995 trade from the Toronto Maple Leafs, was 38-3 with a 2.97 goals-against average this year.He was sent to Utah Jan. 13 and the next night injured his left shoulder.On Jan. 20, club orthopedist Dr. Stephen Nicholas performed surgery on Fichaud&rsquo;s shoulder at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. Fichaud said he will be in a sling for four weeks and could be ready to play in May. Since the Islanders do not figure to be doing that, Fichaud&rsquo;s season is over. He is in the last year of a contract at $337,500.Fichaud said the surgery involved sewing a ligament to stabilize his shoulder, which popped out of joint three times this season. &ldquo;All three times it popped out,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it was the same move. I was reaching back, trying to cover the puck. It&rsquo;s sad, but injuries are a part of the game. You don&rsquo;t decide what&rsquo;s going to happen. The only good thing about the whole thing is my shoulder&rsquo;s going to be fine.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Carl Lindros, whose son Brett reached a settlement with the Islanders after his career ended following a series of concussions, released a statement Jan. 16 that, in part, read: &ldquo;We are pleased that a settlement has been reached. In particular we are happy that any doubts as to Brett&rsquo;s integrity have now been completely dispelled.&rdquo;&hellip;Right winger Ziggy Palffy&rsquo;s girlfriend Zoranka Zdrnja, who accompanied him to the All-Star Game in Vancouver, was not allowed back in the U.S. because of a visa problem and flew to Edmonton instead to stay with Palffy&rsquo;s agent Paul Kraus until it could be resolved&hellip;Defenseman Bryan Berard was minus-24 after 48 games. Coach Rick Bowness said: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s trying to do too much.&rdquo; Berard responded: &ldquo;Bones can be critical all he wants, but somebody has to try things and I&rsquo;m the one who&rsquo;s out there on the ice.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0019-03

Injuries, sub-par performances makes goaltending a concern

<div class="byline">By Rick Carpiniello</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02734/6950366-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="577" height="895"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pat LaFontaine</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011087/6950373-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="160" height="156"></div>If adversity makes success sweeter, then Pat LaFontaine should be on the ultimate sugar rush after reaching the 1,000-point mark.The New York Rangers&rsquo; center, who on Jan. 22 became the third U.S.-born player to reach the milestone, has had to overcome his share of hurdles. For starters, critics said he was too small to play a big-man&rsquo;s game. Then there were the injuries, so many serious injuries, including the series of concussions that nearly ended his career last season.But those obstacles were distant memories when LaFontaine scored a third period power play goal against the Philadelphia Flyers to join Joe Mullen and Phil Housley as the only American 1,000-point men.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a special feeling to achieve something like that, especially when I didn&rsquo;t think I would have that opportunity last year at this time,&rdquo; LaFontaine said. &ldquo;I was bom in St. Louis, raised in Michigan and all I hoped for was a college scholarship.&rdquo;Instead, he may be headed for the Hall of Fame.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a well-deserved honor for the adversity he has been through,&rdquo; said center Wayne Gretzky. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s good to see good people succeed.&rdquo;Like Gretzky, LaFontaine had to battle the size issue. &ldquo;I was always told I was too small and couldn&rsquo;t make it,&rdquo; LaFontaine said. &ldquo;There are a lot of players out there who have the attitude to prove people wrong and to prove to yourself you can make it.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Brian Leetch has now played in seven All-Star Games and his teams have scored 56 goals. Yet Leetch has only one all-star assist and no goals. Leetch, who was shut out again this year, didn&rsquo;t leave empty-handed. He exchanged sweaters with Boston defense-man Ray Bourque&hellip;Leetch broke a tie with Walt Tkaczuk for fourth on the Rangers&rsquo; all-time scoring list with his 679th point, a power play goal in a 4-3 loss to Philadelphia Jan. 22&hellip;Right winger Ryan VandenBussche underwent surgery to repair tom knee cartilage and was expected to be out until late February&hellip;Defensemen Ulf Samuelsson and Jeff Beukeboom and center Brian Skrudland all returned from injuries after the all-star break. &#9632;

f0020-02

LaFontaine hits 1,000

<div class="byline">By Bruce Garrioch</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03495/6950404-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="162" height="157"></div>Ottawa Senators&rsquo; GM Pierre Gauthier decided one way to get scoring help was to get rid of a guy who couldn&rsquo;t score.But if the Senators&rsquo; Jan. 17 deal to send right winger Alexandre Daigle to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for right winger Pat Falloon, injured center Vincent Prospal and a second round pick is going to be a success, then the newcomers have to score.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you have to be a brain surgeon to know that we needed scoring,&rdquo; Gauthier said. &ldquo;Falloon is a sniper. He has a good shot and he can put the puck in the net. Prospal would have been my choice for rookie of the year (before he got hurt).&rdquo;One of the lowest-scoring teams in the league, the Senators had been searching for a winger who can take some of the pressure off the likes of Alexei Yashin, Daniel Alfredsson and Shawn McEachern.While Prospal broke his leg in a game against the Senators Jan. 3 and won&rsquo;t suit up until sometime in March, Falloon showed results in his second game with Ottawa by scoring in a 4-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes Jan. 23.Falloon, selected second overall in the 1991 entry draft by the San Jose Sharks, will have to regain his scoring touch if he&rsquo;s going to be beneficial to the Senators. In 144 games with Philadelphia, he scored only 38 goals. His best statistical year was his rookie one (1991-92) when he had 25 goals and 59 points in 79 games for San Jose.&ldquo;Put in the right situation I think I can still score,&rdquo; Falloon said. &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ve come to learn I have to keep confident or I&rsquo;m only beating myself.&rdquo;Prospal, 22, just wants to get healthy again. He had five goals and 18 points in 41 games this season.&ldquo;The trade is shock,&rdquo; said Prospal, a close friend of Senators&rsquo; defenseman Stan Neckar and center Radek Bonk. &ldquo;But this just means I&rsquo;ll have to start my career somewhere else.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Goalie Damian Rhodes posted his seventh career shutout in a 0-0 tie with Pittsburgh Jan. 20. It was Rhodes&rsquo; fourth shutout of the season-a new team record-and third of the month&hellip;GM Pierre Gauthier is expected to move a center-possibly Radek Bonk-once Vaclav Prospal returns to the lineup in March&hellip;Defenseman Jason York on the Senators&rsquo; second scoreless tie of the month in Pittsburgh: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re starting to play like a soccer team. Well, we do have a lot of Europeans.&rdquo;&hellip;The Senators wore their third jersey for the first time Jan. 24 against the Islanders&hellip;Center Bruce Gardiner could return from a knee injury before the Olympic break. He has resumed skating. &#9632;

f0020-03

Sens taking Flyers on scoring duo

<div class="byline">By Wayne Fish</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-05172/6950435-1-eng-US/f0020-052.jpg" title="f0020-05" width="571" height="894"><figcaption class="caption-body">Alexandre Daigle</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-04312/6950442-1-eng-US/f0020-042.jpg" title="f0020-04" width="161" height="159"></div>Alexandre Daigle has the new town so many people believe he needed. Does he have the new attitude to go with it?Daigle, acquired by the Philadelphia Flyers in a Jan. 17 trade that sent Pat Falloon, Vaclav Prospal and a second round draft pick to the Ottawa Senators, never lived up to expectations as a 1993 No. 1 overall draft selection.But most of his career minus-137 was piled up with bad teams. And the more he tried to reverse the fortunes of a struggling team, the worse it got.Now the spotlight will be off. With Eric Lindros, John LeClair, Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour and Chris Gratton grabbing the headlines, Daigle won&rsquo;t have the pressure he felt in Ottawa.But just because he&rsquo;s playing for a legitimate contender doesn&rsquo;t mean success is guaranteed. &ldquo;A change of scenery,&rdquo; said LeClair, &ldquo;isn&rsquo;t going to change anything unless you change.&rdquo;GM Bob Clarke believes Daigle will blossom in a different environment. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a gamble, but it&rsquo;s our belief that he was just young and he was put into a position where he could only fail as an 18-year-old,&rdquo; Clarke said. &ldquo;We think the upside on him is huge. When he gets surrounded by different players, he&rsquo;ll take off.&rdquo;Clarke is especially excited about Daigle&rsquo;s ability to take off. &ldquo;I think a guy like Daigle gives you a guy with flat-out speed that&rsquo;s got to be scary to other teams&rsquo; defenses.&rdquo;Daigle is aware of the weapon he possesses. &ldquo;My strength is my speed,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I know I need to use it more.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Right winger Alexandre Daigle picked up an assist in his first game as a Flyer (3-0 win over Buffalo Jan. 20). He played on a line with left winger John LeClair and center Chris Gratton&hellip;Dainius Zubrus was moved from right wing to center (third line) and scored in a 4-3 win over the Rangers Jan. 22, his first goal since Nov. 29 (15 games). GM Bob Clarke had threatened to send Zubrus to the minors if his play didn&rsquo;t improve&hellip;Two days after his wife delivered a baby girl (named Briley), left winger Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour scored a pair of goals over Buffalo. Brind&rsquo;Amour, who owns the league&rsquo;s second-longest ironman streak (367), said he would have broken the streak if wife Kelle&rsquo;s due date fell on a game day. &#9632;

f0020-05

Daigle finally off hot seat

<div class="byline">By Bob McManaman</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-06135/6950473-1-eng-US/f0020-062.jpg" title="f0020-06" width="161" height="159"></div>Unlike his countrymen who triggered fireworks during the All-Star Game in Vancouver, rookie Juha Ylonen of the Phoenix Coyotes is a Finn who hadn&rsquo;t been able to Finnish.Four players from Finland combined for four goals and 10 points during the NHL&rsquo;s first international showdown.After 42 games with the Coyotes this season, Ylonen was still searching for his first NHL goal. He was one of only five forwards in the league who had played in at least 35 games to remain without a goal entering the allstar break.&ldquo;Frustrating? Yeah, of course it is,&rdquo; said Ylonen, who had eight assists. &ldquo;Maybe I&rsquo;m trying to rush things, but I&rsquo;ve never gone through anything like this before. Not even close.&rdquo;Last season&rsquo;s leading scorer with the Springfield Falcons of the American League with 61 points, Ylonen had all kinds of chances. The 25-year-old center from Helsinki hit more iron than a blacksmith, but he just couldn&rsquo;t seem to score.His teammates joke that once he finally does score, the referee should stop the game and present the Finn with the puck as a souvenir.&ldquo;I think they should,&rdquo; said defenseman Teppo Numminen jokingly. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be a funny situation. Every time he gets near the net, the whole bench jumps to its feet, hoping he&rsquo;ll score.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation accused Coyotes&rsquo; GM Bobby Smith of bribing goalie Nikolai Khabibulin not to play in the Olympics, a charge Smith calls nonsense. &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t ask me about it,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s totally unfounded.&rdquo; Nevertheless, Alexander Steblin made the charge Jan. 17 during a news conference in Moscow, saying. among other things, Smith barred a Russian delegation from meeting with the Russian-bom goalie to discuss his decision in November in Ottawa&hellip;Right winger Rick Tocchet was hit with a two-game suspension for injuring Edmonton&rsquo;s Ryan Smyth&rsquo;s left knee Jan. 20, a hit Oilers&rsquo; GM Glen Sather called &ldquo;the worst deliberate attempt to injure I&rsquo;ve ever seen.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0020-06

Ylonen still searching for first big-league goal

<div class="byline">By Mike Dudurich</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01855/6950504-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="163" height="161"></div>Tom Barrasso is handsomely rewarded for his ability to stop pucks.This season, he was paying off on that investment in a way that is reminiscent of how he did so in the Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; Stanley Cup championship seasons.But that doesn&rsquo;t mean the 32-year-old goaltender is particularly happy with the way the game is being played around him.After matching Damien Rhodes of the Ottawa Senators save-for-save Jan. 20 in a 0-0 tie at the Civic Arena, Barrasso bemoaned the state of hockey in the NHL today.&ldquo;Until they allow the great players to dictate how the game is to be played on the ice, we&rsquo;ll have an inferior product,&rdquo; Barrasso said. &ldquo;People are paying a lot of money right now to see checking teams play and I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s what they want. The bottom line is more attention needs to be paid to the restraining fouls. If that&rsquo;s done, I&rsquo;m sure our game will be like it was in the early &lsquo;90s, a lot of excitement and the best players really dominate.&rdquo;The shutout of the Senators was Barrasso&rsquo;s sixth of the season, tying the club record held by Les Binkley in 1967-78.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s having a hell of a year,&rdquo; said coach Kevin Constantine. &ldquo;He was good (against the Senators) and made saves for us at critical moments. This was his first shutout at home so that was nice to see.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Center Ron Francis played in his 500th game for the Penguins against Ottawa Jan. 20, while left winger Stu Barnes recorded his 400th NHL game and defenseman Ian Moran his 100th in the NHL that night&hellip;Both sides continued to work on minor details on the new contract for right winger Jaromir Jagr with the word being the deal will most likely be finished by the end of January&hellip;New talks with holdout center Petr Nedved had not yet been opened&hellip;The game against the Ottawa drew the smallest crowd of the season to the Civic Arena, 13,116, nearly 4,000 short of capacity&hellip;Coach Kevin Constantine was an assistant coach to New Jersey&rsquo;s Jacques Lemaire in the All-Star Game for the North American stars. &#9632;

f0021-01

Barrasso worried about way game being played

<div class="byline">By Dave Luecking</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-03276/6950535-1-eng-US/f0021-032.jpg" title="f0021-03" width="585" height="902"><figcaption class="caption-body">Grant Fuhr</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02481/6950542-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="164" height="159"></div>After an impressive 11-22 start, the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; season was a rollercoaster ride, a nauseating sequence of ups and downs that prevented the team from gaining any ground on the league leaders.It was a series of winning or unbeaten streaks, of three or four games, or losing or winless streaks of three to five games. Only once since the first month of the season did the Blues have a win one, lose one, win one, lose one sequence.Otherwise, it was all streaks-both good and bad.&ldquo;We seem to keep ourselves right on that border line,&rdquo; said goalie Grant Fuhr. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want to take that step forward. As soon as we get up with the leaders, we go into a slump.&rdquo;Since residing in first place overall in mid-November, the Blues slipped back into the pack. Through Jan. 22, they were tied for sixth overall with the Montreal Canadiens and Pittsburgh Penguins.They also were in the midst of their fifth winless streak of at least three games (0-3-1).&ldquo;We&rsquo;re right in that in-between mode, where we don&rsquo;t know what we want to be,&rdquo; Fuhr said.Injuries were hurting the Blues. Front-line players Brett Hull, Joe Murphy, Pierre Turgeon and Al MacInnis each missed sizeable chunks of the season. Still, Fuhr said the Blues must persevere.&ldquo;Teams that win Stanley Cups overachieve,&rdquo; Fuhr said.NOTEBOOK: With a goal in a 3-1 loss to the Rangers Jan. 20, left winger Geoff Courtnall reached the 20-goal plateau for the second time in three seasons with the Blues and the ninth time in his last 12 seasons&hellip;Right winger Blair Atcheynum, a 28-year-old career minor-leaguer who got his big break from the Blues this season, notched his 10th goal of the season in a 3-3 tie with the Islanders Jan. 22&hellip;Right winger Brett Hull had the pins removed from his broken left hand Jan. 19 and was hoping to return to the lineup by the end of January&hellip;After missing five games with back spasms, defenseman Rudy Poeschek played two games after the all-star break, only to reinjure his back and return to the sidelines. &#9632;

f0021-03

Season full of Blue streaks

<div class="byline">By Dan Wood</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-04199/6950573-1-eng-US/f0021-042.jpg" title="f0021-04" width="162" height="158"></div>A mere three months and eight days after sustaining a tom anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, left winger Shawn Burr returned to the San Jose Sharks&rsquo; lineup Jan. 21.Burr skated 13 shifts and played nearly 10 minutes as San Jose posted its most one-sided victory this season, 7-1 over the visiting Calgary Flames. He managed one shot on goal, gained credit for one hit and blocked a shot.&ldquo;Actually, I played kind of a bad game, I think,&rdquo; Burr said. &ldquo;I spent way too much time in my own end. I didn&rsquo;t play very well, but it was nice to just get out there and play.&rdquo;Team physician Arthur Ting estimated Burr would be sidelined six months as the result of a collision with Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; left winger John LeClair Oct. 13. After undergoing reconstructive surgery, however, Burr cut the recovery time nearly in half.&ldquo;When you come off an injury like that and beat the time of recovery by two or three months, that says something about the athlete,&rdquo; said right winger Tony Granato. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what this organization is trying to have-people like that. That&rsquo;s just a great example, right there.&rdquo;Burr, 31, joined the Sharks in a June 21 trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He got off to a strong start with two goals, an assist and a plus-4 mark in six games before being hurt.&ldquo;Before I left, I was playing twice as good,&rdquo; Bun&rsquo; said. &ldquo;I want to pick up my skating a little bit. I was a little bit hesitant. I guess that&rsquo;s pretty common for the first game back. I just didn&rsquo;t have the anticipation and the spring in my legs. That&rsquo;s going to come with getting game-ready.&rdquo;In addition to a reputation for solid play, particularly on defense, Burr&rsquo;s light-hearted nature is also a valuable commodity.&ldquo;He adds a lot to our room,&rdquo; Granato said. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter if he even plays a shift. On the bench and in the room, he lightens things up.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Sharks produced their highest goal output and their largest margin of victory this season with a 7-1 triumph over visiting Calgary Jan. 21&hellip;With a goal against the Flames, left winger Jeff Friesen raised his career total to 77 and moved past right winger Pat Falloon into first place on San Jose&rsquo;s alltime list&hellip;Left winger Tony Granato had two goals and two assists against Calgary, marking just his second two-goal game and second multiple-point effort this season. It was Granato&rsquo;s second four-point game since he joined the Sharks last season&hellip;Defenseman Mike Rathje&rsquo;s power play goal against the Flames marked his first extra-man strike since he had five in the 1995 Stanley Cup playoffs. &#9632;

f0021-04

Burr returns way ahead of schedule

<div class="byline">By Tim Buckley</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-06120/6950604-1-eng-US/f0021-062.jpg" title="f0021-06" width="576" height="906"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stephane Richer</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-05149/6950611-1-eng-US/f0021-052.jpg" title="f0021-05" width="165" height="162"></div>It was no big secret he wanted out of Montreal, but new Tampa Bay Lightning right winger Stephane Richer was still a bit surprised to learn the Montreal Canadiens had traded him.&ldquo;I was a little upset because I expected to talk with (Montreal) ownership about what was going on,&rdquo; said Richer, who was snowmobiling several hundred miles from home when the deal was made and did not learn he was going to the NHL&rsquo;s last-place team until nearly 24 hours later.Once he arrived in Tampa Bay, Richer said he would make the most of the Jan. 16 move in which he, defenseman David Wilkie and center Darcy Tucker were swapped for left winger Patrick Poulin, defenseman Igor Ulanov and right winger Mick Vukota.&ldquo;Hopefully, the fans will come back and the people will appreciate the effort,&rdquo; Richer said.The Lightning, lowest-scoring team in the NHL, will look for offensive input from Richer, a one-time 50-goal scorer who played on Stanley Cupwinning teams in both Montreal and with the New Jersey Devils.Said Lightning coach Jacques Demers: &ldquo;Fifty goals would be hard to ask, but 35?&rdquo;Richer, plagued by injuries much of this season, welcomes the opportunity to see if he can regain his touch.&ldquo;I knew if I came over here I&rsquo;d have a chance to play more often and prove I&rsquo;m not done,&rdquo; Richer said. &ldquo;I know deep inside I can score 30 goals, maybe 40 if I can play on the power play.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Right winger Stephane Richer, who can become an unrestricted free agent this summer, is non-committal about his plans. &ldquo;My situation right now is to enjoy the (rest of the season), and then we&rsquo;ll see,&rdquo; Richer said&hellip;Players returning after the allstar break found their skate laces cut and right winger Mikael Renberg discovered his gloves nailed to the top of his stall and his pants nailed to a wall. Suspected pranksters: right winger Dino Ciccarelli and defenseman Jeff Norton, both of whom we&rsquo;re dealt to Florida during the break&hellip;Defenseman Mike McBain, a second round pick in 1995, made his NHL debut in a 3-2 loss to Washington Jan. 21&hellip;Tampa claimed defenseman Jassen Cullimore on waivers from Montreal Jan. 22. &#9632;

f0021-06

Richer warms to opportunity

<div class="byline">By Damien Cox</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-07103/6950642-1-eng-US/f0021-072.jpg" title="f0021-07" width="163" height="158"></div>It was a harsh indictment of Felix Potvin&rsquo;s play this season, but it certainly wasn&rsquo;t unfair.The Toronto Maple Leafs entered the all-star break eight points out of a playoff berth and some team officials were lamenting the fact they&rsquo;d probably be eight to 10 points higher in the standings if their No. 1 goalie had delivered more consistent play.Potvin found it difficult to disagree with that assessment. &ldquo;You can steal a game now and then by playing great, but I&rsquo;ve been letting in that bad goal that takes the life out of us,&rdquo; said Potvin, who sported a mediocre. 898 save percentage at the all-star break. &ldquo;In the second half, I want to keep us in those games.&rdquo;It was mission accomplished through the first two games after the break. Potvin shut out the Detroit Red Wings 3-0 Jan. 20, then whitewashed the Chicago Blackhawks by an identical 3-0 score the next night. Both games were on the road. While Potvin had recorded consecutive shutouts in the playoffs before, it was the first time he&rsquo;d turned the trick in the regular season and the first time any Leaf goalie had done it since Mike Palmateer 22 years earlier.Coach Mike Murphy was clearly relieved to see Potvin playing at the top of his game again.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s playing better than he has and it&rsquo;s a building block for him,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to have to (keep playing) like this.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Left winger Todd Warriner returned Jan. 21 against Detroit after missing 27 game with a thigh bruise&hellip;Defenseman Jeff Brown left hospital Jan. 19 and relumed to his North Carolina home to be with his pregnant wife while he recovers from a badly infected right foot&hellip;Right winger Sergei Berezin was scratched for the first two games after the all-star break&hellip;Defenseman Per Gustafsson was placed on waivers Jan. 21 and was likely headed for the minors&hellip;The Leafs sent posters to the All-Star Game pushing right winger Mike Johnson as a rookie-of-the-year candidate. Johnson led freshmen with 30 points in 47 games&hellip;Defenseman Yannick Tremblay scored his first NHL goal Jan. 22 against Chicago. &#9632;

f0021-07

Leafs finally start getting brilliant play from Potvin

<div class="byline">By Elliott Pap</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02682/6950673-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="313" height="411"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jyrki Lumme</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-01985/6950680-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="160" height="159"></div>While trade speculation centers on Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; forward Trevor Linden, another of the team&rsquo;s mainstays could be heading out of town even sooner.Defenseman Jyrki Lumme, who joined Vancouver late in the 1989-90 season, will become an unrestricted free agent July 1 and he hinted strongly he won&rsquo;t be resigning with the floundering Canucks.&ldquo;Vancouver is a great place, I like it here, my wife (Minna) likes it here and I have a lot of friends here,&rdquo; said Lumme, 31. &ldquo;But the bottom line is you want to be on a winner and if you&rsquo;re winning, life is good and it doesn&rsquo;t matter where you are.&rdquo;Lumme is the highest goal-scoring defenseman in franchise history and is second among pointgetters behind Dennis Kearns.Following the Canucks&rsquo; 6-1 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes Jan. 21, Lumme needed just 11 points to catch Kearns, who finished his Canuck career with 321.Coming into this season Lumme had played 580 NHL games, all but 75 with the Canucks. He played parts of two seasons with the Montreal Canadiens who drafted him 57th overall in 1986.Lumme had his best points season in 1993-94 when he registered 55 points and two years later had his highest goals output with 17.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s possible I could be traded, anything could happen and I&rsquo;m prepared for that,&rdquo; said Lumme, who will play for Finland at the Winter Olympics.&ldquo;At the same time, I&rsquo;m trying not to think about it. It&rsquo;s all speculation. I might be a good guy to throw in if there&rsquo;s a bigger deal but I don&rsquo;t think they can get much for me because I&rsquo;ll be a free agent. There are so many rumors, especially the last little while, but I don&rsquo;t care. The only thing I&rsquo;m worrying about is trying to win some games.&rdquo;Vancouver coach Mike Keenan, who took over mid-way through the season from Tom Renney, plays Lumme about 30 minutes each night and on the defensively-challenged Canucks, that&rsquo;s not good news for the plusminus.The Finn went through a five-game stretch in mid-January where he was minus-10, including a minus-3 against the Sabres in Buffalo, followed by a minus-4 against Phoenix. His minus-31 was among the worst in the NHL.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a frustrating year,&rdquo; said Lumme. &ldquo;Whenever you look at it (plus-minus), it bothers you. It&rsquo;s kind of like an uphill battle and the hill is frozen. I&rsquo;m just trying to grind it out and that&rsquo;s about it. Eventually it has to start going your way.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Former Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; coach and Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; GM John Muckier met with Orca Bay senior executives during the all-star weekend to discuss the vacant general manager&rsquo;s job with the Canucks. NHL senior vice-president Brian Burke is another candidate being eyed by Orca Bay. Burke was an assistant GM with the Canucks&hellip;Center Trevor Linden played in his 7(X)th game as a Canuck Jan. 21, becoming only the third player in club history to reach that mark. Stan Smyl (896) and Harold Snepsts (781) are the others. Linden had 21 points in 40 games&hellip;Vancouver goalie Sean Burke was fined $200, plus $80 in court costs, and will be on probation for 18 months after pleading guilty to assaulting his wife in Raleigh, N.C., Nov. 2. Burke was traded to the Canucks Jan. 2 by the Carolina Hurricanes&hellip;The Canucks followed up their pre-all-star game brawlfest in Buffalo (217 minutes in penalties) with another immediately following the break, sharing 215 PM with the Phoenix Coyotes. &#9632;

f0022-02

No guarantee veteran defenseman Lumme will be with team next year

<div class="byline">By Dave Fay</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-04324/6950711-1-eng-US/f0022-042.jpg" title="f0022-04" width="311" height="411"><figcaption class="caption-body">Peter Bondra</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03481/6950718-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="163" height="160"></div>Peter Bondra got the pay increase he had been seeking. Now the Washington Capitals hope they get the opportunity to pay him for any performance bonuses that are in his new contract, especially as they concern post-season play.Nearly a year of off-and-on negotiations ended Jan. 17, the day before Bondra&rsquo;s fourth appearance in the NHL All-Star Game, when the right winger signed a new four-year deal, paying him about $3.25 million a season. It will be backdated to Oct. 1, when the current season started, and extends through the 2000-2001 season.The new deal wipes out the old five-year contract he signed Oct. 20, 1995, which called for him to make $1,178,200 a season, but had a $750,000 rollover bonus clause every time he scored 50 goals. He went out and did exactly that on the first year of his deal and this season was making $2.2 million before the renegotiation was completed.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s against my better judgment to renegotiate contracts, but this was open when I arrived,&rdquo; said GM George McPhee, who had suspended Bondra during training camp for refusing to play in a preseason game and halted contract talks until the winger said he was ready to play when told to do so.Bondra reported back in time for the second game of the season.The two sides had basically agreed on details of the contract last fall, all except one. Bondra and agent Rich Winter wanted a three-year deal, one that would expire just as Bondra was achieving unrestricted free agency.McPhee, meanwhile, insisted on an extra year as the cost of renegotiating.&ldquo;It was vital to me to get that extra year because to renegotiate, a player has to give something up to get something back,&rdquo; said McPhee, who took over from longtime Capitals&rsquo; GM David Poile in June.Bondra admitted the pressure associated with a huge scoring bonus affected him toward the end of last season, when he finished with 46 goals in 77 games. He said the slow progress of the talks were also on his mind this year, though he was still among the league leaders with 30 goals in 45 games.&ldquo;Now I can concentrate on just one thing-helping the team win,&rdquo; he said.In his first game after signing the deal, he had a pair of goals in a 3-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning Jan. 21, making it appear the money was well spent.NOTEBOOK: Right winger Andrew Brunette, playing on a line with center Adam Oates, had nine goals and 12 points in his first 10 games after being recalled from Portland of the American League&hellip;When Washington beat Tampa Bay 3-2 in overtime Jan. 21, it was the second time in two weeks the Caps had won after entering the third period trailing. On Jan. 8, the Caps were down 3-2 at Madison Square Garden and won 5-3&hellip;Veteran right winger Kelly Miller scored the winner in Tampa, his fourth career OT goal. That ties him with Mike Gartner. Mike Ridley and Steve Konowalchuk for the team record&hellip;Left winger Chris Simon, out after shoulder surgery, missed the recent trip to Tampa. Too bad. He might have been the star attraction at a medical symposium being held there entitled &ldquo;Corrective Shoulder Surgeries.&rdquo; He now has matching scars, one on each shoulder&hellip;Defenseman Calle Johansson was named captain of the Swedish Olympic team. &#9632;

f0022-04

Bondra puts distractions in past after finally agreeing to extension

<div class="byline">By Kevin lole</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0023-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01875/6950749-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">A year removed from NHL glory, Patrick Lalime is in Grand Rapids.</figcaption></div>A Pittsburgh Penguins fan waited patiently outside the dressing room, clutching a team photo of the 1996-97 Penguins. He was hoping to get Patrick Lalime to sign it.When the goalie emerged-the same goalie whose 14-0-2 run last season set an NHL rookie record for longest unbeaten streak at the start of a career-the young teen handed him the photo and hesitatingly asked for an autograph.Lalime accepted the photo and looked at it wistfully.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the first time I&rsquo;ve seen that one,&rdquo; he said.That&rsquo;s because there aren&rsquo;t many Penguins&rsquo; team photos circulating around Grand Rapids, Mich., which is where Lalime plays these days. The toast of the hockey world last season, Lalime plods in relative anonymity in the International League with the Grand Rapids Griffins, refusing to sign with the Penguins.He took a stand on principle and is now paying for it with a sentence in the minors. But if Lalime has any regrets, he does a good job hiding it.He joked and laughed with his teammates in practice, looking totally at ease. He smiled easily and often afterwards, insisting he is happy in Grand Rapids. His play shows that.Despite a 4-6-3 record, Lalime had a 2.08 goals-against average and. 931 save percentage. He was twice beaten 1-0, once in a shootout when the game was scoreless after regulation.Lalime insists he&rsquo;s a Griffin, not an out-of-place Penguin. The 23-year-old, who was 21-12-2 with three shutouts in the NHL a year ago, says he tries not to think about Pittsburgh.&ldquo;Last year seems so long ago,&rdquo; said Lalime, who held out for two months before signing with the Griffins Nov. 26. &ldquo;A lot has happened since then. It&rsquo;s hard not to think about it. Every player wants to be there (in the NHL) and I&rsquo;m not. I could be and I&rsquo;m not.&ldquo;But there&rsquo;s a new coach in Pittsburgh and a lot of the players are different. I saw some of the guys in Montreal when they were in town and I was home and it was nice, but it was different.&rdquo;Lalime said published stories he was unhappy with the minor league salary in the two-way contract Pittsburgh offered is untrue. He just wanted assurance from the Penguins that if he wasn&rsquo;t in their plans after a year, they would move him to a club that would give him a shot.When Pittsburgh refused that, Lalime refused to sign.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a matter of money, it&rsquo;s a matter of conditions,&rdquo; Lalime said. &ldquo;My rights belong to them, but I just wanted a promise to be traded if, after a year in the minors, I didn&rsquo;t get another chance to play there. I wanted a promise they wouldn&rsquo;t bury me.&ldquo;I saw in the papers where they said I was unhappy with the minor league salary I was offered. The money wasn&rsquo;t important; I would have played for ($60,000).&rdquo;But try as he might to look forward, sometimes the lure of the big time is too much. Lalime is well aware of Pittsburgh&rsquo;s newly found commitment to defense under coach Kevin Constantine.Last year, Lalime routinely saw 40 shots a night, many from prime scoring areas. This year, the Penguins often allow fewer than 20 a night.Lalime made the all-rookie team playing under the Pens&rsquo; offense-first, defense-if-we-get-around-to-it thinking of a year ago. He admitted it would have been nice to have gotten a shot in the NHL with a team as committed to keeping the puck out of the net as Pittsburgh now seems to have become.&ldquo;When you think about it that way, it can be a little frustrating,&rdquo; Lalime said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re playing good right now, much more defensive. Last year, we averaged probably 10 shots more a game than they do right now.&ldquo;But you know, if it were meant for me to be there, I would be there. But I have been treated great by the people in Grand Rapids and this is a good league. I&rsquo;m not complaining. I feel like I should be (in the NHL), but I&rsquo;m happy with this team. Right now, the way things are, this is the right place for me.&rdquo;Lalime received some criticism toward the end of last season when it was suggested his phenomenal start was nothing more than a fluke. After his 14-0-2 start, he finished just 7-12-0 and had a seat on the bench as the Penguins were dumped from the playoffs by the Philadelphia Flyers.His play in the IHL, while excellent, won&rsquo;t silence those detractors. Lalime longs for that chance to rebut the critics and prove he&rsquo;s not a one-hit wonder, but he says he will be patient.&ldquo;People can say I was a fluke because that is easy for them to say,&rdquo; Lalime said. &ldquo;But we weren&rsquo;t playing as good at the end and people expected me to play as good as I played in the first 16 games every night all year.&ldquo;In a season, you have to get breaks. And that&rsquo;s like the career. You have to get a break to be in the right place at the right time.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0023-01

Out of Lalime-light, Patrick still shining

<div class="byline">By Kevin lole</div>Dave Tippett is in his second year as a pro coach and his first as a GM, but his inexperience hasn&rsquo;t negatively affected the Houston Aeros.Houston put together a 14-game unbeaten streak, going 13-0-1 before it was snapped Jan. 17 in a 2-1 loss to Las Vegas in which the Aeros dominated and outshot the Thunder 40-20.The streak moved Houston into a tie with the Chicago Wolves for the overall points lead in the International League with 66.Aeros&rsquo; defenseman Greg Hawgood played on a Las Vegas team that racked up 122 points and finished 39 games over. 500 in 1995-96. He said even though the styles of play are different, there sees similarities between the two teams.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t go out and score eight or nine goals a night like we did when I was in Vegas,&rdquo; Hawgood said. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;ve got a very solid group of guys who do the little things that go unnoticed.&rdquo;The Aeros have gotten spectacular goaltending from defending league MVP Frederic Chabot and rookie Ryan Bach, who had a 10game unbeaten string rolling (8-0-2). The Aeros hadn&rsquo;t allowed more than three goals in regulation since Dec. 13 and killed penalties at 94 per cent during a 17-2-2 streak.Tippett said balance has been key.&ldquo;More than anything, we just don&rsquo;t rely on any one facet of the game,&rdquo; Tippett said. &ldquo;Our special teams have been good, we&rsquo;ve played good team defense, our goaltending has been good and our scoring has been balanced.&rdquo;RULES, RULES: The early returns were good on the league&rsquo;s attempt to speed up the game by more strictly enforcing existing rules regarding faceoffs.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02562/6950780-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="383" height="427"></div>Prior to Jan. 15, IHL games averaged two hours, 38 minutes. After the enforcement procedures were adopted, that dropped 16 minutes.Under the new rule, the linesman automatically drops the puck within a specific time frame, regardless of whether or not players are ready.&ldquo;Instead of standing around looking at the pretty girls in the stands, the players get into the circle and get ready for the faceoff,&rdquo; said commissioner Bob Ufer.Ufer said the league would enact another speed-up rule in February. Goalies will not be allowed to freeze the puck unless some part of their body is in the crease. If a goalie hops on the puck and he is not in the crease, the referee will first warn him to play it and then will issue a delay of game minor.Also, Ufer said the IHL will experiment with games which are four 15-minute quarters instead of three 20-minute periods. There will be a dry scrape at the end of the first and third quarters and the ice will be flooded at halftime.TIRED OF LOSING: Jean Pronovost said he resigned as coach of the Quebec Rafales Jan. 13 because he was frustrated by the team&rsquo;s losing and his inability to get through to his players.He said he would consider coaching again amid rumors about openings in the Quebec League.&ldquo;Physically, I feel well, but mentally, I am tired,&rdquo; Pronovost said. &ldquo;I need time to rest. I can tell you it is comforting to see that other organizations still believe in me. A coach needs good players and a real team.&rdquo;I-OPENERS: The Las Vegas Thunder dealt left winger Darcy Loewen to the Utah Grizzlies for rookie center Tyler Prosofsky to open a salary spot for veteran defenseman David Shaw, assigned by Tampa Bay&hellip;Gilbert Dionne of the Cincinnati Cyclones sustained a gash on his throat when he was inadvertently kicked by Fort Wayne Komets&rsquo; Andrei Bashkirov. The cut required 25 stitches to close, but Dionne came back and played the remainder of the game. &#9632;

f0023-02

LEAGUES

Tippett has Aeros pointed upward

<div class="byline">By Brendan Savage and David Henry</div>Thunder Bay&rsquo;s Jason Firth has been one of the United League&rsquo;s top players since 1992-93, when he won rookie of the year and MVP honors in the same season.Now Firth has taken his game to an even higher level this season and is threatening to turn the MVP race into a battle for second place.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the best player in the league, by far,&rdquo; said Flint General defenseman Stephan Brochu, captain of the UHL all-star team.In 43 games, Firth posted league-leading totals of 44 goals and 111 points, putting him on pace for a UHL-record 191 points.&ldquo;If that happens, it happens,&rdquo; said Firth, 26. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m not looking toward that (record).&rdquo;Firth quickly deflects credit for his big season, praising his linemates instead. It&rsquo;s easy to see why he&rsquo;s modest as linemates Brant Blackned and Mike Figloimeni have ranked Nos. 3-4 in UHL scoring for most of the season while defenseman Barry McKinlay was fifth.Those four regularly play together along with defenseman David Mayes.Firth has 584 career UHL points in six seasons to rank second behind the 845 accumulated by Brantford Smoke center Paul Polillo, who is second in this year&rsquo;s scoring race and set the single-season record of 186 in 1995-96.Firth played 81 American League games from 1993-95, but other than a minor nibble this season he hasn&rsquo;t gotten any interest from a higher league. That&rsquo;s OK with him.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not too concerned about moving up yet,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m here and I&rsquo;m going to keep playing hard. One team inquired, but it was a bad time of the year. We were playing some of the top teams in the league so I decided to stay back.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to go up for five games or whatever. I want to go for the rest of the year.&rdquo;WESTERN PRO LEAGUE: Former Muskegon Fury winger Gary Coupal. who was banned for life by the United League Dec. 30 for throwing his broken stick into the stands, signed with the Western Pro League&rsquo;s Central Texas Stampede Jan. 16.He was on his best behavior his first two games, getting just one minor penalty.Coupal, who had seven goals, 12 points and 101 penalty minutes in 25 games with Muskegon, was previously suspended for life from the Ontario League and given a one-year suspension from the East Coast League.NOTEBOOK: The Western Division knocked off the Eastern Division 11-5 in the WPHL All-Star Game before 5,057 fans Jan. 10 in Lake Charles, La. New Mexico Scorpion right winger Sylvain Naud of the West was named MVP. He had three goals and an assist, as did El Paso Buzzards&rsquo; defenseman Mark Hilton, who was named top defenseman&hellip;WPHL linesman Bill Nebe hopped in a taxi and hustled over to Reunion Arena Jan. 9 when the Dallas Stars hosted the Detroit Red Wings. Nebe was called to serve as a stand-by official when NHL referee Rob Shick had postconcussion syndrome&hellip;El Paso left winger Jamie Thompson continued his league-best point streak. Thompson played 34 straight games with at least one point. He ranked third in league scoring with 80 points. &#9632;

Thunder Bay scoring wizard also Firth in MVP race

<div class="byline">By Kevin Oklobzija</div>Just over two years ago, Bill Barber was quite content working as a pro scout for the Philadelphia Flyers.Now he has different goals. He&rsquo;d like to someday be coaching for the Flyers, or another NHL team, and he has a nice item for his resume.Barber, in his second season as coach of the American League&rsquo;s Philadelphia Phantoms, will guide the PlanetUSA All-Stars in the AHL AllStar Game Feb. 11 at Syracuse, N.Y.Barber earned the right to coach the all-star squad comprised of players bom in the U.S. and countries other than Canada because the Phantoms had the best winning percentage Jan. 18 (.733 based on a 30-10-5 record). His assistant coach, Mike Stothers, will accompany him.Bob Hartley, coach of the Phantoms bitter rival, the Hershey Bears, will guide Team Canada because his club won the Calder Cup last season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01961/6950835-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="426" height="424"></div>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going there to represent the Philadelphia Phantoms and I will be very honored to do so,&rdquo; Barber said. &ldquo;This reflects the high level that our team has played at all year.&rdquo;It also reflects the players&rsquo; desire to play for Barber. They set a goal early in the season to have the best winning percentage and ensure that Barber coached in the All-Star Game.&ldquo;It was really a nice gesture,&rdquo; Barber said. &ldquo;We have a class core of veterans and the team worked very hard.&rdquo;Barber led the Phantoms to the AHL&rsquo;s best regular season record a year ago (49-21-10), but they lost to Hershey in the second round of the playoffs.He wasn&rsquo;t interviewed for the Flyers&rsquo; coaching vacancy over the summer and says he wasn&rsquo;t prepared to jump to the NHL at the time. The Flyers&rsquo; job went to former Tampa Bay Lightning assistant coach Wayne Cashman.&ldquo;I think after this year I&rsquo;ll have gained the experience (to be ready),&rdquo; said Barber, who has been in pro hockey for 26 seasons and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1990. &ldquo;You have to be a teacher, you have to be a seller to get players to buy into the team concept and you have to be a communicator.&ldquo;You have to get the team to play well and yet make it fun, where players want to play for you, where they want to come to the rink. I&rsquo;ve been in the pro end of things for 26 years and not once have I thought of it as work.&rdquo;Barber knows a thing or two about All-Star Games. He played in six NHL All-Star Games during his playing career with the Flyers and was a member of the NHL all-star team in the 1979 Challenge Cup.IN SHAPE: Having fallen off Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; coach Mike Keenan&rsquo;s depth chart in Vancouver, center Lonny Bohonos was assigned to the Syracuse Crunch Jan. 12 for a two-week conditioning assignment.Bohonos was hardly out of shape. He scored four goals and 12 points in five games his first week to earn AHL player of the week honors.HOT PRODUCT: The league surpassed two million in attendance Jan. 14. the earliest date it has reached that mark.By averaging 10,317 and with at least five more sellouts of 17,380 expected, the Philadelphia Phantoms are threatening to break the single-season average attendance record of 11,208 set in Boston Garden by the Boston Braves in 1971-72.AHL TIDBITS: Peter Ferraro, claimed off waivers from the Pittsburgh Penguins by the New York Rangers Jan. 14, scored four goals and six points in his first three games for the Hartford Wolf Pack. Brother Chris remains with the Penguins, the first time in their careers the twins have been split up&hellip;Albany River Rats&rsquo; Petr Sykora scored four goals and assisted on another in a 7-3 win over the Fredericton Canadiens Jan. 18&hellip;Craig Charron&rsquo;s goal against Syracuse Jan. 18 was the 12,000th in the Rochester Americans&rsquo; 43-year history&hellip;Cincinnati Cyclones&rsquo; center Matt Cullen scored one goal in seven straight games after his demotion from the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim&hellip;The Worcester IceCats fired a club-record 28 shots in the second period on Fredericton goalie Jose Theodore. The IceCats had 49 shots in the game, which they won 4-2. &#9632;

f0024-01

Phantoms band together to get Barber all-star job

<div class="byline">By John Packett</div>Andy MacIntyre figured he was in the right places at the right times-and with the right line-mates.The Jacksonville Lizard Kings&rsquo; left winger scored four goals and added an assist to lead Team Canada over Team USA/World 11-7 in the sixth annual East Coast League All-Star Game before a record crowd of 11,493 at the Cajundome in Lafayette, La., Jan. 20.MacIntyre played on a line with center Scott Burfoot of the Richmond Renegades and right winger Sheldon Gorski of the Louisville RiverFrogs. Gorski tied an All-Star Game record with four assists while Burfoot collected three. MacIntyre&rsquo;s four goals were an All-Star Game record, as were his five points.&ldquo;I had two pretty good guys out there with me,&rdquo; said MacIntyre, who had 25 goals at the all-star break. &ldquo;Gorski and Burfoot put the puck on the tape every time. What else could I do?<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02648/6950866-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="375" height="393"></div>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got a great bunch of guys over here. So do they, but it&rsquo;s especially nice to win while playing for my country. That&rsquo;s the most important thing.&rdquo;For being chosen the game&rsquo;s MVP, MacIntyre received a check for $1,000 and another $1,000 was donated to his favorite charity.Kris Cantu of the Express Roanoke had a hat trick to lead the USA/World all-stars. South Carolina Stingrays&rsquo; Chris Hynnes helped the Canadian cause with two goals and one assist. The game was tied 6-6 at the end of two periods, but Team Canada scored the first three goals of the final period to pull away.&ldquo;We were able to get the puck pretty deep and kept rotating, something we hadn&rsquo;t done consistently in the first two periods,&rdquo; said Team Canada coach Rick Vaive of South Carolina.During the mid-winter meetings, held in conjunction with the all-star festivities, the board of governors voted to hold the 1999 all-star event in Biloxi, Miss. Three other teams originally planned to present proposals, but only the Mississippi Sea Wolves made a bid.Sea Wolves&rsquo; president-GM John Gagnon wanted to pit the teams along the Interstate-10 corridor against all-stars from the rest of the league, but the board wanted to keep a more traditional format of the Northern Conference against the Southern Conference.The next All-Star Game is scheduled for Jan. 13, 1999 at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum, which holds 9,150 for hockey.In other news, the governors voted to change the Kelly Cup semifinals from a best-of-five to a best-of-seven game series, beginning next season. The first two rounds will remain best-of-five. The board also approved a proposal to extend the season through the first week of April for 1998-99.Representatives from Miami, Little Rock, Ark., and Reading, Pa., were in Lafayette discussing the possibility of an expansion team.FIVE-GOAL OUTBURST: Raleigh IceCaps&rsquo; left winger Paul Strand scored a franchise-record five goals to help his team defeat Roanoke 7-2 Jan. 17 in Raleigh. He broke the club record held by Mike Lappin, who scored four against the Charlotte Checkers March 20, 1994. A first-year pro out of the University of Alberta, Strand scored Raleigh&rsquo;s first three goals, completing the hat trick at 7:03 of the second period. His final two goals came in the third period and he just missed getting his sixth in the closing minutes.The ECHL single-game record is six goals, shared by Brad McCaughey of the Toledo Storm (1991) and Tom Bissett of the Hampton Roads Admirals (1989).&ldquo;Those western boys, eh?&rdquo; said Raleigh coach Dan Wiebe, who also played for Alberta. &ldquo;He got taught well.&rdquo;COAST LINES: New Orleans Brass right winger Jeff Lazaro won the fastest skater event Jan. 19, skating a lap in 13.395 seconds. That was faster than the NHL fastest skater winner, Scott Niedermayer of the New Jersey Devils (13.56 seconds)&hellip;Louisville coach Warren Young recorded his 200th pro win when his club defeated the Dayton Bombers 4-3 in Dayton Jan. 18&hellip;The 14-point scoring streaks of Louisiana IceGators&rsquo; John Spoltore and Don Parsons-longest in the league this season-came to an end in a 4-0 loss to the Mobile Mysticks Jan. 16. Spoltore had 23 assists during the string and led the ECHL with 48 at the all-star break. &#9632;

f0024-02

MacIntyre lights it up to lead Canadian stars

<div class="byline">By Jim Cressman</div>Brian Willsie is still sore from riding the Finnish pine.The questions haven&rsquo;t stopped for the Guelph Storm winger since returning to the Ontario League from the World Junior Championship.Willsie, Josh Holden of the Regina Pats and Brad Ference of the Spokane Chiefs were benched for a game against the United States after being late for a team walk.Willsie said wherever he goes the first question asked is always the benching.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m dealing with it the best I can,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Hopefully it dissipates and doesn&rsquo;t affect you as a person or as a player. It was embarrassing. I didn&rsquo;t think it would get this big back here.&rdquo;Willsie isn&rsquo;t making excuses (the hotel did fail to give a wake-up call), but does question why coach Real Paiement didn&rsquo;t deal with the earlier incidents of player tardiness.&ldquo;When it happened earlier, he said it was the sort of thing that might take care of itself. (The treatment) was a bit of a letdown because I did the job that was asked of me. It&rsquo;s something I have to deal with,&rdquo; he said.Junior teammate Daniel Tkaczuk of the Barrie Colts didn&rsquo;t think the three deserved public humiliation. &ldquo;We lose to the Russians and everybody is looking for answers. The next day three players are benched,&rdquo; Tkaczuk said.&ldquo;As a player, I would have liked to see them deal with it in a different way. I feel for those guys. It&rsquo;s unfortunate they had to be singled out. I can&rsquo;t help but wonder if we&rsquo;d won the game against the Russians if it would have been the same consequences.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01856/6950897-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="688" height="232"></div>Willsie won&rsquo;t allow the benching to tarnish his overall experience.&ldquo;Wearing the Maple Leaf is a tremendous honor. It was an isolated incident for us three. It was humiliating, but I see myself as a pretty resilient guy,&rdquo; he said.DRUMM DISMISSED: Brian Drumm was fired as Peterborough Petes&rsquo; coach Jan. 16, the first time since Dave Dryden&rsquo;s firing in 198081 the Petes have released a coach.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the same old quote: When a team is performing below expectations, the coach is the one to pay the price,&rdquo; GM Jeff Twoday said of the Petes&rsquo; 15-22-4 showing under Drumm in his second season.Twohey is coaching the remainder of this season. His last stint behind the bench was as an assistant under Dick Todd in the 1993 Memorial Cup final. The Petes lost and tied their first two games under Twohey.BULLISH: The Belleville Bulls have marked Nov. 10 on their calendar as a red-letter day.That&rsquo;s the day they obtained overage right winger Joel Trottier and defenseman Jason Lawmaster from the Plymouth Whalers.It&rsquo;s also when they turned things around in the East-going from worst to first.The Bulls were 21-4-1 since the trade and 2915-2 overall. They started the season 3-8-1.Trottier played three years with Ottawa, but after he was drafted by the Boston Bruins in 1997 the 67&rsquo;s dealt his overage rights to Plymouth. When Trottier didn&rsquo;t sign, he returned to junior, but the Whalers had their full comple-. ment of overagers and he went to the Bulls.MARCHING IN: Brampton enters the OHL next season as the Battalion after a public name-the-team contest. Owner Scott Abbott, a coinventor of Trivial Pursuit (many thought the team would be called the Pursuit) said military green, gold, brown and black are the colors.&ldquo;I love the name because it&rsquo;s original,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not aware of any team in any sport at any level in the world (with) this name.&rdquo;The crest features the face of a military figure wearing a beret. The Battalion and Mississauga Ice Dogs, a 1998-99 expansion entry, will participate in the June 6 draft.&ldquo;June 6 is the anniversary of D-Day, but for the Battalion, it&rsquo;s draft day,&rdquo; Abbott said. &#9632;

f0025-01

‘Benched’ Willsie wants to let Canadian Storm subside

<div class="byline">By Stuart Cowan</div>The Val d&rsquo;Or Foreurs pulled off the biggest deal on the final day of the Quebec League&rsquo;s trading period Jan. 19, boosting their offense with forwards Karol Bartanus and Christian Drolet from the Drummondville Voltigeurs.The Foreurs also picked up a fourth round pick at the 1998 midget draft, while giving up center Marc-Etienne Hubert, their third and fifth round picks at this year&rsquo;s midget draft, and $25,000. Val d&rsquo;Or also had to pay a 25 per cent tax ($6,250) to the league as part of a new rule put in place earlier this season to discourage cash-for-player transactions.&ldquo;We have two solid lines now with six players who are rated as &lsquo;A&rsquo; players in junior,&rdquo; said Foreurs&rsquo; GM Michel Georges. &ldquo;These two guys will also help our power play.&rdquo;Georges added Drolet, who had 17 goals and 51 points in 44 games with Drummondville, is the offensive center he has been looking for. Drolet will play on the top line with Jean-Pierre Dumont and Bartanus. The second line includes Dominic Chiasson, Steve Begin and Christian Daigle. Last season, the six players combined for 192 goals and 462 points.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02545/6950928-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="574" height="285"></div>The Foreurs, THN&rsquo;s pre-season pick to win the Memorial Cup, have been a disappointment this season, posting a 21-21-6 record before the trade. Val d&rsquo;Or has struggled offensively, averaging only 3.3 goals per game.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had trouble buying goals,&rdquo; Georges said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve lost a lot of games (12) by one or two goals.&rdquo;While Georges pulled off the biggest deal, there were only a few other minor moves.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t surprised,&rdquo; Georges said. &ldquo;This year there&rsquo;s no powerhouse in the QMJHL like the last two years with Granby and Hull (which both went on to win the Memorial Cup). Everybody still has a chance to make the playoffs, which means nobody wants to trade their big players. Making the playoffs means making extra money.&rdquo;COACHES&rsquo; CORNER: Alter going the first half of the season without any coaching changes, there were two moves within six days.Rouyn-Noranda Huskies&rsquo; Gaston Therrien resigned Jan. 9 and then the Rimouski Oceanic fired rookie coach Roger De Joie Jan. 14 despite a winning record (22-20-2).Rimouski GM Maurice Tanguay said he wasn&rsquo;t happy with his team&rsquo;s performance and thought DeJoie lacked the experience necessary to turn things around.&lsquo;It&rsquo;s my fault,&rdquo; Tanguay said. &ldquo;I hired a young coach who I thought deserved a chance, but it didn&rsquo;t work out like I expected. He&rsquo;s a good coach and I&rsquo;m sure he&rsquo;ll find a job somewhere else. He just needs more experience.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got 11 17-year-olds on the team and they&rsquo;ve been thinking too much about the (NHL) draft. The team was lacking intensity and we hope to change that.&rdquo;Doris Labonte, who has coached in the league before and spent three seasons working as Tanguay&rsquo;s assistant, took over behind the bench and won his first three games.&ldquo;(Labonte&rsquo;s) a good hockey man and has a lot of experience,&rdquo; Tanguay said.STORM HAS EFFECT: The savage ice storms that hit Quebec in early January, leaving much of the province without electricity for several days, also had an effect on the QMJHL schedule, with Victoriaville and Drummondville the teams hardest hit.Victoriaville had four home games postponed between Jan. 9 and 16 because there was no electricity, while Drummondville was forced to play three &lsquo;home&rsquo; games in Riviere du Loup.BUMPY ROAD: The Cape Breton Screaming Eagles lost 8-2 to Rimouski Jan. 18, extending their league-record road losing streak to 23 games. The previous record of 21 was shared by the St-Jerome Alouettes (1971-72) and the Drummondville Voltigeurs (1989-90).The Eagles, who had a 2-24-0 road record, hadn&rsquo;t won away from home since a 6-5 victory over Rimouski Sept. 28. &#9632;

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Foreurs hope deadline deal puts punch back in offense

<div class="byline">By Rob Vanstone</div>A shootout victory in the Western League&rsquo;s AllStar Game did not alter Trent Whitfield&rsquo;s views about the sudden-death tiebreaker.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s the way a game should end,&rdquo;-said Whitfield, a center with the Spokane Chiefs, after captaining the Western Conference to a 7-6 victory over the Eastern Conference Jan. 21 in Regina.Quinn Hancock of the Prince George Cougars scored the deciding goal in the shootout before a sellout crowd of 6,050. Hancock also assisted on a goal by Prince George&rsquo;s Joel Kwiatkowskitus second of the night-which created a 6-6 tie with 2:04 left.&ldquo;It was exciting for the fans,&rdquo; said Regina Pats&rsquo; center Josh Holden after recording one goal and two assists before a hometown crowd.Sergei Varlamov of the Swift Current Broncos was named the Eastern Conference&rsquo;s player-of-the-game after a two-goal performance.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-03353/6950959-1-eng-US/f0025-032.jpg" title="f0025-03" width="353" height="361"></div>Portland Winter Hawks&rsquo; goalie Brent Belecki, who sparkled in 30 minutes, was the Western Conference&rsquo;s top player.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s quite an honor when you consider the calibre of players who were here,&rdquo; Belecki said.Martin Sonnenberg (Saskatoon Blades), Michal Rozsival (Swift Current) and Shawn McNeil (Red Deer Rebels) also scored for the Eastern Conference, which was outshot 46-32.Andrew Ference (Portland), Marian Cisar (Spokane), Dylan Gyori (Tri-City Americans) and Jason Deleurme (Kelowna Rockets) completed the scoring for the West.The 1999 All-Star Game is in Lethbridge.SHOWING THEIR STUFF: The WHL held its first-ever skills competition on the eve of the All-Star Game.The West prevailed 17-16 in overtime. Portland&rsquo;s Todd Robinson scored the winning goal in-guess what?-a shootout.Spokane&rsquo;s Greg Leeb won the fastest skater event, completing one lap in 13.654 seconds. Chad Hinz of the Moose Jaw Warriors (13.979) was second, followed by Holden (14.023).Kwiatkowski had the hardest shot, which was clocked at 95.6 miles per hour. Regina&rsquo;s Brad Stuart was second at 94.5 and Spokane&rsquo;s Zenith Komarniski (94.0) was third.Swift Current&rsquo;s Terry Friesen was stingy in goal, stopping 14 of 20 shots in the rapid-fire.&ldquo;I like the concept of the skills competition,&rdquo; WHL commissioner Dev Dley said. &ldquo;The fans certainly enjoyed it and so did the players.&rdquo;BAD BREAK: The Brandon Wheat Kings suffered a huge blow Jan. 18 when right winger Kirby Law broke his left leg. The 20-year-old Law, who had 78 points in 49 games, is not expected to return until the playoffs.&ldquo;That leaves a big hole,&rdquo; said Wheat Kings&rsquo; center Cory Cyrenne, a linemate of Law&rsquo;s.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a key guy on our team, not only on the ice, but off the ice. He&rsquo;s an inspirational player. We have to step up and fill a big hole.&rdquo;TRADING PLACES: WHL GMs completed some deals before the Jan. 23 trading deadline.Spokane acquired 19-year-old left winger Cam Severson from the Prince Albert Raiders for center Marc Brown. 18. and right winger Justin Kelly, 16.Severson had 47 points (including 23 goals) and 123 penalty minutes in 40 games.The Raiders also shipped Brad Swanson to Kelowna for fellow 20-year-old rearguard Chad Wilchynski and a fifth round bantam draft pick.Prince Albert didn&rsquo;t stop there. The Raiders sent the quarterback of their power play, defenseman Harlan Pratt, to Regina for 18-year-old right winger Cody Jensen. Pratt, 19, had six goals and 20 points in 37 games.In another deal, the Medicine Hat Tigers assigned 20-year-old left winger Henry Kuster to Red Deer as compensation for an earlier deal involving left winger Jeff Temple, 19.Temple had been traded from Medicine Hat to Red Deer, but refused to report to the Rebels.Medicine Hat proceeded to deal Temple&rsquo;s rights to Spokane. Compensation to the Tigers is contingent upon Temple joining the Chiefs. &#9632;

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Shootout separates West from East in All-Star Game

<div class="byline">By Chris Miller</div>The St. Cloud State Huskies are hoping to be the latest in a line of overachieving underdogs in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.In the 1990s alone, North Dakota (1997), Colorado College (1994), Minnesota-Duluth (1993) and Northern Michigan (1991) each overcame long odds to win the WCHA title.This year&rsquo;s Huskies, picked to finish seventh in a pre-season poll, lost just once in 14 games from Nov. 2 through Jan. 15 and were battling the defending national champion North Dakota Fighting Sioux for first place. Back-to-back losses to Minnesota-Duluth Jan. 16-17 left St. Cloud two points behind UND.&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t get any credit for a pretty good defense,&rdquo; said Huskies&rsquo; coach Craig Dahl. &ldquo;We had a lot of depth back there. And (goalie Brian) Leitza has been&hellip;excellent. He has gone to the next level.&rdquo;Leitza and sophomore defenseman Josh DeWolf are the standouts on a well-balanced team that features great team defense and marvellous chemistry.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the most coachable team I&rsquo;ve ever had,&rdquo; Dahl said. &ldquo;They take constructive criticism, they don&rsquo;t complain. They just go out and do it.&rdquo;St. Cloud State finished third last season, its highest finish since joining the WCHA in 1990. But the loss of top scorers Matt Cullen and Mark Parrish, who left school after their sophomore seasons, persuaded most people to write them off this season.HOT DOG: Jeff Scissons of Minnesota-Duluth was the WCHA&rsquo;s hottest player during a mid-January spree in which he had nine points in three games. The sophomore center helped the Bulldogs to an 8-2-1 streak, which propelled them back into contention for home ice in the first round of the playoffs.Scissons, who was chosen in the eighth round of the 1996 NHL entry draft by the Vancouver Canucks, combined with linemates Colin Anderson and Ryan Homstol for 16 points during a sweep of St. Cloud State Jan. 16-17.&ldquo;For the most part of the year, the puck wouldn&rsquo;t go in for us, so we have to cherish games like these,&rdquo; Scissons said.NOTEBOOK: After more than three seasons without a home, the Colorado College Tigers moved into the 7,343-seat Colorado Springs World Arena in January. Colorado College had played &ldquo;home&rdquo; games at the Air Force Academy rink just north of Colorado Springs, skating before sellout crowds of 2,901&hellip;North Dakota zoomed into first place by winning eight consecutive games and outscoring opponents 50-17 in the process. Forwards Jay Panzer, Matt Henderson and David Hoogsteen all had points in those games for the Fighting Sioux, who were scheduled to have four of their final six series on the road. &#9632;

Huskies’ 1997-98 goal: underdogs to top dogs

<div class="byline">By Paul Harris</div>They&rsquo;re banged up, but the Miami RedHawks are still within striking distance of first place in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.Despite losing four of their top players from late-December until early-January, the RedHawks remained in fourth place with a 10-5-2 conference record, just a point behind third-place Northern Michigan. First place Michigan was only seven points in front of Miami and second place Michigan State was only four points ahead of the RedHawks.Miami&rsquo;s biggest loss came during their Denver Cup win in the week between Christmas and New Year&rsquo;s Day. That&rsquo;s when senior defenseman and captain Todd Rohloff was lost for perhaps the season with three tom tendons in his wrist.&ldquo;In our league he was the runner-up last year to Tyler Harlton of Michigan State as the best defensive defenseman,&rdquo; said Miami coach Mark Mazzoleni. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s our captain, our leader and our best defenseman.&rdquo;The RedHawks had already lost sophomore winger Vitali Andreev with an injured knee. When Andreev returned, sophomore winger Mark Shalawylo broke two fingers that will put him out of action until mid-February.In addition, freshman winger Alex Kim left the team indefinitely for personal reasons.&ldquo;For a while there, we were playing without three of our best forwards and our best defenseman,&rdquo; Mazzoleni said. &ldquo;But better days are ahead. We play six of our next eight games against Michigan and Michigan State.&rdquo;Mazzoleni said his two most consistent players have been sophomore center Dustin Whitecotton (six goals and 26 points in 22 games) and senior right winger Adam Copeland (10 goals and 23 points in 22 games).Mazzoleni practically beamed when talking about Copeland, a 6-foot-2, 210-pound power right winger and a fourth-round pick (79th overall) of the Edmonton Oilers in 1994.&ldquo;A lot of players in our league respect him,&rdquo; Mazzoleni said. &ldquo;The most delightful thing about him is that he plays so hard every night. I get compliments on him from other coaches.&rdquo; HOLLY DECKS FOES: Northern Michigan sophomore center Tyson Holly was the CCHA&rsquo;s offensive player of the week for the period ending Jan. 18.A native of Cornwall, Ont., Holly had two goals in a 5-3 victory over Miami Jan. 16. The next night he had a shorthanded goal and two assists in a 5-2 win over Western Michigan.FOR THE DEFENSE: Michigan State junior defenseman Jeff Kozakowski was defensive player of the week for his key role in the Spartans&rsquo; 6-1 victory over Alaska-Fairbanks and a 7-0 win over Ferris State.In those two games, Michigan State allowed a total of just 34 shots. &#9632;

RedHawks take a lickin’, but remain in contention

<div class="byline">By Ton Boggle</div>Yale coach Tim Taylor doesn&rsquo;t like to make comparisons, but in the case of senior defenseman Ray Giroux, comparisons become inevitable.&ldquo;He compares favorably to the best defensemen I&rsquo;ve coached here,&rdquo; Taylor said. &ldquo;Dave Baseggio had more offensive skills than Ray and is now one of the leading offensive defenseman in the IHL (with the Cleveland Lumberjacks). But Ray, in terms of being a skater, a passer, a shooter, a defensive player and a play-maker, has been as good as any of them.&rdquo;That high praise is well-deserved, because, in a year when the best forwards in the league are hard to separate and goalies take turns at the top of the statistical categories, Giroux is having a season worthy of player of the year honors.The economics major from North Bay, Ont., has been one of the top blueliners in the league for four years, and he&rsquo;s going out with a bang.Through 17 games, the 6-foot-1, 191-pound Giroux, who is property of the Philadelphia Flyers, had four goals and 19 points, just two shy of the career-high he established last season.Because of Giroux&rsquo;s steady play and leadership, the Bulldogs have been sitting on top of the standings since early in the season. In midJanuary, they were 13-4-0, the most wins Yale has had since 1992-93.According to Taylor, Giroux&rsquo;s development into one of the league&rsquo;s best defensemen was just a matter of aging.&ldquo;When Ray came to college, he was a true freshman, in terms of age,&rdquo; Taylor said. &ldquo;He was 17 his entire freshman year. Right now, we&rsquo;ve got sophomores who are older than he is.&ldquo;He has always had a tremendous amount of talent, but in four years, there has been a lot of physical and mental maturity. I use him in every situation I can without killing him. He&rsquo;s to us what Chris Chelios is to the Chicago Blackhawks.&rdquo;GAME BREAKER: When a game is on the line, Colgate turns to junior Dru Burgess.Burgess scored his league-leading fourth game-winning goal to give the Red Raiders a 32 overtime win over Cornell Jan. 17.Burgess has 17 goals in 19 games for the Red Raiders this season.NOTEBOOK: A severe ice storm in the northern part of New York state early in January forced Clarkson and St. Lawrence out of their home rinks. St. Lawrence lost its ice because of a week-long power outage and Clarkson&rsquo;s Cheel Arena was used as a Red Cross shelter&hellip;As a result, St. Lawrence played 13 of its first 17 games on the road, compiling a 4-12-1 record&hellip;Clarkson senior goalie Chris Bernard raised his career record to 6-0-0 by making 20 saves in a 5-4 win over Vermont Jan. 16. Golden Knights&rsquo; senior Dan Murphy came back with his 80th career win the next night as Clarkson defeated Dartmouth 4-3. &#9632;

Yale defenseman Giroux may be league’s top star

<div class="byline">By Larry Mahoney</div>Junior center Marty Reasoner is a big reason why the Boston College Eagles are having an exceptional season.Reasoner&rsquo;s 19 goals and 34 points in 23 games lead first place Boston College (8-4-2).&ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy with the way things have gone,&rdquo; said Reasoner, the 14th overall draft selection by the St. Louis Blues in 1996. &ldquo;The team is doing well and that&rsquo;s the most important thing.&rdquo;Coach Jerry York said Reasoner has improved over his previous two seasons.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s going after things instead of sitting back and watching,&rdquo; York said. &ldquo;He had a tendency to analyze, hope he&rsquo;d get the puck and then do something with it. Now he&rsquo;s pressuring people and that has helped his game.&rdquo;The 6-foot-1, 206-pound native of Honeoye Falls, N.Y., and a two-time U.S. junior national team member has made a concerted effort to become a physically stronger player.&ldquo;In hockey, so much has to do with your legs,&rdquo; Reasoner said. &ldquo;You have to concentrate on that because that&rsquo;s where you get a lot of your strength. We have a good coaching staff and a trainer here. They&rsquo;ve really helped.&rdquo;Reasoner, who also kills penalties, is something special according to Eagle freshman standout right winger Brian Gionta.&ldquo;He does everything well,&rdquo; Gionta said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a great playmaker. He&rsquo;s easy to play with and can definitely score and make some moves.&rdquo;CHANGE OF SCENERY: Maine left winger Matt Oliver, who had his criminal threatening charge dropped, has left the school to attend college in his native Ohio.But sophomore defenseman Shawn Mansoff, who also had his charge dropped in the racial slur death threat case that resulted in goalie Bryan Masotta being fined $1,000, is taking classes at Maine and awaiting his appearance before the school&rsquo;s conduct committee.Masotta, Oliver and Mansoff were all suspended for a year by the school but Mansoff is appealing. If that fails, he can also appeal to school president Peter Hoff.Mansoff can continue taking classes until his appeal is heard.Masotta admitted his guilt in placing the threatening call to Maine football player Dwayne Wilmot, who is black, and asked for forgiveness. Masotta also issued Wilmot an apology. Mansoff and Oliver denied involvement and court proceedings determined the background voices on the telephone message did not constitute criminal threatening.RED-HOT GOALTENDER: Boston College freshman goalie Scott Clemmensen made 47 saves in posting back-to-back shutouts over Providence (6-0, 8-0) Jan. 16-17. In his previous outing, he blanked Maine in a 0-0 tie. Clemmensen has gone 241 minutes and 34 seconds without giving up a goal. &#9632;

It stands to Reason why Boston College is in first

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HOCKEY MARKETPLACE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01932/6951138-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01825/6951131-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="3094" height="3509"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01933/6951124-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="3089" height="3502"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-01925/6951117-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="3105" height="3517"></div> &#9632;

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NHL STATISTICAL REPORT

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0033-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-01835/6951169-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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NHL GOALTENDING STATISTICS

NOTEUnofficial 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>TUESDAY, JAN. 20</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-02567/6951305-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="494" height="1592"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-03423/6951298-1-eng-US/f0033-032.jpg" title="f0033-03" width="489" height="1969"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-04328/6951291-1-eng-US/f0033-042.jpg" title="f0033-04" width="491" height="1966"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-05274/6951284-1-eng-US/f0033-052.jpg" title="f0033-05" width="490" height="1965"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-06238/6951277-1-eng-US/f0033-062.jpg" title="f0033-06" width="489" height="872"></div><h2>WEDNESDAY, JAN. 21</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-07216/6951270-1-eng-US/f0033-072.jpg" title="f0033-07" width="495" height="1025"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-08178/6951263-1-eng-US/f0033-082.jpg" title="f0033-08" width="492" height="1966"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01935/6951256-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="493" height="3493"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02648/6951249-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="1526" height="1683"><figcaption class="caption-body">Toronto goaltender Felix Potvin recorded back-to-back shutouts against Detroit and Chicago.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03508/6951242-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="497" height="1764"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-04395/6951235-1-eng-US/f0034-042.jpg" title="f0034-04" width="506" height="1156"></div><h2>THURSDAY, JAN. 22</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-05321/6951228-1-eng-US/f0034-052.jpg" title="f0034-05" width="505" height="544"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-06285/6951221-1-eng-US/f0034-062.jpg" title="f0034-06" width="504" height="1764"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-07261/6951214-1-eng-US/f0034-072.jpg" title="f0034-07" width="505" height="3493"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-08239/6951207-1-eng-US/f0034-082.jpg" title="f0034-08" width="499" height="1559"></div><h2>ALLSTAR GAME</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-09212/6951200-1-eng-US/f0034-092.jpg" title="f0034-09" width="499" height="1938"></div> &#9632;

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NHL SUMMARIES

NHL ROSTERS AND TRANSACTIONS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0037-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01757/6951360-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg"></div>(OT) denotes overtime gameTeam affiliations are listed in parentheses under names &#9632;

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01822/6951391-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg"></div>Team affiliations are listed in barentheses under names(OT) denotes OLYMPICS overtime game &#9632;

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INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-02524/6951436-1-eng-US/f0039-022.jpg" title="f0039-02" width="625" height="265"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-03396/6951429-1-eng-US/f0039-032.jpg" title="f0039-03" width="439" height="235"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01784/6951422-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="3093" height="3201"></div> &#9632;

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Energy that lasts.

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01486/6951467-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

Search for your favorite player or team

February 6, 1998

Now it’s Miller’s Time

Vopat there when Kings need him

World-class shinny

SCOREBOARD