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.

October 23, 1998

The Hockey News October 23, 1998

<div class="byline">By Mike Loftus</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03693/7132838-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="597" height="958"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jim Carey</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-02996/7132845-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="150" height="152"></div>The pre-season numbers looked good-a .500 record (1-1-1), 1.94 goals-against average and .918 save percentage-but Jim Carey knew they didn&rsquo;t matter.&ldquo;I thought I had a good camp, but that&rsquo;s irrelevant,&rdquo; said the 1995-96 Vezina Trophy winner after going unclaimed in the Oct. 5 waiver draft and then being assigned to Providence of the American League. &ldquo;I could have had three shutouts, five shutouts&hellip;it&rsquo;s not going to make a difference at this point.&rdquo;Carey and the Bruins hoped his solid pre-season stats might attract a taker. Boston is committed to a Byron Dafoe-Rob Tallas tandem for 1998-99 and wants second-year pro John Grahame to get most of the work in Providence. Carey, demoted last December to Providence (where he suffered a seasonending shoulder injury), is clearly not in the club&rsquo;s plans, but at $2.3 million (U.S.), no other teams have been willing to see if he can revive his game at the NHL level.Carey thinks the Bruins&rsquo; inability to move him is partly their own doing.&ldquo;I got sent to the minors rather than getting moved and I think that&rsquo;s where things went wrong,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Sending you to the minors devalues you as an asset.&rdquo;Carey, who&rsquo;s still just 24, doesn&rsquo;t expect to play much for as long as he&rsquo;s in the Boston organization. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve got to play (Grahame),&rdquo; Carey said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s young; he&rsquo;s a prospect. Me, I&rsquo;m certainly not a prospect in this organization.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Negotiations picked up between the Bruins and Group II free agents Kyle McLaren and Anson Carter, but the No. 2 defenseman and&rsquo; second-line right winger remained unsigned through Oct. 8&hellip;First-line right winger Dimitri Khristich was expected to miss at least the first game of the season with a slight shoulder separation. Khristich played all 82 games last season&hellip;McLaren&rsquo;s continued absence, plus a back strain that sidelined free agent pickup Dennis Vaske, made room for 18-year-old defenseman Jonathan Girard&hellip;Right winger Landon Wilson&rsquo;s stock continued to plummet. The 23-year old first round pick of Toronto in 1993 cleared waivers for at least the second time and was assigned to Providence (American League). &#9632;

f0018-03

NHL TEAMS

Bruins won’t Carey Jim

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01310/7134193-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0047-01

IN THIS ISSUE

NHL ROSTERS AND TRANSACTIONS

Philadelphia superstar Eric Lindros will edge Anaheim speedster Paul Kariya in Hart Trophy voting and Art Ross scoring this season, according to The Hockey News Prognostication Department.Here&rsquo;s a list of all our projected award-winners:Hart (MVP): Lindros. Runner-up: Kariya.Hartless: Jaromir Jagr, Pittsburgh. Only active non-winner to be runner-up twice.Art Ross (Leading Scorer): Lindros. Runner-up: Kariya.Comeback Player: Mark Messier, Vancouver. Andrei Kovalenko (contract year), Edmonton.Vezina (Best Goalie): Dominik Hasek, Buffalo. Runner-up: Martin Brodeur, New Jersey.Sievena (Underachieving Goalie): Sean Burke, Florida. Runner-up: Jocelyn Thibault, Montreal.Norris (Best Defenseman): Nicklas Lidstrom, Detroit. Runner-up: Chris Pronger, St. Louis.Porous (Worst Defensive Team): Anaheim. Runner-up: Tampa Bay.Calder (Top Rookie): Vincent Lecavalier, Tampa Bay. Runner-up: Tom Poti, Edmonton. Honorable mention to Ottawa&rsquo;s Marian Hossa, whose knee injury will cost him the first two months of the season.Older (Top Veteran 35-and-over Category): Wayne Gretzky, Rangers. Runner-up: Ray Bourque, Boston.Selke (Best Defensive Forward): Jere Lehtinen, Dallas. Run-ner-up: Michael Peca, Buffalo.Sulkie (Most Defensive Attitude): Robbie Ftorek, New Jersey. Runner-up: Pat Bums, Boston.Lady Byng (Most Gentlemanly Player): Lidstrom. Runner-up: Teemu Selanne, Anaheim.Sir Bang (Most Penalized Player): Krzysztof Oliwa, New Jersey. Runner-up: Tie Domi, Toronto.Adams (Top Coach): Joel Quenneville, St. Louis. Runner-up: Ken Hitchcock, Dallas.Adams Jr. (Top Assistant Coach): Dave King, Montreal. Runner up: Ted Green, Edmonton. &#9632;

FEATURES

From Hart to Hartless: Our award picks

The brand new Nashville Predators reached into the past with the first pick of the 1998-99 NHL waiver draft.They chose left winger Zdeno Ciger from the Edmonton Oilers. Ciger, 28, has spent the past two seasons playing in Slovakia with Bratislava. He had 31goals and 70 points in 78 games with the Oilers in 1995-96, his last NHL season.&ldquo;We felt Zdeno was the most talented player available,&rdquo; said Predators&rsquo; GM David Poile. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s our hope we can convince him to return to the NHL.&rdquo;Other waiver picks Oct. 5 were left winger Brent Gilchrist, by the Tampa Bay Lightning from the Detroit Red Wings; defenseman Pascal Trepanier, by the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim from the Colorado Avalanche; right winger Dennis Bonvie, by the Chicago Blackhawks from Edmonton; defenseman Kevin Dahl, by the Toronto Maple Leafs from the St. Louis Blues; goalie Frederic Chabot, by the Montreal Canadiens from the Los Angeles Kings; defenseman Maxim Galanov, by the Pittsburgh Penguins from the NewYork Rangers; defenseman Rory Fitzpatrick, by the Boston Bruins from St. Louis; and center Kip Miller, by Pittsburgh from the New York Islanders.The Red Wings re-acquired Gilchrist from Tampa Bay for a sixth round draft pick in 1999. &#9632;

DEPARTMENTS

Predators go for wayward winger in waiver draft

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0002-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011531/7132166-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Dunham was spectacular for Nashville during the pre-season, sporting a .926 save percentage.</figcaption></div><h2>Cullen makes Tampa Bay</h2>1. It&rsquo;s official! After battling cancer, veteran center John Cullen earns spot with Tampa Bay Lightning.2. Six shooters Todd Bertuzzi, Dan Cleary, Jamie Heward, Mark Parrish, among eight pre-season six-goal scorers.3. The Simpsons Launch of CTV&rsquo;s Sportsnet features brother and sister act Craig and Christine Simpson.4. Hot Hitmen Calgary&rsquo;s Pavel Brendl and Brad Moran set WHL mark with goals two seconds apart.5. BC best of bunch Boston College THN&rsquo;s favorite to capture NCAA Division I championship.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-021279/7132159-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="306" height="444"><figcaption class="caption-body">Todd Bertuzzi</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-03958/7132152-1-eng-US/f0002-032.jpg" title="f0002-03" width="304" height="439"><figcaption class="caption-body">Glenn Healy</figcaption></div><h2>Major whine, minor trip</h2>1. Life&rsquo;s tough Toronto backup goalie Glenn Healy complains about temporary demotion to minors.2. Ducks need five to win NHL wants more goals, Anaheim complies allowing 4.44 per game in pre-season.3. Choice of seats Only 400 fans show up to pre-season game between Islanders-New Jersey at Long Island.4. One is the loneliest number Buffalo completes NHL pre-season with just one win, two points in seven games.5. Dogs bite Mississauga Ice Dogs outshot (233-72), outscored (36-3) and lead OHL in penalty minutes after four games. &#9632;

f0002-01

PLUS MINUS

<div class="byline">By Steve Dryden Editor-in-Chief</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-04725/7132197-1-eng-US/f0002-042.jpg" title="f0002-04" width="321" height="411"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Glenn James/SA)</figcaption></div>Brian Burke may have been two lenient, but the former NHL disciplinarian&rsquo;s system was working. Whether it was working well enough is another question.This much we know: There was a 25 per-cent reduction (28 to 21) in player-on-player incidents of violence deemed suspendible offenses over 1996-97 and 1997-98. Assuming Burke didn&rsquo;t change the league standard for heinous crimes over that two-year period, one conclusion is inescapable: players have been less prone to acts of over-the-line violence. Yet, we enter a new season with the widespread perception a further crackdown is imminent and eminently necessary. Why? There are several reasons, including: an impression sus-pensions aren&rsquo;t stiff enough (11 of Burke&rsquo;s 21 bans were for just two games); an increase in awareness of head injuries (82 concussions were suffered by NHLers last season); and an opinion articulated by the likes of Paul Kariya that the league doesn&rsquo;t do enough to protect its players (Kariya told THN &ldquo;I think some people in the league like the violence&rdquo;).New NHL vice-president Colin Campbell&rsquo;s first suspension, a five-game ban against Ruslan Salei, suggests the league is taking seriously a commitment to treat infractions that result in head injuries more severely than in the past. Salei swept the feet out from under Daniel Briere, an insidious practice known as slewfooting, and sent Briere crashing to the ice. Briere went into convulsions on the ice and suffered a concussion. (See pg. 23 for more.) Is five games enough? It&rsquo;s a start. One player was suspended for slew-footing last season and he got two games. Alexei Kovalev was suspended five games for an incident that involved slew-footing several years ago. Would Salei have received five games had he not been suspended last season? Will this punishment get players&rsquo; attention? We know at least one player wants stiff suspensions as a matter of course. &ldquo;If you want to stop things, you start handing out 10-game suspensions and guys are going to wake up,&rdquo; Kariya told THN.Kariya missed 28 games last season with post-concussion syndrome. It was the second time in two years He was sidelined after vicious hits to the head. Kariya wants a change in the instigator rule because he believes players take liberties they wouldn&rsquo;t have in the past when faced with the prospect of swift, sledgehammer retribution. THN favors instituting stiffer suspensions, opposes any lightening of the instigator penalty (we&rsquo;re against vigilante justice), and recommends team fines be levied so that clubs, not just players, be held accountable for despicable acts. &#9632;

f0002-04

NHL discipline: Where do we go from here?

<div class="byline">Bob McKenzie Associate Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011732/7132235-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="350" height="449"></div>Three divisions in the Eastern Conference? Doesn&rsquo;t much matter. The new format is inconsequential except division winners get the top three playoff seeds.Philadelphia will edge New Jersey, while Carolina and Buffalo win the other divisions. Here&rsquo;s how we see the regular season unfolding in the East. Asterisks indicate division champs; playoff teams are in capital letters.1. PHILADELPHIA Aren-aissance for Eric Lindros and team-mates; solid netminding from John Vanbiesbrouck.2. WASHINGTON Some of the NHL&rsquo;s best young emerging talent.3. BUFFALO Two words: Dominik Hasek. Must get free agents signed, however.4. NEW JERSEY Coaching change won&rsquo;t alter results-oriented, defense-first approach.5. CAROLINA Trevor Kidd is for real and Ron Francis will fill center void.6. BOSTON If Jason Allison doesn&rsquo;t live up to his contract, all bets are off.7. MONTREAL Habs will be fine when talented free agents return to fold.8. OTTAWA As long as net-minding holds up and Daniel Alfredsson regains health.9.Rangers Lack of playmates for Wayne Gretzky is crippling.10.Pittsburgh Loss of Francis too tough to overcome for Team United Nations.11. Florida Better than they were a year ago, but not good enough.12. Toronto Will like new travel schedule, but not another year out of the playoffs.13.Islanders Off-ice battles and financial constraints will disable rebuilding effort.14. Tampa Bay Vincent Lecavalier is the real deal, but Lightning still has long way to go before challenging.The West is best, not just because it will produce the Stanley Cup champion in Detroit, but because it has a host of other top teams, including Dallas and Colorado.We&rsquo;re picking Dallas to finish ahead of Detroit in the conference standings, but to lose in the conference final. Here&rsquo;s how we see the regular season unfolding in the West. Asterisks indicate division champs; playoff teams are in capital letters.1. DALLAS The addition of veter-an sniper Brett Hull makes an excellent team, No. 1 overall last year, even better this season.2. DETROIT Wings will miss Scotty Bowman, but have too much depth, pride to stumble.3. COLORADO There will be a transition with a new coach, but talent is top end.4. ST. LOUIS More defensive approach with departures of Hull and Steve Duchesne.5. LOS ANGELES Addition of Duchesne will spark power play and add offensive flair.6. PHOENIX Coyotes can be a force if Keith Tkachuk and Jeremy Roenick are focused.7. EDMONTON As long as Doug Weight returns, speedy and skilled Oilers take next step.8. CHICAGO Doug Gilmour will help, but Hawks&rsquo; young guns will determine their fate.9. San Jose Touch and go to make it, especially if Jeff Friesen is out for any length of time.10. Anaheim Best one-two punch in Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne, but defense needs help.11. Vancouver Only now is rebuilding beginning under Mike Keenan and Brian Burke.12. Calgary Rebuilding team isn&rsquo;t there yet. Has to settle Theo Fleury&rsquo;s future.13. Nashville Predators&rsquo; emphasis is on developing young talent; there&rsquo;ll be no surprise season.Expansion Atlanta Thrashers, Southeast, 1999-2000; Columbus Blue Jackets, Central, Minnesota Wild, Northwest, 2000-01.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021386/7132228-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="1508" height="2953"><figcaption class="caption-body">THN&rsquo;s crystal ball shows Norris and Lady Byng Trophies in Nicklas Lidstrom&rsquo;s future. (Photo by Claus Andersen/BBS)</figcaption></div><h2>THN&rsquo;S 1998-99 PREDICTIONS</h2>&bull;Playoff teams<h3>WESTERN CONFERENCE Central Division</h3>1. Detroit Red Wings2. St. Louis Blues3. Chicago Blackhawks4. Nashville Predators<h3>Northwest Division</h3>1. Colorado Avalanche2. Edmonton Oilers3. Vancouver Canucks4. Calgary Flames<h3>Pacific Division</h3>1. Dallas Stars2. Los Angeles Kings3. Phoenix Coyotes4. San Jose Sharks5. Anaheim Mighty Ducks<h4>EASTERN CONFERENCE Northeast Division</h4>1. Buffalo Sabres2. Boston Bruins3. Montreal Canadiens4. Ottawa Senators5. Toronto Maple Leafs<h3>Atlantic Division</h3>1. Philadelphia Flyers2. New Jersey Devils3. New York Rangers4. Pittsburgh Penguins5. New York Islanders<h3>Southeast Division</h3>1. Washington Capitals2. Carolina Hurricanes3.Florida Panthers4. Tampa Bay Lightning<h3>WESTERN FINAL</h3>Detroit over Dallas<h3>EASTERN FINAL</h3>Philadelphia over New Jersey<h3>STANLEY CUP FINAL</h3>Detroit over Philadelphia &#9632;

f0003-01

Lines of Divisions drawn in NHL ice

<div class="byline">By Kevin lole</div>Stephane Morin, who played 90 NHL games and was a former International League scoring champion, died Oct. 6 in Oberhausen, Germany, during the second period of a game.An autopsy revealed Morin, 29, died of a massive heart attack during a game between his team, the Berlin Capitals, and the Revier Lions. He scored three goals in the first period.Morin played for the Quebec Nordiques and Vancouver Canucks from 1989-90 through1993-1994 and led the IHL in scoring with 114 points in 81 games for the Minnesota Moose in 1194-1995. While sitting on the bench about five minutes into the second period, he complainedhe wasn&rsquo;t feeling well. He then stood up, but collapsed as teammate Paul Broten yelled for a doctor. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful and Morin was pronounced dead at a local hospital.The Montreal native is the second Canadian-born player to die while playing in Germany. Mark Teevens of Peterborough, Ont., died of a lung embolism April 18.Morin played the bulk of his career in the American League with the Halifax Citadels and Hamilton Canucks and the IHL. He spent the two previous We looked to him to be the guy and he relished seasons with the IHL Long Beach Ice Dogs.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011669/7132338-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="376" height="574"><figcaption class="caption-body">Stephane Morin</figcaption></div>Morin was acquired in a trade with the Manitoba Moose early in 1996-97 while the Ice Dogs were struggling. As soon as he arrived, the Ice Dogs became the hottest team in the league and went on to the Turner Cup final.&ldquo;Look at where we were before he got here and how we took off once we arrived and that will tell you the kind of player he was,&rdquo; said Ice Dogs coach-GM John Van Boxmeer. &ldquo;Guys naturally followed him. He was a true leader that way. that. He wore that mantle very, very well.&rdquo;Russ Romaniuk, a teammate in both Manitoba and Long Beach, said Morin &ldquo;was a hell of a guy,&rdquo; and recalled him as a person everyone liked to be around.&ldquo;He had a great sense of humor and he was friendly and he got along great with everybody,&rdquo; Romaniuk said. &ldquo;He was one of the best guys you&rsquo;d want to meet.&rdquo;Morin played his junior hockey with the Shawinigan Cataractes and Chicoutimi Sague-neens of the Quebec League. He led the league in scoring with 77 goals and 186 points for Chicoutimi in 1988-89. His NHL totals were 16 goals and 55 points in 90 games.Morin is survived by his wife, Karen, and a two-year-old son, Frederick. &#9632;

f0005-01

Former NHLer Morin dies of heart attack

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender Staff Writer</div>As Canadian franchises see their bottom lines eroded by a weak dollar and high taxes, a federal subcommittee on sport is advocating the creation of a federal government&rsquo;sports pact&rsquo; to make them more competitive.One proposal in a discussion paper calls for a $5-million payment to qualifying franchises as compensation for the unfavorable exchange rate. Another would see federal and provincial income tax rates for sports professionals be reduced to U.S. levels.Ottawa Senators&rsquo; president and CEO Roy Mlakar reacted favorably to the paper and said Canadian teams are only looking for help to reach a level playing field.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s forget the word subsidy, it&rsquo;s called equality,&rdquo; Mlakar said. &ldquo;We want the same benefits as agriculture. We want the same benefits as high tech. We want the same benefits as any other business the exact same way they&rsquo;re treated in the United States.&rdquo; &#9632;

Canadian clubs eager for help

<div class="byline">Compiled by THN staff</div>The answer to Sheldon Kennedy&rsquo;s theme question &rsquo;Are we there yet?&rsquo; was answered Oct. 10 in Victoria.Yes, Sheldon, you&rsquo;re there.Kennedy&rsquo;s 136-day, 5,000-mile inline skate across Canada to raise awareness and funds in the fight against sexual abuse ended with a splash. Rather than dip a skate into the ocean-like he did in the Atlantic May 31 in St. John&rsquo;s Nfld.-Kennedy vowed to dive into the Pacific Ocean in Victoria Harbour Oct. 10.&ldquo;It has been a long four-and-a-half months,&rdquo; Kennedy said on the eve of his final skate. &ldquo;It has been more of a mental challenge rather than a physically exhausting. But the message got out there. It was worth it.&rdquo;Although a final amount was not yet tabulated, the journey came well short of the $15 million projected. Funds go towards building a ranch in the Kootenay region of B.C., for child and teen victims of sexual abuse.Kennedy said one highlight from the trip was stopping at a maximum security prison in Mission, B.C., where he saw first hand the ravages of child sex abuse.PUCK BRIEFS&ldquo;Ninety-eight per cent of the prisoners have suffered sexual or physical abuse earlier in their lives,&rdquo; said Kennedy, who was sexually abused for eight years by his former junior coach Graham James.Kennedy hopes his next stop is the NHL. &ldquo;I want to get in (game) shape and give (the NHL) a shot,&rdquo; Kennedy said. &ldquo;I think it will happen.&rdquo;REF RETURNS: Paul Stewart has been cleared to go back to work.The 12th-year NHL referee was given a clean bill of health by doctors, four months after an operation to remove two malignant tumors in and near his colon. An examination revealed no signs of the cancer, however, he will continue chemotherapy treatments until Dec. 24.Stewart, 43, will start the season with a five-game stint in the American League before returning to the NHL no later than Nov. 10.RHEAUME ON LEAVE: Women&rsquo;s hockey pioneer Manon Rheaume is taking the season off to have a baby.The goaltender for Canada&rsquo;s women&rsquo;s national team is pregnant and due to give birth in May. She will sit out the entire season, including the 1999 World Championship.Rheaume, 26, married Canadian national in-line player Gerry St Cyr this summer. She was the first women to play in an NHL game, appearing in an exhibition game with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992.FATAL CRASH: Two welders working on the new arena complex in Atlanta died when a concrete beam they were working on broke loose.The 38,000-pound slab fell 50 feet to the ground killing the two workers Oct. 2. Construction halted for three days while federal safety officials investigated the accident. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it isn&rsquo;t sure how long the investigation will take.The $213 million facility will be home to the Atlanta Thrashers, who join the NHL next season, and the NBA&rsquo;s Atlanta Hawks.MAJOR DEAL: SLM International, the maker of CCM and Tacks brand names, announced the acquisition of Sports Holdings Corp., which markets brand names including Jofa, Koho, Titan, Canadien and Heaton. The Oct. 8 deal makes SLM a leader in the hockey equipment industry. &#9632;

Kennedy looks towards future

<div class="byline">By Jason Paul</div>Where do fired coaches wind up? A good bet is on TV.Former Colorado Avalanche coach Marc Crawford joins a list of former coaches, including Don Cherry, Barry Melrose and Terry Crisp, who now provide insight to viewers rather than players.Crawford, 37, is one of four additions to CBC&rsquo;s Hockey Night in Canada lineup this season. He is a color commentator on the second game of Saturday night&rsquo;s doubleheader, joining newcomers Kelly Hrudey, John Davidson and Patrick Flatley.Hrudey, who retired after 15 NHL seasons, becomes a full-time analyst after working for HNIC the past four post-seasons, while Davidson, who will do spot duty, returns after a 12year absence from the HNIC booth.&ldquo;I have not been this nervous in a long time,&rdquo; Crawford said before his first game Oct. 10.Along with an earlier start time of 7 p.m. EST from 7:30 last year and a new sponsor (Labatt takes over for Molson), HNICs classic theme song has been jazzed up. &#9632;

Crawford joins broadcast crew

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011856/7132441-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"></div>I just got my first issue as a subscriber and I thoroughly enjoyed the article &ldquo;Double Decade&rdquo; (THN, Oct. 9). I think it is very special that Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Ray Bourque are all entering their 20th seasons.The article mentions Messier being embarrassed about having become a legend. I became a hockey fan the night Messier backed up his &ldquo;We will win tonight&rdquo; pledge with a hat trick in the third period of the New York Rangers&rsquo; Game 6 victory over the New Jersey Devils in the 1994 playoffs.Up until then, I was only superficially interested in playoff hockey; now I&rsquo;m a diehard. It is difficult to attain the status of &ldquo;hero&rdquo; or &ldquo;legend,&rdquo; especially here in New York. Messier will always be both to us.Susan Couture,Astoria, N. Y.<h2>Twenty-year club</h2>Although it&rsquo;s quite an achievement for Mark Messier, Wayne Gretzky and Ray Bourque to reach the 20-season plateau together (THN, Oct. 9), I don&rsquo;t believe it&rsquo;s impossible to see a fair number of other 20-year veterans down the road.Although players won&rsquo;t need the money, love of the game will keep them lacing up the blades. Why do you think golfers such as Arnold Palmer continue to play on the Senior Tour?Lee Hamilton,Golden, B.C.<h2>Hasek overrated</h2>What is this love-fest The Hockey News has with Dominik Hasek (THN, Season Preview)?Granted he is a good goalie, but the No. 1 player in the NHL? Please. New Jersey&rsquo;s Martin Brodeur is such a better goalie it&rsquo;s pathetic. His goals-against average was much better, he won 10 more games than Hasek and he doesn&rsquo;t wimp out when the going gets tough.Brodeur plays with injuries unlike Hasek, who invents them when it might just get shown to the public that he isn&rsquo;t as good as everyone says. Just because Hasek flops around on the ice like a fish out of water and makes easy saves look spectacular, everyone is in love with him.I was always under the impression THN understood hockey. Y&rsquo;all have shown me that you are as gullible as everyone else. How about giving Brodeur the credit that is due based on talent and integrity, unlike Hasek who is a superb actor and whiner.David Schwartz,Austin, Tex.<h2>Hasek No. 1</h2>I know it&rsquo;s not Thanksgiving yet,but I am feeling very grateful. Thank you, THN, for the great story (THN, Season Preview) on Dominik Hasek. And, after years of resentment, I thank Chicago for handing Dominik over to Buffalo on a silver platter. I thank Grant Fuhr for giving Dominik the opportunity to prove himself.I know Hasek has been the top goaltender in Europe many times, but the NHL is the pinnacle of success for him. While banished to the minors, Hasek stated in a 1990 issue of THN that he knew he could play in the NHL. Now the world knows it.Betzi Vojtko,Racine, Wise.<h2>70 better than 92</h2>How can anyone say Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s goal record is better than Mark McGwire&rsquo;s home run record? McGwire had no help and Gretzky wouldn&rsquo;t have done it without his teammates.David McDonald,Saskatoon, Sask.<h2>Playoff format fine</h2>I think this proposed new format for the final four in the playoffs (THN, Oct. 9) stinks.Sure, sweeps aren&rsquo;t too exciting, but I&rsquo;d rather have four sweeps in a row than what has been going on in basketball. In the 1990s there have only been two teams, the Chicago Bulls and the Houston Rockets, that have won the NBA championship. In the NHL, we&rsquo;ve had seven teams win in the 1990s, which at least leaves some intrigue.There isn&rsquo;t anything wrong with a lesser-talented, low-seeded team making the final. Cinderella stories are great for hockey. I was living in Southern California the year the Los Angeles Kings made the final. What that unlikely run did for hockey there was incredible. Everyone stopped and took notice of a team that was too often ignored.It helps put a team on the map and establish new fans. This should not be taken out of the playoffs or we might end up with the same old &ldquo;contenders&rdquo; year after year.Dave Sine,Linden, N.J.<h2>Have fun in the&rsquo;I&rsquo;</h2>Hey, Petr Nedved, that&rsquo;s great you turned down the millions offered by the Penguins to play in the IHL. That was a great move. Maybe you can do there what you will never be able to do here&hellip;be the best player in the league.James E. Altman,Imperial, Pa.<h2>No red line fine</h2>While I&rsquo;d hate to see the NHL allow two-line passes all the time, Ithink it would be an interesting way to spice up the power play. It would also probably cut down on the number of dumb undisciplined penalties. Imagine killing a penalty and having to worry about an opponent hanging at the blueline.Rich Bocchini,Pawtucket, R.I.<h2>K.C. not ready</h2>I think it would be a mistake for the NHL to return to Kansas City. Why? For all the ills the league has fostered: overpriced seats; little marketing in non-NHL cities; and no understanding of the skill of the game.St. Louis Blues&rsquo; Tony Twist received the most approval in a poorly attended pre-season game here against Nashville because he got thrown out. Fighting is what is being sold in non-traditional markets and as one who would like to see it banned, I say commissioner Gary Bettman and the NHL marketing people are clueless in K.C.If Kansas City gets a team, it will be the death knell for the NHL. What should happen is NHL support for our International League team, education of the American fans, and no more goons.Peter E. Shields,Kansas City, Mo.<h2>Fix TV coverage</h2>Perhaps one of the reasons hockey does not enjoy the popularity of a sport such as football in the United States is the difficulty of TV coverage. Here&rsquo;s a few suggestions to camera teams and announcers:1. Don&rsquo;t miss faceoffs. Too often, in the midst of a replay (or a commercial) the camera is not there or it&rsquo;s so close that it is not possible to see where the puck goes.2. Use the reverse camera angle to stay with the action. When the puck is tied up on the boards, frequently all that is seen are players&rsquo; heads.3. Announcers: stay with the action. Some have a tendency to get bogged down with statistics or side stories during critical plays, often missing the action before a goal.Frederick Zlotkin,New York, N.Y.Fax us your comments at(416) 340-1641&nbsp;or write toLetters, THN,&nbsp;THBay SL, Suite 2700, Box 148, Toronto, Ont, M5G 2N8&nbsp;in Canada. In the U.S., write toLetters, THN, P.O. Box 904, Buffalo, N.Y., 14240-9947.&nbsp;E-mail us at kayj@trans-continentalca Include hometown as well as home and business phone numbers.&nbsp;THN&nbsp;reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

f0006-01

Messier still hero, legend in Big Apple

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender Staff Writer</div>The Toronto Maple Leafs decided against placing a team order for a larger, cushier set of helmets.To a man, they assured there were no swollen heads after a league-best 6-1-2 pre-season record. They insisted the collective goal remains the same as the one they set and failed to reach last year and the year before that.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d love to play in the playoffs, I&rsquo;ve never done that,&rdquo; said third-year right winger Fredrik Modin. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d just love to play playoff hockey&rdquo; What&rsquo;s new is how they plan to get there.No, it&rsquo;s not by hoarding goalies, even if droll Leafs&rsquo; associate GM Mike Smith has a fun time joking-it is a joke, right?-that he&rsquo;s going to drag out the Felix Potvin trade all season, just to give starved Hogtown reporters something to talk about.&rsquo; Too late. New coach Pat Quinn has beat him to the punch. Apparently, offense is in. The dogs have been unleashed-all except&rsquo;Cujo&rsquo;-for two-man forays deep into enemy territory. The trap has been set&hellip;by the curb for garbage-day pickup. And the only way it&rsquo;s coming back is if the Leafs&rsquo; attacking game starts to stink.It seems goalie Curtis Joseph isn&rsquo;t the only thing Toronto has taken from the Edmonton Oilers. They&rsquo;ve borrowed their high-flying style as well.&ldquo;I think the guys enjoy this, enjoy playing with the puck and attacking,&rdquo; said right winger Mike Johnson in a decidedly upbeat post-practice Maple Leaf dressing room. &ldquo;We hope, obviously, that it works, not just so we can play that system, but so we can win games.&rdquo;Before Maple Leaf Gardens arena attendants stock up on extra red-light batteries, though, it&rsquo;s wise to remember this is a team that boasted only two 20-goal scorers a year ago in Mats Sundin and Derek King and was the NHL&rsquo;s fourth-lowest scoring outfit.Even assuming the Leafs come to terms with unsigned free agent Mathieu Schneider, the blueline will be on the youngish side. Yannick Tremblay and Daniil Markov are only 22; Czech rookie Tomas Kaberle came out of nowhere to win a spot with his pre-season steadiness, but he&rsquo;s only 20.Offensively, depth is a big question mark.One of the three players being counted on most to produce big numbers is 35-year-old free agent signee Steve Thomas, who failed to score more than 15 goals in three of his past four seasons patrolling left wing with the New Jersey Devils.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011691/7132472-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="872" height="1844"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mats Sundin provides a shot in the arm for Toronto&rsquo;s offense. (Photo by Claus anderson/BBS)</figcaption></div>The two others are Johnson, whose 47 points tied him with Boston Bruins&rsquo; mercurial star Sergei Samsonov for the rookie point title a year ago, and Modin, who was slated to start the season on the top line with Thomas and Sundin.Both can boast of only one solid season behind them, but they&rsquo;ve won a fan in their new goalie.&ldquo;I was surprised how good some of the young players are here,&rdquo; Joseph said. &ldquo;Alyn McCauley and Mike Johnson and Fredrik Modin, these are good young players.&rdquo;Still, Quinn&rsquo;s decision to open things up runs against the grind-it-out grain of the Leafs&rsquo; new home in the Eastern Conference. Whenever the Potvin deal does come through, it&rsquo;s likely to yield a second-line center and/or a skilled blueliner who can run Toronto&rsquo;s power play. In other words, someone who should be able to fit in.Finding a coach who favored an up-tempo game was one of Smith&rsquo;sgoals after the Leafs dumped Mike Murphy in the summer. Last season, Smith thought the Leafs had a better-skating team than Murphy&rsquo;s cautious style let them show.&ldquo;We can skate,&rdquo; Quinn said, adding the entire defense corps has good mobility, even if it comes up short on experi-ence. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to get tested quite a bit on our abili-ty mentally to play this game.&rdquo;If they fail, look out. It&rsquo;s easy to preach patience now, but Quinn&rsquo;s temper could make the mid-season move to Air Canada Centre a matter of necessity. The Gardens, in service since 1931, might not be able to handle his abuse.During the Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; playoff run in 1994, he dented a chalkboard in the Canucks&rsquo; dressing room with his fist. No big deal? The chalkboard was set against a brick wall.Also that post-season, a Quinn punch sent a full barrel of Gatorade flying across the room; some of the players tried it later and had a tough time making it budge.&ldquo;I think we&rsquo;ve seen what he can be like when he&rsquo;s a lit-tle perturbed,&rdquo; Johnson said, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t think we&rsquo;ve seen what he can be like when he&rsquo;s angry.&rsquo;Joseph, the $6-million-a-year man who grew up in Keswick, Ont., 40 minutes north of Toronto, has said he&rsquo;s glad he became a Leaf a decade into his career instead of at the beginning. With experience comes a stronger ability to handle the spotlight.In Toronto, they&rsquo;re just eager for a story. Two days before the season started, four camera crews crowded around Sundin in a corridor. One station was setting up to run live. When the lights turned on, Sundin on cue rolled up the sleeve on his right arm, and took a needle in the shoulder.Ouch. Around here, even a flu shot promotion passes for big news. Anything to prevent a swollen head. &#9632;

f0007-01

Turning it up in T.O.

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender Staff Writer</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011749/7132524-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Two-time Vezina and Conn Smythe Trophy winner Bernie Parent is ranked No. 63 in THN&rsquo;s book of The Top 100 NHL Players of All Time.</figcaption></div>The gratitude was simple and heartfelt. The com-petitive juices kicked in afterward.&ldquo;Thank you, better than 101,&rdquo; said former Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; great Elmer Lach when told he is ranked No. 68 in the new book pro-duced by The Hockey News, The Top 1OO NHL Players of All Time.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather be higher up, but if that&rsquo;s the way the votes come in, we can&rsquo;t all be (president) Clinton.&rdquo;They can&rsquo;t all be Wayne Gretzky, either.Gretzky was unveiled as the No. 1 player of all-time Jan. 9 when THN published its list of the Top 50 Players of All Time to mark our 50th anniversary. Now, THN has added 50 more names, Nos. 51-100.Controversy goes packed pages. Lach, home, waded right in.Of No. 99-ranked Lach said: &ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s pretty low for him.&rdquo;The best goalie he ever faced: Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; Turk Broda, who is at No. 60.On rival Toronto pivot Ted Kennedy, ranked No. 57: &ldquo;They worked him to death. He never had much rest. &ldquo;Of No. 61-ranked New York Rangers&rsquo; center Frank Boucher: &ldquo;I played against him once. He cut me.&rdquo;And when it comes to the seven active players among the second 50-bringing that total to 14 out of 100-Lach has some general doubts about the quality of their game:&ldquo;The game was played a little differently back then,&rdquo; he said of his 1940s&rsquo; glory days on Montreal&rsquo;s&rsquo;Punch Line&rsquo; with Maurice&rsquo;Rocket&rsquo; Richard and Toe Blake. &ldquo;It was played by the rules. Today they don&rsquo;t have any rules.&rdquo;THN had no rules, just guidelines, in early 1997, when it asked a panel of 50 hockey experts from Al Arbour to Don Cherry to Red Storey to Glen Sather to submit a list of the top 50 NHL players of all time, regardless of position or era. The results were tallied and a consensus reached.Feature essays, first published in THN&rsquo;s Top 50 maga-zine, appear in the book on the top five players: Gretzky, Gordie Lemieux Players (Doug No. 50 receivements and shorter profiles follow of the next 50 players.Two-time Hart Trophy winner Nels Stewart leads off the second group at No. 51.&rsquo;Old Poison&rsquo; played 15 seasons (1925-40) for the Montreal Maroons, Boston Bruins and New York Americans. He ranked as the NHL&rsquo;s all-time leading goal-scorer (324) from 1936-37 through 1952-53.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021337/7132517-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="621" height="818"><figcaption class="caption-body">(THN file photo)</figcaption></div>Completing the list is Ottawa Senators&rsquo; star center Frank Nighbor, a one-time league MVP and four-time Stanley Cup champion during a 13-year career (1917-30).While nothing has happened since voting took place to change the names on the list, at least two of the players have added significantly to their resumes since balloting concluded. Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; captain Steve Yzerman, No. 78, has led the Red Wings to a pair of Stanley Cups and Buf-falo Sabres&rsquo; goalie Dominik Hasek, No. 95, has won back-to-back MVP honors.Only three full lines made it in the Top 100 intact: the&rsquo;Punch Line&rsquo; of Lach, Richard (5) and Blake (66); Detroit&rsquo;s&rsquo;Production Line&rsquo; of Gordie Howe (3), Ted Lindsay (21) and Sid Abel (85); and Toronto&rsquo;s&rsquo;Kid Line&rsquo; of Charlie Conacher (36), Harvey Jackson (55) and Joe Primeau (92).&ldquo;When you play with guys for 10, 12 years, you don&rsquo;t even have to think,&rdquo; Lach said. &ldquo;You know he&rsquo;s there.&rdquo;Before he made it to the Canadiens, Lach was a junior teammate in Moose Jaw, Sask., of future Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; left winger Doug Bentley, ranked No. 73. In 1937, they were invit-ed together by Toronto GM Conn Smythe to attend the Leafs&rsquo; spring camp.&ldquo;Smythe called us a couple of peanuts,&rdquo; Lach said. &ldquo;We were too small.&rdquo;Small wonders.The Top 100 NHL Players of All Time is published by McClelland & Stewart. Principal writer: Michael Ulmer. Editor: Steve Dryden. The book sells for $29.99 in Canada, $22.95 in the United States.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-03968/7132510-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg" title="f0008-03" width="510" height="4406"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-04500/7132503-1-eng-US/f0008-042.jpg" title="f0008-04" width="515" height="4418"></div> &#9632;

f0008-01

Ex-Hab a Lach for Top 100

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011654/7132555-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0009-01

NHL GAME USED JERSEYS, STICKS & EQUIPMENT

<div class="byline">By Frank Orr and Jason Paul</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011723/7132586-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"></div><h2>OPPOSITION BREAKDOWN</h2>The New York Rangers have the most difficult schedule based on 1997-98 opposition winning percentages. Each team&rsquo;s schedule was split into six categories. Games against opponents with records of, 600-or-better were given one point; .550-.599 opponents, two points; .500-.549, three points; .450-.499, four points; .400-.449, five points; under-,400, six points. Using the Rangers as an example, they have nine games against .600 or better teams for nine points; 24 games with .550-.599 opponents for 48 points; 14 games versus .500-.549 teams for 42 points; nine games against .450-.499 foes for 36 points; 13 games against .400-449 teams for 65 points; and 13 games against sub-,400 teams for 78 points. Add these to get the Total Value, which for the Rangers is 278 points. The lower the total, the harder the schedule.Guess who has the most difficult schedule this year: Calgary? Los Angeles? San Jose? Nope. Try the New York Rangers.The Rangers, who finished 21st in 1997-98 and missed the playoffs for the first time in five years, face a higher number of strong opponents this season than any other team.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m surprised to hear that,&rdquo; said Rangers&rsquo; GM-president Neil Smith. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve looked at the schedule for a balance of three-games-in-four-nights kind of thing, but we haven&rsquo;t done that simply upon how good teams are the previous year&hellip;It&rsquo;s a matter of the formula.&rdquo;This is the three-part formula we used:First, we slotted each of the NHL&rsquo;s 26 teams last season into one of six categories based on 1997-98 winning percentages: .600-plus (3 teams); .55O-.599 (6); .500-.549 (5);.450-.499 (3); .400-.449 (5); and under-,400 (5). The expansion Nashville Predators were categorized as an under-.400 clubSecond, each team&rsquo;s 1998-99 schedule was broken down and weighted. Opponents with .600-plus records were assigned a value of one; 550-.599, two; .500-.549, three; .450 -,499, four; .400-449, five; and under-,400, six.Third, the weight of each team&rsquo;s 82 games was determined and added to reach a Total Value.For example, a Rangers&rsquo; game against the New Jersey Devils (.652) counted for one point, whereas a match versus the Vancouver Canucks (.390) was worth six points.Since the best teams were assigned the lowest weighted values, the teams with the lowest Total Values are deemed to have the toughest schedules.The Rangers&rsquo; total (278 points) is two points lower than those of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Nashville Predators and Tampa Bay Lightning (280). The Stanley Cupchampion Detroit Red Wings (316) and regular season-champion Dallas Stars (313) have the two highest totals.A league-high 47 of the Rangers&rsquo; games this season are against opponents who were .500 or better last season.Three other teams-Tampa Bay, Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Islanders-have the same number of games against teams with even or winning records last season.Detroit and the Colorado Avalanche share the league low with only 37 games against teams with, 500-or-better records.Seven of the eight toughest schedules belong to non-playoff teams which makes sense since they don&rsquo;t get to play against themselves. Four teams-the Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks, St. Louis Blues and Nashville-play .600 teams 12 times each. New Jersey has only three matchups against the top clubs-once against Dallas (.665) and twice against Detroit (.628).With a greater concentration of intra-conference games, teams don&rsquo;t play balanced schedules.Some Eastern and Western Conference teams may face each other only once, including Stanley Cup finalists Detroit and Washington, Teams play five or six games against division rivals, four versus conference rivals and once or twice against teams in the other conference.Teams also play a minimum of 12 games against clubs in the other conference based on geographic and traditional rivalries. &#9632;

f0010-01

Rangers, non-playoff teams stuck with hardest schedules

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011550/7132624-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="393" height="561"></div>When the Colorado Avalanche matched the three-year, $21-million offer made to Joe Sakic by the New York Rangers last year, it did more to ensure the team would not become a dynasty than it did to help it reclaim the Stanley Cup.Never mind obstruction or injury problems, Sakic&rsquo;s contract was the biggest stumbling block the Avalanche faced last season. It is the ultimate neutral zone trap from which the team can&rsquo;t seem to escape.The Avalanche, which won the Cup in 1996 and appeared to be in a posi-tion to win a few more, was already an organization feeling the financial pinch when Sakic, a restricted free agent, accepted the Rangers&rsquo; huge front-end-loaded offer that paid him $17 million for 1997-98 and $2 million a year for the remaining two seasons.It&rsquo;s hard to imag-ine Colorado fath-omed it would be on the hook for an aver-age $7 million a year, let alone $17 million for one season, when it projected how much it would cost to keep Sakic.In 1996-97, Mario Lemieux was earning $11 million, but he was in a class of his own. The Rangers refused to cough up another $6 million a season to keep aging Mark Messier, but for Sakic, who was 28, they didn&rsquo;t mind raising the bar a bit. Just two years earlier, Sakic finished third in league scoring with 120 points in 82 games and even in an off-year in 1996-97 he averaged better than a point a game in the regular season and had a league-high 17 assists in the playoffs.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-021104/7132617-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="535" height="930"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Sakic</figcaption></div>Players comparable to Sakic in terms of salary were Brett Hull, Sergei Fedorov, Pavel Bure, Eric Lindros and Pat LaFontaine, earning $45 million a year. Therefore, if the Avalanche had been successful in convincing Sakic to renegotiate his contract before he offered his services on the &ldquo;open&rdquo; market, it could have avoided a huge mess. Sakic, who earned $3.1 two years ago, would have gladly accepted $18 million for three years to remain in Colorado. He likely would have taken slightly less. Instead, Avalanche GM Pierre Lacroix decided to play hardball in an effort to demonstrate toownership how he saved a few hun-dred thousand dollars. He wound up costing it a minimum $3 million over the life of the deal. Penny-wise, dollar-dumb?A team spokesman said Lacroix does not believe the Sakic deal affected the way his team does business, but did affect the overall salary struc-ture of the league.This is the same organization that lost Bob Bassen, a gritty third-liner, traded Scott Young for a third round pick, and moved power forward Chris Simon because of money matters. No one paid much attention to those departures all because of the team&rsquo;s considerable depth. But how long did management expect to chip away at that depth before it came back to haunt it?After the Sakic signing, the Avalanche parted with defensive specialists and club-house leaders Mike Ricci and Mike Keane. And this past summer, the team lost its best all-around defenseman, Uwe Krupp, who signed as an unrestricted free agent with the Detroit Red Wings for $17 mil-lion over four years.You could quibble about what the Avs received in return for the players they traded, but that doesn&rsquo;t change the fact the moves were financially motivated. And if you really want to push the issue, consider Ricci had six goals and 17 points in 22 games when the Avalanche won the Cup. The player Colorado got for him, Shean Donovan, didn&rsquo;t dress for any of seven playoff games last year.To his credit, Lacroix exercised the option on Peter Forsberg&rsquo;s contract and has him locked up at $6 million for this year. But Forsberg becomes a restricted free agent after the season. Goalie Patrick Roy becomes an unrestricted free agent after this season. Once again, the heat will be on in Colorado to make cuts to keep their stars or, in Roy&rsquo;s case, lose him for nothing in return.The Avalanche have enough left to make a charge at the Cup. But that won&rsquo;t be the case for much longer the way they do business-unless the it is right about a highly touted group of young prospects. It had better be. &#9632;

f0011-01

COLUMNISTS

Sakic deal at root of Avs’ fall from grace

<div class="byline">By Bob McKenzie Associate Editor</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011679/7132669-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve YzermanSergei Fedorov (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div><h2>1 The Red Wing Dynasty: Detroit aims for three-peat</h2>It will be a special season, this 1998-99, in no small part because the Detroit Red Wings will establish themselves as something special.&ldquo;Winning one Stanley Cup is great, winning two is extraordinary, but to win three in a row, well, that would be something very special,&rdquo; Red Wings&rsquo; GM Ken Holland told THN. &ldquo;That would be like putting your stamp on history.&rdquo;A Red Wing victory in June, 1999&mdash;it says here it will come to pass-is one of five reasons THN is predicting this season will be better than last.A skeptic might suggest it&rsquo;s difficult to imagine the Wings being any better than last spring. (Or this NHL season being any worse than last when scoring and TV ratings dropped while complaints about competition and rules enforcement rose.)The men from the Motor City are a driven bunch, with a unique brand of Motown motivation. Two years ago, they were simply driven to exorcise the demons of past playoff failures. Last season, bonded by the off-season tragedy that ended the career of Vladimir Konstantinov, they rallied in the face of great adversity.Now, they want a place in hockey history.&ldquo;Good teams have won two in a row,&rdquo; said Red Wing captain Steve Yzerman. &ldquo;And a few great teams have won three. (Winning a third) would elevate our team to a higher status.&rdquo;&ldquo;That,&rdquo; Holland added, &ldquo;is our motivation.&rdquo;On only five occasions (New York Islanders, 1980-83; Montreal Canadiens, 1976-79; Toronto Maple leafs, 1962-64; Montreal, 1956-60; and, Toronto, 1947-49) has a club won three or more Cups in a row. The Boston Bruins couldn&rsquo;t do it. Neither could the Philadelphia Flyers. Even the Edmonton Oiler dynasty-five Cups in seven years-never included a three-peat.Detroit dreams of being the sixth, but&hellip;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a concern to me how we come out of the gate,&rdquo; Holland said. &ldquo;One, it was a short summer and you always worry if complacency will set in. Two, we&rsquo;re starting the season without Scotty.&rdquo;Coach Scotty Bowman is on indefinite hiatus; he underwent knee replacement surgery during the off-season, received treatment for heart disease and is facing adult onset diabetes. There&rsquo;s no telling whether he&rsquo;ll come back to relieve the tandem of Barry Smith and Dave Lewis. If Bowman doesn&rsquo;t return, it will be a blow, but wouldn&rsquo;t it be like the Wings to use that as motivation, too?Certainly, the on-ice product has not suffered.Chris Osgood supplies top-end netminding.The only losses on defense were veterans Bob Rouse and Slava Fetisov, replaced by free agent Uwe Krupp, converted forward Mathieu Dande-nault and rookie Yan Golubovsky, who join the nucleus of Nicklas Lidstrom, Larry Murphy, Anders Eriksson, Jamie Macoun and Aaron Ward. Up front, Mike Knuble was the only forward to leave, but newcomer Stacy Roest is an intriguing replacement.No team has talent the likes of Sergei Fedorov between Doug Brown and Tomas Holmstrom, Yzerman between Darren McCarty and Slava Kozlov or Roest or injured Brent Gilchrist; Igor Larionov between Brendan Shanahan and Martin Lapointe and Kris Draper between Joey Kocur and Kirk Maltby.But what separates the Wings from other talented contenders is their their cohesiveness and their competitiveness. They are blessed with extraordinary character. A three-peat isn&rsquo;t supposed to be possible. Not in 1998. There weren&rsquo;t going to be any more dynasties, not in the age of free agency and mega-mil-lion dollar deals. Edmonton couldn&rsquo;t keep it together; how can the Wings?Two reasons. One, nifty managerial maneuvering by sophomore GM Holland. By getting most players signed to long-term deals that don&rsquo;t all expire at the same time, the Wings&rsquo; only off-season signings were Holmstrom and Dandenault. Two, even in the face of Fedorov&rsquo;s six-year, $38-million deal that pays him $14 million this season after sitting out for the better part of last season, no Wing appearsout of sorts.Though the Wings&rsquo; payroll will be in excess of $40 million, among the league leaders, many of the key Wings are earning less than market value. Lidstrom, arguably the NHL&rsquo;s best defenseman, will make $2 million this season, which isn&rsquo;t top 20 for his position.Vital cogs such as McCarty, Lapointe, Brown, Holmstrom and Maltby make considerably less than last year&rsquo;s league average of $1.17 million.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s amazing,&rdquo; said Washington GM George McPhee of Detroit&rsquo;s harmony and salary scale. &ldquo;When I was in Vancouver and we just went to the final (in 1994), our players came back squawking for more money next season. That shows Detroit&rsquo;s character. They have players who realize what&rsquo;s important. They&rsquo;ve gotten rid of clubhouse lawyers, clubhouse doctors and clubhouse coaches. That&rsquo;s how you win.&rdquo;Holland admits some players may have discounted their services a little to play on a winning team in Hockeytown, but the Wings&rsquo; history of being fair with players is another consideration for their patience. Mostly, he said, it&rsquo;s because the Wings are something quite unique.&ldquo;This group of 24 people is a very special group,&rdquo; Holland said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been through it all-losing, winning, tragedy and winning again and they&rsquo;ve become a tight, tight group that is highly motivated.&rdquo;A tough group to bet against.<h2>2&rsquo;The Big E&rsquo; is headed for big-time season</h2>After being issued a very public challenge, Eric Lindros has gone on the defensive.And that&rsquo;s fine with the man-Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; GM Bob Clarke-who issued the challenge. He wants Lindros on the defensive, on the offensive, in fact he wants him on every part of his game.&ldquo;We want a complete game from Eric, consistently,&rdquo; Clarke said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if (the challenge) had an effect on him, but he&rsquo;s got to do it.&rdquo;After six highly productive and highly frustrating seasons, indications are Lindros is ready to oblige, even if he&rsquo;s loathe to admit his terrific training camp (a league-leading six goals and 15 points in five games and take-charge attitude) had anything to do with Clarke&rsquo;s words.&ldquo;Anything I&rsquo;ve done (in camp),&rdquo; Lindros said, &ldquo;is not because of something somebody said.&rdquo;Regardless, Lindros is on a mission. That, and the return to health of Paul Kariya of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, provides great hope for a superstar-studded season.Kariya led the NHL in points per game last season (1.41), but appeared in only 22 contests.Lindros&rsquo; success, though, will be judged on more than goals and points. It has to be, because his career output has been outstanding. He has averaged 37 goals and 85 points in 60 games per season. That&rsquo;s two more goals and three fewer points in 10 fewer games than Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; star Jaromir Jagr has averaged.Injuries have robbed him of what would have been five straight 50-goal and 100-point seasons. Good health this season would help him win his first scoring title. Unless, that is, Kariya has a healthy season himself and can surpass the&rsquo;Big E.&rsquo;<h2>3 More scoring chances equals more scoring</h2>Scoring, down to a paltry 5.3 goals per game last season, will increase this year. Guaranteed.It may not be dramatic, but consider this: Of the 110 goals disallowed last season on creaseinfringement, 59 would have counted if the new narrower crease was in place.It&rsquo;s a start. The NHL&rsquo;s other initiatives-two referees in some games, goallines moved out two feet, reduction and standardization of goalie equipment and a continued crackdown on obstruction-will, to varying degrees, create more offensive chances.Whether some of the NHL&rsquo;s skill-challenged hands of stone can convert those chances into goals is open to debate, but for-mer Colorado Avalanche coach Marc Craw-ford makes this bold prediction.&ldquo;Moving the goalline out two feet alone will have a big impact on power play effi-ciency,&rdquo; Crawford said. &ldquo;I think you&rsquo;ll see a five per-cent increase per team. Scoring will be up significantly as long as they keep calling obstruction.&rdquo;Last season just one player, Jaromir Jagr of the Pittsburgh Penguins, hit the 100-point plateau.For what it&rsquo;s worth, pre-season scoring-last year to this year-went from 5.3 to 5.9. That may be more than we can expect in the regular season, but even if the gains are more modest, flow should be better and chances more plentiful.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011564/7132662-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="1623" height="2358"><figcaption class="caption-body">Martin Brodeur is a member of the goaltender trio that brings back great memories. (Photo By John Tremel/BS)</figcaption></div><h2>4 Celebrate golden age of great goaltenders</h2>If Clarke challenged Lindros with mere words, what did the NHL do to its elite goalten-ders-Dominik Hasek, Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur-when it introduced equipment restrictions?Ticked them off, that&rsquo;s what. The superstars maintain we&rsquo;re in a golden age of goaltending not because of oversized sweaters and &ldquo;cheaters,&rdquo; but because they&rsquo;re exceptionally-gifted athletes. The trio is the modern-day equivalent of 1950s-60s legends Terry Sawchuk, Jacques Plante and Glenn Hall.With back-to-back Hart Trophies as MVP, Hasek has, arguably, established himself as the greatest goalie of all-time.&ldquo;If he did what he did for one day, you could say he&rsquo;s lucky,&rdquo; said Glenn Hall,&rsquo;Mr. Goalie&rsquo; himself. &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s done what no other goalie has done. I&rsquo;ve always said Terry Sawchuk was No. 1, but (Hasek) has proved it.&rdquo;And like Plante before him, Hasek has become an innovator, re-defining how the position is played. Hall said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to live long enough to see if he influences kids to play his way.&rdquo;Colorado&rsquo;s Roy is also on a mission. He&rsquo;s in the final year of his contract and may only need this season and next to pass Terry Sawchuk as the all-time winningest goalie (Roy has 380 wins, Sawchuk, 447).&ldquo;For sure,&rdquo; Roy said, &ldquo;that is a goal of mine,&rdquo; though he has to first catch Grant Fuhr of the St. Louis Blues (382).If workhorse Brodeur, 26, who has averaged 32 wins per year the past five seasons, continues at that pace for another nine seasons, he, too, will pass Sawchuk and, possibly, Roy as well.<h2>5 Four-year sweep streak will mercifully come to end</h2>With no Olympics, there will be a less com-pressed schedule.Each team will play one game every 2.26 days compared to 2.15 last year. A little more down time; a better prepared player. &ldquo;There was no time to work on your game last year,&rdquo; Crawford said.Not only should it be a better quality game, it should be better exposed. The NHL will televise a record 1,057 of 1,107 games. The outgoing FOX network will, grudgingly, play out the string of its final year, which likely means they won&rsquo;t invest dollars in that expensive and annoying glowing puck.Another new development, the trend toward more 7 p.m. starts will allow the younger generation to see the end of more games. Now if only we can give them and the rest of hockey fans something more exciting to watch in June-albeit earlier in June. Last year&rsquo;s sweep represented the fourth straight four-game wipeout in the Stanley Cup final.A fifth straight sweep won&rsquo;t happen.The law of averages has to catch up to the league sooner or later and we&rsquo;re bet-ting it does this season. Detroit will win its third straight Stanley Cup, but not before withstanding a spirited challenge from Philadelphia.Count on it.<h2>&hellip;And five reasons why&rsquo;98-99 won&rsquo;t receive perfect grade</h2>1. Franchise instabilityIt&rsquo;s going to be a long, painful year on Long Island with the Islanders&rsquo; new hardline owners and until we can figure out who owns and operates the Pen-guins, headlines in Pittsburgh will be for all the wrong reasons.2. Great ScottIf Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; coach Scott Bowman decides against retuming-and that is the conventional wisdom as the season begins-it won&rsquo;t be quite the same in the NHL without his unique insights.3. Group II free agents in exileWe understand why so many talented players, from the New York Islanders&rsquo; Ziggy Palffy to the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; Doug Weight, aren&rsquo;t playing, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean its any easier to accept. Most NHL teams are talent-thin to begin with; the game can ill-afford to have some of its best skill players playing shinny with amateur or minor pro teams. Also, for teams such as the Montreal Canadiens,<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-021096/7132655-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="597" height="960"></div>Buffalo Sabres and San Jose Sharks, who each had sev-eral key players unsigned, their entire seasons hinge on getting those players back into uniform.4. It&rsquo;s an expansion yearNo offense to the good folks of Nashville, but the product will become that much more diluted. Besides, now we have to learn the new six-division, 27-team realignment. And more is coming.5. Hockey in mid-June&hellip;againThere&rsquo;s no 17-day Olympic break this season, but the NHL regular sea-son ends only one day earlier than last season. The Stanley Cup final is scheduled to start just three days earlier than a year ago. We long for the good, old days.Like way back in 1991, when the six-9ame Pittsburgh Penguin-Minnesota North Star finale ended May 25.Ziggy PalffyNew York Islanders &#9632;

f0012-01

Five reasons to be excited about new year

<div class="byline">By Jacques Poitras</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011669/7132707-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Former NHL defenseman Charlie Bourgeois is trying to get elected in New Brunswick.</figcaption></div>The woman figures it out the moment she walks into the country general store and spots the three men in sportjackets.&ldquo;Ah, the politicians are here,&rdquo; she says.The men begin working her and then the candidate himself steps forward. &ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s Sanipass,&rdquo; she says, her eyes bright.The chitchat becomes easier and by the time she leaves the store, she is thinking about voting for Everett Sanipass.Sanipass, 30, was a forward from 1986 through 1991 for the Chicago Blackhawks and Quebec Nordiques, scoring 25 goals and 59 points in 164 games. He is still learning the ropes of New Brunswick politics as he moves along the backroads of the mostly rural provincial riding of Kent, campaigning as the Progressive Conservative candidate in an Oct. 19 by-election.At the next stop, a repair garage, a man peers out from his truck with suspicion-until he spots Sanipass and shakes hands warmly. The candidate leans one big arm on the open door of the truck as they talk. Five minutes later another vote is locked up.New Brunswick&rsquo;s PC party isn&rsquo;t the only his old team at the university and continued to run his successful summer hockey schools.The Liberal nominee is a prime example of electoral counter-programming. Lord, the PC leader, does not live in Moncton East, but is running there because-with a general elec-tion expected next year-it is vacant and he desperately needs to get into the Legislature so he can get much-needed exposure.Bourgeois doesn&rsquo;t live in the riding either, but he grew up and learned to skate in a backyard rink there.&ldquo;This is about making sure the people of Moncton East continue to be represented by a person who knows the area and who cares about the area,&rdquo; says Premier Theriault.Sanipass was a 1986 first-round pick by Chicago, 14th overall, but never shone because of back problems. But francophones, anglophones and Micmacs in Kent admire him for meeting the challenges of Big Cove, a reserve that is often in the news for prob-lems such as poverty, housing shortages, alcohol abuse and a wave of suicides in 1992.&ldquo;If there&rsquo;s any one person who can bring the tri-community together, I think Everett can do it,&rdquo; says Valmont Daigle, his cam-one to have recognized the impact a former pro hockey player can have on a political campaign. The governing Liberals of Premier Camille The-riault have recruited another ex-NHLer, Charlie Bourgeois, in another by-election to be held the same day in the Moncton East riding.Bourgeois, 38, played defense for the Calgary Flames, St. Louis Blues and Hartford Whalers from 1981 through 1988. He had 70 points and 788 penalty minutes in 290 games.He is facing Bernard Lord, a lawyer who was chosen PC leader last fall, but who does not have a seat in the provincial Legislature.So New Brunswickers face the prospect of having two former hockey pros enter the House, on opposite sides of the aisle, on the same day. The cliches and hockey jokes are already flying: Bourgeois has a standard one-liner about &ldquo;full-contact politics&rdquo; when asked about two NHL veterans running for office.But Bourgeois and Sanipass are mostly playing down hockey and playing up civic involve-ment and their admirable records with local charities. They say they are motivated by a wish to give something back to the com-munities that made their pro careers possible.&ldquo;To me, number one, they wanted a good candidate,&rdquo; Bour-geois says. &ldquo;Obviously in poli-tics, name recognition is important, but you have to have the fire in your belly to do this.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021255/7132700-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="494" height="625"><figcaption class="caption-body">Everett Sanipass (Photos by Gilles Landry)</figcaption></div>Bourgeois was part of the 1979 University of Moncton Blue Eagles team that won the CIAU hockey championship. After stints in the NHL, Ameri-can League and then Europe, he returned to Moncton, his home-town, as a player-assistant coach with the city&rsquo;s AHL Hawks.Bourgeois remained behind the bench after retiring as a player, guiding the Hawks to the Calder Cup final in 1993-94, losing 4-2 to the Portland Pirates. The Hawks folded a fewweeks later and Bourgeois went to work for Moncton-based Major Drilling Group, coached paign manager.&ldquo;My heart was in there and will always be in there,&rdquo; Sanipass says of the big league days. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s unfortunate that it ended that way, but my expe-rience in hockey has taught me a lot.&rdquo;If elected in Kent, a hard-luck riding dominat-ed by farming and fishing, he will be the first native elected to the New Brunswick Legislature.The conventional wisdom is Bourgeois can beat Lord, but that Sanipass faces a tougher chal-lenge against Kent&rsquo;s Liberals. But by-elections are unpredictable because voters know they can send a protest message without turfing a govern-ment.If both win, though, one thing is certain: Char-ity fundraiser hockey games between Liberals and Conservatives could finally be worth watching for more than just laughs. &#9632;

f0014-01

Players trade pucks for politics

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy Senior Writer</div>Viktor Kozlov is not a man of many words. He prefers to let his actions speak for him.Thus far in Kozlov&rsquo;s NHL career, however, his actions have been equally soft spoken. Kozlov, 23, has been a star in waiting for four seasons, but the question must now be asked: Will this be his breakout year?&ldquo;I sure hope so,&rdquo; said the 6-foot-5, 225-pound Russian center. &ldquo;The coach has given me a lot more ice time than I got in the past. I like it&hellip;1 like it a lot.&rdquo;The Florida Panthers believe Kozlov&rsquo;s time has arrived based on the last quarter of last season when he recorded 16 points in 19 games.&ldquo;He will have a big role on a team that needs him to step up,&rdquo; said Florida GM Bryan Murray. &ldquo;You only get so much time in this league to make your mark and I think Viktor is mature enough now to not only be a very important hockey player to our team but also to our league.&rdquo;The Panthers have been trapped in a downward spiral ever since losing the Stanley Cup final in four straight games to the Colorado Avalanche in 1996. They finished second last overall last season and ranked 21st out of 26 teams in goals scored (203).At the time Murray traded his first pick in the 1998 entry draft to San Jose to acquire Kozlov, he had no idea how the bottom was going to fall out on his team&rsquo;s season and that he was giving up a shot at the first overall pick. The Panthers were in 12th place and Murray figured the addition of Kozlov made his team a playoff contender. Then center Rob Niedermayer went down with a concussion and the team struggled. The worst fears were realized when the pick the Panthers traded away came up in the draft lottery.Kozlov now faces the task of making people in Florida forget they lost their chance at getting Vincent Lecavalier when they acquired Kozlov.Naturally, he has Panthers&rsquo; management in his comer. They are thrilled with Kozlov&rsquo;s work ethic. He is often the first player on the ice for practice and usually sticks around afterward to work on the little nuances that will make him a more complete player.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011452/7132738-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="834" height="1347"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Panthers believe Viktor Kozlov has the ability to be a special player in the NHL. (Photo by Bill Wippert)</figcaption></div>There were those who, in 1993, thought Kozlov might be the best prospect available. Keeping in mind this was the same year players such as Paul Kariya, Chris Pronger, Rob Niedermayer, Chris Gratton, Jason Arnott, Saku Koivu and Alexandre Daigle were up for grabs, that&rsquo;s a pretty heady ranking. Still, when push came to shove, Kozlov was taken sixth by the San Jose Sharks who, back then, thought they were smarter than everyone else and made a draft-day deal that allowed the Hartford Whalers to pick second overall and nab Pronger.Kozlov never really found his way in San Jose. He fractured an ankle in his rookie season and managed just two goals in 16 games. The next year he split between San Jose (six goals and 19 points in 62 games) and Kansas City of the International League, but the following season he started showing signs of better things to come when he managed 16 goals and 41 points in 78 games. He had five goals and seven points in 18 games last season before being traded.Kozlov&rsquo;s game is still evolving. There are times when he could look to dish off the puck to a teammate a little sooner and instances when he tries to do too much. But when he&rsquo;s on, he looks like a keeper.&ldquo;He has all the tools to be a very gifted player,&rdquo; said coach Terry Murray. &ldquo;He has a tremendous wrist shot-he can score from the top of the circle. And I think he&rsquo;ll be a good power play person because he sees the ice so well.&ldquo;As it is he has enough talent to get by and be an impact player. How much of an impact can he make? That&rsquo;s entirely up to him.&rdquo;Kozlov said he has not yet set goals for this season. Even if he had, he wouldn&rsquo;t make them public.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really want to say anything about this year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll try my hardest; that&rsquo;s all I can say.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0016-01

Will Kozlov make Panthers Viktors?

<div class="byline">By Jay Greenberg</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011302/7132776-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="398" height="571"></div>The goalies got too good. Something had to be done.They were increasingly slithering around on the ice like the snakes they have become, swallowing whole pucks, sucking all the excitement from the games. They were winning MVPs, making big bucks, losing humility even faster than Bill Wirtz was losing touch with reality.They weren&rsquo;t content with stop-ping the puck anymore. They were going into more comers than Pat Fal-loon, clearing the puck more often than Francois Leroux, becoming more untouched than the first nickel Jeremy Jacobs ever made.We used to never mind the netmin-ders. But then their attitude changed. Once standup guys, they dropped down, both in style and in our estima-tion. They got too big for their britch-es. Their britches got too big for con-ventional dryers and had to be hung at Jacques Demers&rsquo; news conferences.The pads grew bigger than Gary Bettman&rsquo;s expense account. Every time an Islander goalie shrugged off a goal, his shoulder pads dangerously loos-ened the scoreboard at Nassau Coliseum. Games were delayed hours while lines-men searched for pucks in the vast expanses of goalies&rsquo; catching mitts.The profession became so arrogant that it passed off Frederic Chabot as a major league goalie. When Wade Flaherty finished a season with a goals-against average of under 2.00, clearly something had to be done.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-02994/7132769-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="523" height="949"><figcaption class="caption-body">Kirk McLean</figcaption></div>So the owners and GMs have moved the goalline out two feet. It doesn&rsquo;t sound like much, but if your two feet moved as slowly as Kirk McLean&rsquo;s, you would know a big difference.To get to a dump-in in the comer, the goalie now has to travel further than the Hurricanes to home games. Forget playing wrap-arounds. To stop those, a goalie would have to move even faster than Pierre Gauthier.This season, the goalie is going to be more miserably tied to the crease than the Islanders to their lease. The crease itself has been shrunk to the size of the Penguins&rsquo; payroll. The goalkeeper is now more confined than anyone who ever had to play for Jacques Lemaire.Once dressed in more layers than there are to a Lou Lamoriello pay structure, the goalie is now required to wear underwear flimsier than Pamela Anderson Lee&rsquo;s. Equipment will become more carefully measured than Craig Patrick&rsquo;s words.The goalies have been warned. If they don&rsquo;t start playing more like Warren Skorodenski used to, further action will be taken. If the goalies think these rules are tough, they haven&rsquo;t seen anything yet.The league wants offense. It desires a big year out of Tim Sweeney and has big plans to make Jaroslav Svejkovsky a household name. So if more pucks don&rsquo;t start going in shortsides shorter than Roger Marino&rsquo;s arms, if five holes don&rsquo;t begin to open up like places on the Blackhawk band-wagon, the goalie is going to find out true misery can be much worse than playing behind Jeff Norton.Instead of pads, the goalkeeper will be made to wear rolled up old issues of The Hockey News. With Dave Parro on the cover. The only glove allowed to be used will cover just the palms, the kind endorsed by Mike Milbury for finger-pointing. The mask will be reduced to the shape and size of the ones worn by Keith Tkachuk when he wants to rip off the Coyotes.The goalie will not be allowed to vacate the crease, even after the Islanders vacate the premises. He will be tethered to the post worse than Slats is stuck with Andrei Kovalenko. He will be made to not only have to let Yves Racine come back and pick up the puck, but forced to spend quality time with Matthew Barnaby.He will have to tend a goal bigger than Brett Hull&rsquo;s mouth. Netminders will be strapped to a chair and made to watch Joe Murphy motivational videos. The crease will be shrunk back to a size that all of Steven Gluckstem&rsquo;s Long Island friends can fit comfortably inside. And then Glenn Anderson will be lured out of retirement to come in and finish the job. &#9632;

f0017-01

Goalies got too big with their britches

<div class="byline">By Cammy Clark</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011337/7132807-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="148" height="134"></div>A month ago the Mighty Ducks thought their goal-tending situation was in good shape, despite losing steady backup Mikhail Shtalenkov in the expansion draft.But No. 1 Guy Hebert got hurt in the second-to-last pre-season game and expected backup Patrick Lalime had a disappointing camp, so the Ducks made a deal to get veteran Dominic Roussel from the Philadelphia Flyers.As of Oct. 7, it was up in the air who would start the Ducks&rsquo; home opener three days later in Washington against the Eastern Conference-champion Cap-itals.If Hebert, who suffered a Grade I separation to his right shoulder Oct. 3, could not play, then Roussel would get the nod. Roussel spent last season with the Canadian national team and hadn&rsquo;t played a game in the NHL since 199596.&ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s going to help us and solidify that position,&rdquo; said Ducks&rsquo; captain Paul Kariya.Hebert had come to camp in great shape after spending four months rehabilitating from surgery to repair his right shoulder, an injury that forced him to miss the final 20 games of last season. But just 55 seconds into an exhibition game against Nashville, Ducks&rsquo; defenseman Kevin Haller was knocked off balance and fell backwards on Hebert.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve felt like I&rsquo;ve been in a traffic accident,&rdquo; Hebert said. &ldquo;My shoulder is really sore.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Ruslan Salei, who checked 5-foot-9 Phoenix center Daniel Briere into the boards on a power play in the Ducks&rsquo; final pre-season game Oct. 6, then slew-footed his opponent, was suspended five games and fined $1,000. Briere fell backwards, struck his head, was knocked unconscious and suffered a concussion. Anaheim coach Craig Hartsburg and Salei thought it was a clean hit, but Coyotes&rsquo; coach Jim Schoenfeld didn&rsquo;t agree&hellip;Four of the last Duck cuts were forwards Jeremy Stevenson and Frank Banham and defensemen Mike Crowley and Dan Trebil. Banham scored nine goals in 21 games for the Ducks to end last season, but wasn&rsquo;t good enough away from the puck, Hartsburg said. &#9632;</div>

f0018-01

Roussel in for support as Hebert suffers injury

<div class="byline">By Jim Kelley</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-04439/7132876-1-eng-US/f0018-042.jpg" title="f0018-04" width="157" height="134"></div>The empty stalls in the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; dressing room are starting to fill up.The Sabres welcomed back free agent forward Miroslav Satan just before heading west for their first two games of the season. They also greeted new defenseman James Patrick and prepared for the expected arrival of defenseman Alexei Zhitnik.Absent from training camp, Sa-tan-the team&rsquo;s leading scorer last season with 46 points-signed a one-year contract Oct. 8 and joined the team in time for the opener at Dallas.The club obviously wants the talented, but inconsistent Satan to improve before it commits to any long-term deal at even an average salary level ($1.3-$ 1.4 million this season). Satan, arguing that being the team&rsquo;s leading scorer is reason enough for a major raise, went the no-show route, but didn&rsquo;t get far.Financial terms were not available, but speculation was Satan got the same money Brian Holzinger received ($950,000). And because it&rsquo;s a one-year deal, Satan gets a chance to do it all over again next summer.In recent seasons, the Sabres have been extremely careful not to go beyond a certain salary structure for forwards and defensemen. Goalie Dominik Hasek is obviously in a different class, as was former captain Pat LaFontaine, but for the rest of the team GM Darcy Regier has set a salary structure that has Michael Peca at the top among younger players (about $1.6 million).That&rsquo;s hardly the case for Patrick, a 14-year veteran. A free agent with virtually no offers in the summer, Patrick said he has become &ldquo;painfully aware&rdquo; of the NHL&rsquo;s new realities.&ldquo;The big names went first and fast and they commanded some pretty big salaries, but after that there wasn&rsquo;t much movement,&rdquo; said Patrick, who signed a one-year deal believed to be worth less than the $750,000 he made in Calgary last season. &ldquo;It was something of a reality check.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: If defenseman Alexei Zhitnik comes to terms as expected, the Sabres would have just two unsigned players, right winger Donald Audette and defenseman Mike Wilson. The Sabres have had continuing talks with Audette, but negotiations with Wilson, once thought to be near fruition, stalled&hellip;Defenseman James Patrick played with Sabres&rsquo; coach Lindy Ruff when the two were with the New York Rangers. He also played against Sabres&rsquo; associate coach Don Lever and assistant coach Mike Ramsey&hellip;The signing of Patrick made defenseman Mike Hurlbut expendable. Hurlbut, who played three games with the Sabres last season, was assigned to Rochester of the American League. &#9632;

f0018-04

Satan inks deal on eve of season

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-07196/7132907-1-eng-US/f0018-072.jpg" title="f0018-07" width="594" height="962"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jarome Iginla</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-05289/7132914-1-eng-US/f0018-052.jpg" title="f0018-05" width="148" height="127"></div>Their off-season priority was to land a center with size, to take the pressure off of Andrew Cassels, their only bona fide pivot.Unfortunately, as Calgary Flames&rsquo; GM Al Coates repeatedly pointed out, &ldquo;there just aren&rsquo;t a lot of those around and the teams that have them don&rsquo;t want to give them up.&rdquo;As a result, Coates switched to Plan B: If you can&rsquo;t get a center, develop one of your own. Or in this case three. In their nine-game exhibition season, the Flames used two converted wingers, Jarome Iginla and Jason Wiemer, exclusively at center behind Cassels. In addition, rookie Clarke Wilm, a sixth-round choice in 1995, made the team as their fourth-line checking center, significantly revamping a position that was the team&rsquo;s weakest a year ago. As far as coach Brian Sutter was concerned, the decision to move Iginla and Wiemer into the middle was not just another experiment either. This was the Flames&rsquo; reality for the foreseeable future.For his part, Iginla welcomed the chance to learn a new position. After scoring only 32 points as a sophomore, he is looking to bounce back in his third NHL season. Iginla played center sporadically as a rookie under coach Pierre Page, but was strictly a right winger last year.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>&ldquo;At center, you&rsquo;re more into the game,&rdquo; Iginla said. &ldquo;You kind of have more control of every play. You&rsquo;re in on every faceoff. There&rsquo;s more responsibility, but that&rsquo;s a good thing.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: A day before the Flames were scheduled to leave for their season opener in Tokyo, defenseman Jamie Allison came to terms on a new contract. Allison agree to a one-year deal worth $500,000 (Cdn.), an offer that had been on the table for the better part of a week. Allison had been after the same numbers, but in U.S. dollars. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s on their terms,&rdquo; Allison told the Calgary Herald. &ldquo;I figured there were worse things to do than make that kind of money .&rsquo;&rsquo;&hellip;Perhaps the biggest surprise among the cuts was left winger Hnat Domenichelli, who joined the Flames for the second half of last season and scored 16 points in the final 31 games. However, Domenichelli produced only one assist in four exhibition games. &#9632;

f0018-07

It’s Plan B for centers

<div class="byline">By Steve Politi</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-06229/7132945-1-eng-US/f0018-062.jpg" title="f0018-06" width="152" height="94"></div>Kevin Dineen, captain of the Carolina Hurricanes i-97, has passed the&rsquo;C&rsquo; to Keith Primeau, the team&rsquo;s undisputed on-ice leader.Dineen, 34, knew he would eventually hand off the captaincy and decided the time was right.&ldquo;I had given it a lot of thought as far as my own career and what&rsquo;s important and also what&rsquo;s best for the team,&rdquo; Dineen said. &ldquo;Keith is a guy who is more than ready to continue the role he was in. Basically, he did us all a favor by grabbing that leadership role.&ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s going to be with this organization for a long, long time and he&rsquo;ll be looked upon to lead this team. The transition could have been this year or next year or whatever, but this year made a little more sense for me.&rdquo;Dineen missed almost 30 games with groin and abdomen injuries last season and was expected to start this season on the team&rsquo;s fourth line. He is in the final year of his contract.There were plenty of candidates to replace him, with veterans such as Gary Roberts, Ron Francis and Steve Chiasson in the dressing room, but Primeau was the logical choice. He was captain of Team Canada at the World Championship last spring and is expected to fill a large role for the&rsquo;Canes this season.&ldquo;Where I can give the most is on-ice leadership,&rdquo; Primeau said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got plenty of voices in the locker room, guys who&rsquo;ll stand up.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: There were strong rumors out of Toronto the Hurricanes were interested in defenseman Mathieu Schneider. The&rsquo;Canes need a puck-cartying defenseman and might be willing to give up right winger Nelson Emerson or defenseman Steve Chiasson-two of the team&rsquo;s top power play producers-to get him&hellip;The 5-3-0 pre-season record was reason for optimism, but the&rsquo;Canes won&rsquo;t forget what happened last season, when they finished with a similar 4-2-2 pre-season mark and started the-regular season 17-2. &ldquo;It kind of gave us a false sense of security,&rdquo; said center Keith Primeau. &ldquo;Going into the regular season, we let down at the start and got behind the rest of the pack too early in the season.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0018-06

Primeau logical choice to inherit’C’ from Dineen

<div class="byline">By Tim Sassone</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011239/7132976-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="153" height="137"></div>Dan Cleary admits he has learned some lessons the hard way in the past year. It was cer tainly a more mature Cleary who excelled throughout training camp and earned a spot in the Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; opening night lineup.Cleary also started last season with the Hawks as an 18-year-old, but things quickly went south for him and he appeared in just six games.Starting this past summer, Cleary dedicated himself to reaching the NHL, living in Chicago and working out daily. No one is more thrilled by Cleary&rsquo;s turnaround than Hawks&rsquo; GM Bob Murray, who admitted he was mistaken last year to keeping the 1997 first round draft pick around so long.&rsquo;1 would say as much as I think we screwed up last year, this young man has come back with a totally different attitude,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;The players are telling our coaches he&rsquo;s a totally different kid. Maybe we did something right by accident.&rdquo;Cleary doesn&rsquo;t like to dwell on last season, calling it a learning experience. The biggest thing he learned is to be more serious about his conditioning.Cleary played his way onto the ros-ter by scoring six goals in the pre-sea-son and being one of the hardest workers around the net. It earned him a spot at left wing on a line with Alex Zhamnov and Tony Amonte.&ldquo;Danny has been excellent, not only playing well offensively but defensive-ly as well,&rdquo; said coach Dirk Graham.NOTEBOOK: Left winger Dan Cleary was one of four rookies to start the season in Chicago. He was joined by right wingers Ty Jones and Craig Mills and defenseman Remi Royer&hellip;Center Doug Gilmour, who finished the pre-season strong with four assists Oct. 5 at Montreal, was looking for-ward to playing with right winger Eric Daze. &ldquo;He reminds me of a young (Dave) Andrey-chuk,&rdquo; Gilmour said&hellip;Chad Kilger started the season at left wing with Gilmour and Daze&hellip;Enforcer-right winger Dennis Bon-vie, acquired in the waiver draft from Edmonton, was without a contract and hadn&rsquo;t reported to the team&hellip;Defenseman Paul Coffey was trying to recover from a pinched nerve in his back in time to start the season. He appeared in two pre-season games. &#9632;

f0019-01

Cleary’s grit and goals bring plum assignment

<div class="byline">By Adrian Dater</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-03602/7133007-1-eng-US/f0019-032.jpg" title="f0019-03" width="608" height="963"><figcaption class="caption-body">Alex Tanguay</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02903/7133014-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="149" height="129"></div>In their first three years in Denver, the Colorado Avalanche roster was about as easy to crack for rookies as a bank vault. With so much veteran talent, there was just no room for rookies such as Josef Marha, Wade Belak, Marc Denis and others.But this year, there are some young faces in the Avs&rsquo; dressing room. Along with Belak, rookies Chris Drury and Milan Hejduk made the opening night roster and chances are good all three will be around for the whole season.Two other rookies-forwards Scott Parker and Alex Tanguay-nearly made it, too. Parker, the bruising right winger, was a final cut in camp and Tanguay, a center, would have been with the Avs on opening night if he had been able to come to terms on a contract.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say enough good things about how the rookies looked in training camp,&rdquo; said coach Bob Hartley. &ldquo;It made for a very enjoyable camp for me and gives lots of hope for the future.&rdquo;Drury, Hejduk and Tanguay each scored five goals to lead the Avs in pre-season.Drury, the 1998 Hobey Baker Award winner, should see decent ice time as a third or fourth center and penalty-killer.Hejduk, 22, drew raves from Hartley for his quickness and surprisingly good hands. If he gets enough ice time, the 5-foot-ll, 165-pound right winger shouldn&rsquo;t be counted out as a candidate to win the Calder Trophy as the NHL&rsquo;s top rookie.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>NOTEBOOK: Right winger Adam Deadmarsh (bruised ribs) missed the final six exhibition games and opening night against Ottawa, but was slated to return by the second or third game&hellip;Coach Bob Hart-ley said the Peter Forsberg-Valeri Kamen-sky-Claude Lemieux line will remain intact for a fourth straight season&hellip;Former Avs&rsquo; coach Marc Crawford, hired as an analyst for Hockey Night in Camilla this season, won&rsquo;t work any Colorado regular season games&hellip;There was no progress in contract talks for unsigned defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh Goalie Patrick Roy. eligible to become an unrestricted free agent after the season, expressed hopes of remaining in Denver, but said it was &ldquo;the opportunity of a lifetime, there&rsquo;s no question about it.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0019-03

Rookie crop impresses

<div class="byline">By Mike Heike</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-04463/7133045-1-eng-US/f0019-042.jpg" title="f0019-04" width="151" height="103"></div>Just when it seemed the Dallas Stars might have a few problems entering the 1998-99 season, resolution came surprisingly swift.In a span of three days, two players not expected to be in the lineup until possibly November or later were almost instantly produced, ready for action.Defenseman Richard Matvichuk, who had reconstructive surgery June 23 to replace the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and was originally given a prognosis of a six-month recovery, played in the Stars&rsquo; final two pre-season games and looked completely healthy. What&rsquo;s more, third-year left winger Jamie Langenbrunner, who seemed determined to sit at home in protest of what he perceived to be a low contract offer, signed a two-year deal Oct. 5.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re probably in better shape to start the season than we had planned,&rdquo; said coach Ken Hitchcock.Matvichuk&rsquo;s recovery is stunning. He even beat his own comeback timetable of Nov. 1. One theory is that he strengthened supporting muscles and ligaments around the knee by playing on it and wearing a brace after originally injuring it last January.Langenbrunner&rsquo;s return also was a pleasant surprise as the Stars had taken a hard line in negotiations, pushing to get him in this season at $600,000. After scoring 23 goals last season, Langenbrunner appeared ready to sit out.However, the two sides struck a compromise as Langenbrunner will get $750,000 this season and $1.15 million next season. That allows the 23-year-old the chance to prove himself a dependable scorer and come back for a bigger deal in two years.He was expected to center a line with Pat Verbeek and either Dave Reid or Jason Botterill. He will likely return to left wing when injured center Joe Nieuwendyk is healthy.NOTEBOOK: Center Brian Skrud-land caught an edge Oct. 5 in a pre-season game against Tampa and wrenched his left knee. He had arthroscopic surgery Oct. 7 and was expected to be out two weeks&hellip;Defenseman Dan Keczmer was out at least two weeks with viral meningitis. The Stars are expected to carry only eight defensemen until he returns. Center Aaron Gavey was practising with a cast on his fractured left hand, but planned on a mid-October return&hellip;The Stars&rsquo; top line of center Mike Modano. left winger Brett Hull and right winger Jere Lehtinen had 11 goals and 12 assists (23 points) in seven pre-season games, but coach Ken Hitchcock said Hull could still be moved off the line if things don&rsquo;t work out. &#9632;

f0019-04

Unexpected returns give Stars boost

<div class="byline">By Chuck Carlton</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-05352/7133076-1-eng-US/f0019-052.jpg" title="f0019-05" width="153" height="122"></div>They want to win and win now.The message has been repeated countless times by Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; management and was reinforced by a deal made at the Oct. 5 waiver draft.Valuable utility forward Brent Gilchrist was an ex-Red Wing for a matter of minutes before rejoining the team. Rather than risk losing Gilchrist-who was coveted by a number of teams despite hernia surgery that could sideline him until at least November-GM Ken Holland worked a side deal with the Tampa Bay Lightning before the draft.This wasn&rsquo;t the first time this summer Holland scrambled to keep his championship team intact.It took two draft picks and center prospect Petr Sykora to rescue Doug Brown from the Nashville Predators in late July.And the hopes of winning was why Holland traded young right winger Mike Knuble to the New York Rangers four days before the waiver draft. The decision had already been made to protect veteran enforcer Joey Kocur instead of Knuble.&ldquo;We set out to keep this team togeth-er,&rdquo; Holland said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why we got Doug Brown back and that&rsquo;s why we went out of the way to keep BrentGilchrist. We managed to get through two drafts (expansion and waiver) los-ing just one player, Mike Knuble.&rdquo;Holland called Tampa Bay counter-part Phil Esposito the weekend before the waiver draft, learned Tampa wasn&rsquo;t going to use its second pick overall and made a proposal. The Lightning would get a sixth-round pick in the 1999 draft for picking Gilchrist and immediately returning him to Detroit.NOTEBOOK: The surprise of the camp was career minor league center Stacy Roest, who claimed a forward spot. &ldquo;It hasn&rsquo;t been given to him,&rdquo; said interim cocoach Barry Smith. &ldquo;He went out and grabbed it.&rdquo; Roest, 24. and undrafted after a high-scoring junior career with Medicine Hat of the Western League, led the Red Wings with five pre-season goals&hellip;Goaltender Norm Maracle was idled the entire pre-season by a sprained right ankle and will probably be sent to Adirondack for a two-week conditioning stint&hellip;Coach Scotty Bowman got a positive report on his surgically repaired left knee Oct. 6 in New York, but still had no news on whether or when he would return in search of his ninth coaching Stanley Cup. &#9632;

f0019-05

Side deal preserves championship roster

<div class="byline">By Dan Barnes</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011124/7133107-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="147" height="147"></div>Right out of college, indeed, but not out of the blue.All summer long the Edmonton Oilers told anybody who would listen that Tom Poti was going to challenge for a spot on their blueline this fall. But how many times has an NHL organization talked up a prospect, only to have him fall flat and become more of a suspect?Does the name Jason Bonsignore ring a bell?But Poti is the real deal. On opening night he was slated to be beside partner Roman Hamrlik on the Oiler defense. Clearly identified as the team&rsquo;s No. 4 defenseman, it was an astonishing feat.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s certainly stepped up and done a job,&rdquo; said coach Ron Low. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s had a tremendous camp. We&rsquo;ve heard of his offensive attributes and we&rsquo;ve seen it. The thing I really like about him is the way he has played in his own end of the rink. I don&rsquo;t think him and (Hamrlik) have been in trouble since they&rsquo;ve been put together.&rdquo;That, of course, says as much about Hamrlik. as he helps the Boston University player adapt to the NHL game. But Poti has shown poise well beyond his years of experience.&ldquo;Each day I&rsquo;m feeling more and more comfortable,&rdquo; Poti said. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m going to make some mistakes. I just have to try and correct them and make as few as possible.&rdquo;Poti is one of three rookies on defense; Craig Millar and Sean Brown are the others.NOTEBOOK: The Oilers and center Doug Weight were still far apart in contract negotiations. Weight wants $4 million (U.S.) per season while GM Glen Sather is still offering closer to $3.3 million (U.S.). Weight&rsquo;s agent, Steve Bartlett, is inching closer to a trade demand, but hadn&rsquo;t issued it as of Oct. 8. &ldquo;If he asks for it, so be it,&rdquo; Sather said. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t mean I&rsquo;ll accommodate him. It doesn&rsquo;t mean I won&rsquo;t accommodate him. If Doug Weight or (left winger) Ryan Smyth have to sit out the entire year, that&rsquo;s the way it has to be.&rdquo; Smyth&rsquo;s agent wants a shot at $1.5 million (U.S.) for his client this year. Don Meehan proposed a base salary of $500,000, signing bonus of $500,000 and performance bonus of $500,000 if Smyth scores 25 goals. &#9632;</div>

f0020-01

Oilers high on young Poti, defenseman makes jump

<div class="byline">A By Helene Elliott</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03524/7133138-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="601" height="952"><figcaption class="caption-body">Yanic Perreault</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02767/7133145-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="149" height="151"></div>Yanic Perreault knew he wouldn&rsquo;t be able to main-tain the remarkable scoring pace he set with the Los Angeles Kings early last season.With 14 goals in the team&rsquo;s first 20 games-including the first two hat tricks of his NHL career-he was on a pace for more than 57 goals, a new and lofty neighborhood for someone whose best production had been 25 goals in the 1995-96 season. But while he didn&rsquo;t expect to become a sniper overnight, he didn&rsquo;t expect to stop scoring altogether.Yet, that&rsquo;s what happened to the 27-year-old center. After collecting 16 goals in his first 29 games and 19 at the all-star break, Perreault finished with 28 goals, second to right winger Glen Murray&rsquo;s 29. Perreault&rsquo;s prolonged slump led coach Larry Robinson to hold Perreault out of the lineup three times and sparked questions about his stamina.&ldquo;A lot of it is Yanic is not what you would call the largest player on the ice,&rdquo; Robinson said of Perreault, who appears smaller than his listed size of 5-foot-ll and 185 pounds.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to watch him a lot more closely, and if we see him start to get tired, we&rsquo;re going to rest him.&rdquo;Perreault insists that while his offen-sive contributions faded, he was still contributing defensively.The Kings need a strong and consistent Perreault in order to continue the dramatic improvement they made last season. And he knows it.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>&ldquo;I just want to try to improve every year,&rdquo; he said.NOTEBOOK: In a competition that went down almost to the last minute, left winger Josh Green, a second round draft pick in 1996, beat out 1997 first-rounder Olli Jokinen, normally a center, for a spot on the roster. Jokinen played in eight of nine exhibition games, but didn&rsquo;t adapt to playing the wing as quickly as had been hoped. &ldquo;I think (Jokinen&rsquo;s) true position is in the middle of the ice, so I&rsquo;d like to get him playing,&rdquo; said coach Larry Robinson of the decision to send Jokinen to Springfield of the American League&hellip;Defenseman Mark Visheau, who had a good chance to win a job before he injured ligaments in his left thumb, underwent surgery Oct. 6 and was expected to be out up to 10 weeks. &#9632;

f0020-03

Stamina key for Perreault

<div class="byline">By David J. Neal</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-04333/7133176-1-eng-US/f0020-042.jpg" title="f0020-04" width="150" height="150"></div>Ape or chicken? Racial slur, misheard or something in between?Florida Panthers&rsquo; management spent the days before their season opener with the Tampa Bay Lightning maintaining that Lightning forwards Sandy McCarthy and especially Darcy Tucker made apelike gestures at Florida&rsquo;s left winger Peter Worrell, who is black. Tucker allegedly called Worrell &ldquo;a #!# ape&rdquo; in their Oct. 2 pre-season game.After a thorough investigation, the NHL decided there was &ldquo;insufficient evidence&rdquo; for any discipline-not surprising when not only did the two accused say nothing happened, but the alleged victim said the same thing.Two Panthers employees say they heard the &ldquo;ape&rdquo; comment as Worrell and Tucker, who is white, were being led off the ice after a fight. As all three players were in the box, Tucker struck a pose in which he put each of his hands under the same armpit. This was the alleged ape-like gesture, although it also resembled a child trying to indicate a rival is &ldquo;chicken,&rdquo; which was what Tucker said he meant.Tucker also stuck an index finger in his mouth repeatedly, which Panthers&rsquo; GM Bryan Murray thought was making fun of Worrell as a bananaeating ape.For his part, McCarthy spread his arms wide as if carrying a big box, the international invitation for a physical confrontation, but the Panthers alleged he was making the same gestures as Tucker&rsquo;s. McCarthy was especially angered by the allegations because one of his parents is black and the other is a native North American.This is the NHL&rsquo;s third case in the last year involving alleged racial slurs against black players. Washington&rsquo;s Chris Simon apologized and got three games for slurring Edmonton&rsquo;s Mike Grier in November. Two weeks later, Washington&rsquo;s Craig Berube got one game for calling Worrell a &ldquo;monkey,&rdquo; even though Worrell said he thought Berube&rsquo;s apology was good enough.NOTEBOOK: In a competition that went down almost to the last minute, left winger Josh Green, a second-round draft pick in 1996, beat out 1997 first rounder Olli Jokinen, normally a center, for a spot on the roster. Jokinen played in eight of nine exhibition games, but didn&rsquo;t adapt to playing the wing as quickly as had been hoped. &ldquo;I think (Jokinen&rsquo;s) true position is in the middle of the ice, so I&rsquo;d like to get him playing,&rdquo; said coach Larry Robinson of the decision to send Jokinen to Springfield of the American League&hellip;Defenseman Mark Visheau, who had a good chance to win a job before he injured ligaments in his left thumb, underwent surgery Oct. 6 and was expected to be out up to 10 weeks. &#9632;

f0020-04

Racial acts at Worrell untrue: NHL

<div class="byline">By Herb Zurkowsky</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-07126/7133207-1-eng-US/f0020-072.jpg" title="f0020-07" width="582" height="963"><figcaption class="caption-body">Shayne Corson</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-05181/7133214-1-eng-US/f0020-052.jpg" title="f0020-05" width="154" height="103"></div>In the end, Shayne Corson got the deal he wanted from the Montreal Canadiens.Corson, a much-needed power forward in the team&rsquo;s scheme, got the new two-year contract, with an option for a third season, he was seeking from the Canadiens.The deal will pay Corson $2 million (U.S.) this season and $2.25 in 19992000. The third season, at the team&rsquo;s option, calls for a base salary of $4 million.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very happy with the way it worked out,&rdquo; Corson said. &ldquo;I wanted to stay here; that was my first choice. I wanted it to be fair for both sides and I&rsquo;m glad that it worked out that way.&rdquo;Corson had two seasons remaining on a five-year contract that originally was signed when he played for the St. Louis Blues, calling for an annual salary of $1,145 million. The deal also included a signing bonus of $1.25 million.Blues&rsquo; management told Corson it would eventually renegotiate that contract, only to trade the left winger to Montreal in October, 1996.After scoring 21 goals and 55 points in 62 games last season, playing on the team&rsquo;s top line, with Saku Koivu and Mark Recchi, Montreal GM Rejean Houle began discussions on a new deal.When the two sides wouldn&rsquo;t agree on a new deal, Corson failed to report to camp and then threatened to walk if a new deal was not reached before the season opened. The new deal is $250,000 short of what he had sought.NOTEBOOK: The Canadiens re-mained at an impasse with their three restricted free agents. Right winger Brian Savage was seeking a two-year deal worth $1.8 million (U.S.). The Canadiens were offering $1.4 million. Left winger Martin Rucinsky wants a three-year deal starting at $2.5 million, but the Canadiens were offering slightly below $2 million. Defenseman Vladimir Malakhov, mean-while, was seeking $3 million per sea-son&hellip;The Canadiens have re-acquired goaltender Frederic Chabot from Los Angeles in the waiver draft. Chabot appeared in five games over four seasons between 1990 and 1993 with Montreal. He had an 0-1-1 record and 3.46 goals-against average. &#9632;

f0020-07

Corson gets deal done

<div class="byline">By Jeff Legwold</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-06142/7133245-1-eng-US/f0020-062.jpg" title="f0020-06" width="157" height="93"></div>He got sidetracked in training camp twice, once being sent home with mononucleosis, once being slowed by a shoulder injury. Yet the Nashville Predators still worked until the final minute to try and get rookie David Legwand signed in time to add him to their roster.But they were unable to work out a performance bonus schedule so the teenager will return to the Plymouth Whalers of the Ontario League.&ldquo;We have always said we were in it for the long term with David,&rdquo; GM Dave Poile said. &ldquo;This time it was just a case of dollars.&rdquo;Early in training camp the team had expressed a conservative approach for Legwand, that the center would be returned to Plymouth for another year before making a serious run in 1999.Legwand hurt his shoulder at the U.S. national junior camp in Lake Placid, N.Y., before arriving in Nashville and then was diagnosed with mononucleosis.While he did not show the scoring touch like center Vincent Lecavalier, Tampa Bay Lightning&rsquo;s No. 1 pick, Legwand did show enough for the Predators to make the push to sign him.Legwand would have most certainly received the maximum rookie base salary of $975,000. but when Lecavalier received performance bonuses that will give him an additional $3 million this season and an additional $2.5 million the next two seasons if he meets them all, talks hit a significant snag.NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Jamie Reward. 27, was easily the team&rsquo;s biggest surprise in camp. He led the team with six goals and nine points in six exhibition games, including four on the power play&hellip;Veteran defenseman Rob Zettler was put on waivers and assigned to affiliate Milwaukee of the International League&hellip;Nashville traded goaltender Dominic Roussel to Anaheim for two prospects-defenseman Marc Moro and goalie Chris Mason. Goalie Mike Dunham is now backed up by Erie Fichaud. 22&hellip;Right winger Sergei Krivokrasov served a two-game suspension for buttending and elbowing St. Louis Blues&rsquo; center Jim Campbell in their Sept. 26 exhibition game. &#9632;

f0020-06

Legwand sent to Plymouth as last minute deal dies

<div class="byline">By Rich Chere</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01889/7133276-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="149" height="155"></div>An avid outdoorsman and mountain climber, Scott Niedermayer told the New Jersey Devils in no uncertain terms he wouldrather take a hike than sit out half the season negotiating a new contract.Niedermayer, an unsigned Group II free agent, faxed a letter through representative Don Meehan to Devils&rsquo; GM Lou Lamoriello Oct. 5 requesting a trade that would end his seven-year relationship with the team.The trade request came 10 days after Niedermayer dropped his original bid for a salary of $4 million per season by offering to sign a two-year deal for $3.5 million and $3.75 million. The Devils have offered a three-year deal worth $9.75 million ($3 million, $3.25 million and $3.5 million) or $6 million for two years ($3 million for each season).&ldquo;I just think if we&rsquo;re at a position now where we can&rsquo;t get a deal done, this is the only thing we can do,&rdquo; Niedermayer said. &ldquo;I imagine (Lamoriello) is not going to jump at a chance to trade me, but maybe if the right trade comes along he will.&rdquo;Lamoriello said he would not trade Niedermayer, the team&rsquo;s best offensive defenseman, as long as he remained unsigned. However, players who test the GM&rsquo;s patience in contract negotiations often wind up being traded after they sign.Bill Guerin experienced that last season when he was shipped to the Edmonton Oilers.According to Meehan, Niedermayer is ready to play for an International League team if he is not traded and does not soon sign with the Devils.&ldquo;Scotty will move on in life,&rdquo; Meehan said. &ldquo;He is more brave and independent than I am. He won&rsquo;t stay in New Jersey for what is being submitted to us now.&rdquo;Lamoriello denied he was trying to break the 25-year-old Niedermayer.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand the thought of a team trying to win a battle against a player. I take offense to that notion,&rdquo; Lamoriello said. &ldquo;There is no one who wants Niedermayer here more than me, but somebody has to take responsibility and watch finances.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Lyle Odelein left the team Oct. 6 and flew to Cincinnati where his infant daughter, Paulina, was to undergo surgery for the fourth and fifth time to correct a breathing problem that has persisted since her birth April 21. A bronchoscopy and an epiglottalplasty were needed to correct the flap which allows air into the lungs and food into the stomach&hellip;Right winger Jason Arnott, practising with the team after off-season finger surgery, was unable to take slapshots until cleared by a doctor&hellip;Coach Robbie Ftorek said he was not alarmed by the slow offensive start from center Brendan Morrison in pre-season (one goal, two points in seven games)&hellip;The Devils signed center Alexander Semak to a contract to play with the Albany of the American League. Semak, 32, spent last season with Chicago of the International League. New Jersey&rsquo;s final cuts included sending goalie Rich Shul-mistra. defensemen Geordie Kinnear and Ken Sutton and left winger Eric Bertrand to Albany. &#9632;</div>

f0021-01

Niedermayer makes trade request as contract talks go nowhere fast

<div class="byline">By Jim Smith</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02512/7133307-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="152" height="148"></div>The New York Islanders and captain Trevor Linden came eye-to-eye and Linden blinked.Four days before the regular season opener, the restricted free agent signed a one-year contract for $2.5 million, the same salary he earned last season. But there was immediate speculation GM Mike Milbury would be forced to trade Linden or several other high-salaried players under orders from co-owner Steven Gluckstem.Sources said Sept. 30 Gluckstem ordered Milbury to trim the payroll. Two days later, however, sources said Milbury convinced Gluckstem to resign Linden and postpone any budget cuts for a few weeks to see if the club starts the season on a winning note and re-attracts the fans.&ldquo;If we come out,&rdquo; Linden said, &ldquo;and win some games and look like we&rsquo;re capable of (making) a playoff spot, we&rsquo;ll probably stay together. The opposite will be true with the other scenario.&rdquo;Sources at the NHL Board of Governors meeting Oct. 6 said Gluckstem let it be known that for $20 million, he would sell the rights to restricted free agent right winger Ziggy Palffy. Most likely though, commissioner Gary Bettman would void such a cash transaction. Palffy is home in Slovakia, seemingly prepared to sit out a good chunk of the season unless the club raises its offer of $13-million over three years. He earned $1,825 million last year and wants $6.8 million a year.Without Palffy, the team payroll was a modest $21.6 million. If the club does not draw at the gate early, it is believed Milbury will be forced to trade several players from among: Rich Pilon (earning $1.5 million), Robert Reichel ($1.7 million), Sergei Nemchinov ($1.5 million) and Bryan Smolinski ($1.8 million). A source close to Linden said the center felt it will be easier to be traded if he were signed than if he were not.The only concession Linden got was a $250,000 bonus if he reaches 30 goals. Over the past two seasons with the Vancouver Canucks and Islanders, Linden managed only 26 goals in 116 games.NOTEBOOK: Center Trevor Linden was expected to open the season playing right wing on Bryan Smolinski&rsquo;s line with Jason Dawe at left wing&hellip;The Isles won their final exhibition game, 1-0 over the Devils Oct. 6, before about 400 fans at the Nassau Coliseum&hellip; Coach-GM Mike Milbury demoted defenseman Zdeno Chara, who had a poor camp, to Lowell of the American League. Nineteen-year-old Eric Brewer won a job as the fifth defensemen with journeyman David Harlock having an edge on Barry Richter for the sixth spot&hellip;The banners commemorating the Islanders&rsquo; Stanley Cup victories and retired numbers were put in storage during the court battle with Spectacor Management Group. They were expected to be re-hung in the Coliseum in time for the opener&hellip;Left winger Kevin Miller, 33, who has 146 goals in 574 games with seven teams and was in camp on a tryout basis, signed a contract Oct. 9&hellip;Goalie Roberto Luongo, 19, was returned to Vai d&rsquo;Or of the Quebec League. &#9632;

f0021-02

Linden gets no raise in new deal, Palffy offered raise, yet no deal

<div class="byline">By Rick Carpinlello</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-011016/7133338-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="148" height="146"></div>A difference in philoso-phies nearly cost the New York Rangers the services of their firstround draft pick this season, but Manny Malhotra finally signed a three-year contract minutes before the midnight Oct. 7 deadline for signing junior-eligi-ble players.All unsigned players with junior eli-gibility remaining had to be signed by midnight, or would be forced to go back to junior for the entire year.That day, following practice, Malhotra dramatically packed up all the belongings in his locker, threw them into a big blue bag. and said goodbye to his Rangers&rsquo; teammates. Then he flung the bag over his shoulder and met his agent outside the dressing room.Paul Krepelka of Woolf Associates, who works with Malhotra&rsquo;s agents, Bobby Orr and Jay Fee, said Malhotra was headed to the Woolf headquarters in Boston and was prepared to return to junior with the Guelph Storm of the Ontario League.&ldquo;Neil (Smith) is philosophically opposed to the bonus package or to giving any other bonus other than team bonuses and right now that&rsquo;s completely unacceptable,&rdquo; Krepelka said.Krepelka argued Vincent Lecavalier, who was chosen first overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning-six spots ahead of Malhotra-has a bonus package that could pay him $15 million over three seasons.NHL rookies are limited to $975,000 per year in base salary on a three-year rookie cap contract, so bonus money is the key element of negotiations with first-rounders.If Malhotra agreed to accept only team bonuses, which is all the Rangers normally pay, he&rsquo;d max out around $30,000 worth of bonus money, Krepelka said.&ldquo;Tell me that makes sense,&rdquo; Krepelka said. &ldquo;If he and Vincent have identical seasons, Vincent would get $8 million and Manny would get $30,000.&rdquo;Eventually, Smith and Malhotra&rsquo;s agents reached agreement on certain bonuses to get Malhotra into the Rangers&rsquo; lineup for opening night.NOTEBOOK: Even with center Manny Malhotra signed, Rangers&rsquo; coach John Muckier was preparing to do something he didn&rsquo;t want to-start the season with Adam Graves playing center instead of left wing. Graves, who played center for a long stretch of last season, had been woridng at center for most of the pre-season, despite Muckier&rsquo;s insistence Graves is more effective as a winger. Malhotra spent the latter part of the pre-season at right wing&hellip;The day after passing through the waiver draft, wingers Bill Berg and Bob Errey and defensemen Zarley Zalapski and Jeff Finley were assigned to Hartford of the American League. &#9632;</div>

f0022-01

Malhotra stays put after contract bonus snags overcome

<div class="byline">By Bruce Garrioch</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02708/7133369-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="147" height="121"></div>Fifth-year man Stan Neckar wasn&rsquo;t high on the contract he signed, but it was enough to convince him to head for the Rocky Mountains.The Ottawa Senators&rsquo; free agent defenseman, the last unsigned restricted free agent on the team&rsquo;s roster, accepted a one-year deal worth $700,000 (U.S.) and joined the team for its one-week bonding session in Banff, Alta., prior to the start of the season.Neckar, 22, who had been hoping for $750,000 (U.S.), dropped his demands at the last minute and asked for extra incentives to get the deal completed in time for the club&rsquo;s season opener Oct. 10 in Denver.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like the contract. I&rsquo;m not happy with it at all,&rdquo; said Neckar, who had been working out with the Ontario League&rsquo;s Ottawa 67&rsquo;s. &ldquo;But I came here to play hockey, not just sit here. I&rsquo;m happy I can get back to playing.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in pretty good shape. I worked hard all summer to get ready. I&rsquo;ve been playing hockey for 14 years, so I don&rsquo;t think missing training camp is going to hurt me.&rdquo;Still, Neckar&rsquo;s arrival will make a few blueliners nervous. Even with Jason York nursing a strained rotator cuff, the Senators had eight healthy defensemen in camp and coach Jacques Martin doesn&rsquo;t like to keep extra players around.Once Neckar and York are ready to play, at least one of defensemen Patrick Traverse, Sami Salo and Radim Bicanek will be sent down or traded because the club needs to make room on its roster.&ldquo;Obviously, it&rsquo;s going to be a battle for jobs,&rdquo; Traverse said.Senators&rsquo; GM Rick Dudley has already held trade talks with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers on deals involving defensemen. Clearly, the Senators have no reason to keep them all.The Lightning badly want a veteran blueliner, but Dudley wasn&rsquo;t going to jump at the first offer he heard from counterpart Phil Esposito. Dudley is treading water carefully. He doesn&rsquo;t want to mess with chemistry.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m looking at (Tampa and Florida),&rdquo; Dudley said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not just going to make a change for changes&rsquo; sake. If there&rsquo;s a deal there that can help us, then I&rsquo;m going to make it. We feel good about the people we&rsquo;ve got there.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Owner Rod Bryden received approval for his financing plan from the club&rsquo;s limited partnership. &ldquo;This approval is going to see the club through this season and possibly the next season,&rdquo; Bryden said. While Bryden would only say he has invested &ldquo;several millions&rdquo; in the club, he has also increased his share from the 72 per cent he previously owned.. Center Steve Martins had a good shot at making the Senators before a shoulder injury killed his chances. Martins, who is from nearby Gatineau, Que., had become a fan favorite with his speed. &ldquo;This one is tough because it&rsquo;s close to home,&rdquo; Martins said&hellip;Ottawa left winger Stephen Leach was asked to pose for pictures by a group of Japanese tourists at the Calgary airport. The tourists had seen Leach&rsquo;s picture in the paper and believed he was a big celebrity. &#9632;</div>

f0022-02

Neckar happy to be playing, but dissatisfied with terms

<div class="byline">By Wayne Fish</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03500/7133400-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="150" height="107"></div>Valeri Zelepukin: Hockey player by night, translator by day.When the Philadelphia Flyers promoted Russian rookie defenseman Dimitri Tertyshny to their opening night roster, they realized they had a little problem-he hardly speaks any English.That&rsquo;s nothing new for the Flyers, who have had communication problems with Russian players in the past.So rather than wait for Tertyshny to learn the language, they pulled off a trade with Edmonton, sending center Daniel Lacroix to the Oilers for the 30-year-old Zelepukin.President-GM Bob Clarke said he liked the &ldquo;feisty&rdquo; play of Zelepukin, dating back to his time with the New Jersey Devils.But he also said it would be good to have someone around to serve as a mentor for the 21-year-old Tertyshny.Prior to Zelepukin&rsquo;s arrival, Dainius Zubrus was about the only player who could make out what Tertyshny was saying. And even the Lithuanian-born Zubrus had trouble at times since the two dialects are different.Zelepukin only spent half a season in the Western Conference, scoring just two goals and 12 points for the Oilers after being dealt there in midseason as part of the Jason Arnott-Bill Guerin deal, so he&rsquo;s looking forward to a return to the East.&ldquo;I know the players and the teams better,&rdquo; he said.As for helping Tertyshny speak English, he smiled, &ldquo;First I have to learn it myself.&rdquo;But just having another Russian in the dressing room should help Tertyshny get through the difficult first few months. Tertyshny was the Flyers&rsquo; fourth pick, 132nd overall, in the 1995 entry draft. This will be his first season in North America after playing four seasons with Chelyabinsk in the Russian League.Zelepukin&rsquo;s career was slowed in the 1994-95 season when he suffered a serious right eye injury (the result of a Bruce Driver high stick) that required surgery and limited him to just four games in the lockout-shortened campaign. When he returned, his vision took a while to clear.&ldquo;It was tough for me. After my eye injury, I was a little slow. I was trying hard to come back. But it was hard because I missed almost a whole year. I was a little down. But now I&rsquo;m all right.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The overstocked Flyers left both center Daniel Lacroix and defenseman Chris Joseph unprotected in the waiver draft. Neither was claimed, hence the trade of Lacroix to Edmonton for left winger Valeri Zelepukin and the assignment of Joseph to the minors. However, when the Flyers signed free agent right winger Jody Hull to a two-year contract two days later, they had to put either Hull or another player through waivers&hellip;Flyers&rsquo; president-GM Bob Clarke was negotiating with right winger Mike Maneluk&rsquo;s agent, Neil Sheehy, on the possibility of an extension of the 25-year-old rookie&rsquo;s contract beyond this season. Maneluk could become an unrestricted free agent if he does not sign&hellip;One of the reasons Clarke promoted rookie defenseman Dimitri Tertyshny to the Flyers was to give 37-year-old Dave Babych some nights off. &#9632;

f0022-03

No orders lost in translation as Zelepukin comes on board

<div class="byline">By Bob McManaman</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01907/7133431-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="135" height="152"></div>It was supposed to be cen-fSyxs ter Daniel Briere&rsquo;s coming-out party. And the fact it happened to fall on his 21st birthday made it all the more exciting.But the celebration ended in chaos when Briere wound up in the emergency room, and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim&rsquo;s Ruslan Salei found himself at the top of the Phoenix Coyotes&rsquo;&rsquo;10 Most Wanted&rsquo; list.During their final pre-season game Oct. 6, Salei elbowed Briere in the head, slamming him into the glass, and then swept his legs out from under him.Briere lapsed in and out of concious-ness and was seen going into convulsions, a gut-wrenching sight for his teammates and the crowd of 12,513 at America West Arena.&ldquo;It was uncalled for,&rdquo; Coyotes&rsquo; captain Keith Tkachuk said. &ldquo;It was a cheap elbow and a slew foot.&rdquo;The NHL announced Oct. 9 Salei would be suspended the first five games of the regular season and also fined him $1,000.Briere sustained a concussion, but escaped serious injury after undergoing a battery of tests and staying in the hospital overnight for observation. He likely will have to go two weeks symptom-free before he is cleared to return.Briere, who had 36 goals and 92 points in 68 games for the American League&rsquo;s Springfield Falcons last year, had virtually secured himself a job by leading the team in pre-season scoring with seven points in five games.NOTEBOOK: Coach Jim Schoenfeld wanted to pair his two star forwards Keith Tkachuk and Jeremy Roenick on the same line, but cancelled the experiment after a few practices. &ldquo;When we&rsquo;ve put them together, neither of them wants to shoot the puck,&rdquo; said Schoenfeld, who was planning to start the season with Roenick centering a line with left winger Greg Adams and right winger Shane Doan, and Cliff Ronning centering a line with Tkachuk and right winger Rick Tocchet&hellip;Left winger Louie DeBrusk, acquired from Tampa Bay in the Craig Janney trade, was placed on waivers and assigned to the minors&hellip;Goalie Nikolai Khabibulin had two shutouts and allowed only one goal in his final three pre-season games. &#9632;</div>

f0023-01

Briere sustains concussion to ruin birthday celebration

<div class="byline">By Dave Luecking</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-04294/7133462-1-eng-US/f0023-042.jpg" title="f0023-04" width="152" height="133"></div>Entering training camp, neither Marty Reasoner nor Michal Handzus had a guaranteed spot on the Blues roster. In fact, both were penciled into the lineup of the American League Worcester IceCats with Terry Yake and Chris Kenady penciled into the Blues&rsquo; lineup.But Reasoner and Handzus literal-ly rearranged the depth charge. They earned spots on the Blues&rsquo; opening night roster, prompting a lot of domi-noes to fall. Their emergence led to demotions for Yake and Kenady, position shifts for Pavol Demitra and Craig Conroy to right wing from cen-ter and Scott Young&rsquo;s fall from third-line right winger to fourth-line right winger.Coach Joel Quenneville didn&rsquo;t mind changing his pre-camp plans.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re flexible, and we always say going into camp there&rsquo;s going to be a surprise or two,&rdquo; said coach Joel Quenneville. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t want to get too set in your ways and your ideas because whatever you think is going to happen may change.&ldquo;With their play in pre-season, they deserve to start here.&rdquo;Handzus, 21, finished the pre-sea-son with a five-game point-scoring streak, one goal and four assists. That moved him into a tie with Reasoner for second in pre-season scoring behind Jim Campbell. Reasoner, also 21, had two goals and five points. He appeared in six games, but got all of his points in two games against the Chicago Blackhawks.&ldquo;Handzus has really improved as the camp has progressed,&rdquo; Quen-neville said. &ldquo;Reasoner had an excel-lent camp, but he hasn&rsquo;t been as dominating or noticeable as he had been. That&rsquo;s to be expected from youngsters.&rdquo;For now, Quenneville has Reason-er penciled in as the second-line cen-ter with Jim Campbell and Pascal Rheaume on his wings, and Handzus as the checking line center between Selke Trophy finalist Craig Conroy and Scott Pellerin.NOTEBOOK: The Blues lost some of their organizational depth at defense when Toronto nabbed Kevin Dahl and Boston picked Rory Fitzpatrick in the NHL waiv-er draft Oct. 5. Two days later, they cut their losses in half by re-claiming Fitzpatrick after Boston inexplicably put him back on waivers&hellip; Junior-aged defenseman Jan Horacek. 19, the surprise of training camp, was farmed out to the Blues&rsquo; AHL team in Worcester Oct. 7. He couldn&rsquo;t go back to junior because his old team in Moncton already had its full complement of Euro-pean players&hellip;Goalie Grant Fuhr got the call to start the Blues&rsquo; first game, but Quen neville would make no commitment after that. He plans to have backup Jamie McLennan split duty with Fuhr. &#9632;

f0023-04

Youngsters force changes

<div class="byline">By Dan Wood</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-01987/7133493-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="150" height="143"></div>A .500 batting average doesn&rsquo;t satisfy San Jose Sharks&rsquo; GM Dean Lombardi.Lombardi signed two of San Jose&rsquo;s restricted free agents, center Mike Ricci and defenseman Mike Rathje, in the week leading up to the club&rsquo;s NHL season opener against the Calgary Flames in Tokyo. Left winger Jeff Friesen and right winger Owen Nolan, however, remained absent.&ldquo;There are still some major pieces missing,&rdquo; Lombardi said. &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t be relieved until they are all here.&rdquo;Friesen and Nolan, the team&rsquo;s two top returning scorers, stayed behind when the Sharks departed for Japan Oct. 6. Lombardi remained in San Jose to continue lengthy negotiations with agent Mike Barnett, who represents Friesen and Nolan.Ricci, 26, agreed to a three-year contract worth a guaranteed $4.5 million. The deal protects the Sharks from potentially losing Ricci to unrestricted free agency at the conclusion of the term, while also giving Ricci the for the future. Chosen 204th overall in 1996, Kaberleopportunity to earn more money based on performance.&ldquo;Everyone wanted this to be done sooner,&rdquo; Ricci said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just happy to be back, back having fun again.&rdquo;Rathje, 24, agreed to a three-year, $2.75-million deal. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy,&rdquo; said Rathje, who also had a training camp contract dispute last season. &ldquo;I got some pretty good dollars and I won&rsquo;t have to go through this holdup every year.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: San Jose opened the season with two rookie defensemen-Scott Hannan and Andy Sutton. Another. Brad Stuart, performed well enough to earn a spot, but appeared bound for another junior season because he had not signed a contract as of Oct. 7&hellip;Goalie Steve Shields, sidelined since Sept. 14 because of a broken finger, returned Oct. 6&hellip;Defenseman Marcus Ragnarsson sustained a broken thumb in the pre-season finale Oct. 3 against Los Angeles and wasn&rsquo;t expected back until at least mid-October&hellip;Veteran forwards Dave Lowry and Jamie Baker, who attended camp on tryouts, made the opening-night roster&hellip;Visa problems forced Russian defenseman Andrei Zyuzin to miss the Sharks&rsquo; Oct. 6 flight to Tokyo. &#9632;

f0024-01

Lombardi goes two-for-four as Ricci, Rathje sign deals

<div class="byline">By Ken Campbell</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03440/7133524-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg" title="f0024-03" width="599" height="950"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tampa Bay</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02671/7133531-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="138" height="148"></div>When Tomas Kaberle showed up at the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; training camp, he was just another fresh-faced youngster destined for a season on Canada&rsquo;s east coast.At this rate, he may never see the rugged beauty of Newfoundland. The impressive 20-year-old defenseman was a shoo-in to start the season with the big team as opposed to St. John&rsquo;s of the American League.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s funny because in rookie camp he wasn&rsquo;t all that impressive,&rdquo; said coach Pat Quinn. &ldquo;But once he got here with the big team he just took off.&rdquo;That Kaberle earned a spot on the blueline is as much an indictment to the quality of Toronto&rsquo;s defensemen as it is a testament to Kaberle&rsquo;s abilities. As promising as Kaberle is, an organization with depth on the blueline would likely put him in the minors for at least a year.But there is no denying Kaberle&rsquo;s ability. He has shown an aptitude for running a power play at the NHL level and rarely makes a bad play. His on-ice vision is terrific and he moves the puck out of his zone with a calm that belies his years. He had three assists in five pre-season games.&ldquo;He has no panic point,&rdquo; Quinn said.Not only has Kaberle been a pleasant surprise, but he also provides the Leafs with some hopeis counting on making a lasting impression.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>&ldquo;Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque, Brian Leetch, those are the guys I like,&rdquo; Kaberle said. &ldquo;I try to play like them.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Goalie Glenn Healy was mulling over whether or not to accept an Oct 8 assignment to Chicago of the International League, a stint that would end once the Felix Potvin situation is resolved. Healy is on a one-way deal that pays him $1.2 million (U.S.) this season&hellip;The Leafs picked up defenseman Kevin Dahl in the waiver draft, despite the fact defenseman Terry Carkner, whom they pursued in the summer as a free agent was available&hellip;The Leafs finished the pre-season at 6-1-2, which was the best record in the league and the best in franchise history&hellip;Left winger Garry Valk and defenseman Glen Featherstone, who were both on tryouts, signed one-year deals&hellip;Potvin told the Leafs he might leave at a moment&rsquo;s notice if he is not traded soon. &#9632;

f0024-03

Kaberle nice Leaf surprise

<div class="byline">By Tim Buckley</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-04283/7133562-1-eng-US/f0024-042.jpg" title="f0024-04" width="141" height="133"></div>One is a rookie. The other feels like one.And both made the opening night roster of the Tampa Bay Lightning, a fact that could not make 18-year-old Vincent Lecavalier or 34-year-old John Cullen happier.&ldquo;Of all the days I&rsquo;ve had in hockey, this is the best,&rdquo; said Cullen, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin&rsquo;s lymphoma in April of 1997, but overcame the odds to make it all the way back to the NHL. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an unbelievable feeling.&rdquo;Lecavalier&rsquo;s story has yet to be written. The No. 1 overall selection in last June&rsquo;s draft was named the Lightning&rsquo;s second-fine center even before he signed a contract, then agreed Oct. 7 to a three-year deal potentially worth more than $15 million.The contract is, by far, the most ever offered to an NHL rookie: Should Lecavalier meet all the incentive bonuses contained within the complex agreement, he would earn almost twice as much last year&rsquo;s top pick, Boston Bruins&rsquo; center Joe Thornton, is capable of making in his first three pro seasons.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very happy that everything&rsquo;s over with,&rdquo; Lecavalier said, &ldquo;so I can concentrate even more on hockey and just start the season well.&rdquo;That Cullen is starting the season at all is &ldquo;one of the great stories of all time,&rdquo; said GM Phil Esposito. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, I didn&rsquo;t give him much of a chance to do it.&rdquo;Lightning coach Jacques Demers said Cullen, who beat out youngsters Daymond Langkow and Jason Bon-signore, made the club on merit.&ldquo;I never looked at John Cullen, cancer victim,&rdquo; Demers said. &ldquo;I looked at him as John Cullen, hockey player. This wasn&rsquo;t a charity case.&rdquo;Lecavalier earned his job, too. Esposito said the teenage scoring whiz was one of the Lightning&rsquo;s best players in training camp.&ldquo;This guy handles things like he has been in the league for 20 years,&rdquo; Esposito said.NOTEBOOK: Right winger Mikael Renberg, who never seemed comfortable with the responsibilities of the captaincy taken on last season, handed the&rsquo;C&rsquo; over to left winger Rob Zamuner prior to opening night&hellip;Defenseman Paul Mara&rsquo;s return to Plymouth (Ontario League) was anything but routine. A day after informing Mara he&rsquo;d be going back to junior, the Lightning changed its mind and asked him to stick around longer while it mulled things over. Twenty-four hours later, on Oct. 8, Mara was given the official world he&rsquo;d be going back to junior&hellip;Left winger Stephane Richer underwent a second MRI on his swollen left ankle before determining further surgery wasn&rsquo;t needed. &#9632;</div>

f0024-04

Lecavalier, Cullen earn roster spots

<div class="byline">By Elliott Pap</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-07130/7133593-1-eng-US/f0024-072.jpg" title="f0024-07" width="592" height="967"><figcaption class="caption-body">Todd Bertuzzi</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-05189/7133600-1-eng-US/f0024-052.jpg" title="f0024-05" width="150" height="144"></div>While his buddy Bryan McCabe sat at home unsigned, left winger Todd Bertuzzi went about being the Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; best player in the pre-season.The imposing 6-foot-3, 225-pound forward had six goals and 10 points in six appearances and was outstanding in every game.&ldquo;Mentally I feel 100 times better here in Vancouver because I&rsquo;m getting a chance to play and excel,&rdquo; said Bertuzzi, who was obtained along with McCabe from the New York Islanders Feb. 6. &ldquo;The coaches and management are actually looking at me to do something. I never ever felt part of the chemistry with the Islanders, but it&rsquo;s totally different here.&rdquo;Bertuzzi, 23, didn&rsquo;t develop as the Islanders hoped and his production declined from 18 goals in his rookie season to 10 as a sophomore. He had just seven goals and no confidence when Canuck coach Mike Keenan acquired him, McCabe and a third-round pick for Trevor Linden.&ldquo;We felt he would flourish in a new environment given the opportunity,&rdquo; Keenan said.During the pre-season, Bertuzzi played all three forward positions as well as the point on the power play. The fourth-year NHLer didn&rsquo;t look out of place anywhere although he is expected to be mostly a left winger during the season. All he cares about is being consistent. &ldquo;What you&rsquo;ve seen in the pre-season you have to do in the regular season 82 times and that&rsquo;s the tough part,&rdquo; Bertuzzi said.NOTEBOOK: Goalie Corey Hirsch, who made $615,000 (U.S.) last season for playing all but 50 minutes in the minors, resigned with the team for a guaranteed $250,000 (U.S.) plus handsome performance bonuses&hellip;The Canucks were unable to sign defenseman Bryan Allen, their 1998 first round pick, before the Oct. 7 midnight deadline. Allen will be returned to Oshawa of the Ontario League when he recovers from a shoulder injury suffered in the pre-season&hellip; Canuck first-round picks-center Josh Holden (1996) and defenseman Brad Ference (1997)-were unable to make the team. Holden, a first-year pro, was sent to Syracuse of the American League while Ference was returned to Spokane of the Western League. &#9632;

f0024-07

Big Bertuzzi steps forward

<div class="byline">By Dave Fay</div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-06154/7133631-1-eng-US/f0024-062.jpg" title="f0024-06" width="147" height="145"></div>Kelly Miller has been planning for life after hockey since he first pulled on an NHL sweater on March 30, 1985. But first the Washington Capitals&rsquo; right winger has a few things still to accomplish if his health and luck holds.Entering the season, the Michigan State graduate was just five games shy of playing in his 1,000th NHL contest. He already has played in more Cap games than any other player in team history, 878, and has been with the organization longer than all but one other individual, center Michal Pivon-ka, who got there a few months before Miller arrived on New Year&rsquo;s Day, 1987, after being traded by the New York Rangers.&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s going to be neat to reach 1,000 games,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;It says something about longevity, about hanging in there.&rdquo;It says a lot more about being healthy and being in shape.&ldquo;I appreciate more and more how lucky I&rsquo;ve been in that regard,&rdquo; Millersaid. &ldquo;A lot of things have gone right. I&rsquo;ve been able to stay healthy, been able to stay in one city a long time and I realize not everybody has been as lucky as I have.&rdquo;Long known as an excellent penaltykiller, Miller has also been visible off the ice; he was a vocal figure during the 1994 lockout. He refers to that period and the rest of his NHL career as one vast learning experience which he hopes to put to use as a college coach.NOTEBOOK: Center Pat Peake, who retired during the off-season after battling the effects of a shattered heel for more than two years, had a fifth operation on his right foot. There is no guarantee this one will be the answer to fixing an injury that ended what once was a promising career&hellip;The Caps finished the pre-season 6-2-0 and are 12-3-2 under coach Ron Wilson in exhibition games&hellip;Defenseman Brendan Witt was excused from camp for a few days to return to his Humboldt, Sask., home to visit his ailing father&hellip;Defenseman Calle Johansson suffered a minor groin injury Sept. 26 while shooting (and scoring) against Buffalo. It is significant only because the defenseman, 31, said he has never had a groin injury in his career. &#9632;</div>

f0024-06

Miller proud, appreciative of 1,000 games milestone

<div class="byline">By Brian Costello</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02567/7133683-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="241" height="336"><figcaption class="caption-body">Andy Baggot</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-03365/7133676-1-eng-US/f0025-032.jpg" title="f0025-03" width="233" height="329"><figcaption class="caption-body">Paul Harris</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-04226/7133669-1-eng-US/f0025-042.jpg" title="f0025-04" width="244" height="306"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tom Boggie</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-05167/7133662-1-eng-US/f0025-052.jpg" title="f0025-05" width="231" height="325"><figcaption class="caption-body">Larry Mahoney</figcaption></div>Nineteen ninety-nine is the 50th anniversary of Boston College&rsquo;s last NCAA win.According to our panel of THN U.S. college correspondents, that anniversary will be celebrated in the best way possible, with a national title.Andy Baggot of the Wisconsin State Journal, Paul Harris of the Detroit Sunday Journal and Tom Boggie of the Schenectady (N.Y.) Gazette, Larry Mahoney of the Bangor (Me.) Daily News and THN college editor Brian Costello unanimously agreed the Eagles will win their first NCAA title since 1949.Last year&rsquo;s winner, the Michigan Wolverines, were ranked eighth by our panel. They are again among the top five. This year&rsquo;s NCAA Final Four is slated for April 1-3 in Anaheim.Here&rsquo;s this season&rsquo;s top 10.1. Boston College Eagles (HE) No apparent weaknesses.2. North Dakota Fighting Sioux (WCHA) Only question is defense.3. Colorado College Tigers (WCHA) Watch epic battle with Sioux.4. Ohio State Buckeyes(CCHA) Will prove last year wasn&rsquo;t a fluke.5. Michigan Wolverines(CCHA) Perhaps the best defensive corps.6. Clarkson Golden Knights(ECAC) The best in a weak conference.7. Maine Black Bears (HE)Coach Walsh is loaded for Bears.8. Michigan State Spartans(CCHA) Four senior D-men are back.9. Wisconsin Badgers (WCHA)Rookie forwards must perform.10. New Hampshire Wildcats(HE). A team built from defense out. &#9632;

f0025-02

THN’s top 10 NCAA choices

<div class="byline">By Larry Mahoney</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0025-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01884/7133714-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Andy Powers is part of Boston College&rsquo;s collection of forwards. (Photo courtesy Boston College)</figcaption></div>The Boston College Eagles were a crossbar away from winning the NCAA championship last spring.Jamie O&rsquo;Leary rang a shot off the crossbar in overtime that would have given the Eagles a win over the Michigan Wolverines. Michigan went on to win 3-2.So why is The Hockey News panel of U.S. college correspondents selecting Boston College to come away victorious this season? There are many reasons why and just one Reasoner why they may not.The Eagles lost leading scorer Marty Reasoner a year ahead of schedule when he signed with the St. Louis Blues. But BC&rsquo;s next eight highest scorers are back as is allHockey East freshman goalie Scott Clemmensen. As a result, the Eagles received THN&rsquo;s unanimous approval as the No. 1 team in U.S. college Division I hockey.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re pretty excited about it,&rdquo; said fifth-year BC coach Jerry York. &ldquo;A few short years ago, we were listed as one of the others.&ldquo;We have high aspirations based on the number of returning players and the quality of those players. We have really good team chemistry and our strength on the ice is excellent.&rdquo;Boston College will surely miss first team East all-America Reasoner, who led the NCAA with 33 goals and 73 points in 42 games. The Rochester, N.Y., native matured into a dominant college player last season. So much so, he made St. Louis&rsquo; opening night roster. Reasoner was St. Louis&rsquo; first pick, 14th overall, in the 1996 draft.But the Eagles return a pair of second team all-Americas in right winger-center Brian Gionta (62 points in 40 games as a freshman) and junior defenseman Mike Mottau (49 points in 40 games).York also welcomes back five other forwards who scored 10 or more goals. They include junior Blake Bellefeuille (19 goals), sophomore Mike Lephart (15), senior Andy Powers (12), junior Tony Hutchins (12) and junior Jeff Farkas (11). &ldquo;We&rsquo;re balanced up front,&rdquo; York said.UMass-Lowell River Hawks&rsquo; coach Tim Whitehead said Gionta was a &ldquo;great vice-president to Reasoner last year. Gionta and Mottau are as good a combination as you&rsquo;re going to find.&rdquo;York called the diminutive Gionta &ldquo;relentless. There&rsquo;s no quit in him at all.&rdquo;The 5-foot-7 Gionta, Hockey East&rsquo;s rookie of the year last season, led the Eagles with six game-winning goals and was tied for the team lead in power play goals with 12.&ldquo;He can break a game open,&rdquo; said Maine Black Bears&rsquo; coach Shawn Walsh. &ldquo;He combines terrific skill with tremendous competitiveness. He fights for every inch on the ice.&rdquo;As good a group of forwards as BC has, York said his defense corps is his team&rsquo;s strength.&ldquo;This group of six defensemen is the best group I have ever coached,&rdquo; said York, who is in his 27th year of coaching including stints at Clarkson and Bowling Green.His blueline corps possesses a nice blend of speed and size and plenty of offensive firepower. Sophomore Bobby Allen contributed 28 points in 40 games and sophomore Rob Scud-eri had 24 in 42 games.Clemmensen, who hails from Urbandale, Iowa, gave the Eagles the goaltending they needed as he was 24-9-4 with a 2.78 goals-against average and .884 save percentage.York said he would like to see better special teams&rsquo; play out of his Eagles this season. BC&rsquo;s power play operated at 26.5 per-cent efficiency a year ago and the shorthanded units killed off 85 per cent of opposing power plays. Both figures were near the top of the league.The league&rsquo;s coaches voted the Eagles an overwhelming choice to claim the regular season crown. They received eight of the nine first-place votes. Maine received the other.The North Dakota Fighting Sioux and Colorado College Tigers of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association will push Boston College for top spot in the nation.The Ohio State Buckeyes and Michigan Wolverines of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association round out the top five.&ldquo;BC has a terrific defense,&rdquo; Walsh said. &ldquo;They skate very well as a team and they have three or four guys who can create problems individually for any team.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0025-01

EAGLES SOAR

<div class="byline">By Tom Boogie</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-01977/7133745-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Clarkson&rsquo;s Willie Mitchell has a shot that&rsquo;s heard around the league. (Photo courtesy Clarkson University)</figcaption></div>There&rsquo;s no question Willie Mitchell has one of the hardest shots in college hockey. But even Clarkson coach Mark Morris wasn&rsquo;t sure how hard Mitchell&rsquo;s shot was until one night last winter at Cheel Arena.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen guys break glass with a shot, but I&rsquo;ve never seen anyone shoot the puck right through the glass,&rdquo; Morris said. &ldquo;Willie did it here.&rdquo;Mitchell, a 6-foot-4, 215-pound sophomore defenseman for the Golden Knights, has already made his presence felt around the Eastern College Athletic Conference. Last year, he and teammate Erik Cole shared top rookie honors. Mitchell could make a run at the MVP award this season.An eighth round draft pick of the New Jersey Devils in 1996, Mitchell had an outstanding rookie season. He was Clarkson&rsquo;s highest-scoring defenseman with nine goals, 17 assists and a team-high plus-25 rating.The native of Port McNeill, B.C., also picked up 105 penalty minutes.&ldquo;He came from a league (the Saskatchewan Junior League) where he could give the occasional facial massage and knock people down in front of the net,&rdquo; Morris said. &ldquo;He was called for a lot more penalties than he was used to and we&rsquo;re trying to curb that, but at the same time, we don&rsquo;t want to take the fight out of his game.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you, I wouldn&rsquo;t want to be in front when he&rsquo;s cleaning house.&rdquo;Mitchell&rsquo;s 72-year-old grandfather, Les, still plays for the Pogusa Panthers in an over-70 league in Parksville, B.C. And even though Willie has his eye on a future in pro hockey, his primary goal right now is being a student/athlete at Clarkson.&ldquo;I think you&rsquo;ll see Willie do some things that are real eye-openers. His offensive instincts are outstanding for a big man and he&rsquo;s never satisfied.&rdquo;Here&rsquo;s how things stack up in the ECAC this season. Teams are listed in predicted order of finish. Last year&rsquo;s league records, finishes and playoff fortunes are in parentheses. The top 10 teams make the playoffs.1. Clarkson Golden Knights (16-4-2, second place, lost league final, lost NCAA East Regional). Coach: Mark Morris. Kingpin: Sophomore defenseman Willie Mitchell, 21, is a good bet to turn pro after this season. Fresh face: Right winger Matt Poapst, 20, is more a playmaker than a scorer. Outlook: If one of the three freshman goalies has an immediate impact, the Golden Knights will be tough to catch.2. Yale Bulldogs (17-4-1, first place, lost league semifinal, lost NCAA West Regional). Coach: Tim Taylor: Kingpin: Junior center Jeff Hamilton, 21, had a breakout season as a sophomore, leading the conference in goals (27). Fresh face: Center Spencer Rogers, 20, is an outstanding forechecker who creates offense with aggressiveness. Outlook: Behind goa-lie Alex Westlund, Yale will be in the _ hunt for another regular-season title.3. RPI Engineers (11-7-4, third place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Dan Fridgen. Kingpin: Senior center Alain St. Hilaire, 23, is one of the best faceoff men in the league. Fresh face: Left winger Matt Murley, 19, was a top scorer in the Metro Toronto Jr. League the past two years. Outlook: The Engineers have two proven goalies in Scott Prekaski and Joal Laing, which will give them an edge over many league rivals.4. Harvard Crimson (10-11-1, fifth place, lost league semifinal). Coach: Ronn Tomassoni. Kingpin: Junior goalie J.R. Prestifilippo, 21, was limited to 23 games because of injuries last year. Fresh face: Kyle Clark, 19, a 6-foot-6, 210-pound right winger, comes to Harvard from the U.S. national program. Outlook: With 21 letter winners returning, Harvard should have one of the most consistent offenses in the league.5. Princeton Tigers (7-9-6, seventh place, won league title, lost NCAA West Regional). Coach: Don Cahoon. Kingpin: Center Jeff Halpern, 22, developed into a dangerous finisher as a junior. Fresh face: Center Brad Parsons, 19, has the speed and puck-handling skills to make an immediate impact. Outlook: The question is goaltending. Senior Nick Rankin and junior Craig Bradley have to fill Erasmo Saltarelli&rsquo;s skates.6. Cornell Big Red (9-12-1, eighth place, lost league semifinal). Coach: Mike Schafer. Kingpin: Senior right winger Kyle Knopp, 24, has not missed a game in three years, playing 102. Fresh face: Left winger Krzysztof Wieckowski, 20, has great size and offensive ability. Outlook: The Big Red shouldn&rsquo;t have any trouble scoring, but the defense is young and goalie Ian Burt has to prove he can fill in for Jason Elliot.7. St. Lawrence Saints (8-12-2, 10th place, lost first round). Coach: Joe Marsh. Kingpin: Senior goalie Erie Heffler, 23, was a pleasant surprise last season, compiling a 2.90 goals-against average and .917 save percentage. Fresh face: Right winger Brandon Dietrich, 20, will be expected to provide immediate offense. Outlook: The Saints are one of the youngest teams in the league and will improve as they gain more experience.8. Colgate Red Raiders (9-10 3, tied for fifth place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Dan Vaughan. Kingpin: Senior center Jed Whitchurch, 23, was 17th in the nation in assists per game (.82). Fresh face: Jason Lefebvre, 19, is a highly recruited goalie from Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. Outlook: The defense must stay out of penalty trouble if Colgate is going to bounce back from last year&rsquo;s second-half collapse.9. Brown Bears (11-9-2, fourth place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Roger Grillo. Kingpin: Junior goalie Steve Stirling, 22, finished fifth in the nation in save percentage last season (.922). Fresh face: Defenseman Josh Barker, 20, could step right in an and make an impact on the blueline. Outlook: Brown lost several productive seniors to graduation and will have to find a way to score if it wants to get in the playoff picture.10. Vermont Catamounts (711-4, ninth place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Mike Gilligan. Kingpin: After a slow start last year, senior left winger Stephane Piche, 23, had a team-high 11 goals. Fresh face: Defenseman Mark Gouett, 19, should be able to contribute right away. Outlook: The Catamounts have to jumpstart their scoring if they&rsquo;re going to be a threat. They averaged fewer than three goals a game last season.11. Union Dutchmen (4-15-3, 12th place, missed playoffs). Coach: Kevin Sneddon: Kingpin: Senior goalie Leeor Shtrom, 23, gets a chance to play full time, after backing up Trevor Koenig for three years. Fresh face: Brandon Snee, 19, was a draft eligible goalie who chose the college route. Outlook: Inexperience hurt the Dutchmen last season. Maturity should make the scores closer.12. Dartmouth Big Green. (712-3, 11th place, missed playoffs). Coach: Bob Gaudet. Kingpin: Junior goalie Eric Almon, 21, has the ninthbest career goals-against average (3.27) in team history. Fresh face: Center Matt Maturo, 18, has great speed and led Belmont Hill (Mass.) in scoring for two years. Outlook: Defense and goaltending will be strengths, but inexperience will hurt. &#9632;

f0026-01

The Mighty Mitchell

<div class="byline">By Larry Mahoney</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0027-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01929/7133776-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">When New Hampshire&rsquo;s Jason Krog gets the puck, opponents start the chase. (Photo courtesy University of New Hampshire)</figcaption></div>He isn&rsquo;t big and he doesn&rsquo;t overpower opponents, but New Hampshire center Jason Krog didn&rsquo;t let his smallish 5-foot-ll frame prevent him from being one of the most valuable players in college hockey last season.Krog, who had 33 goals in 38 games in 199798, led New Hampshire to the NCAA Final Four, losing in the semi-finals, and was rewarded by being named a Hobey Baker Award finalist.As he prepares to start his senior year, Krog would love nothing more than to win two more NCAA games than the Wildcats did a year ago.Winning the Hobey Baker Award would be nice, too, but&hellip;&ldquo;I&rsquo;m more worried about the team,&rdquo; said the Femie, B.C., native and team captain. &ldquo;If the team does well, the individual stuff follows.&rdquo;Krog acknowledges that with the team&rsquo;s second-, third-and fourth-leading scorers departed, there will be added pressure on him. He wants to add a more physical presence to his game.&ldquo;Every year, I expect more out of myself,&rdquo; Krog said. &ldquo;I know the college game better each year. I want to get more physically involved and improve the defensive portion of my game.&rdquo;Northeastern coach Bruce Crowder called Krog a &ldquo;game-breaker&rdquo; with deceptive speed.UMass-Lowell coach Tim Whitehead agreed.&ldquo;We played them before Christmas last year and thought we had done a great job on him,&rdquo; Whitehead said. &ldquo;Then he gets two goals in the last three minutes. He&rsquo;s explosive.&rdquo;UMass-Amherst coach Joe Mallen calls him the ultimate sharp-shooter. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t seen a guy in a long time who can put the puck precisely where he wants to like he can.&rdquo;Krog has also proven to be a clutch player as he led his team in game-winning goals with eight last season. He had four shorthanded goals and six on the power play.&ldquo;Not only does he have all the skills, he has the dedication to go with it,&rdquo; said former New Hampshire assistant and first-year Merrimack College coach Chris Serino.The 22-year-old Krog said he was &ldquo;ove-whelmed&rdquo; by being named a Hobey Baker finalist. The man with 60 goals and 153 career points has not been drafted by an NHL team and would. like to pursue a pro career as a free agent after this season.But first things first.Here&rsquo;s how things measure up in Hockey East this season. Teams are listed in predicted order of finish. Last year&rsquo;s league records, fin-ishes and playoff fortunes in parentheses. Eight teams qualify for the playoffs.1. Boston College Eagles (15-5-4, sec-ond place, won league title, lost NCAA final). Coach Jerry York. Kingpin: Sophomore center Brian Gionta, 19, is 5-foot-7 and 160 pounds of tireless aggression who makes everybody around him better. Fresh face: Center Jeff Giu-liano, 19, is a 5-10, 200-pounder who possesses strength and quickness. Outlook: The Eagles lost leading scorer Marty Reasoner to the St. Louis Blues, but they return the next eight leading scorers. That&rsquo;s why the Eagles will find themselves in another NCAA title game.2. Maine Black Bears (10-11-3, sixth place, lost league final). Coach: Shawn Walsh. Kingpin: Senior right winger Steve Kariya, 20, has combined elusiveness, tenacity and work ethic into back-to-back 50-point seasons. Fresh face: Left winger Barrett Heisten, 18, is a hard-nosed winger with an exceptional work ethic.The Bears have added what Walsh termed &ldquo;our best recruiting class since the national champi-onship team (1992-93).&rdquo; Maine should contend for the league and the NCAA title.Outlook: Maine returns 12 of its top 14 scorers.3. New Hampshire Wildcats (15-8-1, third place, lost league quarterfinal, lost NCAA semifinal). Coach: Dick Umile. Kingpin: Senior center Jason Krog, 22, is a terrific playmaker and scorer who was a Hobey Baker Award finalist last year. Fresh face: Center Darren Haydar, 18, is a shifty 5-foot-9,160-pounder who will evolve into a top Hockey East scorer. Outlook: The Wildcats lost three of their top four scorers, but they have veteran goalie Sean Matile and his 25 wins back along with one of the most experi-enced defense corps in the country.4. Boston University Terriers (18-4-2, first place, lost league quarterfinal, lost NCAA East Regional). Coach: Jack Parker. Kingpin: Senior goalie Michel Larocque, 22, is a poised stand-up type who possesses a glittering 43-10-6 career record. Fresh face: Center Mike Pandolfo, 19, is the 6-foot-2, 215-pound broth-er of New Jersey Devils&rsquo; Jay. Mike can both shoot and dominate the comers. Outlook: The Terriers lost Hobey Baker winner Chris Drury and have freshmen and sophomores on defense. Watch for them to struggle early and peak late.5. Providence Friars (9-13-2, seventh place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Paul Pooley. Kingpin: Senior center Mike Omicioli, 22, is a quick, darting 5-foot-5, 160-pounder who is always near the puck. Fresh face: Left winger Marc Suderman, 20, is described by Pooley as a &ldquo;Brian Skrudland-type player,&rdquo; who understands the game and works hard. Outlook: The Friars could be a sleeper. They return 10 of their top 11 scorers, their entire defense corps and both goalies. They were eighth in the league in scoring and that&rsquo;s still a question mark.6. Northeastern Huskies (13-8-3, fourth place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Bruce Crowder. Kingpin: Right winger Billy Newson, 21, has game-breaking speed and scored four shorthanded goals a year ago. Fresh face: Defenseman Jim Fahey, 19, is a rugged 6-foot-1, 205-pounder who has good hockey sense and moves the puck well. Outlook: The Huskies were the surprise team a year ago and return a solid cast of veterans. But the Huskies are unproven in goal after all-American Marc Robitaille signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs.7. UMass-Lowell River Hawks (11-10-3, fifth place, lost league semifinal). Coach: Tim Whitehead. Kingpin: Senior left winger Doug Nolan, 22, is a &ldquo;great two-way player&rdquo; and a physical presence according to Whitehead. Fresh face: Defenseman Chris Gustafson, 19, is a smart player with good hockey sense and capable of playing in all situations. Outlook: The River Hawks will have a lot of new faces including several on defense. They will need a big year from senior goalie Scott Fankhouser while their young players develop.8. Merrimack Warriors (4-20-0, eighth place, lost league semifinal). Coach: Chris Seri-no. Kingpin: Senior center Rejean Stringer, 24, is a top-notch playmaker and leader who dished out 46 assists a year ago. Fresh face: Center Greg Classen, 21, is a good scorer expected to make an immediate impact. Outlook: The War-riors have a new coach, a 33-goal scorer in Kris Porter and a 24-goal scorer in Sandy Cohen. But the premature loss of defenseman Darrel Scov-ille to the Calgary Flames&rsquo; system and inconsis-tent goaltending will create problems.9. UMass-Amherst Minutemen (3-19-2, ninth place, missed playoffs). Coach: Joe Mallen. Kingpin: Junior Dean Stork, 23, is a hard-nosed defenseman who is most effective in his own end. clearing the front of the net. Fresh face: Center Jedd Crumb, 21, has exceptional hands and vision with a nose for the net. Outlook: The Min-utemen are rebuilding with 20 freshmen and sophomores on their 28-man roster. There are question marks everywhere. The only certainty is they&rsquo;ll struggle to make the playoffs. &#9632;

f0027-01

Krog leads Wildcat strike

<div class="byline">By Paul Harris</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-01966/7133807-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike York should finish with more than 200 points at Michigan State (Photo courtesy Michigan State)</figcaption></div>Creativity is what sets Mike York apart from other players in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association. In interviews, however, the Michigan State Spartans&rsquo; senior center comes across more modest than creative.&ldquo;I just take what the game gives. I don&rsquo;t try to do too much,&rdquo; said the Waterford, Mich., native.York, 20, has 147 points in 116 career games for the Spartans. He was the CCHA&rsquo;s second-leading scorer last season with 27 goals and 61 points in 40 games.&ldquo;He can score from anywhere,&rdquo; said Michigan State coach Ron Mason. &ldquo;He can score from behind the net, he can score on a slapshot.&rdquo;Ohio State center Hugo Boisvert watched York score two goals in last season&rsquo;s CCHA final, both from behind the net by banking pucks in off the pads of goaltender Jeff Maund in the Spartans&rsquo; 3-2 overtime victory.&rsquo; &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t expect him to do that again,&rdquo; Boisvert said.But a week later the Buckeyes got their revenge with an overtime win over Michigan State in the first round of the NCAA tournament. All of a sudden, what had been a storybook season for the Spartans was over.&ldquo;I was depressed,&rdquo; said York, a sixth round draft pick of the New York Rangers in 1997. &ldquo;Everything lost like that in a second.&rdquo;This season the 5-foot-10, 180-pound York and sophomore right winger Rustyn Dolyny will shoulder much of the Spartans&rsquo; offensive load.&ldquo;When (York) has the puck and has skating room, he can get to the net one-on-one as well as anyone I&rsquo;ve seen,&rdquo; Mason said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good team leader for us and is going to be the go-to guy up front this year.&rdquo;Said Ohio State coach John Markell: &ldquo;Mike York demands the respect he&rsquo;s given. He certainly is the premier player in the conference and maybe the whole country.&rdquo;York&rsquo;s Spartans will be hard-pressed to retain their regular season title. Here&rsquo;s a look at how things shape up in the CCHA this season. Teams are listed in predicted order of finish. Last year&rsquo;s league records, finishes and playoff fortunes are in parentheses. Eight of the 11 teams qualify for the playoffs.1. Ohio State Buckeyes (1910-1, third place, lost league final, lost NCAA semifinal). Coach: John Markell. Kingpin: Sophomore goalie Jeff Maund, 22, was spectacular in the Buckeyes&rsquo; late-season run as a freshman. Fresh face: Defenseman Jason Crain, 18, will get a taste of action right away. Outlook: The Buckeyes won&rsquo;t sneak up on anybody like they did a year ago, when they were picked to finish eighth. Veterans Hugo Boisvert, Eric Meloche and Chris Richards will lead the way.2. Michigan Wolverines (22-71, second place, lost league semi-final, won NCAA title). Coach: Red Berenson. Kingpin: Sophomore defenseman Mike Van Ryn, 19, was a first-round draft pick of the New Jersey Devils in June. Fresh face: Center Mike Comrie, 18, has tremendous offensive ability. He helped the St. Albert Saints win the Alberta Junior League title. Outlook: The loss of goalie Marty Turco and forwards Bill Muckalt and Matt Herr will bump the Wolverines down a small notch.3. Michigan State Spartans (21-5-4, first place, won league title, lost NCAA West Regional). Coach: Ron Mason. Kingpin: Senior center Mike York, 20, can score goals and create offense from anywhere on the ice. Fresh face: Sophomore goalie Joe Blackbum, 19, has the difficult job of replacing super stopper Chad Alban. Outlook: York will have to provide most of the offense. The Spartans always run a tight ship defensively, which goes a long way.4. Northern Michigan Wildcats (15-12-3, fourth place, lost league semifinal). Coach: Rick Com-ley. Kingpin: Senior center Buddy Smith, 23, is a small quick skater and an outstanding playmaker. Fresh face: Winger Bernie Sigrist, 18, had 28 goals and 72 points in 46 games for the Jr. A Wexford (Ont.) Raiders. Outlook: The Wildcats are predominately a veteran cast-they return eight of their top nine scorers from last season. It should be another solid season.5. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (12-14-4, seventh place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Dave Poulin. Kingpin: Junior center Ben Simon, 20, is developing into an outstanding playmaker and is taking on a leadership role. Fresh face: Center David Inman, 18, averaged almost a goal a game for the Wexford Raiders in Ontario. Outlook: Notre Dame should be vastly improved from last season, but they&rsquo;ll be hard-pressed to crack the CCHA&rsquo;s top four.6. Ferris State Bulldogs (1215-3, eighth place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Bob Daniels. Kingpin: Senior winger Joel Irwin, 23, led the Bulldogs with 15 goals and 34 points last season. Fresh face: Center Rob Collins, 20, was a scoring machine at the junior level for the Elmira (Ont.) Sugar Kings. Outlook: With eight senior forwards, the Bulldogs will score. They lost, however, defenseman Brett Colbome, who led the team with 37 points.7. Miami Redhawks (14-12-4, fifth place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Mark Mazzoleni. Kingpin: Junior center Dustin Whitecotton, 19, will have to pick up the offensive slack and contribute more than his eight goals in 37 games. Fresh face: Defenseman Ken Marsch, 19, was the North American League&rsquo;s top defenseman for the Danville Wings a year ago. Outlook: The Redhawks are talented offensively, but are young. They will slip a notch or two.8. Bowling Green Falcons (621-3, 11th place, missed playoffs). Coach: Buddy Powers. Kingpin: Senior winger Dan Price, 24, was the Falcons&rsquo; leading scorer last season. He had 14 goals and 30 points in 26 games. Fresh face: Center Greg Day, 21, practiced with the team the second half of last season after enrolling at Bowling Green. Outlook: You can bet on Powers&rsquo; team not having another last-place finish like 1997-98.9. Lake Superior State (12-144, sixth place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Scott Borek. Kingpin: Sophomore goalie Rob Galatiuk, 21, played in 28 games as a freshman and will be a workhorse again. Fresh face: Defenseman Will Magnuson, 18, is 6-foot-5, 234 pounds and played for the USA Hockey national under-18 team. Outlook: With 22 underclassmen, you won&rsquo;t be able to recognize the players without a program.10. Western Michigan Broncos (9-19-2, ninth place, missed playoffs). Coach: Bill Wilkinson. Kingpin: Junior defenseman Daryl Andrews, 21, is a dominant force on the blueline. The New Jersey Devils&rsquo; draft pick thinks defense first. Fresh face: Defenseman G.W. King, 19, is 6-foot-4, 204 pounds and played with the Jr. A Caledon (Ont.) Canadiens. Outlook: Who&rsquo;s going to score? Frank Novock, the only double-digit goal-scorer, is back, but five of the top six scorers aren&rsquo;t.11. Alaska-Fairbank Nanooks (7-20-3, 10th place, missed playoffs). Coach: Dave Laurion. Kingpin: Junior winger Sjon Wynia, 22, is a solid six feet, 202 pounds and tied for the team scoring lead a year ago. Fresh face: Winger Bobby Andrews, 20, from Langley of the B.C. Junior League will make an impact. Outlook: Laurion says the Nanooks will be better defensively. They gave up a league-high 138 goals last year. &#9632;

f0028-01

Creative genius

<div class="byline">By Andy Baggot</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0029-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-01855/7133838-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brian Swanson has Colorado College striving for a national title. (Photo by Casey Gibson)</figcaption></div>Look at the resume compiled by Brian Swanson and there is little doubt he is one of the marquee players in college hockey.The Colorado College center embarks on his senior season having twice won Western Collegiate Hockey Association scoring titles. He has been an all-league first-team choice three times. And with 63 goals and 103 assists, Swanson is on pace to become the fifth player in CC history to surpass 200 points for his career.More important is the fact Swanson has been a central figure in the emergence of the Tigers as a national power. During his tenure, CC has won a WCHA regular season title, twice advanced to the NCAA Final Four and compiled a stellar 84-33-11 record (.738).In spite of all that, Tigers&rsquo; coach Don Lucia would like to see his main man change his ways. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to see him have more of a swagger,&rdquo; Lucia said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s so unassuming. You&rsquo;d think he was a fourth-liner.&rdquo;That would be asking a lot. &ldquo;I see myself as pretty low key,&rdquo; Swanson said. &ldquo;I like to blend in with the crowd. I don&rsquo;t really see myself as a guy who&rsquo;ll go out and be cocky.&rdquo;Just good. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a legit Hobey Baker candidate,&rdquo; Lucia said of Swanson, his two-time team most valuable player. &ldquo;I would like to think he&rsquo;s one of the front-runners.&rdquo;But Swanson, 5-foot-10 and 185 pounds, knows to get there will require an upgrade. He said his focus this season will be on finding fifth gear and staying there every night.&ldquo;One of the biggest things I was lacking last year was consistency,&rdquo; Swanson said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d have a good night, then a bad night.&rdquo;In addition to Swanson, CC returns with right winger K.J. Voorhees, center Toby Peterson and left winger Darren Clark up front. Rookies are Trent Clark, Darren&rsquo;s brother, and Chris Hartsburg, the son of Mighty Ducks of Anaheim coach Craig Hartsburg.With a player as gifted and versatile as Swanson, the temptation is to play him often. Sometimes that backfires, which was the case during an NCAA first-round game against Clarkson last season. The Tigers won, but Lucia said Swanson was adversely affected the next day in a quarterfinal loss to Boston College.&ldquo;He played so much the first night, he was spent for BC,&rdquo; Lucia said.Swanson, a psychology major, was a fifth-round draft pick of the San Jose Sharks in 1994, but was dealt to the New York Rangers in 1996. His stated goal upon enrolling at CC was to play four years and get a degree. Swanson is on pace for all of that, but he would love a national championship ring to complete the picture.Colorado College will challenge the North Dakota Fighting Sioux for top spot in the WCHA. How interesting will the battle be? North Dakota is rated No. 2 in the nation in THN&rsquo;s pre-season poll, while CC is No. 3.Here&rsquo;s how the WCHA shapes up this season. Teams are listed in predicted order of finish. Last year&rsquo;s league records, finishes and playoff fortunes are in parentheses. All nine teams qualify for the playoffs and independent Mankato State will be seeded 10th to fill out the bracket.1. North Dakota Fighting Sioux (21-6-1, first place, lost league final, lost NCAA West Regional). Coach: Dean Blais. Kingpin: Senior center Jason Blake, 25, finished second in the scoring race last season. Fresh face: Defenseman Chad Mazu-rak, 20, will be asked to fill a void left by three graduating regulars. Outlook: Tlie Fighting Sioux are turbocharged up front with five top scorers returning and one of the top goalies in the nation in Karl Goehring.2. Colorado College Tigers (16-10-2, third place, lost second round, lost NCAA East Regional). Coach: Don Lucia. Kingpin: Senior center Brian Swanson, 22, led the league in scoring the past two seasons. Fresh face: Goalie Jeff Sanger, 20, will challenge for playing time immediately. Outlook: The Tigers will be explosive again, but now they feature more depth and experience than last season. They&rsquo;ll need quality goal tending from Sanger or Colin Zulianelloe.3. Wisconsin Badgers (17-10-1, second place, won league title, lost NCAA East Regional). Coach: Jeff Sauer. Kingpin: Junior center Steve Reinprecht, 22, is one of the best two-way forwards in the league. Fresh face: Winger Matt Doman, 18, should add grit, character and production to an offense that lost six forwards. Outlook: The Badgers will be strong defensively, but success will hinge on the team&rsquo;s rookie forwards.4. Minnesota Golden Gophers (12-16-0, sixth place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Doug Woog. Kingpin: Senior center Wyatt Smith, 21, led the team in goals and assists last season. Fresh face: Goalie Adam Hauser, 18, may be asked to calm a shaky situation in goal. Outlook: Injuries and a lack of depth hurt one of the proudest programs in the nation last year. The talent is there to produce a major turnaround, but there are several hurdles.5. Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs (14-12-2, fifth place, lost league semifinal). Coach: Mike Ser-tich. Kingpin: Junior goalie Brant Nicklin, 22, led the league in saves and had a school-record five shutouts last year. Fresh face: Rugged defenseman Kent Sauer, 19, will help fill the void left when underclassman Curtis Doell signed with the Florida Panthers. Outlook: The Bulldogs lost some key players, but have a veteran blueline corps on which to build.6. St. Cloud State Huskies (16-11-1, fourth place, lost league semifinal). Coach: Craig Dahl. Kingpin: Sophomore center Matt Noga, 22, was the only rookie in the league to lead his team in scoring. Fresh face: Forward Tyler Amason, 21, led the United States League with 82 points, including 37 goals, last season. Outlook: The Huskies can go toe-to-toe with a lot of teams up front, but they have some major rebuilding to do on defense.7. Denver Pioneers (8-18-2, eighth place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: George Gwozdecky. Kingpin: Senior center Paul Comrie, 21, is one of the most dangerous snipers in the league. Fresh face: Winger Matt Pet-tinger, 18, is a banger who will provide an immediate presence. Outlook: Until last season, it looked like Gwozdecky was building a model program. But a massive case of underachievement hit Denver, which allowed a league-high 4.25 goals per game.8. Michigan Tech Huskies (10-17-1, seventh place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Tim Watters. Kingpin: Junior center Riley Nelson, 21, becomes the focal point of an offense that absorbed heavy blows to graduation. Fresh face: Right winger Paul Cabana, 20, is expected to provide immediate goal-scoring help. Outlook: Tech should be better on defense, but this season will measure how well Watters, entering his third season, has recruited at forward.9. Alaska-Anchorage Seawolves (5-19-4, ninth place, lost league quarterfinal). Coach: Dean Talafous. Kingpin: Senior goalie Doug Teskey, 23, has thrived in a defense-first format. Fresh face: Center Jeff Carlson, 19, is a hometown product who provides a good scoring touch. Outlook: This is a watershed season for Talafous, whose supremely disciplined and defensive style has failed to show results and turned off fans in the process. &#9632;

f0029-01

Swanson’s swan song

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01967/7133869-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brian Gionta and No. 1 rated Boston College start the season Oct. 30. (Photo by J. Quackenbos)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0030-01

1998-99 NCAA LEAGUE SCHEDULES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0031-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-01888/7133900-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0031-01

<div class="byline">By Kevin Oklobzlja</div>When his Hartford Wolf Pack teammates joked about the old man on the team having a heart attack, Ken Gernander laughed right along with them.Sure, his chest hurt, but how could he not laugh? Professional hockey players do not have heart or respiratory ailments.Except when the pain became so unbearable he couldn&rsquo;t sleep, or when he&rsquo;d sit up in bed, then double over just to breathe easily. That&rsquo;s when Gemander stopped laughing and asked for help.&ldquo;I woke up one night, I was having trouble breathing and the pain was pretty bad,&rdquo; Gernander said, remembering the frightful night back in May. &ldquo;I told my wife,&rsquo;You better take me to the hospi-tal.&rsquo; &ldquo;While the Wolf Pack were tryS ing to devise a way to beat the&pound; Saint John Flames in the American League&rsquo;s Eastern Conference finals, doctors in Hartford were running tests on a seemingly perfectly &rsquo;Al healthy Gemander.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01514/7133931-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="453" height="454"></div>What they eventually found was a blood clot in Gemander&rsquo;s lung. He was admitted to the hospital, given an intravenous blood thinner and told he&rsquo;d be unable to have any type of contact until at least September. That meant no summer skate-and-shoots, no roller hockey, no baseball. Nothing where he could be cut or bruised.But after spending the entire summer taking a blood thinner orally, doctors cleared the seven-year pro to return to the New York Rangers&rsquo; training camp. An early cut by the Rangers, Gemander is again the Wolf Pack captain and says he&rsquo;s as healthy as ever.The clot apparently was just a fluke of nature, but the right winger admits he&rsquo;s lucky.&ldquo;The doctors said in about 10 per cent of the cases it&rsquo;s fatal,&rdquo; Gemander said. &ldquo;But the clot lodged in a real good spot in my lung where it didn&rsquo;t cause any permanent damage.&rdquo;He was also told the incident very likely was a one-time happening.&ldquo;I have nothing to worry about and it poses no long-term threat,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The doctors think I must have had a bruise in my leg and it formed a clot, broke away, went up through my heart and lodged in my lung.&ldquo;If 1 was 45, a smoker and I was overweight, then it would have been easier to understand. But they ran every kind of test possible on me to see how fast my blood clots. There&rsquo;s nothing in my medical background to worry about.&rdquo;Gemander, 29, was Hartford&rsquo;s leading goal-scorer last season with 35 and was second in points with 63, playing all 80 games. In 12 play-off games before being sidelined, he had five goals and 11 points.STICKING WITH ONE: While the NHL will experiment with two referees this season, the AHL will use just one. The reason: there aren&rsquo;t enough men in stripes.Rapid expansion at all levels of pro hockey, coupled with the retirement of NHL officials the past few years, has meant the development pool for officials has been stripped.&ldquo;The pool of available officials just isnn&rsquo;t there for us,&rsquo;&rsquo;said AHL president Dave Andrews. &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t considered using two&rsquo;because with the pressure on the system, we&rsquo;re lucky to have one referee. Our senior guys (such as Dennis LaRue. Stephen Walkom and Blaine Angus) will be working a lot of the two-referee games in the NHL.&rdquo;THANKS BUT NO THANKS: After being cut from his training-camp tryout with the Detroit Red Wings, veteran winger Petr Klima declined an invitation to play with the Adiron-dack Red Wings.Klima played for the Krefeld Pinguine of the German League last season, scoring seven goals and 19 points in 38 games.ALL-STAR DECISION: The AHL&rsquo;s board of governors is expected to decide by the end of October which team will host the 2000 All-Star Game-the Hartford Wolf Pack or Rochester Americans.&ldquo;Both buildings are excellent, the locations are good and the potential on the business side is good,&rdquo; Andrews said. &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t be an easy decision.&rdquo;Rochester has seniority working in its favor (43 seasons in the AHL compared to Hartford&rsquo;s two), but its proximity to Syracuse, which held the game last year, could work against it. &#9632;

f0040-01

Leader of the Pack returns after summer health scare

<div class="byline">By Kevin lole</div>The Utah Grizzlies suffered a major blow just prior to the start of the season when they learned they would be without prolific goal scorer Daniel Shank for as long as two months.The right winger was diagnosed with a damaged disk in his back after reporting to the Grizzlies following a training-camp stint with the Buffalo Sabres.Shank&rsquo;s options are to put off surgery until after the season, go through physical therapy and miss three weeks but risk injuring it more severely, or undergo surgery that would keep him out of the lineup for two months.Utah coach-GM Butch Goring said he wasn&rsquo;t certain what was next.&ldquo;1&rsquo;11 have to sit down with the doctors and hear what they say and go from there,&rdquo; Goring said. &ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t have enough information right now to know for sure what&rsquo;s going to happen.&rdquo;Shank has scored 240 goals over the past six International League seasons and has never scored fewer than 31.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02327/7133962-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg" title="f0040-02" width="746" height="302"></div>STURDY DOZEN: On the eve of the start of the regular season, the league finally announced its playoff format with several dramatic changes.For starters, just 12 clubs will qualify for the post-season (down from 16) and the top two point-getters in each conference get first-round byes.The first round will be a best-of-three format, a change from the best-of-five the past several years. It will be played either on a 1-1-1 homeroad-home basis or a 1-2 basis at the option of the higher-seeded team.The second round will be a best-of-five, another change. In the past, all IHL series after the first round were best-of-seven. The best-of-five second round will be played in a 2-2-1 format.The conference finals and the Turner Cup final will remain best-of-seven series. If the teams are located within 300 miles of each other, the format will be a 2-2-1-1-1. However, if they are more than 300 miles apart, it will be 2-3-2 unless the higher-seeded team is willing to pick up the difference in extra travel costs incurred.Since 1994, the IHL has had 16 teams qualify for the post-season. But when the Quebec Rafales suspended operations and the San Anto-nio Dragons folded during the summer, the league was reduced to 16 teams and the gover-nors had to overhaul the format.Byes were given to the teams with the most points in the conference and not the division winners because the scheduling is so heavily weighted towards conference play.Las Vegas Thunder GM Bob Strumm said there would be a tough playoff battle down the stretch.&ldquo;There a lot of good teams in (the Western Conference) and two pretty good hockey teams are going to be sitting at home when the play-offs start,&rdquo; Strumm said.WE HARDLY KNEW v YE: Chris McSoriey&rsquo;sr tenure as an assistant coach&rsquo; with the Detroit Vipers was short, lasting less than two weeks. The former Las Vegas coach joined the Vipers in early September, but didn&rsquo;t last through the month.McSorley and Vipers&rsquo; GM John Torchetti said the move was a financial one. McSorley said the Vipers were only offering $20,000.McSorley vehemently denied rumors the Vipers fired him and said there were a number of people around the league who dislike him because of the physical style he employed when he coached Las Vegas.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a great organization and there are no hard feelings-none,&rdquo; McSorley said of the Vipers.I-OPENERS: Several teams benefitted as NHL teams trimmed their rosters: the Phoenix Coyotes assigned right winger J.F. Jomphe to Las Vegas; the Chicago Wolves continued their close association with the Toronto Maple Leafs, receiving swift-skating forward Niklas Andersson; the Colorado Avalanche assigned goaltender Peter Franek to Utah; the Los Angeles Kings sent goaltender Manny Legace to the Long Beach Ice Dogs; and the Milwaukee Admirals, who just recently became the primary affiliate of Nashville, received center Craig Darby from the Predators. &#9632;

f0040-02

Back-breaker for Grizzlies as sniper Shank sidelined

<div class="byline">By John Packett</div>The East Coast League has instituted a whistleblowers program this season to encourage people to turn in any team that violates league bylaws. But they didn&rsquo;t need a snitch to catch the Pensacola Ice Riots red-handed.When Pensacola president Charles Felix learned his players had been promised &ldquo;significant&rdquo; playoff bonuses during 1997-98 in connection with winning post-season games, he immediately notified the league office.Felix found out about the proposed bonus payment structure to each member of the team from Neil Hoyt, vice-president of business operations for the Ice Pilots. Hoyt had heard from team members, who complained they had not been paid the bonus.The bonuses were never paid, according to the Ice Pilots.Under terms of the collective bargaining agreement with the Professional Hockey Players Association, players receive bonuses from the league based on how far they advance in the playoffs. The bonus offered by Pensacola was over and above that permitted by league regulations.Because Felix reported the violations to the league and Pensacola co-operated fully in the investigation, Richard Adams, president and Uvll, unuuino, voiuvi 11 uiiu CEO of the ECHL, acted leniently, fining the Ice Pilots $25,000. Adams also reprimanded David Berkman, CEO of the franchise, and Joe Bucchino, GM of hockey operations.&ldquo;To their credit, they came forward and brought the matter to the league&rsquo;s attention,&rdquo; Adams said. &ldquo;We sanctioned them accordingly.&rdquo;Adams said the whistle-blowers program was approved at the annual meeting in an effort toget people to turn in any ECHL club that violates bylaws.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-03235/7133993-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="408" height="429"></div>CHILLING OUT: The Columbus Chill announced in late September an agreement to sell the franchise to? SMG, a joint-venture company of the Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels and Philadelphia-based ARAMARK Corporation.The sale will be consummated at the end of 1998-99, which will be the Chill&rsquo;s last in Columbus. Following the completion of the sale, which is subject to the approval of the ECHL board of governors, the franchise will suspend operations and re-open in a new market.The market, which will be determined by the board of governors and the new owners, appears to be either Reading, Pa., or Adantic City, N.J. The eight-year-old Chill is leaving Columbus to make way for the NHL&rsquo;s Blue Jackets, scheduled to begin play in 2000-2001.SITTING FOR SEVEN: Tallahassee Tiger Sharks&rsquo; right winger Brent Cullaton will miss the first seven games of the season while serving a suspension handed down by Andy Van Hellemond, the league&rsquo;s senior vice-president of hockey operations. Cullaton, while playing for the Peoria Rivermen last season, got into an altercation with Mark Garcea, majority owner of Hampton Roads, at the conclusion of the first round playoff series between the clubs in Norfolk. &#9632;

f0040-03

Ice Pilots turn themselves in for bonus violation

<div class="byline">By Jim Cressman</div>A plane trip to Japan proved to be Rico Fata&rsquo;s ticket to the NHL.The 18-year-old right winger accompanied the Calgary Flames to Japan to begin tire regular season with two games against the San Jose Sharks.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an unbelievable feeling,&rdquo; said Fata, the Flames&rsquo; first-round pick in last June&rsquo;s entry draft. &ldquo;This has all gone really quick. I never expected to be here right now. My goal was to try and make the club, with the big word try.&rdquo;Fata&rsquo;s gain is the London Knights&rsquo; loss. Imagine their reaction when they got word he wouldn&rsquo;t be rejoining them.He scored 43 goals last season as the Knights went from worst in the Canadian Hockey League to first in the Ontario League West and then made it to the OHL final four.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s good for the organization,&rdquo; said Knights&rsquo; coach-GM Gary Agnew. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to know there has been some development of a player to the National Hockey League. But again, I question whether an 18-year-old-and I&rsquo;m not specifically talking about Rico-is ready for the psychological and emotional rigors of the NHL.&rdquo;The Knights were off to a 1-3-0 start without Fata and offensive stars Max Spiridonov (54 goals last season) and Mark Cadotte (39 goals).The Latter two graduated from major junior during the off-season.&ldquo;Now we have to&mdash;&rsquo; move forward,&rdquo; Agnew said. &ldquo;Not that we haven&rsquo;t been doing that. But we&rsquo;re still strug-gling. We&rsquo;re fighting through a lot of things.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01425/7134024-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="744" height="254"></div>MANNY MANIA: The Guelph Storm learned through the media that 18-year-old center Manny Malhotra would begin the season with the New York Rangers.Storm GM Alan Millar said in situations like this there usually is a lack of communication between the NHL and junior team.&ldquo;We never officially heard any word,&rdquo; Millar said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re just going by what everyone is telling us and what we&rsquo;re reading.&ldquo;Obviously it leaves a big hole in our lineup. At the same time, we can&rsquo;t dwell on it. You have to concentrate on the 22 who are here.&rdquo;Millar said he&rsquo;ll reserve judgement on a team&rsquo;s decision to retain an 18-year-old in the NHL. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to be upset or frustrated until we find out how Manny is going to be utilized,&rdquo; Millar said. &ldquo;If he plays and has success, more power to him.&ldquo;But from examples in the past, you see an 18-year-old sitting in the stands, then he&rsquo;s sent to the (American League) for two weeks of con-ditioning, then he&rsquo;s back (in the NHL) playing two or three shifts a game. That&rsquo;s when frustra-tion sets in.&rdquo;FAN-TASTIC: The Ottawa 67&rsquo;s drew a club record 10,500 spectators for their home opener Oct. 2.Counting the fans in the private boxes, the 67&rsquo;s estimated 11,000 were in the building for an 11-1 win over the Mississauga IceDogs.IceDogs&rsquo; owner Don Cherry made a guest appearance during the on-ice pre-game ceremo-ny, which included a presentation to 67&rsquo;s coach Brian Kilrea for his 800th victory.&ldquo;I was so nervous, it felt like my first game as a rookie,&rdquo; said veteran Dan Tessier, who scored two goals in the win.NO GARDENS PARTY: While the 67&rsquo;s were turning people away, the Toronto St. Michael&rsquo;s Majors were begging people to attend a game the same night.Only 861 turned up at Maple Leaf Gardens to see the Majors lose 9-4 to the Owen Sound Platers.The Majors drew 2,735 a week earlier for their home opener against the 67&rsquo;s.With the Toronto Maple Leafs moving to the Air Canada Centre in February, the Majors decided to move all their home games to the Gardens from the smaller St. Mike&rsquo;s Arena. &#9632;

f0041-01

Knights looking for answers after losing Fata to NHL

<div class="byline">By Gordie Sutherland</div>The pipeline continues to flow from Wilcox, Sask., to Rimouski, Que.For the third straight season, the Rimouski Oceanic has added a player from famed Notre Dame College in Saskatchewan.First it was Vincent Lecavalier, then it was Brad Richards and now it&rsquo;s Jan-Philippe Cadieux, a small but skilled winger.&ldquo;Brad was our scout (for Cadieux) and Vince did the same for Brad,&rdquo; said Rimouski coach Doris Labonte. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a good connection.&rdquo;Cadieux, 5-foot-8 and 174 pounds, made the team as a free agent. Although he&rsquo;s originally from Ste-Therese, Qi Cadieux spent most of his life Switzerland where his father, Paul-Andre, played pro and now coaches.Lecavalier, Cadieux, 18, friends while same line at Notre Dame.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s small, but he has good hockey sense and he&rsquo;s a Richards and became good playing on the good skater,&rdquo; Labonte said.Cadieux came to Rimouski at a good time. The team lost eight of its top 10 scorers from last season and is rebuilding up front.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02257/7134055-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="555" height="504"></div>The idea of Cadieux trying out with the Oceanic came up this past January.&ldquo;We were joking around, yeah, it would be nice for me to go to Rimouski to see if I could play with my old friends,&rdquo; Cadieux said. &ldquo;Then I started talking to Brad and he described to me how good of a place and an organization Rimouski is. We never took it that seriously until one day, Brad said,&rsquo;Now I&rsquo;m going to give you a phone number of the (GM) in Rimouski. Call him.&rdquo;Richards has at times played on the same line as Cadieux, who is adjusting well to major junior.&ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s going to come into his own,&rdquo; Richards said. &ldquo;Even right now, he&rsquo;s playing like a veteran.&rdquo;TEEN SPIRIT: Vincent Lecavalier of the Tampa Bay Lightning wasn&rsquo;t the only teenager from the Quebec League to make the grade in the NHL pre-season.Eighteen-year-old Jonathan Girard was expected to start the season with the Boston Bru-ins while Alex Tanguay of the Halifax Moose-heads surpassed expectations with the Colorado Avalanche and made the team&rsquo;s 24-man roster.But Colorado and Tanguay&rsquo;s agent, Kent Hughes, failed to reach a contract agreement by the midnight Oct. 7 deadline.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we were ever at a point where either side was really encouraged,&rdquo; said Hughes, who wouldn&rsquo;t get into the specifics of the con-tract talks.&ldquo;Alex can&rsquo;t play in the NHL this year. He has to play junior hockey, so all that&rsquo;s really ahead of us now is to, over the course of time, sit down and look at this issue again and hopefully come to an agreement.&rdquo;Colorado holds his rights, but Tanguay, who turns 19 Nov. 21, is eligible to become an unrestricted free agent June 1, 2000. With five goals in eight exhibition games, Tanguay tied Chris Drury and Milan Hejduk for the team lead.Colorado selected Tanguay, an 18-year-old forward, 12th overall this past June.Girard, meanwhile, signed a three-year deal with the Bruins on Sept. 25. He scored 67 points in 64 games last season with the Laval Titan, who moved to Bathurst, N.B., in the off-season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very happy for him,&rdquo; said Bathurst coach Dino Masanotti. &ldquo;He works hard. We&rsquo;ll see what&rsquo;s going to happen.&rdquo;MOOSE ON LOOSE: Even without Alex Tanguay, the Mooseheads won nine of their first 10 games.First-year Halifax coach Bob Mongrain downplays the team&rsquo;s early success, however.&ldquo;For us, what&rsquo;s important is to progress as a team,&rdquo; said Mongrain, who coached in Sher-brooke for two years before resigning at the end of last season. &ldquo;We want consistency and right now we&rsquo;re having it.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0041-02

Cadieux follows mates’ steps from Notre Dame to Rimouski

<div class="byline">By Rob Vanstone</div>Steve Gainey, like his famous father, is not known for his offense.But the 19-year-old son of Hall of Famer Bob Gainey was conspicuous on the scoresheet early in the Western League season. The Kamloops Blazers&rsquo; left winger had six goals in six games.&ldquo;I really wasn&rsquo;t expecting this,&rdquo; Gainey said. &ldquo;I was just going to come back, do my job defensively, keep it simple and work on the things I need to work on to move on in hockey.&ldquo;The puck seems to be bouncing my way, so I&rsquo;ll take them where I can get them.&rdquo;Gainey was asked if the goals were highlightreel material.&ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re just lucky rebound goals, goals that I get from driving to the net and goals that result from good passes from my linemates. There&rsquo;s nothing spectacular yet.&rdquo;Bob Gainey wasn&rsquo;t spectacular, but he did amass 239 goals during 16 NHL seasons as a premier two-way forward with the Montreal Canadiens.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-03193/7134086-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="407" height="416"></div>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think comparisons with my dad will go away,&rdquo; Gainey said. &ldquo;People look at what a good player he was and remember how much they enjoyed watching him play.&ldquo;The comparisons aren&rsquo;t a bad thing, but it&rsquo;s nice to do things on my own.&rdquo;The senior Gainey is now the Dallas Stars&rsquo; GM. Dallas selected Steve Gainey in the third round of the 1997 draft. He went on to score 21 goals last season.&ldquo;Training camp with Dallas was a lot of fun and I learned a lot,&rdquo; Gainey said. &ldquo;Coming back here, the pace felt a lot slower. That helped me to relax more on the ice and see the play a lot better. That has helped me get off to a good start.&rdquo;RED-HOT RAIDER: Prince Albert Raiders&rsquo; right winger Cory Morgan is enjoying an offensive breakthrough.As of Oct. 5, Morgan boasted a league-high seven goals after five games. His 10 points tied him with the Brandon Wheat Kings&rsquo; Brad Twordik and the Swift Current Broncos&rsquo; Jere-my Rondeau for the WHL scoring lead.&ldquo;It seems like every shot I take goes in,&rdquo; mar-velled Morgan, 20, who had 18 goals last sea-son. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what it is.&rdquo;Morgan has excelled alongside linemates Derek Paget and David Cameron. That trio helped Prince Albert, which was 20-47-5 last season, start 1998-99 at 4-1-0.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s amazing the way the team is playing,&rdquo; Morgan said. &ldquo;Everything&rsquo;s working well. But it&rsquo;s only five games, so I don&rsquo;t want to get too excited.&rdquo;QUICK HITS: The Calgary Hitmen set a league record for the fastest two goals when Pavel Brendl and Brad Moran scored two seconds apart Oct. 3 in a 6-4 victory over the Red Deer Rebels.Brendl snapped a 4-4 tie with 20 seconds left in the third period. Red Deer immediately pulled goalie Dustin Schwartz for an extra attacker. Moran scored off the ensuing faceoff.The previous record of three seconds had been accomplished four times. Most recently, Doug Kostynski and Doug Saunders had rapid-fire goals March 6, 1983 as the Kamloops Junior Oilers bounced the Portland Winter Hawks 11-3.NOTEBOOK: Kamloops traded left winger Wade Burt, 19, to the Kootenay Ice Oct. 1 for a fourth round pick in the 1999 bantam draft&hellip;Ice rookie Jarret Stoll, 16, had five goals and eight points after five games&hellip;Kamloops rookie goalie Kenric Exner. 19, was the season&rsquo;s first player-of-the-week. He had a 1.78 goals-against average, a 2-0-2 record, a .933 save percentage and one shutout through games of Oct. 3&hellip;Swift Current Broncos&rsquo; center Jeremy Reich ended up with a five-game suspension for checking Moose Jaw defenseman Craig Strain from behind and into the boards Sept. 26. Reich, who was taken to hospital, suffered a sprained back. &#9632;

f0041-03

Gainey off to blazing start with surprising goal surge

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01453/7134124-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01349/7134117-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg" title="f0044-01" width="3379" height="4022"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Yzerman&acute;s Red Wings finish the regular season at Chicago&acute;s United Center April 17.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0043-01

1998-99 NHL SCHEDULE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0045-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01283/7134162-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01277/7134155-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg" title="f0046-01" width="3373" height="4004"></div> &#9632;

f0045-01

NHL PRE-SEASON

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-02207/7134224-1-eng-US/f0047-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

Search for your favorite player or team

October 23, 1998

Bruins won’t Carey Jim

NHL ROSTERS AND TRANSACTIONS

From Hart to Hartless: Our award picks

Predators go for wayward winger in waiver draft