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.

April 2, 1999

The Hockey News April 2, 1999

<div class="byline">By Tim Buckley</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-011007/7237699-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="160" height="161"></div>The Tampa Bay Lightning will give Corey Schwab a chance.Lightning coach-GM Jacques Demers has declared Schwab will work as the Lightning&rsquo;s No. 1 goalie for the remainder of this season, an opportunity that allows the popular and personable 28-year-old to prove he should hold the same title when next season begins.&ldquo;Goaltending is the most sensitive issue this team faces,&rdquo; said Demers, whose last-place Lightning had used five goalies this season. &ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t know what will happen, but Corey Schwab is going to be given every opportunity to win the job.&rdquo;It is a chance Schwab wants and an opportunity he deserves. And it is the chance to show he deserves to hold down the job it seems no one else can, at least not for long.&ldquo;This is what I&rsquo;ve been preparing myself for my whole career; a chance to play, and play every night,&rdquo; said Schwab, *a career-long backup, first behind Martin Brodeur in 1995-96 with the New Jersey Devils, and then for the past two seasons in Tampa Bay. &ldquo;I realize the opportunity is there. And I know I have to win some hockey games to show I can be a No. 1 goalie.&rdquo;Schwab was well on his way to doing just that as the NHL trade dead line approached. He had given up two goals or fewer in six of seven starts, beginning with a 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers Feb. 26 and running through a 2-0 loss to the Pitts burgh Penguins March 17.His seven wins in 29 games led the team. Other goalies who have played for the Lightning this season are Bill Ranford, Daren Puppa, Derek Wilkin son and prospect Zac Bierk.NOTEBOOK: The Lightning made a minor deal March 18, sending left winger Brent Peterson to Pittsburgh for unspecified future considerations. Peterson bounced between the minors and the NHL since being drafted out of Michigan Tech in 1993. Upon acquiring him, the Penguins assigned Peterson to Grand Rapids of the Internation al League&hellip;Defenseman Kjell Samuelsson returned from a shoulder separation and right winger Michael Nylander returned from a leave of absence due to the death of his father in Sweden, so after Tampa Bay&rsquo;s 2-0 loss to Pittsburgh March 17 and before its March 19 game against Detroit the Lightning returned defenseman Andrei Skopinstev to Cleveland of the IHL. &#9632;

f0024-01

NHL TEAMS

Schwab to be given chance to win No. 1 goaltender job

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01468/7238357-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0043-01

IN THIS ISSUE

SCOREBOARD

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender Staff Writer</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011678/7236730-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Goalie Ed Belfour knows first-hand how playoff failure can obscure regular season accomplishments. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div>This late in the season, it&rsquo;s best to save superlatives for the playoffs. No self-respecting team wants to be called great based on its regular season.So what does that make the Dallas Stars? A fine club that could be on its way to something very special. However, should this spring bring a repeat of their past two post-season dead ends, their reputation will not be so fine.Or maybe it will be even finer.As in shredded.Dallas captain Mike Modano acknowledged that if the Stars fail to bring Stanley home-if not this year, then sometime soon-they would be recognized as one of the best (maybe the very best) never to win the Cup.&ldquo;I think everybody would think that way,&rdquo; Modano said.&rsquo;1 think a lot of the guys around here would, too. With the changes we&rsquo;ve made in the last three, four years and the consistency we&rsquo;ve brought every night to play, it would be disappointing.&ldquo;I think (the Stanley Cup) is something we&rsquo;ve been building for and we all know that&rsquo;s the real part of what we&rsquo;re shooting for here.&rdquo;Hockey historian Ernie Fitzsimmons said the Chicago Blackhawks and New York Rangers of the late 1960s and early 1970s were top teams who couldn&rsquo;t win the big one. Boston Bruin teams in the 1930s with Eddie Shore and in the 1970s with Bobby Orr won the Cup, but not as many as they should have. The Detroit Red Wings were earning a reputation as all-time chokers before back-to-back titles the past two seasons.Which brings us to Dallas. Barring an epic collapse, the Stars will finish first overall for the second straight year. Eight other teams have done that since 1967 expansion. Seven won the Cup in at least one of the two years.The Wings of 1994-95 and 1995-96 are the only exceptions; they won it the two subsequent years.<h2>Burn-out not an issue: Hitchcock</h2>Dallas will make trivia history if they don&rsquo;t win it this year or next.Members of the Wings in 1996 and, more recently, the New Jersey Devils have said how their determination to finish first overall left them out of breath for the playoffs. Stars&rsquo; coach Ken Hitchcock vows that if his team loses, fatigue won&rsquo;t be the reason.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to have no excuses from the standpoint of physical and mental preparation,&rdquo; Hitchcock said. &ldquo;Everything we&rsquo;re doing now and everything we&rsquo;ve been doing for the past six weeks has been getting ready for playoffs.&rdquo;As of March 19, Dallas was on pace for the highest three-year average point total (110) since the Edmonton Oilers from 1983-84 through 1985-86 (116). After 67 games this year, they were on pace to finish with 117 points, which would also give them the third-best full season winning percentage (.716) of the 1990s. Save for the 1995 and 1995 96 Wings, you&rsquo;d have to go through 218 teams over the past nine seasons before finding a more impressive record.Consistent? Like the wheel is round. In a season of dramatic highs and lows for teams such as the Philadelphia Flyers and Colorado Avalanche, the Stars&rsquo; worst five-game stretch all year has been 2-1-2. At 42-13-12, they had lost two games in a row exactly twice.&ldquo;As a team, I think they&rsquo;re the best,&rdquo; said Flyers&rsquo; coach Roger Neilson. &ldquo;They forecheck when they should and they trap when they should.&rdquo;But will regular season consistency mean anything in the post-season?&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think so,&rdquo; Neilson said. &ldquo;Nobody&rsquo;s going to slump in the play offs anyway, it just doesn&rsquo;t happen.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011748/7236723-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="1963" height="1268"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dallas coach Ken Hitchcock says league standings for goals against are the only ones he cares about. (Photo by Rocky Widner)</figcaption></div>Stars&rsquo; GM Bob Gainey doesn&rsquo;t necessarily disagree. He thinks the dynamic of a best-of-seven series against one team is fundamentally different from any challenge the regular season provides.So why, then, did Hitchcock risk alienating his players early in the sea son with stinging criticisms of their 5-on-5 play even as the Stars were piling up wins? Why have the Stars again pushed so hard to win so often, if winning the Presidents&rsquo; Trophy a year ago only got them no farther than a six-game semi-final loss to Detroit?The answer is two-fold. On one hand, according to Gainey, they needed the challenge. &ldquo;Any team that says they&rsquo;re not trying to climb one rung higher during the regular season,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is a team that I don&rsquo;t think the competitors want to be a part of.&rdquo;But on the other hand, Hitchcock says they haven&rsquo;t pushed to win at all. The only standings list in the Stars&rsquo; dressing room is the race for the Jennings Trophy for lowest goals-against.Hitchcock pushed so hard because he wanted his team to gain knowledge of the commitment &ldquo;mentally, emotionally, physically that is needed to win, because it&rsquo;s a big, big sacrifice.&rdquo;&ldquo;There was a fight about that,&rdquo; Hitchcock continued. &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t any more. It has about come full circle. The players sometimes right now are harder on themselves than I am.&rdquo;The big change came shortly after the all-star break when Stars&rsquo; goalies Ed Belfour and Roman Turek were named first or second star in four consecutive games. That&rsquo;s when the players realized they had to do more than win. Since then, they have become their own policemen.The most structure handed down from the top centers on planning. With a nod to the influence of Gainey and assistants Doug Jarvis and Rick Wilson, Hitchcock has taken to mapping out the practice and days off schedule at the start of each month-who plays, who practices, who among veterans such as Guy Carbonneau, Brian Skrudland, Craig Ludwig and Dave Reid, gets a day of rest. If the Stars have a day between games, they skate on the off-day or game-day, never both.&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s a day off, it&rsquo;s a day off,&rdquo; Hitchcock said. &ldquo;And if we play poorly the night before, it doesn&rsquo;t matter, it&rsquo;s a day off. We dwell on nothing&hellip;We don&rsquo;t spend time punishing people.&rdquo;It is a largely veteran team, after all; nine regulars have won Stanley Cups. Modano, the offensive and defensive leader and only Dallas forward who plays 20 minutes a game, knows he will be judged by whether he joins his Cup-winning teammates. The Steve Yzerman comparison-high scorer learns team game, finds glory-has been mentioned often.&ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s the real bottom line when you leave the game,&rdquo; Modano said. &ldquo;That part&rsquo;s frustrating. You feel if you don&rsquo;t win, you&rsquo;ve had a real dis satisfying career.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s the same irony goalie Ed Belfour has faced for more than a decade. You set out to have a good regular season and when you succeed, all it does is make playoff disappointments stand out by contrast. If Dallas fails again, the spotlight gets brighter, the pressure greater, the doubters more scornful, the believers more wary, the 82-game accomplishments more meaningless.But relentless pursuit is one of the Stars&rsquo; hallmarks. It may yet get them into the history books in the one place they want to be. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re a second and third effort hockey club,&rdquo; Hitchcock said. &ldquo;The ability to stay with things, that&rsquo;s who we are.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0009-01

FEATURES

Stars need Cup to avoid NHL dubious distinction

<div class="byline">By Rob Vanstone</div>Kamloops Blazers&rsquo; coach Marc Habscheid didn&rsquo;t get overly excited about his team&rsquo;s 17-game unbeaten streak. After all, it wasn&rsquo;t even Kamloops&rsquo; longest run of prosperity this season.The Blazers assembled a 26-game undefeated stretch earlier in the 1998-99 Western League campaign.&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t even talk about the last streak,&rdquo; Habscheid said. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t talk about this one, either. The only thing we talk about is rounding out our game going into the playoffs.&ldquo;We knew our 26-game streak would come to an end because the playoffs were a long way away. You don&rsquo;t want to peak too early. Right now, we are putting pretty good games together.&rdquo;Especially at home. As of mid-. March, the Blazers were undefeated 1 in 28 consecutive games (24-0-4) at Riverside Coliseum. That streak J encompassed the undefeated runs of I 23-0-3 and 13-0-4. 1Kamloops clinched first place in the Western Conference March 13-eight days before the season ended.&ldquo;There are no easy games in this division,&rdquo; Habscheid said while Kamloops sported a 45 11-13 mark. &ldquo;That forces you to become a better team. In the long run, the competitiveness of this division has helped us.&rdquo;SLIDES OF MARCH: The Calgary Hitmen waited until mid-March to experience their first three-game winless streak of the season.Despite an 0-2-1 skid, Calgary still boasted the WHL&rsquo;s best overall record at 49-12-8.&ldquo;A lot of the guys have been a little off-focus lately, looking forward to the playoffs,&rdquo; said Hitmen center Brad Moran. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been waiting a while and they&rsquo;re almost here. We have to pick our game up.&rdquo;With one week left in regular season play, Calgary was three points ahead of Kamloops in the race for first overall.HONOR ROLL: Moose Jaw Warriors&rsquo; center Chad Hinz and Seattle Thunderbirds&rsquo; goal tender Cody Rudkowsky are the finalists for the league&rsquo;s player-of-the-year award.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-03453/7238054-1-eng-US/f0030-032.jpg" title="f0030-03" width="423" height="415"></div>Hinz, the Eastern Conference nominee, had 42 goals and 114 points after 68 games. He was leading the league in assists (72) and power play points (55).Rudkowsky, from the Western Conference, earned 33 of Seattle&rsquo;s first 35 victories. He sported a 2.93 goals-against average while leading the league in save percentage (.920) and shutouts (six).Other award nominees are: Rudkowsky and Calgary&rsquo;s Alexandre Fomitchev (top goalie); Kamloops&rsquo; Robyn Regehr and Calgary&rsquo;s Brad Stuart (top defenseman); Tri-City Americans&rsquo; right winger Ken McKay and Calgary defense-man Matt Kinch (most sportsmanlike); Seattle-center Oleg Saprykin and Calgary left winger Pavel Brendl (top rookie); Tri-City&rsquo;s Don Hay and Calgary&rsquo;s Dean Clark (coach of the-year); Hay and Moose Jaw&rsquo;s 1 Ralph Schmidt (top executive); I Portland Winter Hawks&rsquo; defenseman Andrew Ference and Red Deer Rebels&rsquo; left winger Kevin Marsh (humanitarian); Kamloops&rsquo; Ajay Baines and Lethbridge Hurricanes&rsquo; Sean Robertson (top faceoff man); and Kamloops&rsquo; Don Larsen and the Regina Pats&rsquo; Scott Clark (marketing award).Winners were scheduled to be announced March 23.NOTEBOOK: Portland tied a WHL single season record by playing in 20 overtime games (3-3-14). The 1996-97 Prince Albert Raiders were 6-5-9 in OT&hellip;The Spokane Chiefs ended a franchise-record 14-game winless skid March 12 by defeating Portland 6-4&hellip;Kam loops&rsquo; Kenric Exner was all but certain to erase John Davidson&rsquo;s record for the lowest single-season GAA. Exner had a 2.25 average with three games left. Davidson had a 2.37 GAA for the 1971-72 Calgary Centennials&hellip; Red Deer&rsquo;s Frank Mrazek scored four goals March 11 in a 7-1 victory over Medicine Hat. &#9632;

f0030-03

Kamloops not coasting on long unbeaten streaks

<h2>Housley gets Phil of points</h2>1. American dream Calgary&rsquo;s Phil Housley becomes top scoring American in NHL history with 1,064th point.2. Playoff hopes alive Rangers go 6 2-2 in 10 games without Wayne Gretzky to keep post-season dreams alive.3. Human highlight film Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Jaromir Jagr hits 100-point plateau bat ting puck out of air while flat on his back.4. Kings of the road New Jersey goes 24-8-2 (.735 winning percentage) away from Continental Airlines Arena.5. Some rally AHL&rsquo;s Saint John Flames score five goals in final 4:21 to defeat Hartford Wolf Pack 7-5.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/c0002-0139/7236289-1-eng-US/c0002-012.jpg" title="C0002-01" width="341" height="489"><figcaption class="caption-body">Phil Housley</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/c0002-0242/7236282-1-eng-US/c0002-022.jpg" title="C0002-02" width="343" height="492"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Duchesne</figcaption></div><h2>Stick throw deserves more</h2>1. Two little Roger Neilson deserves at least four games for nearly striking official after hurling stick onto ice.2. California nightmare Ottawa&rsquo;s 0 2-1 West Coast trip leaves them abysmal 3-13-2 all-time in California.3. Wing grounded Detroit&rsquo;s Kirk Maltby suspended for slashing, fracturing arm of Colorado&rsquo;s Valeri Kamensky.4. Oilers slide Edmonton goes winless in six games; in danger of dropping out of Western Conference playoff race.5. King crumbles After signing mega deal as free agent, Los Angeles defense man Steve Duchesne nut on waivers. &#9632;

C0002-01

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/c0002-0333/7236320-1-eng-US/c0002-032.jpg" title="C0002-03" width="358" height="451"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Dan Hamilton/VPS)</figcaption></div>The Swedish Twin Towers have never played on different hockey teams and don&rsquo;t be surprised if they try to increase the odds of that remaining the same in the NHL.Daniel and Henrik Sedin, the red-headed brothers bom six minutes apart Sept. 26, 1980, in Omskoldsvik, have the option of entering the entry draft in separate years. And many people believe they will do that in hopes they can be drafted by the same team in consecutive years. The 18-year-old Sedins aren&rsquo;t tipping their hand and agent Michael Barnett says the possibility of one brother opting in to the 1999 draft and the other waiting until 2000 is &ldquo;food for thought.&rdquo;A decision doesn&rsquo;t have to be made until the later of May 1 or seven days after their team&rsquo;s season ends. That&rsquo;s when players who wish to be selected in their first year of draft eligibility must inform the NHL of their intention. If no such notification is made, a player automatically becomes eligible at 19. Here&rsquo;s how things could play out before the June 26 draft: Daniel, a left winger and the higher rated of the brothers, opts in for 1999. Henrik, a center, waits until 2000 when the team that selects Daniel will have a shot at picking him. The chance of the same team getting both in separate years isn&rsquo;t necessarily high, but the chance of the same team getting both in one draft (1999 or 2000) is virtually non-existent.A wild card in the process is the May 16 draft lottery. That&rsquo;s when the 1999 order of selection will be finalized. Teams enter the lottery seeded in reverse order of regular sea son finish with last-place Tampa Bay slotted No. 1, the expansion Atlanta Thrashers No. 2, and the rest of the 1998-99 also-rans following. If Tampa Bay secures the No. 1 pick, consider this potential scenario: It chooses Long Beach center Patrick Stefan, THN&rsquo;s No. 1-rated draft prospect and the player most ready to play in the NHL, leaving Atlanta to go for Daniel, THN&rsquo;s No. 2-rated prospect and a lethal scorer. (Daniel had 21 goals, including a league-high five game-winners, in 50 Swedish Elite League contests for MoDo this season.) The Thrashers will surely be among next year&rsquo;s worst teams and, even with two more expansion teams picking next sea son, well-positioned in 2000 to select Henrik, THN&rsquo;s No. 5-rated prospect this season.The Sedins are uniquely situated to be drafted in separate years because neither will play here next season regardless of the out-come of the draft. They both intend to play at least one more season in Sweden where they are considered to be more advanced than Peter Forsberg and Mats Sundin were at the same age. &#9632;

C0002-03

Swedish twins could opt for different drafts

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy Senior Writer</div>Pavol Demitra acknowledges he is not a morning person. Never has been, never will be.So you can imagine how thrilled he was the day his dad, Pavol Sr., hauled his teenage son out of bed before sunrise and dragged him off to work with him.The senior Demitra, a part-time professional soccer player and engineer, wanted to give his son a taste of what working life was like. It was a lesson that remains with the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; sniper to this day.&ldquo;My father always pushed me to be the best I could be,&rdquo; Demitra said. &ldquo;When he took me to work with him, he wanted to show me what people have to go through. He wanted to show me life isn&rsquo;t easy and I should be thankful for my ability to play hockey.&rdquo;The Blues are also thankful.In a season when the Blues lost top-scoring right winger Brett Hull and defenseman Steve Duchesne to free agency, Demitra, who can play all three forward positions, has picked up much of the slack. Through 68 games, he led the Blues and was ninth overall in league scoring with 32 goals and 73 points.Demitra served notice he was set to arrive last season, his first full NHL year, when he scored 22 goals and 52 points in 61 games. A testament to his ability was the fact he played on a line with Jim Campbell who had 22 goals and 41 points in 76 games. Without Demitra on his line this year, Campbell has suffered, managing just four goals and 25 points in 55 games.&ldquo;We felt he would be a pretty good player for us,&rdquo; said St. Louis coach Joel Quenneville, &ldquo;but we really didn&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;d be one of the top scoring players in the league. That is a surprise to us.&rdquo;Demitra burst into the NHL as an 18-year-old with the Ottawa Senators in 1993. In a dozen games, the shy Slovak scored once and set up another.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011757/7236358-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="907" height="964"><figcaption class="caption-body">Defenders have had a difficult time keeping St. Louis Blues&rsquo; sniper Pavol Demitra in check.</figcaption></div>At that point in their history, the Senators were too determined to make Alexandre Daigle (No. 1 in 1993) and Radek Bonk (No. 3 in 1992) into players to have much regard or time for Demitra, the 227th pick in 1993.It should have been a happy time in his life, j playing in the NHL as a teenager, but it wasn&rsquo;t. Demitra suffered a broken leg in Boston when, trying to skate past a Bruins&rsquo; defender, he lost his footing and slid hard into the boards. After his return, he never felt he fit into the Senators&rsquo; plans.&ldquo;They kind of screwed me around,&rdquo; Demitra said. &ldquo;But I will always be thankful to them for let-ting me play my first game in the NHL.&rdquo;E.J. McGuire, a former Senators&rsquo; assistant who now coaches the American League&rsquo;s Hart-ford Wolf Pack, said Demitra has developed since his Ottawa days.&ldquo;In reality, he was never really a flash-and-dash guy when he was with us,&rdquo; McGuire said. &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t have Paul Kariya-like speed, but he did have Paul Kariya-like moves. He just did them a little bit slower.&rdquo;McGuire said Demitra has been aided by the NHL crackdown on obstruction. &ldquo;It has made it easier for players his size (6 feet, 189 pounds) to use their skill to get to the net,&rdquo; McGuire said.Though he would play parts of the next two seasons with Ottawa, Demitra was primarily a minor leaguer. He spent most of his time with the Prince Edward Island Senators of the AHL, collecting 62 goals and 196 points in 150 games.Traded to the Blues Nov. 27, 1996, for defense man Christer Olsson, Demitra continued to tear it up in the minors with the Las Vegas Thunder and Grand Rapids Griffins in the International League before finally getting his chance last season.&ldquo;All my life I have been a top scorer on every team I played in,&rdquo; Demitra said. &ldquo;Even back home when I played against older men I could score goals. I just had to wait for some body to give me a chance over here.&rdquo;The Blues have given him that chance and he has responded favorably. To show their loyalty, they signed him to a three-year contract prior to this season. Though he may be underpaid ($800,000 this season) by NHL standards, Demitra said he is happy with the deal and loves it in St. Louis.For most of the season, Demitra played right wing on the Blues&rsquo; top line with Pierre Turgeon, the team&rsquo;s second leading scorer, at center. In March, however, Quen neville broke up the duo in an attempt to make it more difficult for opposing checkers to shut them down, and placed Demitra with a couple of players called up from the minors, left winger Lubos Bartecko and right winger Michel Picard. In their first two games together, Demitra had three goals and eight points.&ldquo;The biggest difference this year is he has stepped up his leadership,&rdquo; Quenneville said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one thing to have this I fantastic skill, it&rsquo;s quite another to take that skill to the next level. Pavol is working very hard to be a consistent per former.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021404/7236351-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="1761" height="2977"></div> &#9632;

f0003-01

Demitra’s Blue Heaven

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-03915/7236403-1-eng-US/f0003-032.jpg" title="f0003-03" width="639" height="570"></div>It has never been tougher to score in the NHL than it is right now. That point hits home when comparing the number of 20-goal scorers this season to 1966-67, the last year before the league expanded to 12 teams from the Original Six.Why 20 Because at the time, 20 goals was a big deal, the benchmark for a solid, front-line NHLer. After i all, only 20 players could do it-an average of 3.3 per team.Funny thing is, scoring 20 4&rsquo; is an even bigger deal today. The regular season was 70 games in 1966-67. This year, t 60 players had hit or were on pace to hit 20 I goals by the 70-game mark. In a 27-team league, that works out to just 2.2 20-goal men per club. The moral of the story: Maybe it&rsquo;s time we adjust our expectations.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-04511/7236396-1-eng-US/f0003-042.jpg" title="f0003-04" width="721" height="890"><figcaption class="caption-body">Alexei Yashin (Photo by Dan Hamilton/VPS)</figcaption></div>The accompanying tables list the top 10 goal-scorers this season as of March 18 and&rsquo; season-ending totals for 1966-67. Take note s of Bobby Hull&rsquo;s 52 goals; no player was on! pace to hit 50 this year.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-05243/7236389-1-eng-US/f0003-052.jpg" title="f0003-05" width="640" height="577"></div> &#9632;

f0003-03

VITAL STATISTICS: 20-goal men mighty fine

A Kariya may be taking home the Hobey Baker Award for the Black Bears again.Steve Kariya, Paul&rsquo;s younger brother, was named one of 10 finalists for the National Collegiate Athletic Association&rsquo;s most valuable player award.The 21-year-old senior forward had 10 goals and 37 points in 24 games for Maine.Paul, captain of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, won in 1993 as he guided Maine to its first NCAA championship.Hockey East led all conferences with four nominations: Kariya, senior forward Jason Krog (New Hampshire), sophomore forward Brian Gionta (Boston College) and senior goalie Michel Larocque (Boston University).Also selected were senior forwards Jason Blake (North Dakota), BrianSwanson (Colorado College), Mike York (Michigan State), senior goalie Eric Heffler (St. Lawrence), and junior forwards Hugo Boisvert (Ohio State) and Jeff Hamilton (Yale).The award winner will be announced April 2. &#9632;

Kariva Maine man for Hobey Baker Award

<div class="byline">By Alan Adams</div>Two Liberal members of the Canadian Parliament-Denis Coderre and Dennis Mills-have unofficially declared war on the NHL Players&rsquo; Association.They are trying to dip into a multi-million dollar reserve fund-estimated at between $80 million and $120 million (Cdn)-the NHLPA has assembled through the sale of hockey cards to do battle with owners in the event of a strike or lockout.The politicians have sent a formal letter to Canada&rsquo;s revenue minister, Herb Dhaliwal, requesting that Revenue Canada take a hard look at the NHLPA&rsquo;s tax-exemption status. The politicians feel if their efforts are successful, the NHLPA&rsquo;s war chest could be taxed to the tune of $35-40 million.Coderre feels NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow has little sympathy for the plight of Canadian small-market teams, and that&rsquo;s why he&rsquo;s going after the NHLPA war chest, to help Canadian teams.&ldquo;These people (eg. the Ottawa Senators) are serious about moving,&rdquo; Coderre said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s time to act&hellip;Goodenow can be part of the solution one way or another. We need a salary cap and I am confident when I say we will have one.&rdquo;He said Goode-now can either help or be forced to help. &ldquo;Believe me, I can be a stubborn son of a bitch. If there&rsquo;s one thing I can&rsquo;t stand, it&rsquo;s someone who says he has nothing to do with it and yet he&rsquo;s still taking the money.&rdquo;Goodenow was clearly taken aback by the Coderre initiative. &ldquo;He hasn&rsquo;t spoken to me,&rdquo; Goodenow told Roy MacGregor of the National Post.The union undoubtedly will fight any attempt by Ottawa to tax its funds.Goodenow feels it is a union&rsquo;s right to build up a surplus in case of future labor problems, and since the NHL is already preparing a significant &ldquo;war chest&rdquo; in the event of a strike or lock-out, the NHLPA is doing what the players would expect it to do.&ldquo;They are positioned,&rdquo; Goodenow said. &ldquo;They feel it is necessary to pre pare themselves. So we&rsquo;ve got to be prudent. Every organization of this nature that I&rsquo;m aware of has a responsibility to deal with the business realities of negotiations.&ldquo;The owners locked the players out for 100 days last time. We offered to work under the agreement that had been negotiated, but that was rejected handily by the owners. The 100 days may become 200 or 300 or 500 next time.&rdquo;This development is the latest in a series of issues being raised in Canada concerning taxes.Senators&rsquo; owner Rod Bryden has said he will sell the team and it will have to move to the United States unless he gets some tax relief.And while the issue of salaries has dropped off the mat, be it only tem porarily, it&rsquo;s always looming on the horizon.When the current collective bar gaining agreement was negotiated in 1995, the league&rsquo;s average salary was $733,000 (U.S.). Last summer, it was $1.17 million; this summer it is expected to be around $1.3 million.NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said he hopes a &ldquo;natural correction&rdquo; will bring salaries in line.&ldquo;If enough teams feel the value they are paying for isn&rsquo;t worth the value they&rsquo;re getting, they&rsquo;ll make changes,&rdquo; Bettman told the Washington Post. &ldquo;But if this does continue, the next (collective bargaining agreement) negotiations won&rsquo;t simply be about slowing the growth; they may well be about lowering the salary level.&rdquo; &#9632;

NHLPA’s reserve fund under fire

<div class="byline">Compiled by THN staff</div>Former Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; trainer Sergei Mnatsakanov, paralyzed from the waist down in the 1997 auto accident that ended defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov&rsquo;s career, has come to the aid of another countryman in distress.Mnatsakanov donated $2,000 to start a fund for former Soviet national team star Viktor Zhluktov, whom doctors say could also suffer paralysis if he does not undergo surgery soon.Zhluktov, 45, suffered spinal injuries during his career and requires $50,000 to pay for the operation.The 6-foot-3 center was outstanding in the inaugural Canada Cup tournament in 1976, tying Bobby Orr and Denis Potvin for the scoring title. He set the single-game record for points with six. He was also a member of the victorious Soviet team at the 1979 Challenge Cup and the 1981 CanadaRUSSIAN STRIKE: The Moscow Spartak club went on strike March 19-the first sports team to do so in Soviet and Russian history.The players, who make about $250 a week, walked out just before a playoff game against Red Army because they hadn&rsquo;t been paid in six months.MLECZKO NOMINATED: Olympic gold medallist A J. Mleczko was nominated by USA Hockey for the 1999 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award for most outstanding player in women&rsquo;s intercollegiate varsity hockey.A senior forward at Harvard, Mleczko led the nation in scoring with 32 goals and 104 points in 30 games.Junior goaltender Ali Brewer (Brown University) and senior defense man Nicki Luongo (New Hampshire) were the other finalists.The winner will be announced March 25 at the second annual American Women&rsquo;s College Hockey Allianct National Championship at the University of Minnesota.<h2>PUCK BRIEFS</h2>KUGEL DONE: For the time being Jeff Kugel has given up the fight The 6-foot-7 forward has finished his effort to play organized hockey this season.Kugel, 19, was planning to take the Canadian Hockey Association to court but the legal process would have take too long. He was playing for the Ontario League&rsquo;s Windsor Spitfire when he was suspended for 25 game and given a lifetime ban for sucker punching a player and chasing anotherKugel had an offer to play Tier II in Halifax, but Canadian Hockey asked al associations to honor the ban. He ma apply for reinstatement at season&rsquo;s endCANADIAN GOLD: Canada we the world men&rsquo;s deaf hockey championship March 14 in Davos Switzerlan at the World Winter Games for the Deaf. Although the Canadians lost to the Americans, resulting in a tie for first, Canada was awarded the gold medal because it scored more goals.TIE ON TIES: In an NHL Fan Association survey, 29 per cent of respondents were in favor of giving both teams one point at the end of regulation time, with a five-minute over-time for an additional point. Another i 29 per cent have no problem with tie games as they are now.Sixteen per cent were in favor of a shootout and nine per cent wanted overtime until there is a winner. Nine per cent were in favor of three points i for a win and one point for a tie. Five I per cent liked the declining five-on-five, four-on-four, three-on-three concept. Three per cent wanted no points i awarded for ties. The results were based on 2,043 responses at the fan I association website (<a href="http://www.nhlfa.com">www.nhlfa.com</a>). &#9632;

Ex-Soviet star near paralysis

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011691/7236537-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="663" height="310"></div>Phil Housley has made some great passes in his time, but this one might be his best.The 35-year-old Calgary Flames&rsquo; defenseman became the highest scoring American in NHL history when he scored his 1,064th point March 13 to pass former star Joe Mullen. Housley, the Flames&rsquo; top scorer, did it in style with a three-assist performance in Washington against the Capitals, his former team.The 17-year-veteran continued his milestone week with his 300th goal four days later in Chicago-a feat that only three other defensemen (Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque and Denis Potvin) have accomplished.Pat LaFontaine was heading for the top spot among Americans until a concussion ended his career at 1,013. Neil Broten is fourth with 923 points.Housley should hold the record for quite a while. Chris Chelios of the Chicago Blackhawks (795), Jeremy Roenick (785) of the Phoenix Coyotes and Chicago&rsquo;s Ed Olczyk (779) are the highest active players.Retired Dave Christian (773) is eighth, with New York Islander Craig Janney (751) and New York Rangers&rsquo; Brian Leetch (745) close behind.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-021205/7236530-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="647" height="979"></div> &#9632;

f0005-01

THN’s Millennium TIME CAPSULE

What&rsquo;s the big deal with fighting in hockey this year?Since the inception of hockey, fighting has been part of the game. There is a definite role for fighting in hockey. The fear of fighting makes players think twice about taking a run at superstar players.If the NHL bans fighting, then what&rsquo;s next? A ban on checking? The league already added the crease rule, which is far from perfect in my opinion.As a hockey fan for 26 years, I fell in love with the game the way it was in the 1970s and 1980s.Why is the NHL fooling around with all the rules of the game? The game is exciting the way it is.Mike Demelo,&nbsp;London, Ont.<h2>Hold fights early</h2>Here is my solution to the problem of fisticuffs in hockey.If the games start at 8 p.m., the fights should be held a half-hour earlier at 7:30 so they don&rsquo;t interfere with the game.I mean, really, it is goon vs. goon. Fighting in hockey today has nothing to do with the game itself.Joe Malizia,&nbsp;Calgary, Alta.<h2>NHL talent drops</h2>The big problem with the NHL isn&rsquo;t fighting, it&rsquo;s expansion.The talent pool has become so diluted 50-goal scorers are almost extinct. If the league wants to improve its game, eliminating fighting is not the answer.The NHL has to improve the quality of its players and the only way to do that is to stop expanding.There are hundreds of guys in the league right now who don&rsquo;t belong there.With the lack of skilled hockey players available, teams have no other option but to sign players with tough ness.People who say they do not like fighting are liars. If you watch the TV highlights of other sports, if there is ever a fight it leads off the show that night, whether it&rsquo;s a bench-clearing brawl in baseball or basketball.People love fighting, it&rsquo;s just not politically correct to say so.Kevin Gibson,&nbsp;Whitby, Ont.<h2>Caps need Dale</h2>I have been a Washington Capitals&rsquo; fan since the birth of the franchise in 1974-75.I have suffered through an eight win season, numerous near-misses and having teams which should have gone a long way in the playoffs, knocked out early.I have also put up with an owner who cuts comers financially so he can spend more money on his beloved basketball team.But last year was an uplifting sea son with a run to the Stanley Cup final. The Capitals made a tremendous late-season and playoff run on the back of&rsquo;Olie the Goalie&rsquo; Kolzig and with the leadership of Dale Hunter. This year they are trying to do it again with the heart and soul of the team sit ting in the press box.Ron Wilson has decided he has enough leadership on the team to sit Hunter. But the Capitals will not make the playoffs without Hunter in the lineup.Unfortunately, a great era is coming to a close with the inevitable retirement of Dale Hunter.Good luck Dale, and may you come back soon to coach the Capitals.Ron Reichert,&nbsp;Corpus Christi, Tex.<h2>Let players pay</h2>Has anyone else noticed that it seems to be only the owners of small-market Canadian hockey teams who are asking for financial help?I cannot recall any players ever speaking about it, except as a justification for why they signed south of the border. It seems to me that since roughly 60 per cent of the league is Canadian, it should be the Canadian players who help out.Essentially, if every Canadian player in the league volunteered, say, two per cent of his salary to go into an aid fund for smaller teams, the problem would be solved.Donations would be tax-deductible and, furthermore, if players ended up on a Canadian team down the road, they would ultimately benefit from financial aid they themselves had given when salary negotiations began.Ed Stewart,&nbsp;Toronto, Ont.<h2>Milbury&rsquo;s mistakes</h2>Is anyone out there paying attention to what Mike Milbury is doing to the New York Islanders?I was wondering why they haven&rsquo;t been able to climb out of the cellar the past few years. It seems Milbury is singlehandedly disposing of talented players who, in some cases, are having career years.For example: Martin Straka of the Pittsburgh Penguins; Bryan Berard of the Toronto Maple Leafs; and Marty McInnis of the Mighty Ducks of Ana heim.How much more are Islanders&rsquo; fans going to take before we call for Mil bury&rsquo;s resignation?In my opinion he has taken a once-proud franchise and turned it into the laughingstock of the NHL.I can&rsquo;t blame coach Bill Stewart for where the team is in the standings, because they&rsquo;ve actually played better under him. Coaching is definitely not the problem.My personal message to Milbury is simple: Do yourself a favor, get out of town and go back to Boston. We were better off with former GM Don Maloney.John Dean,&nbsp;North Bergen, N.J.<h2>No Montreal envy</h2>Growing up in the 1970s as a Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; fan was great, and every franchise envied the near-perfect Habs.Living in the Philadelphia area made it tough, but you learn to take the abuse.What has happened?I still love the Habs, but in February, 1995, they traded away John LeClair and Eric Desjardins, who was responsible for three of the four Montreal victories in the 1993 Stanley Cup final, for Mark Recchi.At the time I didn&rsquo;t like the trade, but I learned to live with it. Recchi is a nice player, but not worth LeClair or Desjardins and certainly not both.Now GM Rejean Houle trades Recchi back to Philly for Dainius Zubrus, whom I got to see play all the time. Zubrus isn&rsquo;t worth one of Mark Recchi&rsquo;s broken hockey sticks.So after all is said and done, the Canadiens traded LeClair, Desjardins and Recchi to the Flyers for Zubrus and two unknown draft picks.Hey Habs&rsquo; management, you better wake up because now nobody envies the Canadiens.Tom Dailey,&nbsp;Blackwood, N.J.<h2>We want&rsquo;Beezer&rsquo;</h2>What is Bobby Clarke thinking?He signs&rsquo;Beezer&rsquo; to bring the Flyers a Stanley Cup. But when&rsquo;Beezer&rsquo; goes into a mini-slump, Clarke calls up an inexperienced 21-year-old, whose stats are inflated from playing in a league made up of younger players in the developmental stage.Mr. Clarke, please let&rsquo;Beezer&rsquo; play through his slumps just like Bernie Parent did when you were a player.Jim Mertz, Denver, Pa.Fax us your comments at(416) 340-1641or write toLetters, THN, 777 Bay St, Suite 2700, Box 148, Toronto, Ont, M5G 2N8 in Canada. In the U.S., write to Let ters, THN, P.O. Box 904, Buffalo, N.Y., 14240-9947.E-mail us at <a href="mailto:paulj@trans-continental.ca">paulj@trans-continental.ca</a> Include hometown as well as home and business phone numbers. THN reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

Leave fighting alone; it’s part of the game

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011884/7236592-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0006-01

ELSTON

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy Senior Writer</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011712/7236630-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="404" height="571"></div>Chris Gignac is like many Canadians. He has played hockey all his life and dreams of skating in the NHL.But the 24-year-old center has been passed over by scouts many times overs.Still, Gignac hasn&rsquo;t given up. He is one of the best players in Canadian university hockey, starring for the Windsor (Ont.) Lancers, and hoping to attract attention when his team plays for the national championships March 25-28 in Saskatoon, Sask.&ldquo;This kid definitely has pro potential,&rdquo; said Windsor coach Rick Cranker. &ldquo;He has speed, strength, he plays on our first power play unit and on the first penalty killing unit. He has the size (6-foot-2, 195 pounds) and he has finesse.&rdquo;Problem is that NHL teams blow off Canadian university hockey as largely a waste of scouting time.Yet when you check the NHL scoring race this season, you see Mighty Ducks of Anaheim center Steve Rucchin in 20th place with 22 goals and 60 points. Rucchin&rsquo;s success as a pro gives all those in Canadian university hockey hope they&rsquo;ll be discovered, too, someday. A classic late-bloomer, Rucchin. 27, played four years at Western Ontario before the Ducks chose him second overall in the 1994 supple-mental draft, a draft that doesn&rsquo;t even exist anymore. Before that, Rucchin played high school hockey. How good is he?This season he is outscoring every player picked in the 1994 entry draft, including Radek Bonk, Jason Wiemer Jeff Friesen, Josef Marha and Wayne Primeau.David McNab, the Ducks&rsquo; assistant GM who had a large hand in discovering Rucchin, says the NHL needs to Duck Steve Rucchin has more points than any 1994 draft pick. pay closer attention to Canadian universities.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-021141/7236623-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="921" height="1148"><figcaption class="caption-body">Duck Steve Rucchin has more points than any 1994 draft pick. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;The problem is, many of the Canadian university players have been seen before and scouts already have formed opinions of them,&rdquo; McNab said. &ldquo;So what we do is close the door on the possibility of a kid developing a little later than others.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s actually a little embarrassing when you think about it. We&rsquo;re missing the boat on some potentially good players. University hockey in Canada right now is scouted much the way university hockey in the United States was 25 years ago. That has to change.&rdquo;Especially when you consider NHL teams are looking for ways to cut costs to help balance out some of the massive salaries they pay to top end players. It&rsquo;s hard to imagine there not being potential third- and fourth-liners skating on Canadian university rinks. And, who knows, maybe even another Rucchin.Rucchin isn&rsquo;t the only player to make it to the NHL after playing CIAU hockey. Larry Carriere, now assistant GM of the Buffalo Sabres, did it. Mike Ridley did it. So did Randy Gregg.&ldquo;At our meetings in January that&rsquo;s the one thing we stressed-clear all of our biases,&rdquo; said Dallas Stars&rsquo; director of player personnel Craig Button. &ldquo;Having said that, I&rsquo;m not sure there is a bias against Canadian college hockey; it&rsquo;s more a case of it being off the radar screen. It has been a league that has not customarily been scouted. I think that will change.&rdquo;Button said there are a couple of key reasons why NHL teams might want to take a closer look at Canadian university players. For starters, the NHL will soon expand to 30 teams so there will be more job openings. Also, with the crackdown on obstruction, teams are taking a more serious look at smaller, skilled players.Gignac was drafted by the Ottawa 67&rsquo;s in 1992 and played half a season in the Ontario League. Then he played Tier II in Brampton and a year of pro Division II in Germany. He has scored 39 goals and 95 points in 47 games over the past two seasons at Windsor.&ldquo;I think a lot of us playing Canadian university hockey look at what Steve Rucchin has accomplished and hope we get the same opportunity,&rdquo; Gignac said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t really bank on it happening, but you just hope somebody sees you play and gives you a chance.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0007-01

COLUMNS

NHL missing boat by overlooking CIAU

<div class="byline">By Alan Adams</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011777/7236661-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Angela James was considered the Wayne Gretzky of her era.</figcaption></div>It may be a crack in the door, but some feel it&rsquo;s an opening that&rsquo;s long overdue.The Hockey Hall of Fame is regarded-fairly or unfairly-as a bastion of male supremacy.But the proverbial million-dollar question is how much longer? Hockey is no longer a for-males-only sport and women could soon take their place as &ldquo;honored members.&rdquo;France St-Louis retired from Canada&rsquo;s national team after helping it win a fifth straight World Championship. She&rsquo;s a five-time world champ who was easily the best at her sport in the late 1980s. She could fill a net with the trophies she has won in her career.She&rsquo;s Hall of Fame material and she&rsquo;s not the only female worthy of consideration.How about Angela James, who was the Wayne Gretzky of women&rsquo;s hockey in the first part of the 1990s, or Geraldine Heaney, a five-time world champion who has been called the Bobby Orr of women&rsquo;s hockey? Like James, Heaney was the best player in Canada-and the world-of her era.In the United States, Cindy Cur ley, Karyn Bye, Cammi Granato and Kelly Dyer are deserving candidates.In fact, there&rsquo;s a strong argument to be made that all of these women deserve to be in the Hall for their performances on and off the ice, for how much they&rsquo;ve raised the profile of the sport and for being outstanding role models.But when it comes time to judge these players, they will be measured against NHLers. At present only three players can be voted into the Hall per year, so the choice for the selection committee may one day be Al Maclnnis versus Geraldine Heaney.This opens up a can of worms for the Hall&rsquo;s 15-member selection committee. How well-versed are they on women&rsquo;s hockey? Do they know how far it has come and who&rsquo;s responsible for its growth and why?Let&rsquo;s return to Maclnnis versus Heaney, for example.Here are two outstanding players who performed in different areas. The issue facing the selection committee, and for some it will be difficult, is to figure out how to apply entry criteria. For male versus male it&rsquo;s relatively straight forward. But for male versus female the problem is obvious: It&rsquo;s not an apples to apples comparison.Boston Bruins&rsquo; GM Harry Sinden, a Hall of Famer builder who is on the selection committee, said the committee will have its work cut out when high-profile women are nominated.&ldquo;I think it is something we will have to take into consideration a little more than we have mainly because of what they have done,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Most of our measurement is done by comparing. For the men, we compare them to other players who are in. You are either an honored member or you are not&hellip;we will have to deal with it.&rdquo;So far, the Hall has had to deal with female nominations less than a handful of times.For years, the Hall has been criticized for being narrow in its mandate. The critics note the lack of recognition for European hockey, the college ranks and amateur ranks. Try finding a scout in the shrine.In fact, a cursory look at its honor roll even suggests that maybe it should be called the Pro Hockey Hall of Fame, much like foot ball has the Pro Football Hall of Fame.Yes there are so-called amateurs in the Hall, but the vast majority are in the builders&rsquo; category. There are fewer than 10 men in the players&rsquo; category who earned their place in hockey history because of their exploits on non-pro teams and most date from the early 1900s. The rest of the honor roll are NHLers.NHL vice-president Jim Gregory, who heads the selection committee, recalled a nomination for a peewee coach who had won 20 straight championships. He was denied entry.&ldquo;There are not any special categories,&rdquo; Gregory said. &ldquo;One of the things I tried before (he joined the committee) was to have a category for scouts and it was turned down.&rdquo;Gregory doesn&rsquo;t have the power to set up special categories, even if he wanted to. That&rsquo;s a decision for the Hall&rsquo;s board and Gregory isn&rsquo;t even sure he would recommend it.He said discussing the merits of a women&rsquo;s section &ldquo;is not something I would be afraid to put on (the board&rsquo;s agenda), but it is not something I have a passion to put on.&rdquo;So what&rsquo;s likely to happen is Heaney and Maclnnis will be judged by the same scales of justice.Gregory has confidence in the members of the selection committee and said they don&rsquo;t wear blinders when it comes time to vote on Hall elections.&ldquo;They are trying to do the right thing and I think they vote their con science,&rdquo; Gregory said. &#9632;

f0008-01

FEATURE

Hall must look at women

<div class="byline">By Alan Adams</div>The United States may be the Olympic gold medalist in women&rsquo;s hockey, but Canada dominates on the world stage.Canada won its fifth straight women&rsquo;s world title in Espoo, Fin., March 14, beating the Americans 3-1 in the final. It was also the fifth time the Canadians have defeated the Americans in the global final and the Canucks ran their record to a perfect 25-0 0 in world tournament play.&ldquo;To come out on top is huge for us,&rdquo; said right winger Jayna Hefford. &ldquo;I think after the Olympics, we came back even hungrier. It was a little bit of revenge.&ldquo;I think they got the message,&rdquo; said Geraldine Heaney about the revenge factor.Images from the end of the game stood in stark contrast to February, 1998, at the Olympics in Nagano. That was the last time these rivals met with a major title on the line.That time, the Americans celebrated, while the Canadians stood around in shock.This time, it was Team USA that stood dejectedly at center ice. This time, Sami Jo Small&rsquo;s goal tending, great team defense, outstanding forechecking and goals by rookie Caroline Ouellette and veterans Danielle Goyette and Heaney made it happen for Cana da.The result was in doubt with Jenny Schmidgall giving the Americans a 1-0 lead in the second period.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021351/7236692-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="847" height="973"><figcaption class="caption-body">Caroline Ouellette celebrates Canadian goal. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;Canada really did a great job of battling back after that first goal,&rdquo; said U.S. goalie Erin Whit ten.&ldquo;They had a lot at stake from what we had done to them at the Olympics,&rdquo; added Team USA captain Cammi Granato. &ldquo;Sami Jo Small was there for every shot we had.&rdquo;The game was tied 1-1 at the second intermission before Cana da pulled away. Goyette&rsquo;s power play goal-she tipped a Hayley Wickenheiser slapshot-25 seconds into the third period started the Canadian surge. That all but crushed American hopes for their first world title.&ldquo;When they got that goal, they really turned it up a notch,&rdquo; said U.S. coach Ben Smith.It was the fifth world title for Canadians France St-Louis and Heaney.St-Louis, 40, retired a winner. &ldquo;I think it is a good ending. I could not ask for more,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is a great way to go out.&rdquo;While St-Louis knows what it&rsquo;s like to win at the Worlds, Americans Whitten and Granato are still waiting for their first world championship gold medal after five attempts. Whitten has been the losing goaltender in every gold medal game since 1992.The Americans got their next shot next year in Mississauga, Ont., when the world tournament returns to Canada. &#9632;

f0008-02

Canadians gain golden revenge

<div class="byline">By Stan Fischiar</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011571/7236768-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="406" height="573"></div>Maybe it should have been this way for Bill Clinton: O-U-T, OUT! But certainly not for the Stanley Cup finalists from beautiful, downtown Washington.Pathetic didn&rsquo;t figure to be the pre-fix for the Capitals, who showed so much promise last spring but has wound up on a treadmill to oblivion one year later. Especially when a whiz-bang coach like Ron Wilson can&rsquo;t even get his troops over .500 for the life of him which, by the way, may not be very long at MCI Center.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s Murphy&rsquo;s Law in the real world,&rdquo; said the embattled-yet-calm Wilson, &ldquo;and there&rsquo;s&rsquo;The Capitals&rsquo; Law&rsquo; in hockey. With us, everything that can go bad does.&rdquo;If an alibi is acceptable, the Caps have a familiar one with an asterisk injuries in spades. With 15 games left in the campaign, Wilson & Co. had &ldquo;celebrated&rdquo; their 400th man-game lost. Losing ace-in-the-hole Adam Oates for two months was the best excuse of all.&ldquo;Oates was our missing link,&rdquo; insisted goalie Olie Kolzig. &ldquo;Losing him was critical because it meant that we had to change our game.&rdquo; Said Craig Berube: &ldquo;When Adam went down, it killed us. If he hadn&rsquo;t been hurt, we&rsquo;d be in the playoffs.&rdquo;Likewise, if alligators had wings, they&rsquo;d be pterodactyls. Injuries hap pen; it&rsquo;s just that the Caps always seem to make a hobby of it Apart from the wily Oates, prodigies such as Sergei Gonchar, Richard Zednik and Yogi Svejkovsky were absent with leave early in the season. This put the onus on Peter Bondra, whose back can only tote about ten tons.With Oates back in the lineup and the homestretch looming, Washington fashioned a six-game winning streak that thrust them into the race. Then, just when it appeared that a playoff run would kick into high gear, Mark Tinordi, their most valuable defense man, broke an ankle.Not to demean the injuries, but wasn&rsquo;t there a way for Wilson to sur mount the problem? X-rays of the defending Eastern Conference champions reveal a depressing pattern that not only transcends the injuries, but occurs in game after losing game from October through March.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-021120/7236761-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="544" height="951"><figcaption class="caption-body">Adam Oates</figcaption></div>From the opening face-off, the Caps skate in a funk, fall behind and then, half-way through the game, the fog lifts. It&rsquo;s as if they suddenly realize it&rsquo;s not a public skating session after all.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have the killer instinct we had last year,&rdquo; explained defenseman Brendan Witt.&rdquo;Killer instincts have been known to disappear in the wake of voyages to the finals. It&rsquo;s the curse of complacency and Wilson knew it was there from the get-go last autumn.What to do? Once he shepherded his lads to Las Vegas and let them face off against the one-arm bandits. Another time he scratched practice in favor of a day at the bowling alley. Yet on the ice he seemed short on winning ideas and sensible lineup moves. Can&rsquo;t he have done more to make them win, make them hungry?For example, agitating Dale Hunter has been benched for much of the last third of the season although when the captain is on the ice, he&rsquo;s all business and prods the younger players to get to work.With Hunter in the lineup against the Rangers March 15, half the New Yorkers were busy chasing his scalp and the other half were wondering what Filthy McNasty move he&rsquo;d do next. Result: a 1-1 tie with Hunter&rsquo;s line Washington&rsquo;s best.Kolzig preserved the point with several spectacular saves late in the third period and overtime. But Kolzig hasn&rsquo;t been great all season; his .896 save percentage is the worst of all NHL goalies with more than 35 starts.The front office hasn&rsquo;t helped by failing to make a meaningful, upgrading trade all year, although that may have been impossible, considering injuries and a rigid salary structure.A good start for next season would to dump the underachieving Joey Juneau. In the meantime, the Caps, barring a miracle, will make history in early April.They&rsquo;ll become the first team to miss the playoffs, then make the finals, then miss the playoffs consecutively, since the Rangers of 1948-49 through 1950-51. &#9632;

f0011-01

Sore Caps making wrong kind of history

<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/f0012-011704/7236799-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">This goal was waved off because Islander forward Joe Sacco&rsquo;s foot was in the crease. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div>It would not do for the NHL&rsquo;s senior vice-president and director of hockey operations to say,&rsquo;I told you so,&rsquo; to the league&rsquo;s GMs.But when the Philadelphia Flyers set a franchise futility record (winless in 12 games) March 16 and had two critical goals disallowed because of marginal crease infringements, Colin Camp-bell could be forgiven for at least thinking it during the ensuing hue and cry.It was Campbell, at the GMs&rsquo; meeting in February, who recommended abolishing video review for crease infringement and returning to the old &ldquo;no harm, no foul&rdquo; policy, which gives the referee the discretion to disallow a goal only if he thinks the goalie is being interfered with.But Campbell&rsquo;s recommendation was rejected. About two-thirds of the 27 GMs voted in favor of maintaining the status quo.Now, though, less than two months after that vote, crease craziness continues to be a significant issue in the NHL. Which is to suggest it&rsquo;s a distraction that is detracting from the excitement of a multitude of playoff races.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to happen in the playoffs, it&rsquo;s going to be disastrous and it&rsquo;s an embarrassment to our game,&rdquo; said Flyers&rsquo; Bob Clarke, who supported Campbell&rsquo;s initial bid to do away with video review for crease calls. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if (NHL commissioner) Gary Bettman has the authority to do it, but for the good of the game, he should change it for the playoffs because the way it is now, it&rsquo;s a farce.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s not going to happen. As much as Campbell might person-ally endorse a change to no harm-no foul, the league isn&rsquo;t about to significantly alter its rules on the eve of the most important games of the year.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure this whole issue will be revisited one more time this summer,&rdquo; Campbell said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s become such a controversial topic. Everyone has opinions, different opinions. I have (opinions)&hellip;! don&rsquo;t have a vote.&rdquo;Since tweaking the rule last summer-shrinking the width of the crease and allowing video goal judges to call down to the referee when a player precedes the puck into the crease-the number of reviews has decreased by 15 per cent, but the number of disallowed goals has actually increased by eight per cent. Through the first 905 games of this season, there were 239 crease reviews for 111 disallowed goals. In the same period last season, there were 280 reviews for 103 disallowed goals.Crease reviews do not, as Clarke suggested, happen almost every game-it&rsquo;s more like once every four games for a review and about once every eight games for a disallowed goal-but it certainly seems to be ubiquitous.That&rsquo;s because there is uncertainty after every goal that is scored. Every celebration, by the players and the fans, has to be tempered until after the referee makes his way to the timekeeper&rsquo;s bench. Only when the referee points at center ice or goes there to drop the puck is the goal deemed to be a certainty.That exercise has become disconcerting to many, including the leader of a fan advocate group which is lobbying not just to eliminate crease reviews, but video review entirely.&ldquo;It used to be&rsquo;he shoots, he scores&rsquo; meant&rsquo;he shoots, he scores,&rsquo; but now it&rsquo;s&rsquo;he shoots, maybe he scores, we&rsquo;ll have to check the video first,&rsquo; and that is ruining the game,&rdquo; said Gus Bailey, a 37-year-old Boston Bruins&rsquo; season ticket holder who has formed the fan group Break The I.C.E.That&rsquo;s I.C.E., as in Idiotic Crease EnforcementBailey is a business consultant in Waterford, Mass., who has gotten involved in local political issues, where he&rsquo;s found &ldquo;one person can make a difference.&rdquo; Bailey has started an anti-video petition in Boston. He&rsquo;s looking to do the same in other NHL cities and plans on lobbying each individual NHL GM.&ldquo;I d like to see them get rid of video replay entirely,&rdquo; Bailey said, &ldquo;but I would settle for them not using (video) for crease calls. Don&rsquo;t these GMs (who support video crease reviews) understand what an abomination this is? When I watch a game on TV now and I see a good goal rescinded, I turn off the TV in disgust. Someone has to think of what this is doing to the fans.&rdquo;Video review, in general, has worked extremely well in the NHL, especially to check if the puck has crossed the line or if time has expired.On the issue of the crease, there are problems on a number of levels. One is the occasional technical foul-up, which happened to the Flyers March 16. Trailing the St. Louis Blues 4-2 at the Kiel Center late in the third period, the Flyers scored a goal to make it 4-3.Referee Bill McCreary proceeded to the time keeper&rsquo;s bench, where he was told the video goal judge had tried to call down, but there was a problem with the phone line. Recognizing there was a review in progress, McCreary waited. Inexplicably, though, the Flyer goal was announced over the P.A. system, at which point the Flyers called their 30-second timeout. While that was happening, the video goal judge was able to review the goal, determine Eric Lindros&rsquo; skate blade was in the crease and re-establish a phone link to ice level to let McCreary know the goal should be disallowed.The Flyers were devastated, by both the sub stance and style of the disallowed goal review. Their momentum died. The life was sucked right out of the game.Supporters of video crease review would suggest whatever technical glitches come up occasionally, the correct call was made.Another problem is many media members and fans don&rsquo;t understand the nuances of the rule.When the Toronto Maple Leafs had a late game-tying goal disal lowed against the Montreal Canadiens March 13, the broadcasters suggested the video goal judge had erred. He, in fact, made the correct call. It was the broadcasters who incorrectly interpreted the rule.Another problem is GMs have taken to going into the replay booth to lobby the video goal judge. Recently, some decisions were being made with one of the team&rsquo;s GMs actually in the booth. That prompted a recent memo from Campbell promising big fines for any GM caught in the replay booth.Nashville Predators&rsquo; GM David Poile, when he held the same post with the Washington Capitals, led the charge for the NHL to implement video replay for the 1991-92 season. So, Dr. Frankenstein, how do you like your creation now?&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;m like a lot of players and fans and media who believe video, in general, has been good for the game and we&rsquo;ve refined it to the point where it works as well as it has ever worked,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;But, like everyone else, I recognize there are some excruciatingly painful moments, especially on the crease calls, that are difficult to take.&rdquo;But Poile is convinced there&rsquo;s no going back on video and that includes crease reviews, too.&ldquo;It was put in for a reason and that reason (protecting the goalies) has worked,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;It hurts sometimes, it can be an overwhelmingly emotional issue, but we have to persevere. The players are adapting. It&rsquo;s not a pain-free thing and it never will be, but we have to go through with it.&rdquo;Others aren&rsquo;t so sure.Washington GM George McPhee was among the two-thirds majority who in February voted to maintain video crease review. If the vote were hold today, he&rsquo;d go the other way.&ldquo;Within two weeks of that vote, I had changed my mind,&rdquo; McPhee said. &ldquo;I saw about 10 goals disallowed and they were good goals. The crease violations were so marginal.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0012-01

CREASE CRISIS

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011581/7236837-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="409" height="574"></div>So what does it mean when teams can lose a Theo Fleury or a Mark Recchi, a Pavel Bure or a Wayne Gretzky, and keep on winning?It&rsquo;s an issue that surfaced in the NHL just before the trading deadline after two teams that appeared dead in the standings-the Calgary Flames and New York Rangers-vaulted back into playoff contention, playing without key players. The Flames traded Fleury on the last day of February to the Colorado Avalanche. A lot of NHL people liked the haul of players and draft choices Calgary received for Fleury, but figured they were writing off the sea son to invest in the future.Instead, the Flames rattled off an impressive 5-2-0 run on a mid-March road trip that was supposed to kill their playoff hopes. Suddenly, they were alive and kicking, playing their best hockey of the season.In New York, the Rangers were pretty much done, too, when they learned their leading scorer would miss two-to-four weeks with a protruding disc in his neck. Without Gretzky, the Rangers anointed Petr Nedved as the No. 1 center and went on a 6-2-2 run that vaulted them back in playoff contention in the East.Montreal won its first three games post-Recchi. Florida&rsquo;s record with Bure in the lineup (5-4-2) was similar to its record (5-5 4) when he was injured.It makes you wonder: If an expensive, impact player means so little to a team&rsquo;s performance, why bother spending $9 million on Bure or $6 million on Gretzky or however many millions Fleury and Recchi stand to earn as unrestricted free agents this summer?High-priced, high-profile players de gobble up lots of quality ice time. If they disappear from the lineup, through trade or injury, those minutes suddenly come up for grabs. In one respect, today&rsquo;s NHL hasn&rsquo;t changed from the game 40 years ago. There is still an unofficial apprenticeship system. Nedved idolized Gretzky as a boy, growing up in the Czech Republic. Younger players can defer, sometimes unconsciously, to the stars, especially to living legends.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-021107/7236830-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="939" height="1161"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Panthers survived in the short-term without Pavel Bure. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div>In the same way, Flames&rsquo; players used to look for Fleury to score or set up the key goal. Now, in his absence, they look to themselves. Fleury&rsquo;s departure offered an opportunity for Cory Stillman and Jarome Iginla to compete for valuable minutes now available.It doesn&rsquo;t always mean a player is ready, or even able, to step into the large skates vacated by a departed star-but sometimes they are.The difficulty is, you can hardly call this curious development a full-fledged trend after only a fortnight. Teams generally adjust well to the absence of an impact player in the short-term, if only because of injured pride. As soon the Fleury deal was executed, the wait-until-next-year mentality that set in raised the ire of the players that stayed behind. &ldquo;Theo Who?&rdquo; asked one innocently, in the midst of their surge.Bure has been out of the Florida lineup twice because of knee problems. The second occurred in a game against Colorado in which he had already scored three goals. With Bure in the medical room and Florida ahead 5-0, the Panthers self-destructed and gave up seven unanswered goals in a meltdown of epic proportions. Panthers&rsquo; coach Terry Murray was asked about the effect of Bure&rsquo;s absence.&ldquo;The first thing I noticed,&rdquo; he said, with a weak smile, &ldquo;is that no one in the conference called to say,&rsquo;We&rsquo;re sorry Pavel&rsquo;s out of the lineup.&rsquo; No one offered any condolences or sympathy. No one cared. All they said was,&rsquo;Throw them the anchor. Let them drown.&rsquo; &ldquo;Murray doesn&rsquo;t read too much into the fact they haven&rsquo;t gone under yet. &ldquo;The first couple of games after the injury, you still have some momen tum, so you just keep moving along. But after those first few games, it really starts to wear on you. Mentally, you&rsquo;re trying to dig down and work harder, but it just becomes a little tougher. The goals don&rsquo;t come as easily. The plays in the offensive zone don&rsquo;t happen quite as often. The possession time is not the same. You pay a price for it.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0013-01

Don’t overreact to success without stars

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender Staff Writer</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011691/7236868-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Thorton Feellin&rsquo; Fine though others doubted his ability Joe Thortton said he had no worries. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div>When Joe Thornton shrugs and grins, &ldquo;I kind of knew I&rsquo;d be okay this year,&rdquo; you don&rsquo;t know whether or not to believe him.All you have to go on are his words because when you look in his eyes there is sparkle, but no fire. But that&rsquo;s Thorn ton. He says things like &ldquo;proving the critics wrong&rdquo; in passing. The mistake is thinking he couldn&rsquo;t change his game without changing his look.Time has proved him right. The 19-year-old prodigy from St. Thomas, Ont., has been better than OK. But six months ago in the Boston Bruins&rsquo; dressing room, where the opinion that matters most belongs to the guy in the next stall, the boys weren&rsquo;t convinced he could pull it off. And after a rookie season in which one Boston writer compared him to a kid on a field trip looking out the bus window, who could blame them?The Bruins wanted Thornton to be their No. 2 center, but before his team mates returned for training camp last fall and saw him bulked up to a toned 225 pounds on his 6-foot-4 frame, it was tough to imagine he could make such a transformation.Joe Thornton, second-line center? Management kept saying it over and over, coach Pat Bums laid out the expectations, yet nothing could make it sound right. They knew him as a green, wide-eyed NHLer with only a little less to learn about pro hockey than that j crazy Art Williams guy in Tampa, talking up Vincent Lecavalier as the next Michael Jordan.The Calder Trophy season enjoyed last year by left winger Sergei Sam sonov, serious and dedicated beyond his years and chosen seven spots below first over-all pick Thornton in the 1997 &ldquo;entry draft, didn&rsquo;t help Thorn ton by comparison.To Boston Bruins&rsquo; goalie Byron Dafoe, the jump from a three-goal, seven-point, eight game healthy-scratch season was too much to hope for.&ldquo;No one (in the room) expected him to be a second-line center,&rdquo; Dafoe said. &ldquo;We were still is thinking he was going to be third or fourth.But luckily for the Bruins, sometimes the unexpected has a way of coming true. Sometimes a happy-go-lucky attitude and floppy blond hair can camouflage an inner desire to improve that no I one in the Bruins&rsquo; room could say with certainty he had.Thornton agreed to stay &ldquo;in Boston over the summer and work with f strength and conditioning consultant F&rdquo; Mike Boyle. That gave him the confidence he needed coming into camp. &ldquo;He has stepped right up,&rdquo; Dafoe said, &ldquo;and it has been a welcome surprise this year. He knew what to expect and he expected a lot more of him-self, whereas last year he kind of just went out and played and just doubted his ability wanted to see what to step things up, would happen.&rsquo; j Joe Thornton said That Thornton he had no worries. has played in all situations, including the occasional penalty-kill on a team j coached by Pat Bums, says even more about I his improvement than his stats: 11 goals and 32 points in 67 games, including 11 assists in his past 12 games after a 4-1 Bruins&rsquo; road win over the Toronto Maple Leafs March 17.Playing most often with wingers Anson Carter and Steve Heinze, Thornton has discovered his aggressive side and is showing it far more than he did even in junior, when he was named Canadian Hockey League player of the year with the Ontario League&rsquo;s Sault Ste. Marie Grey hounds in 1996-97.One scout said Thornton is simply &ldquo;imposing himself. He&rsquo;s going to be the first-line center before long.&rdquo;Thornton admits he never had to careen into comers with attitude before and it took him a year to learn how to do it.&ldquo;I think you might get a little more space out there, the&rsquo;D&rsquo; will think different about going in the comer next time if you finish the first two hits on him,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That gets you more room, too.&rdquo;Off the ice, Thornton&rsquo;s demeanor has become more professional. His answers to questions are less frequently punctuated with the &ldquo;awesomes&rdquo; and &ldquo;excellents&rdquo; that marked his speech a year ago. He is less talk and more action. He is making the Bruins look like they made the right decision not sending him back to junior.Bums is about as analytical as a tree shrub on the matter. It&rsquo;s all part of a natural evolution, he says, as natural as breathing. Thornton never could have lived up to half his hype. Bums&rsquo; job was just to remind him how far he had to go and make sure he didn&rsquo;t totally lose his spirit while he was getting there.&ldquo;He got punched in the nose, he got sat on his ass a couple times, got hit, he hit, he fought, found out it didn&rsquo;t hurt that much,&rdquo; Bums said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what all the excitement&rsquo;s about.&rdquo;Thornton&rsquo;s demeanor says he doesn&rsquo;t know, either. But then, we know now that&rsquo;s not a reliable indication of anything. &#9632;

f0014-01

Joe joltin’ in year 2

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0015-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011556/7236906-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">One reader would like to see the NHL All-Star Game be converted into a Canada-vs.-World contest. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div>Move over Ferris Bueller. Your day I; off pales in comparison to Gary Bettman&rsquo;s.As part of our Puck Poll series, The I Hockey News granted the NHL commissioner an imaginary one-day holiday. In his absence, readers were invited to take over and make one change to the game.Common themes such as altering I the crease rule, eliminating the red line I and finding a way to decrease tie games emerged, but the response covered a wide range of topics. Here is a sampling of your proposals:Introduce revenue-sharing to save I Canadian teams. There would be no new teams in venues with no snow.Gregg DeCesare, Southfield, Mich. Increase the size of the net half a foot in height and width.Michael Kalinski, Buffalo Take out the red line to speed up play.Gordon Kruger, Lac LaBiche, Alta.Make a rule that players cannot raise their sticks above their shoulders, except when taking slap shots.Andy Stephany, CalgaryAllow Hamilton to have a franchise.Rich Alt, St. Catharines, OntPlace an across-the-board freeze on all ticket prices in every city until the current collective bargaining agreement expires.Jim Anderschat, S. Portland, Me.Make Gary Bettman watch the NHL Legends video series, then fire him, name Ken Dryden commissioner and return the divisions and conferences to their former names.Greg Cummings, Fort Wayne, Ind.Get rid of the five-minute overtime period during the regular season.Paul Ryan, Waltham, Mass.Alter the playoff format so division leaders are not seeded higher than teams that have more points.Mike Montgomery, Lenox, Mich.Change the format of the All-Star Game to Canada vs. the World.Scott Boyle, Port Hope, Ont.Allow goals when a player is in the crease but does not prevent the goalie from stopping the puck.Darren Wells, Grand Prairie, Alta.Suspend players caught slew-footing or head-butting for five games without pay on the first offense, 10 games without pay and a $100,000 fine on the second and ban them from the league on the third.Elatia Grimshaw, Royal Oak, Mich.Abolish all rule changes made after o the league expanded from six to 12 $ teams in 1967-68.Dan Riker, DetroitGive each team one year to have its n arena modified to accommodate an Olympic-sized ice surface.Tim Comely, Ayr, Ont.Have a supervisor of officials at each game and make officials accountable for each infraction they see but don&rsquo;t call.Steve Robinson, Sewickley, Pa.Change the overtime format so there is a shootout after the five-minute overtime period if the score is still tied.Marc Zwelling, TorontoAs more teams enter the league, I would permit a greater number of teams to qualify for the playoffs.Zlatko Radovanovic, Beamsville, OnLInstitute a Players&rsquo; Day-one game early in the season with no coach on the bench. The players would come up with their own strategy.Steve Schwartz, Farmingdale, NJ.Introduce a playoff format in which only the six division winners and two wild-card teams qualify.Eliot Fishman, Danbury, Conn.Introduce a criss-cross format once the playoffs reach the final four, with the top-seeded team in the East facing the second seed in the West and vice versa.Nick Kourles, Regina, Sask.Change the format of the all-star skill competition to once again allow players to compete, regardless of whether they have made the all-star teams.Edith H. Phillips, Williams, Ariz.Alter the sentences for minor penal ties so there are one, two and three minute penalties. It makes no sense the sentence for slashing, high-sticking and cross-checking is two minutes, the same as for a non-vicious offense like shooting the puck over the glass.Susie Kennedy, Lethbridge, Alta.Create the Wayne Gretzky Trophy and award it to the player with the most assists during the regular season.Jordan Mearns, Sidney, B.C.Award a franchise to Niagara Falls. The Rainbow Warriors would be a truly international team, serving both Canada and the U.S., and their colorful uniforms would be exciting on TV. Fans from the Golden Horseshoe area of Ontario who can&rsquo;t get Leaf tickets would support the team.Gordon Gresko, TorontoChange the two-referee system. All the second referee is doing is proving that one head is about the same or worse than two.Zeke Hume, Langley, B.C.Eliminate the instigator rule.Chris Stinson, Saskatoon, Sask.Institute a complete five-minute overtime period with no goalies.Frank E. Mell, Munster, OntImpose an automatic 10-game sus-pension for checking from behind.John Stein, Windsor, OnLAir all commercials between periods.Randy Aitken, Chatham, OntIntroduce a rule that stipulates all players entering the league as of 1999-2000 must wear face shields.Chris Schultz, Green Bay, Wise.Realign the teams so Nashville, Florida, Tampa Bay, Carolina and Atlanta would all be in one division.Kim McFadden, Nashville, Tenn.Eliminate the no-icing call for penalized teams. They shouldn&rsquo;t benefit from being penalized.Mark Atherton, Fredericton, N.B.Introduce no-touch icing. It saves time and makes the opposition think twice before dumping the puck down the ice.Troy Buckland, Victoria, B.C.Get rid of the bluelines. This would create more room for the players and increase goal-scoring, especially on the power play.Ryan Klein, Fullerton, Calif.Make it mandatory for players to retire at age 35.Darrell K. Horst, Vermilion, Alta.Force NHL teams to recognize and enforce suspensions which have been incurred by players while they are playing in the AHL.Maureen Nash, Latham, N.Y.To settle ties, I would use a shootout in which only the goalies participate. The team of the first goalie to score would be the winner.Ray Chauvin, Blind River, OntBan all third jerseys. The league is tampering with tradition and allowing horrific monstrosities, established for one purpose-to raise revenue.Gary Conway, Staten Island, N.Y.Put a limit on how often per game a team can ice the puck. Anything over that number would result in a delay-of-game penalty.Warren Kozierski, Spencerport, N.Y.Attempt to establish teams in other countries like Sweden and Russia, since they have homegrown players already playing in the NHL.Bruce Headley, Morgantown, W.Va.Get rid of seamless glass in the rinks and go back to partitioned glass. With the old glass there seemed to be more body checking, because it gives more when you go into it.Ron Valerino, Pittsburgh<h2>PUCK POLL PRIZE WINNERS</h2>Participating in THN&rsquo;s Puck Poll was a rewarding experience for Vito Toia of Syracuse, N.Y. He gets a $35 gift certificate to The Hockey News&rsquo; Hockey Shop as this week&rsquo;s first-place winner. Five other winners (NHL team caps) were also drawn at random.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-021090/7236899-1-eng-US/f0015-022.jpg" title="f0015-02" width="1151" height="361"></div> &#9632;

f0015-01

Here’s what you would do

<div class="byline">By Cammy Clark</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011477/7236937-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="161" height="161"></div>The Mighty Ducks&rsquo; of Anaheim&rsquo;s young defense corps received little respect around the NHL in September. But the group, without a star among them, has come together and done a more than respectable job this season.The Ducks had allowed 167 goals in their first 69 games (2.42 per game), good for eighth best in the NHL through March 18.&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have any stars on defense,&rdquo; said veteran Kevin Haller. &ldquo;But we get the job done as a group.&rdquo;One of the first areas new coach Craig Harts-burg tried to improve after taking over the Ducks during the off-season was their defensive zone coverage.&ldquo;I think&rsquo;Hartzy&rsquo; implemented a very simple system that&rsquo;s easy to understand, but very effective,&rdquo; said assistant coach Newell Brown. &ldquo;We have a group of defensemen that have a very good work ethic and they battle as hard as any group of defensemen in the league in our end.&rdquo;Brown said that work ethic begins in practice.&ldquo;Most of the time, we usually we have six defensemen out, well after practice is over,&rdquo; Brown said. &ldquo;It shows the type of commitment those guys have.&rdquo;Haller and Jason Marshall are the Ducks&rsquo; best defensive duo. They prevent goals, not score them; each had just one goal.Fredrik Olausson has provided the offense on the blue-line, with 14 goals and 47 points, a total that tied him for second among defenseman scoring.Olausson also has played solid positional defense, with the best plus/minus among defensemen on the Ducks at plus-11.Young defenseman Ruslan Salei, Pavel Tmka and waiver draft pick up Pascal Trepanier have played solid roles, as has Jamie Pushor, whom the Ducks acquired from the Detroit Red Wings last season at the trading deadline.&ldquo;They&rsquo;re really competitive, you can&rsquo;t teach that,&rdquo; Brown said. &ldquo;That comes from within.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Right winger Teemu Selanne&rsquo;s 17-game points scoring streak came to an end thanks to the video review judge. Selanne scored a power play goal against Dallas March 12 that would have extended his streak to 18, matching the longest of the season (set by Philadelphia center Eric Lindros). But upon review, defenseman Fredrik Olausson&rsquo;s toe was in the crease and the goal was disallowed. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a joke,&rdquo; Selanne said. &ldquo;This is ruining hockey. I&rsquo;m not just talking about what happened tonight. Overall, I think. It had nothing to do with the play. I feel shame for hockey. I feel shame that they don&rsquo;t count those things. I knew the streak would stop some game. But I didn&rsquo;t want it to stop that way&rdquo;&hellip;The Ducks are 5-0-0 against rival Los Angeles this season. Goalie Guy Hebert has played in all the games, allowing only five goals on 159 shots&hellip;The Ducks&rsquo; 1-0 loss to Phoenix March 13 was their seventh 1-0 game. That&rsquo;s the most 1-0 games in a season by any one team since 1935-36, when Boston had nine. &#9632;

f0016-01

No stars among Duck blueliners, but group proves experts wrong

<div class="byline">By Nancy L. Marrapese</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-021139/7236968-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="162" height="163"></div>It was a play that center Jason Allison, the Bruins&rsquo; top pivot man and second-leading scorer, made several times a game. It was a play many players make all the time without incident.However, on March 17, Allison suffered a wrist injury when he tried to pinch along the boards and wound up smashing his right wrist.Allison, who missed practice the day after the game, said he was going to play with it the rest of the season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m planning to play,&rdquo; said Allison, who preferred to remain tight-lipped about the injury, not wanting to make himself a target for opponents.Allison suffered the sprain in the first period of a road game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, but remained in the game and wound up scoring the winning goal in a 4-1 Bruins&rsquo; victory.&ldquo;I did it myself,&rdquo; said Allison. &ldquo;I tried to pinch it off fast. I slammed my body into the boards and I caught my hand between my thigh and the boards and it went the wrong way. It was a freaky thing.&rdquo;Allison said he believes even though it&rsquo;s his strong hand that&rsquo;s affected, he&rsquo;ll be all right to play his normal workload. If there is an area he might be most hindered it&rsquo;s on taking face-offs.Coach Pat Bums was going to have to weigh how much he was going to use Allison on draws down the stretch. Allison has always been the one to take faceoffs in the defensive zone. With the game on the line, either Allison or Tim Taylor are always in the game. Another option for Bums was to swap Allison over to right wing and put Dmitri Khristich in the middle.&ldquo;I still took the big ones in our own end,&rdquo; said Allison, referring to the final two periods in Toron to. &ldquo;If I touch it, it hurts, but not much. It&rsquo;s more like taking draws or taking a wrist shot. It&rsquo;s not about slashes and guys whacking me. It&rsquo;s going to be about fighting for pucks and shooting the puck.&rdquo;Through 67 games, Allison had 21 goals and 61 points. Last year, Allison finished the season with 83 points, 33 of them goals, in 81 games.NOTEBOOK: On March 17 in Toronto, St. Patrick&rsquo;s Day, right winger Landon Wilson didn&rsquo;t have the luck of the Irish or anyone else. But he did learn there was such a thing as too much free advice. Wilson was awarded a penalty shot 7:41 into the second period after being hauled down by Leafs&rsquo; defenseman Alexander Karpovtsev. Wilson, Toronto&rsquo;s first round pick in 1993, took off from center, skated in on goalie Curtis Joseph and his wrist shot from the slot went over the crossbar and whacked off the glass. Prior to his taking the stage, Wilson&rsquo;s teammates on the bench were all shouting instructions as to what to do. Wilson said he had so much inside his head, he tried to do too much and wound up doing nothing. &ldquo;I was back there saying,&rsquo;Hey, leave him alone,&rsquo;&rdquo; said coach Pat Burns. &ldquo;&rsquo;C&rsquo;mon,&rsquo; I said,&rsquo;Just shut up and let him go.&rsquo; I didn&rsquo;t want him to listen to anybody.&rdquo; Wilson said if he had it to do over again, he&rsquo;d consult goalie Rob Tallas and leave it at that. &#9632;

f0016-02

Draws could be painful for Allison after wrist jammed in fluke play

<div class="byline">By Jim Kelley</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011328/7236999-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="160" height="161"></div>The Buffalo Sabres finally have a 30 goal scorer in their ranks. Laugh if you must, or if you live in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia or Anaheim, but this is big in Buffalo.Really big. Also somewhat ironic.Miroslav Satan cracked the 30-goal barrier, scoring both goals in a 2-1 triumph over the New York Islanders March 16. Satan is the first Sabre to score 30 goals since Pat LaFontaine in 1994-95.LaFontaine actually scored 40 that year, but was later traded to the New York Rangers as the Sabres cut back on offense in favor of a youthful (and less expensive) roster.&ldquo;I was hoping to do it last year, but that didn&rsquo;t happen,&rdquo; Satan said. &ldquo;There are other players on this team that will do it. I&rsquo;m just happy I was the first.&rdquo;Captain Michael Peca had 27 and should make it to 30. Newly acquired Stu Barnes was the other Sabre with a shot-albeit a long one; he had 20.Still, for a team that has been hungry for a scoring star, Satan appears to be on his way. Through the Islanders&rsquo; game, the right winger had collected 17 points (10 goals, seven assists) in his last 16 games.Earlier this season, Satan enjoyed six- and eight-game goal-scoring streaks. History buffs might note the last Sabre who had two goal streaks of four or more games was Alexander Mogilny and that was on the way to a club-record 76-goal season (1992-93).With 31 goals, 24 assists and 55 points, Satan isn&rsquo;t about to challenge Mogilny&rsquo;s lofty mark, but in today&rsquo;s goal-starved NHL, those are good numbers. Satan has topped his career best in all categories. He had 25 goals in 1996-97 and 24 assists and 46 points in 1997-98.&ldquo;To score goals you have to have ice time and you have to have linemates you are used to playing with,&rdquo; Satan said. &ldquo;This year I am playing with Curtis (Brown) and Michal Grosek and we&rsquo;ve stayed together for a long time. That helps.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: After 12 games and nearly a month off the ice, goalie Dominik Hasek resumed skating and was scheduled to start March 19 against the Rangers. Hasek was suffering from a groin strain and the club wanted to make certain it didn&rsquo;t develop into an abdominal tear. The Sabres went 5-4-3 in Hasek&rsquo;s absence&hellip;The Sabres came up with a big 4-1 win over Boston March 13. At that point, the Sabres were just three points ahead of the Bruins, who held the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference&hellip; Newly acquired Stu Barnes was playing center on a line with center-turned right winger Brian Holzinger and left winger Geoff Sanderson. The hope is Bames will improve Sanderson&rsquo;s scoring and give the club a third scoring line&hellip;Left winger Paul Kruse accidentally KO&rsquo;d right winger Rob Ray as the two tried to line up an Islander in the comer. Ray suffered a mild concussion and chided his teammate about being more careful about picking his spots. &#9632;

f0017-01

Sharpshooting Satan first Sabre to hit 30 goals since LaFontaine

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-021014/7237030-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="162" height="162"></div>Phil Housley called it a great story book game for me.&rdquo; And why not?On the night the Calgary Flames&rsquo; defenseman surpassed Joe Mullen as the highest-scoring American-born player in NHL history March 13, he did it in style-just four days after his 35th birthday.It came on the road against his ex-team, the Washington Capitals who put him on waivers last summer and ended up losing him to Calgary. It was the only way the two teams could circumvent a no-trade clause in his contract.It came with his family, wife Karin and his four children, in the stands. When Housley joined the Flames last summer, his family stayed behind in the Washington area.Most importantly, it came in a stunning 5-4 overtime comeback victory-which featured two goals in the final 90 seconds of regulation. All of a sudden, the Flames, who were 13th in the Western Conference at the end of January, were holding the final playoff spot.Housley recorded point No. 1,064 on Hnat Domenichelli&rsquo;s power play goal 1:42 into the second period.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s very gratifying to do this in front of my family,&rdquo; Housley told CFR Radio afterwards.And for good measure, Housley added two more assists, including setting up the game-tying goal with 32 seconds left in regulation.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m lucky to be playing this long and I&rsquo;ve played with a lot of great players,&rdquo; said the 17 year veteran, who was tied for the team lead with 47 points. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been healthy and I&rsquo;ve had a chance to play on the power play. The Calgary coaching staff has been very good for me.&rdquo;Four days later, Housley achieved another milestone with his 300th career goal in a 3-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks. Only three other defensemen (Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque and Denis Potvin) have reached that total.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great feeling to be in that crowd, with those great players,&rdquo; said Housley, who had six goals in his last 15 games after scoring three in his first 52.NOTEBOOK: No one has benefited more from the departure of right winger Theo Fleury than center Cory Stillman, who suddenly emerged as the team&rsquo;s No. 1 offensive player. Playing mainly on a line with right winger Valeri Bure and left winger Andrei Nazarov, Stillman put together a career-high eight-game points streak (six goals, 12 points), which ended Mar. 17 against Chicago&hellip;Arguably the most important commodity the Flames will receive from Colorado in return for Fleury is the player to be named later. Speculation is it will be one of two defensemen: Robyn Regehr (Kam loops) or Martin Skoula (Barrie), two of four players Colorado took in the first round of the 1998 entry draft. The Flames had until March 29 to make their selection&hellip;The Flames made preliminary overtures to two potential unrestricted free agents-defenseman Tommy Albelin and center Andrew Cassels. Albelin, who demanded a trade in December, had played more than any other player on the team over the past four weeks. &#9632;

f0017-02

Housley America’s top scorer after visit to America’s capital

<div class="byline">By Todd Graff</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011361/7237061-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="160" height="160"></div>It had been a difficult stretch for Trevor Kidd, who was a force this time of year a sea son ago. He went 33 days between starts. Heck, he hadn&rsquo;t even played since signing a two-year extension with the Carolina Hurricanes in February.But on March 18 in Colorado, three days after a solid relief appearance, Kidd earned his first start since Feb. 13 and made 31 saves in a 3-2 loss to the Avs.&ldquo;It got to the point where I could only laugh about it,&rdquo; Kidd said. &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t happy about not playing. But there was no sense in worrying about it. I worked hard in practice and off the ice, as well. What else could I do, really?&rdquo;Kidd relieved starter Arturs Irbe in the second period against the Phoenix Coyotes March 15. He made the most of his appearance by stopping 19 of 20 shots as the Hurricanes erased a pair of three-goal deficits to earn a 5-5 tie. Kidd made a pair of sterling saves on Keith Tkachuk in the final 30 seconds of overtime.The fact that he played so effectively after getting used so infrequently wasn&rsquo;t surprising to some.&ldquo;He sat for so long that he was chomping at the bit,&rdquo; said Hurricanes&rsquo; GM Jim Rutherford. &ldquo;And (goaltender coach) Steve Weeks is on the trip. He gave Trevor an extra workout Monday morning so he wasn&rsquo;t sluggish.&rdquo;Buoyed by that performance, Kidd was given the start in Colorado.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a host of bad things that could have happened when Trevor wasn&rsquo;t playing, but none of them did, because he handled the situation well,&rdquo; said Hurricanes&rsquo; coach Paul Maurice.NOTEBOOK: GM Jim Rutherford asked Paul Theofanous. agent for goalie Arturs Irbe. to present a contract proposal for his client. Irbe can become an unrestricted free agent this summer&hellip;Right winger Andrei Kovalenko, who did not score in 13 games with Philadelphia, had three goals in his first five games with the Hurricanes. &ldquo;1 want to try to show everyone that Jim (Rutherford) made the right choice trading for me,&rdquo; Kovalenko said. &ldquo;I want to show everybody that I love this game.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0018-01

Frustrated No. 2 goaltender remains good Kidd until finally getting chance

<div class="byline">By Tim Sassone</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-021012/7237092-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="161" height="161"></div>From all indications, Lome Molleken will return as coach of the Chicago Blackhawks next season.General manager Bob Murray said owner Bill Wirtz will make the final decision regarding M&ouml;lleken, who replaced the fired Dirk Graham on an interim basis, but it sounded like there really wasn&rsquo;t a decision to make.&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s put it this way: He likes what he sees,&rdquo; Murray said of Wirtz. &ldquo;I think everything that is happening is very positive.&rdquo;M&ouml;lleken was getting support from all the key places. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m all for it,&rdquo; said captain Chris Chelios. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s been a big difference in this team&rsquo;s attitude the last three weeks and Lome&rsquo;s the big reason.&ldquo;I think Lome is a good coach and has pre pared us well. He&rsquo;s obviously got a lot of experience, and it&rsquo;s showing. I think once he gets even more familiar with the players he&rsquo;s only going to get better.&rdquo;M&ouml;lleken was scoring big points with the players for his communication skills. His vow to make hockey fun again for them by going to a more wide-open style was also being well-received.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to see him back,&rdquo; said Tony Amonte. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s done a great job so far. He came into a tough situation, but he has started to get things rolling back in the right direction. He&rsquo;s got a lot of good ideas and he&rsquo;s got a fire to win.&rdquo;The Hawks were 4-4-1 in M&ouml;lleken&rsquo;s first nine games and trying to finish as strongly as possible.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s much more relaxing around here,&rdquo; said Alex Zhamnov. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m excited and looking forward to every game.&rdquo;Jocelyn Thibault said M&ouml;lleken has the Hawks feeling good about themselves again after some miserable times.M&ouml;lleken was refusing to campaign for the job, preferring to let what happens the rest of the sea son speak for him. But it&rsquo;s something he wants badly.&ldquo;Sometimes I turn down the wrong street thinking about it,&rdquo; M&ouml;lleken said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an honor to coach the Chicago Blackhawks. But in this business you&rsquo;re only as good as your last game and our last game hasn&rsquo;t been played yet.&rdquo;Murray was paying close attention to what the players were saying about M&ouml;lleken as he makes his evaluation of the situation.NOTEBOOK: Veteran winger Bob Probert and defensemen Dave Manson and Doug Zmolek were placed on waivers March 19&hellip;Probert has two years left on his contract ($1.8 million per season), while Zmolek is signed for three more seasons for roughly $3.6 million&hellip;Zmolek missed three games but was pro nounced fit after experiencing an abnormal heartbeat during a morning skate March 12 in Nashville&hellip;Center Doug Gilmour was continuing to play but not practise because of a bulging disc in his back&hellip;Dirk Graham accepted the Hawks&rsquo; offer to stay in the organization and was going to do some scouting and work with several prospects in Western Canada. &#9632;

f0018-02

Hawk veterans praise performance of replacement mentor Mölleken

<div class="byline">By Adrian Dater</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03708/7237123-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="162" height="160"></div>Not only did the Colorado Avalanche lose the services of their fifth-leading scorer, Valeri Kamensky, for the rest of the sea son, they lost their best trade bait as the NHL deadline passed.Kamensky, the stylish left winger, suffered a broken right forearm March 14 after being slashed by Detroit Red Wings&rsquo; forward Kirk Maltby. Kamensky had surgery the next day, and the Avs said the veteran would miss the next eight to 12 weeks.&ldquo;Anytime you lose a guy like Vai, it hurts your team,&rdquo; said Avs&rsquo; captain Joe Sakic. &ldquo;But we have a lot of depth, and we&rsquo;re going to have to just work a little harder.&rdquo;Maltby was suspended four games by the NHL for the slash, but that was little consolation to the Avs. GM Pierre Lacroix wouldn&rsquo;t confirm it publicly, but the team was said to have been offering Kamensky for potential trades involving a proven defenseman in return. One rumor had Kamensky going to the Toronto Maple Leafs for blueliner Jason Smith.Kamensky will become an unrestricted free agent when the season is over, and that is the biggest reason for the Avs wanting to peddle him.Kamensky has not had the best relationship with new coach Bob Hartley, as he felt he hadn&rsquo;t been given enough ice time much of the season. Kamensky said pubhcly a couple of times he didn&rsquo;t think he would be back with the Avs because of the rift.But, shortly before the injury, Kamensky and Hartley began to patch things up. The two had a long talk, and Kamensky emerged saying their relationship was better.&ldquo;I had been very satisfied with Vai&rsquo;s play of late,&rdquo; Hartley said. &ldquo;His defensive game had got ten better and I was trying to give him more ice time. It&rsquo;s too bad what happened.&rdquo;Hartley accused the Red Wings&rsquo; coaching staff of instructing Maltby to play a dirty game against the Avs.Not only did he slash Kamensky, but he gave a hit to Peter Forsberg&rsquo;s head away from the puck in the first period.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s clear-cut he was given instructions before the game.&rdquo; Hartley said. &ldquo;It was a blindside, cheap shot he gave Peter, and you saw what the league thought of his slash to (Kamensky).&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Avs expected right winger Theo Fleury to return to the lineup March 20 or 21 against Chicago after missing about three weeks with a sprained right knee&hellip;Forward Chris Drury, who took over the NHL rookie scoring lead from Vancouver right winger Bill Muckalt, was expected to fill Valeri Kamensky&rsquo;s spot as left wing on the second line, with center Adam Deadmarsh and right winger Claude Lemieux&hellip;Deadmarsh missed a March 18 game against Carolina with back spasms, but was expected to return shortly after&hellip;Colorado&rsquo;s 3-2 win over Carolina at home moved its record at McNichols Sports Arena to just .500 at 14-14-4. &#9632;

f0018-03

Slash shatters Kamensky’s wrist, dashes Avs’ chance to deal him

<div class="byline">By Chuck Carlton</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011259/7237154-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="162" height="162"></div>Half full or half empty? Chris Osgood was a little uncertain about how to view his three-game vacation from playing goal for the Detroit Red Wings.&ldquo;I like getting a rest,&rdquo; Osgood said, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t like not playing. It&rsquo;s kind of a Catch-22.&rdquo;Either way, spring break has officially ended for Osgood, who returned March 19 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Backup Norm Maracle posted a 1-2-0 record in his absence.But those looking for controversy or any rift between Osgood and coach Scotty Bowman should search else-where. Bowman even met with Osgood after playing Maracle against the Colorado Avalanche March 14 to explain his reasoning: rest in preparation for the playoffs.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough to sit there for three games and not play,&rdquo; Osgood said. &ldquo;At the same time, maybe it was good to rest and let Norm play. He played real well.&rdquo;Osgood has only recently recovered from a February flu bout which caused him to lose about 10 pounds. Osgood doesn&rsquo;t have the luxury of easing back into things.The Red Wings&rsquo; lead on the St. Louis Blues had shrunk to just three points in the Central Division. Having one of the top three seeds in the West is seen as crucial to the team&rsquo;s playoff hopes.&ldquo;All of a sudden, the regular season means something,&rdquo; Osgood said. And that&rsquo;s something new in Detroit.NOTEBOOK: Right winger Kirk Malt by was suspended four games after a third period slash broke the right forearm of Colorado forward Valeri Kamensky March 14. The Red Wings were disappointed Colorado forward Jeff Odgers wasn&rsquo;t penalized for punching Maltby from the bench while Avs&rsquo; forward Peter Forsberg retaliated for the Maltby hit. &ldquo;We must lead the league in sus pensions.&rdquo; said coach Scotty Bowman, who had lost four players for 14 games&hellip;After losing four goals in seven games to the in-the-crease rule, Bowman and captain Steve Yzerman were both calling for changes. &ldquo;Every player, your whole career, you&rsquo;re taught to go to the net,&rdquo; Yzerman said. &ldquo;At some point, common sense has to be taken into account.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0019-01

Osgood thrown back in fire after Bowman-imposed rest

<div class="byline">By Mike Helka</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-03615/7237185-1-eng-US/f0019-032.jpg" title="f0019-03" width="350" height="474"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Nieuwendyk</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-02919/7237192-1-eng-US/f0019-022.jpg" title="f0019-02" width="160" height="159"></div>Joe Nieuwendyk proved to himself last April he was back.After a contract hassle in Calgary ruined his 1995-96 season and he bounced back to have a fair year in 1996-97, Nieuwendyk returned to the status of elite last season.He led all Canadian-born goal-scorers with 39, led the Stars with a franchise-record 11 game-winners and was voted team MVP. He also earned NHL player-of-the-month honors for April and was selected to play on the Canadian Olympic team.Everything was perfect&hellip;until San Jose Sharks&rsquo; defenseman Bryan Marchment ran Nieuwendyk into the end boards in the first game of the playoffs and tore the anterior cruciate ligament in Nieuwendyk&rsquo;s right knee.It was a cruel blow for the Stars&rsquo; center, one made worse when doctors recommended that while he was under the knife to repair the right ACL, he also replace the ACL in his left knee. Nieuwendyk tore that ligament in 1991 and had been playing with a brace on the knee since.Double knee surgery it was for Nieuwendyk in May, and a season of difficult rehabilitation was predictedTen months later. Nieuwendyk looks like he&rsquo;s back again.&ldquo;They said it would be about a year and it&rsquo;s starting to come up on a year,&rdquo; Nieuwendyk said. &ldquo;I honestly believe by next year, I&rsquo;ll be able to play pain-free and without braces.&rdquo;Nieuwendyk, 32, looked particularly good in a nine-game stretch through mid-March, one in which he produced eight goals and 14 points. Overall, he had 20 goals and 45 points in 55 games.&ldquo;Last year he was playing his best hockey of the season heading into the playoffs,&rdquo; said coach Ken Hitchcock. &ldquo;And it looks like he&rsquo;s going to do that again. That&rsquo;s what we need from him.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Stars continue then-search for young legs to help them in the playoffs. After signing right winger Blake Sloan from Houston of the International League, the Stars sent left winger Jason Botterill to Michigan (IHL) and recalled forwards Jamie Wright and Kelly Fairchild&hellip;The Stars will wear their third&rsquo; sweater as their road sweater in the playoffs and also have been approved to switch to a white version of the all-star style sweater for next season&rsquo;s home jersey. They will do away with their current sweaters after this season&rsquo;s playoffs&hellip;The new arena in Dallas, scheduled to open in 2001-02 will be called the American Airlines Center. American announced a 30-year deal for $195 million March 18. &#9632;

f0019-03

Nieuwendyk starts to sizzle as he regains knee strength

<div class="byline">By Robert Tychkowski</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-04472/7237223-1-eng-US/f0019-042.jpg" title="f0019-04" width="163" height="159"></div>Ron Low was half expecting a ticker tape parade from the disgusted, shell shocked fans at Skyreach Centre.&ldquo;If they would have thrown their tickets on the ice it would have been a good response to the way the club played,&rdquo; sighed the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; coach, after his slumping club hit rock bottom March 17 against the New Jersey Devils.It wasn&rsquo;t that they lost 4-1, or it was their fifth consecutive defeat, or that put them 12 games under .500 since Dec. 2, or their playoff hopes were growing slimmer by the day.It was the fact they were outshot 30-4 in the first 24 minutes. The fistless, emotionless display was by far the low point of what is turning out to be a disastrous season.&ldquo;That was awful, I was embarrassed,&rdquo; said right winger Bill Guerin. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t get a sniff all night.&rdquo;&ldquo;When things are like this you start to question your own confidence, it becomes mental,&rdquo; said defenseman Janne Niinimaa.&rsquo;When you&rsquo;re on a roll, everything falls into place. When you&rsquo;re in a slump, everything falls apart.&rdquo;The morning after the New Jersey debacle, in the wake of speculation that GM Glen Sather would fire Low and pull the trigger on a major trade, the Oilers called their second closed door meeting in three days.This time Sather had the floor.&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t come in and rant and rave and talk about systems; he talked about the little intricacies and what it takes to be successful,&rdquo; said center Doug Weight. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not an act. We care. But just because you care doesn&rsquo;t mean you win. We can&rsquo;t feel sorry for ourselves.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s what Sather tried to get across.&ldquo;He knows that we care and he knows that we&rsquo;re down right now. He also told us there&rsquo;s no room for that in this game. We have to play like professionals. That means playing with confidence and character.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Captain Kelly Buch berger returned to the lineup March 17 after missing 30 games with a severely fractured forearm. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no pain what soever, I can shoot as hard as I want,&rdquo; said the right winger, adding it&rsquo;s been a painfully long wait. &ldquo;It was frustrating. You want to be out there helping the team as much as possible, especially in hard times.&rdquo; Buchberger had four goals and seven points in 39 games&hellip;Right winger Bill Guerin had just one game-winning goal this season. None of center Doug Weight&rsquo;s three goals in 30 games decided a contest&hellip;The Oilers had only won one of their homestands this season and that was in mid-October when they went 4-1 0 in five games. &#9632;

f0019-04

How Low can Oilers fall this season?

<div class="byline">By David J. Neal</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011150/7237254-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="159" height="161"></div>A Florida Panthers&rsquo; fun-J filled two-day team bonding trip to Las Vegas lost its sheen after the San Jose Sharks welcomed them back with 4-2 not-as-close-as-it-sounds whipping and brought up questions of the Panthers&rsquo; mental preparation.That these questions had a backdrop of crap tables, blackjack tables and Dennis Rodman was just the current scenery.These are the same issues the Panthers have been dealing with all season. Their raw talent might still be fair-to-middling, but they&rsquo;ve rarely been beat-en on talent alone.But they have been done in by flat-ness and simply not paying attention.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had a few games like this,&rdquo; Panthers center Rob Niedermayer said of the March 17 stinker.&ldquo;We come out and play well in the last period, but that does nothing. We talk about it and we talk about it, but we&rsquo;ve got to do it.&rdquo;When so many heads are so regularly MIA come game time, some responsibility must rest on the shoulders of Panthers coach Terry Murray.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s everybody, players and coaches,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;Every player has a responsibility to get himself ready. He doesn&rsquo;t have to look to help anybody else. As coaches, we&rsquo;ve got to prepare the team to be aware of what&rsquo;s going on.&ldquo;We were motivated. We were ready to play. But we just didn&rsquo;t do the right stuff&hellip;It was trying to do too much that was part of the problem.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Panthers stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas. They saw Los Angeles Laker Dennis Rodman at their hotel and in the casino working out his &ldquo;personal problems"&hellip;During a TV interview, right winger Peter Worrell, No. 28, kidded defenseman Dan Boyle about his roulette luck. &ldquo;You should&rsquo;ve bet on 28 black!&rdquo; Worrell said&hellip;The rookie dinner in Vegas reportedly cost around $13,500, split among five rookies. Shrugged rookie defenseman Jaroslav Spacek, &ldquo;You pay once, you eat free for the next five years."&hellip;Worrell (199) and defenseman Paul Laus (206) ranked second and third in NHL penalty minutes. The last time teammates finished 1-2 was when Dave Schultz and Andre&rsquo;Moose&rsquo; Dupont did it with Philadelphia in 1974-75. &#9632;

f0020-01

Bonding road trip to Vegas ends in familiar frustration

<div class="byline">By Helene Elliott</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-03542/7237285-1-eng-US/f0020-032.jpg" title="f0020-03" width="355" height="470"><figcaption class="caption-body">Philippe Boucher</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-02789/7237292-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="159" height="160"></div>The Los Angeles Kings aren&rsquo;t ready to concede the season, but they made a dramatic concession of an $11.25-million mistake when they placed veteran defenseman Steve Duchesne on waivers March 17.Duchesne, who signed a three-year, $3.75-mil-lion a year contract (with an option for a fourth year) last summer and was expected to be the power play weapon the Kings sorely needed, had a dreadful season that hit a low point when he was benched for three consecutive games in mid-March. When the Kings won all of those games-against the Detroit Red Wings, Vancouver Canucks and Ottawa Senators-players asked coach Larry Robinson not to change the lineup and GM Dave Taylor made Duchesne available to all takers.Duchesne, 33, had four goals and 19 points and was minus-six in 60 games.He had only one power play goal, and the Kings&rsquo; power play unit continued to drag near the bottom of the efficiency rankings.&ldquo;This has been my decision, and it&rsquo;s a difficult one,&rdquo; said Taylor, a friend and former teammate of Duchesne&rsquo;s. &ldquo;I think when we signed Steve, we felt we were getting a veteran player who would play very well for us. I don&rsquo;t think Steve has performed as well as he&rsquo;s capable of performing.&rdquo;Duchesne said he was shocked at the news. &ldquo;The biggest disappointment is that they&rsquo;re giving up on me after only seven months,&rdquo; he said. This is not from a lack of effort.&rdquo;His continued struggles-and the generally solid play of his replacement. Philippe Boucher-forced the Kings into making the move.&ldquo;Boucher got in and 4F he made the most of his Boucher opportunity,&rdquo; team captain Rob Blake said. &ldquo;We need guys to step up. We need guys who are com mitted to the organization.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: After the three wins, captain Rob Blake and assistants Luc Robitaille. Doug Bodger and Garry Galley also asked coach Larry Robinson to resist the temptation to tinker with line combinations. Robinson agreed.&rsquo;The work ethic is so much better. They know if they work hard they&rsquo;re going to get rewards,&rdquo; Robinson said.&rsquo;That&rsquo;s probably my fault I hope it&rsquo;s not too late to rebound."&hellip;With a goal March 15 in a 4-0 victory over Ottawa, Blake became the first King defenseman to score 100 goals in his career&hellip;Robitaille&rsquo;s goal-scoring slump stretched to a season-long nine games after he failed to score against the Ducks March 18. He was stuck on 31, but it was still almost double the 16 of co-runners-up right wingers Glen Murray and Donald Audette. &#9632;

f0020-03

Duchesne dumped on waivers as Kings eat crow, big dough

<div class="byline">By Herb Zurkowsky</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-04347/7237323-1-eng-US/f0020-042.jpg" title="f0020-04" width="160" height="158"></div>He has been in North America only four sea sons, but Saku Koivu already has seen enough to make him wonder about the way things work in the NHL.Four games into his first big league season, the Montreal Canadiens fired their coach and GM, Jacques Demers and Serge Savard. Then, a couple of years later, Mario Tremblay, Koivu&rsquo;s second coach, resigned. But the biggest pill for the Finnish center to swallow undoubtedly was the recent trade of Mark Rec chi to the Philadelphia Flyers.Koivu not only lost the right winger from his line and his room-mate on the road, but also his best friend.&ldquo;He was my linemate, but he was also a very close friend,&rdquo; Koivu said. &ldquo;I think we all expected something to happen, but it was still a shock when I heard the news. I didn&rsquo;t have a very good night.&rdquo;If Koivu was naive before, he&rsquo;s quickly starting to realize the NHL is big business. Teams trade because they want to rebuild, but economics also force teams into making deals. In dispatching Recchi to the Flyers for right winger Dainius Zubrus, the Canadiens acquired a 20-year-old while removing Recchi&rsquo;s $4.5-mil-lion U.S. salary from their payroll-although most of the contract had been paid out to Recchi, who&rsquo;s scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent this summer.&ldquo;This is certainly different than what I&rsquo;m used to and how we handle things in Finland,&rdquo; Koivu said. &ldquo;There are almost no trades in Fin land. If you&rsquo;re happy and playing OK, you can play 10 years with the same team. Coaches and GMs get fired, but not as often. We don&rsquo;t go through this in Finland. Whether it&rsquo;s good or not is tough to say.&rdquo;Koivu, only 24, is the type of a player a franchise can build around; that&rsquo;s why the Canadiens selected him 21st overall in 1993.NOTEBOOK: Brian Savage was beginning to test the Canadiens&rsquo; patience. The left winger had gone 12 games with-out a goal despite playing on the No. 1 line and power play unit. &ldquo;Brian&rsquo;s a goal scorer and we need contributions from him,&rdquo; said coach Alain Vigneault. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been patient with Brian and we&rsquo;ve shown confidence in him. But now he has to show us something."&hellip;It had been speculated any trade of Mark Recchi would indicate the Canadiens had thrown in the towel on their season, but Montreal won its first three games, against St. Louis, Toronto and Nashville, after the deal was made. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy with the way the team responded after the trade,&rdquo; said center Saku Koivu. &#9632;

f0020-04

Koivu learns ways of NHL hard to take

<div class="byline">By Jeff Legwold</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-06151/7237354-1-eng-US/f0020-062.jpg" title="f0020-06" width="356" height="475"><figcaption class="caption-body">Dan Keczmer</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-05192/7237361-1-eng-US/f0020-052.jpg" title="f0020-05" width="161" height="159"></div>The injured list is crowded, as is the line of players still too young or too green for a promotion, so the Nashville Predators jumped when they had the chance to add yet another name to their cast of second chances.The team claimed veteran defenseman Dan Keczmer off waivers from the Dallas Stars. Keczmer has a year left on his existing contract and he will now be given a chance to play his way on to the Predators&rsquo; 1999-2000 roster down the stretch.Keczmer was paired with John Slaney in most of his early appearances and is another in a series of one-year contracts along the blue line.&ldquo;He&rsquo;s gives us a little more size, he&rsquo;s a little older and can give us some leadership, but overall he&rsquo;s like most of our players&hellip;For a lot of our players it&rsquo;s too close to call right on where we&rsquo;ll be next season,&rdquo; said GM David Poile.Kimmo Timonen and Jan Vopat are the only defensemen other than Keczmer under contract beyond this season, according to Poile. That leaves flexibility for the current group to be part of the long-term plans or for an influx of new faces, depending on how things go the rest of the way.Keczmer was stuck in a loaaeo roster in Dallas and his ice time was limited. He will have no such problems in Nashville. Jay More has battled the effects of multiple concussions and his future is still questionable, while Vopat and Jamie Heward have also battled assorted injuries.While the Predators believe they will produce some NHLers out of the core of their youthful group of defensemen in International League Milwaukee-including Karlis Skrastins, Richard Lintner, Marc Moro and Jeff Kealty-they would prefer to keep them there for development purposes for the time being.NOTEBOOK: Left winger Ville Peltonen, who had surgery for a shoulder separation in December, skated for about 10 minutes prior to practice March 17. It was the first time he had skated with some of his teammates since the injury. Peltonen says he continues to be hopeful about playing before the end of the regular season, but coach Barry Trotz has repeatedly said he believes Peltonen would be better served by making sure he comes back completely healthy next season. Trotz has said he thought Peltonen could have been a 50-point player for the Predators this sea-son&hellip;Center Darren Turcotte underwent surgery on his gimpy right knee after doc-tors found additional ligament tears. He is likely finished for the season. &#9632;

f0020-06

Keczmer has rest of season to prove he’s part of future

<div class="byline">By Rich Chere</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-07131/7237392-1-eng-US/f0020-072.jpg" title="f0020-07" width="160" height="159"></div>Early in his NHL playing career, New Jersey Devils defenseman Ken Daneyko wanted to be Scott Stevens.Although they have been teammates for eight seasons, Daneyko finally got the chance to do his best Stevens impression when the Devils&rsquo; captain suffered a groin pull midway through a five-game road trip and had to return to New Jersey. The NHL&rsquo;s deepest defense corps never missed a beat.&ldquo;I wanted to be a poor man&rsquo;s Scott Stevens even when he was in Washington,&rdquo; Daneyko said. &ldquo;I know I&rsquo;m not as talented, but I want to try to do the job and not hurt us when Scott is out. I take pride in that challenge.&rdquo;Stevens was hurt early in a March 15 victory in Vancouver, which forced coach Robbie Ftorek to play virtually the entire game with five defensemen. The Devils came within 79 seconds of a shutout over the Canucks and, two nights later, routed the Oilers in Edmonton to extend their road winning streak to four straight.Veterans Daneyko and Lyle Odelein played tough and smart while Scott Niedermayer played almost 30 minutes in Edmonton and collected three assists. With Brad Bombardir, Kevin Dean and Sheldon Souray playing steadily, the Devils raised their league best road record to 24-8-2.&ldquo;The guys know.we really have to be ready to play,&rdquo; Niedermayer said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going out there trying to do the best we can to fill (Stevens&rsquo;) shoes.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Goalie Martin Brodeur lost a shutout March 15 when his shot at an empty Canucks&rsquo; goal was intercepted by right winger Alex Mogilny with 79 seconds left and the Devils leading 2-0. Mogilny scored with Brodeur out of position and the goalie had to make several good saves to preserve the win. Coach Robbie Ftorek said Brodeur still has the green light when the Devils are up by two and the goalie indicated the mistake wouldn&rsquo;t make him shy:&rsquo;TH still try it, but that&rsquo;s a hard way to lose a shutout. I said I was sorry a hundred times to the guys. Hopefully, they&rsquo;ll forgive me. Let&rsquo;s put it this way. I have to take everyone out for dinner.&rdquo; Right winger Randy McKay scored his first goal in 12 games in that match. &#9632;

f0020-07

Daneyko, blueline mates pick up slack for Stevens

<div class="byline">By Jim Smith</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02532/7237430-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="348" height="478"><figcaption class="caption-body">Trevor Linden</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01913/7237437-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="162" height="161"></div>As GM Mike Milbury went scouting in Sweden and awaited instructions on conducting a fire sale, the New York Islanders reverted to playing as they did before Bill Stewart replaced him behind the bench.In an 0-6-2 winless streak, the team scored 15 goals and had four one-goal losses while dropping to next-to-last in the standings.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve played against the league&rsquo;s best playoff con-tenders,&rdquo; Stewart said, &ldquo;and I think we&rsquo;ve shown an acceptable game. But it&rsquo;s unfortunate when you don&rsquo;t get the production from the people who are supposed to score goals&hellip;when you go through a funk like this, averaging below two goals a game, that&rsquo;s not good enough.&rdquo;Captain Trevor Linden, who was circling the perimeter and not driving to the net, had just three assists in 12 games and had four goals in the past 41. No. 2 center Bryan Smohnski did not have an assist in 17 games. Both were the subject of trade rumors, along with goalie Tommy Salo, defenseman Rich Pilon and center Sergei Nemchinov.Defensive specialist Claude Lapointe, burning out from overuse, had only five assists in 16 games. Ted Donato, despite getting time on the left point during power plays, &ldquo;had one assist in nine games. Mariusz Czerkawski had two points in 12; Nemchinov two in 10.&ldquo;We need the big goal at the critical times,&rdquo; Linden said, &ldquo;and that certainly falls on my shoulders and others.&rdquo;He added he felt he was working hard and trying to play well defensively and on the penalty-killing unit. &ldquo;You do the best you can, play hard and let things fall where they may,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Things haven t worked out offensively lately for myself and the club&hellip;(but) I&rsquo;m not worried. If I was traded, I&rsquo;d probably go to a team that&rsquo;s in the playoffs. I think everybody would like to go to a team that&rsquo;s in the playoffs, but if it doesn&rsquo;t happen I&rsquo;d be perfectly happy to stay here.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-03312/7237423-1-eng-US/f0021-032.jpg" title="f0021-03" width="349" height="478"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bryan Smolinski</figcaption></div>Looking ahead to the June 26 entry draft, when the Islanders figure to be picking in the top four, Milbury and assistant GM Gordie Clark scouted twin forwards Henrik and Daniel Sedin who play for MoDo in the Swedish Elite League playoffs.NOTEBOOK: The Islanders suspended Craig Janney for one day (March 19) for undisclosed &ldquo;internal matters.&rdquo; Janney was expected to re-join the team on its mid-March road trip. Janney, who had five goals and 27 points in 56 games, was a healthy scratch numerous times with the Tampa Bay Lightning before being dealt to the Islanders&hellip;Defenseman Rich Pilon played his 500th game in a 3-2 Nassau Coliseum overtime loss to the Rangers March 14, but missed a 2-1 loss in Buffalo the next night due to a strained lower back muscle&hellip;Goal-tender Wade Flaherty, starting for the first time since Dec. 28, was the team&rsquo;s best player in Buffalo&hellip;The club was 6-12-6 under coach Bill Stewart, who replaced Mike Milbury behind the bench&hellip;Left winger Gino Odjick, who underwent season-ending abdominal surgery Jan. 18, resumed light skating March 17. &#9632;

f0021-02

Lack of scoring punch sinks Islanders

<div class="byline">By Rick Carplniello</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-05160/7237468-1-eng-US/f0021-052.jpg" title="f0021-05" width="348" height="476"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wayne Gretzky</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-04225/7237475-1-eng-US/f0021-042.jpg" title="f0021-04" width="162" height="161"></div>New York Rangers&rsquo; coach John Muckier insisted that the pain in Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s neck won&rsquo;t make for a pain in the coach&rsquo;s neck when Gretzky returned to the lineup.Gretzky, who hadn&rsquo;t played since Feb. 22 with what was diagnosed as a protruding disc in his cervical spine, had a cortisone injection that led to optimism Gretzky could be back by the end of March, if not sooner. Gretzky resumed skating March 15, and was to see specialist Dr. Patrick O&rsquo;Leary on March 21, looking to get the go-ahead to resume full contact practice.Given that the Rangers had gone 6 2-2 in the first 10 games minus&rsquo;The Great One,&rsquo; there had been some talk-mostly whispers-that the Rangers might be better off without him.With Gretzky out, the Rangers&rsquo; three young centers flourished.It figured that it would be difficult to cut the ice time Petr Nedved, Marc Savard and Manny Malhotra enjoyed during the 10-game stretch.When those three centers divvied up Gretzky&rsquo;s 19-21 minutes a game, there was a noticeable difference for one simple reason. They all skate very well.So the average-speed Rangers suddenly looked several steps faster.The enthusiasm of the three young players and the willingness to compete, gave the Rangers an effective forecheck, and pressure on the puck in the neutral zone.&ldquo;The other side of it is that, mentally, it was a break for me,&rdquo; Gretzky said. &ldquo;Obviously the way the team has played, they&rsquo;ve played so well that they&rsquo;re on a tremendous high and every guy is contributing. Each and every guy has gone in and played exceptionally well.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an easier feeling that you don&rsquo;t have to race and come back too early and be of no benefit to yourself or the team.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy for the guys. They should be proud of what they&rsquo;ve accomplished. Everyone&rsquo;s on a big high, and they deserve all the credit they&rsquo;re getting.&rdquo;Muckier said Gretzky&rsquo;s return didn&rsquo;t pose a challenge or worry.&ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I, think it&rsquo;s a plus to have Wayne Gretzky back. How many teams have the luxury of bringing one of the great players of all-time back into your lineup? Look what he&rsquo;s accomplished. Every time Wayne&rsquo;s faced a challenge, you want to bet on Wayne Gretzky.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Rangers signed left winger Adam Graves to a three-year contract worth $12 million, with an option year at $3.5 million. Graves, who did not receive a no-trade clause, was to become an unrestricted free agent July 1. Graves scored his 33rd goal in overtime against the Islanders, which tied his output in 1996-97 and represented 10 more goals than last season. The goal also gave him seven game-winners, three in OT and two of those against the Islanders. His career high is 52, set with the Rangers in 1993-94&hellip;Rookie defenseman Rumun Ndur, claimed on waivers from Buffalo in mid-December, scored his first NHL goal, the Rangers&rsquo; only goal, in a 1-1 tie with Washington March 15&hellip;Right winger Todd Harvey&rsquo;s broken thumb was still in a cast and he wasn&rsquo;t expected back until late March&hellip;Defenseman Jeff Beuke-boom was making little or no progress toward returning from what may be a career-threatening concussion. &#9632;

f0021-05

Will play stay great with’Great One’?

<div class="byline">By Bruce Garrioch</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-011040/7237506-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="161" height="160"></div>Drunk driving charges against Ottawa Senators&rsquo; center Radek Bonk were thrown out of court after a startling revelation that the arresting officer manufactured evidence.Ontario Court Judge Peter Wright dismissed the case because it was learned an Ontario Provincial Police officer lied in court. Immediately following the dismissal, the OPP confirmed it had launched a review of Const. Katrina Moore&rsquo;s actions.&ldquo;Evidence against the accused in this case was manufactured,&rdquo; Wright said. &ldquo;No one should have to come to court and face charges on manufactured evidence.&rdquo;A packed courtroom in Ottawa (that didn&rsquo;t include Bonk because he was on the road with the team in Dallas) was told Moore lied when she indicated she found the hockey player drunk in the driver&rsquo;s seat of his Ford Expedition, March 3, 1998.Const. Moore had testified she had to open the driver-side door for Bonk and when she leaned inside she smelled alcohol on him.None of that was true,&rdquo; said Bonk&rsquo;s lawyer Bill Carroll. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of the most blatant examples of police misconduct I&rsquo;ve encountered in 25 years.&rdquo;Bonk, 23, was just happy to see the case fade away and behind him for good.&ldquo;Obviously, I&rsquo;m relieved that it&rsquo;s over,&rdquo; said Bonk in the lobby of the club&rsquo;s Dallas hotel.NOTEBOOK: The Senators&rsquo; troubles on the West Coast continued after going winless in stops in San Jose (3-2 loss), Los Angeles (4-0 loss) and Anaheim (2-2 tie). Ottawa is now 3-13-2 lifetime during its visits to Califonia&hellip;The club&rsquo;s loss to the Kings March 16 at the Great Western Forum didn&rsquo;t sit well with coach Jacques Martin. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s clear that this is part of being a young team,&rdquo; Martin said. &ldquo;We have to learn to focus on getting our victories."&hellip;After losing defenseman Brad Shaw on waivers to Washington, the Senators offered Las Vegas blueliner David Shaw a contract, but he wasn&rsquo;t sure he was going to accept it. Shaw, 34, an NHL jour neyman, wanted guarantees he would be in Ottawa all season. &#9632;

f0022-01

Evidence’manufactured’ in Bonk’s dropped D&D case

<div class="byline">By Wayne Fish</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-03519/7237537-1-eng-US/f0022-032.jpg" title="f0022-03" width="350" height="474"><figcaption class="caption-body">Roger Neilson</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-02729/7237544-1-eng-US/f0022-022.jpg" title="f0022-02" width="162" height="158"></div>When Roger Neilson wants to get loud, he usually lets his ties do the talking.But a controversial non-penalty call that contributed to a franchise-record 12th straight game without a win March 16 proved too much for the level-headed coach.Neilson was upset when referee Bill McCreary overlooked Terry Yake&rsquo;s grabbing of Jody Hull&rsquo;s stick in a March 16 game between Philadelphia and St. Louis. That play allowed Chris Pronger to hit a wide-open Pavol Demitra who scored to give the Blues a 3-1 lead in an eventual 5-2 victory.Neilson vented his frustration by grabbing Mark Recchi&rsquo;s stick and heaving it onto the ice. The stick didn&rsquo;t land anywhere near McCreary, but it just missed linesman Lonnie Cameron.NHL vice-president Colin Campbell suspended Neilson for two games and fined him $10,000.Neilson, feeling pressure over the Flyers&rsquo; sagging fortunes, said he wasn&rsquo;t trying to hit anybody. He was just protesting the call.&ldquo;I think the suspension was about what was expected,&rdquo; Neilson said. &ldquo;It was at least good the officials agreed that we had no intent to throw it at an official. The stick kind of slipped off and went over that way and he (Cameron) had to hop back from it.&rdquo;Assistant coach Craig Ramsay took over Neilson&rsquo;s duties for games against the Detroit Red Wings March 21 and Toronto Maple Leafs March 22.It was the first suspension of Neilson&rsquo;s NHL coaching career, which dates back to 1977.Neilson wasn&rsquo;t the only one frustrated by the Flyers&rsquo; collapse. Everyone from team chairman Ed Snider to the players bemoaned their slide (0-8-4 and 2-12-6 since Feb. 6). &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not our coaching staff,&rdquo; said captain Eric Lindros. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve done all they can.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Dan McGillis was a healthy scratch for the first time this season March 14, a 1-1 tie with Dallas. He was back in the lineup the following game&hellip;The Flyers have some history to overcome in their quest for the Stanley Cup. The longest winless streak by an eventual champion is 11 (0-10-1) set by Toronto in 1966-67. The Flyers were at 12 (0-8-4) through mid-March&hellip;Team chairman Ed Snider said the team&rsquo;s slump was the worst he had seen in his 32 years with the franchise. He said the Flyers weren&rsquo;t sticking up for each other and weren&rsquo;t being physical enough. Two nights later, captain Eric Lindros challenged and fought Dallas captain Derian Hatcher in the first 40 seconds of a 1-1 tie in Philadelphia. &#9632;

f0022-03

HNL TEAMS

Neilson banned two games for out-of-character outburst

<div class="byline">By Bob McManaman</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-04350/7237575-1-eng-US/f0022-042.jpg" title="f0022-04" width="161" height="159"></div>GM Bobby Smith said coach Jim Schoenfeld&rsquo;s job is safe in Phoenix, but you wouldn&rsquo;t have known that during a tumultuous few days in March.Having seen his team lose 11 of 13 games and come close to being over taken for fourth in the Western Conference, Schoenfeld was believed to be left twisting in the wind by man agement. While speculation and front page headlines about the coach&rsquo;s possible demise dominated the Phoenix landscape, Smith was unavailable to respond to the stories.But two days after Schoenfeld and the Coyotes pulled out a 1-0 victory over the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim March 13, Smith finally came to his coach&rsquo;s rescue, giving the second-year bench boss the obligatory vote of confidence. And it couldn&rsquo;t have come at a better time. It was widely reported that had the Coyotes lost the game to Anaheim-the team chasing Phoenix for the fourth seed-Schoenfeld would have been fired the next morning.&ldquo;Jim Schoenfeld is our coach. There will be no coaching change,&rdquo; Smith announced in a hastily called media gathering. &ldquo;The reason I haven&rsquo;t been available the last couple days is because I have been so irate and embarrassed this stuff about our team is in the papers. And if I thought it came from our organization and knew who it was, they would be former Phoenix Coyotes&rsquo; employees.&rdquo;The Coyotes went on a 2-0-2 run after beating the Mighty Ducks, further quelling rumors about Schoen feld&rsquo;s shaky job security.Schoenfeld, who has one more year left on his contract-which probably won&rsquo;t be extended if the Coyotes don&rsquo;t advance beyond the first round of the playoffs, said the rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated.&ldquo;If the coach is good, you don&rsquo;t say,&rsquo;Oh, boy, if you lose this one you&rsquo;re toast,&rsquo;&rdquo; Schoenfeld said. &ldquo;To me, the whole thing about one game is moronic, really.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Rookie center Daniel Briere, who had seen his playing time reduced in mid-March, was demoted to Springfield (American League) March 18&hellip;Goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov was unbeaten in his first two starts for the Coyotes-a 4-3 win over Detroit March 17 and a 2-2 tie with St Louis the next night&hellip;Center Jeremy Roenick, who has two years left on his current contract, blasted an ESPN report that suggested he wouldn&rsquo;t be back in a Coyotes&rsquo; uniform after this season. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going anywhere,&rdquo; he said&hellip;.Veteran right winger Brian Noonan, who had been playing with Indianapolis in the International League, signed a free agent contract and was inserted on the No. 1 line. &#9632;

f0022-04

Schoenfeld weathers firestorm

<div class="byline">By Joe Starkey</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01932/7237606-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="163" height="164"></div>Just when Pittsburgh Penguins&rsquo; defenseman Darius Kasparaitis was starting to regain his hard-hitting form, he re-injured his right knee.This time, Kasparaitis opted for surgery.Most people expected him to have surgery during the pre-season, when he suffered major damage to his right knee in a game against the Detroit Red Wings. But Kasparaitis eschewed an operation in favor of a rehabilitation program and played 48 games before re-injuring the knee March 5 when he fell awkwardly in a game against the Edmonton Oilers.&ldquo;I have to think about myself, too,&rdquo; Kasparaitis said. &ldquo;I have to think what&rsquo;s good for me. I want to play more than a couple of years. I want to play at least 10 years.&rdquo;Kasparaitis, 26, was slated for surgery March 25 in New York. After a six-month rehab, he should be ready to re-join the lineup in October. Dr. JefferyMinkov, the same surgeon who recon structed Kasparaitis&rsquo; right knee in 1995, was scheduled to perform the operation.The most frustrating part for Kasparaitis was that he was just rounding into shape.&ldquo;I was throwing my body every-where and playing with confidence,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It took me almost 28 games to get there, but I was feeling very good about myself.&rdquo;Kasparaitis will be a restricted free agent this summer. He is making $1.1 million this season. He planned to stay in Long Island, N.Y., his off-season home, to rehab. He couldn&rsquo;t stand to be around the team and not be able to play.&ldquo;It feels weird when you go in a locker room and it looks like nobody needs you,&rdquo; he said.Kasparaitis&rsquo; agent, Mark Gandler, said surgery was the most sensible option.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just his career we&rsquo;re talking about, but his tenure with the Penguins,&rdquo; Gandler said. &ldquo;The Penguins should have the same type of stake in it as Darius.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Mario Lemieux submit ted his financial reorganization plan to U.S. Bankruptcy Court March 18. The plan would make Lemieux the team&rsquo;s new majority owner, replacing co-owners Howard Bald win and Roger Marino. For the team to survive and stay in Pittsburgh, Lemieux and his group of investors would put up at least $50 million in cash. &ldquo;We feel our plan assures our community leaders and Penguins fans that this is the end of a troubled era,&rdquo; Lemieux said&hellip;A group headed by trucking executive Harvey Gainey was also expected to submit a plan to bankruptcy court by late March. &#9632;

f0023-01

Kasparaitis opts for knee surgery as long-term solution

<div class="byline">By Dave Luecking</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02610/7237637-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="164" height="161"></div>After auditioning a new goalie almost every other game, the St. Louis Blues appear to have settled on a leading man for the stretch run.Veteran Grant Fuhr is back, apparently as healthy and wise as he is wealthy, and suddenly, the Blues&rsquo; goaltending situation isn&rsquo;t as muddled as it has been.Fuhr is Blues&rsquo; coach Joel Quenneville&rsquo;s man, with one caveat.&ldquo;If his health is fine, he&rsquo;ll get the bulk of the play,&rdquo; Quenneville said. &ldquo;Down the stretch, we&rsquo;re looking for him to play.&rdquo;Fuhr, 36, had posted two victories and a tie in three outings since his return to the lineup. He had missed 16 games recovering from arthroscopic surgery on his right knee-his third surgery on the knee in three years.His performances and his demeanor have had a calming influence on the Blues, who have put together a four-game unbeaten streak of 3-0-1. Newcomer Jim Carey got the other win.Respected veteran defenseman Al Maclnnis called Fuhr &ldquo;a stabilizing influence.&rdquo; Center Craig Conroy called Fuhr&rsquo;s return great for the team.&ldquo;We feel confident, because he&rsquo;s confident, and that kind of spreads throughout the team,&rdquo; Conroy said after Fuhr backstopped a 6-4 victory over the Edmonton Oilers March 13. &ldquo;The guys know he&rsquo;s going to make some big saves when we need them.&rdquo;Fuhr wasn&rsquo;t particularly sharp in the first two periods against Edmonton as the Blues fell behind 4-3 lead. However, he shut down the Oilers on 12 shots in the third as the Blues rallied with three goals, snapping a losing streak at four games.Fuhr stopped 26 of 28 shots March 16 in the Blues&rsquo; 5-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers. On March 18, he backstopped a 2-2 tie against the Phoenix Coyotes. The Blues had two goals called back, while the Coyotes scored a disputed goal-they alleged, and replays appeared to con firm, goaltender interference-and the Coyotes scored another goal on a bad bounce in the Kiel Center ice.Still, Fuhr&rsquo;s performances give the Blues reason for optimism. He is excited about feeling good again. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the first time in a while that both legs have felt good,&rdquo; Fuhr said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m starting to feel a little more comfortable. I&rsquo;m starting to find myself. I&rsquo;m excited about playing.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Goalie Grant Fuhr was irate that referee Richard Trottier didn&rsquo;t penalize Coyotes&rsquo; left winger Greg Adams for interference and disallow the goal Adams scored in the Blues 2-2 tie with Phoenix. Fuhr lashed out at Trottier, saying, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a travesty that he&rsquo;s actually an official in this game.&rdquo; Since breaking up the combination of forwards Pavol Demitra and Pierre Turgeon, Demitra had five goals and seven points, while Turgeon had a goal and four points-all on the power play. At even strength, Demitra&rsquo;s line, with Lubos Bartecko and Michel Picard on the wings, had six goals and 12 points, not counting two goals that were called back&hellip;With center Craig Conroy out, Mike Eastwood took over duties on the checking line with Scott Young and Michal Handzus playing the wings. &#9632;

f0023-02

Veteran Fuhr healthy again, will lead Blues down stretch

<div class="byline">By Dan Wood</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-03430/7237668-1-eng-US/f0023-032.jpg" title="f0023-03" width="163" height="162"></div>Theoren Fleury and Mark Recchi aren&rsquo;t the NHL&rsquo;s only potential, unrestricted free agent right wingers. A frustrated Joe Murphy of the San Jose Sharks made that abundantly clear less than a week after the Philadelphia Flyers re-acquired Recchi in a trade with the Montreal Canadiens.Murphy warned that San Jose runs an increasing risk of losing him as the July 1 free agency date nears.&ldquo;I know that if I go into the market as a free agent, I won&rsquo;t be back as a Shark,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s absolutely no chance.&rdquo;Murphy, 31, pointed to what he perceives as an oversight, not only by the San Jose organization, but also the entire hockey community. He blamed the situation largely on a general lack of aware ness of West Coast-based teams.&ldquo;Everyone talks about Mark Recchi,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;Mark Recchi this, Mark Recchi that. Mark Recchi has 13 goals. He averages about seven minutes more ice time a game than 1 do. I have 16. I&rsquo;ll put my game up against his any day of the week.&rdquo;Fleury, sent from the Calgary Flames to Colorado Avalanche in a Feb. 28 trade, and Recchi have drawn the most attention among potential unrestricted free agent forwards.The Sharks acquired Murphy from St. Louis in a deadline-day deal last year. The Blues are paying about half of Murphy&rsquo;s $3.8-million salary this season, the final installment of a three-year, free agent contract he signed in 1996.Murphy contributed five goals and nine points in 10 regular season games with San Jose last year, but managed just one assist in a six-game, opening round playoff loss to the Dallas Stars.He had 479 points, including 211 goals, in 696 career games through March 17. Recchi had 331 goals and 838 points in 775 games, while Fleury had 365 goals and 831 points in 792 games.&ldquo;Obviously, Fleury is above a lot off players,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;But Recchi has played with (Mario) Lemieux (in Pittsburgh). He has played with (Eric) Lindros (in Philadelphia).&rdquo;The Sharks have had very preliminary contract discussions with Murphy, but GM Dean Lombar di indicated a desire to see how Murphy finishes the season before talking specifics. It might prove too expensive to re-sign Murphy and pursue the top-line forward-perhaps Fleury-that San Jose covets.NOTEBOOK: Winners of six of their previous I seven games, the Sharks held seventh place in the Western Conference as they opened a five-game road trip March 20 in Boston&hellip;Two goals against Horida March 17 gave second-year center Patrick Marleau the team lead with 19. Marleau had six goals and two assists over an eight-game stretch&hellip;While goalie Mike Vernon continued to nurse a groin injury, his backup Steve Shields posted four straight wins and was NHL player of the week for the period ending March 14&hellip;Shields registered 26 saves in a 2-0 win over Detroit March 12. It was San Jose&rsquo;s first-ever shutout of the Red Wings&hellip;Right winger Tony Granato, who underwent reconstructive knee surgery Jan. 14, resumed practising March 16 and was hoping to be back in the lineup by the second week of April. &#9632;

f0023-03

Murphy warns he’ll fly coop if he becomes unrestricted

<div class="byline">By Paul Hunter</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02686/7237730-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="160" height="157"></div>It defies explanation, j The Toronto Maple Leafs certainly don&rsquo;t have one.Toronto boasts the highest-scoring offense in the NHL yet its power play is as weak as the Canadian dollar. During a 13-game span, ending with a 4-1 loss to the Boston Bruins March 17, the Leafs clicked on only three of 46 extra-man opportunities.&ldquo;It stinks. It really stinks. There are no other words for it,&rdquo; said coach Pat Quinn, &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t seem to move our feet and we can&rsquo;t shoot the puck, either. If we do shoot it, it&rsquo;s usually a pansy sort of shot or it misses the net.&rdquo;Apart from the &ldquo;pansy&rdquo; shots, the Leafs had several other problems on the power play. They rarely established themselves in the attacking zone and, when they did, they were content to pass the puck around the periphery.In a 2-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens March 13, the Leafs did not record a shot on net during three of four power plays.&ldquo;A lot of times you have a shot, but there&rsquo;s no one in front of the net,&rdquo; said defenseman Bryan Berard, installed as the team&rsquo;s power play quarterback. &ldquo;The goalies are too good. You&rsquo;re not going to blow a shot through them.&rdquo;Getting to the edge of the crease and creating a distraction for those netminders, in the form of deflections or screens, is the solution Toronto planned on pursuing.&ldquo;We have to keep it simple,&rdquo; suggested captain Mats Sundin. &ldquo;We seem to want to make the cute plays all the time. We just have to get people to the net and bang away at it.&rdquo;The Leafs&rsquo; power play woes were critical because other aspects of their game are not picking up the slack. Toronto&rsquo;s penalty-killers ranked 24th in the NHL (80.5 per cent). And the team&rsquo;s offense, its strength all season, suddenly became anemic. In the eight games ending with that loss to the Bruins, the Leafs had 19 goals.NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Yannick Tremblay was a healthy scratch for 16 consecutive games through March 18&hellip;The Leafs returned right winger Jason Podollan, the American League&rsquo;s leading goal-scorer with 40, to their minor league affiliate in St John&rsquo;s March 15. Podollan had no impact with the big club in four games&hellip;Center Alyn McCauley, out since March 3 with a con cussion, began light skating, but com plained his head still hurt. There was no projected date for his return&hellip;Defense man Dimitri Yushkevich bleached his hair blond. He said he may dye it blue for the playoffs. &ldquo;Maybe I&rsquo;m hanging around with Dennis Rodman too much.&rdquo; he joked. &#9632;

f0024-02

Brutal power play adds to Leafs’ woes

<div class="byline">By Elliott Pap</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-04295/7237761-1-eng-US/f0024-042.jpg" title="f0024-04" width="354" height="473"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mike Keenan</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03454/7237768-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg" title="f0024-03" width="160" height="161"></div>Nearly two months after he was fired, Mike Keenan was still getting under the skin of Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; GM Brian Burke, the man who dis-missed him Jan. 24.In a lengthy interview with The Sports Net-work&rsquo;s Dave Hodge, Keenan repeated an earlier claim that Burke asked him to replace popular assistant coach Stan Smyl and then predicted current captain Mark Messier would not finish his career in Vancouver for financial reasons.Keenan also was critical of Burke&rsquo;s lack of action on the trade front, his lack of experience as a GM and wondered how Burke could judge his demeanor as coach when Burke had never coached himself.Burke&rsquo;s immediate response was to ask company lawyers to review Keenan&rsquo;s remarks to see whether they breached a confidentiality clause. Keenan still has another year remaining on his $800,000 (U.S.) contract.&ldquo;Right now, Mike Keenan should be worried about finding another job and not about the Vancouver Canucks,&rdquo; Burke said. &ldquo;So far, he has attempted to involve three people-Stan Smyl, Marc Crawford and now Mark Messier-in this little fantasy he has that he was unjustly fired. I think it&rsquo;s really lame that he would drag Mark Messier into this. He&rsquo;s got something personal against me and Orca Bay (Canuck owners).&rdquo;The Smyl situation was vehemently denied by Burke when it first surfaced and the GM said he has no intention of trading Messier and his $6 million (U.S.) salary.&ldquo;There is no chance that I would move Mark Messier for financial reasons or any other reasons,&rdquo; Burke stated emphatically.Messier said he doesn&rsquo;t want to leave.NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Adrian Aucoin reached the 18-goal mark and needed just one more to tie Doug Hal-ward&rsquo;s 16-year-old team record for most goals by a blueliner&hellip;Canuck rookie-of-the-year candidate Bill Muckalt was mired in a deep goal-scoring slump and had just one goal in a 22-game stretch. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never gone more than two or three games without a goal in my whole life,&rdquo; sighed Muck alt&hellip;Goalie Kevin Weekes was winless in his first three Canuck starts (0-2-1), which extended his NHL career mark to 0-7-2. &ldquo;The first win will come sooner or later,&rdquo; Weekes said confidently&hellip; Second-year defenseman Mattias Ohlund was a team worst minus-16 with one month left in the season. &#9632;

f0024-04

Keenan’s TV interview has GM Burke fuming

<div class="byline">By Dave Fay</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-05197/7237799-1-eng-US/f0024-052.jpg" title="f0024-05" width="161" height="158"></div>Like a parent trying to convince a child the medicine he&rsquo;s taking is for his own good, the Washington Capitals demoted highly touted center Jan Bulls to the minors.The club sees Bulis as a pivotal building block, but he had started to look confused on the ice. So the Caps sent him to Cincinnati of the International League March 16, two days before Bulis&rsquo; 21st birthday.&ldquo;He has a great future here, no question,&rdquo; said GM George McPhee. &ldquo;We tried to explain that to him, that he&rsquo;s being sent down because he is a good player that we&rsquo;re trying to make better for next season. We expect him to be the No. 1 center on this team in the near future.&rdquo;Bulis had just one goal, seven points and was minus-3 in 15 games prior to the demotion. And he wasn&rsquo;t playing with the same kind of authority he had earlier in the season.&ldquo;(Coach Ron) Wilson said that this is probably going to help me, at least more than sitting and not playing would,&rdquo; said Bulis, who had seven goals and 23 points in 38 games overall. &ldquo;He wants me to get my confidence back so they sent me here because they think (the Cyclones) can go all the way.&rdquo;The Capitals already had one prospect with the Cyclones, right winger Alexandre Volchkov, who was also a teammate of Bulis&rsquo; with the Ontario League&rsquo;s Barrie Colts.NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Calle Johansson will miss the rest of season after suffering a sprained left knee March 15. The injury occurred when he was slashed by Ranger left winger Adam Graves&hellip; Defenseman Brad Shaw, claimed off waivers from Ottawa March 10, was traded to St. Louis March 18 after playing four games with the Caps. Washington got a sixth round draft pick in return for Shaw and an eighth round selection&hellip; Washington beat Dallas 2-1 in over-time March 17, marking the third time the caps had gone to OT in five games. It was also Washington&rsquo;s first win over the Stars in three years&hellip;Wingers Tom Chorske and Jeff Toms, both out long-term with abdominal problems, returned March 15. &#9632;

f0024-05

Future No. 1 center Bulls sent down to get ice time

<div class="byline">By Kevin Iole</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0025-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-01902/7237837-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The IHL has altered its shootout over the years, but it has remained highly popular with league fans.</figcaption></div>For years, the International League volleyed back and forth between overtime and no overtime to decide tie games.Bill Inglis was GM of the Kala mazoo Wings in 1985 and a member of the league&rsquo;s rules committee and felt something needed to be done to settle the overtime issue once and for all.The shootout was proposed and Inglis, a long-time hockey man, instinctively knew the IHL was going to get recognition. Only, it was not the type of recognition the struggling league really wanted.&ldquo;You just knew you were going to get killed by the hockey purists and I guess you could say I was one of those,&rdquo; Inglis recalls.Inglis is still managing the same team now known as the Michigan K-Wings-and his feelings haven&rsquo;t changed much. The purist in him wants to decry the shootout as an unnecessary bastardization of the game, but the promoter in him only needs to look to the stands to know he needs to remain quiet on the subject.&ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;m just an old timer, but there&rsquo;s still something in me that says this isn&rsquo;t the game,&rdquo; Inglis said. &ldquo;But the people seem to love it and you have to give them what they want.&rdquo;When the IHL adopted the shootout at the start of 1985-86, it awarded each team a point for playing to a tie in regulation. Then, there was a five-minute sudden death overtime for the extra point. If there was still a tie, then it went to a shootout.In the shootout, then as now, each team got five penalty shots with the road team beginning. The team that scored more got the extra point.Players who are in the penalty box at the end of regulation are not eligible for the shootout, so the players who are most apt to shoot in it often become targets of teams trying to get them off the ice.&ldquo;You just have to be smart and learn to have some discipline and skate away,&rdquo; said Chicago Wolves&rsquo; sniper Steve Maltais.In the first two years of the shoot out&rsquo;s existence, if it was tied after five shooters, a second platoon of five got a crack and the teams played best-of-five again. If still tied, the game was declared a tie.In 1987, the shootout was modified. If after five shooters it was tied, the format went to sudden death with the teams alternating shooters until there was a difference in score after both had an equal number of attempts.In 1993, the sudden death over-time was scrapped and the games proceeded directly to the shootout.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d say that about 98 per cent of the time when you have a five-minute overtime period, nothing changes anyway,&rdquo; said Chicago Wolves&rsquo; coach John Anderson. &ldquo;With the shootout, you know you have 60 minutes to get it done and then we&rsquo;re going to the penalty shots. It makes you perform and if you haven&rsquo;t done it, then you have to take your chances in the shootout.&rdquo;The league then changed a rule in 1996-97 to permit teams to use only 10 men in their shootout rotation. Previously, they had to go through their entire roster before doubling up. That led to some teams faking injuries.This season, 123 of 524 games through March 15 went into the shootout (23.5 per cent) and goalies had stopped 70.1 per cent of the opportunities.&ldquo;We love it,&rdquo; said Bob McCammon, the DHL&rsquo;s director of hockey operations. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a big hit with the fans and it&rsquo;s a neat way to break a tie. It&rsquo;s quick, it&rsquo;s easy and it&rsquo;s exciting.&rdquo;<h2>IHL&rsquo;S TOP BREAKAWAY SPECIALISTS</h2>When it comes to shootouts. Patrik Augusta of Long Beach breaks away from the pack. The Ice Dogs&rsquo; sniper was connecting on 70 per cent of his chances, the highest percentage by far in the IHL. Here are the top five shooters and stoppers with goals/shots (G/S) listed for players and saves/shots (Sv/S) for goalies.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-02581/7237830-1-eng-US/f0025-022.jpg" title="f0025-02" width="551" height="326"></div> &#9632;

f0025-01

IHL shoots out ties

<div class="byline">By Kevin Iole</div>It was a game early in the 1993-94 season between Fort Wayne and Las Vegas.Throughout the third period of a tie game, the fans sat quietly in their seats, noshing on plates of nachos, sipping beers and checking out the showgirls who carried out round cards on the ice between periods. It seemed like nothing would get the 7,000 fans excited.Until, that is, the final buzzer. And then, the place went nuts. Fans got out of their seats and cheered as the showgirls were about to make a return appearance. Hands clapped. Feet stomped. The music blared. And, almost instantaneously, the place was rocking.The shootout had begun.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how many games I&rsquo;ve been to now that have gone into shootouts, but at every one, the fans are on their feet and going crazy the whole time it&rsquo;s going on,&rdquo; said Bob McCammon, a longtime NHL executive, who is now in his first year as the IHL&rsquo;s director of hockey operations.And isn&rsquo;t that what the game is about-the fans?If the fans get more enjoyment out of watching 10 consecutive penalty shots than they do an extra five minutes of conservative, slow hockey, then why should the conservative, slow game be forced upon them?If customers are at a pizza shop and they want their pizza with pepperoni, would any smart owner insist they take it with anchovies?There is nothing inherently unfair about the IHL shootout. Each team gets a point as a reward for playing to a tie in regulation. The winner of the shootout then gets an extra point.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-04234/7237868-1-eng-US/f0025-042.jpg" title="f0025-04" width="316" height="447"></div>There are some who object to that. Former NHL and IHL goaltender Tim Cheveldae hated the innovation and would constantly rail against it. Cheveldae would argue incessantly that the National Football League does not go to a field goal kicking contest to decide its tie games and Major League Baseball avoids a home run contest to settle its ties.The point was hockey shouldn&rsquo;t bow to such changes, either and should decide a winner the traditional way. But hockey, which brings in much lower revenues, needs to find ways to attract new fans. And the shootout is one way it can happen.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s more of a skills competition than hockey, but so what?&rdquo; said Long Beach goalie Manny Legace. &ldquo;Wouldn&rsquo;t you love to see (Jaromir) Jagr against (Dominik) Hasek or (Paul) Kariya against Cujo (Curtis Joseph)? Those would be classics. I think I&rsquo;d even pay to see that.&rdquo;The shootout does several things. First, it encourages teams to play for the win more often. This is particularly true down the stretch in a playoff race, where Team A may not want Team B to earn as much as a single point. Thus, Team A will go all out in the waning moments of regulation to play for the win instead of sit ting back and waiting for overtime.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the beauty of the shootout,&rdquo; said Long Beach coach-GM John Van Boxmeer. &ldquo;You get teams playing hard to end it because they want to win and then in the shootout, it&rsquo;s&rsquo;Boom, boom, boom, boom.&rsquo; If the fans didn&rsquo;t love it, maybe I&rsquo;d see it differently, but I haven&rsquo;t seen one game where they weren&rsquo;t acting like they were having the time of their lives.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0025-04

Fans ‘have time of their lives’

<div class="byline">By Kevin Oklobzija</div>Somewhere along the way, Byron Briske figures he wronged someone, that he somehow upset the powers that be, and now he&rsquo;s paying for it in the form of nets with no openings.How else can he explain a career, now in its third season, without a goal?As of mid-March, Briske was on target to set what is believed to be the American League record for longest stretch without scoring a goal. Through March 18, the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks&rsquo; defenseman had played 168 games and had yet to find the net.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s kind of embarrassing, to be honest,&rdquo; Briske said. &ldquo;I try not to think about it, but it&rsquo;s hard not to. It definitely bothers me.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what I did, if God&rsquo;s-getting back at me or it&rsquo;s bad karma or what.&rdquo;The AHL record is believed to be held by Kevin Kemp, who went goal-less for 174 games for the New Brunswick Hawks, Bing hamton Broome Dusters and Spring-4 field Indians during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The assumed NHL record is held by defenseman Alan Pederson, who went 238 games without a goal as a member of the Boston Bruins during the late 1980s.&ldquo;Two games in a row I had shots in the slot, I was wide open, and I put it right in the pillow,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve probably hit 10 posts in my three years.&rdquo;Since he doesn&rsquo;t get power play time, his best chance this season came in Hershey March 7, when goalie David Aebischer was out of the net. But Briske&rsquo;s shot sailed high.&ldquo;He came back to the bench and the guys were saying,&rsquo;You need a soccer net to score,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Ducks&rsquo; coach Moe Mantha.Mantha is looking more at Briske&rsquo;s defensive improvement, however. Drafted in the fourth round by the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 1994, Briske&rsquo;s play in his own end has improved exponentially.&ldquo;When he first got to us, he saw his man and that was it,&rdquo; Mantha said. &ldquo;Now he sees the ice a lot better, he&rsquo;s able to focus on the entire picture and he sees the plays develop.&rdquo;Briske, 23, admits he had limited defensive capabilities when he left Tri-City of the Western League after the 1995-96 season. He scored 15 goals that season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-011001/7237899-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="469" height="465"></div>While he hasn&rsquo;t scored on the ice, he has scored off it with fans. He is one of the Ducks&rsquo; most active participants in charity and sponsor ship functions.TAKING OVER: When Steve Passmore was finally recalled by the Edmonton Oilers in late February, the Hamilton Bulldogs lost the AHL&rsquo;s second-ranked goaltender. They hadn&rsquo;t miss him a bit.Hamilton won six in a row after Passmore&rsquo;s promotion with Mike Minard shining in goal. The third-year pro went 6-0-0 with a 2.33 goals-against average and .935 save percentage since his recall from Milwaukee of the International League. Minard, 22, was Edmonton&rsquo;s fourth round pick in 1995, but had played only five AHL games before the recall. He appeared in 10 games with Mil waukee (3-5, 3.05 GAA, .900 SP) this season.&ldquo;To be honest, we didn&rsquo;t expect much, but Mike has carried the ball,&rdquo; said Bulldogs&rsquo; coach Walt Kyle. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a little bit of a surprise, but he&rsquo;s done a great job.&rdquo;MIRACLE COMEBACK: Forget Friday the 13th, Saturday the 13th was doomsday for the Hartford Wolf Pack. The Saint John Flames posted one of the AHL&rsquo;s most amazing come backs of the decade, rallying from a 5-2 deficit at Hartford with five goals in the final 4:21 to win 7-5 March 13.Martin St Louis&rsquo; 23rd goal ignited the rally at 15:39, Chris Clark scored at 16:28, then Sergei Varlamov tied the score just 1:04 later against goalie J.F. Labbe.&ldquo;Before you could even blink your eye it was 5-5,&rdquo; said Wolf Pack center Chris Winnes.The outburst wasn&rsquo;t over, though. Greg Pankewicz scored a power play goal at 18:17, the Flames&rsquo; fourth goal in only 2:38, before St. Louis helped set up Eric Landry&rsquo;s empty-net goal with 11 seconds left.AHL TIDBITS: Kentucky center Jarrod Skalde ended a 19-game winning streak for Providence goalie John Grahame with a goal at 4:54 of overtime, giving the Thoroughblades a 5-4 road win March 10. &#9632;

f0026-01

Duck defenseman Briske has simple goal: get one

<div class="byline">By Kevin Iole</div>The Michigan K-Wings annually have one of the youngest teams in the International League because, as a full affiliate of the Dallas Stars, they have more players under NHL contract than most of their peers.But the K-Wings&rsquo; youth hasn&rsquo;t hurt them a bit in the one area where it might have been the biggest problem.Michigan&rsquo;s goaltending has been the equal of any team in the league this season, thanks to the spectacular work of rookie Marty Turco. Turco was 20-15-6 with a 2.57 goals-against average and .922 save percentage through March 15.He was second in GAA, third in saves, fourth in minutes and sixth in wins.&ldquo;I was able to break in slowly in the first part of the year and kind of learn j what being a profession al is all about,&rdquo; Turco said. &ldquo;Since then, I&rsquo;ve been able to kind of 1 move it up a notch.&rdquo;Turco gives the K-Wings a chance to win on a nightly basis and his individual numbers far outshine the team&rsquo;s statistics. His GAA is 0.54 better than the team&rsquo;s GAA and his save per centage is .017 better than the team&rsquo;s.But as well as he has played, Dallas hadn&rsquo;t called him up. And there hadn&rsquo;t been a peep from Turco about that. He knew the game plan going in was for him to get at least a full year in the IHL and he&rsquo;s prepared to accept it.&ldquo;They told me I was going to be in Michigan and for me to just get myself used to playing pro,&rdquo; Turco said. &ldquo;And that really helped me. I knew I&rsquo;d be in one area and I didn&rsquo;t have to worry about moving around a lot. I was able to devote my energies to getting better.&ldquo;Right now, I don&rsquo;t really pay that much attention to what&rsquo;s going on (in Dallas), though I&rsquo;m sure I&rsquo;ll maybe do that more as time goes by.&ldquo;But my situation now is such that I have the luxury of just concentrating on playing for this team and doing what I can to make myself a better player.&rdquo;LEFEBVRE TO BE TRADED: Las Vegas Thunder right winger Patrice Lefebvre, the league scoring champion and MVP a year ago, will be traded by the Thunder, GM Bob Strumm said March 14.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-03533/7237930-1-eng-US/f0026-032.jpg" title="f0026-03" width="762" height="322"></div>Lefebvre was a healthy scratch that night for a game against the Cleveland Lumberjacks. Strumm said his franchise&rsquo;s all-time leading scorer would be moved within a few days.The most likely destination for Lefebvre is the Long Beach Ice Dogs, since Las Vegas owes Long Beach a player as a result of a Dec. 1 deal in which Long Beach traded forwards Scott Hollis and Shawn Wansborough to the Thunder for defenseman Keith McCambridge and future considerations.The considerations were to be Lefebvre if Las Vegas were not within two points of the final playoff berth March 18.Prior to that date, Strumm was furiously trying to move Lefebvre to some place other than Long F Beach, even though he had a deal with the Ice Dogs.League president Doug Moss ruled Las Vegas could trade Lefebvre, but any club that acquired him would be bound by the clause in the Thunder&rsquo;s Dec. 1 trade agreement and would have to expose Lefebvre to the Ice Dogs.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re 99 percent certain we&rsquo;re going to lose the guy, so we&rsquo;re just trying to get something for him,&rdquo; Strumm said, ignoring the fact he had already received two players for Lefebvre.I-OPENERS: In an effort to attract more fans and increase TV appeal. Long Beach dyed its ice blue. Goaltender Manny Legace gave the experiment a thumbs down, saying it is difficult to pick up the puck&hellip;The Utah Grizzlies acquired goalie Jimmy Waite from the Phoenix Coyotes&hellip; Indianapolis forward Dave Hymovitz continued to be red hot with nine goals and 15 points in a nine-game span&hellip;Hous ton forward Brian Wiseman had 73 assists in 61 games, giving him a chance to become just the fourth player in league history to collect 100 assists. Only Rob Brown (113 in 1993-94 with Kalamazoo), John Cullen (109 with Flint in 1987-88) and Dale Yawkichuk (100 with Mil waukee in 1982-83) have done it. &#9632;

f0026-03

Future Stars’ goalie Türco just waiting in the Wings

<div class="byline">By John Packen</div>Is the Arena Football League trying to launch another indoor organization using the East Coast League as a springboard?Based on a preliminary agreement between the Orlando Predators Entertainment Inc., and the Virginia-based holding company CAT, which owns the Dayton Bombers and Mississip pi Sea Wolves, it appears so. The two companies hope to close the deal by May 1.What the AFL is seeking to do is spin off a minor league setup called AF2, using mostly arenas in ECHL cities.John Gagnon, who owns both the Bombers and Sea Wolves, plans to bring arena football to Dayton and Mississippi. Because hockey is played during the winter and the AFL plays in the summer, an owner could use existing staff to operate both teams&rsquo; front offices.A number of other ECHL owners have expressed interest in having both franchises in their cities. The AF2 would begin play in April, 2000. Among the other ECHL cities that might join the AF2 are Norfolk, * Roanoke, Richmond, Va., Greenville, S.C., and Little Rock, Ark.MOVING OUT: The ECHL has granted a Miami Matadors&rsquo; request &ldquo;to suspend the franchise for next season. The Matadors have been in financial trouble most of the season, drawing three-figure crowds to the 14,703-seat Miami Arena.The Matadors have already moved one of their home games-the March 3 affair with the Pee Dee Pride-to the Florida Panthers&rsquo; practice facility in Coral Springs, Fla., and plan to play the March 31 game against the Greenville Grrrowl at the same venue.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02674/7237961-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="419" height="432"></div>In addition, the Matadors&rsquo; April 4 home game against Florida has been shifted to the Everblades Arena in Fort Myers.BUSINESS AS USUAL: The Toledo Storm is keeping a stiff&rsquo; upper lip in light of recent revelations the American League&rsquo;s Adirondack Red Wings are considering moving their jperations from Glens Falls, N.Y., to Ross ford, a suburb of Toledo, once a new arena is built. The AHL move would be for the 2000 2001 season.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re pumped up and we&rsquo;re here to stay,&rdquo; said Tim Gladieux, owner of the Sports Arena where the Storm plays and co-owner of the franchise. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not going anywhere. This style of hockey is the style of hockey that Toledo likes.&rdquo; Gladieux has plans to renovate and enlarge the 52-year-old Sports Arena.COAST LINES: Baton Rouge defenseman Scott Humeniuk, who suffered a stroke March 2, has been released from Baton Rouge General Medical Center and admitted to HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital. He was admitted to long-term inpatient care and was making progress&hellip;Charlotte center Darryl Noren tied the ECHL&rsquo;s all-time record for points with an assist March 13 in the second period of the Checkers&rsquo; 3-2 shootout win over Pee Dee. That gave Noren 634 points, the same number accumulated by center Trevor Jobe with six teams. &#9632;

f0026-02

League’s owners eyeing arena football business

<div class="byline">By Jim Cressman</div>The Ontario League&rsquo;s new draft format continues to draw the ire of minor hockey.The OHL will allow teams next season to call up a third bantam player, aged 15 or 16, from its protected list-in addition to the two that can already be in the lineup.Call-ups cannot be made after Jan. 10 and a player can play a maximum of five games. It would be possible for a team to call up each of its eight protected bantams prior to the dead line.The OHL said one of its objectives in going to new draft terms, under which teams can select a maximum of 10 bantam-aged players, including two in the regular midget draft, is to keep players at home.Jim Liabotis, president of the Minor Hockey Alliance of Ontario, said the call-up rule leads to further upheaval of young players in the middle of their school years.&ldquo;The purpose of minor hockey is not to develop players for the OHL or the NHL,&rdquo; Liabotis said. &ldquo;These decisions are going to impact terribly on minor hockey programs, but the OHL hasn&rsquo;t brought us into the loop.&rdquo;Liabotis said OHL decisions are &ldquo;profit-motivated and maybe if I&rsquo;m in their position, I&rsquo;d be doing the same thing. But that doesn&rsquo;t mean I&rsquo;d be doing the right thing.&rdquo;One OHL owner, who asked not to be identified, said the call-up rule won&rsquo;t be abused.&ldquo;These players are futures and most aren&rsquo;t ready to play yet,&rdquo; the owner said. &ldquo;Nobody is going to bring those guys up, the parents aren&rsquo;t going to let them pull their kids out of school and their agents aren&rsquo;t going to let them.&rdquo;The owner said the Western League&rsquo;s success after going to a bantam draft in 1990 is at the root of the OHL&rsquo;s decision.&ldquo;Since then, they&rsquo;ve placed more players on the world junior team, more players on the under-18 team, have more players picked in the top rounds of the NHL draft and have won more Memorial Cups,&rdquo; he said.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-01988/7237992-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="767" height="266"></div>The WHL has won five of the last eight Cups. An OHL team has won once the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds in 1993.ALONE AGAIN: The 1995-96 London Knights are still the worst team in Canadian Hockey League history.Their 3-60-3 record stands as the CHL futility mark after the Mississauga IceDogs beat the Brampton Battalion 3-1 on March 14 to reach the 11-point mark (4-59-3).&ldquo;It would have been nice to lose the record, or even share it, but it&rsquo;s over and you can&rsquo;t do anything about it,&rdquo; said Knights&rsquo; captain Richard Pitirri, the only holdover from 1995-96.Goalie Nick Foley stopped 45 shots in the win over the Battalion. He and partner Josh Evans have been busy this season.Two nights earlier, the IceDogs were outshot 70-25 in a 9-2 loss at London. The two have faced 3,068 shots, an average of 47 per game.&ldquo;That was the biggest thing,&rdquo; Foley said of steering clear of the record. &ldquo;In a way, it&rsquo;s going to make our last week a lot easier.&rdquo;GATE CRASHERS: Ottawa 67&rsquo;s fans are gearing up for the Memorial Cup. The 67&rsquo;s drew 7,114 fans March 14 for a game against the Barrie Colts, Ottawa&rsquo;s fifth 6,000-plus crowd this season.The 67&rsquo;s tied the Colts 3-3 that night to become the third team to reach the 100-point plateau. The 67&rsquo;s joined the Colts and Plymouth Whalers, the first time in OHL history three teams have gained the century mark in the same season.ALL GOOD THINGS: Barrie&rsquo;s 31-game home unbeaten streak ended March 12 with a 7 6 loss to Belleville in which the Bulls&rsquo; Justin Papineau scored three goals and assisted on the four others. The Colts went 28-0-3 and hadn&rsquo;t lost since the home opener. &#9632;

f0030-01

Bantam players caught in middle of bitter draft battle

<div class="byline">By Gordie Sutherland</div>If Maxime Ouellet were a baseball pitcher, he would want to go to the mound every day.The Quebec Remparts&rsquo; star led the league with 3,447 minutes played and worked right up until the last day of the regular season when he became the first Quebec League goalie in 14 years to earn 40 wins.Daniel Berthiaume won 41 games in 1984-1985 when he split the season between the Chicoutimi Sagueneens and Drummondville Voltigeurs.Trois-Rivi&egrave;res Draveurs&rsquo; goalie Jacques Cloutier holds the league record of 58 wins, set in 1978-1979.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very happy about it,&rdquo; said Ouellet, who recorded his 40th vic-tory in the Remparts&rsquo; 5-1 whip-ping of the Sagueneens March 14. &ldquo;We have a great team here and all of the players had a good year.&rdquo;It doesn&rsquo;t seem that long 1 ago that Colorado Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy, one of&rdquo; the Remparts&rsquo; owners, was on stage in Sherbrooke, Que., presenting a sweater to Ouellet, who was the team&rsquo;s first round pick in 1997.He gained valuable experience competing in the playoffs last season as a 16-year-old and played like a veteran as the Remparts finished first overall.Ouellet, whose idol is Roy, finished with a .909 save percentage in 59 games and won the Jacques Plante Trophy for the league&rsquo;s best goals-against average (2.70).Quebec coach Guy Chouinard has managed quality goalies before and handled Ouellet the same way he did Jocelyn Thibault and Stephane Fiset.Chouinard gave Thibault, who played with the Sherbrooke Faucons, and Fiset, who played with the Victoriaville Tigres, plenty of work and recalls both had sensational seasons as 17-year-olds.Playing in the league all-star game in Montreal and the Canadian Hockey League Prospects Game in Calgary are among the high-lights for Ouellet this season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02658/7238023-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="579" height="518"></div>He hopes to add another when the NHL draft takes place in June. Central Scouting rates Ouellet as the best QMJHL goalie available and second among North American goalies to Brian Finley of the Ontario League&rsquo;s Barrie Colts.TITAN PEAK: The Bathurst Titan may be reaching their potential at just the right time.The Titan had experienced bouts of inconsistency since making two blockbuster trades in December, but won their last eight regular sea-son games to clinch third place in the Dilio Division and gain momentum for the playoffs.Leading the charge was rugged winger Ramzi Abid, who had 17 points in his last six games. Abid was limited to 45 games this sea-son because of a knee injury, but had 36 points in 24 games since being acquired in December from b Chicoutimi. The Titan were also playing better defensively and goalier Roberto Luongo had given up just nine goals in five starts.Bathurst&rsquo;s first round opponent, the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, entered the playoffs on the opposite note. The Eagles were winless in 15 games, including 14 losses.STUCK ON STEEVE: As the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies prepare for the playoffs, they haven&rsquo;t forgotten about injured teammate Steeve Vandal.Since Vandal suffered a broken leg March 5, the Huskies have worn his No. 22 on their helmets and brought his sweater to their games.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to miss him because of what he brings to our team,&rdquo; said coach Jean Pronovost of his assistant captain, who had 70 points and 183 penalty minutes in 64 games.The 19-year-old winger sustained the season ending injury when his skate got caught in a groove in the ice.&ldquo;The last report I had, he will be immobilized for a couple of months,&rdquo; Pronovost said. &ldquo;After that, it will be rehab and he should be OK.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0030-02

Remparts’ durable Ouellet joins exclusive 40-win club

<div class="byline">By Andy Baggot</div>Seven months ago, it was billed as a break through educational journey abroad. Little did anyone know the first-ever tour of Western Collegiate Hockey Association all-stars to Switzer land last summer would be a haven for bad karma.Of the 22 seniors who were chosen to take part in the overseas junket, seven encountered serious difficulties during the 1998-99 season ranging from broken bones to diminished roles and suspensions.Wisconsin defenseman Craig Anderson got the worst of it, sustaining a series of fractured vertebrae in his neck that sidelined him for the last 29 games of the season. Badgers&rsquo; teammate and fellow all-star Tim Rothering missed six games with a broken jaw.Meanwhile, St. Cloud State winger Jason Goulet was sidelined with tom knee ligaments, Colorado College winger Darren Clark sus tained a broken arm and North Dakota winger David Hoogsteen a fractured ankle.In addition, Alaska-Anchorage goaltender Doug Teskey lost his starting job to rookie Gregg Naumenko and subsequently quit the Seawolves, while Michigan Tech goaltender David Weninger was suspended for two games for reportedly missing curfew.Even the two lead coaches were not immune. Wisconsin coach Jeff Sauer&rsquo;s father, Ted, died four days before the season opener. The Badgers not only finished with a losing record at 15-19-4, they also were ousted in a home playoff series for the first time in the 18-year Sauer era.<h2>WCHA</h2>Meanwhile, all-star assistant coach Mike Sertich experienced his worst season in 17 years at Minnesota-Duluth. The Bulldogs finished last in the WCHA and were 7-27-4 over-all.WCHA officials are undaunted, however. They are planning another all-star tour in August.COMING FULL CIRCLE: In 1981, Wisconsin lost a WCHA playoff series at home for the first time in program history. The opponent was Colorado College and Jeff Sauer was the jubilant winning coach.On March 14, the Badgers lost a league play-off series at home for only the second time in school history.This time Sauer was one of the mourners on the Wisconsin bench after St. Cloud State claimed 5-2 and 3-2 wins.&ldquo;Hopefully we&rsquo;ll learn from it,&rdquo; Sauer said.ANOTHER BAD BREAK: Exactly four months to the day he broke his left leg against Denver, Colorado College winger Toby Peter-son sustained a fractured right leg against Minnesota-Duluth March 13.The original injury sidelined Peterson for 17 games. The latest will knock the junior out for the remainder of the season. &#9632;

All-star tour of Switzerland harbinger of terrible luck

<div class="byline">By Paul Harris</div>It took a while for Michigan senior center Bobby Hayes to make a big offensive contribution this season, but it came at the right time.Hayes, who had only three goals and 16 points during the regular season, had three goals and an assist in the Wolverines&rsquo; two-game sweep of Bowling Green in the first round of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association play offs March 12-13.Hayes, who originally made the team as a freshman walk-on in 1995-96 and was later granted a scholarship, was third on the team in scoring last season with 21 goals and 44 points.But the defending NCAA champions are not nearly as talented as the 1997-98 squad and goals are a lot harder to come by. Plus, with the addition of freshman center Mike Comrie, Hayes&rsquo; role changed from No. 1 center to No. 1 checker.&ldquo;I feel like the old Bobby Hayes from last year,&rdquo; said Hayes, a native of Westland, Mich. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not down on myself. We won games, I played hard. Maybe I had a different role this year. Maybe I didn&rsquo;t score goals.&rdquo;Hayes, 6-foot-l and 165 pounds, played against the Falcons&rsquo; top line featuring center Adam Edinger with CCHA scoring champ Dan Price and Ryan Murphy on the wings.&ldquo;He had a great weekend. I think he knew he&rsquo;d be playing against Edinger&rsquo;s line and that would be a key to the series if they could shut that fine down,&rdquo; said Michigan coach Red Berenson. &ldquo;And Bobby Hayes is a great hockey player, at his best, and you saw him at his best this weekend.&rdquo;<h2>CCHA</h2>Michigan won the two games at Yost Ice Arena 3-2 and 9-3.MATCHUPS SET: Michigan was scheduled to play Ohio State in one CCHA semifinal March 19 at Detroit&rsquo;s Joe Louis Arena. The Buckeyes swept Ferris State 4-2 and 3-1 in the first round of the playoffs.Michigan State and Northern Michigan were set to play in the other semifinal. The Spartans swept Lake Superior State 3-2 and 4-0 while Northern Michigan upset favored Notre Dame in three games. After losing the first game 3-2, the Wildcats took 7-1 and 3-2 decisions.All the games were played in South Bend, Ind. The CCHA Championship Game was scheduled for March 20 at Joe Louis Arena.ALL-CONFERENCE TEAMS: The CCHA named its all-conference teams. The first team features: sophomore Ohio State goalie Jeff Maund; junior Michigan State defenseman Mike Weaver, senior Notre Dame defenseman Benoit Cotnoir; junior Ohio State forward Hugo Boisvert; senior Michigan State forward Mike York and junior Bowling Green forward Adam Edinger. &#9632;

Michigan’s Hayes hits goal in playoff win over Falcons

<div class="byline">By Tom Boggle</div>It&rsquo;s not easy to get individual attention when four of your teammates are having the best years of their careers.So if St. Lawrence junior defenseman Justin Harney is overlooked in the balloting for post-season awards, it&rsquo;s not going to be a surprise. While his teammates have been spec tacular, Harney has just been his usual, reliable self.&ldquo;Justin has had a great season, but everyone can&rsquo;t get the awards and accolades,&rdquo; said Saints&rsquo; coach Joe Marsh, who led his team to a sec ond-place finish in the regular season. &ldquo;But day in and day out, Justin has been as valuable to us as anyone.&rdquo;Harney, a 6-foot, 195-pound native of Hop kinton, Mass., has always been a solid defender, but stepped up the offensive aspect of his game this season and entered the post-season with four goals and 24 points, both career-highs.&ldquo;Justin does a real good job playing to his strengths,&rdquo; Marsh said. &ldquo;He and Dale Clarke are the two best defensemen we have and both of them like to get it going in transition.&rdquo;But Harney still can&rsquo;t get out of the shadows cast by teammates Eric Heffler, Bob Prier, Brandon Dietrich and John Poapst.&ldquo;We did everything we could do to get him some recognition,&rdquo; Marsh said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just real excited that I&rsquo;ve got him back for a one more year.&rdquo;<h2>ECAC</h2>BLONDS GO BUST: The Harvard hockey team found out that blonds don&rsquo;t always have more fun.Looking for a rallying point for the Eastern College Athletic Conference playoffs, all the members of the Crimson dyed their hair blond, and the idea seemed to work, as Harvard upset RPI 2-1 in the first game of the quarterfinal series.But RPI bounced back with 4-0 and 4-2 wins to eliminate Harvard.&ldquo;The guys wanted to do something different to show their unity,&rdquo; said Harvard coach Ronn Tomassoni &ldquo;Everyone did it, even our female team manager.&rdquo;HUSKINS A HERO: Clarkson unveiled a new offensive weapon in the quarterfinal round. Sophomore defenseman Kent Huskins scored the game-winning goals in both contests as the Golden Knights advanced with 3-2 and 3-1 victories over 10th-seeded Brown.Huskins had scored just two goals in 32 games this year.PERFECT ATTENDANCE: Cornell senior right winger Kyle Knopp ended an incredible four-year run when the Big Red were eliminated by Princeton in the playoffs. Knopp never missed a game in four years, playing in 133 consecutive contests.Knopp also finished his career with 133 points (40-93). &#9632;

Reliable blueliner Harney overshadowed bv mates

<div class="byline">By Larry Mahoney</div>Last season, the Providence College power play finished next to last in Hockey East with a 16 per-cent success rate in league games.This season, it&rsquo;s a potent weapon.The Friars finished the regular season with the league&rsquo;s best power play mark at 26 per cent. Northeastern was a distant second at 22.Coach Paul Pooley&rsquo;s Friars then went 6-for-15 with the man advantage against Boston University in their best-of-three quarter-final series triumph.Providence was 3-for-5 on the power play in its 5-1 victory March 14 in the third and deciding game.Providence has exhibited uncanny balance on its two power play units as six Friars had scored five or more power play goals. Center Troy Lake led the way with nine and defenseman Jason lalongo had eight.Lake and lalongo are on different units.&ldquo;We have a little competition between the two units,&rdquo; Pooley said. &ldquo;Both units are very different. One is a 5-on-5 type unit and the other is more skilled.&rdquo;The skilled unit features Mike Omicioli, Jerry Keefe and Doug Sheppard with Fer nando Pisani and lalongo on the points. The 5-on-5 unit has Jon Cameron, Jon Coe and Lake up front with Josh MacNevin and Mike Far rell on the points.Pooley said his point men have made smart decisions. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve done a good job getting the puck to the net and, when they haven&rsquo;t been able to, they&rsquo;ve gotten the puck deep,&rdquo; he said.<h2>HOCKEY EAST</h2>WARRIORS IMPROVE: Forty-nine-year-old Chris Serino said he &ldquo;really enjoyed&rdquo; his first season behind the bench as head coach at Merrimack College.He had been an assistant at New Hampshire and his Warriors gave the Wildcats all they wanted in their quarter-final series.UNH squeaked by the Warriors 3-2 and 5-4 to end Merrimack&rsquo;s season at 11-24-1.&ldquo;They played as well as they could have,&rdquo; Serino said. &ldquo;I had hoped we&rsquo;d get better over the course of the season and we did. We played very well against New Hampshire.&rdquo;The one-goal losses were the 11th and 12th of the season for Merrimack. The Warriors won three one-goal games.NOTEBOOK: Boston College right winger Brian Gionta, who had three goals and four assists in BC&rsquo;s 5-0, 5-4 quarter-final series wins over UMass-Lowell, was chosen player of the week for period ending March 14, while Maine goalie Alfie Michaud, who stopped 42 of 45 shots in 3-1 and 5-2 wins over UMass-Amherst, was the defensive player of the week&hellip;UMass-Amherst sophomore Markus Helanen set a single-season school record for saves with 885, 65 more than Brian Regan&rsquo;s previous mark. &#9632;

Power play turnaround makes Providence potent

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0034-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-01988/7238188-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-01894/7238181-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="7015" height="4110"></div> &#9632;

f0034-01

NHL STATISTICAL REPORT NHL SCHEDULE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-01874/7238219-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0038-01

NHL GOALTENDING STATISTICS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02606/7238264-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01823/7238257-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="3408" height="4026"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01530/7238250-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="3455" height="4136"></div> &#9632;

f0038-02

NHL GAME SUMMARIES INTERNATIONAL

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0041-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01439/7238295-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0041-01

NHL ROSTERS AND TRANSACTIONS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0042-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01452/7238326-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

Search for your favorite player or team

April 2, 1999

Schwab to be given chance to win No. 1 goaltender job

SCOREBOARD

Stars need Cup to avoid NHL dubious distinction

Kamloops not coasting on long unbeaten streaks