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

October 9, 1992

The Hockey News October 9, 1992

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SCHEDULES

WCHA

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01689/8568503-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Dan Hamilton)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

MARK MESSIER

<div class="byline">By Dan Barnes</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-011220/8568286-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Oilers hope Craig Simpson can regain his 1987-88 50-goal form. (Photo by Dan Hamilton)</figcaption></div>The Edmonton Oilers must answer the big question over the course of the 1992-93 NHL season. Are they bigger and better, or just bigger?After an off-season three-for-one trade with Montreal, and after matching a $4.6 million (US) offer to Dave Manson, their payroll is much bigger.By grabbing Shayne Corson from Montreal in the Vince Damphousse deal, they&rsquo;re bigger physically on left wing.And they drafted a guy named Big. Joe Big. OK, so his name is Hulbig but the moniker fits. He wasn&rsquo;t in camp, but they have, what else, big plans for him in the future.But are today&rsquo;s Oilers better than the team that finished 36-34-10 and third in the Smythe Division last season, then made an astounding run to the Final Four?Their playoff juggernaut ran into a ditch against Chicago as the Blackhawks hammered them off the road to the Stanley Cup final.Edmonton general manager Glen Sather saw his team out-muscled and outplayed and vowed not to let it happen this season. Before the crying towels were dry he immediately set the course for the offseason, declaring a need to get bigger, particularly on the wing and a desire to see promising youngsters in the organization such as forwards Louie DeBrusk, Steve Rice, Scott Thornton and Tyler Wright to play a bigger role this year.But as the summer progressed, Sather made few significant moves in the direction he charted. He matched the astounding offer Washington made to Manson, then mulled over trade offers from several teams.But Sather&rsquo;s first choice was always to keep Manson who provides a blend of toughness, size, offense and leadersiiip and was the key member of the power play.And so, when Sather made an off-season deal, it was for Corson, Brent Gilchrist and Vladimir Vujtek from Montreal. Corson gives them muscle on left wing and the prospect for a 30-goal season. Gilchrist blossomed into a goal-scorer of sorts under the Habs&rsquo; defensive system and is quite likely the second-line center the Oilers have sought for ages, slotting in behind Bemie Nicholls.Vujtek is a relative unknown. He has only played two NHL games, one against the Oilers. He&rsquo;s ticketed for a season in Cape Breton of the American League.Much of the rest of the roster was in a state of flux, with the anticipation of more dealing. The most common names to surface in trade rumors were those of Esa Tikkanen, Petr Klima, Joe Murphy, Kevin Lowe and Norm Maciver.Their millionaire goalie-Bill Ran-ford-is full value for his ticket and isn&rsquo;t going anywhere. He gives them an unquestioned starter who can play 65 games. The only question in net is who&rsquo;s No. 2: Ron Tugnutt, Norm Foster or Peter Ing? That will be decided, at least in part by the fact Tugnutt will make $430,000.There are other holes to fill, particularly up front where the Oilers lost utility forward Mark Lamb to Ottawa and slick playmaker Anatoli Semenov to Tampa Bay in the expansion draft.Best bets to fill those spots are Rice and Thornton, who give the Oilers scoring with toughness. DeBrusk, the designated muscle, may still be hard-pressed to make the team on a left side that also has Craig Simpson and Martin Gelinas looking to rebuild their reputations after disappointing seasons.The Oilers will be loaded on defense if they can get Maciver, Lowe and Greg Hawgood re-signed. On the bubble will be the likes of Francois Leroux and Chris Joseph. &#9632;

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NHL TEAMS

Sure they’re bigger, but are they better?

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0073-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0073-0174/8569072-1-eng-US/f0073-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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EAST COAST LEAGUE

<div class="byline">By Mike Ulmer Senior Writer</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0004-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011955/8567938-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Alexander Mogilny has 50-goal potential with Buffalo this season. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>They are the NHL&rsquo;s most pronounced wild cards. Games, divisions, even Stanley Cups will be determined by how many of them play, despite the fact many have yet to play their first NHL game.They are the Europeans, primarily players from the former Soviet Union now known as the Community of Independent States.The European Invasion continues with a vengeance this season. Players from the CIS, Czechoslovakia, Finland and Sweden are expected to play significant roles with every NHL team this season. Their presence makes forecasting the season even more volatile.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be interesting,&rdquo; said Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; general manager Mike Smith, the architect of a European dominated lineup. &ldquo;Teams like St. Louis who have never used Europeans all of a sudden have jumped in with both feet. And the European factor will increase over time, not decrease.&rdquo;Here&rsquo;s a team-by-team look at the Europeans, both incumbent and first-year. They are divided between those who will help or even dominate and those expected to live on the fringes of the roster.BOSTON BRUINS: Dimitn Kvartal-nov won the International League scoring title last year with 60 goals and 118 points. Jozef Stumpel averaged more than a point per game in Germany last season and owns a premier passing touch. Holdover center Vladimir Ruzicka is coming off a 39-goal campaign.On the bubble: Russian left wingers Sergei Zboltok and Grigori Panteleyev and defenseman Denis Chervyakov; Czechoslovakian center Jiri DopitaBUFFALO SABRES: Alexander Mogilny could score 50 goals this year, many of them the highlight-film variety.Goalie Dominik Hasek arrives from Chicago to challenge for the No. 1 goaltending job. Left winger Victor Gordijuk. will shore up a position that grows noticeably weak after Dave Andreychuk and Randy Wood. Richard Smehlik a 6-foot 3, 208-pound rearguard, gives the Sabres defensive presence. Defenseman Petr Svoboda played well down the stretch last year.On the bubble: Czechoslovakian left winger Jozef Ciemy and Russian left winger Yuri Khmylev.CALGARY FLAMES: A breakthrough season is expected from center Robert Reichel. Right winger Sergei Makarov finished the second half of last season strong. Frank Musil is a top-five defenseman while Roger Johansson and Alex Godynyuk are spare parts.On the bubble: Finnish left winger Vesa Viitakoski; Swedish left winger Tomas Forslund; Russian goalie Andrei Trefilov and defenseman Alexander Yudin.CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS: Igor Kravchuk was solid in the playoffs on defense and Christian Ruuttu comes over from Buffalo to strengthen the Hawks down the middle.On the bubble: Czechoslovakian defenseman Frantisek Kucera and Russian left winger Sergei Krivokrasov.DETROIT RED WINGS: Sergei Fedorov was second in team scoring and second in voting for the Selke Trophy. Defensemen Nicklas Lidstrom and Vladimir Konstantinov dramatically improved Detroit&rsquo;s blue line corps and finished one-two in plus-minus among rookies.On the bubble: Russian center Viach-eslav Kozlov and defenseman Dimitri Motkov.EDMONTON OILERS: Barring a trade, forwards Petr Klima and Esa Tikka-nen will return. Klima, one the league&rsquo;s premier underachievers, scored 21 times last season. Center Josef Beranek brings big-league offensive skills.On the bubble: Czechoslovakian left winger Vladimir Vujtek.HARTFORD WHALERS: Swedish center Mikael Nylander outscored Eric Lindros at the World Junior Championships last season and will help but he may be too light to withstand the rigors of the Adams Division.On the bubble: Czechoslovakian defenseman Martin Hamrlik and center Robert Petrovicky.LOS ANGELES KINGS: Is Jari Kurri on a permanent downslope or was last year&rsquo;s 23-goal campaign an aberration? Tomas Sandstrom played only 49 games last year but recorded 17 goals. Defenseman Alexei Zhitnik, who played for the Central Red Army team last year, is expected to stick with the team. So is promising Czechoslovakian center Robert Lang.On the bubble: None.MINNESOTA NORTH STARS: Swedish right winger Ulf Dahlen led the team in goal scoring and set career highs for goals (36) and assists (30) last season. Swedish defenseman Tommy Sjodin brings solid offensive tools and should make the team.On the bubble: Finnish right winger Jarkko Varvio.MONTREAL CANADIENS: Look for Swedes Patrik Kjellberg. 23, and Patrik Camback, 22, to make the team. Kjellberg scored 20 goals and collected 33 points in 40 games in Sweden last year. Camback had 41 points in 33 games.On the bubble: None.NEW JERSEY DEVILS: Former Soviets Viacheslav Fetisov and Alexei Kasatonov are back again to provide flair and backbone to the Devils&rsquo; blue line. Russian Alexander Semak should return at center as will left wingers Valeri Zelepukin, who scored 13 goals and 41 points in 44 games and Zdeno Ciger. Swedish defenseman Tommy Albelin will play a limited role.Newly acquired Bobby Holik arrives from Hartford on the heels of a 21-goal sophomore season but people are waiting for him to become the dominant player he was projected to be when the Hartford Whalers took him in the first round of the 1989 draft. At 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, Finn Janne Ojanen will have a say on how well the Devils fare against the power centers who inhabit the Patrick Division.On the bubble: Czechoslovakian defenseman Jaroslav Modry.NEW YORK ISLANDERS: Russian defenseman Vladimir Malakhov brings size, mobility and a willingness to use both. If contract hassles can be smoothed over, Lithuanian defenseman Darius Kas-paraitis will fortify the blue line corps. Uwe Krupp, a native of Cologne, Germany, was a terrific addition and David Volek is back after an 18 goal, 60 point campaign.On the bubble: Czechoslovakian right winger Zigmund Palffy.NEW YORK RANGERS: Alexei Kovalev, 19, brings all-world offensive talent to an already formidable attack. Center Sergei Nemchinov returns off a 30-goal campaign. Swedish rearguard Peter Andersson at 27 is ready for prime time.Swedish defenseman Per Djoos will be back and 22-year-old defenseman Sergei Zubov is also considered a strong bet to make the team.On the bubble: None.OTTAWA SENATORS: Since Russian center Alexei Yashin, the club&rsquo;s first-ever draft choice will remain at home at least for this season, forward Tomas Jelinek, 30, the former captain of the Czechoslovakian national team will be counted on to help offset a horrible lack of offensive punch.On the bubble: Czechoslovakian goalie Jaroslav Miklenda.PHILADELPHIA FLYERS: Dimitri Yushkevich, 21, the best Russian defenseman at the 1992 Olympics, will be asked to fill the gaping hole created by the trade of Steve Duchesne and Kerry Huffman. In the short term, how well Yushkevich plays will help determine who won the Eric Lindros trade with the Quebec Nordiques.Swede Tommy Soderstrom will challenge Dominic Roussel for the No. 1 goaltending job.Pelle Eklund is coming off minor knee surgery and an injury-riddled seven-goal season but at 29 he should be able to again contribute his solid all-around game. Russian left winger Andrei Lomakin had 30 points in 57 games last season.On the bubble: None.<h2>Bure is NHL&rsquo;s most exciting player</h2>PITTSBURGH PENGUINS: Jaromir Jagr will have to deliver on the vast promise he showed in last year&rsquo;s playoffs to be considered among the league&rsquo;s elite. He averaged a point per game last year.The Swedish Samuelssons, Ulf and Kjell, anchor the defense. The only European rookie expected to make the Penguins is 20-year-old center Martin Straka of Czechoslovakia. Straka notched 47 points in 36 games in Europe last season and did not pick up a penalty along the way.On the bubble: None.QUEBEC NORDIQUES: Valeri Kamensky has been working relentlessly to strengthen his injured leg and prove he belongs in the same class as Pavel Bure and Sergei Fedorov. His impact is expected to be profound and immediate.Andrei Kovalenko, a 22-year-old Russian right winger is talented (16 goals in 36 Red Army games) and chippy (28 PIM). Mikhail Tatarinov will be back after an 11-goal sophomore season. Another Russian backliner, Alexei Gusarov, is expected to retain his spot.On the bubble: Czechoslovakian left winger Martin Rucinskv.ST. LOUIS BLUES: The two Vitalis, Karamnov, 22, and Prokhorov, 25, are expected to revamp the left side. Prokhorov is a 5-foot-9 fireplug who recorded 28 points in 36 games for Moscow Spartak last season. A solid two-way player with tremendous speed, he could play with Brett Hull this season.Karamnov boasts excellent offensive skills and scored 28 points in 33 games for Moscow Dynamo. Center Igor Boldin, who played for Spartak last season, injured his leg and did not attend camp.On the bubble: None.SAN JOSE SHARKS: Swede Johan Garpenlov will begin his first full season with San Jose after a trade from Detroit. Sandis Ozolnich, a 20-year-old Latvian who recorded 15 points in 34 games with Kansas City, should make the team.On the bubble: Russian left winger Alex Kholomeyev and defenseman Victor Ignatjev; Czechoslovakian left winger Jaroslav Otevrel.TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING: Anatoli Semenov, a 20-goal scorer last season in Edmonton, will probably emerge as Tampa&rsquo;s most potent offensive threat. Left winger Mikael Andersson will be the team&rsquo;s top penalty killer.Czechoslovakian defenseman Roman Hamrlik, the first overall pick in the 1992 draft, has a mixture of talent and toughness and should help Tampa in its first season.On the bubble: None.TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS: Nikolai Borschevsky, the Leafs&rsquo; third round draft choice, scored 22 goals and recorded 35 points with Spartak last season. The Leafs, desperate for offensive help, hope Borschevsky can help immediately.Russian defenseman Dimitri Mironov played the last seven games of last season and should be able to step in and play.On the bubble: Czechoslovakian right winger Patrik Augusta.VANCOUVER CANUCKS: Pavel Bure was on a Brett Hull-like scoring pace to end the season and is the league&rsquo;s most exciting player. At 20, Czechoslovakian center Petr Nedved had 15 goals last season but the Canucks still like his potential. Countryman Robert Kron will be back. Jyrki Lumme led the Vancouver blue line brigade with 12 goals.On the bubble: Czechoslovakian defenseman Jiri Slegr.WASHINGTON CAPITALS: Michal Pivonka led the Capitals with 80 points. Russian sophomores Dimitri Khristich and Peter Bondra contributed to the team&rsquo;s offensive revival, scoring 36 and 28 goals, respectively.Calle Johansson chipped in 14 goals and 56 points from the blue line.On the bubble: None.WINNIPEG JETS: Finnish rookie Teemu Selanne signed a three-year deal worth $2.7 million and the Jets think the high-scoring right winger will be worth the investment.Russian speedster Evgeny Davydov, who scored four goals in 12 games last year, will begin his first full season. On defense, the Jets are loaded with Europeans Russians Sergei Bautin and Igor Ulanov, Finn Teppo Numminen and Swede Fredrik Olausson, give the Jets talent and toughness on the blue line.Veteran Swede Thomas Steen has struggled with injuries the last few seasons. Center Alexei Zhamnov filed a suit against the Jets and his former agent and his status is uncertain.On the bubble: None. &#9632;

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FEATURES

European Vocation

<div class="byline">By Damien Cox</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-012175/8567969-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Wendel Clark will start the 1992-93 season healthy, but how will he end it? (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>Peeling a heavy black brace off each battle-scarred knee following a brisk late-summer workout, Wendel Clark reported the bad news in his usual low-key, matter-of-fact manner. For a change, it didn&rsquo;t have to do with his body.An early frost in the Saskatchewan grain belt had inflicted severe damage on this year&rsquo;s crop and to the Clark family&rsquo;s 6,000-acre tract near Kelvington. Clark had just this year bought 160 acres of land for himself and had worked 15-hour days with his older brother Don through all of May and much of July in an attempt to cultivate a bumper crop.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know for sure, but mine may all be gone,&rdquo; he said with a typical Clark shrug. &ldquo;Nothing I can do. It&rsquo;s not something I can control, is it?&rdquo;The 25-year-old Clark might just as well have been speaking of his non-farming vocation. Indeed, Clark&rsquo;s once promising career seems destined to be joined in the record books with an asterisk denoting, &ldquo;Here was a guy who just couldn&rsquo;t get a break. Unless it was his leg.&rdquo;Spectacular Clark episodes-five goals and three assists in the first two games of the Leaf season last fall, for example-have always been halted by his physical frailty. He has frequently shown himself to be an impact performer but has just as frequently displayed a tendency to crash and bum. After that fast start last October, you may remember, he blew out a knee in the third game and ultimately only played in 43 games.There&rsquo;s no question the injuries have taken their toll on his body over his seven-year NHL career but his spirit remains unbroken.&ldquo;His character and heart,&rdquo; says Pat Morris, who along with Don Meehan represents Clark, &ldquo;have always given him the will to carry on.&rdquo;A broken foot. A shoulder injury. Back problems. Recurring back problems. A left knee injury. A right knee injury. A separated shoulder. Every time Clark has shown hints of realizing his immense potential. a new roadblock has arisen and slowed his progress.That frequently interrupted career path-227 games missed in seven seasons and just one full campaign-has made Clark a commodity of uncertain value on the NHL talent market. Most other NHL clubs would love his grit and courage, but few would pay a premium price. It&rsquo;s unclear whether the Leafs could trade him even if they wanted to.&ldquo;We&rsquo;d get killed by our fans for what we&rsquo;d be able to get for him,&rdquo; said one source with the team.Clark is not a terribly gifted player offensively-he has scored 223 points in 333 career games-but has the ability to lift the team to great heights when he&rsquo;s on his game. He has a knack for scoring important goals and delivering even bigger hits.Indeed, he presents a problematic paradox for the Leaf organization. He earns the salary of an above average player at $650,000 per season with a big raise due this fall and carries the profile of a frontline performer, but more often than not watches from the sidelines. He is the team&rsquo;s captain and a well-respected, well-liked athlete, but doesn&rsquo;t forcefully exert himself as a take-charge type.Finally, he requires extensive ice time to be effective, but hasn&rsquo;t yet matured into a solid, all-around and trustworthy player. In sum, he&rsquo;s a player for whom the Leafs always have high hopes, but can never count on to deliver.Meanwhile, Clark continues to carve a special place for himself as one of the most popular and respected athletes in Toronto and is one of those rare types who is identifiable by his first name alone. His work ethic, combined with a down-to-earth personality, are appreciated in Canada&rsquo;s largest city.&ldquo;He has intangible value that is very difficult to assess,&rdquo; said Leaf assistant general manager Bill Watters. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s so popular with the fans, so when he&rsquo;s healthy and he&rsquo;s rolling, everybody&rsquo;s happy&rdquo;So what do the Leafs do with him? Well, short of giving him away for less than they&rsquo;d ideally want in return, they&rsquo;ve got to sit and hope. He has had no back problems for two seasons now and he says he&rsquo;s the healthiest he has been since the NHL first felt his fury in 1985.Some Leaf officials suggest the addition of coach Pat Bums, a taskmaster who demands equal effort and responsibility from all his players, will help Clark, who has all too often been given a free reign by coaches. The result has been a fiercely reckless style of play that has been popular with the fans but taxing on Clark&rsquo;s body.&ldquo;I think the better the team is, the better Wendel will be because he&rsquo;s such an outstanding competitor,&rdquo; said Leaf general manager Cliff Fletcher. &ldquo;If we have Wendel for 80 to 90 per cent of our games, it will contribute to our team playing at a consistently high level.&rdquo;Clark doesn&rsquo;t set targets of goals or points, but simply looks to play as often as possible. It&rsquo;s only when he talks about avoiding injury that he strays even slightly from his careful, diplomatic style.&ldquo;It would mean a lot to show those people who said I couldn&rsquo;t play, to those people who said I wouldn&rsquo;t play again after the first back injury.&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My goal is only to play well for as long as I can.&rdquo; &#9632;

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Wonderful Wendel has way of turning into Crash Clark

<div class="byline">By Bob McKenzie</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-012067/8568007-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Yzerman has a soft touch around the net, but he&rsquo;s not a soft player. (Photo by Dan Hamiliton)</figcaption></div>What Steve Yzerman really needs right about now-more than another 50-goal, 100-point season-is a ring.A Stanley Cup ring.&ldquo;He needs one, I need one and the Detroit Red Wings need one,&rdquo; said general manager-coach Bryan Murray, who better than most understands the correlation between playoff success and public respect.Or, more precisely, playoff failure and public criticism.Murray, despite some marvelous regular-season numbers (a 420-309-103 record in 11 NHL seasons), has never advanced his NHL club outside its division in post-season play. As a result, he can&rsquo;t shake the label of a playoff non-per-former. It was only enhanced last spring when his Wings almost bowed out to Minnesota in the first round and then were blitzed by Chicago in the second.Yzerman, the Red Wings&rsquo; captain, has recorded five consecutive regular seasons of 100 points or more and four of them have been 50-goal-or-better years. Just three years ago, he was voted by his peers as the NHL&rsquo;s outstanding player.He is a gifted offensive talent, one of the most exciting one-on-one players in the game, has matinee idol good looks and an annual salary of well over $1 million a year.Yet there is a pervasive feeling that some of the lustre has worn off Yzerman&rsquo;s star.His goals and points have been in a four-season decline-65 and 155 in 1988-89 to 45 and 103 last season. The Red Wings have not won the Stanley Cup in his nine years in Motown. They haven&rsquo;t even really come close.His output in last spring&rsquo;s playoff-three goals, eight points in 11 games, only third-best on the team-merely exacerbated matters. As did his humiliating release from the Mike Keenan-coached Team Canada last year at this time.Wayne Gretzky has a Stanley Cup ring. Four, if you&rsquo;re counting.Mark Messier has five.Mario Lemieux has a pair, which has done wonders to silence a legion of critics who, it seems, have now re-focused their negative attention on Yzerman.Other star players-division-rival Jeremy Roenick of Chicago for in-stance-haven&rsquo;t won Cups either. But Roenick has only been in the league for four seasons and at least he led his club to the final last spring.Pat LaFontaine, the New York Islander turned Buffalo Sabre, has had the good sense to carve his niche as an NHL super-star and franchise player without racking up big numbers-thus not allowing for significant shortfalls. Only once in eight full NHL seasons has he exceeded more than 50 goals and 100 points. Nobody seems to care that LaFontaine&rsquo;s only Cup connection was as a late-season addition on an Islander team that ended its own dynasty by losing to Edmonton in the 1984 final.Yet on a good many people&rsquo;s superstar scorecards, Lemieux, Gretzky, Messier, Roenick and LaFontaine rate ahead of Yzerman. Or so it seems. Some even suggest he&rsquo;s not the No. 1 center on the Red Wings any more, that talented Russian Sergei Fedorov has or is set to eclipse him.Stevie Why&hellip; don&rsquo;t you get more respect?A Cup, then, is the answer. Yeah, that&rsquo;s the ticket.&ldquo;Sure, I would like to win the Stanley Cup.&rdquo; Yzerman said, &ldquo;but not to satisfy anybody else. The reason I want to win the Cup is because that&rsquo;s the right thing to do for yourself and your team. You don&rsquo;t win the Cup to improve how other people see you. I can&rsquo;t worry about that.&rdquo;Yzerman professes little or no concern that his stature seems to have slipped some. He does, however, vaguely admit &ldquo;things are different than they were three years ago.&rdquo;Many expected he would have used last year&rsquo;s humiliation during the Canada Cup as the impetus to assume his mantle of greatness with Lemieux and Gretzky. But try as he might, he experienced another season of declining output.&ldquo;I got off to a lousy start and I was a little more inconsistent than I would have liked,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But for the most part, I played OK.&rdquo;Whatever shortcomings, real or imagined, exist in Yzerman&rsquo;s game, none can be attributed to lack of effort or grit.Murray said many people overlook how dedicated and committed Yzerman is to the game and his career.&ldquo;I have never been exposed to a player who is more demanding of himself than Steve Yzerman,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;He is absolutely fanatical about fitness and preparation.&ldquo;When he got off to the tough start, he was going into the weight room after practice and working out for hours, riding the bike, lifting weights. I would be leaving the building at about 5 p.m. and that&rsquo;s when he&rsquo;d be going home.&ldquo;I finally said to him. &rsquo;This has got to stop. You&rsquo;re driving yourself too hard. Relax. You&rsquo;ll be fine.&rsquo; And, as the season went along, he was.&rdquo;Then came the playoff debacle. The North Stars took a three-game-to-nothing lead before the Wings rallied to win four straight. They were no match for the Blackhawks, though, who swept them.&ldquo;Stevie played so hard in the playoffs,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;He broke a rib in Game 2 against Minnesota and that hurt him some. But he played courageous hockey. He paid the price defensively every shift. He continued to go hard to the net. You couldn&rsquo;t for one moment fault his effort.&rdquo;But the goal-scorer wasn&rsquo;t scoring goals and generating offense.&ldquo;Statistically, he did nothing against Chicago,&rdquo; Murray said, &ldquo;and that really did set us back. But he wasn&rsquo;t the only one and, again, he played really hard. He started trying to do too much. He was trying to win games all by himself and that was counter-productive.&rdquo;That has always been a knock on Yzerman, even in his glory days with the Red Wings.Yzerman concurred with Murray&rsquo;s assessment on his work ethic vis-a-vis output.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ve ever given more effort for less results,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I had tons of chances to score and generate offense. It was extremely frustrating.&rdquo;No one can seem to pinpoint exactly what&rsquo;s different about Yzerman&rsquo;s game now than in 1988-89, but something is missing. Murray believes it could be a combination of a number of small things, many of which have been out of the player&rsquo;s control but have bothered him nonetheless.&ldquo;The Canada Cup experience was very tough for him to accept,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;And then there was the Eric Lindros thing hanging over the league. There was continual talk that we would trade Stevie to get Lindros. Steve said some things (about not reporting to Quebec and playing only in the U.S.) that didn&rsquo;t reflect very well on himself.&ldquo;You combine that with the team&rsquo;s lack of playoff success, which he unfairly takes the brunt of criticism for, and I&rsquo;m sure it has been a difficult year for him. The continuous trade rumors alone would be unsettling.&rdquo;He wasn&rsquo;t even spared those after the Lindros deal with the Philadelphia Flyers had been completed. No sooner had the Red Wings acquired right winger Dino Ciccarelli from Washington (for center Kevin Miller) that the whispers began it was the precursor to a bigger deal-Yzerman for Capitals&rsquo; defenseman Kevin Hatcher.&ldquo;They just weren&rsquo;t true, not at all,&rdquo; said Murray, who adds there is no plan to trade Yzerman. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not above doing anything to help our team but at this point in time that certainly doesn&rsquo;t include trading Steve Yzerman. He is our best player.&rdquo;In fact, the Ciccarelli-Miller trade was made with Yzerman in mind. Yzerman played most of last season with Ray Sheppard and Bob Probert. Sheppard responded with a 36-goal season.But Murray believes another style of winger will better complement Yzerman. Ciccarelli, who loves to go the net and disdains carrying the puck up the ice, is Murray&rsquo;s man.&ldquo;Steve is the best guy in the league in getting the puck to the net area and creating offensive opportunities,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;Dino will drive deep to the net, take all sorts of abuse, pick up the loose pucks and, hopefully, score a lot.&rdquo;To add insult to injury, a Washington team official was quoted in the summer as saying the Caps weren&rsquo;t all that interested in Yzerman, alluding they would be looking for a grittier performer.&ldquo;I laughed when I read that one because Steve Yzerman isn&rsquo;t a soft player,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a real competitor who has done just about everything he can-except win a Stanley Cup. He needs to do that, but then we all do.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011884/8568000-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="1932" height="2735"><figcaption class="caption-body">There were rumors Yzerman would be traded to Washington but the Red Wings have no interest in dealing him. (Photo by Dan Hamiliton)</figcaption></div>Yzerman said he isn&rsquo;t going to flog himself for that shortcoming.&ldquo;A Stanley Cup isn&rsquo;t won by one player,&rdquo; Yzerman said. &ldquo;Mario Lemieux won a Stanley Cup when all the other right players were assembled around him.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t draft players. I don&rsquo;t trade players. That&rsquo;s not my job. All I can worry about is the way I play. I can&rsquo;t be concerned what other people think of me because I haven&rsquo;t won a Cup yet. I want to win a Cup. We all do in Detroit. Hopefully, we will.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0008-01

Stevie Why…don’t you get more respect?

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-012036/8568038-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Nieuwendyk&rsquo;s dismal 1991-92 season started bad and got worse. (Photo by Dan Hamiliton)</figcaption></div><h2>Looking for &lsquo;Nieu&rsquo; start</h2>By Eric DuhatschekThings started to go sour for Joe Nieuwendyk well before last season&rsquo;s NHL season began. Two months, in fact.A knee injury in tryouts for the Canada Cup kept him out of the Calgary Flames&rsquo; lineup for the first month of the season- and he never really got his act together at any time during the year.The proof: After four years of scoring a minimum of 45 goals, he didn&rsquo;t even get halfway there last season. Only 22. That marked one of the most significant dropoffs among the NHL&rsquo;s better players.So what happened?&ldquo;The way the season went for our team was the way it went for me personally,&rdquo; Nieuwendyk said. &ldquo;The toughest thing was starting the way I did-missing all of training camp and the first month.&ldquo;Usually, jumping out of the gate early has been one of my strengths. I remember one year, I was tied for first in league scoring after 20 games.&ldquo;Even when I came back, my first 10 or 15 games, I just didn&rsquo;t feel right. I remember one night in Boston, taking half the game off because I had a twitch in my knee and it shook me up.&rdquo;Nieuwendyk originally ripped the ligaments in his right knee during the 1990 world hockey championships.Physically, his knee appears to be sound enough to play professional hockey. Knee ligaments and cartilage do not magically repair themselves. The way to stability is to strengthen the muscles above and below the joint with weight training, something that&rsquo;s become a regular part of Nieuwendyk&rsquo;s year-round conditioning program.Shedding the psychological effects of the injury remains the hardest part for him, but now-fully one year after reinjuring it again-he may finally have put that behind him.&ldquo;I worked hard on the weights this summer and it feels strong,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been skating. It doesn&rsquo;t bother me.&rdquo;Then there was NHL Players&rsquo; Association business. Nieuwendyk was Flames&rsquo; captain, player rep and a member of the NHLPA&rsquo;s negotiating committee.&ldquo;The players&rsquo; association thing had its toll on me,&rdquo; he said &ldquo;When things started heating up with the possibility of a strike, a lot of my time was going towards that. My mind wasn&rsquo;t where it should be.&ldquo;I think there were just too many things going on for myself personally, I never really had the focus I had in prior years.&rdquo;Ever since 1989-90, Nieuwendyk played on a line with Gary Roberts and Sergei Makarov. Interim coach Guy Charron split them up last season. So while Nieuwendyk was with Gary Leeman and Carey Wilson, Roberts and Makarov had a fantastic finish, with 16- and 14-game point-scoring streaks respectively. Now there&rsquo;s a chance the old line will be reunited.&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s what happens, fine,&rdquo; Nieuwendyk said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just happy to be playing from the beginning. The way Sergei, Gary and I have played over the years, going back is always an option they have.&ldquo;Last year was an awful year. This year, we&rsquo;re excited.&rdquo;<h2>Neely&rsquo;s knee on the mend</h2>By Kevin DupontThe chatter inside bars of New England centered on two themes as the winter sports season began:Where will the Celtics be without Larry Bird?Where will the Bruins be if right winger Cam Neely can&rsquo;t make it back?The legendary Bird finally surrendered to a bad back soon after the Olympics and Neely-the twists and turns of his aching left leg are better followed in Boston than the Freedom Trail-entered a second season not knowing if he could be a primetime contributor in 1992-93.The 27-year-old Neely was able to play only nine games last season after his leg was tom apart by an Ulf Samuelsson check in the &rsquo;91 Stanley Cup semifinals. The check left him with a brick-sized calcified tumor in his thigh, as well as a partially tom knee ligament that still hobbled him in training camp.Where are the Bruins without Neely? With fingers crossed, they hoped it wouldn&rsquo;t be necessary to answer the question that filled barrooms and radio talk shows.&ldquo;We all know,&rdquo; said Mike Milbury, the Bruins&rsquo; assistant general manager, &ldquo;that we&rsquo;ve lost players in the past (due to injury) who we didn&rsquo;t want to lose.&rdquo; Specifically, the chronic knee problems of promising defenseman Gord Kluzak led to his premature retirement from the Bruins in the fall of &rsquo;90.The ligament damage from Samuelsson&rsquo;s check initially undetected, Neely underwent surgery in February-some nine months after the hit&mdash;to repair the knee. By mid-September, he was a virtual certainty not to start the regular season and was adamant about maintaining a slow-and-thorough rehabilitation program.&ldquo;There are no schedules or dates set,&rdquo; Neely said. &ldquo;There can&rsquo;t be&hellip; it&rsquo;s all up to how my knee feels. It will let me know, and that&rsquo;s the only thing that can guide me at this point.&rdquo;&ldquo;Cam&rsquo;s going to listen to his body,&rdquo; Milbury said. &ldquo;He knows what&rsquo;s best and we all agree with that. This is a no-pressure, no-panic situation. What we&rsquo;re looking for. and what we&rsquo;ve seen, is slow-but-steady progress aimed at Cam getting back and being an important cog for this team.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-01

On the comeback trail

<div class="byline">By Tom McMillan</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011979/8568069-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tom Barrasso has a perfect record in the Stanley Cup finals with Pittsburgh. (Photo by Brian Winkler/BBS)</figcaption></div>It is a simple analysis of a complex man. He wins.That is the bottom line with Tom Bar-rasso. Forget the trophies. Forget the all-star berths. Forget the goals-against average. He wins.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think anything else really matters to Tommy,&rdquo; said Scotty Bowman, who drafted him out of Acton-Boxboro (Mass.) High School in 1983 and coached him in both Buffalo and Pittsburgh. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s not the kind of goalie who looks to have an average below three, who worries about statistics. He&rsquo;s the kind of goalie who looks at wins.&rdquo;Maybe that is why Barrasso has had plenty of them lately. At the still-youthful age of 27, the intense and fiercely proud Boston native has backstopped the Pittsburgh Penguins to two straight Stanley Cups-going unbeaten in the finals both years- and established himself as one of the very best clutch goaltenders in the game.It was not always this way. Barrasso was a regular-season wonder his first two years in Buffalo. As an 18-year-old he won the Calder and Vezina Trophies and was a first-team all-star. He followed that up the next season with a league-best goals-against average of 2.66 as Buffalo won the Jennings Trophy. But he failed to maintain that level of play in later seasons and was blamed for the franchise&rsquo;s repeated playoff failures. The Sabres never won a playoff series with him and he got the knock as a guy who never won the big one.But a 1988 trade to Pittsburgh rejuvenated him. Over the past two seasons, he has converted just about everyone-espe-cially teammates who&rsquo;ve come to the Penguins from other teams.&ldquo;It seems that for the saves you absolutely have to have, in the games you absolutely have to win, he&rsquo;s there,&rdquo; winger Rick Tocchet said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s unbelievable that way.&rdquo;Barrasso made the league stand up and take notice in the 1991 playoffs when he lunged and sprawled as the Penguins claimed their first-ever Cup. A goaltender is sometimes an after-thought on a high octane offensive team, but Barrasso made his worth known in the final two rounds against Boston and Minnesota-when he flat-out refused to lose. His GAA in the playoffs was 2.60. more than a goal better than it was during the regular-season.&ldquo;He deserves a lot more credit than he gets,&rdquo; said Conn Smythe winner Mario Lemieux, who maintained the playoff MVP award should have gone to Barrasso and not him.Last season, once again, was vintage Barrasso: spasms of inconsistency during the regular 80-game campaign, then a steady stream of magnificence in the playoffs.He went 25-22-9 in the regular season, posting an unspectacular GAA of 3.53. But he tied an NHL record with 16 playoff victories and allowed just 2.82 goals per game with the Cup on the line.&ldquo;When Tommy&rsquo;s on his game, there&rsquo;s no one better,&rdquo; Kevin Stevens said. &ldquo;And he has really been on his game in the playoffs.&rdquo;There is more to this roller-coaster ride, however, than just Barrasso&rsquo;s increased concentration level in the post-season. It also has something to do with the Penguins&rsquo; wildly unpredictable commitment to defensive play.During the regular season, when they play pure run-and-gun hockey-when their forwards would rather walk barefoot over a bed of hot coals than be caught trespassing in the defensive zone-the Penguins habitually leave Barrasso to fend for himself. Odd-man breaks are commonplace. Rebounds are relentless.But in the playoffs, when they go for the money and the fame, the Penguins have the uncanny ability to bear down and take the body and clear the slot. Barrasso can&rsquo;t help but benefit, because there are fewer intruders, fewer shots.&ldquo;Goaltending is looked at as extremely important in the playoffs,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s also team defense that wins these games.&rdquo;Improved team defense notwithstanding, Barrasso has carved a new reputation in the post-season. He has joined Grant Fuhr, Patrick Roy and Bill Ranford in the elite group known as the best goalies around.And now he has been financially rewarded. In early September, the Penguins signed Barrasso to a five-year contract worth an estimated $6.5 million, making him the third-highest paid goalie in the game.He was positively beaming at the news conference to announce the new deal. He talked about the importance of financial security for his family-including daughter Ashley, who has battled back from a bout with cancer. He talked about the importance of feeling appreciated by his bosses and his peers.&ldquo;In professional sports today, the relationship between players and owners is quite often very adversarial,&rdquo; Barrasso said. &ldquo;But through these negotiations, I can genuinely say that I felt my talents were appreciated and wanted. That says a lot to me about how I&rsquo;m perceived by the people I work for. And that means a lot.&rdquo;Not that there should have been any doubts.Because he wins, over and over and over.In the playoffs. In the finals. All he does is win. &#9632;

f0012-01

The goalie who comes in from the cold every spring

f0016-01

Your handy, dandy directory

<div class="byline">By Mike Lottus</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0018-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011616/8568131-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Veteran Andy Moog provides Boston with consistent excellence in goal. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>It has been 25 seasons since the Boston Bruins scored fewer goals than the 270 they managed last season. But new coach Brian Sutter believes goal-scoring is not a major concern.Bruin fans and critics can shout all they want about scoring more goals (the Bruins haven&rsquo;t had 300 in a season since &rsquo;87-88), but Sutter said Boston has enough talent to score. He wants the team to concentrate on traits he said Boston has lost: Consistent effort, solid team defense and superiority at Boston Garden.&ldquo;What (president/general manager) Harry Sinden is concerned about, and why (assistant coach) Tommy McVie are here, is that they feel the Bruins have lost that consistency from night to night,&rdquo; Sutter said. &ldquo;Tommy and I both come from teams (McVie from New Jersey, Sutter from St. Louis) that prided themselves on not having as much talent as other teams, but outworking them anyway.&rdquo;While Sutter doesn&rsquo;t consider goalscoring a problem, most do. Yes, the Bruins missed Cam Neely-limited by thigh and knee injuries to just nine games after consecutive 50-goal seasons. His return to health guarantees the offense improves.But even badly needed career years from Vladimir Ruzicka (39 goals) and Steve Leach (31), couldn&rsquo;t prevent the team from scoring fewer goals than they had since netting 259 in 1967-68.Sutter&rsquo;s lack of concern about the offense lies in players such as Joe Juneau, Glen Murray, Stephen Heinze and Ted Donato who arrived late last season to provide scoring punch. All should have more prominent roles this season.They will mix with at least one player- and maybe more from the Europeanladen 1992 entry draft. First-round pick Dimitri Kvartalnov, a 60-goal scorer last season at San Diego of the International League, is already penciled in on the power play. The Bruins hope he doesn&rsquo;t turn out to be the 1992-93 version of Dave Thomlinson, who scored 53 goals in Peoria (IHL) in &rsquo;90-91 but couldn&rsquo;t crack Boston&rsquo;s lineup last season.Another draftee likely to challenge for playing time is left winger Sergei Zholtok. He was the Bruins&rsquo; second choice in June and is being counted upon to lend immediate help to the team&rsquo;s weakest position.Sutter&rsquo;s immediate challenge is to convince the highly touted rookies a non-stop, all-out commitment will go a long way toward determining Boston&rsquo;s fortunes.&ldquo;They were here at the fun time of year,&rdquo; Sutter said of Juneau and company, all of whom are still eligible for the Calder Trophy.With the exception of Heinze, who played well on a checking line in the postseason, virtually every first-year face carries more of a reputation for scoring than stopping goals. Sutter admires that talent, but has to get everyone to be as committed to the dirty, defensive work.Meanwhile, familiar names such as Andy Brickley, Lyndon Byers and Bob Carpenter aren&rsquo;t back.Even future Hall of Famer Raymond Bourque and goalie Andy Moog couldn&rsquo;t keep the Bruins from being outscored (275-270) last season for the first time since 1966-67, the last time Boston didn&rsquo;t make the playoffs. The Bruins hadn&rsquo;t allowed so many goals since &rsquo;86-87.Changes on defense will be more subtle than those up front. Gordie Roberts was signed as a free agent from Pittsburgh where he performed admirably in the Penguins&rsquo; Stanley Cup run. Matt Hervey and Gord Hynes are gone, opening up more playing time for Bob Beers.Mike Bales has finished his career at Ohio State (CCHA) and will challenge for the backup goaltending job. &#9632;

f0018-01

New coach disagrees goal-scoring a problem

<div class="byline">By Jim Kelley</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0020-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011379/8568162-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Star center Pat LaFontaine is a sure thing on a team with many questions. (Photo by Scott Levy/BBS)</figcaption></div>The Buffalo Sabres know they are going to be different this year. What they are anxious to discover is whether or not the changes can turn this team around.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking to be better than we were last year,&rdquo; coach John Muckier said. &ldquo;I thought one of the problems with the Buffalo Sabres was that their expectations weren&rsquo;t that high. We did a lot during the course of last season to change that. I expect we&rsquo;ll have even higher goals this time around.&rdquo;The team finished third in the Adams Division and went out of the playoffs in the first round again last season. It has been 10 seasons since the Sabres won a playoff series.Muckier, who took over for the fired Rick Dudley after 28 games, and general manager Gerry Meehan reshaped much of the team during the course of last season and this year&rsquo;s training camp.There are lots of new faces and lots of high expectations, but whether the Sabres are really good enough to compete at a high level in the post season is still a question looking to be answered. Sabre fans are quickly running out of patience.Most of the looking will start in goal. Buffalo picked up Dominik Hasek, last season&rsquo;s first-team all-rookie goalie, from the Chicago Blackhawks during the off season. The move stabilizes what was the team&rsquo;s biggest headache.In order for the Sabres to have any real success, Hasek must be the kind of stopper that can compete with Montreal&rsquo;s Patrick Roy, Boston&rsquo;s Andy Moog, Quebec&rsquo;s Ron Hextail and Hartford&rsquo;s Sean Burke.The Sabres also need the defense to help cut down on their division second-worst 299 goals against. The core group of Mike Ramsey, Doug Bodger, Petr Svoboda and Ken Sutton are all back.The hope is the Sabres have strengthened the defense with the signing of Czechoslovakian National team member Richard Smehlik. Unlike many Europeans, defense is his strength. U.S. Olympian Keith Carney should also contribute in his first full NHL season.Buffalo did have the reputation as a team that could score goals last season, but much of that came off the league&rsquo;s No.l power play.While the No.-l line of Pat LaFontaine, Alexander Mogilny and Dave Andreychuk should remain intact, the Sabres want more scoring from second- and third-line wingers such as Wayne Presley, Brad May, Bob Corkum and Randy Wood.The Sabres hope to get contributions from Russian imports Viktor Gordijuk and Yuri Khmylev on the left side. Gordijuk has an especially deft touch around the net.Peterborough (Ontario League) scoring sensation Jason Dawe and Western New York native Scott Thomas are being counted upon for help on right wing. The Sabres are without 31-goal scorer Donald Audette (knee surgery) until December and it&rsquo;s important someone fills that rightside scoring gap.There is also a hole in the middle following the trade of Christian Ruuttu. It would be a real bonus if Rochester (American League) scoring leader Peter Ciavaglia could step in.As the season begins, the Sabres know they have speed, leadership, some scoring ability and better character than past teams. The rest are pieces waiting fit in as parts of the whole.&ldquo;We know what we want to accomplish and I think we have the elements in place to go at it,&rdquo; Muckier said. &ldquo;Will we do it? Ask me that in about a month or so and I think I&rsquo;ll have a pretty good idea what we&rsquo;re all about.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0020-01

Can new faces take team to new places?

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-011262/8568193-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">AI Maclnnis provides scoring punch and a booming shot from the point. (Photo by Dan Hamilton)</figcaption></div>The Calgary Flames took a rather unusual approach to off-season building.They did nothing. Or almost nothing.In all, they released six players who played at least 20 games last season: Defensemen Jim Kyte, Mark Osiecki and Neil Sheehy and forwards Tim Hunter, Nevin Markwart and Marc Habscheid. There was one small addition-bringing back Swedish defenseman Roger Johansson after a one-year absence.Accordingly, the Flames went into the new season prepared not to change players, only to change the way they played.In effect, they put the responsibility for rebounding from a 74-point season squarely on the shoulders of new coach Dave King. In some ways, that&rsquo;s a dangerous precedent.After all, this is the same team that grumbled about Bob Johnson when he coached here, revolted against Terry Crisp and then found they couldn&rsquo;t play for Doug Risebrough either.Above all, King needs to instill some restraint into a team that played short a league-record 489 times last season. For each of the past nine seasons, the Flames took more minor penalties than their opponents. Last season, the spread became ridiculous, with their opponents receiving 75 extra manpower advantages.Stupid, ill-timed penalties cost the Flames 10 to 12 points in the standings-the difference between making and missing the playoffs last season.That must change, as must last year&rsquo;s second major failing, special teams.Traditionally, the Flames&rsquo; power play ranked No. 1 or 2 in the league. Johnson used to preach a simple philosophy: Play them even five-on-five and win with your power play. From 1985 to 1991, that proved to be a major reason for the Flames&rsquo; success. Last season, the power play fell to 21 per cent-in part because of its predictability. Accordingly, look for new wrinkles in special teams&rsquo; play.King&rsquo;s strength as a coach is defense, in part because he had little offensive talent to work with on the Canada&rsquo;s national team. That knowledge should help the Flames rediscover their commitment to keeping the puck out of the net.In 1989, the year they won the Stanley Cup, they were the No. 2 defensive team. Last season, they fell all the way to 18th.On paper, the Flames&rsquo; offense looked solid. Their 296 goals was second-best in the conference. However, they proved to be effective frontrunners only. In the 34 games in which the Hames trailed after two periods, they won only once. The top goalscorers were unable to come up with key goals with the game on the line.King used training camp to experiment with his line combinations. After scoring only 10 goals in 40 games as a center, Theo Heury was almost certainly heading back to right wing. King was also toying with the idea of splitting up long-time linemates Joe Nieuwendyk and Gary Roberts to balance the attack.On the plus side, four players on the current roster produced 50-goal seasons sometime in their NHL careers: Nieuwendyk, Roberts, Heury and Gary Leeman. No other team can make a similar boast. In Al Maclnnis and Gary Suter, they have one of the best one-two defensive punches in the game; and they do own the best record over the past five years (221-126-53).On the other hand&hellip;Of the 50-goal scorers, only Roberts achieved that total in &rsquo;91-92. Of the other three, only Heury scored even 30. Maclnnis dropped 26 points from a year ago; Goaltender Mike Vemon endured his first-ever losing season; the Hames missed the playoffs for the first time in 17 years; and no matter how well King teaches defense, he can&rsquo;t go out and play it himself. &#9632;

f0022-01

Rebuilding program moves in slow motion

<div class="byline">By Tim Sassone</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0024-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-011220/8568224-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Steve Larmer must regain his scoring touch if the Hawks are to improve. (Photo by John Giamundo/BBS)</figcaption></div>As uncomfortable as he is in the spotlight, that&rsquo;s exactly where Darryl Sutter will find himself this season as the new coach of the Chicago Blackhawks.In taking over for the highly successful Mike Keenan, now the Hawks&rsquo; full-time general manager, it&rsquo;s inevitable Sutter will be constantly compared to his predecessor. Especially if the Hawks slide after reaching the Stanley Cup finals last spring.&ldquo;If I didn&rsquo;t think Darryl could coach in the NHL, I wouldn&rsquo;t have hired him,&rdquo; said Keenan, who had Sutter as his associate coach in Chicago the last two years.There aren&rsquo;t a whole lot of differences between Sutter and Keenan as coaches. Both are disciplinarians who stress defense and intensity. Both favor the tight-checking, gritty style of hockey that has become the Hawks&rsquo; trademark. And both won&rsquo;t tolerate losing.Where Sutter differs the most from Keenan is in the way he communicates with players. That&rsquo;s a Sutter strength. He&rsquo;s a good motivator who prefers to handle situations one-on-one, whereas Keenan never backed down from a good confrontation.As a decent offensive player during his days in the NHL, Sutter can be expected to give the Hawk offense a shot in the arm, especially on the power play.Sutter knows he needs players such as Steve Larmer (29 goals last season), Michel Goulet (22), Rob Brown (21) and Dirk Graham (17) to rebound from below-par seasons.Larmer, Goulet and Graham are keys since this is a veteran team. If the three of them have another sub-par season offensively the Hawks could struggle.Sutter used training camp to get a good look at three gifted offensive players who could give the Hawks a boost if they&rsquo;re ready. Trouble is, all are just 19 years old.Left winger Dean McAmmond had the best chance to make the club. He was the Hawks&rsquo; No. 1 pick in 1991 and played well in two brief NHL stints. The two other hopefuls were 1992 top pick Sergei Krivokrasov and Alexander Andrijevsky, a &rsquo;91 lOth-rounder. Both are right wingers.The Blackhawks hope to win with defense once again. They ranked second in the league behind Montreal last season in goals against and should be among the leaders again.The Hawks are deep on defense, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean there aren&rsquo;t some question marks behind the solid trio of Chris Chelios, Steve Smith and Igor Kravchuk.For example, how will Keith Brown perform at age 32? Are Bryan Marchment and Frantisek Kucera ready to accept more responsibility? Will Cam Russell continue to play as well as he did in the playoffs? Where does Rod Buskas fit in? Are No. 1 draft picks Karl Dykhuis (1990) and Adam Bennett (1989) ready?For once there&rsquo;s no uncertainty in goal, where Ed Belfour and Jimmy Waite will open the season.Belfour reported late last year and never did show the form he flashed in 1990-91, when he won the Vezina Trophy. He finished the year with a poor showing against Pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup finals. He enters the option year of his contract looking for a big season.Waite, drafted first by the Hawks in 1987 and thought to be the NHL&rsquo;s next great goalie, has finally been guaranteed a full-time job with the trade of Dominik Hasek to Buffalo.You can bet Waite will see a good deal of action under Sutter, who isn&rsquo;t expected to depend on Belfour as much as Keenan did. Waite was Sutter&rsquo;s goalie at Indianapolis in 1988-89 when the Ice won the International League title. If any of the Hawks flourish under Sutter and play a more prominent role, it will be Waite. &#9632;

f0024-01

Sutter looks to give offense shot in arm

<div class="byline">By Keith Gave</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-011232/8568255-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bob Probed gives the Red Wings physical presence and a scoring touch. (Photo by Dan Hamilton)</figcaption></div>A team that blamed its premature playoff exit on youth and inexperience wasted little time in doing something about it in the off-season.No, it didn&rsquo;t panic. And, no, ripping the team apart and starting over-though the Detroit Red Wings made a significant bid for Eric Lindros-was never an option.Instead they fine-tuned their roster by adding two veterans well past their illustrious primes: Right winger Dino Cic-carelli and defenseman Mark Howe. Together, they should help add some punch to the power play, the one area that has been Detroit&rsquo;s Achilles heel for years. Less tangibly, but no less important, they should help this club believe in itself with the Stanley Cup on the line.A team with a faulty power play cannot consider itself a serious contender, and the Wings-despite a month-long stretch in which they executed at about 25 per cent with the extra man-failed too often when games were on the line. In other words, the Wings were more the team that struggled against Minnesota in the first round and were swept by Chicago in the second than they were the club that finished third overall in the regular-season.Howe, 37, should help restore order at the blue line when the Wings have the extra man. He should also have a strong, positive influence on youngsters such as Yves Racine, his likely partner, and on all-rookie team members Nicklas Lid-strom and Vladimir Konstantinov.Ciccarelli, 32, is the opportunist around the net with a nose for big goals the Wings have lacked, especially at playoff time. He&rsquo;s also the first natural right winger flanking Steve Yzerman since the Wings unwisely traded Paul MacLean (with Adam Oates) to St. Louis for Bemie Federko and Tony McKegney three years ago.General manager and coach Bryan Murray will have to resist overusing these two, as well as 33-year-old Brad McCrimmon, who anchors the best defense, if not the deepest, Detroit has had in many years.Overuse of goaltender Tim Cheveldae was a daily concern last season, when he played a league-high 72 games. This season, a healthy Vincent Riendeau should relieve Cheveldae&rsquo;s burden. Murray, though convinced Cheveldae plays better by playing often, would like to limit Cheveldae&rsquo;s appearances to 60 games.Up front, the Wings have the best collection of goal-scorers outside of Pittsburgh. Ciccarelli, Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov, Ray Sheppard, Paul Ysebaert and Jimmy Carson give the Wings a lineup of six 30-plus goal scorers. Additional help could come from top prospects Viacheslav Kozlov and Mike Sillinger.And on the blue line, the Wings finally have players capable of getting the forwards the puck on the fly. Howe, Lid-strom and Konstantinov are brilliant passers, and Steve Chiasson, 25, could emerge as a two-way star if he can avoid injuries. The new face on defense is Dimitri Motkov, a physical presence who may be ready to step in.&ldquo;I think we have the start of something good here,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;From the goaltenders to the defense to the goal-scorers we&rsquo;re starting out with, we&rsquo;ll be better.&rdquo;He&rsquo;s right, but it will be necessary to take that attitude into the post-season as well. The Wings clearly had more talent than both Minnesota and Chicago last spring, but they allowed both teams to establish their games and force the Wings to make adjustments.Great teams make opponents adjust to them, not vice versa, and once Murray and his players understand this they&rsquo;ll be ready to make a serious run at the Stanley Cup. Perhaps as soon as next spring. &#9632;

f0026-01

Minor adjustments pave way for Cup run

<div class="byline">By Jeff Jacobs</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0031-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-011125/8568317-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Zarley Zalapski brings a high skill level to a tough group of defensemen. (Photo by Dan Hamilton)</figcaption></div>Poke fun at the Whalers as bland and weak if you want. But they&rsquo;re one of only seven clubs to make the playoffs every year since 1986.OK, you still poking fun?That&rsquo;s the reason owner Richard Gordon, with a season-ticket base of only 6,700 and the prospects of legions of empty Civic Center seats, fired Ed Johnston and took a bold move to hire Brian Burke as his new general manager.Burke, in tum. turned to Paul Holmgren and a new coaching staff to try to wash out Jimmy Roberts&rsquo; dismal 65-point rookie coaching year with the Whalers.The truth is this: Burke and Holmgren may make al) the right moves and the team could improve its win-loss record yet the Whalers still may miss the playoffs. The Quebec Nordiques appear finally ready to pass the Whalers.But Burke and Holmgren are preaching a new get tough attitude-they&rsquo;ve even got some gag radio ads running in Connecticut. They think the Whalers have been a team without identity and that it was a shame road opponents held the Whalers to a league low 13 wins at home. Burke said, &ldquo;I want a snarl on everybody&rsquo;s face.&rdquo; It was no surprise the Whalers think fighting has a place in the sport.Burke appeared all over Connecticut promoting his team during the summer. And then, in late August, he acquired goalie Sean Burke and defenseman Eric Weinrich from the Devils for Bobby Holik, a second-round choice in 1993 and a conditional pick in 1994.Sean Burke is a young, premier goalie with the athletic ability to play 60 games and make a major difference for the team.Scoring? Brian Burke has a long way to go before he can guarantee his club can improve radically on its 19th-place finish in goals from last year. He lost Holik to the Devils, but those 20-plus goals should be made up from hot prospect Patrick Poulin. After tearing up the Quebec League last season, Poulin showed in the NHL playoffs he belonged.Burke did add Tim Kerr over the summer. That name once guaranteed tons of goals. Now, all it guarantees is games missed due to injury.Burke is gambling John Cullen (coming off summer back surgery) and Pat Verbeek will forget about their contract wars of 1991 and return to their sharp levels of two seasons ago. Murray Craven is the third vital cog up front.Behind Cullen, Burke is counting on Geoff Sanderson and Andrew Cassels to center regular lines. Left winger Nick Kypreos and center-left winger Mark Janssens were acquired to add grit and replace wingers Mikael Andersson and Yvon Corriveau.All training camp eyes were on center Robert Petrovicky, the No. 1 draft in 1992 and center-winger Mikael Nylander, who was one of the best players at the 1992 World Junior Championships. Both are teenagers who need to get stronger.The defense has been altered markedly with the addition of Weinrich, Jim Agnew and Allen Pedersen, and the deletion of Marc Bergevin and Brad Shaw.Burke believes he has improved his defense on two counts: Although they have talent limits, Pedersen, acquired in a trade from Minnesota, and Agnew, a free agent from Vancouver, are gutty, physical competitors.Weinrich, meanwhile, has more talent then all the defensemen except Zarley Zal-apski. Steve Konroyd, a Group V free agent, signed a three-year, $2.1-million deal to remain with the club. It will be interesting to see how that affects Zalapski (making $450,000 in his option year), who said he&rsquo;s one of the NHL&rsquo;s top 10 defensemen and hopes to be paid accordingly. &#9632;

f0031-01

Solving identity crisis Burke’s first challenge

<div class="byline">By Rick Sadowski</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0033-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-011081/8568348-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Back woes slowed Rob Blake&rsquo;s development in his sophomore season. (Photo by Chris Covatta/BBS)</figcaption></div>If new coach Barry Melrose has his way, the Los Angeles Kings will be a lean, mean fighting machine this season.Melrose won&rsquo;t necessarily ask the Kings to drop their gloves at a moment&rsquo;s notice, but he will demand more toughness and effort than they were willing to produce a year ago.Melrose said the Kings were an easy team to play against. Down in the trenches, when the going got tough, too many Kings ran away and hid, a practice Melrose has vowed to change.The problem for Melrose is he&rsquo;ll need new acts from virtually the same cast that cost coach Tom Webster and general manager Rogie Vachon their jobs.Most of the Kings&rsquo; changes took place in the front office while the on-ice product was kept pretty much intact.Owner Bruce McNall, in an attempt to distance himself from the daily operations, turned the reins of team president over to Roy Mlakar. Nick Beverley was named GM, with Vachon becoming McNall&rsquo;s assistant. Webster was replaced as coach by Melrose, a disciplinarian from the Detroit system, who was given a four-year, $1.2 million contract.Melrose, 36, is a voracious reader of self-help literature who uses positive thinking as a motivational tool. His patience will be tested by a veteran team working on its third coach in four years.Beverley is expected to have more freedom when it comes to making trades than Vachon had, though all parties concerned continue to deny the alleged influence of Wayne Gretzky.The most obvious indictment of the manner in which the Kings played last season comes in the form of cutting remarks by Beverley and Melrose, who suggest the team has lacked mental toughness and heart.&ldquo;My impression was you could play against them all night long and never get touched,&rdquo; Melrose said.&ldquo;We definitely want to inject some youth and a real good shot of enthusiasm into the mix,&rdquo; Beverley said.Oldtimers such as Dave Taylor (36), Charlie Huddy (33), Tim Watters (33), Jari Kurri (32) and Jay Miller (32) are still around, but their roles will diminish.Because Beverley and Melrose are more concerned with creating momentum for the playoffs than building a bloated regular-season record, the Kings may struggle as several young players are given the chance to gain experience.They include Jim Hiller, 23, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound right winger who had 31 goals and 119 penalty minutes at Northern Michigan last season; center Robert Lang, 21, who was Czechoslovakia&rsquo;s top scorer in the Olympics with five goals and 13 points in eight games; Alexei Zhitnik. 19, a stocky defenseman who is said to own superior defensive skills; and defenseman Darryl Sydor. 20, a first-round pick in 1990 who played in 18 games for the Kings last year.Beverley signed a pair of banging free agents in left winger Warren Rychel, 25, and right winger Ed Kastelic, 28. He acquired checking center Pat Conacher. 33, from New Jersey and was expected to add backup help for goaltender Kelly Hrudey.Gone are defenseman Larry Robinson, who retired at age 40; right winger Kyosti Karjalainen, who returned to Sweden; and goalie Steve Weeks, a free agent who signed with Ottawa.Still, when all is said and done, the Kings won&rsquo;t go anywhere without comeback seasons from Gretzky, Kurri, Tomas Sandstrom and Rob Blake. Sandstrom and Blake spent much of last season with shoulder problems, while a sore back inhibited the play of Paul Coffey. &#9632;

f0033-01

Off-ice reorganization, but on-ice stagnation

<div class="byline">By Gary Olson</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0035-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-011134/8568379-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Stars hope Mike Modano&rsquo;s star will skyrocket with a move to center. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>Life after &ldquo;B.B.&rdquo; begins as the Minnesota North Stars prepare for their first season in 11 without the certain goals of Brian Bellows.Bellows paid the price for years and years of mediocrity and broken promises by the Stars who enter the 1992-93 season with six consecutive losing seasons and one winning record among the last eight. He was traded to the Montreal Canadiens.Left behind is a team that should be swifter than last year&rsquo;s version, one more likely to pull together than pull apart yet one without the crutch of an &ldquo;automatic&rdquo; goal scorer to lean on.Taking Bellows&rsquo; place on the roster is Russ Courtnail, whose extraordinary speed fits the NHL game as it changes some of its rules and moves quickly into the &rsquo;90s. He&rsquo;s also supposed to put team goals ahead of individual ones, the since-the-mid-&rsquo;80s rap against Bellows.Make no mistake: Bellows&rsquo; goals will be missed. The Stars&rsquo; 32-42-6 record was crafted from 246 goals, more than just two other teams. Only three players-Ulf Dahlen (35), Mike Modano (33) and Dave Gagner (31) scored more goals than Bellows, who reached 30 for the seventh time in 10 seasons in Minnesota. Only Modano had more points.Courtnail has never scored 30 goals. Neither has Mike McPhee, his sometimes linemate with the Canadiens also obtained by the Stars in August.But the two of them offer the North Stars an opportunity to move Modano from right wing to center where he may take the step from Star to star. Courtnail is one of the few players who can keep pace with Modano and that, combined with the rebirth of 4-on-4 hockey, should make for restless nights for NHL defensemen. McPhee would be a willing and capable caretaker for his swifter linemates.If Courtnail scores his typical 20 to 25 goals and McPhee adds 15 to 20, Bellows&rsquo; goals won&rsquo;t be missed.The Stars have said they feel they need to score at least 20 more goals than last season to have a chance at a winning record. Those goals will have to come from Modano, who said he feels ready to step up the pace of his career, and from improved seasons by Gagner, Neal Broten, Mike Craig and Brian Propp.There is also hope help may come from the defense.Yes, these are the same guys whose goals are so rare they haven&rsquo;t learned how to celebrate. First, they can&rsquo;t be as bad offensively-23 goals among them-as a year ago, not with Mark Tinordi healthy and Derian Hatcher no longer a rookie. And help is on the way. Tommy Sjodin, the Swedish elite league player of the year, has his name penciled into the lineup, a dramatic leap for a 12th-round pick in 1985 and testimony to patience, his and the team&rsquo;s.Another player who has a job until he proves he isn&rsquo;t ready is Richard Matvichuk, the Stars&rsquo; first-round pick in &rsquo;91. He&rsquo;s being given the same opportunity Hatcher took advantage of a year ago. His contribution to the offense is the anticipation he&rsquo;ll turn the play up ice quicker than it has in the past and make life less comfortable for visitors to the Stars&rsquo; zone.Trent Klatt, who joined the Stars for an abbreviated playoff rush last spring, will have to be better to make the step from college hockey to the NHL. James Black, a late-summer acquisition from Hartford, has a chance to fit in on the left side.Jon Casey will be challenged by Darcy Wakaluk in goal but for the Stars to be better, Casey has to be better.Gaetan Duchesne and Dahlen are the only Stars who can be content with another season like the one a year ago.The rest have to be better. &#9632;

f0035-01

Star search continues for more explosiveness

<div class="byline">By Herb Zurkowsky</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0037-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-01986/8568410-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Habs&rsquo; more aggressive offensive style will benefit Eric Desjardins. (Photo by John Giamundo/BBS)</figcaption></div>For the first time since Guy Lafleur and Steve Shutt were scoring goals at an alarming rate in the mid 1970s, the Montreal Canadiens should finally return to an offensive mode this season.For most of the last decade, the Canadiens have been doing it admirably with defense. Goaltender Patrick Roy has won the Vezina Trophy three times since 1989. The Canadiens have surrendered the fewest goals four times since 1987. There have been three first-place finishes in the Adams Division in five years.On the other hand, the Canadiens have won only one Stanley Cup since 1979 and have only one other final appearance. For three straight seasons they have failed to escape their division in the playoffs.Jacques Demers has seen it all, either as coach of St. Louis and Detroit, or, for the last two seasons, as a Quebec City radio journalist. He has heard the openline callers, criticizing the Canadiens as boring and demanding more offense.And, when Demers replaced Pat Bums as coach, he promised a change in strategy.Managing director Serge Savard provided the ingredients with the acquisitions of Vincent Damphousse and Brian Bellows. Damphousse had a 38-goal season with Edmonton, while Bellows, in 10 seasons with Minnesota, scored 342 goals.Not only should the duo jump-start an offense that scored only 267 goals last season and had only one player, Kirk Muller, score more than 30 goals, they should also improve a team that finished eighth overall on the power-play.Demers predicts Montreal will score 80 more goals this season while Savard said this season&rsquo;s team is better than the one which finished fifth overall.&ldquo;I feel good, better now,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We should be more interesting to watch and we should be more competitive.&rdquo;Although Demers is credited with being the architect behind the change in philosophy, Savard contends the changes would have been made regardless. Perhaps he meant a change was necessary in the dressing room.Seven regulars are gone from last year&rsquo;s team: Shayne Corson, Russ Courtnail, Brent Gilchrist, Mike McPhee, Sylvain Turgeon, Sylvain Lefebvre and Chris Nilan. An eighth, backup goaltender Roland Melanson, never returned from a January injury.The plan is to stack the lines with the best offensive talent available. Muller will center the top line with Damphousse on the left and Bellows on the right. Stephan Lebeau centers the second line with left winger Gilbert Dionne and converted center Denis Savard on the right side.More than likely, the Canadiens&rsquo; defensive superiority will suffer this season, especially after Demers has vowed his rearguards will join in the attack. Offensively gifted Eric Desjardins stands to benefit the most from the switch in philosophy.Not that Demers foresees his team getting into shootouts. He wants the blueliners to be careful and attempt to pick their spots so Roy isn&rsquo;t constantly defending against swarms of opposing players.For the first time since Mats Naslund departed in 1990, the Canadiens could have a Swede, or two, in their lineup as Patrik Kjellberg has an excellent chance of making the team. Fellow left winger Patrik Camback will also challenge.Defensively, Sean Hill, who joined the Canadiens late last season, should become a regular. The returning players should be pushed by 19-year-old Brent Bilodeau, a 6-foot-3, 220-pound behemoth.Another position up for grabs is Roy&rsquo;s backup. Andre Racicot, Frederic Chabot and Les Kuntar are in the hunt. Racicot&rsquo;s brief NHL experience gives him the edge. &#9632;

f0037-01

Get ready for return of Firewagon Hockey

<div class="byline">By Rich Chere</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-011070/8568441-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Few players in the league have higher skill level than Stephane Richer. (Photo by Brian Winkler/BBS)</figcaption></div>Herb Brooks understood when he accepted the job as head coach of the New Jersey Devils he was expected to produce immediately.But the biggest change of all in the Devils may be Brooks&rsquo; philosophy Stanley Cups are not won in October.&ldquo;Our future is now and we understand that,&rdquo; Brooks said. &ldquo;But if we view October and November as critical, we won&rsquo;t have anything left for April and May. This hockey club has a bonafide chance. There might be six-to-eight other hockey clubs in that category. And they&rsquo;re all in the Patrick Division.&rdquo;It will be well after October and November before the Devils know exactly what kind of a team they have. The system of five-man units Brooks planned to introduce this season featured a group of young newcomers.Gone were veteran forwards Patrik Sundstrom, Pat Conacher, Laurie Boschman and defenseman Eric Weinrich. Stepping in were rookie defenseman Scott Niedermayer and promising young forwards Jarrod Skalde and Bill Guerin.In GM Lou Lamoriello&rsquo;s words, the Devils traded Weinrich to Hartford in the Sean Burke deal to &ldquo;make room for Scott Niedermayer.&rdquo; Niedermayer&rsquo;s skating skills and offensive talent make him an early favorite for the Calder Trophy.The Devils were so excited about 19-year-old Niedermayer&rsquo;s ability to carry the puck they planned to experiment with him at center, a position he hadn&rsquo;t played since his second season at Kamloops of the Western League.The Devils, extremely thin at center, looked for Skalde to make the jump from the American League. Kevin Todd capitalized on his opportunity last season with hard work in the comers. Brooks hoped Skalde could do it with speed.Using a speed and weaving system which differed dramatically from last season&rsquo;s up-and-down style. Brooks hoped his collection of inexperienced centers could keep pace in the Patrick with the likes of Mario Lemieux, Mark Messier, Eric Lindros and Pierre Turgeon.With smooth-skating Russian Alexander Semak and Finn Janne Ojanen back for a full season, Todd and Skalde could complete the most inexperienced group of centers in the game.If youth failed, veteran Dave Barr was waiting in the wings as he attempted to come back from a severed artery and tendon in his right wrist.Czech winger Bobby Holik, who came to the Devils in the trade for Burke and Weinrich, fit perfectly on the club&rsquo;s European left side with Slovak Zdeno Ciger and Russian Valeri Zelepukin. Ciger missed most of last season with a fractured wrist while Zelepukin tore up the AHL until his NHL debut in December.The explosive right side featured the 21-year-old Guerin, who was impressive in last spring&rsquo;s playoff series against the Rangers, and the return of John MacLean from reconstructive knee surgery.Nothing was watched more closely in training camp than MacLean&rsquo;s right knee. After scoring 40 or more goals in three straight seasons, he was sidelined for the entire 1991-92 campaign with ligament damage suffered in the pre-season.With MacLean, Guerin, Claude Lemieux and Stephane Richer, the Devils may be strong enough on the right side to overcome their weakness at center.&ldquo;We have to be a more dynamic team than a static team,&rdquo; Brooks said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll push these people out off a cliff a little bit, out into deep water. Some nights it&rsquo;ll click. Other nights it&rsquo;ll blow up in your face, but we&rsquo;re not trying to win a Stanley Cup in October.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0038-01

Brooks, Niedermayer bring dynamic look

<div class="byline">By Jeff Williams</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0039-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-01995/8568472-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Islanders were revived when Pierre Turgeon arrived from Buffalo. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>As a marketing tool, the 1992-93 New York Islanders are said to be entering the &ldquo;New Ice Age.&rdquo; Which is to say they are trying to recapture past glories.They have a new general manager in Don Maloney and a new management committee that has taken operational control from absentee owner John Pickett.But in fact the new ice age began last season when general manager Bill Torrey made two huge deals Oct. 25. He dealt, among others, Pat LaFontaine and Brett Sutter and got six players in return including Pierre Turgeon, Uwe Krupp and Steve Thomas in the biggest shakeup in franchise history.Torrey is gone now, pushed out of the job by the new management committee and replaced by Maloney, who was his assistant general manager. Al Arbour remains the coach. What Maloney has to deal from and what Arbour has to coach is the legacy left to them by Torrey. And it isn&rsquo;t half bad.If this version of the Islanders plays up to its potential, it should at least make the playoffs in the ultra-tough Patrick Division. The Islanders&rsquo; 79 points would have earned them a playoff spot in every other division. From Jan. 3 to the end of the season the Islanders garnered 49 points, second in the league only to the Patrick leading New York Rangers.After winning four straight cups at the beginning of the &rsquo;80s, the Islanders have made the playoffs only once in the last four years. Why? &ldquo;Talent, the lack of,&rdquo; said Arbour, succinctly.But that has changed. There is more talent on this team than the one that surprisingly won the division in 1987-88. Not only did the October trades bring the Islanders players who became immediate contributors, a trade in March that brought Daniel Marois and Claude Loiselle from Toronto also paid quick dividends. A bestcase and welcome scenario sees Marois returning to 30-goal form.Other new additions on the forward lines will be minimal. With the top three lines set, there are few openings for players such as Zigmund Palffy, Scott Scis-sons and 1989 first-round pick Dave Chyzowski. Travis Green, Brent Grieve and Phil Huber-a trio of young forwards who enjoyed modest success in Capital District of the American League-will continue their development in the minors.Captain Pat Flatley, who missed 42 games last season, is back. When Flatley&rsquo;s healthy, the whole team plays bigger. Anything close to a full season from Flatley makes the Islanders a much more competitive team.The battered defense-as many as six regular defensemen were injured and out of the lineup at one point last season-allowed 299 goals last season to rank 17th in the league. But now the defense looks like a strong point.When Olympian Scott Lachance joined the team after the Winter Olympics, he proved to be even better than advertised. He was plus-13 in 17 games and played an incredibly smart game for a 19-year-old.The Islanders signed another Olympian this summer. He is defenseman Vladimir Malakhov, the first Russian to ever play for the franchise. No one expects him to be the next Denis Potvin, but they do expect him to be a significant factor. He is a world-class defenseman close to the size of Uwe Krupp and he has good mobility.The defense corps is also a strong point in Maloney&rsquo;s office. There were nine defensemen with NHL experience, strong trade material in any GM&rsquo;s book.The goaltending situation remains unchanged with Mark Fitzpatrick the No. 1 man as long as he stays healthy. Glenn Healy is the backup with Danny Lorenz ready if either of the top two get hurt. &#9632;

f0039-01

New ice age represents a case for the defense

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0041-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01587/8568534-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0041-01

WAYNE GRETZKY

<div class="byline">By Frank Brown</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0042-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01602/8568565-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">John Vanbiesbrouck heads into the season as the NHL&rsquo;s best-paid backup. (Photo by Michael DiGirolamo/BBS)</figcaption></div>Things very nearly have reached a bottom-line stage with the New York Rangers, and you know very well what the bottom line is.In the spring of 1991, the Rangers were embarrassed out of the playoffs in the first round by Washington; enormous changes were made, and there was a significant upsurge in the team&rsquo;s regular-season play. But the playoffs were the same old story. Roger Neilson&rsquo;s Rangers have been in three sets of playoffs and haven&rsquo;t passed Round 2 in any of them.In 23 other cities, it might be enough that the team won the Presidents&rsquo; Trophy last season. It might even be enough that the team won a seventh game (from the Devils in the first round) for the first time in history.But in New York it isn&rsquo;t, so there is big-time pressure on Neilson this season. There is big-time pressure as well on Mark Messier, who set a team record for points and who improved the team in countless ways, except where it counts the most-in the playoffs. The Rangers found any number of ways to lose in the second round before Messier&rsquo;s arrival, and if they find a way to do it again this year, bombs will go off in the Garden.With that in mind, expect the Rangers to show new wrinkles during what promises to be the most competitive Patrick Division season in history.First, forget about the same forward lines being used night in and night out. Adam Graves-Messier-Tony Amonte was a constant last season. So was Kris King-Darren Turcotte-Paul Broten. Jan Erixon-Sergei Nemchinov-Mike Gartner was pretty much a given when Erixon was healthy. While familiarity bred success, it fostered predictability. Any coach could tell which lines would be used in which situations. Neilson prefers to be an unpredictable coach, so this season, it is expected Neilson will do more line juggling.He will have to, anyway, because left winger John Ogrodnick was bought out, right winger Tim Kerr was traded to Hartford and left winger Rob Zamuner signed a free-agent deal with Tampa Bay. Forward additions are left winger Phil Bourque from Pittsburgh and possibly Russian prospect Alexei Kovalev, a potent weapon who may be secured from Moscow Dynamo.The team is a little younger, a little better-balanced, and a little faster up front, thanks to the speed of Bourque (and Kovalev, the Rangers hope). With the signing of Swedish defenseman Peter Andersson, the likely addition of Russian Sergei Zubov, plus the signings of a number of junior prospects, the defense probably is going to be rebuilt behind the top tandem of Brian Leetch and Jeff Beuke-boom.The bulk of the goallending work probably will be handed to Mike Richter. John Vanbiesbrouck is back after signing a contract that will pay him more than $1 million a season.Some versatility probably will be worked into the power play, which was much too dependent on the point shot last season. And the overall team-defense strategy likely will be redone.But if Neilson gets too conservative in the game plan, friction with Messier-who prefers more full-bore forechecking-could divide the team. If Messier is on the same wavelength as Neilson, he has a funny way of showing it.That is why playoff credibility remains the foremost Ranger issue. After that 1991 loss to Washington, the Rangers entered last season&rsquo;s tournament with no such credibility. After last year&rsquo;s second-round ouster, the stock is not significantly higher. No team has more to prove once April rolls around. &#9632;

f0042-01

A little unpredictability to get playoff credibility

<div class="byline">By Chris Stevenson</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01595/8568596-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mel Bridgman is committed to youth in the Senators&rsquo; expansion season. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>Ottawa has always been able to lay claim to having the world&rsquo;s longest skating rink, the Rideau Canal.This winter the nation&rsquo;s capital might have a less coveted claim to fame: The longest nights on ice.Stuck in the middle of it is goaltender Peter Sidorkiewicz who won&rsquo;t have much time to look at his watch-he&rsquo;ll likely be ducking the many pucks that figure to be rocketing his way this season.The 29-year-old finds himself in a situation he never enjoyed in Hartford as the No. 1 job is his to lose.Unfortunately for the first choice in the 1992-93 expansion draft, that&rsquo;s the only thing he&rsquo;ll enjoy this season. Sidorkiewicz will be in for many long nights as the youngsters the Senators&rsquo; organization is committed to using gain experience.When he has seen enough rubber and needs a rest, the call will likely go out to veteran Steve Weeks. He had some modest success last season with the New York Islanders. Free agent Darrin Madeley, 24, shapes up as the Senators&rsquo; goaltender of the future. He led the Lake Superior State Lakers to the NCAA title.The Senators blue-line corps is an interesting dichotomy. Players basically fall into two categories: Time-worn veteran or green recruit.One exception is Brad Shaw. The 28-year-old established himself as a regular with the Whalers before having his puckhandling skills impeded by a wrist injury which required off-season surgery. Now healthy, he will likely run the Senators&rsquo; power play.Dominic Lavoie, obtained from the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; organization, and Darren Rumble, the top scoring defenseman in Hershey of the American League, are two offensive youngsters who will get their first real test.Veterans Brad Marsh (1,027 career games) and Jim Kyte (519) weren&rsquo;t in high demand from established teams, but their experience is invaluable in Ottawa. They are counted on to be solid in their own zone and help the youngsters make the jump to the role of NHL regulars.Kent Paynter, Gord Dineen and Ken Hammond could also find regular work. Big Bad Brad Miller will give the club plenty of toughness. He had 192 penalty minutes in 42 games with Buffalo.The Senators&rsquo; position with the greatest depth is left wing. Sylvain Turgeon, Mike Peluso and Doug Smail are all experienced while players such as Jeff Lazaro, Lonnie Loach-who should be a candidate for Senators&rsquo; rookie-of-the-year honors- and Darcy Loewen appear ready to make the jump to the NHL.Laurie Boschman and Mark Lamb bring experience and speed to the center position. A change of scenery and fresh start for former minor-pro scoring stars Rob Murphy, Marc Fortier and Neil Brady might be what they need to kickstart their careers.Tomas Jelinek, 30, was captain of the Czechoslovakian team at the Olympics and could surprise on the right side. He likes the physical going which could help him adjust quickly to the North American game. Two former top prospects-Andrew McBain and Jody Hull-are looking to get their careers back on track.The big question is who is going to score? While Turgeon and McBain have productive pasts, it has been years since they produced regularly. Loach has proven he can score in the minors, but can he bring his game up to an NHL level?Senators&rsquo; general manager Mel Bridg-man and coach Rick Bowness promise a 2 hard-working, committed team.Unfortunately, work can only take you so far. Talent does the rest and that&rsquo;s a quality that&rsquo;s in short supply. &#9632;

f0043-01

Hard work can’t mask glaring lack of talent

<div class="byline">By Wayne Fish</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0044-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01485/8568627-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bodybuilder Rod Brind&rsquo; Amour is crucial to the Flyers&rsquo; rebuilding program. (Photo by Dan Hamilton)</figcaption></div>Oh, by the way, while you were on summer holiday, the Philadelphia Flyers made a few changes.Nothing to lose sleep over, mind you. Just a little tinkering.All they did was trade about one-fourth of their team, two No. 1 draft picks and 15 million bucks for Eric Lindros; let a future Hall of Fame defenseman (Mark Howe) catch a plane for Detroit; released two veteran regulars (Dan Quinn, Brad Jones) and signed three free agents (Ric Nattress, Greg Paslawski and Gord Hynes).Well, maybe that is a bit more than simply fine-tuning. Actually, it&rsquo;s the most radical renovation of a Flyers&rsquo; team in the 26-year history of the franchise.The acquisition of Lindros was the talk of the hockey world. When play resumes in October, attention of the fans and opponents will be focused squarely on the performance of the 19-year-old star-to-be.The Flyers believe they kept the key components of their team intact and might be a contender in the difficult Patrick Division sooner than some think.Losing goaltender Ron Hextail, center Mike Ricci, defensemen Steve Duchesne and Kerry Huffman and two prospects thins out a team already short on depth.But the team&rsquo;s three leading scorers-Mark Recchi, Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour and Kevin Dineen-remain on the roster. And the addition of Lindros will help add life to an anemic offense.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we did gut our team in the trade,&rdquo; said Farwell. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re gambling on some new people who we think can help us. Because we were able to keep our key people, like Brind&rsquo;Amour. Recchi and Dineen&hellip; they are key parts of the team and we&rsquo;re still in good shape.&rdquo;Defense and goaltending are the positions to which Farwell turned his attention after the trade. He quickly signed Swedish goalie Tommy Soderstrom and Boston College&rsquo;s Scott LaGrand to join rookie Dominic Roussel at training camp. Roussel, with 17 NHL games on his resume, is the only one to have played for the Flyers.The departures of Duchesne, Huffman and ffee-agent Howe left the Flyers&rsquo; defense with three regulars-Terry Carkn-er, Garry Galley and Brian Benning.An arbitrator&rsquo;s ruling in August set Nattress free to sign with the Flyers. Farwell also has high hopes for Hynes, a free agent who led Canadian defensemen in scoring at the &rsquo;92 Olympics.The Flyers would like to see continuing progress from defenseman Dan Kordic. Hershey (American League) defensemen Ryan McGill and Corey Foster could take advantage of the void at this position to move up. A wild card might appear in the form of Russian Dimitri Yushkevich, a standout at the Olympics.Up front, the Flyers should be an offensive threat again after hitting 20-year lows in goals the past two seasons.In addition to Lindros and their top three scorers from last year, the Flyers look for return to form by left winger Pelle Eklund. He suffered through his poorest season in seven years and finished it by undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery.Swedish left winger Mikael Renberg and North Dakota center Greg Johnson are expected to compete for roster spots. But the key, of course, will be Lindros. There was talk of placing Recchi on his right wing to begin the season but regardless of who plays on his line, Lindros should have immediate impact.Leaving Lindros with some talent to work with was a critical part of the trade negotiations with Quebec.&ldquo;Although we&rsquo;re bringing in a potential superstar and a guy I believe will change the game,&rdquo; Farwell said, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s only 19-years-old and we don&rsquo;t expect him to come here and play by himself.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0044-01

Some minor tinkering to pass the summer

<div class="byline">By Dave Molinari</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0046-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01402/8568658-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mario Lemieux, the game&rsquo;s best player, aims for his fourth scoring title. (Photo by Brian Miller/BBS)</figcaption></div>The Pittsburgh Penguins didn&rsquo;t tamper with a winning formula during the offseason. They rewrote it. Then shredded it.They didn&rsquo;t re-hire the coach who had led them to their second Stanley Cup in as many seasons; they lost a handful of significant, if not prominent, players from their depth chart; and they even abandoned the logo that carried them through the first 25 years of franchise history.It was another summer rife with turnover and turmoil in Pittsburgh, where it seems the only constant is change.Gone is Scott Bowman, who went behind the bench when Bob Johnson died of brain cancer last fall. He endured an often-chaotic regular season in his return to coaching, but reaffirmed Hall-of-Fame credentials when he guided the Penguins on their charge through the playoffs.But after the season, Bowman and general manager Craig Patrick were unable to agree on a contract that would have Bowman come back for another year as coach. Instead, he was ticketed for his old job as director of player recruitment and development.Coaching changes are nothing new in Pittsburgh-Bowman&rsquo;s successor is the fifth guy to hold the job in the past four seasons- and roster revisions are a pretty regular feature of the off-season, too.Five players who spent 1991-92 in Pittsburgh became free agents without compensation this summer and none will be back. Centers Bryan Trottier and Jiri Hrdina retired, left winger Phil Bourque signed with the Rangers, defenseman Gord Roberts signed with Boston and right winger Jay Caufield was not offered a contract.The Penguins also lost free-agent forwards, Jock Callander and Dave Michay-luk, who spent last season with their International League affiliate in Muskegon, but who performed admirably during the playoffs.Trottier and Bourque figure to be the Penguins&rsquo; most important off-season losses. Both were consistent, albeit unspectacular, contributors to the Stanley Cup championships.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve lost a couple of guys who are leaders, hard-nosed players,&rdquo; left winger Bob Errey said. &ldquo;They fit into every role except the power play. You need guys like that to win, and those are the gaps you have to fill.&rdquo;The Penguins have been confronted by adversity so often in recent years that few of the players seemed particularly upset by the tumult of the summer. They are used to seeing teammates and coaches come and go, and are not unsettled when new faces appear.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had a few changes, but I don&rsquo;t think it should be that big of a deal,&rdquo; defenseman Paul Stanton said.Most of the attention has focused on the players Pittsburgh lost during the summer, but the Penguins have others who should tum up in their lineup this season. Center Dave Tippett was signed as a free agent from Washington and Martin Straka, Pittsburgh&rsquo;s first-round draft choice in June, was promptly penciled in as the No. 3 center.Right winger Mike Needham, who performed commendably during the playoffs, is ready for steady work in the NHL and the Penguins hoped a few young prospects such as defenseman Greg Andrusak could make serious bids for a job.After going through a chaotic off-season, the routine of training camp appealed to the Penguins. But they knew they could not be complacent playing in the league&rsquo;s best division.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to be prepared for a tough regular season,&rdquo; Errey said. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want to find ourselves in a position where we&rsquo;re fighting for a playoff spot.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0046-01

Changing champions go for three straight

<div class="byline">By Kevin Johnston</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0048-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-01271/8568689-1-eng-US/f0048-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Mats Sundin rebounded from a poor first half to show superstar potential. (Photo by Scott Levy/BBS)</figcaption></div>For the first time in a long time, the pressure is on the Quebec Nordiques. The question is no longer, &ldquo;How many points from fourth place will they finish?&rdquo;, but rather, &ldquo;Will the Nordiques make the playoffs?&rdquo;Optimism has swept the organization following the long-awaited trade of Eric Lindros to Philadelphia. When a team acquires the likes of goaltender Ron Hex-tall, offensive defensemen Steve Duchesne and Kerry Huffman, center Mike Ricci and tough winger Chris Simon, it can&rsquo;t help but get better. (Peter Forsberg, also part of the deal, arrives in &rsquo;93-94).In goal, the present is bright as long as Hextail stays healthy and focused. His 45 games played last season are a good sign for a Nordique team that needs a workhorse goaltender. Both Stephane Fiset and John Tanner should get playing time behind Hextali.Duchesne and Huffman are superior puck-handlers, whose main role will be to get the puck to a talented group of young forwards. Their defensive play has not always been a strong suit.Which leads to Page&rsquo;s biggest need-a rock-solid, defensive defenseman in the Kevin Lowe mold. Still, the defense is significantly better than last season&rsquo;s. And by quite a good margin. If Curtis Leschyshyn is healthy after missing half a season and if Shawn Cronin-acquired in an off-season deal with Winnipeg-plays with controlled aggression, the defense becomes a respectable unit.Other new faces on the blueline fighting for jobs are offensive-minded Scott Young and tough-guy Dennis Vial.Up front, the plan is to use Ricci between Mats Sundin and Valeri Kamensky to form one of the best second lines around. Ricci is counted upon as much for leadership as he is for points. Kamensky averaged nearly a point-per-game in 23 contests a year ago and a repeat performance over a full season is expected.The No.-l line is set with returning players Joe Sakic, Owen Nolan and Mike Hough.Left-shooting right winger Andrei Kovalenko will also have a prominent role. He&rsquo;s a tough little customer with decent offensive skills.Simon, acquired from the Flyers after the original Lindros deal was completed, is convinced he&rsquo;s ready for the NHL this season. If he keeps his head in the game while protecting some of the small, skill forwards, he&rsquo;s a valuable addition.All the changes up front vastly improve the team&rsquo;s depth. Now third- and fourth-liners such as Herb Raglan, Gino Cavalli-ni, Scott Pearson and Tim Hunter can fulfill their roles without trying to do too much.Martin Rucinsky and Bill Lindsay had brief trials in Quebec last season and would have been in the lineup if it wasn&rsquo;t for the Lindros deal. They will likely now get a chance to develop their skills in Halifax of the American League at the start of the season.The added depth also makes it more difficult for top prospects Rene Corbet, Todd Warriner or Paul Brousseau to play in the NHL this season. But all three are a big part of the Nordiques&rsquo; future.The Nordiques have assembled a good mix of high-skill and high-intensity players which should enable them to adapt their style of play to the opposition. Page must be certain to teach his younger forwards the value of taking care of their own end.Fans at Le Colisee are expecting nothing less than a playoff berth this season and the pressure could get to this young team. But there appears to be enough talent to overcome the pressure and end the NHL&rsquo;s longest playoff drought. &#9632;

f0048-01

Optimism, pressure after roster turnover

<div class="byline">By Dave Luecking</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0050-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-01235/8568720-1-eng-US/f0050-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brendan Shanahan combines toughness and talent on the Blues&rsquo; wing. (Photo by Scott Levy/BBS)</figcaption></div>When the St. Louis Blues dumped Brian Sutter last spring after four seasons as head coach, they dumped his game plan as well.Sutter and Sutter&rsquo;s dump-and-chase hockey are history. No longer will the main focus of the Blues&rsquo; attack be on giving up the puck by dumping it into the attacking zone in the hopes of getting it back on a turnover.Instead, they&rsquo;ll take the novel approach-for St. Louis-of trying to maintain possession of the puck under new coach Bob Plager. &ldquo;Puck control&rdquo; are the buzzwords as the Blues start their second quarter century.&ldquo;If you have puck control, you carry the play,&rdquo; Blues&rsquo; general manager Ron Caron said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the fun of the game-Tve got it. Take it away from me.&rsquo; You need some talent and speed to hold the puck and gain the zone. We want to change the perception of our hockey team.&rdquo;Even with three-time 70-goal scorer Brett Hull, the Blues were perceived under Sutter as a team of grinders and checkers, with a lot of heart and soul but limited skill and speed.With Sutter gone, the emphasis has changed to improving speed and skill in the hopes of catching up to, and staying with, the Blues&rsquo; opponents who have upgraded their talent by diving heavily into the European market.The Blues took their first tentative steps in that direction late last season by re-signing Frenchman Philippe Bozon, who had a brief stay with the Blues&rsquo; Peoria farm team in the late 1980s. He turned out to be one of the Blues&rsquo; best forwards down the stretch.Then, at the entry draft in June, the Blues selected five players from the former Soviet Union. Left wingers Vitali Karamnov and Vitali Prokhorov already have been added to the Blues&rsquo; roster, and a third-right winger Igor Korolev-may not be far behind.They&rsquo;ll join superstar Brett Hull, Craig Janney, speedy Nelson Emerson, Brendan Shanahan, versatile veteran Dave Christian and Bozon to give the Blues three potential scoring lines.Another player who may fit into the mix is left winger Denny Felsner. He led U.S. college hockey with 94 points last season.Barring trades, that leaves veterans Ron and Rich Sutter, Bob Bassen, Dave Lowry, Ron Wilson and Kelly Chase to battle for the remaining openings.&ldquo;We have more talent than we ever have with the two Russians and several others who have signed contracts,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;This is the most talented group in my nine years as general manager.&ldquo;We want to have the fans say, &lsquo;Wow, they have three scoring lines and defensemen who have offensive potential and are given the green light to jump into the play.&rsquo;&rdquo;The Blues are extremely deep at defense with talented veterans Jeff Brown and Paul Cavallini, speedsters Murray Baron and rookie Bret Hedican, along with solid Stephane Quintal. Garth Butcher, Rick Zombo, Lee Norwood and Curt Giles.With the new emphasis on offense, the Blues are hoping to take some of the load off goaltender Curtis Joseph, who faced more shots than any of his compatriots in the NHL last season. Joseph finished third in save percentage with a sparkling .911 mark.&ldquo;You could be respectful of your defense without having to think defense all the time,&rdquo; Caron said. &ldquo;We scored 279 goals last year. We could score 40 to 50 more, without damaging our focus on defense.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0050-01

New style emphasizes skill, speed and scoring

<div class="byline">By Mike Weaver</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0053-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0053-01201/8568751-1-eng-US/f0053-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Right winger Pat Falloon shines brightest among San Jose&rsquo;s young stars. (Photo by John Johnson/BBS)</figcaption></div>The San Jose Sharks begin their second NHL season with a new management structure and a commitment to a fresh, new look on the ice.And as a result, they may take a shortterm step backward to make bigger forward strides down the road.The team&rsquo;s new management structure features a three-headed general manager consisting of director of hockey operations Dean Lombardi, director of player personnel Chuck Grillo and coach George Kingston. Those three assumed the GM duties when Jack Ferreira was fired in late June, and they have set their sights on making the Sharks a younger team.To do that, the management triumvirate has unloaded veteran players such as Perry Anderson, Steve Bozek, Paul Fenton and Brian Mullen to open the door for a crop of young players to make the roster. That means the Sharks could be in for a second season of schooling as they try to work their way up the ladder of success. In fact, improving upon last season&rsquo;s 17-58-5 record is a stiff test for the Sharks if they have to endure a rash of rookie mistakes.&ldquo;We might have to bite the bullet for a while,&rdquo; Lombardi said. &ldquo;But we think we have more upside potential this way.&rdquo;That potential comes in the form of players such as forwards Ray Whitney, John Weisbrod, J.F. Quintin and Rob Gaudreau and defensemen Sandis Ozol-nish, Doug Zmolek and Mike Rathje.Whitney, a center, and Quintin, a left winger, provided evidence last season they could add punch to an offense that produced a league-low 219 goals. Whitney, a second-round draft pick in 1991, joined the Sharks at the end of last season and had three points in two games. Quintin was the team&rsquo;s leading scorer during pre-season games before a knee injury caused him to miss most of the regular season.Weisbrod, a 6-foot-3, 215-pound center, is another player attempting to rebound from injury. He missed last season because of reconstructive shoulder surgery, but could become the big, strong center the Sharks sorely missed.The offense should get another boost from left winger Johan Garpenlov, who was obtained by the Sharks in a late trade with the Detroit Red Wings last season. Garpenlov figures to play a major role for the Sharks after producing 11 points in 12 games. Garpenlov did his damage while skating on a line with right winger Pat Falloon, who led the team in goals (25), assists (34) and points (59).If Whitney and Weisbrod become fixtures in the lineup for the Sharks, it could mean reduced roles for Dale Craigwell and Mike Sullivan, two centers who were surprisingly effective as rookies last season. Kelly Kisio and Dean Evason are veteran centers on the roster, making the position a crowded one.Defensemen David Williams and Jay More, two other players who performed admirably as rookies last season, also could find themselves fighting for ice time if any of the rookie rearguards make the grade with the Sharks. All those players figure to rank behind Doug Wilson, Neil Wilkinson, Rob Zettler and Link Gaetz on the defensive depth chart.In goal, Jeff Hackett established himself as the No. 1 man last season, when he was 11-27-1 with a goals-against average of 3.84 and was named the team&rsquo;s most valuable player. Jarmo Myllys, who was Hackett&rsquo;s backup most of last season, was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in June. That means veteran Brian Hayward and prospects Arturs Irbe and Wade Flaherty all could get playing time as the Sharks search for a suitable backup to give Hackett a rest. &#9632;

f0053-01

Another rough road ahead for young club

<div class="byline">By Roy Cummings</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0055-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0055-01198/8568782-1-eng-US/f0055-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Terry Crisp has his work cut out for him with the expansion Lightning. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>Phil Esposito has done a decent job disguising the fact the Tampa Bay Lightning are an expansion franchise.Through trades, free agent acquisitions and the expansion draft, Esposito has put together a team that looks more like it&rsquo;s in a transitional stage than a building one.Oh, the Lightning have their share of NHL retreads, but they also have something a lot of expansion teams don&rsquo;t-a nucleus of young talent good enough to be reasonably competitive.Certainly the defense is a strong suit. Although a couple of them (Rob Ramage, Doug Crossman) have entered the twilight of their careers, the average age is 26.Joe Reekie and Shawn Chambers, who appears to be back to the form he displayed two springs ago when he helped put the Minnesota North Stars in the Stanley Cup finals, will get most of the defensive responsibilities.Behind the frontliners are a batch of reserves that could produce a surprise or two. Jeff Bloemberg, Matt Hervey and Rob Robinson all have either size or toughness as their primary asset, and their presence may make it hard for first-round draft pick Roman Hamrlik to crack the lineup this season.Esposito said he wasn&rsquo;t sure whether highly touted third-round pick Brent Gretzky could make the team, either. When he drafted Gretzky 49th overall last June, Esposito almost immediately penciled him into the lineup as a third-line center.Esposito has added a lot of talent to the Lightning&rsquo;s forward line since, making Gretzky a bit of a long shot.If he could play right wing, a position where the Lightning are dreadfully thin. Gretzky would make this team. But as a center, he&rsquo;s going against a fairly talented group that includes Brian Bradley, Rob DiMaio, Ken Hodge Jr., Michel Mon-geau, Anatoli Semenov and John Tucker.Esposito thinks he can get three 20-goal scorers out of that group and he&rsquo;s hoping at least one of those players produces 30. Tucker and Hodge have done it before in the NHL and Esposito firmly believes Semenov has the ability.Esposito would also like left winger Mikael Andersson to score at least 20. Andersson just missed that mark last year when he scored 18 playing on a checking line in Hartford, and the belief of both Esposito and Andersson is that a switch to an offensive-minded role will drastically enhance the latter&rsquo;s goal totals.Two other goal scorers to watch for on the left side are Rob Zamuner and Steve Maltais. Zamuner, a free-agent acquisition Esposito lured away from the Rangers, may be their most promising prospect. Maltais scored 30 goals in 70 games split between Minnesota and the minors.The Lightning also have plenty of toughness on the left side with Mike Hartman, Basil McRae and Dan Vincelette.The right side is definitely a problem area, though. The only player of note here is Steve Tuttle, who scored 43 goals in 71 games for Peoria of the International League. Don&rsquo;t be surprised to see a center or two switched to the right wing.Like the offense, the Lightning&rsquo;s goaltending improved as the summer wore on. Tampa came out of the expansion draft with capable Wendell Young-the likely No. 1 netminder- and promising Jean-Claude Bergeron. But they added Pat Jablonski two days later in a trade with St. Louis and then signed David Littman prior to training camp.Semenov, Zamuner, Mongeau and Crossman form the nucleus of a decent power play. The penalty-killing unit will be made up primarily of Andersson, who led Hartford at plus-18 last season, DiMaio and Danton Cole. &#9632;

f0055-01

Outlook not as bleak as you might think

<div class="byline">By Damien Cox</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0057-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0057-01146/8568813-1-eng-US/f0057-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Maple Leafs are expecting bigger and better things from Rob Pearson. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>If Cliff Fletcher had his way, his Toronto Maple Leafs would likely have been a significantly different group this fall from the bunch that missed the playoffs for the second straight season last spring.A second-line center with some speed was the apple of Fletcher&rsquo;s eye, plus a defenseman with some toughness. More speed and scoring punch up front would also have been a plus. But Fletcher was unable to swing the appropriate transac-tions-except for the signing of Bob McGill- and enters the 1992-93 campaign with essentially the same club.So why is Toronto so excited about this hockey team?First of all, after the highway robbery/trade with Calgary last Jan. 2 that brought Doug Gilmour and others, the Leafs finished the season 20-18-2.The second root for optimism is that while the orchestra did not change much, the Leafs have a new conductor who should change the tune teams hear when they visit Toronto. Pat Bums left the Montreal Canadiens during the summer to replace Tom Watt behind the Leaf bench, and it&rsquo;s hard not to see him as the perfect man for the job.Burns earned a reputation as a guy who could do a lot with a little, a coach who could coax, push or coerce his teams to overachieve. And since a comparison of the Montreal roster he took to the Adams Division title and the current Leaf brigade doesn&rsquo;t reveal stark differences in talent, Leaf fans have reason to hope for substantial improvement.&ldquo;The players will have to realize every day that they came to work,&rdquo; Bums said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been out in the work world myself with my lunch box and I don&rsquo;t see anything wrong with asking for all-out effort.&rdquo;The impact of a man such as Bums on the Toronto hockey scene can&rsquo;t be underestimated. The former cop brings to his new beat the biggest reputation of any Toronto head coach since Punch Imlach, and that should further help establish a winning atmosphere.The Leafs managed 237 goals last season, so it must be disconcerting for Bums the only added firepower he has is in the form of Russian right winger, Nikolai Borchevsky. The 27-year-old has speed and played on the gold-medal Unified Team at the Olympics.Another European, Czechoslovak Pat-rik Augusta, may also have limited impact. He&rsquo;s younger (22) than Borchevsky and plays more of a grinding, up-and-down game.New faces such as Ken McCrae, Mike Eastwood, Yanic Perreault and perhaps 1992 first-round pick Brandon Con very will battle for center spots.But the most significant changes up front could involve players who were on the club last season. The Leafs were expected to experiment with moving Wendel Clark to right wing and Glenn Anderson to left. Look for right winger Rob Pearson to have a bigger role-per-haps on the No. 1 line with Gilmour.On defense, Sylvain Lefebvre steps into the skates Ric Nattress left on his way to Philadelphia. Drake Berehowsky, the top pick two years ago and the best defenseman in junior last season, will get ample opportunity to make the team.The most significant blueline impact, however, will come from Russian Dmitri Mironov. He had a rough go of it in seven games after arriving from the Olympics in February, but is a strapping, mobile defenseman with a big shot who should be one of the top four backliners.In goal, Grant Fuhr will once again get the bulk of the workload, with Rick Wamsley playing 25 games or so. The Leafs want top prospect Felix Potvin to spend one more season in the American League. &#9632;

f0057-01

Not much new in town except for optimism

<div class="byline">By Elliott Pap</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0059-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0059-01134/8568844-1-eng-US/f0059-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Canucks rely heavily on goalie Kirk McLean and he usually delivers. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>Stability, stability, stability. It sounds like a pitch from some salesman going door-to-door.You want success in sports, pal? Then ya gotta have stability. It&rsquo;s the only way to fly.After years of ineptitude, the Vancouver Canucks now have it- and they don&rsquo;t plan on surrendering it either.President and GM Pat Quinn returns for his sixth season and head coach Quinn is back for his second full year.The team that finished with a franchise record 96 points remains virtually unchanged with the exception of silky center Igor Larionov, who signed with Lugano of the Swiss League.Other departees include part-time defensemen Randy Gregg (retirement), Jim Agnew (to Hartford as a free agent) and Ken Hammond (to Ottawa in the expansion draft).The lingering question is this: If the Canucks couldn&rsquo;t beat an average Edmonton Oiler team in the playoffs, then will the same cast be good enough this year? It all depends.Vancouver&rsquo;s deficiencies last season were a big grinding center, a top-notch point man for the power play and, to a lesser extent, backup goaltending. Those deficiencies still remain and are compounded by Larionov&rsquo;s departure.However, the conversion of right winger Trevor Linden to the middle, may solve problem No. 1. He is determined to make the transition a successful one.&ldquo;I would welcome the challenge,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I feel I can play there. I think 1 understand the game much better and what makes a good centerman.&rdquo;Linden&rsquo;s positive approach is good but it leaves the team weaker on the right side, which is bad. If you rob Peter, you might be paying Paul.Speaking of Peters, Petr Nedved will also be given the opportunity to blossom into a front-line center with Larionov gone. The 20-year-old Czech has had a mostly dismal two years in Vancouver. His talent is there but is his attitude?Nedved showed some determination in the playoffs after starting the post-season in the press box. If he doesn&rsquo;t pout and instead puts out, he will make a significant contribution. Playing out his option might give him the motivational boost he needs.Pavel Bure could solve the Canucks&rsquo; point problem. Bure showed he is capable of moving the puck around and firing lasers from anywhere on the ice. His problems were aggressive penalty killers who exploited his defensive weaknesses. Hopefully for the Canucks, a full training camp made a difference.So could the emergence of Adrien Plavsic, who returned from the Canadian Olympic team a different and much-improved player. Plavsic, like flashy Finn Jyrki Lumme or reliable Dave Babych, can move the puck and jump into the play.Newly signed Czech import Jiri Slegr could also add some spice to the power play. Of course, he will first have to crack the veteran defense corps.Backup goaltending was a source of consternation last season as Troy Gamble was floored by the sophomore jinx. But Kirk McLean&rsquo;s phenomenal year managed to smooth over these cracks.McLean will play tons again this seasons. He won&rsquo;t play them all, however, and if Gamble doesn&rsquo;t get the job done, someone else will. Quinn gave Gamble the benefit of the doubt by not dealing for an experienced netminder in the summer.In fact, Quinn made no off-season deals and it&rsquo;s difficult to see this team improving that much. Stability is nice and it should mean another season of 90 or so points, but if you&rsquo;re stable with the wrong horses, you aren&rsquo;t going to win the derby. &#9632;

f0059-01

Can new-found stability breed playoff success?

<div class="byline">By Dave Sell</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0061-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0061-01127/8568875-1-eng-US/f0061-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Center Michal Pivonka led a well-balanced scoring attack with 80 points. (Photo by Brian winkler/BBS)</figcaption></div>Psychologists say setting goals and striving to attain them is a good way to go through life, for it can lead to a sense of accomplishment.The Washington Capitals have a problem with goals, though. Not the sort that send electricity through the red light. They scored a team record 330 of those last season. No, it&rsquo;s the short-term goal of the 84-game regular season that poses a problem.What, for example, would the hockey world think if the Capitals busted out of the gate, flew past the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins and the bevy of other good teams in the Patrick Division and went undefeated for, say, three months? Let&rsquo;s make it an even 42-0.The response ought to be, &ldquo;So what?&rdquo;However amazing-and improbable-a 42-0 run would be, it won&rsquo;t matter much in May, which has been a troublesome month for the Capitals. They are 0-5 after the April showers.For the 10th straight season, the Capitals are entering a season after a playoff defeat. While the Capitals are proud of the consistency demonstrated by the longest current run of playoff appearances in the division, the franchise is, in some places, aching for something more.But whatever the aches, there was not much done to the body of the team in the off-season. Every other time general manager David Poile spoke, he talked about how much of the core of the team is 25 or 26-years-old and will soon be emerging as top players.Still, it was goalie Don Beaupre, who will be 31 when this season opens, who provided the most consistently positive performance in the playoffs last season. And since it seems likely Beaupre will not have a contract dispute for the first time in four seasons, Poile wasn&rsquo;t shy about saying so.Defense, though, is the unit that tends to draw the most attention of opponents. It was among the best defensive groups in the NHL and the Capitals tried to improve it by signing the Oilers&rsquo; Dave Manson. That didn&rsquo;t pan out and another one-time first-round pick, Shawn Anderson, is a new addition to the corps. Kevin Hatcher seemed to be knocking on the Norris Trophy door after leading the Capitals in scoring in 1990-91, but didn&rsquo;t have the same year last season. Team officials have stood solidly by him through a summer of trade rumors, but fans would be happier if he used his big body more.Broadcaster Ron Weber, who has seen every Capitals&rsquo; game, will have his work cut out for him this season with the brother combinations at forward. Now there are two Hunters and two Millers.Kevin Miller joins brother, Kelly, after coming from Detroit in the trade for Dino Ciccarelli. Kevin Miller will do what Millers do very well, which is work very hard. Dale Hunter is joined by brother, Mark, who was part of the package arriving from Hartford. It included former Capitals&rsquo; first-round pick Yvon Corriveau, who retains the same questions he left with in 1990. Going the other way was Nick Kypreos.There was another import added from New England. Bobby Carpenter represents some of the best and worst moments in Capitals&rsquo; history. He scored 53 goals one season and ripped apart another with his quarrel with then-coach Bryan Mur-m ray. The Capitals don&rsquo;t expect 53 goals, but they also don&rsquo;t expect dressing-room? problems.As far as prospects are concerned, they are few and far between. Offensive-minded defenseman Jason Wooley and center Steve Konowalchuk are the best bets to make contributions this season. &#9632;

f0061-01

Little new medicine for aching body parts

<div class="byline">By Tim Campbell</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0062-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0062-01126/8568906-1-eng-US/f0062-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Phil Housley likes to play with power as his 57 power-play points attest. (Photo by Michael DiGirolamo/BBS)</figcaption></div>It&rsquo;s a potential breakthrough season in Winnipeg. The Jets will either go to new and creative extremes to keep alive their pogo-stick tradition of downs following ups, or, a team that appears energized and improved via some talented youth will actually live up to the quality it appears to possess on paper.Projected performances on paper, however, have an uncanny habit of finding their way into the trash bin. Jets&rsquo; head coach John Paddock, beginning his second season in command, has the ominous task of negating the fears and anxieties of a Winnipeg past and of keeping 1992-93 out of the dumper.Paddock helped bring the Jets from 63 points in 1990-91 to 81 last season. To continue the climb would be to figure out a puzzle none of his predecessors could.But if ever a coach in Winnipeg had the pieces, it seems Paddock does.The new coach&rsquo;s building began last season from the goal out, as the Jets got excellent goaltending and paid strict attention to their own end to establish a franchise low goals against total. Winnipeg&rsquo;s 244 against was the NHL&rsquo;s third-best last season.The Jets&rsquo; weakness was in generating offense. Their 251 goals was among the league&rsquo;s five lowest totals. The team had only four 20-goal men, and two of those were defensemen Phil Housley and Fredrik Olausson. It&rsquo;s in this area that the Jets foresee more building.For starters, they&rsquo;ve added right winger Teemu Selanne. The Finnish flash, 22, was the team&rsquo;s first-round pick of the 1988 draft but Winnipeg was only able to get him into its lineup after matching a lucrative free-agent offer made to him by Calgary.Selanne was a big-time scorer in Finland, netting 72 goals in 86 games over the last two seasons. That should further strengthen the Jets&rsquo; right side, which includes Eddie Olczyk and Pat Elynuik.The Jets also stand to gain a multi-talented center, 22-year-old Russian Alexei Zhamnov. He could step right in on the power play.The trend toward higher European content is a change Paddock insists brings major skill improvements. Of 21 pen-ciled-in players on the roster, there were four Russians, two Swedes, two Finns, four Americans and nine Canadians.The team&rsquo;s other pluses heading into the season were first full seasons to come for U.S. Olympian Keith Tkachuk (1990&rsquo;s first-round pick) and speedy Russian winger and C.I.S Olympian Evgeny Davydov.There was also guarded optimism veteran center Thomas Steen had made progress with a delicate back condition. Steen played only 38 regular-season games last season, but made it his fourth straight as at least a point-per-game player.The only great need that remained was for a large physical winger, one made even more urgent with the departures of tough-guy Mike Hartman to Tampa in the expansion draft and defenseman Shawn Cronin&rsquo;s trade to Quebec.Though Cronin is gone, the Jets continue to expect toughness and stability behind Housley and Olausson. Winnipeg has added defenseman Sergei Bautin, its first pick from June&rsquo;s draft and reputedly a player of Igor Ulanov&rsquo;s nasty ilk.As they head into the season, the Jets are now well on the road mapped out by general manager Mike Smith.&ldquo;As compared to a year ago, we&rsquo;ve made some substantial changes,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re bigger than we were a year ago, and we&rsquo;ve added some young players with some talent and skill. But we&rsquo;rg still a young team. It&rsquo;s not going to be as easy as a lot of people think.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0062-01

European content rules say yo-yo game over

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0064-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0064-01110/8568972-1-eng-US/f0064-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0065-01124/8568965-1-eng-US/f0065-012.jpg" title="f0065-01" width="2706" height="3263"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0066-01110/8568958-1-eng-US/f0066-012.jpg" title="f0066-01" width="2694" height="3221"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0182/8568951-1-eng-US/f0067-012.jpg" title="f0067-01" width="2688" height="3227"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0068-0182/8568944-1-eng-US/f0068-012.jpg" title="f0068-01" width="2754" height="3203"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0069-0171/8568937-1-eng-US/f0069-012.jpg" title="f0069-01" width="2688" height="3233"></div> &#9632;

f0064-01

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0070-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0070-0165/8569010-1-eng-US/f0070-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Felix Potvin, the Leafs&rsquo; goaltender of the future, was the American League&rsquo;s top rookie last season. (Photo by Michael DiGirolamo/BBS)</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0071-0172/8569003-1-eng-US/f0071-012.jpg" title="f0071-01" width="2718" height="3239"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Murphy spent parts of three seasons with Adirondack before blossoming in the NHL. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0070-01

AMERICAN LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0072-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0072-0166/8569041-1-eng-US/f0072-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0072-01

INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0074-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0074-0163/8569110-1-eng-US/f0074-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tim Cheveldae, who played 72 games in Detroit last season, once played 66 in a year for Saskatoon. (Photo by Dan Hamilton)</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0075-0154/8569103-1-eng-US/f0075-012.jpg" title="f0075-01" width="2784" height="3185"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ray Ferraro had one of the Western League&rsquo;s best seasons ever when he scored 108 goals in 1983-84. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0074-01

WESTERN LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0076-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0076-0154/8569148-1-eng-US/f0076-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">John Vanbiesbrouck was a two-time Ontario League all-star with Sault Ste. Marie in the earlv 80s. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0077-0162/8569141-1-eng-US/f0077-012.jpg" title="f0077-01" width="2694" height="3191"><figcaption class="caption-body">Former Niagara Falls Flyer Steve Larmer deserves a breather after playing 800 consecutive NHL regular-season games for the Chicago Blackhawks. (Photo by Dan Hamilton)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0076-01

ONTARIO LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0078-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0078-0149/8569179-1-eng-US/f0078-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pat LaFontaine was QMJHL MVP in 1982-83. (Photo by Dan Hamilton)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0078-01

QUEBEC LEAGUE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0079-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0079-0150/8569210-1-eng-US/f0079-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0079-01

HOCKEY EAST

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0079-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0079-0218/8569241-1-eng-US/f0079-022.jpg"></div> &#9632;

f0079-02

ECAC

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0080-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0080-0139/8569272-1-eng-US/f0080-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

Search for your favorite player or team

October 9, 1992

WCHA

MARK MESSIER

Sure they’re bigger, but are they better?

EAST COAST LEAGUE