News from April 2000
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St. Pete Ready for Hockey Madness
 "I'm going to St. Petersburg because it will be my first and probably last appearance before my own fans at the world championships," Bure said when he arrived earlier this week. The potholes have been covered up, the rubbish cleared away and the brand-new sparkling $80 million ice palace swept for bombs: St. Petersburg is at last ready for the Ice Hockey World Championships, which start Saturday. The country's very own "Russian Rocket," Pavel Bure ? representing Russia in the tournament for the first time ? will share the limelight with a hockey-playing moose, St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev and President-elect Vladimir Putin when the tournament opens. Hundreds of city workers and soldiers were working frantically Friday to make the stadium as shiny clean as the ice that the U.S. and Swiss teams will skate out on as they launch the 12-team tournament, which runs through May 14. Russia's first game will be Saturday evening at the Ice Palace against France. The authorities have been frantically preparing St. Petersburg for the flood of visitors expected for the tournament. Thousands of extra local police and security guards will be doing their best to ensure that spectators can concentrate on enjoying the second-best hockey the world has to offer ? most of the world's finest are still in the United States competing in the National Hockey League playoffs. Dozens of hostages were freed Thursday by the security services in mock operations as the police burst into rooms with heavy weapons, rehearsing their response to any possible terrorist attack. National television showed dozens of German shepherd dogs ? and one King Charles spaniel ? checking out the inside of the stadium. The dogs, who served in Chechnya, their handlers said, were sniffing for explosives. "This one saved three patrols," said one dog handler on television. Security is high because of the war in Chechnya and the impending visit of Putin, who is expected to attend the opening at the very least. The return of the championship to Russia for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union has attracted a number of the country's greatest players for the chance to play at home. The tournament's first appearance in St. Petersburg is the first time the championships have been held in this country since the 1986 tournament in Moscow. "He's not only one of the strongest hockey players in the world, he's the leader. Thank God that a leader has arrived for the national team," said Gennady Tsygunov, former national team coach, in an interview published Friday by the country's best selling sports paper, Sport Express. Bure is the star of Russia's pack of NHL players, but the presence beside him of Alexei Zhamnov of the Chicago Blackhawks and New York Rangers star Valery Kamensky ? and the still possible inclusion of Ottawa Senators holdout Alexei Yashin ? means the team starts as rare favorites. Dominant in the World Championships of the 1960s and 1970s as the Soviet Union, hockey has conspicuously flopped in the last 10 years. The national side hasn't won the tournament or even a medal since 1993, when it grabbed the gold in Germany, beating Sweden 3-1 in the final. Optimism is high, with this year's lineup already dubbed Russia's own Dream Team. "I'm 100 percent certain that our team will get first place," said Boris Mikhailov, the legendary Soviet forward who in 1993 coached the last Russian team to win the World Championships, in Sport Express. If it comes, victory will be May 14 at the shiny new stadium in front of the governor and the newly inaugurated president. It will also coincide with St. Petersburg elections for governor. Many doubted whether the new stadium would be finished on time, and several local politicians have asked where the money came from for the event. However, by the end of this week there was only praise. "A Super Palace for a Dream Team" was Sport Express saw matters on Friday. The shining glass exterior and ultra-modern facilities inside make the Ice Palace one of the best sports stadium in Russia and even Europe, visiting officials said. Every crowd member gets a good view, instant replays show on the large television screens and cartoons of the tournament's mascot, a goofy looking moose with a stick and puck, are flashed up on the screen during stoppages. "This is a terrific building and I'm really impressed," said Butch Goring, assistant coach for the Canadian team, after Wednesday's game against Russia, which the home side won 4-3. "I've been in arenas all through Canada and the United States, and this is as good as anything that I've seen there." "There is a Russian saying that the first pancake always comes out wrong," Viktor Vlasov, deputy general director of the arena corporation, said after the first games ? exhibition matches between Canada and Russia on Wednesday and Thursday ? held at the stadium. "But this trial run was 100 percent successful. Any difficulties were very minor." High ticket prices for the tournament ? reaching $150 for games in the final rounds ? have priced out many locals, and by the start of this week only 20 percent of all tickets had been sold. Fans did get a chance at free tickets earlier this month, when the city announced that all comers for a citywide subbotnik, community cleanup effort, would receive free passes. Over 350,000 St. Petersburgers turned out to sweep the streets, plant 8,500 new bushes and 536 trees across the city and those who cleared up near the Ice Palace were rewarded with free tickets, officials said. The city has invested heavily in sprucing up the city for the thousands of foreign visitors expected for the championships.
Many of the roads in the center have been relaid in the last weeks, although judging by one of the first to have been completed ? Prospekt Bolshevikov near the stadium, which has already begun to sag ? haste may have been more important than quality.
Russia Opens With Thrashing
 It usually wouldn't be much of a pretty sight to witness a bully mercilessly beating a schoolkid who wandered onto its turf - but in this case we will make an exeption. Big, bad Russia skated circles around an overwhelmed French team to post an 8-1 win in their Group D matchup at the Ice Palace last night. "We watched the weather and thought we saw a tornado coming, and tonight we saw it for three periods," France head coach Stephane Sabourin said following the rout, in which his team was outshot 48-14 and was only spared from a greater margin of defeat by some big saves from goalie Patrick Rolland. Comprised of some of the best hockey players on the planet, including 11 from the National Hockey League and six from Russian Hockey League champion Dinamo Moscow, the Russian squad toyed with the inexperienced French. "We had some young guys playing, and we knew they would be impressed by the rink," Sabourin said. "And some of the people they were facing are the idols of our players." Facing the Russians at home in front of a frenzied partisan crowd of 11,000 was an inenviable task for ther French, and much credit should go to their team therapist after they managed to hold Russia to one late goal in the third after going into the period down 7-1. The French did do enough to reveal some holes, however slight, in the Russian game. "Even though we were counting on a win, I didn't expect to have as many problems as we did," Russia head coach Alexander Yakushev said. "We've taken in some NHL players in the last two or three days, and it takes time for [the squad] to adjust, but my first line was not as successful as we wanted them to be, even though they scored two goals." That line was made up Florida Panthers' Pavel Bure on the right wing, the New York Rangers' Valery Kamenski on the left, and was centered by the Chicago Blackhawks' Alexei Zhamnov. While Bure, the NHL's leading goal-scorer with 58, had two dazzling scores and received star of the game honors, he was bettered by a hat-trick from left wing Maxim Souchinski, who has been honing his scoring skills with Avangard Omsk in the RHL. "We also had trouble killing penalties, and we have a lot to work on," Yakushev said, although the French powerplay was held scoreless. "We are not overly confident after our win tonight." Souchinski's third line opened the scoring 1:14 into the first period, and then added a second two minutes later off an assist from right wing Alexander Kharitonov. With the French attempting to run with the Russians, the game opened up full-throttle and left wing Maxim Afinogenov added another Russian goal to make it 3-0 at 9:31 into the first period. Then, with the puck deep in the Russian end, French right wing Benoit Bachelet found the puck right in front of the Russian net and wasted no time at all in ripping a shot past Ilya Bryzgalov, Lada Togliatti's star 20-year-old goaltender. The second period saw Russia put on a real show, as the team scored four goals. Defenseman Sergei Gonchar scored a power-play goal at 2:54 of the period, and Bure turned on the jets to blast past the French defense to make it 5-1 one minute and 19 seconds later. Souchinski got his hat-trick with a nifty score 8:52 into the second, in which Alexander Prokopiev won a faceoff in the right circle and Souchinski took the pass, put his back to Rolland, then wheeled to fire past the frozen goalie. Bure scored his second at 10:41 to end Russia's second period scoring spurt. Camped out at the front of the net, and playing the puck like it was on a string, Bure darted back and forth in the corner until he streaked across the goalmouth and slotted it past a dumbfounded Rolland. Throughout the third, play turned chippy , with the frustrated French team drawing four penalties to Russia's two, including one for Bure. The "Russian Rocket" was cited with retaliating with a cross-check after being slammed against the boards while breaking for a hat-trick attempt. But despite Russia's peppering of Rolland, the goalie held tough until he gave up a goal to Prokopiev with just over two minutes remaining in the game to reach the final tally of 8-1. Rolland ended with 40 saves on the night, and Sabourin took the loss as a learning experience for his young squad.
"We had a bad start, and we couldn't skate and play the way we had in the third," he said. "We just have to forget this one and look forward to the next game."
Pavel scores two goals In Group B, NHL goal-scoring leader and Russian captain, Pavel Bure, had two goals as Russia routed France 8-1 before a boisterous sell-out crowd that included Russian president Vladimir Putin. Pavel also took a cross-checking penalty in the third period. Russia outshot France 48-14.
Pavel chose as 'Player of the Year' by "Hockey Digest"
 Hockey Digest's Player of the Year
Stepashin's Note Says Bure's Clean Sergei Stepashin, head of the Federal Audit Chamber and former Russian prime minister said that Russian national team member Pavel Bure had asked as a joke gift from Stepashin for a Spravka or official certificate, which attests that he is "trustworthy" and does not have ties to Russian organized crime. "When I worked as Minister of Internal Affairs I met Bure, who had had problems with traveling to the United States at the time because some people believed that he was linked to so-called Russian mafia," Stepashin said in interview with Interfax on Wednesday. "I filled in a form with an official stamp, saying that Pavel Bure has nothing to do with Russian mafia," Stepashin said.
According to Stepashin, Bure told him later that the certificate he had issued him "did help."
Moscow's mad about Bure
MOSCOW -- Alexei Yashin, the spoiled millionaire and sometime hockey superstar, awaits word today from an arbitrator in New York whether his reward for refusing to honour his US$3.6- million contract with the Ottawa Senators will be to have his global suspension lifted so he can play for Russia at the World Hockey Championships in St. Petersburg.
Russians leave nothing to chance at worlds ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) -- Playing at home and boosted by the presence of Pavel Bure, the NHL's leading goal scorer, Russia begins pursuit of its first world hockey championship in seven years on Saturday. Reigning Olympic and world champion Czech Republic -- forsaken by longtime coach Ivan Hlinka, mastermind behind the nation's recent successes -- starts the championships troubled and unsure. The Czechs, who have won before without Olympic hero Dominik Hasek of the Buffalo Sabres or NHL scoring leader Jaromir Jagr of Pittsburgh, will now have to show they can win without Hlinka. Hlinka, who led the nation to an 1998 Olympic gold medal in Nagano and world titles in 1996 and 1999, transformed the Czech Republic into a global hockey power. But all that could change with Hlinka auditioning for a coaching job in the United States and a dozen Czech NHLers, including Jagr, still chasing the Stanley Cup. Only three Czech NHL players accepted invitations to play in Russia but the country will have three members of the Olympic gold medal winning team -- Pavel Patera, Martin Prochazka and Jiri Dopita. There will be no lack of recognizable names on the Russian roster, with Florida's Bure headlining an all-star cast that includes Chicago's Alexei Zhamnov and Valeri Kamensky of the New York Rangers. Coach Alexandre Yakushev will rely heavily on Bure, but remains hopeful that Alexei Yashin, who sat out the NHL season in a contract dispute with Ottawa, will also be allowed in the lineup. The NHL has prohibited Yashin from playing at the worlds because he is still under suspension by the Senators. An arbitrator will rule on Yashin's participation Saturday. But even with home ice advantage and Bure leading the way, the Russians will be hard-pressed to reclaim their glorious past. After 22 world titles as the Soviet Union, Russia has not won since 1993 in Munich, and missed the podium completely the past six years. The Russians did manage a silver medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Finland, runner-up the last two years, is once again expected to be in the medal hunt, despite having fewer NHL stars than usual. Its top recruits from North America are Montreal's Juha Lind and Olli Jokinen if the Los Angeles Kings. The United States squad will blend youth and experience, with just half the team stocked from the NHL and the rest coming from European pro, minor and college leagues. Damian Rhodes of Atlanta will be the No. 1 netminder and the team includes the NHL's all-time American scoring leader, Phil Housley of Calgary, Darby Hendrickson of Vancouver and Derek Plante of Chicago, who helped the Americans to bronze at the 1996 worlds. Canada, still rounding out its roster with Stanley Cup playoff dropouts, will have plenty of speed and scoring with Buffalo's Curtis Brown, Chicago's Steve Sullivan, Tampa Bay's Mike Johnson and Vancouver's Todd Bertuzzi leading the offense with Vancouver's Adrian Aucoin and Ed Jovanovski heading the defense. Montreal's Jose Theodore, who won gold with Canada's junior national team in 1996, will share netminding duties with Calgary's Fred Brathwaite. Sweden, the 1998 champions, will be bolstered by the addition of Edmonton goalie Tommy Salo.
Pavel arrives in Russia
 
Q: Pavel, what feelings do you have on arriving in Moscow, and what are you looking for from the World Championships in St.Petersburg?
Q: Are you feeling fatigued from this past NHL season?
Q: What is your physical and playing condition?
Q: Will you rest up in Moscow, or will you head straight to St.Petersburg, to get a feel of the atmosphere, and to bond with the national team?
Q: Are you planning to visit the Olympic Sports Complex where your well known friend and tennis player, Anna Kournikova, is training for the Federation Cup?
Q: Can you give us an overview of your play this past season with the "Florida Panthers"?
Q: Have you had the opportunity to be associated with the head coach of the national team, Aleksandr Yakishev, and what position is he he planning to play you?
Q: Would you be happy if your front line consisted of yourself, Valeri Kamensky and Alexei Zhamnov?
Q: Will you line mate from Florida, Viktor Kozlov come to play in St.Petersburg?
Q: Will the Florida goalkeeper, Mikhail Shtalenkov be playing for the national team?
Q: Will there be any other players from your Florida team be playing at the World Championships?
Q: Do you think that the Russian national team can win the World Championships?
Q: What has to be done to achieve that?
Q: When was the last time you visited St.Petersburg?
Q: Do you still have any fond memories of it?
Q: Were you awae that the World Championships will be staged at the new arena built especially for this event?
Q: Judgement notwithstanding, you are not the first NHL'er to play on the national team. Do you think that local players are bitter that they don't have as much chance to partake in the World Championships?
Q: What is your opinion of the Alexei Yashin situation?
Q: When did you decide to take part in the World Championships?
Q: Is your participation in the World Championships prestigious to you?
Q: Do you remember your first World Championships?
Q: Team Russia will be playing Team Canada in some pre-tournament warm-up games. Are you planning to take part in any of them?
Q: How much time will you need for acclimatization?
Q: Who is going to come to visit and root for you in St.Petersburg?
Q: Pavel, you called your Russian national team at the Nagano Olympics as 'a team of brothers'. How would you characterize your recent frienship with Aleksandr Yakushev?
Q: What plans do you have after the World Championships?
Bure Gets on Board for St. Petersburg Tourney Pavel Bure has said he will play for Russia in the World Ice Hockey Championships in St. Petersburg later this month if his NHL team is knocked out early in the Stanley Cup playoffs, according to Sport Express. Bure, who led the NHL with 58 goals this season, will be available only if the Florida Panthers lose to the New Jersey Devils in the first round of the playoffs. Another prominent NHL player, Alexei Yashin, who is sitting out this year due to a contract dispute with the Ottawa Senators, has already begun practicing with the Russian team. Yashin will be allowed to play only if the Senators are eliminated from the NHL playoffs.
The world championships run from April 29 to May 14th.
Tick, tick: Get Bure help now For the past 31/2 years, dating back to the Panthers' first-round elimination from the playoffs in 1997 and beyond, General Manager Bryan Murray has been talking -- almost dreamily at times -- about all the young prospects who were someday going to make this franchise great. Forget that. Pavel Bure will turn 30 late next season, and just as the clock has been ticking on the Dolphins' Super Bowl hopes with Dan Marino the past few years, it's starting to tick on the time Bure has left as one of the game's premier players. Murray had that timetable in mind when he offered the New York Islanders Oleg Kvasha and Ivan Novoseltsev just before the trade deadline for center Mariusz Czerkawski and defenseman Kenny Jonsson. And he'll have it in mind when he goes after two or three other veterans who can immediately contribute this summer. The NHL is a follow-the-leader league. When Dallas won the Stanley Cup last season with veterans they had stockpiled over the past few years, it sent a signal that, especially in these days of overexpansion and a relatively small ice surface, experience and savvy might be more valuable commodities now than youth and speed. Look at Detroit. It's easy to say the Red Wings are old, but some of their oldest players -- such as Chris Chelios and Pat Verbeek -- are some of the biggest contributors to their success. Colorado recently has gone the same route with Ray Bourque and Dave Andreychuk, Dallas with Kirk Muller and Philadelphia with Rick Tocchet. After so long taking the more conventional route of trying to grow his prospects into players, Murray also took a similar tack when he sent Ryan Johnson and Dwayne Hay to Tampa Bay last month for Mike Sillinger, who became the Panthers' best player in the playoffs. Murray may no longer pursue the Isles' Jonsson -- he missed the last couple of weeks of the season with what the club called "headaches" and seems to be surrounded by serious medical questions -- but he will be after a similar player, an established defenseman who can quarterback the power play. Paul Coffey? He'll be an unrestricted free agent and had a rebirth this season at Carolina, but at 39 that's a stretch. Murray probably is more interested in a Janne Niinimaa or Roman Hamrlik from Edmonton, a Fredrik Olausson from Anaheim or a Boris Mironov from Chicago. Will such a player fall within the Panthers' salary scheme? The team had a $34 million payroll this year and had just one sellout, which had to be disappointing when fans had the opportunity to regularly watch the game's most exciting player. Murray understands the relative apathy, blaming it on the two seasons prior to this one, when Florida for the most part had an uninspiring, losing team. As disappointing as this year's brief playoff run was, he figures it might trigger a surge in interest that the team can continue by winning. "I'm convinced we've got a real core of big fans here," he said. "Part of the job facing us now is selling the game. We have Pavel, but we've got more than that. We have to get the word out that this is a team on the rise. "I've got a legitimate belief that we're going to give the fans their dollar's worth, which we didn't do for two years. Winning is very important to that." Only a handful of teams -- Detroit, Dallas, New Jersey and Philadelphia, to name a few -- have established a tradition of being competitive year in, year out. With Bure, the Panthers are in a position to join them for at least the next few years.
Murray has done well in getting them close. Let's see if he can finish the job.
Bure: This was his best season yet Pavel Bure was relaxed Saturday, content to just hang out and talk hockey, but he made it clear how disappointed he was that he will be flying back to Russia on Monday rather than continuing in the NHL playoffs. "It's always disappointing when you don't win the (Stanley) Cup," said Bure, who had only one goal against New Jersey. "It doesn't matter if you lose in the first, second or third rounds, it still hurts. But there's nothing we can do about it now. We just have to learn something and get better." After having major reconstructive knee surgery in March 1999, Bure returned to score a league-high 58 goals. Despite scoring 60 goals twice before and advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals with Vancouver in 1994, Bure said this was his most successful season. "I would say this regular season was my best," Bure said. "The game has changed so much right now. It's almost impossible to score 50 goals. Before, 50 was the big mark in goals to get. I think the big mark should be moved to 40. "When I started, the scores used to be 7-2, 8-5. Now they're 2-1 or 1-0 or sometimes 0-0." Bure loves to score goals, but at times in the second half and postseason, his lack of defense impaired the Panthers. Some Panthers have argued that teams with 50-goal scorers don't win anymore. Teams whose top scorers settle for 35 goals and play complete games such as Detroit's Steve Yzerman and Dallas' Brett Hull or Mike Modano are the ones that win. "It's always nice to play well defensively, but sometimes you got to choose," Bure said. "You can't do it all. That's why we got some players that play really well defensively, some guys play well offensively and some guys play a little tough. "That's what a team is all about -- different types of players put together and you get good team." Bure will spend most of his summer in Moscow. Later this month, he will play on a line with the Rangers' Valeri Kamensky and Chicago's Alexei Zhamnov in the World Championships in Russia. "I think it's really important when people go and play for their country," Bure said. "It is special it'll be in Russia too." Post-game interview by Pavel Bure
No need for B. Murray to overhaul Cats
Trade Pavel Bure. Jettison Mike Vernon. Fire the team's coach, who happens to be his brother. But that would be a mistake. And the Panthers general manager knows it. Those moves would no more increase this franchise's chance of winning the Stanley Cup than would moving back to Miami Arena. No, what these Panthers need, even in the face of a stunningly thorough playoff loss to New Jersey, is a course adjustment, not a complete turnabout. "If we were a veteran team and had a group of guys that have been together for years and were starting to show a decline, much like our '97 team did, then we'd need an overhaul," Murray said Friday. "This time we have a core [of players] that is just in [its] prime or is still real young. "Three or four changes is the most we'd ever think of doing. Now if we get to Christmastime next [season] and don't see marked improvement, then we'd make another decision. But this is not a team that has to be taken apart." Murray has a plan. It's the same plan he set in motion when the '97 Panthers got old after their improbable '96 Cup run. Murray blew up that roster like it was the Seattle Kingdome and began building from the rubble. Two years ago, the Panthers were the NHL's second-worst team. Last year, they were thisclose to making the playoffs. This year, they recorded a franchise-record 98 points and got in the playoffs. Next year? "[We are in a] very close, competitive conference," Murray said. "We have to play at a level that allows us to be in the playoffs. And we need to see growth in our players. "At playoff time, there are no guarantees. A lot has to do with matchups and so forth. But we should learn from this [playoff experience] and be better from it. I expect our team will be a better team. "Our team will be one of the most exciting in the NHL." The Panthers should be better when the 2001 playoffs begin because the experience of 2000 will be invaluable. Players like 21-year-old Oleg Kvasha, 23-year-old Mark Parrish and first-time playoff participant Viktor Kozlov will draw from the lessons the Devils taught. "This club has good chemistry," Vernon said. "It's tough to lose four straight, but we have to use it as a learning experience. We should look at New Jersey. They pay attention to the details, and those little things they do help you win playoff games. Hopefully guys learn from that so we can have success in the playoffs." Murray is counting on experience to improve the Panthers so much, he called up left wing Marcus Nilson, right wing Ivan Novoseltsev and defenseman Brad Ference from the minors -- just so they could get a taste of what playoff hockey is about. But Murray will not rely solely on time to make Florida better. He must, and will, improve the club through aggressive management. One day after Florida was bounced from the playoffs, Murray met and spoke with half a dozen players who could be key figures for the 2001 Panthers. He has spoken with center Jiri Dopita of the Czech League and is already envisioning how this 31-year-old could help Bure be better. "He passes the puck extremely well and could be a good match with [Bure]," said Murray, who is so excited about this prospect he spoke with Bure about it. Murray knows fans are frustrated with the play of Florida's defensemen. And that frustration will be addressed. "We need to add one defenseman who has a little more skill with the puck," Murray said. The defenseman duo of Robert Svehla and Jaroslav Spacek, who played together much of the year but were separated at times late in the season, seems destined for a divorce. "Both lack the speed to be dynamic," Murray said. "We want to upgrade there even if that means Spacek has to move down to another spot in the roster." The Panthers will also address their goalie situation. Vernon has an option clause in his contract whereby he must tell the Panthers if he wants to return to the team within seven days, starting Friday. Once Vernon makes his decision, the Panthers then must decide which goalie they will protect in the expansion draft because Murray said the club will likely only protect one. All these are necessary tweaks that should not affect the chemistry of the team.
"We expect some changes," captain Scott Mellanby said. "Some changes are always inevitable . . . and they can be a good thing as long as it's not overdone."
Current All-Stars 3, All-Century All MONTREAL - Pavel Bure scored two goals, including the game-winner, and Dominik Hasek stopped 28 shots as the Current All-Stars handed the All-Century All-Stars their second straight loss, 3-1, to take a commanding two-games-to-none lead in The Dodge/NHL All-Time Series. In what was being billed as the All-Star Game to end all All-Star Games, the series has turned into a one-sided affair. The Current All-Star took Game 1 by the score of 5-3 and looked to barely break a sweat in capturing Game 2. Gordie Howe led off the scoring with his second goal of the series. The NHL’s second all-time leading scorer sped down the right wing with Wayne Gretzky to his left. Howe gave every indication he was going to pass but instead wound up and fired a slap shot through the five-hole of Dominik Hasek. Hasek looked surprised by the outcome as Gretzky and Howe celebrated the 1-0 lead. Hasek’s teammates were there to pick up their dejected goaltender just over the midway point of the first period. Steve Yzerman knotted the game at one apiece with his second goal of The Dodge/NHL All-Time Series. Chris Pronger wristed a shot from the point that Terry Sawchuk easily sticked aside. Pavel Bure picked up the loose puck in the corner and found Yzerman wide open at the right side of the net. Sawchuk attempted to slide over but was too late as the Current All-Stars pulled even at 1-1. Hasek’s first period miscue on the Howe goal was the only mistake he would make in the game. He shut down the All-Century All-Stars from that point on, highlighted by a denied penalty shot attempt by Maurice Richard in the second period. Bobby Orr hauled down the “Rocket” from behind as the Montreal legend zoned in on Hasek.
Richard was granted the first penalty shot of the inaugural Dodge/NHL All-Time Series. The “Rocket” looked poised as his eyes peered in on Hasek. Richard gracefully skated down the ice, faked to his backhand and then shot the puck to the top corner that Hasek snatched with relative ease. The save seemed to take the wind out of the sails of the All-Century squad despite the fact that the game was still deadlocked at 1-1. The legends were unable to mount any type of offense in the third but the Current All-Star did behind the efforts of Pavel Bure. Bure scored his second and third goals of the series in the first eight minutes of the final stanza. The “Russian Rocket” scored the eventual game-winner when his wrist shot trickled past Sawchuk for a 2-1 lead. Exactly three minutes later, the 2000 Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy winner masterly worked the puck behind the net that would have made even Gretzky proud. Bure banked the puck off the back of the net to avoid the attacking Orr and then tucked the biscuit in the short side of the net for the final goal of the game 3-1. The All-Century All-Stars hope the change of venue helps their cause as the team finds itself down two games. Game 3 of the series will be played in Toronto on Tuesday, April 25.
GOAL SCORING:
Valeri Bure answers your questions
Panthers' weaknesses exposed in playoffs SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) -- One fan, seemingly poised for the Florida Panthers to be swept Thursday night, brought a "Help Wanted" sign to Game 4 of Florida's first-round playoff series with New Jersey. He held it high above his head after each of the Devils' four goals. Then he left it behind, tossed to the floor amid cups, napkins and other bits of trash. Maybe he should have hung it on the door. New Jersey, outscoring Florida 12-6 in the series, exposed the Panthers' biggest weaknesses -- a one-man offense and a porous defense. It also reiterated that Florida, though young and talented, needs to make some changes this offseason. "It is disappointing; it's frustrating," coach Terry Murray said. "We are a much better team than we showed throughout the series. We just didn't get it to the level that we had to. "We have some thinking to do, some talking to do. We have to try to figure out what it is that we need to be better at." Defense will be addressed. General manager Bryan Murray, Terry's brother, already has acknowledged the problem. He tried to solve it prior to the trading deadline, but couldn't finalize a deal with the New York Islanders for defenseman Kenny Jonsson. In addition to bringing in some help, Florida would like to keep the nucleus of the team in tact. The Panthers might lose two of three goaltenders. Mikhail Shtalenkov could be picked in the expansion draft because Florida probably will protect Trevor Kidd, who played so well early in the season before injuring his shoulder. And 37-year-old Mike Vernon has an option to return to the Panthers or become an unrestricted free agent on July 1. Also, Florida has three main Group-II free agents -- left wings Ray Whitney and Peter Worrell and center Rob Niedermayer -- it will work to sign. Whitney scored 29 goals this season, second on the team to Pavel Bure, and re-signing him will be a priority despite rumors that he is unhappy in South Florida. The Panthers need a second and third scoring threat to keep teams -- like New Jersey -- from focusing so much attention on Bure. The Russian Rocket led the league with 58 goals this season, but was held to one score in the postseason. "We were shooting for the playoffs at the beginning of the season, but when we actually made the playoffs you want to win," Bure said. "You don't want to just go out there and participate. "Bure was the main reason for Florida's turnaround this season. When Bure scored, the Panthers were tough to beat. When he scored multiple goals, they were unbeatable. During the regular season, Florida was 29-10-2 when Bure scored, including 12-0 when he found the net more than once. With Bure in the lineup and out of the scoring column, the team was 10-19-4. He still needs help, though. The Panthers were a combined 64-77-33 the last two years. Bure gave them a huge boost in his first full season in South Florida. Starting the year 27-14-3, the Panthers had a 16-point lead in the Southeast Division over the Washington Capitals in mid-January. Then came the slump, going 16-19-3 the rest of the way and falling to the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference. Making matters worse, Florida drew the Devils in the first round, a team it had beaten just once in the last 10 meetings. Now it's one win in the last 14 meetings. "This was a good experience," team captain Scott Mellanby said. "You hate to lose four straight, but it was a lesson from an outstanding team and will help this team down the road. "We had a successful season. Was the postseason successful? No." Will next year be successful?
"I just hope all the young players ... take an awful lot away from the series and bring it back to the season next year," Terry Murray said. "And we'll be a lot better because of it."
Sweeping change for Devils Respectability regained, finally, and reputations restored, the Devils have the chance for more than just repair work. Now they want to do some damage. "We want to go all the way," said Martin Brodeur, again a post-season hero after the Devils emphatically and auspiciously snapped their streak of three straight playoff flops, sweeping the Panthers with a 4-1 victory here last night. "I don't think anyone is satisfied with beating the Panthers. The matchup, we were happy when we got it, and we made the best of it." They will have at least six days, and probably more, for their injured players to heal and their weary to rest before the second round begins against Philly, Toronto, Ottawa or Washington. Scott Stevens, the star of this series, will be among those who can most use the rest, hampered by a pinched nerve in his neck that left his right arm numb during stretches of the first round. Ken Daneyko will rest his abdominal strain, Colin White his forearm bruise, and Sergei Brylin and Krzystof Oliwa their injured knees, along with the other sore groins and bumps of this nasty series. They were feeling little pain last night. "What we wanted to do was win the first series. We did it, and it's great. But there's more to accomplish. This team has the potential," Bobby Holik said. The relief was palpable. "The pressure's off a little bit. Now it will be time for us to put some pressure on," said Brodeur, who allowed only six goals in the series, and one each in the final three games. Scott Niedermayer, branded a villain here for his March 19 whack on Peter Worrell's head, put the Panthers to sleep for the summer by scoring the series-winner to snap a second-period tie. Brodeur allowed only six goals in the series, and only one in each of the final three games, each a comeback victory. The Devils outscored Florida 12-6 in this series, and at the end, Niedermayer shook hands with Worrell in the traditional line. "We didn't say anything. It was up to him whether he wanted to shake hands, and he did," Niedermayer said. It put the final touch on the Devils' first series victory since beating Montreal in the first round in 1997, ending a string of three ousters by the 1997 Rangers, 1998 Senators and 1999 Penguins, upsets all. New Jersey is now 10-9 all-time in playoff series. "It erased any ghosts of playoff history," John Madden said. The sweep was the Devils' second ever, joining their 1995 Cup-clinching victory over Detroit. After blowing two chances to clinch against Pittsburgh last season, the Devils finished off the fifth-seeded Panthers on their first try, lifting their mark in possible clinching games to 10-11. For the third straight game, the Panthers took the first-period lead, but for the first time in this series, the NHL's leading goal-scorer did the deed. The Florida power play had been stymied in all 10 previous attempts in this series, but Pavel Bure's slap from the left circle ended that drought and his own just 5:17 into play. Bure's shot went under Daneyko's block attempt and under Brodeur, extending Bure's point streak to all four playoff games. Patrik Elias tied the score with his first goal in 19 playoff games, going back to that 1997 victory over Montreal. Elias created the play with a bodycheck on Rob Niedermayer at the left boards, freeing the puck for Petr Sykora to send to Jason Arnott in the right circle. Elias raced to his familiar haunt at the left side of the crease to lift in Arnott's pass at 4:26. Niedermayer put the Devils in front to stay at 15:02 with his second, after coming out of the box for high-sticking Bure. From right wing, Niedermayer's shot was misplayed by Mike Vernon, the fifth bad goal of the 10 Vernon had allowed to that point. The Panthers claimed, with some cause, that the Devils should have been penalized for too many men on that goal, as Vladimir Malakhov was late getting off the ice. They had earlier had a 3-on-2 halted by an erroneous whistle ending play when Niedermayer high-sticked Bure. Sergei Nemchinov sealed victory with two goals in the final 3:48, and the Devils were no longer first-round folders. "Elated and relieved," Daneyko said, "but on the other hand, it's only one round." And they have plans to do some damage of their own.
To Leave No Doubts, Devils Gain the Sweep The nightmare is over. The Devils advance. Haunted by first-round eliminations for the past two seasons, the Devils were determined tonight to put the Florida Panthers out of their misery. Spurred by a pregame speech by Coach Larry Robinson, the Devils skated to a convincing 4-1 victory over the Panthers to sweep the first-round Stanley Cup playoff series by four games to none. Robinson, the Hall of Fame defenseman, preached to his players about the danger of failing to finish a series when the opportunity was there. "The longer a series goes," Robinson said, "a lot of strange things happen." Strange things such as Toronto defeating Detroit in 1942 after falling behind by three games to none, or the Islanders eliminating Pittsburgh in 1975 after the Penguins had won the first three games. "A lot of weight is off our shoulders," Robinson said. "'This game scared me the most; the fourth victory is always the toughest." The Devils refused to let the series linger another night. After falling behind by 1-0 on Pavel Bure's first goal of the series, they rallied with second-period goals by Patrik Elias and Scott Niedermayer and two third-period goals by Sergei Nemchinov. Martin Brodeur had another brilliant game in goal, stopping 35 shots. "Marty was as good as I've ever seen him," Bobby Holik said. "He was absolutely sensational." Brodeur said he was more lucky than good. "A lot of the shots, I didn't see," he said. "But my body was in the right position and they hit me." For long stretches of the first period, the Devils played without a sense of urgency in the attacking zone and repeatedly made bad decisions in the defensive zone near Brodeur. Florida had two excellent scoring chances in the first two minutes of the game, but Brodeur denied Mark Parrish from close and Bure from point-blank range in front. The Panthers struck first, 62 seconds after Bobby Holik was sent off for interfering with Bure. Lurking around the left circle, Bure exhanged passes with Victor Kozlov before he fired a slap shot from just outside the left circle that found its way under a sprawling Ken Daneyko and between Brodeur and the right post. It was the first power-play goal in 11 attempts for the Panthers. The Devils took 17 shots at Mike Vernon in the first period, but the goaltender was equal to the task. New Jersey's best scoring chance came with 58 seconds left in the session, when Claude Lemieux came out of the penalty box and found himself skating in alone on Vernon, but his shot sailed wide to the left.
New Jersey finally solved Vernon at 4:26 when Elias went to the net from the left side and redirected Jason Arnott's centering pass from the right wing over Vernon's right leg. Niedermayer scored his second goal since returning from a 10-game suspension for hitting Florida's Peter Worrell over the head with his stick on March 19, gave the Devils a 2-1 lead with his second goal of the series playoffs with 4:58 left in the period. Niedermayer was slammed on the right-wing boards as puck squirted to Randy McKay at the side of the net. McKay smartly flicked the puck back to Niedermayer, who fired the puck from a sharp angle that sailed through a crowd and beat Vernon short side. Nemchinov scored his first goal of the game on a nifty play by Elias, who faked a forehand pass and then slipped the puck on his backhand out of Vernon's reach in front of the Florida net to a streaking Nemchinov, who poked it into the net at 16:12. Nemchinov closed out the scoring with 1:57 remaining. Parked to the left of the Panthers net, Nemchinov took a pass from Lemieux and banged it past Vernon, who had no chance to make a save. Vernon, who was the goaltender for Detroit in 1995 when the Devils swept the Stanley Cup finals against the Red Wings, again was under siege, and made 32 saves.
Now the Devils, a relieved bunch, will have a chance to rest at least six off days before they resume their quest for the cup.
Devils sweep away Panthers Like it's been all series, the New Jersey Devils were just a little better than the Panthers on Thursday night. They got more breaks, they capitalized on more chances and they got more of the same unbelievable goaltending Martin Brodeur's given them the past few weeks. And with that, with a winning goal by Scott Niedermayer late in the second period flawed by controversy, the Panthers' rug was swept out from under them as they lost 4-1 and were knocked out of their first playoffs in three years in four consecutive games. When Sergei Nemchinov scored the first of two goals with 3:48 left, it took the steam out of the exhausted Panthers. With the Panthers looking dejected, he scored again with 1:57 left. "I thought we played with a lot of passion, a lot of hard work and intensity," coach Terry Murray said. "There was a lot of offensive play. It certainly was not a 4-1 game. When you break it down to smaller parts of the game, Brodeur was the best player on the ice." It was a disappointing finish for the Panthers, who had a franchise-best 98 points. It was a glorious finish for the Devils, who avoided a third straight season by being upset in the first round. "It's nice to get that first series out of the way,"Devils coach Larry Robinson said. "This game scared me the most. The fourth is always the hardest to win." In the past three games, the Panthers scored first and never again. They finally broke their 0-for-10 power-play spell when Pavel Bure scored his only goal of the series 5:17 into the game, but the Panthers can blame Thursday's defeat on not scoring on two successive power plays in the second. "We failed to score throughout the series," Murray said. "We got three goals in the first game and we score one in the next three. That's not going to win you a series." But before the second power play, the Panthers had a legitimate gripe after Niedermayer high-sticked Bure. The Panthers had a 3-on-1 down low with the puck on Ray Whitney's stick and Bure the trailer to make it a 4-on-1. It was an ideal chance to extend their lead to 2-0 with Robert Svehla and Mark Parrish down low helping out. But referee Dan O'Halloran, not a Panthers' favorite after a season-full of curious calls, prematurely blew his whistle and the play dead because he thought Niedermayer had touched the puck to end the Panthers' possession. His supervisor, Wally Harris, said after the game O'Halloran was wrong. "As soon as [Niedermayer] slashed [Bure], [O'Halloran] just have blown it down," said Harris, saying O'Halloran thought there was a change of possession. "If he would've have seen it, yes, it would've been a delayed penalty because [the Panthers] did not lose possession. "When [Bure] got slashed, it was still on his stick. Then he passed it [to Viktor Kozlov]. It was one of those fast whistles." Whitney wasn't as forgiving. "It was a horse---- call," Whitney said. "It was par for the course." "Unfortunately we didn't get any breaks in four games," veteran goalie Mike Vernon said. "A lot of calls didn't go our way. We go down on a 3-on-1, and [O'Halloran] blows the whistle and there guy never touched the puck. It's those little things that I think got to us eventually and frustrated us." Just 16 seconds after Niedermayer's penalty expired, the offensive defenseman got out of the box and eventually scored from the right circle. Only one problem though. A press box replay showed when Niedermayer shot, John Madden was sprinting toward the bench. For a period of time, the Devils had six men on the ice -- three defensemen, Madden, McKay and Lemieux. Harris insisted this was not true. "We could not find it on every review," Harris said. "I phoned our office in Toronto and they reviewed this tape as the same findings as we came up with. So there definitely not six men on the ice" The Panthers had several chances in the first and second, but Brodeur was phenomenal. "It was a really good effort," defenseman Todd Simpson said. "The guys were throwing everything at them. We did a lot of good things. I wish we all done that in the first two games.
"Brodeur was just too tough to beat."
When push came to shove, Devils were doing the pushing and shoving There was nothing left now. No time. No hope. No games. Florida's hockey season was dead, and it hardly mattered whether the obituary described the Panthers as slaughtered or merely slain. The New Jersey Devils wiped their sword and went off in search of another fight, leaving this swampland near the Everglades knowing that they were the reason the Panthers had gone quickly and quietly from endangered to extinct. People will go to the predictable places today, looking for somewhere to put the blame for this season-ending 4-1 loss, so there will be questions about Florida's lack of heart or pride or character, which is every bit as unfair as it is wrong. You don't get swept out of the playoffs like this because you didn't care. You get swept like this because you had neither the talent nor the luck nor the matchups to keep from getting overwhelmed. New Jersey's goalie was better in this series. New Jersey's stars were better. New Jersey's defense was better. New Jersey's team was better. That about cover it? About the only thing the Panthers did better than New Jersey in this series was give up goals with five-on-three advantages. "No question they were better," Panthers captain Scott Mellanby said. "Their team defense is overwhelming. And I've never seen a team with a greater ability to take your one mistake and put it in your net." Afterward, a handful of Panthers fans hurled junk on the ice. A lot of white towels, appropriately enough. Makes you wonder, given how the last two professional teams have exited the playoffs, the Dolphins by a 62-7 score, the Panthers in four meek games, if Pat Riley isn't worried that a meteor might hit his practice facility. Hard as this is to say today, this Panthers team -- the franchise's most talented ever -- remains gifted enough to win something as tight as the Eastern Conference. For various reasons, from goaltending to defensive style, the Panthers merely ran into the worst opponent possible. Once New Jersey started believing, getting past the choking that enveloped its previous three first-round exits, it played like the champion it was back in 1995. Thursday? The Panthers played well enough and honorably enough to save their season, save for the game's final five minutes. They were a victim of bad luck more than anything. Ray Whitney fanning on a point-blank shot in front of an empty net? That has nothing to do with New Jersey's smothering defense or goalie Martin Brodeur's greatness. Pavel Bure getting only eight shots and no goals in the first three games. That had to do with smothering defense and Brodeur. In this game, New Jersey produced good fortune with good play. The previous three games, the Devils needed only the good play. "In hindsight, this was a bad matchup for us," Mellanby said. "We didn't think that going in, obviously. We were confident. We didn't force Brodeur to be unbelievable in the first three games. We forced him to be unbelievable tonight, and he was." The Panthers seemed to announce their intentions early Thursday night, coming out the way Cats do when backed into a corner. Mike Wilson, as part of an attack more aggressive than Florida's defensemen had shown at any point in this series, wound up and unleashed three game's worth of frustration toward Brodeur, who literally never saw what hit him. The puck hit New Jersey's goalie in the mask with a thwack that echoed throughout the arena, and Brodeur's head snapped back as if Bobby Knight had been choking him. Alas, New Jersey was just like Brodeur, staggering backward from Florida's best punch but standing straight enough to win the remainder of the fight. Take the way winded, wheezing New Jersey defended consecutive Florida power plays in the second period, killing four minutes in exhausting fashion, and then turning around and producing the game-winning goal an absurd five seconds later. There was this symbolic snapshot in Thursday's second period. Florida's Peter Worrell and New Jersey's Scott Stevens became entangled, and Stevens extracted himself by crosschecking Worrell right across the. . . . um. . . . ouch. . . . how do you say this delicately? . . . . right across the testosterones. Worrell keeled over with a pain every groaning man in the audience seemed to feel. Stevens, face scrunched, skated away merrily, continually rubbing a glove under one eye, sarcastically suggesting for everyone to see that Worrell was a giant crybaby. This is what the Devils did to the Panthers in this series: Hit them where it hurts. Then left them to cry about it.
New Jersey 4, Florida 1
 SCOTT WISEMAN/The Palm Beach Post The New Jersey Devils ended a string of early playoff failures in impressive fashion, defeating the Florida Panthers, 4-1, to complete a four-game sweep of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series. Patrik Elias and Scott Niedermayer scored second-period goals for the Devils, who completed just the second playoff series sweep in franchise history. The other came against Detroit in the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals. Since that championship, the Devils had won just one previous postseason series, getting upset in the first round each of the previous two years as the top seed in the East. "It's nice to get that first series out of the way," Devils coach Larry Robinson said. "This is the game that probably scared me the most of all because the fourth one is the hardest to win and in each game you risk injury." Sergei Nemchinov broke the game open with a a pair of goals in the final four minutes with Elias assisting on both tallies. The support would be more than enough for Martin Brodeur, who stopped 35 shots to extend his unbeaten streak against Florida to 12 games (9-0-3). "That's the Marty I've seen in the past," said Devils center Bobby Holik. "What else can I say? You saw it. He was awesome." Pavel Bure scored for Florida, the only goal of the series for the Russian star who was frustrated by the Devils' tight checking and was shadowed for most of the game by Scott Stevens. The Panthers have lost 12 of their last 13 playoff games. "I thought we played with a lot of passion and a lot of hard work and intensity," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "There was a lot of good offensive play. It certainly wasn't a 4-1 game when you broke it down. Brodeur was the best player on the ice tonight. That's why they won." The banged-up Devils, who fired coach Robbie Ftorek in March in favor of Robinson, likely gave themselves at least five days of rest before beginning their Eastern Conference semifinal series. Defenseman Ken Daneyko (strained abdominal muscle) and center Jason Arnott (sprained wrist) were among the Devils playing with injuries. Florida goalie Mike Vernon stopped 31 shots in defeat, but fell to 0-8 lifetime against New Jersey in the playoffs. Vernon was in the nets for Detroit in the 1995 Finals. Niedermayer gave the Devils their first lead of the game at 15:02 of the second. He bounced off a check from Mike Wilson in back of the net and skated along the back line. Randy McKay gained control of the loose puck in back of the goal and fed Niedermayer, who found the back of the net with a shot from a sharp angle. Elias manufactured New Jersey's first goal at 4:26 of the second period. Rob Niedermayer of Florida coughed up the puck along the right boards after being checked hard by Elias. Petr Sykora gained control of the puck and passed cross ice to Arnott. Elias, streaking toward the goal, poked a pass from Arnott past Vernon to tie the game at 1-1. Brodeur, meanwhile, continued to frustrate the Panthers by stopping 14 shots in the second period, including a spectacular kick save on Peter Worrell. "We played hard and they had a lot of chances the second period," Brodeur said. "But we find ways to win hockey games. We go out and play the game the way it's supposed to be played." Bure, who led the league in scoring with 58 goals during the regular season, finally broke through with a power-play goal at 5:17 of the first period. With Holik off for interference, Bure blasted a slap shot from the top of the left circle through the legs of Brodeur. "In the playoffs, it doesn't really matter if you lose 4-0 or in the seventh game. You're still losing," Bure said. Florida scored just one goal in each of the last three games. "We certainly would need more than one goal to beat the New Jersey Devils. Scott Stevens did a great job on Pavel and Marty Brodeur did the rest," the Panthers' Ray Whitney said. "Show me a happy loser in the playoffs and I'll show you a loser." Nemchinov made it 3-1 when took a cross-ice pass from Elias and put a backhander past Vernon at 16:12. With 1:57 left, Nemchinov parked himself in front of the goal and easily converted a pass from Lemieux.
Pavel registered seven shots on goal and was even in the plus minus column.
Kournikova chronicles Let's get that part over with. Rarely has a hockey player inspired as many flashbulbs, late-night jokes and press-box gossips as Fedorov did when he dated Anna Kournikova. His photo showed up in entertainment magazines, British tabloids, supermarket rags. He was in his late 20s. She was barely of legal age. What they did and didn't do is nobody's business, of course, but that didn't matter. People assumed.
And when Fedorov reportedly split with Kournikova -- Did she dump him? Was she stolen away? Why do we care? -- fans actually looked for a drop in his play. Heartbreak was supposed to affect his skating.
Never mind that all the other married or dating players in the NHL don't get asked if a fight or a breakup is behind every missed shot. "What I think happened with me and Anna is this," Fedorov says, leaning forward. "I am a hockey player. I am known in North America and maybe in Russia. Anna plays all over the world. She is popular in North America, South America, Australia, maybe Africa, all over Europe. And obviously, she is a good-looking lady, and so many people make assumptions about her.
"When I was with her, I was living in a soup bowl. I tried to just do my job, concentrate on my hockey and support her career like she supports my career. In the beginning, I didn't hear any of the comments or jokes, thank God. But then the media took a big shot at her. Instead of seeing her tennis, they saw everything else.
"People start talking. It snowballs. I was dating someone who was more famous than me, more famous than probably anyone in our locker room."
Fedorov heard the stories about their breakup, how he supposedly sent a plane's worth of roses to Kournikova, how he desperately wanted her back when she reportedly became engaged to Pavel Bure.
"Believe me, nobody really knows what went on," he says. "But the rumors.... after a while it was just sad, you know? Like, why? Who cares about that in the hockey world?"
I ask Fedorov if the experience will keep him from dating other famous women. The easy answer would be yes. Laugh. Say, boy, I'll never do that again.
He does not take the easy answer.
"I can't say that. Wherever my life will take me, I will go and be myself and do my best.
"Dating Anna was a learning experience, that is for sure. Sometimes not very fun, but that is what it is."
Scoreless Pavel Bure doesn't panic Mike Sillinger looked around the Florida Panthers' locker room. The only sounds were the shuffling of television cameras and tape recorders. "We've got no quitters in here," the Panthers center said after his team's draining 2-1 loss to the Devils at the National Car Rental Center put them down 3-0 in the four-of-seven-game series. "We're not out of it yet. We'll take it period by period, game by game." Sillinger pause and said, "It's desperation time." "I don't have any magic words," said a weary Mike Vernon, the goalie. "But I've been here long enough to feel these guys will play hard however many more games we get to play." The Devils outshot Florida by 40-22, and held the National Hockey League's scoring leader, Pavel Bure, to one lonely scoring attempt. "Pavel is getting a lot of attention," Panthers Coach Terry Murray said in understatement. "It is going to be difficult for him to get close to the net for any length of time." Bure acknowledged that the Devils' reputation as a strong defensive team is richly deserved. "I thought we had something going," he said. "But then they pretty much shut us down. They don't give you many chances." Bure has been a marked man long before the Devils' captain, Scott Stevens, took up the chase in these playoffs, holding him to just three assists in the series. But rarely in his career has the man with 58 goals this season been so throttled.
He was referring to a first period 2-on-1 break on Martin Brodeur. Boring in on the goalie, right wing Mark Parrish took a shot that slipped between Brodeur's legs. The only problem: the puck went wide of the net. "I was in shock when it didn't go in," Parrish said. "I was ready to throw my hands up already. They're not a team where you're going to score pretty goals. I thought we had gotten one by them." Bure managed an assist early in the game, as he sent the puck to Sillinger, who deftly flipped it to Whitney for a Florida lead. There were signs even that this could be a special game for Bure. People who watch these Panthers on a regular basis were saying that it had been some time since Bure was so physical in a game. In the first period, atypically, he curled back on defense to check a Devil and prevent an odd-man break. He even drew an elbowing penalty in the second period in fighting off a collision with defenseman Brian Rafalski, but that became a major break for the Devils. The visitors promptly tied the game on right wing Alexander Mogilny's power-play goal. And that was the beginning of the end for the Panthers. "I saw the collision coming," Bure said. "But I didn't have any intention of throwing an elbow. That was unfortunate." Murray came into the game believing his team's problem wasn't Bure, though Stevens covered him so tightly in the first two games that he probably could tell what Bure had for lunch. The coach chose to blast the guys around him, principally center Viktor Kozlov, a 70-point scorer during the regular season who has been virtually invisible in these playoffs. "His play has been unacceptable," Murray had said after an intense Panthers' closed door meeting on Monday. "It's not even at the minimum that I need from him." Yet, Murray's dilemma is that he was no more ineffective than most of his teammates.
"We have to put these three games behind us," Bure said
Who's the MVP?
 The April 28 issue of The Hockey News features Pavel Bure, Jaromir Jagr and Chris Pronger as the three favourites for the 1999/2000 Hart trophy as the NHL's MVP.
A distant third in the Hart balloting should be the Panthers' Bure, who won the Rocket Richard Trophy as the NHL's leading scorer. Bure scored 58 times - 14 more than runner-up Owen Nolan of San Jose - in 74 games and added 36 assists. Bure had 14 game-winners, tops in the league, and his scoring exploits helped propel the Panthers into the playoffs.
But as dynamic as Bure was for Florida, he plays a largely one-dimensional game. He led the league in breakaways mostly due to his blazing speed, but partly because he seldom went deep defensively, instead choosing to hang around the blueline and neutral zone and look for breakout passes.
Devils Go Up 3-0 The New Jersey Devils again neutralized Pavel Bure and moved within one win of a sweep of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with a 2-1 victory over the Florida Panthers. Rookie defenseman Brian Rafalski's goal with 16:49 remaining snapped a tie and gave the Devils a commanding three games to none lead in the best-of-seven series. They can complete the second playoff sweep in franchise history with a win on Thursday in Florida. New Jersey's only other sweep came against Detroit in the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals. Since then, the Devils have won just one postseason series, getting upset in the first round each of the previous two years as the top seed in the East. "This is a new year. We have a lot of new players," Rafalski said. "I think even the veterans have forgotten about the past. This isn't as much about atoning about the past as it is dealing with the present and the future." New Jersey has gotten offensive contributions from its defensemen, who have kept Bure under wraps while stringing together three one-goal victories. "The bottom line is we're not giving up scoring chances. And I know that frustrates them," said Devils captain Scott Stevens. "It's what's put us in a position to win the series. This is where we wanted to be, in this position. We're playing pretty well." "It's not like we're losing games by four or five goals," Florida left wing Alex Hicks said. "Things can turn around, we just have to keep battling. We're just not getting that goal when we need it." With the score tied, 1-1, Bobby Holik won a faceoff in the Panthers' zone and got the puck back to Rafalski. The 5-9 defenseman let go a wrist shot from above the circle that went in off the right goalpost after goaltender Mike Vernon missed it with his glove. "It's always nice to have a game-winning goal in the playoffs," Rafalski said. "This isn't Game Seven, but I'll take it." "I did see it," said Vernon. "It just hit my glove and just kind of rolled, kind of angled in on me. It went off my glove and into the net. Kind of an unfortunate one and one I wish I could have back." Defensemen have accounted for half of the Devils' eight goals in the series, with Stevens getting the winner in Game Two on Sunday. Martin Brodeur handled only seven shots over the first two periods but stopped all 15 in the third to extend his unbeaten streak against Florida to 11 games (8-0-3). Bure led the league with 58 goals during the season but has been held to three assists and eight shots in this series. "We can win with Pavel creating. We can win with other people scoring," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "He is getting a lot of attention. It is going to be difficult for him to get close to the net for any length of time. We have enough people on this team that can create and score. And with Pavel making some of the plays he is making through the neutral zone, that should be good enough for us." The Devils tied a team record by allowing just one shot in the second period, after which they had a 31-7 edge. But they needed a late power-play goal from Alexander Mogilny to emerge with a 1-1 tie. "I think sometimes shots are a little misleading," New Jersey coach Larry Robinson said. "They had a couple of opportunities where we made really good defensive plays. Otherwise, they would have had some really good scoring chances. A couple of times they had a wide-open player over at the side of the net and the puck bounced over their stick." The Panthers scored first for the second straight game. Mike Sillinger veered right as he skated deep in the Devils' zone, drawing three defenders before sliding a pass to a wide-open Ray Whitney. Whitney whipped the puck past Brodeur, who was caught at the opposite side of the net, for his first goal of the series. Vernon almost singlehandedly kept Florida in front, although New Jersey rookie John Madden shot over the net on a shorthanded breakaway with 2:41 left in the first period. The Devils finally broke through with 3:35 left in the second. Just 47 seconds after Bure received a questionable elbowing penalty, Mogilny slapped a shot from the right faceoff dot that made it through a maze of players and found room between Vernon's pads. "There was no elbow," Florida coach Terry Murray said. "In my view, it was right in front of me, there was no elbow on that."
Brodeur was hardly tested but squeezed his pads to deny Viktor Kozlov from the right circle with 8:42 left, then got his right pad on Mark Parrish's wrister from nearly the same spot just over six minutes later. Jaroslav Spacek tested Brodeur through a screen with 1:35 to play, and the Devils goalie stopped Whitney from the left circle with 32 seconds left on Florida's last chance.
Q&A with Pavel Bure
Q:
What exactly happened after the fast start? Q: Have you ever played in a more frustrating series? A: Well, every series is very different. Obviously, this is really frustrating for us because every game is so close. We're right there. Two games in a row we had a 1-0 lead, and we lose it 2-1. It's pretty tough on us, but right now there's nothing we can do about it. It's behind us, so we have to get ready for the next game.
Q:
What can you do now facing such an uphill battle? Q: Was there any more room for you tonight than in the first two games? A: No. I wouldn't say that. They play well defensively. New Jersey is well known for playing really well defensively, so usually you don't have too many chances against them.
Q:
Can you talk about the penalty you received? We're you trying to give something back after all the tight checks throughout the series?
A:
I wasn't trying to give something back. I knew he was going to try to hit me, and I tried to hit him. I don't know if I used my elbow or not. It's hard to tell, but it wasn't my intention to do that.
History against Panthers as they lose to Devils again Only two teams in the long, storied history of the National Hockey League have rallied from a 3-0 deficit in a postseason series. That's why veterans Mike Vernon and Scott Mellanby called Tuesday night's Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals a "must-win." Thanks to one of the worst second periods in the history of the franchise, the slow and lethargic Panthers failed to benefit from the energy created from the sellout crowd of 19,250 at National Car Rental Center and lost 2-1 to the New Jersey Devils. Now the Panthers, 1-11 in their past 12 playoff games, face the strangle-hold of a lifetime. They trail 3-0 in the best-of-seven series to a team that has not allowed them one ounce of breathing room in three games. "We didn't want to get down 3-0," coach Terry Murray said. "Now it becomes very desperate." They also face a goalie in Martin Brodeur that they have not beaten since April 1997, a string of 12 games. Well, that's not to say the Panthers tested Brodeur any Tuesday night. The Panthers were outshot 19-1 in the second period. Is that possible? It's about as possible as giving up a shorthanded goal while on a 5-on-3 advantage, but as it was learned Sunday at New Jersey, the Panthers found a way to do that as well. The shot clock doesn't matter to me," Vernon said. "The only stat that matters is final score, and we haven't led in that category yet." That one shot by Ray Whitney early in the period set records for both teams. It was the fewest shots the Panthers have had in a period in their postseason history, while it was the least amount New Jersey has given up on the road in its playoff history. "Passing up shots and stuff like that is not new for us," Murray said. "We are just very reluctant at times to throw the puck through traffic to the net. I don't know why, I do not have that answer." It looked like men against boys at times in the second as the Panthers were unable to get any forecheck going. The most work Brodeur saw in the period was when he skated to and from the bench during television timeouts. "It's tough to get going when you spend the whole time penalty killing," Mark Parrish said. "There were some questionable penalties," Whitney said. Whitney scored his first goal of the playoffs midway through the first, and Vernon made it hold up until Alexander Mogilny's power-play goal with 3:35 left in the second. Referees Richard Trottier and Stephen Walkom, who were making marginal calls most of the night, made another by whistling Pavel Bure for elbowing while he was fending off Brian Rafalski's check. That led to Mogilny's goal, which deflected off Bret Hedican's stick, fitting since he's the one that failed to clear the zone. "There was no elbow," Murray said. "I can tell you one thing, I didn't try to elbow him,"Bure said. "Pavel's been getting hit late all series," Whitney said. "He's taken his fair share, and dishes one out. But it was a suspect call." The Devils have lost three straight postseason series aided because they had not won Game 3 on the road. They were 1-8 in their past nine road playoff games. But tie games going into the third is exactly the Devils' type of game. They were 19-8 during the regular season in one-goal games, while the Panthers were 12-14. This series, the Devils have beaten the Panthers by one goal in all three games. It would happen again 3:11 into the third when Rafalski snapped the deadlock. Bobby Holik cleanly won the faceoff back to the point. Rafalski's blast beat Vernon for his first goal. Even though the Panthers were outshot 40-22, they still wasted a ton of chances in the first. Maybe the best came when Parrish missed the net on a 2-on-1 feed from Whitney. They also didn't shoot on a 1:21 4-on-3.
"These are professionals that we're playing against," Devils coach Larry Robinson said. "They have a lot of pride and a lot of heart over there. I know they'll come out strong [Thursday]."
Cats bedeviled a third time
You knew it as the third period began with the score tied. You knew New Jersey was going to win to take a three-games-to-none lead on the Panthers in this best-of-7 playoff series with another one-goal victory. And it happened: a 2-1 Devils win on Brian Rafalski's goal at 3:11 of the third period. Now the Panthers find themselves in a position from which only two teams, the 1975 Islanders and 1942 Maple Leafs, have come back to win a best-of-7 series. Game 4 is Thursday in Sunrise. On the game-winner, New Jersey center Bobby Holik whipped Mike Sillinger on a faceoff in the right circle of the Panthers' zone. As Rafalski collected the puck, a Devil hauled down Panthers left wing Ray Whitney before he could get to Rafalski, giving Rafalski enough time to unleash a 59-footer that got into the top shelf. Whitney had the best chance to tie the score, with a one-timer in the final minute, but Martin Brodeur got over for the save. Game. New Jersey was simply the better team. The Devils got a special-teams goal when they needed it and controlled their defensive zone and the boards. Whitney promised the Panthers would come out more ornery in Game 3, and they did, starting with the men they put on the ice for the opening faceoff. Though they saw that New Jersey's Scott Stevens would be on for the drop, the Panthers threw out the Whitney-Sillinger-Pavel Bure line, giving the Devils the matchup they wanted as if saying, "Fine. It's on." And that's the way the first period went as far as the physical game. The Panthers did much more initiating than in either of the games in New Jersey, which was appreciated by the sellout crowd in Sunrise. Yet their impudence and fire didn't lead to a Panthers shot until Oleg Kvasha's lower-left-circle wrister 6:55 into the game. As Peter Worrell chased down the rebound in the corner, Devils defenseman Vladimir Malakhov toppled him, resulting in a penalty. The power play should've paid off when Whitney served a perfect pass to Mark Parrish that left Brodeur at the box office. Somehow, Parrish missed the open net wide right. But 19 seconds after the power play, Bure pulled up outside the Jersey line coming down the right wing, freezing Stevens briefly. "Briefly" was long enough for Sillinger to break past Stevens with Bure's pass to the middle. On the two-on-one with Whitney, Sillinger's pass left Whitney an open net, and Whitney gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead. Elements of Game 2, in which the Panthers failed to expand upon and lost their 1-0 lead, began to creep between the boards. New Jersey almost scored another shorthanded goal with three men on the ice, this time during a four-on-three Panthers power play, when Bure stopped to survey the scene long enough to get stripped by John Madden. Madden missed the net on his shorthanded breakaway. A Whitney one-timer from the left circle off a pass from Robert Svehla at the right point couldn't get past a sliding Brodeur. This was on the Florida power play that opened the second period. It was also the Panthers' last shot of the period, the period during which this series basically ended. On those rare occasions they did have an open shot, they made unfathomable decisions, such as when Jaroslav Spacek was between the circles and alone with the Devils confused in transition. Spacek went for some half-baked, too-hard pass for a redirect instead of shooting with people in rebound position. The Jersey machine began to take over and the Devils fired 19 shots, tying New Jersey's team record for shots in a period in a road playoff game. By late in the period, the Panthers were again making the poor decisions in the neutral zone and around the bluelines that had cost them in Games 1 and 2. They cleared the zone with either desperate flips or breakout passes that missed. Florida wasn't helped by the vicissitudes of officials Richard Trottier and Stephen Walkom. They handed the Devils three consecutive power plays, the last of which was from an elbowing call on Bure as he got his arm up into Rafalski's head as Rafalski went for a check along the left boards outside the Jersey zone. For playoff hockey, it was a weak call, but Bure wouldn't have been in that position if Spacek hadn't tried to make an incomprehensibly cute pass to Bure instead of dumping the puck into the left corner as the Panthers desired. On the power play, a panicky, weak clear by Bret Hedican allowed the Devils to retain control of the zone. Alexander Mogilny rediscovered his scorer's hands after standing in the left circle, looking, contemplating, then finally firing a shot that skimmed off the stick of a kneeling Hedican.
The game was tied. But you could feel that New Jersey had just won the series.
New Jersey 2, Florida 1 The New Jersey Devils again neutralized Pavel Bure and moved within one win of a sweep of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with a 2-1 victory over the Florida Panthers. Rookie defenseman Brian Rafalski's goal with 16:49 remaining snapped a tie and gave the Devils a commanding three games to none lead in the best-of-seven series. They can complete the second playoff sweep in franchise history with a win on Thursday in Florida. New Jersey's only other sweep came against Detroit in the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals. Since then, the Devils have won just one postseason series, getting upset in the first round each of the previous two years as the top seed in the East. "This is a new year. We have a lot of new players," Rafalski said. "I think even the veterans have forgotten about the past. This isn't as much about atoning about the past as it is dealing with the present and the future." New Jersey has gotten offensive contributions from its defensemen, who have kept Bure under wraps while stringing together three one-goal victories. "The bottom line is we're not giving up scoring chances. And I know that frustrates them," said Devils captain Scott Stevens. "It's what's put us in a position to win the series. This is where we wanted to be, in this position. We're playing pretty well." "It's not like we're losing games by four or five goals," Florida left wing Alex Hicks said. "Things can turn around, we just have to keep battling. We're just not getting that goal when we need it." With the score tied, 1-1, Bobby Holik won a faceoff in the Panthers' zone and got the puck back to Rafalski. The 5-9 defenseman let go a wrist shot from above the circle that went in off the right goalpost after goaltender Mike Vernon missed it with his glove. "It's always nice to have a game-winning goal in the playoffs," Rafalski said. "This isn't Game Seven, but I'll take it." "I did see it," said Vernon. "It just hit my glove and just kind of rolled, kind of angled in on me. It went off my glove and into the net. Kind of an unfortunate one and one I wish I could have back." Defensemen have accounted for half of the Devils' eight goals in the series, with Stevens getting the winner in Game Two on Sunday. Martin Brodeur handled only seven shots over the first two periods but stopped all 15 in the third to extend his unbeaten streak against Florida to 11 games (8-0-3). Bure led the league with 58 goals during the season but has been held to three assists and eight shots in this series. "We can win with Pavel creating. We can win with other people scoring," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "He is getting a lot of attention. It is going to be difficult for him to get close to the net for any length of time. We have enough people on this team that can create and score. And with Pavel making some of the plays he is making through the neutral zone, that should be good enough for us." The Devils tied a team record by allowing just one shot in the second period, after which they had a 31-7 edge. But they needed a late power-play goal from Alexander Mogilny to emerge with a 1-1 tie. "I think sometimes shots are a little misleading," New Jersey coach Larry Robinson said. "They had a couple of opportunities where we made really good defensive plays. Otherwise, they would have had some really good scoring chances. A couple of times they had a wide-open player over at the side of the net and the puck bounced over their stick." The Panthers scored first for the second straight game. Mike Sillinger veered right as he skated deep in the Devils' zone, drawing three defenders before sliding a pass to a wide-open Ray Whitney. Whitney whipped the puck past Brodeur, who was caught at the opposite side of the net, for his first goal of the series. Vernon almost singlehandedly kept Florida in front, although New Jersey rookie John Madden shot over the net on a shorthanded breakaway with 2:41 left in the first period. The Devils finally broke through with 3:35 left in the second. Just 47 seconds after Bure received a questionable elbowing penalty, Mogilny slapped a shot from the right faceoff dot that made it through a maze of players and found room between Vernon's pads. "There was no elbow," Florida coach Terry Murray said. "In my view, it was right in front of me, there was no elbow on that." Brodeur was hardly tested but squeezed his pads to deny Viktor Kozlov from the right circle with 8:42 left, then got his right pad on Mark Parrish's wrister from nearly the same spot just over six minutes later. Jaroslav Spacek tested Brodeur through a screen with 1:35 to play, and the Devils goalie stopped Whitney from the left circle with 32 seconds left on Florida's last chance.
Pavel registered only one shot on goal for the game (season-low) and was even in the plus/minus scale for his one assist.
Stevens keeps Bure in check A service area off New Jersey Turnpike exit 16W, well known around the NHL as the home of the Devils, is named after statesman and duelist Alexander Hamilton. Maybe Devils defenseman Scott Stevens, captain and duelist, will get his own service area someday or take Hamilton's. After all, Hamilton died after losing his duel to vice president Aaron Burr, but Stevens is beating a Bure in a showdown that's lethal only to the Panthers' chances of surviving Round 1, which continues with tonight's Game 3 at National Car Rental Center. "In the playoffs, your best players need to be your best players," Panthers coach Terry Murray said repeatedly before the series. New Jersey's best player has the series' best player, and has made Florida's best player a supporting player. This series is more than a one-on-one comparison or competition between Stevens and Panthers right wing Pavel Bure, but Stevens' dominance is the prime difference on an individual level so far. Not only has Stevens been the major reason Bure has been limited to seven shots thus far, but he has provided offense. Both of his goals, 1:38 into Game 1 and Game 2's winning goal, put New Jersey ahead for good. "He's got that will, that desire to be successful and not let anybody be better than he can be," New Jersey's Claude Lemieux said. "He likes to be matched up against other teams' best players." Stevens said there's also something to laboring under the threat of what can happen when trying to control powerful offensive forces. "That's what brings out the best, when you have that fear factor," Stevens said. "It doesn't take much for those guys to change a game around or make the difference in a game. Especially Bure with all the goals he's scored this year." If Philadelphia center Eric Lindros is in the lineup when New Jersey plays Philadelphia, Stevens rests only when Lindros rests. In Thursday's Game 1, Murray put Bure out for only 18:57, virtually a night off for Stevens. But Murray didn't fool around in Game 2. Stevens, 36, was repeatedly summoned because Bure was on the ice with his regular line and others after Murray's special-teams line shuffles. After a while, it resembled an old dog chasing a frisbee. In this case, however, the dog kept catching the frisbee because the frisbee has to come to him, and the dog is usually so well-positioned. Unless Bure and a rush partner swiftly execute a switch in the danger zone of the New Jersey line, Bure's chances of scoring on Club 16W rely on him getting past the iron warrior acting as the velvet rope. Having Stevens be the gatekeeper against Bure won't be as easy for New Jersey here in Florida, where the Panthers have last change before each face-off. "As long as we're all aware on the bench and we don't get caught changing unless it's really there," Stevens said. "That's the most important thing. Other guys may have to stay out there because we can't get a change. Maybe I'll start more face-offs. If the player you watch isn't there, you get off." Stevens is what the Panthers wanted Ed Jovanovski to be. Panthers general manager Bryan Murray rarely tired of comparing Jovanovski situations to situations from Stevens' early career. Those were situations with which both Murrays were familiar. Bryan was coaching Washington when Stevens broke in with the Capitals in 1982. Terry was Bryan's assistant for Stevens first six NHL seasons. "We had good days," Stevens said. "Bryan and I go a long ways back. We used to have our own little battles, but we always respected each other. "That's the thing I remember with Bryan," he continued. "Sometimes, we'd get to fighting -- I was a hothead back then and I'm more calmed down -- but I think Bryan liked that. He liked guys who were feisty and full of energy. I guess that was me at that time." Terry Murray said, "He told me one time, `Terry, just put a headset in my helmet.' It seemed like every time we came off the ice, we had something we talked about." Murray said emotion control was a subject of many a talk between Stevens and the Murrays. It's part of his strength and his weakness. One of the best weapons against Stevens is a quick tongue, guillotine wit and the willingness to take the ensuing punch or crosscheck. We're still trying to go at him and take shots at him," Panthers captain Scott Mellanby said. "He's a tough guy, and if you take enough shots at tough guys they want to react. He certainly doesn't react as he used to." But Terry concurred with Stevens' opinion that he's become a great defenseman since going to New Jersey. Though Stevens came to New Jersey in 1991 as compensation for St. Louis signing young free agent Brendan Shanahan from the Devils, the real turning point was 1993. That's when the Devils hired Jacques Lemaire as head coach and current Devils coach Larry Robinson, a Hall of Fame defenseman, as Lemaire's assistant.
"I'm more knowledgeable, more patient," Stevens said. "I've learned a lot here under Jacques and Larry about playing defense and good position. Just goes to show, you never stop learning. I probably played over 10 years, then I came here and was taught a lot of new things."
Devils' next goal: Bure Bure There's plenty left to prove for these Devils. Reputation repair is still in the hypothesis stage. Fresh from burying one bugaboo, they run into another tonight. This team that has lost three straight series was helped down that abyss by losing Game 3 on the road each time, and they believe tonight's version is another crossroad in their ambitions. "It would be a mistake to look past [tonight] because it could become a hell of a different series," Bobby Holik said of Game 3 against the Panthers here. "If they win, they'll think they're in the same situation as the Devils, winning their home games. For us, it could put us over the top in this series." The Devils have already swept aside their three-upset string of blowing home-ice advantage with splits, sweeping the opening pair of this first-rounder at the Meadowlands. Matters change tonight, when they no longer have the luxury of dictating against whom Pavel Bure plays. "It's going to be something we have to use, particularly to get Pavel away from Scott Stevens," Panther coach Terry Murray said of his last-change right. "I know they're going to change on the fly, but if I can get him away from Stevens for a period of time, maybe we'll have a chance for some pressure in the offensive zone." So far, the Devils won by one goal on a night when Panther goalie Mike Vernon struggled, and they won by one goal again on a night when they thoroughly outplayed Florida. Bure has yet to score a goal in this series, denied the puck by an assortment of Devil forwards, and frustrated by Stevens, the dominant figure so far in this series. "The opportunity to tie this series up is here, right now," Murray said of tonight and Thursday. "We are a long way from discounting our position in this series, as far as being out of it." Devil defenseman Ken Daneyko has an extra reason to want to push the Panthers to the brink. He would like to see this series end Thursday so he can rest his abdominal strain. "Absolutely, but that's a long way away," Daneyko said. "We've got two games, half a loaf, and 2-0 is almost a danger zone. "If we win, we really demoralize them. But if they win, they think they're back in it." And then Devil doubts would start to reappear. They still have some proving to do. Panther captain Scott Mellanby is not impressed that Martin Brodeur owns an 11-game unbeaten streak against Florida, covering three years. * "He's due for a loss, maybe," Mellanby said. * Sergei Brylin remained in New Jersey yesterday to be fitted with a new right knee brace after suffering a hefty bruise in a third-period collision with Oleg Kvasha Sunday. The Devils are hoping Brylin can play tonight. "He's a tough little tiger. Never count him out," Larry Robinson said. * Murray started naming names. "[Viktor] Kozlov has got to step it up big time," Murray said. "We've seen it in baseball, a guy goes 0-for-20 and he's been their best hitter all year long. Kozlov's been outstanding all year long, and his play has been unacceptable, not even the minimum needed for him to keep his place in the lines." *
Condolences went out to Stevens on the loss of his grandfather, Earl Stevens, yesterday in Ontario ... Stevens is plus-3 in this series, 2-1-3, while Bure is minus-3. During the regular season, Bure went minus-6 in four games, Stevens plus-8 in three between the teams ... Only the '42 Leafs and '75 Isles have ever survived 0-3 deficits.
Panthers: Need more than Bure The Devils certainly are playing some mind games with Pavel Bure and the Panthers by treating Vladimir Bure, Pavel's dad, like a celebrity during this series. The elder Bure, a personal trainer for some Devils players, watched the first two games at the Meadowlands seated in the suite with general manager Lou Lamoriello, a place where only assistant coach Jacques Caron usually is present.
When the Devils flew to Florida yesterday, Vladimir Bure was on the charter flight. He has not spoken to his son in 21/2 years.
Panthers: Need more than Bure Much of the focus through the first two games of Florida's series with the Devils was on Panthers right wing Pavel Bure, and rightly so. Bure is the NHL's best goalscorer, one of its most exhilarating presences. But the Panthers aren't in the playoffs solely because of Bure, and it is Florida's supporting players whose offensive output is so badly needed right now. Bure, playing on a line with Mike Sillinger and Ray Whitney, has been held to just two assists -- no goals -- in two games, and there has been very little help coming behind him to test the Devils in their own zone. Going into Game 3 tonight at National Car Rental Center, the trend can't continue. The Panthers, down 2-0 in the best-of-seven series, held a lengthy team meeting yesterday following a short practice. While no one would confirm the messages conveyed in that meeting, after it was over, Florida head coach Terry Murray freely discussed his disappointment thus far in the Panthers' inability to get help for the top line from the rest of his forwards. "I got a couple lines playing very well, but I got a couple of other lines that I need to step up and perform on a consistent basis," Murray said. "Not just on the offensive part of the game, but a complete game. Just play a better five-man unit game out there." Of the four goals Florida has scored against the Devils in two games, the Alex Hicks-Rob Niedermayer-Scott Mellanby line has accounted for one, the banging line with Paul Laus, Oleg Kvasha, and Peter Worrell for another, and the Bure line for the other two. The line of Len Barrie, Viktor Kozlov, and Mark Parrish hasn't put up one point yet and has been particularly ineffective, and Murray did not hesitate to deem Kozlov's play "unacceptable." Kozlov, who left practice without speaking to the media, put up just 17 goals in the regular season but had 53 assists. At times, he played with Bure, but had some success with Parrish as well. Now, Kozlov might as well be invisible, and that's a difficult feat for a 6-5, 232-pound center. Parrish, a 26-goal scorer in the regular season, knows it's not just Kozlov that needs to make a dramatic improvement. It's imperative that the entire line make a comeback, the sooner the better. "We've been struggling to put things together," Parrish said. "We want to play well, and we've got to turn it on in these next two games or we're going to be done." The coach's message seems to have gotten across.
"The only way you're going to win is with a team game," Murray said. "If Pavel scores, that's great, and we look for him to score. But if Peter Worrell scores again, that's outstanding. If Robbie Niedermayer scores again, that's great. I don't care who scores. I just want to win, and if it's a combination of any other guy outside of Sillinger, Whitney, and Bure, that's great. That will get us where we want to go, to a 2-1 series, and we can keep putting the pressure on (the Devils)."
Panthers Want Bure Scott-Free Florida coach Terry Murray was an assistant coach in Washington when an 18-year-old Scott Stevens first broke in with the Capitals. And he spent a long time yesterday morning reminiscing about Stevens' early NHL career before he suddenly stopped. We're talking about the enemy here," Murray said. "I don't want to compliment this guy too much, for crying out loud." The truth, though, is that Murray is about to pay the ultimate compliment to the Devils captain and defenseman. Now that they're home tonight for Game 3 of this first-round playoff series, the Panthers get to make the last line change after every whistle. And Murray's planning to go to great lengths to keep his star, Pavel Bure, out of Stevens' grasp. Stevens is playing outstanding," Murray said. "He's matched up pretty much shift for shift against Pavel and done a very good job. I know they're going to change him on the fly, but if I can get Pavel away for periods of time, maybe that's going to be the opportunity for a little more pressure in the offensive zone." Thanks largely to Stevens, Bure — who scored 58 regular-season goals — has been nearly invisible in this series, which the Devils lead two games to none. He had just one shot in 18 minutes in Game 1. And even though that increased to six shots in 28 minutes in Game 2, Bure still has no goals and only two assists. So far, nothing Murray has tried has gotten the Russian Rocket launched. He benched Bure early in Game 1 in the hope he could find ice time for him away from Stevens, but he never could. Then in Game 2 he stopped trying, and decided to let Bure take on Stevens head-to-head. But Stevens won that battle decisively, never letting Bure get off a dangerous shot. Now at least Murray knows he'll have a few chances to get Bure on the ice against somebody else. Of course, the Devils know it, too. "Basically what I'll try to do is every time there's a line on the ice we'll have somebody designated to play against him," Devils coach Larry Robinson said. "I think that each line is capable of knowing that when we don't have the puck he's one guy that you have to watch." There are ways Robinson can get Stevens out against Bure. Stevens talked of taking to the ice after most whistles, then immediately coming off after play starts if Bure isn't there. And if Stevens can't get out in time, there's Scott Niedermayer, who when matched up against him, did a good job against Jaromir Jagr in last year's playoffs and can probably handle Bure, too. But clearly, having Stevens against Bure is Plan A, since the Devils know their captain's dominance of the Florida sniper is a big reason the Devils have the series lead.
"It doesn't take much for those guys to change a game around or make a difference in a game," Stevens said. "Especially Bure, with all the goals he scored this year."
Aiming High "In the playoffs, your best players need to be your best players," Panthers coach Terry Murray said repeatedly before the series. New Jersey's best player has the series' best player, and has made Florida's best player a supporting player. This series is more than a one-on-one comparison or competition between Stevens and Panthers right wing Pavel Bure, but Stevens' dominance is the prime difference on an individual level so far. Not only has Stevens been the major reason Bure has been limited to seven shots thus far, but he has provided offense. Both of his goals, 1:38 into Game 1 and Game 2's winning goal, put New Jersey ahead for good. "He's got that will, that desire to be successful and not let anybody be better than he can be," New Jersey's Claude Lemieux said. "He likes to be matched up against other teams' best players." Stevens said there's also something to laboring under the threat of what can happen when trying to control powerful offensive forces. "That's what brings out the best, when you have that fear factor," Stevens said. "It doesn't take much for those guys to change a game around or make the difference in a game. Especially Bure with all the goals he's scored this year." If Philadelphia center Eric Lindros is in the lineup when New Jersey plays Philadelphia, Stevens rests only when Lindros rests. In Thursday's Game 1, Murray put Bure out for only 18:57, virtually a night off for Stevens. But Murray didn't fool around in Game 2. Stevens, 36, was repeatedly summoned because Bure was on the ice with his regular line and others after Murray's special-teams line shuffles. After a while, it resembled an old dog chasing a frisbee. In this case, however, the dog kept catching the frisbee because the frisbee has to come to him, and the dog is usually so well-positioned. Unless Bure and a rush partner swiftly execute a switch in the danger zone of the New Jersey line, Bure's chances of scoring on Club 16W rely on him getting past the iron warrior acting as the velvet rope. Having Stevens be the gatekeeper against Bure won't be as easy for New Jersey here in Florida, where the Panthers have last change before each face-off. "As long as we're all aware on the bench and we don't get caught changing unless it's really there," Stevens said. "That's the most important thing. Other guys may have to stay out there because we can't get a change. Maybe I'll start more face-offs. If the player you watch isn't there, you get off." Stevens is what the Panthers wanted Ed Jovanovski to be. Panthers general manager Bryan Murray rarely tired of comparing Jovanovski situations to situations from Stevens' early career. Those were situations with which both Murrays were familiar. Bryan was coaching Washington when Stevens broke in with the Capitals in 1982. Terry was Bryan's assistant for Stevens first six NHL seasons. "We had good days," Stevens said. "Bryan and I go a long ways back. We used to have our own little battles, but we always respected each other. "That's the thing I remember with Bryan," he continued. "Sometimes, we'd get to fighting -- I was a hothead back then and I'm more calmed down -- but I think Bryan liked that. He liked guys who were feisty and full of energy. I guess that was me at that time." Terry Murray said, "He told me one time, `Terry, just put a headset in my helmet.' It seemed like every time we came off the ice, we had something we talked about." Murray said emotion control was a subject of many a talk between Stevens and the Murrays. It's part of his strength and his weakness. One of the best weapons against Stevens is a quick tongue, guillotine wit and the willingness to take the ensuing punch or crosscheck. We're still trying to go at him and take shots at him," Panthers captain Scott Mellanby said. "He's a tough guy, and if you take enough shots at tough guys they want to react. He certainly doesn't react as he used to." But Terry concurred with Stevens' opinion that he's become a great defenseman since going to New Jersey. Though Stevens came to New Jersey in 1991 as compensation for St. Louis signing young free agent Brendan Shanahan from the Devils, the real turning point was 1993. That's when the Devils hired Jacques Lemaire as head coach and current Devils coach Larry Robinson, a Hall of Fame defenseman, as Lemaire's assistant.
"I'm more knowledgeable, more patient," Stevens said. "I've learned a lot here under Jacques and Larry about playing defense and good position. Just goes to show, you never stop learning. I probably played over 10 years, then I came here and was taught a lot of new things."
So far, Stevens gets the better of Bure The New Jersey Devils told captain Scott Stevens he would be the man designated to stop Pavel Bure. Stop Bure. Not outscore him. But when the Devils and Panthers play Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals tonight at National Car Rental Center, Stevens will take the ice as the star of this series. Not only has he shut down Bure, playing nearly every shift against him, but he has scored two goals, including Sunday night's winner, to give the Devils a 2-0 series lead. In the words of Devils defenseman Colin White, "He's unbelievable right now. He's our leader. He's showing the way for everybody." "He's one of a kind," center Bobby Holik said. "Just a good player," Bure shrugged. Stevens, 36, admits that drawing the stop-Bure detail was something he had looked forward to. "He gets a lot of hype, and it's great if you can stop him," Stevens said. "It kind of drives you because you don't want to let anybody down. It's almost like a little game inside the big game." Stevens' strong play this series hasn't surprised Panthers coach Terry Murray, who served as an assistant to brother Bryan in Washington when Stevens was a young defenseman with the Capitals. "He's a very, very competitive player," Murray said. "When he first joined (the Capitals), he was an 18-year-old. He was very loose at times. He'd get volatile at times. It took a lot of team meetings and individual meetings. He would get frustrated, angry. But he learned to play and control those emotions." Coach Larry Robinson has been able to match Stevens with Bure the first two games because he had the last change playing at home. But tonight, with Murray having the last change, Robinson will likely put Stevens on the ice at critical times and then adjust when Bure stays on or comes. Even if it's not Stevens, Robinson said, "We'll have someone designated to play against Bure. He's just that dangerous." Trap tough to escape The Panthers have had problems getting the puck through the neutral zone the first two games of this series, and the reason for it, according to the Panthers, is the Devils trapping style. "They're very deceptive," Scott Mellanby said. "It's hard to get through the neutral zone. It seems like they give, give, give and then they attack at a certain point. They attack before the defenseman gets to the blue line, they press you from behind. They're fairly passive defensively. They back off and let their forwards come back. And they're all on the same page." "They clog things up with five guys in the middle," defenseman Todd Simpson said. "They make it look like a guy is open so you make the pass. We may just have to chip it to open areas and have guys skate to the puck."
Confidence not shaken
Murray said confidence has not been shaken by the losses. "I don't think we've lost our positive attitude," he said. "I think, overall, our attitude has been tremendous all year long."… Defensemen Robert Svehla and Mike Wilson received ice treatments Monday on their ankles and did not practice. Both are expected to play. … Devils center Sergei Brylin remained in New Jersey on Monday to be fitted with a new brace for his bruised right knee. Robinson didn't know whether Brylin would be available for tonight's game, but said, "Never count him out."
Aiming High This edition of 'Sports Illustrated' has a 5 page article titled 'Aiming High'.
1. Can Anyone stop Pavel Bure?
New Jersey 2, Florida 1 Scott Niedermayer provided a spark in his return to the lineup, but fellow defenseman Scott Stevens came up with the big goal for the New Jersey Devils. Stevens scored off a 2-on-1 with 16:18 remaining as the Devils took a two games to none lead in their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with a 2-1 victory over the Florida Panthers. Stevens carried down the left side and worked a give-and-go with rookie John Madden, who threaded the return feed through defenseman Todd Simpson's legs. Stevens deked to his backhand before sliding the puck between goaltender Mike Vernon's pads for his 21st career playoff goal and second of the series. "I've heard coaches in the past talk about when you get a 2-on-1 to move it up quickly the first time and then drive to the net," Stevens said. "I tried to give it to John quickly and the defenseman had to make a decision. He challenged John and he slid it over to me. It was just a great play." Martin Brodeur made it stand up, stopping all five shots in the third period and finishing with 22 saves. Niedermayer sat out Thursday's series opener while completing a 10-game suspension for slashing Florida left wing Peter Worrell during the regular season. But he lifted New Jersey into a 1-1 tie in the opening minute of the second period, scoring while the Devils were killing a 5-on-3 power play. "I tried to get it. It was bouncing and I tried my best to get a stick on it," Niedermayer said. "I just wanted to put it towards the net. Maybe it was a little luck, I just tried to watch as close as I could." Madden squeezed the puck past defenseman Robert Svehla at the right point, carried into the Panthers' zone and unleashed a slap shot from the left faceoff circle. Vernon stopped it, but Niedermayer corraled the bouncing rebound and whacked a backhander under the goalie's stick. "You don't have you many chances to score, so if somebody makes a mistake, it can hurt," Panthers superstar Pavel Bure said. "It was really tough. We have a 5-on-3 power play and chances to score, but we get a goal against. You can't be happy when losing. It doesn't matter if it's 2-1 or 5-0." Stevens took an ill-advised penalty for cross-checking Worrell with one minute remaining. Florida pulled Vernon for a 6-on-4 advantage but never tested Brodeur. New Jersey had not had a 2-0 lead in the playoffs since defeating the Montreal Canadiens in the 1997 East quarterfinals for their last postseason triumph. The Devils are 4-0 in the playoffs when winning the first two games. "Comfort is June 17, when the playoffs are over," New Jersey coach Larry Robinson said. "We did what we were supposed to do. You're supposed to win your home games. Tonight's game could have gone either way and we have to be realistic. We got off to a quick start, but we didn't play well for the whole 60 minutes. I'd still like to see our team play well for the whole 60 minutes to see where we stand." Mike Sillinger scored the lone goal for Florida, which lost the only other series in which it fell behind 2-0. "If you look at the way it unfolded, there was an opportunity to tie the series up. We have a big job in front of us," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "We have to go back and play better as a team." Sillinger gave the Panthers their first lead of the series with 5:15 left in the first period. Just 16 seconds after a Florida power play expired, Brodeur made a stick save on Bure's bad-angle shot. But Sillinger put in the rebound for his fourth career playoff goal. Devils center Sergei Brylin was helped from the ice with a a bruised right knee early in the second period after a knee-to-knee collision with Florida's Oleg Kvasha. New Jersey nearly tied it in the final minute of the period, but Alexander Mogilny's shot from the left circle hit the crossbar.
Pavel Bure had 6 shots on goal for his asssist, and was a minus one for the game. One of his shots hit the crossbar and Brodeur made two good saves on slap shots by Bure late in the third period.
Bure's postseason coming out party set for Game 2 The best parallel in this part of New Jersey came decades ago when a kid from Hoboken was at the height of his fame and sang with a one-night band of all-star talent. As the night finished, as the crowd roared, as the story goes, the conductor joked in Frank Sinatra's ear, "You got the part, kid." Terry Murray wasn't joking Friday. Pavel Bure has the part. The kid was called a "superstar" again by the coach. He was deemed "necessary" again for the Panthers' playoffs. And surrounding Murray as he said all this, writing it all down like it was hot news, was a knot of reporters who, for our next assignment, must confirm that water is wet and sunshine is hot. Some things are given, right? Bure's talent is one of those. But it had to be asked, and it had to be said, that Bure will be used the rest of this New Jersey series in the style his talent demands, the way his game deserves and the manner Murray didn't play him at all in one of Game 1's coaching blunders. "I think it comes down to a great player like this just going out there and playing head-to-head with whoever is out there," the Panthers coach was saying. "You're on the road, you're not going to get the matchup you want (against Bure) and if you take him off the ice or move out of position too many times it may have an effect over the course of the game." That was Game 1's lesson. Take your best player off the ice. Play him less in the first period than any other Panther. The effect is to grease a 4-3 loss. "We need our superstar out there," Murray said, making it now sound as logical as his Game 1 thinking had been inexplainable. As Murray talked, he was standing outside a post-practice locker room that was steaming from more than hot showers. It was other Game 1 decisions that wore on this team. All the defense pairings being swapped for it. Every line being changed in it. Suddenly, all the momentum this team took through the final weeks of the season was rocked. Suddenly, chemistry had to be rediscovered. Suddenly, in the only night that really mattered this year, the coach showed a shifting confidence in this team, and on Friday the players' non-answers to questions were revealing at a time when small cracks quickly can become huge divides. "I've answered that already," captain Scott Mellanby, the most accommodating of players, snapped when asked what he thought of the line changes after he gave a noncommittal answer. Ray Whitney, another stand-up guy, simply said when asked about the changes: "Don't go there, guys. I don't want to talk about that." Sometimes it's hard to believe the issues that arise at pivotal times in sports. Usually they have to do with behavior or money. Rarely do they involve big change made for the playoffs, although even then they are made with more advance planning than the Panthers' changes were. And never are there questions over a coach's decision to use a franchise player in games that decide the season. Well, at least never outside South Florida. For the past few years it was Dan Marino at his twilight. Now it's Bure at his noon. How the coach ever got into this mess regarding the league's leading goal-scorer, the Panthers' biggest threat, the player who had the goods to topple a New Jersey defense waiting to be taken in Game 1 -- how this became a controversy is a mystery beyond solving. "I can play any kind of style as much as the coach wants to put me out there," Bure said. He answered a couple more questions, saying little, and left after offering nothing more than a fire smoldering inside. No, Bure isn't the perfect player. He doesn't play enough defense. He shouldn't gamble so much on offense. He can drive a coach mad that way, and Murray benched him for a night earlier this year in a move quietly applauded by other Panthers. But this is different. It's the playoffs, and he wasn't benched for poor play. Murray wanted to slow down the tempo after the Panthers fell behind. Be more defensive-minded. He said his job is to "read the game" and even Friday, even after his other comments about playing Bure more, he felt he read it properly. The problem here, as with all the line and defense changes, isn't that Murray wasn't thinking. It's that he was over-thinking. It's the blind spot of a smart coach. Here's a story: In the Panthers' great playoff run in 1996, they met Murray's Philadelphia Flyers in the second round. These Panthers weren't sure of themselves. But looking back they talked of the confidence boost in the first game, at the opening faceoff, when Murray refused to match Eric Lindros against the Panthers' starters. That the great Lindros didn't start showed the Panthers that the Flyers were concerned about something. Of course, now you can see it was just Murray playing matchups. And there's a place for that. But at some point a coach has to rise or fall on his team's talent. He has to put the best players in position to win or lose. "We're going to play Pavel, double-shift him, do whatever we can to get our superstar on the ice as much as we can," Murray said Friday afternoon.
One strange game late, the kid got the part.
Devils will see more of Bure In the aftermath of a Game 1 loss that seemed like a classic case of overthinking about line combinations and Pavel Bure's ice time, Panthers coach Terry Murray acknowledged that sometimes you have to say what the heck. Come Sunday's Game 2, there will be fewer tricks to keep Bure away from New Jersey defenseman Scott Stevens. Avoiding a particular matchup can be a difficult task on the road, because the host team has the last change before each faceoff. "I think before the first game, I talked about moving him to a different line, putting him on the left-wing side, trying to get him away from Stevens," Murray said. "But you know what? I think it comes down to a great player like this just going head-to-head." "You're on the road, and if you're taking [Bure] off the ice, moving him out of position too many times, then it might have an effect over the course of the game." Bure played only 3:27 of the first period Thursday, and even in the second and third periods, his ice time extrapolated to only 23 minutes per game. His final ice time (18:57) was a hiccup compared to the 26-28 minutes he could be expected to log in an important game -- especially one in which the Panthers trailed for all but the first 1:38. "You can't get frustrated," Bure said. "You have to keep trying." Murray insisted he went to his third and fourth lines so much in the first period to put a tourniquet on Jersey's early flow. (The Devils struck twice in the first 4:02.) "I was looking to get a couple lines in particular really focused in on slowing, taking away some momentum and playing good defense," Murray said. "That was the only reason I cut back in the first 10 minutes of the first period. And I don't second-guess not playing Pavel through all that. It was important for the team to settle things and then get back into it." Said left wing Ray Whitney: "Terry will adjust it. When you have a superstar like Pavel, you want to get him out there as much as possible. Stevens is going to be on him all series. So, make Stevens play all series." It's not a bad idea, especially because the Devils also used forward Sergei Brylin, a pal of Pavel's brother, Valeri, to shadow Bure somewhat in the first two periods. Few players can bird-dog Pavel Bure on an extended basis, especially if the game develops some kind of pace. Brylin has never played those kind of minutes, and the 36-year-old Stevens is closing in on middle age. Yet, Murray said, "I've seen Stevens play 35 minutes a night. He's a horse of a man. He thrives on the hard work and the challenge." Murray didn't back off reshuffling the lines and defense pairings of the last six regular-season games even though that restructuring appeared to contribute to the Panthers' breakdown. The lines that opened the game were (previous linemates in parentheses): Whitney-Mike Sillinger-Mark Parrish (Bure); Len Barrie (Rob Niedermayer)-Viktor Kozlov-Bure (Parrish); Alex Hicks-Niedermayer (Barrie)-Scott Mellanby; Peter Worrell-Oleg Kvasha-Paul Laus. The defense pairs were Bret Hedican and Robert Svehla; Lance Pitlick and Jaroslav Spacek; and Mike Wilson and Todd Simpson, the only pair that was the same. Usually, Svehla and Spacek were together and Hedican had been with Pitlick. Hedican was quoted as saying Thursday night that it took some time for the units to mesh, which added to the first-period troubles. No players echoed those thoughts Friday but neither was there flag-waving support for the changes. The players had two practices to prepare. When told of Hedican's quote from Thursday night, Murray said, "It's hard to get into a player's mind on that side of it. I think there's validity to it. If that's the case, I hope the first game has worked a lot out, and we can get back to playing a good game." According to Murray, the changes were inspired by the Patrik Elias-Jason Arnott-Petr Sykora line that torched the Panthers through the four regular-season games.
"I wanted to get Hedican on left side with Svehla for speed against Sykora and Elias in particular, which happened quite a bit of the time," Murray said.
Panthers need to play Bure till he drops Free Pavel. No, wait. That can’t be the problem. That was the slogan from another era in his life with another iron-fisted system and an entirely different hockey team. So let’s try this simpler one: Play Pavel. Play him as much as possible every period. Play him until he has little left every night. Play him every chance possible for these Panthers to have all hope available. The Panthers lost to New Jersey, 4-3, Thursday night in their opening playoff game, and it might have been more interesting still if Pavel Bure had actually played from the start. In the first period, with the Panthers falling behind 3-0 at one point, the most important Panther played less than every other teammate in the most important game. Every one. That is, if you don’t count back-up goalie Trevor Kidd, and who is at this point? Bure played three minutes and 27 seconds. You can look it up. You can still hardly believe it. That divided into five shifts, the final one totaling the last 16.5 seconds of the period. You don’t even have to understand hockey to understand this: You want to win or lose with your best players in the game. That’s why they’re your stars. That’s why, in Bure’s case, he is paid $8.5 million a year. You want guys like that to decide games, series, seasons. Here is how coach Terry Murray explained it: The Panthers were too nervous. They lost all composure. And they needed to play defensively for a bit. "The reason was just to get three lines or two lines on a more regular basis." he said. "We tried to slow things down a little bit. Get the puck in. Get a little time in the offensive zone. There was no other reason." There are acceptable, certainly even expected, ways the Panthers can lose this series. One would be from slipshod defense, which again plagued them in Game 1. Another would be from the muscle and skill of the Devil forwards, which played out all across Thursday evening. Yet another would be if goalie Mike Vernon isn’t magnificent, which he wasn’t by any means this game. But it’s another thing entirely if they lose with Bure on the bench. I mean, Paul Laus led the Panthers with 6:13 of playing time in the first period. Peter Worrell played 6:11. These two would go stretches of games without hitting the ice that much. Worrell, as if to underline the strangeness of this decision, took the dumbest of roughing penalties just as the Panthers cut the game to 3-1. And then, just to underline the weirdness of this night, he came out of the penalty box to slap home a goal with in the final minute to bring the Panthers within 3-2 and played a - read it and rub your eyes - strong game. But still. Where was Pavel? Didn’t he lead the league with 58 goals? Doesn’t he reshape defenses every time he steps on the ice? Bure, his hair combed, his tie nearly in place 30 minutes after the game, tried to downplay it. He said, "I guess maybe they are trying not to play me against (New Jersey defenseman Scott) Stevens.” He said, "You have to trust your coaches here.” Murray said he had "never been around as nervous a bunch of guys” at the start of the game as these Panthers. Maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s just playoff nerves. Maybe it’s youth. Or maybe it was this as well: All the lines were changed. Every defensive pairing was different. The Panthers spent 82 games finding a team and then changed everything up for the most important game of the year. It was late in the second period that the line of Bure, Mike Sillinger and Ray Whitney was reassembled for the first time Thursday night. Sixteen seconds later, Bure assisted to Sillinger to cut it to 4-3. Murray has guided this team ably through several problem periods. But he left people wondering Thursday night. Wondering why he juggled all the lines.
Wondering, most of all, what might have been if he had played his best player more.
Devils follow Stevens' example to Game 1 win Scott Stevens, the New Jersey Devils' venerable captain, has had his fill of early vacations the last few years. Matter of fact, he was starting to take it personally. Sure, the first round el foldos the Devils pulled the past two years weren't his fault. But the way Stevens looks at it, this is his team. And what his team does is his responsibility. It's called accountability. It's called being a leader. And lead was exactly what Stevens had on his mind as he took the ice in Game 1 of his team's first-round playoff series against the Florida Panthers Thursday night. The national anthem had barely finished, and Stevens was no longer thinking about leading. He was doing it. He blistered a deep slap shot past Mike Vernon, and just like that the Devils had the lead at 1:38 of the first period. For a team that has skated on far too many eggshells during the playoffs, this was a big goal in that it sparked the Devils to a quick 3-0 lead in this eventual 4-3 victory. "It worked out nice," Stevens, the 18-year veteran said. "It's always nice to score first. We played well, especially the first period. We came out, we initiated, went after them." This spring, the captain isn't going to accept anything less. Not from himself. Not from any of his teammates. After putting his team on the board early, Stevens, who in case you forgot, is a defenseman, merely went about stifling one of the world's most dynamic offensive players. Wondering where Pavel Bure was in Game 1? Thanks in large part to Stevens, he was nearly invisible. The Russian Rocket was diffused. He mustered just one shot. So when the Panthers tried to tie things up late in the third, Bure was planted out front waiting to be the hero. But the pass he was waiting for never came. Stevens had cleared him out of his office, also known as the slot. "Yeah, I noticed that," said Devils goalie Martin Brodeur, who had the best view of the game's most pivotal defensive play. "Scottie is going to play him hard. As hard as he can within the rules. It's important to play him hard. If you let him stand around the net, he's going to bury you." But Bure was the buried one on this night. The captain continually kept him in check. "Just a matter of being aware of where he is, trying to keep the puck off his stick," Stevens said. "Just try to contain him on the one on one. Don't get beat one on one when he comes with speed. A couple of times he came in on me, I just backed up and let him make his move and be patient with him." Stevens wasn't so patient during the first intermission. Not after the Devils saw their 3-0 lead cut to 3-2. "I had a lot to say," said Stevens. "We gave up two goals late, they didn't have a lot of pressure on us. We played a great period. I said, let's go out there and take over the second. We had to get the next goal." So there was rookie Scott Gomez dutifully carrying out the captain's order, smacking home an off-balanced bid to make it 4-2 Devils at 7:21. Stevens will take over this series with words and actions. Whatever the specific moment calls for. At 36 years old, Stevens, a backbone in the Devils' 1995 Cup run, is wise enough to know his championship opportunities are down to a precious few. It is why he has decided to take this team on his back this spring. There are precious few players in the NHL who command universal respect in a locker room. Stevens is one of them. "He's just a great example for us on the ice," said Sergei Brylin, who scored Jersey's third goal of the first-period flurry. "He works hard every game, every shift, and does such a great job out there. Sometimes he is talking in the locker room and when things aren't going well, he's going to let us know." So even after the victory, Stevens had a message he wanted every Devils player to take to heart. "We have work to do in our own end, we have to be better for the next game," Stevens said. "We have two days to work on it and learn from our mistakes tonight. I think we'll be much better in the next game. I believe we'll have to be better. We know we can be better." In other words, expect the Devils to be a little sharper for Sunday night's Game 2.
Not just because the captain says so. But because he demands it.
Robinson Plays Keep-Away With Bure Larry Robinson came up with a surprising last-minute wrinkle to stop Pavel Bure last night. But little did the Devils coach know that he would have an even more unlikely accomplice in shutting down the Russian Rocket — Florida coach Terry Murray. Desperate to settle and then energize his rattled team, Murray glued a disinterested Bure to the bench for eight straight minutes in the first period of the Panthers' 4-3 loss to the Devils at the Meadowlands in the opener of their first-round playoff series. Bure would have his customary ice time restored the rest of the way. But he was never much of a factor in his first playoff game in a Florida uniform after the most productive season a Panther has ever had. "I don't really think I had too many opportunities — only one," Bure said, referring to a swat from just off the right post 1:12 into the second period that a sprawling Martin Brodeur repelled. "In games like that, when you have one opportunity, you have to score. When I play against New Jersey, they have quite a good team. And playing against Scott Stevens — he's one of the better defensemen in the league and it's hard to beat him." Certainly, the Devils captain deserved much of the credit for holding Bure to that one shot on goal and an assist that was incidental to Mike Sillinger's goal which made it a 4-3 game. But everybody with any interest in this series knew that Stevens — and defense partner Brian Rafalski — would be matched against Bure. What nobody but Robinson knew was that left wing Sergei Brylin would spend the first two periods deployed as a shadow against Bure. "I just had a hunch," Robinson said after using Brylin with Bobby Holik and Randy McKay in the first period and then with Scott Gomez and Claude Lemieux when Bure moved onto a skating line with Sillinger and Ray Whitney. Part of Robinson's hunch was to wait until just before game time to spring his plan on the 26-year-old winger. "Just before the game, Larry told me he was going to use me against Bure," Brylin said. "I felt all right. I wasn't scared or anything. I said, 'I'll see what's going to happen.'" Nobody could have blamed Brylin if he had been frightened. And not just because Bure torched the NHL for 58 goals this season. Brylin, you see, has been marveling at Bure for years. Growing up in Moscow, Brylin followed the Russian Rocket in the CSKA Moscow hockey system, three years behind and playing on all the same teams with Pavel's younger brother, Valeri, with whom Brylin became a close friend. "Every time we had a chance to see him play it was just a great experience for us," Brylin said. Last night, though, Brylin had to do more than just watch Pavel Bure. He had to stop him.
As if getting that job done weren't enough, Brylin also outscored Bure, taking advantage of his elder's indifferent backchecking to make it 3-0 late in the first period. Not bad for a hunch.
Goalies Off the Mark? Bure Foiled? Really? In the hockey playoffs, the first game does not necessarily mean much in terms of who wins a series. The loser has time to adjust strategy and change momentum. But openers are filled with subplots that become major themes as two teams get familiar. Several were evident last night as the Devils defeated the Florida Panthers, 4-3, in Game 1 of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in Continental Arena. One of them, an unexpected development, was substandard goaltending by two veterans who usually deliver better -- Martin Brodeur and Mike Vernon. The angle everyone expected was the matchup between Pavel Bure, the Florida sniper, and Scott Stevens, the veteran defenseman of the Devils. In that Bure led the National Hockey League in goals with 58 in the regular season, Stevens jumped on the ice to try to stop him every time Bure took a shift. Who would have thought that Stevens would lead Bure in goals by 1-0 after just 98 seconds? More curious still was Bure's playing time early. In the first period, Bure skated for only 3 minutes and 27 seconds and was minus-2 in the plus/minus ratio. Terry Murray of Florida may have outcoached himself "to try and slow things down a bit," he said, by resting Bure. Bure finished with 18:57 of ice time and was asked if Stevens got the best of their matchup. "Obviously, he did, if I didn't score and we lost the game," Bure said. In the final minutes, he lurked near Brodeur's crease as a shot came from the point. Stevens saw Bure and knocked him over. "I didn't want him to step in front for a screen or a tip," said Stevens, who added that Bure may have exaggerated his fall to try to draw a penalty. Bure's playing time in the first period was about half that of Florida's Peter Worrell, a large and rugged forward who drew the attention of the Devils and their fans every time he touched the puck. Worrell does a few things well, but he rarely scores. Who would have expected Worrell to beat Brodeur with a long shot to cut the Devils' lead to 3-2? Not Brodeur. "I don't like to get scored on from there," Brodeur said. "Tough break." How the Devils deal with Worrell could affect this series. He scored after stepping out of the penalty box following a two-minute roughing penalty for punching John Madden in the face, knocking him to the ice. Madden was one of several Devils who checked or tried to check Worrell, the largest athlete in the match. The Devils' fans constantly booed him. When asked if his players showed too much attention to Worrell, Coach Larry Robinson said: "We didn't have to. The fans were doing a good enough job." They have reason to dislike him. In a late-season game here, Worrell ran amok, bashing various Devils in several collisions. Scott Niedermayer, the Devils' defenseman, retaliated by hitting Worrell's helmeted head with his stick, drawing a 10-game suspension. As Worrell left the ice that night with a concussion that sidelined him for six games, he repeatedly made a throat-slashing gesture. The last game of Niedermayer's suspension was last night and he will be back for Game 2 on Sunday. Everyone will watch to see what happens when they meet. Niedermayer is also part of another subplot. His brother, Rob Niedermayer, is one of the Panthers' key forwards and an alternate captain. Another family angle also applies to Bure, who got an assist in the second period as his playing time increased and his effectiveness improved. Bure's brother, Valery Bure, plays for Calgary and is not in the playoffs. But their father, Vladimir Bure, is around, and he is not cheering for his son Pavel. They became estranged a few years ago for reasons never made public. However, Vladimir Bure is active in hockey as a personal trainer. He works with Scott Gomez and a few other Devils and is staying with Gomez during this series. In an interview with The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Vladimir Bure said: "I have to be going for New Jersey. My heart is with the Devils." As for the goaltending, it could be summed up in an image from the second period, when Gomez scored from long range to give the Devils a 4-2 lead. Vernon may have been screened on the deflected shot. He partially blocked the puck. Failing to control it, he lay flat on his back like a patient on an operating table as the puck trickled across the goal line in slow motion. But the lasting image of the goaltending came in the previous period, when Worrell's long shot started from one of the toll booths on the Garden State Parkway. Brodeur was not screened, but he waved at the puck as it sailed by as if he were just the E-ZPass machine, there merely to witness and record the transaction. Certainly these goalies should improve as this series clicks into gear. Vernon has two Stanley Cup rings, from Calgary and Detroit, and Brodeur has one, with the Devils. Perhaps they should remove them and loosen up their fingers.
Against Stevens, Bure had no chance With his team trailing 4-3 and time running out, Panthers sniper Pavel Bure floated in front of the Devils net, hoping to create a scoring chance. Seconds later -- with one stiff check -- Bure was back along the boards again, trying to regain his balance. Scott Stevens provided that check, and it was a familiar scene last night at Continental Airlines Arena. Whenever Bure skated on the ice, Stevens usually followed. He was an unwelcome shadow. "It's a matter of being aware of where he is, keeping the puck off his stick, trying to contain him on the one-on-ones," Stevens said. "A couple of times when he came in on me, I just tried to let him make his move and be patient with it." The Devils defenseman helped limit Bure to just one shot in 20 shifts. Bure, the NHL's leading scorer in the regular season with 58 goals, led the league with 360 shots this season. "Stevens is one of the best defensemen in the league," Bure said. "It's tough to get chances. But you still have to find a way. You have to create something." Bure did create something -- scoring chances for the Devils. While he had an assist in the game, he also was a defensive liability. He was on the ice for three Devils goals, including two in the first period, as the Panthers dropped the first game of this series, 4-3.
It wasn't just Stevens who kept him quiet. Florida coach Terry Murray played Bure for just 3:27 of the first period as the Devils took a 3-0 lead. "I did that just to get two lines on the ice on a regular basis to try to settle things down a bit," Murray said. "I haven't seen a group of guys that nervous in many, many years." When asked about his limited ice time early, Bure shrugged. "Terry is a smart coach," he said, "and I just have to trust the coach." The Devils scored twice and just missed on a third goal during Bure's five first-period shifts. With 4:58 left in the period, Bure left Devils winger Sergei Brylin alone at the faceoff circle, and linemate Randy McKay fed Brylin with a pass from behind the net. Bure could not get back before Brylin put the puck past Panthers goalie Mike Vernon. "I wouldn't fault any one player," Murray said. "That was a team loss, and if we win, it will be a team win. Bure, overall, I thought did a good job." The Devils, as they promised leading up to the game this week, focused much of the energies on stopping him. It's a strategy they will continue Sunday in Game 2. "It's not that Bure was quiet," center Bobby Holik said. "Scotty Stevens and the guys who were supposed to shadow him did a great job, but I still think we can still do a little better. Sometimes everybody gets focused on Bure and we create gaps, and that's where the other skilled players on their team take advantage of it. We have to tighten up."
Murray refuses to launch Rocket There was Mike Vernon, generous as always while on Meadowlands playoff ice, leaving it enraged last night, screaming at referee Kerry Fraser for reasons only he can know. Better that the goaltender, routed twice in New Jersey while a Red Wing during the 1995 sweep of the finals, should have saved his ire for himself and his coach in last night's Game 1 of the Eastern quarters. Vernon made a couple of stops last night but surrendered a couple of uglies, too. While his teammates seemed to have no clue whatsoever in their own end during the first period, when they were on the verge of being blown all the way from East Rutherford to Newark, the netminder was of little help. But then, so in the first period specifically, and in the game generally, was Terry Murray, who did the Devils quite the favor by keeping Pavel Bure on the bench for all but 3:27 of the opening 20 minutes. Indeed, the coach kept the Russian Rocket, the league's most explosive offensive weapon, in his silo for all but 18:57 of the match. In a third period that began and ended 4-3 Devils, Murray awarded Bure six even-strength turns, never once short-shifting him or double-shifting him in order to get him away from the stifling Scott Stevens-Brian Rafalski defensive pair Larry Robinson had matched up against him throughout. Bure, who averaged 24:23 of ice throughout the regular season, had just one shot on goal, that a flubbed rebound attempt in the second period. He went minus-two. He might just as well have been Pavel Brendl, for the impact he had on last night's match. Murray's explanation for giving Bure so little time in the first had something to do with wanting to settle his team down in the defensive zone, wanting to establish three lines. We'd put more stock in it if we hadn't seen Murray keep Eric Lindros on the bench for inordinate lengths of time in Game 1 of the 1997 Finals against Detroit to keep 88 away from Sergei Fedorov. During the following day's practice, Lindros had a lengthy chat on the ice with Murray, and had a frown on for the short remaining time of the series. That, of course, was the series during which Murray referred to his team as being in a "choking situation." If Bure had any notion of pulling a Sprewell and with his own hands putting the coach in a choking situation, he did not show it when the match had ended. Despite going through the game with maybe one good scoring chance, Bure was stoical when questioned as to his limited ice time. "It's a team game and Terry is an excellent coach," Bure said. "You have to trust the coach." Robinson, coaching his first win in his fifth game behind a playoff bench - his Kings had been swept out by the Blues two years ago - varied his looks up front against Bure, but most often sent the feisty Sergei Brylin out to line up against him. Brylin was outstanding. So, too, were Stevens and Rafalski. The captain played one of his best playoff games in a career that becomes more distinguished with each season, playing it smart, keeping Bure in his sights even when that required eyes in the back of his head, given the Russian Rocket's penchant for pulling out of the defensive zone early. "He's different than anybody else, not only because of his speed, but because with the way he plays, you don't always have him in front of you when you're in the offensive zone," Stevens said. "Either he doesn't come back or he leaves early; he's not going to get involved there and caught in traffic, you know that." If Stevens had the type of big-time game that will eventually lead to his election to the Hall of Fame, Rafalski had the type of night that supports his bid for this season's Calder Trophy. Though he made a mistake on Florida's third goal, the freshman was more than solid. His physical work was a revelation, even if not quite that to Robinson. "Maybe because he was in key situations you noticed him more, but pound for pound he's one of the toughest guys on the team to beat one-on-one," the coach said. Bure led the NHL with 58 goals, 14 more than runner-up Owen Nolan, and he got them in just 74 games. He scored 45 goals at even strength. He - get this - scored 29 goals in the third period, even allowing that nine of them were empty-netters. He is, without question, the league's singular show. In other words, if Murray isn't up to it, somebody had better find a way to get Bure some more ice time in Sunday night's Game 2.
Bure invisible in loss New Jersey's advantages on the Panthers in size, strength and playoff experience aren't so prodigious that this series is a matchup of men against boys. But those gaps are clear enough to make the difference of maybe a goal per game, and that was the distance between the Devils and Panthers on Thursday night as New Jersey took Game 1 of this Eastern Conference quarterfinal series 4-3. The teams played the five-goal first period as if the last one with the puck wins. That wasn't the game either team desired, especially the Panthers, who were down 1-0 1:38 into the game, 2-0 after 4:02 and 3-0 after 15:28. Two of the goals came off New Jersey forwards muscling around low in the zone. "As long as I've been with the Devils, that's always been the strongest part of our offensive game, where we cycle and create opportunities like that by moving and going to the net," New Jersey center Bobby Holik said. Florida coach Terry Murray blamed it on the Panthers' early jitters. "I haven't seen as nervous a group of guys in that first period in many, many years," Murray said. "Standing around and watching the other team coming at us, and the decisions we made were very costly." But Panthers captain Scott Mellanby said it's more how the nervousness was handled. "I think they were nervous, too," Mellanby said. "Everybody's nervous for the first game of the playoffs. They've got some players over there who have been in some big-time games, and they did a better job of channeling those emotions." Said Panthers defenseman Todd Simpson: "I wasn't nervous. I thought I was prepared and ready. They came right at us and we didn't really respond. "I was almost more nervous in the second period than I was in the first. It was the kind of game [where] the puck wasn't bouncing right. It was going off the linesman or going off the boards funny." That covers the game-winner. A neutral-zone back-pass by Florida's Ray Whitney seemed to surprise Simpson. Simpson chased down the puck behind the net and backhanded it off the left boards. Mike Sillinger misjudged the strange carom, allowing Scott Gomez to snare it. Gomez's slapshot went off goalie Mike Vernon's left pad for a 4-2 Devils lead. New Jersey got Scott Stevens out against Pavel Bure regularly and that certainly helped hold Bure to one shot on goal. But what helped hold Bure even more was the mere 18:57 of ice time he had, especially the 3:27 in the first period, when nobody wearing skates was on the ice less. Bure usually puts in a 25-minute night. That resulted from Murray juggling the Panthers' first three lines for the first period and some of the second, a move that surprised New Jersey coach Larry Robinson. Said Murray: "I was just trying to get three lines or two lines on a more regular basis to try to slow things down a little bit. To get the puck in and get a little time spent in the offensive zone. There was no other reason." Stevens was out for Bure's first shift, but was at the end of his, having been suckered onto the ice when Bure's usual linemates, Sillinger and Whitney, had come on the previous shift with Mark Parrish. But Stevens still had enough energy to blast a slapshot into the upper right corner of the net for a 1-0 New Jersey lead. Another defenseman caught at the end of a shift was victimized 2:24 later as Jersey took a 2-0 lead. Petr Sykora beat Panthers defenseman Bret Hedican to a loose puck behind the Panthers' net. Hedican's ineffectual crosschecks didn't prevent Sykora from rolling out from behind the net and throwing a backhander on net that slithered by Vernon. "The second goal, that's a play we've got to make," Murray said of Hedican. It took another 11:26 for that lead to expand to 3-0. Holik took a spill with the puck to the left of the Panthers' goal. Panthers defenseman Mike Wilson went after the loose puck and tripped over the goal line. New Jersey's Randy McKay showed up to feed Sergei Brylin in the circle. Before Bure could get to Brylin, Brylin had whistled a wrister into the far corner. The following shift, the new checking line of Alex Hicks, Rob Niedermayer and Mellanby came over the New Jersey line on a three-on-two. Hicks, in the middle, went right to Mellanby and Mellanby passed back across to Niedermayer. Goalie Martin Brodeur gave what amounted to an "Oh, well" turn of his body toward Niedermayer as Niedermayer hit the yawning net to close the gap to 3-1. When Florida's Peter Worrell was released from serving a roughing penalty, he was wide open on the left wing for a cross-ice pass from Robert Svehla. There was nothing to do but blast the puck, which was on end. The shot went off the heel of Brodeur's glove and into the net with 16.5 seconds left in the first period. Bure nearly tied it on his first shot of the game, 1:12 into the second. Len Barrie got control of a bouncing puck above the left circle and sent it to Bure at the right post. Bure one-timed it into the torso of a sliding Brodeur. Sillinger, Whitney and Bure were reunited in the second period and got the final goal of the game. When Stevens and Brylin didn't see the need to cover Sillinger and Bure on a rebound, Sillinger rapped home a rebound of a Lance Pitlick point shot. The Devils lost Jason Arnott, center of their No. 1 line, when he went to get X-rays for a wrist injury after the second period. Those X-rays were negative.
Bure Gets on Board for St. Pete Tourney Pavel Bure has said he will play for Russia in the World Ice Hockey Championships in St. Petersburg later this month if his NHL team is knocked out early in the Stanley Cup playoffs, according to Sport Express. Bure, who led the NHL with 58 goals this season, will be available only if the Florida Panthers lose to the New Jersey Devils in the first round of the playoffs. Another prominent NHL player, Alexei Yashin, who is sitting out this year due to a contract dispute with the Ottawa Senators, has already begun practicing with the Russian team. Yashin will be allowed to play only if the Senators are eliminated from the NHL playoffs. The world championships run from April 29 to May 14th.
Prince Pavel It is just past noon on one of those glorious afternoons so common to South Florida and so seldom seen in a place like, say, Russia, when the black Mercedes wheels out of the parking garage beneath National Car Rental Center. The driver pops the horn once and spins into the sunshine. The Panthers have finished practice. Astonishing possibilities so common to this kind of South Florida free time and so seldom seen in a place like, say, Russia, await Prince Pavel -- heir to the empire's sports throne in the wake of King Daniel's abdication -- as he heads for a nearby restaurant, all bright and loud and trendy in the bright and loud and trendy manner of such establishments. Business is good. The lunchtime crowd is happy with meal and drink. There is no place to sit. Ah, but this is Prince Pavel. Advance notice has been given. The proprietor has been called and is expecting. Later, the Russian prince will tell a story not of empty rooms but of empty plates. He is 29 years old now, too grown up and not grown up enough depending on circumstance of his celebrity. Bure is not only the Panthers' superstar, but one of the NHL's as well. He scored 58 goals this season -- more than anyone else in the league -- and tonight leads Florida against New Jersey in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in which the Panthers, simply because of Bure's presence, could make themselves a presence. That is what Bure means to the franchise. Even the abridged version of how Bure came to Florida and came, in short order, to be Prince Pavel is complicated. What he did, basically, in forcing last season's massive trade was hold the Vancouver Canucks -- with whom he was under contract -- hostage. He refused to play for them. He staged a five-month holdout, is what he did. "It's important to believe in who you are and what you are, because then it is easier to see what you want," Bure said. He and his visitor are alone behind closed doors shutting out the restaurant's din except for a man seated a slap shot's distance away. He is answering the prince's cell phone that rings constantly. When the ringing gets to be too great a distraction, Bure speaks in Russian, not harshly but certainly firmly, and you don't have to know the language to understand the message. The phone stops ringing, and won't ring again for as long as Bure chooses to sit and sip on a soft drink. Bure, satisfied, returns to the subject of the trade. "One of the best lessons I've had in life," he said. How so? He believed in himself, saw what he wanted and got it in the form of a five-year, $47.5 million deal with the Panthers. Upon his arrival in Florida, Bure immediately began doing what he does best. He was better than a goal-a-game scorer, but only for 11 games before a torn ACL -- the second of those horrific knee injuries he has suffered -- ended his season. Almost from that time until now, Bure has been as famous for his supposed liaisons (with teenage tennis ingenue Anna Kournikova) and business associations (with Anzor Kikalishvili, who is presumed by U.S. and Russian governments to be a mafia leader in Moscow) and familial disassociations (with father, Vladimir) as he has been for his hockey. "I cannot see (the point of) this," Bure said. "I will tell you one thing for sure. I am tired of the words people are putting in our mouths." Still, he won't use his own words to explain whether he is or isn't engaged to Kournikova or if his friendship with Kikalishvili includes underworld connections or how much he blames/credits his father for everything that has happened since they came to the United States almost a decade ago. "To be living in the United States for nine years, I have learned things," Bure said. "But it is hard to understand about people who don't know me telling what is right and wrong and good and bad for my life. I can decide those things for myself. These are not things we talk about in the Russian culture. With the Red Army team, no one talked about families." Bure had two different kinds of family life in Russia. His father was an Olympic swimmer -- he won a silver medal and three bronzes -- in the 1968, '72 and '76 Games. As a world-class athlete, Bure, and, by connection, the Bure family, led a comfortable life. But a divorce in 1983 changed the family's economic situation, at least until the teenager who would become Prince Pavel emerged as a prominent athlete himself with that Red Army team. "We went from the top to the bottom to the top again," Bure said. Now, in the upscale restaurant where the valet has parked the fancy car and where a manager has stopped by every couple of minutes to make sure glasses are always full, Bure holds direct eye contact for the first time in a conversation that has lasted more than a half an hour. He is thinking of those most difficult times. "I remember my mother working two jobs and being hungry herself so I would have something good to eat," Bure said. "To have a steak was special. I think when we did not have so much was good for teaching me to appreciate little things more than I did before. I think that is the best way to learn about anything." He was not, he says, a child who pulled knowledge from books, which, in adulthood, he reads with tastes running to historical novels or biographies of Russian politicians. "I knew how to get A's and B's," Bure said, "but I think what school does is it teaches you how to use your brains. Not one book, not one professor can teach you that." Which is why, as a child, Bure would think nothing of missing a school day for a chance to run through the streets of Moscow to catch a glimpse of late Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's motorcade. "I am surprised," Bure said, "about how much people in the United States don't care about their politics. It is the biggest thing for me in Russia." And still is. He reads newspapers sent to him from Russia when he is home in South Beach. He knows his way around Moscow's halls of governmental and editorial power -- "I have many friends there," Bure said -- and doesn't rule out his own pursuit of a political future. "I am not 30 years old yet," he said. "There is a lot of time for me to think about that." For all his interest in and knowledge of Russian politics, though, Bure hesitates when asked about candidates for the U.S presidency. But he gets it right, eventually. "Bush?" he says, finally. "Gore? And the elections are this year . . . in November?" He has been in the U.S. since 1991 when he and his brother, Valeri, now of the Calgary Flames, came with their father to this country. He has gained wealth and fame here, and admits how it's difficult not to love the life. "There is a pretty big chance to be happy here," Bure said. It is now early afternoon and the rain so common to South Florida has come and gone during Bure's visit to the restaurant. He peels off a couple of bills, and his valet tip is more than double the charge for parking the car. Bure slides in behind the wheel and is gone to chase whatever it is he feels like chasing at the moment. Back in the restaurant, a waiter clears a table of an empty plate.
Bure's 21 club records he broke or tied this season
New Jersey 4, Florida 3 His son's team might have lost, but it was a night that Vladimir Bure could be proud. Bure trainees Sergei Brylin and Scott Gomez scored big goals and the New Jersey Devils kept Vladimir's son in check in a 4-3 victory over the Florida Panthers in the opener of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series. Pavel Bure, whose 58 goals during the regular season led the NHL by a landslide, has a strained relationship with his father. The two do not keep contact. Vladimir Bure, a former Olympic swimmer who raised two sons to be offensive forces in the NHL, is personal trainer to a number of NHL players, including Gomez, Brylin and Devils defenseman Colin White. The elder Bure is here to root on his trainees and not answer questions about the sketchy relationship with his superstar son. Vladimir Bure even told a Florida newspaper that he is rooting for the Devils, because his heart is "with his Jersey boys." Gomez is the favorite to win the Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year. He made his father and his opponent's proud at 7:21 of the second period when he beat Mike Vernon with a slap shot from the top of the left faceoff cirlce to give the Devils a 4-2 lead. The puck appeared to hit Florida defenseman Mike Wilson in front of the net and trickle through Vernon's pads. Brylin, who like the Bures is Russian, beat Vernon high to the glove side with a heavy wrist shot from the left faceoff dot at 15:28 of the first period to stake New Jersey to a 3-0 lead. Florida got back into the game on goals by Rob Niedermayer and pugilist Peter Worrell in the final 3:05 of the opening period. Niedermayer's older brother, Devils defenseman Scott Niedermayer, served the final game of his 10-game suspension for hitting Worrell over the head with his stick on March 19. He will be back in the lineup for Game Two here Sunday night. Pavel Bure finally got on the scoresheet with 6:10 left in the second period. He got an assist when he touched the puck in front of the net before Mike Sillinger beat Martin Brodeur from a sharp angle on the right side off a rebound. Known as the "Russian Rocket," Bure nearly erased a 3-2 deficit 72 seconds into the second period when he swatted at a puck at the right side of the net. But Brodeur stacked his pads and smothered Bure's first shot of the game. There was one penalty -- on Worrell -- through the first two periods. Florida got its first power play with 14:26 left in the game when Vladimir Malakhov was whistled for interference, but the Panthers managed only one shot and iced the puck as the infraction expired. Florida pulled Vernon for an extra attacker with 66 seconds remaining but could not manage a good chance at the equalizer. Scott Stevens scored 98 seconds into the game and Petr Sykora tallied at 4:02 as New Jersey jumped to a 2-0 lead and showed no ill effects of a dreadful late-season slump. That slide prompted general manager Lou Lamoriello to fire coach Robbie Ftorek and promote assistant Larry Robinson. It also cost the Devils the top seed in the Eastern Conference. They finished as the fourth seed behind division winners Philadelphia, Washington and Toronto. Devils center Jason Arnott did not return after the second period. He went to a local hospital for X-rays on his wrist. Bobby Holik took his spot between Sykora and Patrik Elias on the Devils' No. 1 line. Pavel had only shot shot on goal credited, and was a minus two for the game.
Bure, Palffy seen as big game breakers When general manager Bryan Murray persuaded Florida Panthers ownership to spend $47 million on Pavel Bure last season, he essentially was buying only one goal. He was paying $9.5 million a season for The Big Goal. "If your team can play hard and be even going into the third period, this guy gives you a chance to win every night," Murray said. "He's a home-run hitter. He loves to score. He loves to score big goals. I really think you will see him go to another level in the playoffs (against the New Jersey Devils)." Given the New York Rangers' failure this season, it's trendy to suggest that money can't buy a championship. But the Panthers and Los Angeles Kings are proof that some well-spent dollars go a long way to significantly upgrading a hockey team. Just as the Panthers were resuscitated by Bure's arrival, the Kings have been a far more dangerous team since they acquired Ziggy Palffy, who had signed a five-year, $26 million deal with the New York Islanders last season. "What he is for us is the game breaker," Los Angeles Kings general manager Dave Taylor says. "He can beat someone one-on-one. He can find the open man. We have taken big strides in our offensive play -- in our goal scoring. He's been the catalyst." With dazzling scorers in such short supply around the NHL, Taylor and Murray were happy to have the opportunity to land someone with the potential to score a timely goal. Despite missing the last three weeks with a shoulder injury, Palffy still finished with 27 goals and 39 assists in 64 games. With the Kings facing the offensively charged Detroit Red Wings in the first round, his scoring touch is even more crucial. "We certainly look to him for big things," Taylor said. "I think he will be excited because he hasn't participated in the playoffs before." Taylor doesn't believe Palffy's lack of NHL playoff experience will be a factor because he's faced pressure before at the Olympics and the World Championships. Experience isn't an issue for Bure, who has averaged better than a point a game in postseason play and has been as far as the Stanley Cup Finals (with Vancouver in 1994). The Devils are expected to dog Bure relentlessly in this series. "They are responsible defensively,'" Murray said. '"They will do a good job against him. But you only have to make one mistake in the latter stages of a game and he can beat you." Late in the season, the Panthers made a change with the hope of getting Bure more offensive chances. Mike Sillinger, acquired from Tampa Bay, became Bure's center to take advantage of several factors, including his faceoff skill. "It gives us a little more puck possession," Murray said. "(Sillinger's) faceoff stats are a little bit better than Viktor's. (We) like to have Pavel to start out in a faceoff in the offensive zone. It gives you that one extra shot."
That's one extra shot to get The Big Goal.
Bure's father will root for Devils Watching practice Wednesday, the New Jersey Devils' general manager was joined by a familiar face. He sat beside Lou Lamoriello and crossed his legs in the exact manner that South Florida's most popular hockey player does. The visitor stood up, started to stroll around Continental Airlines Arena, sat down again and smiled as he watched likely Calder Trophy winner Scott Gomez school Devils defenseman Scott Stevens. He sat in the stands until every Devils player departed the ice, finally getting up when Scott Niedermayer, taking extra work from assistant coach Slava Fetisov, hopped off. The familiar face walked into the locker room as if he were part of the team and was greeted with smiles as he began chatting with forwards Alexander Mogilny, Sergei Nemchinov and Sergei Brylin. That familiar face -- in a lot of ways it looks the same as his famous oldest son's -- was Vladimir Bure. In most situations this would be a strange sight: On the eve of Game 1 of the playoffs, a series in which Pavel Bure will be trying to lead the Panthers to their first postseason-round victory since 1996, Vladimir Bure was fraternizing with the enemy. Well, not exactly. Vladimir has better ties with most Devils players than with his son. Yes, adding yet another twist to what already is expected to be a contentious series, Vladimir Bure will be rooting against Pavel Bure and the Panthers. "I have to be going for New Jersey," said Vladimir, still with his eyes focused on the puck that Fetisov repeatedly fed Niedermayer. "The Devils … my heart is with the Devils." ] Vladimir will be in town throughout the playoffs, but he won't be calling Pavel at his hotel for lunch. Although few used to love watching Pavel score goals more than his father, Vladimir won't be embracing his son this week. When each game is over, Vladimir will retire to Gomez's house in Clifton, N.J. Pavel? He'll go his separate way, too, because he and his father have not spoken in nearly three years. Neither will reveal why. Pavel politely dismisses questions about his dad with "That's my private life. I'll talk hockey." He similarly declined to comment Wednesday night. On Wednesday, Vladimir said, "I don't like to talk about this. I'm not here for this purpose. I'm not here to discuss my relationship with my son. I'm here to be with my Jersey boys." Vladimir, a swimmer who lost to Mark Spitz during the 1972 Olympics, is a personal trainer. Last summer he spent weeks training Gomez, Brylin, Colin White, now-former Devil Vadim Sharifijanov and prospect Pierre Dagenais. He's trained many others, including Mogilny and one of Pavel's close friends, Gino Odjick. "It's a joy for me to be here now and see what I did for these guys in the summertime," Vladimir said. "My program is specifically for hockey players." The program consisted of six days a week of getting the Devils up at 7:30, making them run sprints, lift weights and participate in other sports. "Gomez, I can recognize what good player he is going to be," Vladimir said. "He has good quickness and speed. He understands what it takes, what kind of focus. He's good at all sports -- tennis, soccer, basketball, swimming." Vladimir, who still lives in Vancouver where Pavel began his NHL career, maintains he never was given a reason for the split between him and Pavel and his younger brother, Valeri. Asked if there's a chance for reconciliation, Vladimir said, "I just don't want to talk about it. I shouldn't." He tries not to watch them on TV because he says it hurts too much. He did not go to the All-Star Game, where they dominated. But Vladimir, who introduced his sons to the sport, who coached them, who helped them escape the Soviet Union for Los Angeles, will be in the arena tonight watching Pavel play in person for the first time since he was traded to the Panthers. Vladimir did come to a game this season in Vancouver, but a broken finger kept Pavel out. "I'm just happy he had good season," Vladimir said. "He played his game. He scored 58 goals. He's focused on the game. He usually does everything that would help him be a better hockey player, so I'm not surprised he played this good after (knee) surgery. He's worked hard all his life. "He'll probably have good playoffs."
But if he does, there won't be a handshake or a hug. Not even a goodbye.
Bure must not focus solely on scoring Pavel Bure gets attention. It's as simple as that for the Florida Panthers, who lope into Continental Airlines Arena tonight for Game 1 of their first-round series with the Devils. Whether it's because he's dating -- maybe marrying -- tennis star Anna Kournikova, or burning opposing defensemen on a beautiful rush, or scoring goals like no one does in the NHL anymore, Bure is always the focus, and the Panthers are waiting to see how he deals with it throughout this series. That's because the kind of attention Bure is likely to get from the Devils isn't the politely nosy kind. It's the big, tough, physical kind, the type of attention that puts players on their backs, gasping for breath, or makes them wonder when the next slightly raised stick is coming. "A guy like Pavel is going to have to expect that he's going to get hit, going to get run a little bit," Panthers defenseman Bret Hedican said. "But, he should also expect to do the things he does best when he has the opportunity to get back at those guys." And that doesn't necessarily mean scoring a timely goal against the Devils. To Bure, that might mean a little orneriness on his part. You don't expect it from Bure, who is slightly built and softly featured, but you get it sometimes, and he can be mean. Bure laid out former NHL tough guy Shane Churla with an elbow during the 1994 playoffs after Bure got tired of the attempts at intimidation. This time around, it's likely that Devils captain Scott Stevens will be the one to make those attempts. During the Devils' 2-1 overtime victory over Florida in the regular-season finale last Saturday, Bure and Stevens exchanged a few love taps with their sticks throughout the game. Bure said he'll be ready for it during this series. "He (Stevens) always plays tough. That's his style," Bure said. "You can play tough as well and finish all your checks, or you can ignore it and concentrate on the game. I can play either way." The Panthers need Bure to score goals more than they need him to throw the body, but they are hoping that Bure spends a bit more time than usual paying attention to his positioning on the ice and his defensive responsibilities. Bure is apt to hang around the blueline or in the neutral zone, waiting for that quick headman pass that springs him on an uncontested breakaway. The opposition knows that, and last Saturday, Devils coach Larry Robinson made sure he put his most potent offensive line -- Petr Sykora, Jason Arnott, and Patrik Elias -- out against Bure as much as possible. That line outshot Bure and linemates Ray Whitney and Mike Sillinger 12-3, and Arnott had both goals in the game. "They play a lot like Europeans," Florida defenseman Jaroslav Spacek said of the Devils' trio. "They don't finish checks, they just circle around, cycle the puck, keep it going. "Pavel doesn't play defense much. He's always skating around, and that leaves more space for them to play. They know Pavel comes back late into our zone and it's like playing 4-on-4. That's good for them." Bad for Florida, but only if the puck winds up behind Mike Vernon. If it goes wide and Bure gets the quick outlet pass, or if the puck rings around the boards and toward the neutral zone, then there he goes, off for a showdown with Martin Brodeur at the other end of the ice.
"When you look at how Pavel scored this year, a lot of his goals came from missed opportunities by the other offensive team, where he turns around and all of a sudden he's got a breakaway," Whitney said. "So it can be good or bad."
Pavel might play in St.Petersburg
Today's Russian edition of the daily Moscow sports newspaper, 'Sports Ekspress', reported that should the Florida Panthers be eliminated early from the Stanley Cup play-offs, then Bure will be prepared to play for the Russian team in the World Championship this month in St.Petersburg.
Pavel in 'Globe' rag
The April 18, 2000 issue of GLOBE, (with Ronald and Nancy Regan on the cover) has Anna Kournikova as it's main story on pages two and three.
Titled, FAULT! TENNIS ACE ANNA COURTS THREE HUNKS. The photos of the article are enclosed.
Beating Panthers means Devils must limit Bure If the New Jersey Devils are going to beat the Florida Panthers in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, they had better find a way to slow down Pavel Bure. In leading the NHL with 58 goals this season, Bure accounted for 24 percent of the Panthers' goals and 39 percent of their offense when his 36 assists were added in. He scored three of the Panthers' 10 goals against New Jersey in four games this season. "Anytime he gets the puck, it's like: `Look out,"' said Devils rookie center John Madden, who will see plenty of Bure while killing penalties. "His speed is so deadly. If he gets a guy one on one, there aren't too many guys who would enjoy that. He's dangerous around the net, he's dangerous anywhere on the ice." While the Devils should be used to that after facing Jaromir Jagr and the Pittsburgh Penguins in the playoffs last year, the job will be totally different against Bure when the best-of-7 series opens Thursday night at Continental Airlines Arena. Jagr not only scores, he beats teams all over the ice. Bure is an opportunist. He always seems to be in the right place at the right time in the offensive zone. Teammates do the grunt work and Bure finishes it off. "He's a guy with his quickness and speed," Devils defenseman Ken Daneyko said. "He finds a hole, finds loose pucks. He cheats, gets breakaways. You certainly have to be aware of him out there." The last time the Devils played the Panthers in Florida, interim coach Larry Robinson decided to give goalie Martin Brodeur a rest. Brodeur said the experience of watching Bure that night was enlightening. "I was on the bench yelling all the time: `Watch out, he's behind you,'" Brodeur said of Bure. "He stands along the board and let's everybody work. The next thing you know, he disappears and he puts it in." "He's a guy who is dangerous," added Brodeur, 6-0-3 against Florida since April 1997. "He has a burst of speed. He gets the puck at the blue line and if he had only one defenseman, the odds are he is going to get a great chance to score." The Devils will try to have defenseman Scott Stevens on the ice whenever Bure is out there. "They play a really boring game," Bure said. "But in the playoffs, you have to accept that and be really patient. I can be patient." Florida used Bure with a number of line combinations on Saturday against the Devils, and they probably will do that in this series. "I'm sure we'll see Stevens with Pavel most the series," Panthers forward Ray Whitney said. "But to counter that, you have to try to get him out against other defense pairings and lines." The Devils enter the playoffs with two strikes against them. They finished the season poorly (9-14-2) and have played horribly in the postseason the last three years, being eliminated in the first round the last two. Florida, which lost the Stanley Cup final to Colorado in 1996, is making its first playoff appearance in three years. The Devils, who won the season series with the Panthers 3-1, think the pressure will be off them this year because of the end of the season slump. Some players even look forward to playing Florida. That was definitely bulletin board material for Panthers coach Terry Murray.
"Well, we're happy to be playing them too," Murray said. "They certainly have to have concern considering the past playoff years. After the last three years, there's no question they have to be concerned about another first-round loss. Blocking that out is impossible. We're going to try to do the best we can in order for that to happen again."
Devils will down Pavel Bure, Panthers
Panthers vs. Devils
Eastern Conference playoffs
FLORIDA PANTHERS Season series: Devils won 3 games to 1. LEADING SCORERS Panthers: Pavel Bure. 58 goals, 36 assists (94 points) in 74 games, including 3-0--3 in four games vs. Devils. Devils: Patrik Elias. 35 goals, 37 assists (72 points) in 72 games, including 2-3--5 in four games vs. Panthers. THE CHESS MATCH Devils coach Larry Robinson likely won't be outcoached in the playoffs the way Robbie Ftorek was last season, but he has never won a playoff game as a head coach (0-4 with L.A. in 1998). Panthers coach Terry Murray is entering the playoffs for the ninth time in 10 seasons. In 1997 he guided Philadelphia to the Stanley Cup Finals. Their biggest battle will be centered around Pavel Bure. Robinson will be trying to keep either a checking line or his top defensive pairing (Scott Stevens, Brian Rafalski) out against The Russian Rocket. Murray will want Bure away from them and away from the Devils' line of Patrik Elias, Jason Arnott and Petr Sykora where his defensive play could be a liability. STAR GAZING While the biggest star of the first round may be tennis star Anna Kournikova, Bure's maybe-fiancee, Bure is the icon on the ice. He just had his fourth 50-goal, 90-point season in nine years in the league and, along with Pittsburgh's Jaromir Jagr and Buffalo goalie Dominik Hasek, he's one of the NHL's current flagship players. He is manageable, though, because he's only 5-10, 190, doesn't play physical and doesn't play defense. If the Devils can force him into doing either, they can knock him off his game. THE ULTIMATE GOAL Nothing the Devils do will matter if they can't score, a big problem in their last three playoff series defeats. The Elias-Arnott-Sykora line was OK in the playoffs last season (five goals in seven games), but they need to do more. And they can't do it alone. Enter Alexander Mogilny, who had just three goals in 12 games after arriving in a trade from Vancouver. Mogilny is 15-24--39 in 37 career playoff games, mostly with Buffalo in the early '90s. He's been too much of a playmaker since arriving as the Devils' hired gun. He needs to become the sniper he's always been. BEDEVILED DEVIL Bobby Holik has gone without a goal in 17 playoff games over three series. He's also slumping again, with just four goals and five assists in the last 26 games (no goals in his last seven). The Devils could use a surprisingly big series from their No. 2 center. ONE AND DONE? Not if the Devils can wrap up Bure. They had Pittsburgh beaten last season until Jagr took over. If Bure doesn't do the same, they're better than the Panthers and can use the first round to restore their confidence and their offense. They will be tested if they get down early, though. This is a mentally fragile team with excessive playoff baggage. A fast start is a must. Prediction: Devils in 6. It has to happen eventually . . . right?
Jagr Holds Off Bure to Win NHL's Scoring Title Jaromir Jagr was limited to only 63 of the Pittsburgh Penguins' 82 games, but that was enough to win his third straight scoring title. Jagr earned his fourth career Art Ross Trophy on Sunday, racking up 96 points despite an injury-plagued season. On Sunday, Pavel Bure scored his league-best 58th goal, but that only got him to 94 points in his 74 games played. Bure did, however, earn the Maurice [Rocket] Richard Trophy, awarded to the NHL's top goal scorer.
Bure, Jagr, Turek Take Regular-Season Awards Three of the NHL's most dynamic players captured awards for regular season excellence. The Florida Panthers' Pavel Bure won the Maurice Richard Trophy as the League's top goal-scorer in 1999-2000. The Penguins' Jaromir Jagr won his third straight Art Ross Trophy as the top overall scorer in the regular season, and St. Louis Blues rookie goalie Roman Turek captured the William M. Jennings Trophy for allowing the fewest goals during the regular season.
Points
Emphasis put on stopping Bure While Terry Murray gave the Panthers Monday off after back-to-back weekend games, New Jersey coach Larry Robinson held a long practice, two 50-minute sessions, to prepare for Thursday's playoff opener. The main concern is to neutralize Panthers superstar Pavel Bure. One strategy would be to assign a shadow to Bure, trying to duplicate what Claude Lemieux did vs. Boston in shutting down Cam Neely during the 1995 playoffs. "Claude's job on Neely was one of the best shadowing jobs of the era, so I agree shadowing has its merits," Robinson said. "But (Bure) is a different player, and it's not just that. A lot of times Pavel's not involved in the play, then he comes into it the last second and scores. "Positioning is so much more important. If you shadow him, that opens up a lot of the ice for him and makes more room against other players as well." It's more likely that Robinson will try to get defenseman Scott Stevens on the ice with Bure as often as possible, as well as his top line of Petr Sykora, Patrik Elias and Jason Arnott. That line gave the Panthers' top line fits in Saturday's loss. "The key will be to try to move Pavel around and get him out here and there against different line combinations and different sets of defensemen," linemate Ray Whitney said. "I'm sure we'll see Stevens with Pavel most the series, but to counter that, you have to try to get him out against other defense pairings and lines." Bure reiterated that he does not like playing New Jersey because of its defensive style, but he says he can adjust. "It's not really fun when the score is 2-1, and New Jersey is well known for that," Bure said. "They play a really boring game. But in the playoffs, you have to accept that and be really patient. I can be patient." Said Stevens, "If I had his wheels and his shot, I'd like a wide-open game too. I don't think he'll change his style in the playoffs." Tickets remain If you thought the Panthers' seasonlong problems selling tickets would change for the playoffs, think again. About 4,500 tickets are left for Game 3 on April 18 next Tuesday and 5,000 remain for Game 4 on April 20. Playoff tickets range from $14 to $75, the same as for the regular season.
Panther Pack tickets for both games were sold in 10 minutes.
Devils-Cats to be hit series The New Jersey Devils say they don't mind being the ones to reintroduce the Panthers to the playoffs. No kidding. The Devils unofficially began The Swamp Series in the third period Saturday in the Meadowlands. There was Jersey defenseman Scott Stevens giving Panthers right wing Pavel Bure enough post-puck play slashes that Bure answered with his own brand of stickwork. There was Bobby Holik and Claude Lemieux harassing left wing Ray Whitney when they weren't trying to goad tough guy Peter Worrell. One more shot, one more slash, one more face wash for the road . . . You do it to the superstars to intimidate them, you do it to the temperamental guys to draw them into taking a retaliation penalty. It isn't dirty play, mind you. "That'll be playoff hockey," shrugged Whitney. The Devils' roster is dotted with guys expert at this side of the game. What'll be interesting is to see how the Panthers respond, especially when the belligerence concerns skill players such as Bure, Whitney and Viktor Kozlov. "You look at [Pittsburgh's Jaromir] Jagr, [Colorado's Peter] Forsberg and [Dallas' Mike] Modano, these players who have won championships, it's taken time for them to deal with the extra [hits]," Panthers defenseman Bret Hedican said. "When they get on the power play or get an opportunity to put the extra thorn in the side, those players do that." "A guy like Pavel is going to have to expect that he's going to get hit, going to get run a little bit," Hedican continued. "But, he should also expect to do the things he does best when he has the opportunity to get back at those guys." Or, do the things that reminds you that a little bit of crazy can create a lot of space. Nobody will forget The Shane Churla Incident from the 1994 Vancouver-Dallas second round series. Churla, Dallas' enforcer, tried bullying Bure. Bure took some guff, then decided this called for massive retaliation. Churla never saw the flying elbow. All you have to know about NHL playoff hockey officiating is that, despite the presence of Hall of Fame referee Andy vanHellemond and two linesmen who could've helped on the call, Bure wasn't penalized. The NHL winked at Bure with a $500 fine. Stevens is much better at this guerrilla hockey than Churla, however. "He always plays tough. That's his style," Bure said. "You can play tough as well and finish all your checks, or you can ignore it and concentrate on the game. I can play either way." Said Hedican: "Obviously, we as teammates have to be there for everybody, for Pavel and other teammates." Not responding in some manner gets the opposing bench salivating at the smell of fear. There are those who think the 1995 Stanley Cup Final between Detroit and Jersey ended in the third period of Game 2. Stevens obliterated Detroit's Slava Kozlov with a gorgeous legal hit as Kozlov cut toward the slot on a rush. Kozlov eventually rose. Nobody on the Red Wings bench rose up on Stevens. Jersey, down 2-1 in the game, scored the next eight goals of the series and took the Cup in a four-game sweep. Sometimes, the best defense is a good offense. "If we're hard on their skill guys, it's going to make them take notice," Panthers defenseman Todd Simpson said. "That's the best way to get back at that sort of thing." Said Panthers defenseman Lance Pitlick: "I'm sure over the next couple of days that both teams will have meetings to target players they think are going to be momentum changers." For example, over last week's two Panthers-Jersey games, enmity began to blossom between Florida's Len Barrie and Jersey's Rookie of the Year candidate, Scott Gomez. Gomez's already fabled cool will be tested. "We don't want to be taking penalties," Simpson said. "We want to make sure they don't get away with anything, but let them take the penalties on Pavel and Whitney. Regular season you can run around a little bit more and take care of business." Such as when Jersey's Colin White punched Bure's helmet off with two overhands from behind Saturday, taking a roughing penalty that gave the Panthers a 23-second five-on-three advantage in the third period. That could've cost the Devils the game. Pitlick was with Ottawa when the Senators upset Jersey two years ago. On the target list then, he said, were Stevens, center Doug Gilmour and defenseman Scott Niedermayer. "Guys that get a lot of ice time," Pitlick said. "You just want to make their life miserable, always having to play through people, never an easy skate."
Fury of Bure The Right Arm Pump is the image of the most successful individual regular season in the Panthers' seven-season history. And, because that individual season led to the team's most successful regular season (Florida faces New Jersey in the first round of the playoffs starting Thursday), the Pump should be the season's symbol overall. The Right Arm Pump is Pavel Bure's usual celebration of his goals, usually accompanied by a scream. The picture of such an emotional release, seeming to come from the soul, says more about Bure than he'll say about himself. "It's not just me. I think everybody likes to score," Bure said. Yeah, but few show such enthusiasm and talent for the project. Forget that act-like-you've-been-there-before silliness -- nobody scored more goals this season than Bure's 58 and nobody gloried more in every single goal. "I've never seen anybody celebrate a goal the way Pavel does, whether it's an empty-netter or a game-winner with two minutes left," said Panthers coach Terry Murray, who has been an NHL player, coach, assistant or scout for all but a few of the past 30 years. "He's very different," Murray said. "I, personally, have never seen such a burst of emotion with the intensity and having the expressions. We, as a team, love to see it. I think the fans here and around the league love the emotion and celebration." Of course, getting Bure to discuss such things about himself is akin to fishing on a sidewalk. Though a smart, thoughtful man with more common sense than is common, Bure is rarely forthcoming about himself. "Obviously, I do like to score," Bure said. "That's my job, to score goals. That's the point of hockey, if you score more goals than the other team, you're going to win. That's why you have a team. Somebody can play defense, somebody can score goals." Bure wants the fans involved, wants them to respond to him, good or bad. He loved the advertising campaign in Vancouver before what was to be his first game there since being traded to the Panthers -- "Love him. Hate him. Just don't miss him." Bure's reaction to scoring is a climax, an explosion, which fits this season's Panthers. The 1995-96 team was actually better offensively, 3.09 goals per game to 2.97. But, just as there are better all-around offensive players than Bure, yet none more explosive. This year's Panthers were nitroglycerin compared to past Panthers teams. When the Panthers broke their first of 11 franchise records this season by running off three third-period goals in 1:17 to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 victory in the season's second game (Right Arm Pump on the empty-net goal), it was a sign. The Panthers scored goals within three minutes of each other in 24 different games. They broke the franchise record for fastest three goals in the season's second game. They rang up five goals in a period on Phoenix to tie a team record, and six goals in a period on Boston to break it later. The most combustible Panther was Bure. Against Phoenix and Tampa Bay each, Bure blew up the stage with third-period hat tricks. Half of Bure's 58 goals came in the third period. Bure also scored 16 first-period goals and 15 times had the first goal of the game. "When you have Pavel Bure in the lineup, you have the belief that you can win the game," Murray said. "When he goes out and scores the first goal of the game, it just reinforces that. There's a feeling of `this is a game we can have now. Everybody do their job and continue what he's started.' " But it's the third period when Bure finds his groove, especially if the game is tied or the Panthers are ahead and it's time to slay the bull. Bure shrugs off normal losses quicker than most, but he takes to competition with alacrity, even in practice. "He keeps stats on breakaways with the goalies in practice and puts them up on the board to taunt them," Panthers left wing Ray Whitney said earlier this year. "I've never been around a guy who wants to score so much." Bure has said that wanting to score on every shot, even in practice, is what helps make a dependable goal scorer in actual games. "Everything is a challenge between Pavel and a goaltender, especially with Kidder [goalie Trevor Kidd]," Murray said. "I think they count the saves and goals as practice goes along, during drills and then afterward when doing breakaways. It's pretty serious." The Panthers might have the only practice that needs a video review judge. Last week, Bure came in on Kidd, made a nice move and scored . . . or Kidd knocked the puck away before it went over the line. Bure threw his arms in the air. Kidd argued no goal. Bure argued and shook his head that the save wasn't made. Assistant coach Billy Smith, a similar competitor in his day, laughed as Bure tried to appeal to two people sitting in the stands at that end of the rink. A post-morning skate "five minutes to bus" notification hit Bure's ears as he and goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov began another round of five breakaways. Everybody watching knew, bus or no, this wasn't ending until Bure had gained the upper hand. "It seems to make his day for the rest of the day if he can get that last goal," Murray said. One world-class soccer player said he felt as if he needed to score goals to live. Bure was asked if he could identify with that sentiment at all.
"No," Bure said. "Hockey's a really big part of my life. But it's not everything. I have family, I have friends. It's my work and work which I love to do."
Devils Ready to Have Blast With Rocket Pavel Bure, the Russian Rocket and newest South Florida icon, had 58 goals and 94 points this season — but only three goals in four games against the Devils. Two came on the power play, and one was into an empty net. What was the Devils' secret in containing the main Panther? Their strategy was simple: Play physical and knock him off his game. Anytime you get a player like that to slow down it makes him work harder," defenseman Brian Rafalski said. "Then he'll start getting frustrated, hopefully." That task likely will fall to Rafalski and his defense partner, Scott Stevens. Occasionally, Larry Robinson may try to match the checking line of Jay Pandolfo, John Madden and Sergei Brylin against Bure, but the coach admitted, "I'm not a big fan of matching lines." The other problem is Bure sometimes plays with two different lines. And he does have some dangerous teammates, too. "We can't put all our focus on Bure," Robinson said. "But he is the type of guy you have to know where he is." In Suspense: Scott Niedermayer got the early assignment of Jaromir Jagr in last year's playoffs, with excellent early results, and it's possible he eventually will get the call against Bure, too. But when Niedermayer returns from his suspension in Game 2, it will have been 25 days since his last game. "I shouldn't be tired, no doubt about that," Niedermayer said. "I know my legs, I feel in good shape when I'm out on the ice skating, so I think that'll be good. I'm going to have to go about it smart out there the first little bit with the puck. That's the part that'll take a litle effort to get back. Hopefully it won't take too long."
Bure: Panthers' key for success The Right Arm Pump is the image of the most successful individual regular season in the Panthers seven-season history. And, because that individual season led to the team's most successful regular season in Panthers history, the Pump should be the season's symbol overall. The Right Arm Pump is Pavel Bure's usual celebration of his own goals, usually accompanied by a scream. The picture of such an emotional release, seeming to come from the soul, says more about Bure than he'll say about himself. "It's not just me. I think everybody likes to score," Bure said. Yeah, but few show such enthusiasm and talent for the project. Forget that act-like-you've-been-there-before silliness -- nobody scored more goals this season than Bure's 58 and nobody gloried more in every single goal. "I've never seen anybody celebrate a goal the way Pavel does, whether it's an empty netter or a game winner with two minutes left," said Panthers coach Terry Murray, who has been an NHL player, coach, assistant or scout for all but a few of the past 30 years. "He's very different," Murray said. "I, personally, have never seen such a burst of emotion with the intensity and having the expressions. We, as a team, love to see it. I think the fans here and around the league love the emotion and celebration." Of course, getting Bure to discuss such things about himself is akin to fishing on a sidewalk. Though a smart, thoughtful man with more common sense than is common, Bure is rarely forthcoming about himself. "Obviously, I do like to score," Bure said. "That's my job, to score goals. That's the point of hockey, if you score more goals than the other team, you're going to win. That's why you have a team. Somebody can play defense, somebody can score goals." Bure wants the fans involved, wants them to respond to him good or bad. He loved the advertising campaign in Vancouver before what was to be his first game there since being traded to the Panthers -- "Love him. Hate him. Just don't miss him." Bure's reaction to scoring is a climax, an explosion, which fits this year's Panthers. On the numbers, the 1995-96 team was actually better offensively, 3.09 goals per game to 2.97. But, just as there are better all-around offensive players than Bure, yet none more explosive. This year's Panthers were nitroglycerin compared to past Panthers teams. When the Panthers broke their first of 11 franchise records this season by running off three third-period goals in 1:17 to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 victory in the season's second game (Right Arm Pump on the empty net goal), it was a sign. The Panthers scored goals within three minutes of each other in 24 different games. They broke the franchise record for fastest three goals in the season's second game. They rang up five goals in a period on Phoenix to tie a team record, and six goals in a period on Boston to break it later. The most combustible Panther was Bure. Against Phoenix and Tampa Bay each, Bure blew up the stage with third-period hat tricks. Exactly half of Bure's 58 goals came in the third period. Bure also scored 16 first-period goals and 15 times had the first goal of the game. "When you have Pavel Bure in the lineup, you have the belief that you can win the game," Murray said. "When he goes out and scores the first goal of the game, it just reinforces that. There's a feeling of `this is a game we can have now. Everybody do their job and continue what he's started.' " But it's the third period when Bure finds his groove, especially if the game is tied or the Panthers are ahead and it's time to slay the bull. Bure shrugs off normal losses quicker than most, but he takes to competition with alacrity, even in practice. "He keeps stats on breakaways with the goalies in practice and puts them up on the board to taunt them," Panthers left wing Ray Whitney said earlier this year. "I've never been around a guy who wants to score so much." Bure has said that wanting to score on every shot, even in practice, is what helps make a dependable goal scorer in actual games. "Everything is a challenge between Pavel and a goaltender, especially with Kidder [goalie Trevor Kidd]," Murray said. "I think they count the saves and goals as practice goes along, during drills and then afterward when doing breakaways. It's pretty serious." The Panthers might have the only practice that needs a video review judge. Last week, Bure came in on Kidd, made a nice move and scored . . . or Kidd knocked the puck away before it went over the line. Bure threw his arms in the air. Kidd argued no goal. Bure argued and shook his head that the save wasn't made. Assistant coach Billy Smith, a similar competitor in his day, laughed as Bure tried to appeal to two people sitting in the stands at that end of the rink. A post-morning skate "five minutes to bus" notification hit Bure's ears as he and goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov began another round of five breakaways. Everybody watching knew, bus or no, this wasn't ending until Bure had gained the upper hand. "It seems to make his day for the rest of the day if he can get that last goal," Murray said. One world class soccer player said he felt as if he needed to score goals to live. Bure was asked if he could identify with that sentiment at all. "No," Bure said. "Hockey's a really big part of my life. But it's not everything. I have family, I have friends." "It's my work and work which I love to do."
Checking gets under Bure's skin With the Panthers either going to play New Jersey or Philadelphia in the first round, Pavel Bure's postgame comments after Saturday's 2-1 loss to the Devils do not bode well for playoff success. Bure, an offensive-minded player, said he does not like playing in such tight-checking games, which may explain why he has had such little success against either team this season - four goals in seven games. "It obviously wasn't fun to play because both teams played well defensively," Bure said. "There were not too many shots. ..... I don't like this kind of hockey. I like when it's a 6-5 game, and it's exciting for the players and the fans. But that's the way hockey goes right now, so we have to accept it." New Jersey's game plan toward neutralizing Bure on Saturday was to hit him and get under his skin. Hard-hitting defenseman Scott Stevens and others went out of their way to hit him well after he got rid of the puck. Defenseman Colin White even took a retaliatory penalty on Bure by punching him in the back of the head to put the Panthers on a two-man advantage in the third period. Things would get more physical if the teams met in the playoffs, especially with the bad blood created during the Panthers' previous visit to New Jersey when Scott Niedermayer hit Peter Worrell over the head with his stick. "We're not looking for Pavel to get involved in that kind of stuff," coach Terry Murray said. "We have the players to accommodate that kind of game plan." Bure hates New Jersey's defensive style as well, especially the amount of obstruction. The ironic thing is New Jersey coach Larry Robinson complained after Saturday's game about the amount of obstruction Florida commits. "There was an awful lot of hooking and holding and interfering going on on the ice," Robinson said. "Florida does that as well as anybody. They don't allow you to skate free. There's always a stick on you or in your waist or somebody skating in front of you and getting in your way. "We're going to have to accept that because that's probably what's going to happen most of the time. The refs are going to let most of that go." Also, if the Panthers play the Devils in the first round - they will if Philadelphia ties, wins or loses in overtime against the Rangers today - Murray will look to avoid matching Bure's line up with the Patrik Elias-Petr Sykora-Jason Arnott line. At home in last week's victory over New Jersey, Murray was successful at getting Viktor Kozlov's line on to match up against the Devils' top line. The size of that line was a killer against Ray Whitney, Bure and Mike Sillinger on Saturday. "It's not going to be able to happen every shift," Murray said. "I'm not going to be able to get away from it the majority of time."
Devils must sock it to the Rocket These are some lucky Devils. The title-tossing fourth seeds have landed the Panthers, the one team they might actually beat in the first round. The first thing they'll have to do is stop Pavel Bure, the NHL's leading goal-scorer, MVP candidate and the Devils' constant worry. They started on that task Saturday in their season finale, when they left warnings of how this series will be, probably starting Thursday at the Meadowlands. "We've played too soft against him," Scott Stevens growled after taking several runs at the Russian Rocket Saturday. "If you let him know you're around, he doesn't like that." Add that to Bure's list. "I don't like this kind of hockey," Bure said of the Devils' defensive style. "I like it when it's 6-5. That's when it's exciting." Bure tried to claim he wasn't affected by Stevens' obvious attempts at intimidation. "He always plays tough. That's his style," Bure said. "There are other ways around that. You can play tough and finish your checks, or you can ignore it." Bure will be trouble for the Devils, particularly in the series opener, before Scott Niedermayer returns from his 10-game suspension in Game 2. Each time the Panthers see a slower Devils defenseman on the ice, expect Bure to be skating straight at, and then around, him. Larry Robinson, who went 4-4 since replacing Robbie Ftorek, would be well-advised to shadow Bure in this series, if anyone can keep up with the speedster. "Players like that have a presence. Mark Messier had a presence. You need somebody who has a presence that the other team respects or fears," Panthers president Bill Torrey said. "And that's the case moreso today because of the speed factor, speed being so important." With two goals against the Islanders yesterday, Bure finished the season with 59 goals, the fourth time he's reached 50 in his career. He hasn't been in the playoffs since the Devils won their lone Stanley Cup, lasting two rounds with the Canucks in 1995. But he led all playoff performers with 16 postseason goals in 1994, losing to the Rangers and being stopped on a crucial penalty shot by Mike Richter. He is among the most exciting players in the league, and his acquisition turned the Panthers from dreadful drearies to wild winners. On Jan. 19, 1999 he was traded by the Canucks to Florida with stalwart Bret Hedican and a third-rounder for Ed Jovanovski, Dave Gagner, Mike Brown, Kevin Weekes and Florida's first pick this summer. It was a steal, and an example of the axiom that the team getting the best player wins the trade. "He helps other players try to do some of the things he does," Panthers GM Bryan Murray said. "The other thing he does is give the team a lot of confidence, because he has the ability to make the difference in one shift. "The players learn that if they stick to what they do and play responsibly, he has the chance to win it for us." Torrey kept it simple for us. "He scores bleepin' goals," said the man who learned the value of such a player when Mike Bossy arrived on Long Island. Keeping Bure from scoring is the Devils' first job. Bure had three goals in four games against the Devils this year and has 34 goals and 66 points in 60 career playoff games. If the Devils can't stop him, they will likely stop themselves.
Conference Quarterfinals Schedule
Panthers to face N.J. in playoffs The Panthers' playoff postcard could send greetings from Asbury Park, Clifton, Secaucus, the Meadowlands and all those other turnpike-touched garden state spots. Welcome to New Jersey, where The Swamp Series begins this week with Florida, which lost 3-2 to the Islanders on Sunday, playing games Wednesday and Thursday or Thursday and Sunday. Philadelphia's 4-1 win Sunday over the Rangers gave the Flyers the Eastern Conference's No. 1 seed. That dropped New Jersey to second in the Atlantic Division and the No. 4 seed. So the Panthers face a Devils team for whom their dislike has grown over three games in the past three weeks. Both teams slumped during the second half of the season, but the Panthers were 7-2-1 in the 10 games going into Saturday's overtime loss. Jersey's triumphs over the Panthers on March 19 and Saturday were two of Jersey's mere three victories against teams over .500 in their past 25 games. This series features two of the few teams in NHL history to blow division leads of 15 or more points in the second half of the season. The Devils led the Flyers by 15 points in the Atlantic on Feb. 15 and the Panthers had Washington down by 16 points in the Southeast on Jan. 16. In Sunday's season closer of importance only in seeing if Pavel Bure could hit 60 goals and Ray Whitney, who was scoreless, could hit 30, the Panthers lost in front of 9,316 who must have lost their bearings via snow blindness. How the Panthers would play Sunday afternoon, after Saturday's loss rendered the game meaningless, was obvious from the start of warmups. They didn't so much as blow out of the chute onto the ice for warmups. "Guys were so fired up for the game [Saturday], then we come back to have a game like this," Panthers defenseman Todd Simpson said. "It was tough. We were trying to get up for it, but we definitely didn't do a good job of it." "I did not like the way we played today, at any time as far as a team or any five-man unit," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "We got away from what you would like to see when you're going onto the last game of the season and the playoffs." Bure needed a hat trick to tie his two-time career high of 60, achieved most recently when he led the NHL in goals for 1993-94. The only guy getting the thrown chapeau salute Sunday was Islanders' right wing Mariusz Czerkawski after ringing up goals No. 33, 34 and 35 to account for the Islanders' scoring. Bure picked up goal No. 58 in the second period and had No. 59 until postgame review by the off-ice officials determined he never touched the puck. Mike Sillinger got that third-period goal. Still, Bure became the Panthers' first NHL award winner by taking the Rocket Richard Trophy for leading the NHL in goals, no inconsiderable feat when taking into account Bure's return from March 1999 knee surgery and the broken finger he suffered Nov. 3. Asked if his season amazed even him, Bure said, "Yes, it does. My first surgery [in 1995], it took me almost two years to get back." Last year's Rocket Richard Trophy winner, Anaheim's Teemu Selanne, a car enthusiast whose driving speed is exceeded only by close friend and two-time world driving champion Mika Hakkinen, desperately wanted to win the Dodge Viper that came with last year's award. Bure, a performance-car fan himself, wasn't aware if there was such a bonus this year. The 2000 All-Star Game MVP quipped, "I'm still waiting for my car from the All-Star Game." Bure said he wasn't coming out looking for 60 goals, although that claim was belied by his shift lengths, teammates' passing tendencies and the way Bure took on two defenders at a time more often than usual.
Tennis Ace's 'Enemy' Watch any professional women's tennis tournament and there's no doubt Anna Kournikova is the girl with the golden backhand. The 18-year-old dynamo rocketed to instant stardom a scant six years ago as the youngest player ever to win a Federation Cup match -- the same year she captured the European Championships and Italian Open juniors. A year later, she was ranked No. 1 and crowned ITF Junior World Champion before she even turned pro. For this sexy, blond court queen -- who's parlayed her talent into a bank account worth an estimated $75 million -- things have sure changed since the 1980s, when she lived in a lower-class Moscow flat. Her 37-year-old mother, Alla Kournikova, certainly can take a lot of the credit, skillfully micro-managing her daughter's career, social life and finances. But, suddenly, Alla has emerged as a stage mother from hell -- accused of being a master manipulator making a mint off her daughter -- and ready to dump anybody who crosses her. And now, Alla is even being accused of running -- and even wrecking -- her daughter's love life. Alla's fiery style first surfaced publicly last spring, when she unceremoniously dumped Anna's gifted coach, Pavel Slozil, who had once guided Steffi Graf's stellar career -- and assumed the duties herself. "The problem with Alla is she thinks she is the player, not Anna," Slozil sniffed. But it's not just the playing -- Alla even micro-manages her daughter's personal life. Until last week, the leggy star had been happily engaged to Pavel Bure, right wing for the Florida Panthers. The 5-foot-10-inch, 190-pound hockey player reportedly popped the question five weeks ago by dropping suddenly to one knee in Miami's posh Forgery restaurant. Bure, 29, was said to have presented Anna with a diamond engagement ring worth nearly $1 million and then toasted their happiness with a $3,000 bottle of vintage champagne. But last week, those plans exploded like a misguided rocket. "A wedding is not in my plans ... No one is going to marry anyone," Bure said tersely, insisting that the one and only true love in his life was swatting pucks in the rink. Russian newspapers say the wedge that drove the once-inseparable pair apart was none other than Alla. The newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda accused Alla of treating Anna as a "money-making machine" and releasing intimate details of her love life to boost her price for advertising and modeling assignments. In the last three years, Anna has commanded top dollar for modeling pricey women's fashions and tennis wear for designers and magazines. Her sexy, saucy look even led her to being selected to the 1998 People Magazine "50 Most Beautiful People" list, as one of only two athletes to make the list. (The other was Russian figure skater Ilia Kulik.) "It is Alla Kournikova who takes quite a considerable share -- up to 50 percent -- of her now-adult daughter's advertising contracts," the newspaper said. "And Pavel Bure understood that. There's a wise Russian saying: 'Before selecting a wife, select a mother-in-law.'" Word is that Bure freaked when Alla turned what had been a quiet and private dinner into a trumped-up tale of proposal with pricey rings and champagne -- just to get her name splashed all over the media. One Russian paper quoted a disgusted Pavel as saying: "Even if there was some gift, that doesn't prove anything." Anna has also reportedly had romances with Russian hockey star Sergei Federov and Australian tennis player Mark Philippoussis. But speculation has run rampant about whether these were real -- or merely inventions. Alla's take-no-prisoners management style has some people calling her the "Russian Teri Shields" -- after the mother of Brooke Shields, once considered the ultimate stage mother from hell. Anna has steadfastly refused to discuss the current state of her love life, so she can "concentrate on my tennis." Even if Alla is the master puppeteer of her daughter's every move, one thing that can't be argued is her financial success. Anna is said to be worth more than $75 million. There's no question that Alla and her husband, Sergei, a former pro wrestler and part-time tennis coach, nurtured their daughter's rise to stardom. At the age of five, Anna received the Christmas gift that would change her life: a tennis racquet. "Later, I found out that they sold their TV to get me those racquets," she recalled. Now one of the fastest-rising players on the WTA Tour, Anna has beaten virtually every top player in the women's field and is the only player since 1987 to defeat four Top 10 players in a row on her way to the '98 Lipton final. She cracked the top-10 singles rankings and captured a Grand Slam doubles title with Martina Hingis at the '99 Australian Open. And, maybe more importantly, she is one of the most heavily sponsored and marketed players in all of tennis -- in part, thanks to Alla. But, at some point -- as Brooke Shields eventually did with her mom -- Anna may tell Alla to butt out. And some tennis insiders believe that day may not be too far off. "Managing a career is one thing, but managing romance is another. It could blow up in her face," one tennis pro said.
Score one for Bure: He's MVP This week, members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association filled out their ballots for the major awards. The three finalists will be announced soon after the season and the winners announced during an awards show in Toronto on June 15, televised live on ESPN2. Here are my picks: Hart Trophy (Most Valuable Player): This is the category I have been debating in my head the past couple of weeks. Many deserve the award, such as Washington's Olaf Kolzig, St. Louis' Chris Pronger and Pittsburgh's Jaromir Jagr. Philadelphia's Mark Recchi and San Jose's Owen Nolan had tremendous seasons. To me, after watching Pavel Bure play every game, he gets my pick. Quite simply, Bure makes the Panthers a contender, and when few can score goals in the NHL, Bure is capable of scoring 50 to 70. When Bure scores, he lifts the Panthers. He loves to score, and he scores big goals. Bure has 32.5 percent of the Panthers' winning goals (14 of 43). He is second in points (93), first in shots (353), first in third-period goals (28) and first in hat tricks (four). Of his league-leading 57 goals, 50 came after Nov. 26, predictable since he was returning from major reconstructive knee surgery. Imagine how many goals he would have scored if he were healthy in October and November. Bure was Player of the Month in December and Player of the Month runner-up in January and March. He has shattered the Panthers' record book, breaking nearly 20 records, and the team is 29-9-2-1 when he scores a goal and 35-14-6-2 when he gets a point. That's a pretty valuable player. There seems to be a campaign to get Pronger the award, but the Blues are a pretty good team without Pronger. Kolzig didn't turn his season on until January, and Jagr's points per game has been phenomenal, but he's as fragile as a pane of glass. This should be Bure's award, although I have doubts he will get it. Norris Trophy (Best Defenseman): Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom will probably be runner-up again. Captain Steve Yzerman called Lidstrom "the best player I've played with in 17 years." Lidstrom has had another terrific season, but Pronger was the NHL's best defenseman. His plus-minus has been unbelievable, and although that statistic is deceiving once in a while, it's not when the player plays more than 30 minutes a game, which Pronger does. He's a strong offensive player, but he is almost spotless in his end. Positionally, he is tremendous - the player anybody would like to have back on an odd-man rush against - and he hits like a freight train. Selke Trophy (Best Defensive Forward): There's something to be said for the 50-goal scorer willing to score 35 for the good of the team. Yzerman, who has as much offensive ability as anyone in the NHL, has turned himself into one of the league's best two-way talents. This should be Yzerman's award - hands down. "He laughs about (the Selke) but here's a guy who plays against the other team's top line night in and night out," teammate Brendan Shanahan said. "He's at the top of league in plus-minus and managed to chip in 35 goals. "I don't know what he has to do. I'd like to see him win it because it would (tick) him off." Vezina Trophy (Best Goaltender): Martin Brodeur and Roman Turek had sensational seasons, but my vote goes to Kolzig. Since Christmas, he has fine-tuned his game to incredible proportions (30-plus wins). He carried Washington some nights. His solid play has given the Capitals a confidence that should help them go far in the postseason. He has turned himself into a star. He is so sound and under control in net. Lady Byng Trophy (Most Gentlemanly Player): If the Panthers' Viktor Kozlov got more recognition around the league, he would be a contender. He finished second on the Panthers in scoring with only 16 penalty minutes. He also couldn't be more humble away from the rink. But my vote goes to Anaheim's Teemu Selanne. Not only is he a marvelous talent, but on and off the ice he's a gentleman. Calder Trophy (Rookie of the Year): At the start of the season, I thought San Jose defenseman Brad Stuart was a shoo-in. Then, I thought Philly's Simon Gagne. But this award will go unquestionably to New Jersey's Scott Gomez. Gomez played 81 of the 82 games and finished in the top six in assists. His playmaking abilities are uncanny for a newcomer, and his poise is unmatched. Jack Adams Award (Coach of the Year): This isn't selected by the writers. The broadcasters select this one, but my pick and the winner will be St. Louis' Joel Quenneville. The Blues went through almost no difficult stretches along the way to the Presidents' Trophy. He is liked and, more importantly, respected by his players.
Trunk gets biggest hit on Bure After escaping Sunday's loss without an injury, the postseason hopes of Pavel Bure and the Panthers almost ended in the most dangerous place inside Nassau Coliseum -- not the ice, but in the hallway outside the visitors' locker room. In the same setting as the off-ice fight between Pittsburgh's Matthew Barnaby and the Islanders' Eric Cairns this season, Bure was almost run over by an enormous runaway equipment trunk and folded-up table. While Bure addressed the media about winning the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy as the NHL's goal-scoring champion with 58 goals, an Islanders employee began pushing a cart loaded with the Panthers players' bags. Everybody screamed for the employee to stop, but he didn't, and the cart ran into the trunk, which hit Bure. Finally Bure yelled at the employee, saying, "Hey, these are expensive legs." No kidding. Expensive legs that earned pretty much every cent of his $8 million salary, considering the Rangers' Theo Fleury and his 15 goals made $500,000 more. It was the second time Bure has led the NHL in goals, the other coming when he scored 60 during the 1993-94 season. "It's really nice, especially nowadays when (getting) goals is really hard," Bure said. "This is a big honor." Last year, Teemu Selanne was the first Richard Trophy and received a Dodge Viper. Bure is not counting on a car, joking, "I'm still waiting for the car from the All-Star Game," when he won Most Valuable Player. After undergoing major reconstructive surgery on his right knee for the second time in March 1999, Bure was supposed to miss six months. He reported to training camp on time, putting him a month ahead of schedule. He started the season on time but battled groin and finger injuries while also getting back into stride after the knee surgery. He had only seven goals through Nov. 26, but 51 since. He finished second in the NHL with 94 points. Asked if his season amazes even him, Bure said, "Yes it does. After my surgery (in 1995), it took me almost two years to get back to normal. Yeah, it does actually amaze me." Kidd looks sharp Trevor Kidd played a strong game despite losing for the seventh time since returning from a shoulder injury. Mike Vernon was given the day off, for Mikhail Shtalenkov dressed as Kidd's backup. Kidd said he feels confident if he gets a chance to play in the playoffs. "I felt good out there," Kidd said. "I made some big stops. I've worked on some things the last couple weeks to try to stay sharp. I don't think there's any question that if something happens to Vernie that today's game was good for me from the fact that I felt strong out there and my play was solid." Sitting this one out Coach Terry Murray also gave days off to Scott Mellanby, Lance Pitlick and Alex Hicks, which allowed him to get Paul Laus, Cam Stewart and Brad Ference back into the lineup. "I called (Mellanby) on the phone last night and told him I thought he sucked it up the last couple weeks with the jaw injury," Murray said. "I thought this would be a good time to give him a rest. He also had a little bit of a head cold." Murray said that "direction from the doctors was that they didn't want to see (Pitlick) play back-to-back games and put stress on his (foot) injury." ... After taking seven shots Sunday, Bure finished with a league-lead 360. ... Ray Whitney finished the season on a career-high eight-game points streak.
Jagr wins third straight scoring title; Bure top goal scorer Jaromir Jagr missed nearly a quarter of the season and still captured his third straight scoring title. Jagr, sidelined by a variety of ailments -- most seriously by an injured thigh -- wrapped up the Art Ross Trophy on Sunday, the last day of the NHL season. Jagr had 96 points, playing in 63 of the Penguins' 82 games. The Pittsburgh star, who has four career scoring titles, became the first to win three in a row since Wayne Gretzky took seven straight from 1980-81 to 1986-87 with Edmonton. It's the first time since 1967-68, in full NHL seasons, that the scoring leader has not reached 100 points. Florida's Pavel Bure scored his league-leading 58th goal Sunday, but couldn't catch Jagr. Bure tallied 94 points in 74 games. Bure, who had knee surgery prior to this season, won the Maurice (Rocket) Richard Trophy awarded to the top goal scorer. "After having the surgery, I'm amazed I wound up with (so many) goals," Bure said. "Every season is different. This year, things are going well. Next year, who knows? I may wind up with 20 goals." Philadelphia's Mark Recchi took the assists title, setting up 63 Flyers goals, including their final one in Sunday's 4-1 victory over the New York Rangers. Recchi rebounded from last season when illness and injury limited him to 53 points. Rookie teammate Brian Boucher, tabbed as Philadelphia's playoff goalie over veteran John Vanbiesbrouck, recorded a 1.91 goals-against-average to lead the NHL. Boucher, who played in 35 games, became the first rookie since the 1950-51 season to appear in at least 25 games and have an average under two goals. The St. Louis Blues, winners of the Presidents' Trophy with a league-high 114 points, also captured the Williams Jennings Trophy after allowing a league-low 165 goals. Roman Turek yielded 129 in 69 games and won 42 times. St. Louis Blues defenseman Chris Pronger had the top plus-minus number at plus-52. Chris Chelios of Detroit was second at plus-48. Pronger also won the award two seasons ago. Chelios had some help as the Red Wings scored 278 times, the most in the NHL.
Hats off The Florida Panthers hope their last two games are not an indication of things to come. After losing in overtime to New Jersey on Saturday, the Panthers ended the regular season with a 3-2 loss on Sunday to the New York Islanders. "I didn't like the way we played today, not at all," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "The last dozen games, we got down to work and straightened some things out. But today, each one of the lines was looking to do something out of the ordinary." Pavel Bure scored both Florida goals, finishing with 59 as the Panthers were denied a 100-point season (43-33-6-6). Islanders leading scorer Mariusz Czerkawski acconted for all three Islanders goals and finished with 35 for the season. It was the third hat trick of Czerkawski's career, and the only one registered by a member of the Islanders this season. "I'm very pleased for him," Islanders coach Butch Goring said. "I challenged him at the start of the season to be the offensive guy and he did that. I also wanted him to be more responsible defensively and to take the body, and he worked hard all year at doing that. And what this proves is that you can play defensively and still score 35 goals." Bure opened the scoring at 8:18 of the second period when he beat goalie Roberto Luongo with a one-timer off a perfect backhand, cross-ice pass from Oleg Kvasha. Czerkawski tied the game at 12:28 on the power play when his centering pass from the right corner deflected off defenseman Robert Svehla's skate and past goalie Trevor Kidd. Czerkawski put New York in front for good 1:40 later on another power play goal. His right point slap shot hit a Panther stick and got over Kidd's shoulder. The hat trick goal at 7:13 of the final period was the game-winner. Linemate Brad Isbister gloved down an attempted clear, and then found Czerkawski alone in the right circle. His high wrist shot beat Kidd to the far side. "I was happy for Chow (Czerkawski)," Isbister said. "I think I jumped higher than him. "He deserves it. He carried our team offensively for most of the year." The celebration was short-lived, as Bure struck again at 12:55 on a Panthers' power play. He stuffed the puck past Luongo from the right post. "He's a tremendous talent," Luongo said. "He and Jaromir Jagr are the two best players in the game right now." The Islanders held Florida off the rest of the way, including killing a penalty in the final two minutes. Bure had a chance to tie the game, but the puck bounced over his stick. The missed chance for 60 goals didn't bother Bure afterwards. "After having the (knee) surgery, I'm amazed I wound up with 59 goals," Bure said. "Every season is different. This year, things are going well. Next year, who knows? I may wind up with 20 goals." The Panthers will face the Devils in the first round of the playoffs, and Murray said that the biggest thing that his team has to fear is New Jersey's experience. "Even though they may not have played that well lately, experience is something that you can capture immediately," Murray said. Bure is not thrilled about playing such a defensively-oriented team as the Devils. "It's not really fun when the score is 2-1, but that's New Jersey playing their type of game," Bure said. "It's the playoffs though, and you have to accept it and be patient."
Czerkawski's hat trick lifts Isles over Florida The Florida Panthers hope their last two games are not an indication of things to come. After losing in overtime to New Jersey on Saturday, the Panthers ended the regular season with a 3-2 loss on Sunday to the New York Islanders. "I didn't like the way we played today, not at all," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "The last dozen games, we got down to work and straightened some things out. But today, each one of the lines was looking to do something out of the ordinary." Pavel Bure scored both Florida goals, finishing with 59 as the Panthers were denied a 100-point season (43-33-6-6). Islanders leading scorer Mariusz Czerkawski accounted for all three Islanders goals and finished with 35 for the season. It was the third hat trick of Czerkawski's career, and the only one registered by a member of the Islanders this season. "I'm very pleased for him," Islanders coach Butch Goring said. "I challenged him at the start of the season to be the offensive guy and he did that. I also wanted him to be more responsible defensively and to take the body, and he worked hard all year at doing that. And what this proves is that you can play defensively and still score 35 goals." Bure opened the scoring at 8:18 of the second period when he beat goalie Roberto Luongo with a one-timer off a perfect backhand, cross-ice pass from Oleg Kvasha. Czerkawski tied the game at 12:28 on the power play when his centering pass from the right corner deflected off defenseman Robert Svehla's skate and past goalie Trevor Kidd. Czerkawski put New York in front for good 1:40 later on another power play goal. His right point slap shot hit a Panther stick and got over Kidd's shoulder. The hat trick goal at 7:13 of the final period was the game-winner. Linemate Brad Isbister gloved down an attempted clear, then found Czerkawski alone in the right circle. His high wrist shot beat Kidd to the far side. "I was happy for Chow (Czerkawski)," Isbister said. "I think I jumped higher than him. "He deserves it. He carried our team offensively for most of the year." The celebration was short-lived, as Bure struck again at 12:55 on a Panthers' power play. He stuffed the puck past Luongo from the right post. "He's a tremendous talent," Luongo said. "He and Jaromir Jagr are the two best players in the game right now." The Islanders held Florida off the rest of the way, including killing a penalty in the final two minutes. Bure had a chance to tie the game, but the puck bounced over his stick. The missed chance for 60 goals didn't bother Bure afterwards. "After having the (knee) surgery, I'm amazed I wound up with 59 goals," Bure said. "Every season is different. This year, things are going well. Next year, who knows? I may wind up with 20 goals." The Panthers will face the Devils in the first round of the playoffs, and Murray said that the biggest thing that his team has to fear is New Jersey's experience. "Even though they may not have played that well lately, experience is something that you can capture immediately," Murray said. Bure is not thrilled about playing such a defensively-oriented team as the Devils. "It's not really fun when the score is 2-1, but that's New Jersey playing their type of game," Bure said. "It's the playoffs though, and you have to accept it and be patient."
NY Islanders 3, Florida 2 Czerkawski scored a pair of power-play goals in the second period and completed his first hat trick since February 19, 1997 at 7:35 of the third. New York finished its season with a 10-26-5 at home, avoiding its worst home mark. The Islanders went 10-25-4 at Nassau Coliseum in 1972-73. The Panthers finished the regular season with 98 points and will be the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, meeting the New Jersey Devils in the first round. Florida went 1-3 against the Devils this season, including an overtime loss on Saturday. Claude Lapointe added a pair of assists for the Islanders, who finished the season in last place in the Atlantic Division with 58 points. Florida winger Pavel Bure fell short in his quest for the scoring title but netted goals 58 and 59. He concluded the campaign with 95 points while Pittsburgh's Jaromir Jagr has 96. Jagr could add to his total tonight at Boston. Pavel Bure was a plus one for his seven shots on goal.
Tennis Ace's Enemy Watch any professional women's tennis tournament and there's no doubt Anna Kournikova is the girl with the golden backhand. The 18-year-old dynamo rocketed to instant stardom a scant six years ago as the youngest player ever to win a Federation Cup match -- the same year she captured the European Championships and Italian Open juniors. A year later, she was ranked No. 1 and crowned ITF Junior World Champion before she even turned pro. For this sexy, blond court queen -- who's parlayed her talent into a bank account worth an estimated $75 million -- things have sure changed since the 1980s, when she lived in a lower-class Moscow flat. Her 37-year-old mother, Alla Kournikova, certainly can take a lot of the credit, skillfully micro-managing her daughter's career, social life and finances. But, suddenly, Alla has emerged as a stage mother from hell -- accused of being a master manipulator making a mint off her daughter -- and ready to dump anybody who crosses her. And now, Alla is even being accused of running -- and even wrecking -- her daughter's love life. Alla's fiery style first surfaced publicly last spring, when she unceremoniously dumped Anna's gifted coach, Pavel Slozil, who had once guided Steffi Graf's stellar career -- and assumed the duties herself. "The problem with Alla is she thinks she is the player, not Anna," Slozil sniffed. But it's not just the playing -- Alla even micro-manages her daughter's personal life. Until last week, the leggy star had been happily engaged to Pavel Bure, right wing for the Florida Panthers. The 5-foot-10-inch, 190-pound hockey player reportedly popped the question five weeks ago by dropping suddenly to one knee in Miami's posh Forgery restaurant. Bure, 29, was said to have presented Anna with a diamond engagement ring worth nearly $1 million and then toasted their happiness with a $3,000 bottle of vintage champagne. But last week, those plans exploded like a misguided rocket. "A wedding is not in my plans ... No one is going to marry anyone," Bure said tersely, insisting that the one and only true love in his life was swatting pucks in the rink. Russian newspapers say the wedge that drove the once-inseparable pair apart was none other than Alla. The newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda accused Alla of treating Anna as a "money-making machine" and releasing intimate details of her love life to boost her price for advertising and modeling assignments. In the last three years, Anna has commanded top dollar for modeling pricey women's fashions and tennis wear for designers and magazines. Her sexy, saucy look even led her to being selected to the 1998 People Magazine "50 Most Beautiful People" list, as one of only two athletes to make the list. (The other was Russian figure skater Ilia Kulik.) "It is Alla Kournikova who takes quite a considerable share -- up to 50 percent -- of her now-adult daughter's advertising contracts," the newspaper said. "And Pavel Bure understood that. There's a wise Russian saying: 'Before selecting a wife, select a mother-in-law.'" Word is that Bure freaked when Alla turned what had been a quiet and private dinner into a trumped-up tale of proposal with pricey rings and champagne -- just to get her name splashed all over the media. One Russian paper quoted a disgusted Pavel as saying: "Even if there was some gift, that doesn't prove anything." Anna has also reportedly had romances with Russian hockey star Sergei Federov and Australian tennis player Mark Philippoussis. But speculation has run rampant about whether these were real -- or merely inventions. Alla's take-no-prisoners management style has some people calling her the "Russian Teri Shields" -- after the mother of Brooke Shields, once considered the ultimate stage mother from hell. Anna has steadfastly refused to discuss the current state of her love life, so she can "concentrate on my tennis." Even if Alla is the master puppeteer of her daughter's every move, one thing that can't be argued is her financial success. Anna is said to be worth more than $75 million. There's no question that Alla and her husband, Sergei, a former pro wrestler and part-time tennis coach, nurtured their daughter's rise to stardom. At the age of five, Anna received the Christmas gift that would change her life: a tennis racquet. "Later, I found out that they sold their TV to get me those racquets," she recalled. Now one of the fastest-rising players on the WTA Tour, Anna has beaten virtually every top player in the women's field and is the only player since 1987 to defeat four Top 10 players in a row on her way to the '98 Lipton final. She cracked the top-10 singles rankings and captured a Grand Slam doubles title with Martina Hingis at the '99 Australian Open. And, maybe more importantly, she is one of the most heavily sponsored and marketed players in all of tennis -- in part, thanks to Alla. But, at some point -- as Brooke Shields eventually did with her mom -- Anna may tell Alla to butt out. And some tennis insiders believe that day may not be too far off. "Managing a career is one thing, but managing romance is another. It could blow up in her face," one tennis pro said.
New Jersey 2, Florida 1 (ot) Jason Arnott sent the sputtering New Jersey Devils into the playoffs on the highest note. Arnott blistered a slap shot through Mike Vernon's pads 47 seconds into overtime as the Devils finished the regular season with a 2-1 victory over the Florida Panthers and kept alive their hopes for winning the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference crowns. The Devils blew all of the 15-point lead they held over the Philadelphia Flyers in late February. Both teams have 103 points but the Devils have one more win, giving them the initial tiebreaker edge. New Jersey will win the division if the Flyers lose Sunday at the New York Rangers, but Philadelphia would capture the Atlantic and the Eastern Conference by earning a point. If the Washington Capitals defeat the Buffalo Sabres, they would beat out New Jersey or Philadelphia for the conference crown, provided all three teams finish with 103 points. "When we came in, every one of us was pumped, and we need that right now," Arnott said. "We were chatty, loud and hip-hopping; that's what we need. After the first and second periods, we were kind of quiet." "It was a real important win because people started doubting themselves," Brodeur said. "It gives us a shot in the arm. We got over 100 points and you have to feel good about that. We didn't like the way it ended, but in the playoffs you get a fresh start." Florida is locked into the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference and missed a chance to stay alive for the conference and Southeast Division titles. The Panthers will play New Jersey or Philadelphia in the first round of the playoffs. "We had our eyes set on first place over Washington," said Florida's Pavel Bure, whose team- and career-best 13-game points streak came to an end. "We needed the win. Now we can't do that. We're upset, but we're still in, and that's all you can ask for. When you get in, anything can happen." The Devils slumped so badly at the end of the season that they fired coach Robbie Ftorek on March 23 and promoted assistant Larry Robinson. The shakeup did little to change their fortunes, but Arnott's heroics might have done it in one shot. He took a diagonal pass through the length of the neutral zone from Scott Stevens, gathered the puck on the right wing, skated to the top of the faceoff circle and used his lethal slapper to beat Vernon for the winner. "I just wanted to hit the net," Arnott said. "I didn't think the puck was gonna get to me. Scottie passed it a little slow." Arnott was mobbed by his teammates, who suddenly left behind the listless play that plagued them down the stretch. There quickly were a pile of Devils atop Arnott on the ice. "I didn't really know how to celebrate, so I just jumped on Scottie," Arnott explained. "If we were to come away with a loss we would have had to do a lot of talking to cheer the guys up. We've been wanting the playoffs to start for a while now." The Devils have won the conference three straight seasons but have taken just one playoff series in that stretch. Fears of a fourth straight postseason disappointment were rampant as the club limped to the finish. "We've been going through some tough times, we've had a lot of meetings and things," Arnott said. "Hopefully, this win gets us on the right track. Otherwise, we're going golfing early again." "Hopefully, it's a big pick-me-up to end the season, a good ego boost for everybody," Robinson added. "We have been getting chances to score and the puck hasn't been going in for us. I think everybody's a little uptight and they also knew the importance of this game. That's playoff hockey, that's what it's all about." The Devils were coming off a 5-0 home loss to Buffalo and were beaten 5-2 in Florida on Monday. They nearly went into the third period down 1-0 in this game, but Arnott one-timed the puck past Vernon from the left circle after Stevens kept it in the zone to forge a 1-1 tie with 36 seconds left. Arnott finished the season with 22 goals, including New Jersey's last three. Ray Whitney scored his 29th with 5:30 left in the first period to stake Florida to an early lead. He went down the right side of the slot and waited for Brodeur to take a stride out before slipping it through his pads to extend his points streak to seven games. The Panthers might have taken a 2-0 lead at the end of the period as the puck trickled at an open Devils' goal, but the clock ran out with the puck on the goal line. Brodeur nudged it in with his stick the moment after the clock expired. "You have an idea of how much time is left so I knew it was winding down," Florida center Rob Niedermayer said. "I was just trying to get to the net as fast as possible. After the shot, I wasn't able to see the puck, so I'm not sure about the time element." "I felt pretty good about that tenth of a second," Brodeur said. "I looked up at the clock when Niedermayer was coming in to see how to play it. I stopped the initial shot but when I tried to clear it, it hit Scottie's foot. After that, I just turned to sweep it out of the net." Brodeur made only 14 saves -- seven in the first period and seven more thereafter. But his point-blank glove stop on Mark Parrish off a rebound with 14:55 left in regulation was one of his best of the season and preserved a 1-1 tie. Brodeur finished the season with 43 wins, one more than Roman Turek of St. Louis, which concludes the campaign on Sunday in Chicago. Vernon made 26 stops and had his 7-0-1 streak halted, losing for the first time since March 11 against Chicago. Pavel's two shots on goal resulted in a minus one for the game.
Not a love match? Russia's Pravda newspaper reports that hockey pro Pavel Bure has broken off his engagement to tennis player Anna Kournikova because her mother is too meddlesome. What's more, Bure told the paper, "A wedding is not in my plans. At the moment I love hockey more than anything." Ten minutes in the penalty box for unnecessary roughness!
Bure brothers delighted to break Hull goals record On the day after the Bure boys entered the NHL record book as the highest scoring brother duo of all time, the Calgary Flames' Valeri and the Florida Panthers' Pavel reviewed their achievement during a telephone conversation. It was Pavel's 54th of the season that gave the brothers a combined 89 goals, one more than Bobby and Dennis Hull recorded in 1968-69. "He said something like, 'Congratulate me, we're in the record book,' " said Valeri, who had a career-best 35 goals. "That's a pretty impressive record to get because the Hulls set that one a long time ago. Now, with scoring down in the NHL, that's going to be a tough record to beat." Once the Bures learned how close they were to the mark, they set their minds on breaking it. "We sat down and counted," Valeri said. "We said, 'OK, there's 20 games left between the two of us and we have to score five goals.' We figured we could do it." Said Pavel: "It is special because you don't break NHL records every day. I think we're lucky because it's not just me, it's my brother as well." Perhaps the player with the bestvantage point of the Bure brothers' successes is Flames' winger Bill Lindsay. Lindsay started the year in Florida and finished in Calgary, which gave him a chance to play with both Bures. "They're very intense individuals and they're great scorers," Lindsay said. "Pavel is a little more fine-tuned, with just a little better edge or consistency, but Val's getting there." Bure said being healthy and getting a shot are the keys. "In Montreal, I was playing well, but I didn't get my chance," he said. "Plus, I had a lot of injuries. The last couple of years, I've been injury-free, which helps so much." The BellSouth Cup is presented annually to the player who best exemplifies the Panthers' tradition of good sportsmanship, hard work and dedication to his team. The winner of this year's BellSouth Cup was announced at the last game of the regular season and one lucky fan was selected to present the award after the end of the game. It should be no surprise that Pavel Bure was the winner of the cup!
Panthers have a title shot -- and Bure gives it to them There was plenty to see during Florida's 6-3 victory at National Car Rental Center on Wednesday night. You saw why the Boston Bruins are very much deserving of last place. You saw the most prolific period in the history of Florida Panthers hockey. And you saw one play during that six-goal onslaught that eloquently explained why these Panthers can be hockey's champions by season's end. Pavel Bure blurred in on goal and, per usual, he brought everyone in the building with him. This is how it always is with Bure, who becomes a big event every time he touches the ice, trailed as he is by the kind of buzz that makes it feel as if God has reached down and dropped an electrical current between the goals. So Bure skated in with the puck, followed by the requisite respect always given to greatness. Two Boston defensemen went with him, and Boston's goalie did, too, which would have been a wonderful strategy if Bure hadn't left the puck behind him as he whistled past the goal. The puck just sat there lonely on the lip of a now-empty net, long enough to be gift-wrapped, and when Ray Sheppard knocked it in for just about the easiest goal of his life, Boston's two defensemen and goalie were about the only people in the building who didn't get to admire the thing. All three of them had their backs to Sheppard, see, consumed as they were with following Bure. The Panthers have a chance now. That's what has been missing with this team the past two years, the kind of hope that buzzes through the building whenever Bure rears his stick back. Hockey hasn't felt this good in South Florida since 1996, a year so improbable that rats rained from the sky, and here are the two biggest reasons for optimism with the playoffs one week away: There is no team that scares you in today's NHL. But Florida has the player who most scares everyone else. Nobody outside of South Florida wants to see Bure in the playoffs. No team and no coach wants to see the Russian Rocket and certainly no goalie wants to see a rushin' Rocket. It isn't necessarily because Bure might lead the game in goals by season's end. It isn't necessarily because he might be the league's Most Valuable Player, either. It is because, hard as this is to fathom, we are about to see a better Bure than we ever have. Superstars crave the big stage, drawn to it like junkies to a high. It is easy for them to get bored or distracted during an interminable regular season, but Bure's game will be raised in a week, as soon as the stakes are. You can see him preparing for it now, gathering momentum, on a 13-game point streak that would represent a career high . . . if he didn't have that 16-game point streak during Vancouver's run to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1994. Forget the midseason collapse that gift-wrapped first place for Washington. Forget Florida's defensive mediocrity or the lack of grit in the corners that make this Panthers team the very antithesis of the one that last made it to the cusp of championship. The Panthers have, in Mike Vernon, someone who can keep the red light off at one end of the ice and, in Bure, the someone most capable of flicking it on at the other. Those two elements are enough these days, as Buffalo proved last year by taking a sixth seed all the way to the Finals while owning only the former. The playoff picture remains cloudy -- the Panthers can still finish anywhere between a second and fifth seed between now and Sunday -- but that's reason for hope, not concern. It means that everyone is so even that Bure raising his game another notch might be enough to separate the Panthers from the pack. There is no one in the Eastern Conference Florida can't beat. Coach Terry Murray knows. He was asked Wednesday if there was one team that could steamroll through the playoffs. "Maybe the L.A. Lakers," he said. Murray senses his team, playing better than it has at any time since the season's first half, is ready for the postseason after impressive wins over Ottawa and New Jersey. He has noticed it in the locker room, at the ping-pong table of all places. When Florida was struggling after the All-Star break, the table was quiet because the players were too consumed with concern to be enjoying themselves too much. Lately, though . . . "I sense the energy," Murray said. "When you are playing at a real high level -- and we played at a tremendous level the first 45 games -- you are going to hit a bump in the road. Frustration is good for you, though. You learn how to bring it to another level, how to change. You start losing, you start thinking, deciphering. . . . There was never panic, though. The word is concern. But the problem was ourselves, not the enemy. We were the enemy." And Bure is the best kind of ally. He has done a million important things this year, everything from make his teammates better to saving general manager Bryan Murray's job. But now, with the real season a week away, this magician is about to perform his greatest trick. He is about to make himself better.
Anna Romance Kournik-Over THE fiance of tennis beauty Anna Kournikova has called off their wedding - because he can't stand her mum. Ice hockey star Pavel Bure has split from fellow Russian Anna, 18, just two months after he proposed. And he is blaming her bossy mum Alla, 37, for being too interfering. Bure, 29, admitted: "A wedding is not in my plans. At the moment I love hockey more than anything." The star, Russia's richest sportsman, has been living with the Kournikova family in the same Miami apartment.
But he became sick of his future mother-in-law's ambitious scheming for her daughter, it is claimed. Russian newspaper Pravda declared: "It's Anna's mother Alla who is to blame for the break-up." The paper accused the woman of turning her daughter into "a money-making machine" and grabbing up to half of all her lucrative advertising contracts. Thousands of male hearts were broken when Russia's golden couple got engaged and Bure handed over a £650,000 ring. The star, top scorer with the Florida Panthers, said yesterday he didn't regret giving Anna the ring but declined to discuss her mother. The pin-up is said to be a mummy's girl despite her massive fame and earnings, which have netted her more than £10million. Last weekend she announced a new bra sponsorship deal where she will be pictured in her underwear alongside the slogan: "Only the ball should bounce."
Anna's affair with ice star on the rocks
 THIN ICE: Anna may not wed. Some blame her mother, pictured with Anna Speculation swept Moscow yesterday that tennis idol Anna Kournikova's planned marriage to ice-hockey star Pavel Bure may be on the rocks. Divorced Bure, 29, stated bluntly: "A wedding is not in my plans " before making it clear that there is only one current love in his life - ice hockey. Russia had been anticipating its wedding of the year after reports in February that Bure proposed to Anna, 11 years his junior, on bended knee in a Miami Beach restaurant and presented her with a diamond engagement ring with a seven-figure price tag. But a Russian television crew this week ditched plans to fly to Florida for a report on preparations after Bure allegedly told them not to bother. "I repeat, marriage is not in my plans," one newspaper quoted him as saying. One theory was that the love match had floundered due to Anna's domineering mother, Alla, 37, who has guided her daughter from poverty in a cramped Moscow flat to her fame today. "It's Anna's mum who is to blame for the break-up," said newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda yesterday. It accused Alla of treating Anna as a "money-making machine" and spinning stories of her love life to boost advertising and modelling earnings, from which she is said to take a large slice. "It's Alla Kournikova who takes quite a considerable share - up to 50 per cent - of her now-adult daughter's advertising contracts," said the paper. "Pavel Bure understood that. There's a wise Russian saying 'Before selecting a wife, select a mother-in-law'." Stories of a rift between the two Florida-based Russian sports stars, who live in separate apartments in the same luxury block, also appeared in another newspaper. "Rumours about my marriage to Anna are no more than usual newspaper sensationalism," said Bure, according to Moskovsky Komsomolets. "No one is going to marry anyone."Anna has refused to discuss her love life. "I'm trying to block everything out because I'm concentrating on my tennis," she said recently.
Florida 6, Boston 3 Ray Whitney and Ray Sheppard each scored twice during a team-record six-goal second period as the Florida Panthers continued their recent hot streak with a 6-3 victory over the lowly Boston Bruins. Mark Parrish and Scott Mellanby also scored during the second-period blitz as Florida improved to 6-1-1 over its last eight and moved within two points of first-place Washington in the Southeast Division lead. The Panthers also ensured they will hold no worse than the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. "I think we can't get overly excited about it, we still have some work ahead for us," Whitney said. "But if there is a way to go into the playoffs, it's on a roll. We have been playing pretty good hockey, so certainly, it is a good time for us." Parrish tied it at 1-1 just 11 seconds into the second period with his 26th goal before Whitney put Florida ahead just under two minutes later. Whitney fanned on a wrist shot during a partial breakaway but the puck slid under rookie goaltender John Grahame. "You know you get an ugly one, a good one, I guess," Whitney said. "It kind of evens out." Mellanby continued the onslaught at 3:01 by knocking a backhander past Grahame before Sheppard made it 4-1 at 12:55 when he tucked home a rebound after Grahame stopped Pavel Bure's shot. Whitney sent Grahame to the bench just over a minute later after beating him on a brekaway. Backup Rob Tallas was greeted rudely by Sheppard, who scored from a sharp angle to cap the barrage with 58 seconds remaining in the period. "We weren't happy with the first (period)," Sheppard said. "Parrish scores right away, Whitney scored on the breakaway, then the floodgates opened and we started to do some good things, made some turnovers and made some chances." Bure extended his points streak to 13 games, while Whitney is riding a six-game streak. "Ray did what he needs to do for our hockey club tonight," Panthers coachTerry Murray said. "He scores goals. Ray's role on this club is scoring. I think his last goal that he scored was a pretty darn good goal. It's his kind of play." The Bruins' lone bright spot came 96 seconds into the third period when Antti Laaksonen scored a highlight-reel goal to make it 6-2. Laaksonen darted down the slot and put the puck through defenseman Lance Pitlick's legs before spinning and beating goaltender Mike Vernon. Boston had a 34-28 edge in shots but its winless streak reached seven games (0-5-2). Florida goaltender Mike Vernon stopped 31 shots and extended his personal unbeaten streak to seven games (6-0-1). Pavel had two shots registered on goal and was even for his one point.
Kournikova, I'm staying single Tennis star Anna Kournikova tonight revealed she wants to stay single. Kournikova, 18, insisted that reports of marriage plans to fellow Russian Pavel Bure, an ice hockey star, are wide of the mark. In a statement released to PA Sport through London-based Octagon Athlete Representation, Kournikova said: "You know that I do not like to talk about my private life but this time the rumours have gone too far. "I never said I was engaged or planning to get married because I have no such plans. "It is hard for me to understand that some people believe everything they see in the media. I should have said something sooner. Any time that I have news I will be the one to let everyone know." The statement adds fuel to reports that her romance with NHL star Bure have cooled, with Ecuador's tennis star Nicolas Lapentti the latest name to be linked romantically to the teenager. Bure was quoted as saying by Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda A:"A wedding isn't entering into my plans just yet. Today I love hockey more than anything else." Kournikova and Bure created headlines in February when he reportedly proposed at a restaurant in Florida, where the pair live.
Assante buys hockey agency of Bure, Verbeek WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) -- Assante Corp. bought Mark Gillis' company that represents hockey players, adding it to a sports group that already has acquired the football and baseball agency of Leigh Steinberg and Jeff Moorad. Gillis represents Pavel Bure, Pat Verbeek, Markus Naslund, Ulf Dahlen Mathew Dandenault, Bobby Holik, Sergei Krivokrasov and Marcus Ragnersson. The deal involves an undisclosed cash payment and additional bonuses based on performance. "This acquisition is consistent with our strategy of partnering with the leading firms in each of our chosen lines of business," Martin Weinberg, Assante's chief executive. Assante also has purchased the football and basketball business of Eugene Parker and the money management firm of Klarberg, Raiola and Associates. SFX, competing in the sports business with Assante, bought the businesses of basketball agent David Falk, baseball agents Randy and Alan Hendricks, and football and basketball agent Arn Tellem, then purchased baseball's largest agent group, led by Jim Bronner and Bob Gilhooley. Clear Channel is in the process of acquiring SFX.
Pavel Bure talks
 Pavel Bure talks about rehab, his game, and Anna Kournikova.  Bure concentrates on his game
Val leading by example Leadership comes in many styles. Val Bure has unquestionably provided the Flames with leadership in the way of offence. But in the past couple of weeks, while he has been held off the scoresheet, the diminutive Russian has unveiled a new depth to his leadership. Against Dallas, it wasn't his scoring or playmaking that made a difference. It was his heart. Rocked against the boards by Stars 6-ft. 5-in. behemoth defenceman Derian Hatcher in the first period, it could have been expected to watch the smaller Bure disappear. But after picking himself up off the ice, Bure didn't wither. He blossomed. He ran Hatcher, leaving his skates to send a half-hearted elbow at his chin that came about two feet short of the target. Next shift, he exchanged shoves, hacks with his stick and verbal taunts. And when the whistle went, he faced Hatcher (face to chest anyway), in a defiant stand against the obvious intimidation. His message: "I'm not going to go away." That tenacity, refusal to surrender, was a beacon for an entire team that has not quit. Bure has been shutout his past 12 games, but he has not allowed himself to wallow in his personal misfortune. He has become a leader. "You always go through times when you can't put the puck in the net and it's obviously frustrating. I've had a lot of chances in the last few games, but I've hit posts, missed empty nets and stuff like that," says Bure. "It p***** you off, but you get mad and can't wait to play the next game. You get so excited to score, to help out. "You have to set your mind in the right direction and keep competing and playing hard -- not like some guys who will just shut it down and not worry about it." No one can accuse Bure of shutting down. It has been his size, his ability to withstand the physical pounding of playoff-style hockey that has always been the question mark with Bure. But the fierce determination he displayed against Hatcher and the Stars was an indication he has the ability, and more importantly, the desire, to battle through that. "It seems like they play me hard, Hatcher and (Richard) Matvichuk were out against me and they don't play clean either. Elbows, sticks flying -- I guess it's part of the game," said Bure. "It felt like a playoff game. "It is getting tougher for me out there, though. There isn't that much room to work with, but you try to find a little seam or opening and I still get my chances. "The key is that you are just competing. It's a rush this time of year and when you are battling, you don't care that he is 6 ft. 5 in and 230 lbs. " Bure is, of course, part of the foundation on which this team is rebuilding. He's as upset about the potential of missing the playoffs for the fourth straight year, but he has seen the potential for much more. "Just look at our last game against a pretty good team which does not give up 2-0 leads in the third period," he says. "We just believe in ourselves and keep working and finally the bounces come our way." Sure, he knows they have to win all their games and the Sharks must lose theirs. And then disaster has to strike both Anaheim and Vancouver ... "The bottom line is that this is pretty disappointing if we don't make the playoffs," he said. "But look around and you can see that this is a good team. They are all about the same age, and if we stick with these guys, they are going to develop into really good hockey players. "It is disappointing, but you can see the future is pretty bright for this team." And in no small part because of the development of Val Bure as a world-class scorer. And now, as a leader.
Florida's Bure catches Jagr The Penguins have produced the NHL's scoring champion five seasons in a row, but that run could end this weekend. The Florida Panthers' Pavel Bure is tied with Jaromir Jagr for the league lead in points with 92. And Bure has 57 goals to Jagr's 39, giving him an insurmountable edge in the tiebreaker for the Art Ross Trophy. It seems like an unfair fight. Bure is playing his finest hockey of the season. Monday night, he scored two goals in the Panthers' 5-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils, extending his points streak to 12 games and finally catching Jagr. No player had been close since October. It has helped Bure's cause, of course, that he has played 71 games to Jagr's 60. Jagr has missed 14 of the past 20 games with injuries to his legs and back, and he remains a shadow of his former self, complaining of a lack of leg strength and a lack of stamina. Jagr made it clear yesterday he wouldn't even be in uniform if the Penguins weren't in a playoff race. "It's hard right now," he said. "I know I'm not 100 percent. My health is not 100 percent. It's not even 50 percent. My conditioning's not even 50 percent. But I feel like I've got to be there. These are big games for us. I feel that if I'm good enough to play, I've got to play, even though I cannot help like I used to." Jagr and Bure each has three games left, and Jagr appears to be at a disadvantage there, too. The Penguins will travel to Toronto, Buffalo and Boston. Thus, Jagr faces two of the league's best goaltenders in the Maple Leafs' Curtis Joseph and the Sabres' Dominik Hasek, then spends an evening skating against Bruins defenseman Hal Gill, whom Jagr calls his toughest one-on-one opponent. Bure faces the Bruins, the Devils again and the last-place New York Islanders. Since Mario Lemieux won his first Art Ross Trophy in 1988, either he or Jagr has claimed the scoring title in all but three seasons. Wayne Gretzky was the lone exception, winning in 1990, '91 and '94. Lemieux won six times, in 1988, '89, '92, '93, '96 and '97. Jagr has won three, in 1995, '98 and '99.
New line lifts Cats Somebody put a T-shirt in Panthers center Len Barrie's locker Monday reading, "Help! I'm talking and I can't shut up!" Perhaps now somebody will put a T-shirt in some New Jersey lockers reading, "Help! Len Barrie's line is scoring and we can't shut them down!" OK, it was only one game, but the Alex Hicks-Barrie-Scott Mellanby line, with Barrie joining the other two because left wing Cam Stewart was injured, dominated in the Panthers' 5-2 victory over New Jersey on Monday night. The new line was the difference, scoring two goals and creating the situation for the third. "We're three experienced guys and we seem to think the game pretty well together," Mellanby said. "We're strong playing in the corners, around the net." The unit emerged during the first period as the Panthers' best line on this night. The trio created a scoring chance per shift and was tenacious on the boards, and Hicks' speed eliminated odd-man rushes. The line got the Panthers' first goal and drew the penalty that led to the second goal. After New Jersey's best line, Patrik Elias-Petr Sykora-Jason Arnott, closed the gap to 3-2 on Arnott's redirection from the doorstep, Barrie's line restored the two-goal lead. Hicks dumped the puck behind the net to Mellanby, who saw Barrie cutting in through the left circle. Barrie's shot rebounded to Hicks in the slot. Hicks' backhand got to Mellanby and Mellanby's tap went to Barrie at the right post. Barrie swatted it in from almost the same spot Mellanby had scored from in the first period. It was the Panthers' first victory over New Jersey, which didn't start goalie Martin Brodeur and rested defenseman Scott Stevens, since Jan. 1, 1998. Pavel Bure stickhandled around Devils defenseman Vladimir Malakhov, then stuffed home an empty-net goal with eight-tenths of a second remaining. That was his ninth empty-netter of the season, an unofficial NHL record. It wasn't necessary to extend his scoring streak to a team-record 12 games. That was done by Bure's power-play goal in the second period. Bure also has a Bizarro scoring streak against Jersey, having committed an oopsy leading to a Devils goal in each of the first two Panthers games with the Devils. That streak took only 4:33 to extend. As a hard-around came up the left boards in the Florida zone, Bure did a quick reach-and-bail with Jay Pandolfo on his back. All that did was stop the puck, teeing it up for defenseman Ken Daneyko. Daneyko's blast was deflected in by Sergei Brylin. Then, it was time for Barrie's line. Barrie came off the left boards with the puck and Mellanby in his direct sight line at the right post. Barrie's pass was deflected, but Hicks was driving the net and fired. Devils' goalie Chris Terreri made the save, and the rebound popped in the air. Hicks grabbed it, dropped it at the right post, whiffed and Mellanby swatted it home. The goal followed the letter of NHL Rule 59, which covers handling the puck with the hands, if not the way the rule is often called. Play is supposed to continue if the puck wasn't deliberately hand passed to a teammate. A follow-up goal and a 2-1 Panthers lead was only 1:22 away. Florida defenseman Mike Wilson showed the value of persistence when New Jersey kept trying to clear the zone through him and he kept firing it at the net. The third such point shot of this 10-second sequence was deflected in by Mark Parrish. The next shift for Barrie's line ended with Daneyko tumbling Mellanby over Terreri, getting the lifetime Devil a roughing penalty. The power play spilled over into the second period and, 22 seconds into the second, Bure buried a one-timer off a three-on-two for a 3-1 Florida lead.
Florida 5, New Jersey 2 Pavel Bure scored his league-leading 56thand 57th goals and Mike Vernon stopped 39 shots as the Florida Panthers defeated the New Jersey Devils, 5-2. Florida improved to 7-1-1 in its last nine games and is one win away from clinching fifth place in the Eastern Conference. The Devils had a modest two-game winning streak stopped and fell to 6-9-1 since March 1. Bure extended his franchise-record points streak to 12 games and scored the eventual game-winner on the power play 22 seconds into the second period. He sealed the victory by finding an empty net with two seconds left, giving him 10 goals and eight assists during the streak. Vernon improved to 6-0-1 in his last seven decisions, stopping 12 shots in the first period and 17 in the third. New Jersey got on the board first on Sergei Brylin's deflection 4:33 into the game before Florida answered with three straight goals. Scott Mellanby and Mark Parrish tallied 82 seconds apart late in the opening period before Bure made it 3-1. Jason Arnott's 20th goal halved the Devils' deficit with 13:09 remaining, but Len Barrie helped the Panthers regain a two-goal advantage just under seven minutes later. Pavel had 4 shots registered on goal, had a minus one on the plus minus meter and took a two minute hooking penalty, which was successfully killed off by the Florida Panthers. Pavel now leads the league with goals, and shots on goal and game winning goals. He is tied with Jaromir Jagr for total points scored in the season. Tonight he also broke the un-official NHL record for empty net goals in one season.
Tie keeps Panthers on Capitals' heels If the Florida Panthers needed a reminder of what playoff intensity is all about, they got a good taste of it from an unlikely source -- the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Panthers, outplayed and outmuscled for much of the game, were rescued by Scott Mellanby's goal with 1:36 remaining in regulation to earn a 3-3 tie with Tampa Bay on Saturday night. Florida, which trailed 3-1 after two periods, outshot Tampa Bay 12-1 in the third period. "It's good for hockey and the NHL to have games like this," Tampa Bay coach Steve Ludzik said. "It would be great to see what it would be like if we were fighting for a playoff spot right now. Obviously, our two teams do not like each other and that's good for the game." Mellanby slid the puck past Zac Bierk off a nice feed by Mark Parrish, who was inside the right circle. "I went over to the net and just yelled for it," Mellanby said. "It was a little bit out towards the net and I just lunged forward and tried to redirect it towards the net. The goalie thought it was going across, but I just found the goal on the short side." Mike Johnson scored a pair of goals and had an assist for Tampa Bay in the physical contest. Vincent Lacavalier added a pair of assists. The Panthers, with Washington's 4-3 loss to Toronto, pulled within four points of the Capitals for the Southeast Division title. "We needed the two points," Florida coach Terry Murray said. "But getting down 3-1 was a very big hole. It doesn't matter what the record of a team that you're playing. It gives them confidence." The Lightning ended a nine-game losing streak in the series dating to March 21, 1998. Tampa Bay notched only one win in the prior 14 meetings. The Lightning haven't won a road game from the Panthers since April 10, 1996. The Lightning dropped to 0-7-9 in overtime. The Panthers are 2-21-2 when trailing after two periods. Tampa Bay, coming off an impressive 6-3 victory over playoff-bound Ottawa, jumped out to a 1-0 lead on Johnson's 18th goal. Brian Holzinger took the initial shot, which Mike Vernon stopped, but Vernon didn't cover the puck and Johnson skated in and poked it into the net. The Panthers tied it 1-1 just 2:38 into the second period on Ray Whitney's 26th goal. Whitney scored after a shot by Robert Svehla from the slot caromed off the end boards. Whitney reached a new career high with 66 points. Pavel Bure assisted on Whitney's goal, extending his scoring streak to 11 games. It's his second such streak of the year, becoming the only player in the NHL this season to accomplish the feat. Bure, with two assists, is the first Panthers player to reach 90 points. "It's always hard to play against those guys," Bure said. "They play with lots of passion and always want to win." The second period was marred by dirty play that included 62 minutes of penalties, 47 by Florida, and game misconducts issued to Florida's Brad Ference and Mike Sillinger, who was traded from Tampa March 14. Ference was ejected after a fight with Wayne Primeau. "They have a few guys on their team, that's their kind of role," Ference said. "Obviously, I could have handled myself a bit better in that situation. Stuff happens and you just move on." The Lightning wound up on a power play due to Ference's original penalty, for slashing, and took advantage when Todd Warriner scored to put Tampa Bay up 2-1. Johnson's second goal came at 14:24 of the second as he sent a shot from the slot past Vernon, who had won his five prior starts. Oleg Kvasha made it 3-2 when he rebounded a miss by Bure that went off Bierk's knees at 5:19 of the third. It was the first point for Kvasha since Feb. 21 and his first goal since Jan. 21. Tampa Bay only managed 19 shots, 15 in regulation, compared to 36 for Florida. "I'm getting tired of doing this," Parrish said. "I'd like to have the game in hand going into the third period and not have to scramble for your life." Of course, that's the way it is in rivalry games. "We're the closest teams and we're going to continue it," Tampa Bay's Jaroslav Svejkovsky said. "It's too bad we didn't get two points from it."
Tampa Bay 3, Florida 3 (ot) Scott Mellanby scored with 96 seconds left in the third period to lift the Florida Panthers into a 3-3 tie with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Mellanby streaked through the slot and tipped Mark Parrish's pass over goaltender Zac Bierk's glove for his 16th goal. Mike Vernon made 16 saves but had his five-game winning streak snapped for Florida. The Panthers (41-31-9) set a team record with 93 points, eclipsing the mark set in the 1995-96 season, when they made their only Stanley Cup Finals appearance. Florida closed within 3-2 at 5:19 of the third when Oleg Kvasha cut through the slot and buried a rebound of Pavel Bure's shot from from the left faceoff circle. It was Kvasha's fifth goal of the season and first since January 21. The Panthers are 4-1-1 in the last six games and are fifth in the Eastern Conference, four points behind Philadelphia and four ahead of Ottawa. The Lightning, who lost their previous eight games at Florida, had four of the six shots in overtime. Vincent Lecavalier had a quick backhander from the slot with 2:07 left, but Vernon made a kick save. Pavel had 7 shots on goal, and was a plus two for his two assists he earned for the night.
Vernon shines in Panthers' victory
For the Panthers, it was home win No. 24, a franchise record, and overall win No. 41, tying the franchise record. Both records were set in 1995-96. They also stayed three points in front of Ottawa for the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference. With 37-year-old Mike Vernon foiling Ottawa's numerous scoring chances, the Panthers were able to stay even with the Senators until a late second-period power-play goal from Ray Sheppard gave them the lead, and Viktor Kozlov put the game away in the third. "That's the kind of performance [Vernon] has shown over the past years, as it gets right down to the crunch time and into the playoffs," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "He has the ability to turn a game around, to maybe outright win a game by himself at any given night." While Vernon looked like Dom Perignon '53, Ottawa goalie Tom Barrasso looked like old, sour grapes. Barrasso, now 8-10-2, gave up a poor short-side goal to Len Barrie that opened the scoring, then gave up Kozlov's smoking 40-foot wrister. "I can't score from a good angle, just a bad angle," joked Barrie, who was a teammate of Barrasso's in Pittsburgh. "Tommy's a good goalie, but I know the short side you can beat him sometimes -- he's cheating across. You see on Kozzie's goal, he's kind of doing the same thing. Sometimes you sneak the easy one by instead of the hard one." Kozlov came over the line on a two-on-two with Pavel Bure, who had extended his scoring streak to 10 games with an assist earlier in the game on Ray Sheppard's power-play goal. Barrasso bet with the house -- that Kozlov eventually would try to go left to Bure, who was breaking around the defenseman. But Kozlov busted Barrasso by leaning into a wrister that got past Barrasso by the time he flinched. "The play he makes, coming at kind of a 45-degree angle, laterally across the offensive zone, that's a very hard play for a team to defend as a defenseman or as a goaltender," Murray said. By contrast, Vernon made the save of the game on Andreas Dackell's shorthanded breakaway in the second period. Left point man Ray Whitney had trouble controlling the puck at center ice, and Dackell picked up the puck and walked in but was stopped on his backhand attempt. "It kind of got caught in [Whitney's] skates, then he lost his stick, so he couldn't even hook [Dackell]," Vernon said. "I made a desperation play. I looked like a starfish there." The only goal Vernon allowed was from Daniel Alfredsson, at 8:42 of the second. Alfredsson caught Florida defenseman Mike Wilson moored to the Florida line and won his duel with Vernon by going through the five-hole. Ironically, Wilson was the Panthers' best defenseman Friday. Rarely has Wilson been more physical, making at least three pancake hits -- none more violent than a shot on Patrick Traverse in the first period. Traverse tried to split Wilson and Todd Simpson, but Simpson teed Traverse up and Wilson drove him into the ice. As such games will, this one turned on a save and a power-play goal. The save was the one on Dackell. Less than a minute later, Ottawa's Vaclav Prospal put the Panthers back on the power play by taking a slashing penalty in the Florida zone. On the power play, Whitney found Bure as a latecomer, and Sheppard knocked in the rebound of Bure's shot. Actually, Sheppard knocked the puck off the skate of Senators defenseman Igor Kravchuk and it popped in from there. Whichever way it went in, the score was 2-1 Florida after a second period dominated by Ottawa. "We made mistakes," Murray said. "Turnovers in particular really cost us with neutral-zone decisions. They're a team that lives on the forecheck and they live on the counterattack. Without Vernon tonight, they would've made us pay a big price."
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Winning goals, season: 14 (led NHL)
Even-strength points, season: 72 
