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Florida 3, Ottawa 1 Not only did the Florida Panthers ruin Ottawa Senators goaltender Tom Barrasso's birthday, his own teammates did as well. Mike Sillinger batted the rebound of Ray Sheppard's attempt in front of the crease off Barrasso's pad and his defenseman's leg into the net to snap a 1-1 tie in the waning moments of the second period en route to a 3-1 triumph over the Ottawa Senators. Barrasso, who turned 35 tonight, allowed an insurance tally to Viktor Kozlov on a clear wrist shot from outside the right circle to cap the scoring with 5:28 left in the third period. It was a crucial victory for Florida, which pulled to within five points of idle Washington for the Southeast Division lead with five games remaining. The Panthers also expanded their hold on the fifth-seed in the Eastern Conference to three points over the Senators. It was equally devastating for Ottawa, which missed out on a chance to pull within three points of Toronto for tops in the Northeast Division. Pavel Bure celebrated his 29th birthday tonight with an assist to extend his points streak to 10 games for Florida, which tied a team-record with its 41st victory and set a new record with its 24th home victory. The old records were both set in the 1995-96 season, when the Panthers advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals. Florida goaltender Mike Vernon made a sliding pad save on Shawn Van Allen's one-timer from point-blank range just 41 seconds into the third period. He finished with 32 saves and improved to 16-12-2 since being aquired from San Jose shortly before the New Year. Daniel Alfredsson scored the lone goal for the Senators, who lost for the first time this campaign to the Panthers. Pavel was even on the plus minus and had 4 shots registered on goal.
Birthday boy!
Happy 29th birthday, PAVEL ! 
No charges in Kournikova dispute on flight Tennis star Anna Kournikova and her mother won't be charged for their part in a dispute on a recent airline flight, the FBI said Thursday. The incident occurred March 19 while Kournikova and her mother were on an American Airlines flight to Miami. The crew told police that Kournikova refused to put her miniature Doberman pinscher in its carrying case, as FAA rules require, and the pilot had to intervene. Police sent a report of the incident to the FBI, which determined that no further investigation was necessary, an FBI spokesman said.
Panthers fail test vs. Cup champs Wednesday night's 4-1 Panthers loss to Dallas at National Car Rental Center was like a playoff game -- fiercely fought on springtime ice and decided on a few pivotal saves, mistakes and timely goals. The difference in winning such a game is simple: The Stars are the defending Stanley Cup champions. The Panthers haven't seen a playoff game since 1997. At least the Panthers over the past few games have behaved like a playoff team in keeping their emotions on an even keel, whether in victory or defeat. "We can't get too discouraged about this," captain Scott Mellanby said. "We talked about playing the right way -- some nights, it's going to be good enough, some nights it isn't." "They took advantage of their chances and that's why they're the Stanley Cup champions." Example: When Joe Nieuwendyk, Dallas' best shooter not carrying the Hull surname, got an open shot, he buried it. When Florida's Pavel Bure, the NHL's top goal scorer, got an open shot, he found himself foiled by bad ice, the post, or a quick glove save by Dallas' Ed Belfour. Bure did extend his point streak to nine games with a goal at 8:46 of the third period. By that point, Dallas was up 4-0, so garbage time had begun. The Stars weren't at full strength. They scratched center Mike Modano, the NHL's top scorer since January, with a hip-flexor injury suffered against Tampa Bay on Tuesday night. They lost defenseman Sergei Zubov to a sprained knee at 6:30 of the third period. But, as a good playoff team will, Dallas dealt with it. Scott Thornton, he of five goals before Wednesday, got Dallas' last two goals. Aging center Guy Carbonneau beat Panthers defenseman Jaroslav Spacek for Dallas' second goal. Carbonneau's goal and Thornton's first came 59 seconds apart in the second period. The Panthers couldn't follow through on their threats to tie the 1-0 game. Florida center Viktor Kozlov hit the crossbar with a wrister from the top of the circle. Bure was stoned by Belfour on a partial breakaway, then mishit a one-timer off the right post with an open net beckoning. "I thought the difference was they hit those two posts," Dallas coach Ken Hitchcock said. "The game is on the line, they hit two goal posts, we come back and score two goals." Carbonneau's goal was a case of a 40-year-old veteran taking advantage of a defensive pair contributing one mistake each. First, Panthers defenseman Robert Svehla opened a lane when he made a low-percentage charge at Mike Keane to try to keep the puck in the zone. "In our system, we need to keep the play in front of us," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "Last year, in the left wing lock, we had our defensemen challenge up the middle." This led to Carbonneau's one-on-one with Spacek. Panthers goalie Trevor Kidd stopped Carbonneau's backhander, but the NHL's oldest player at 40 got his stick free of Spacek to forehand the rebound into the top shelf. The next shift, Thornton dropped for Brett Hull on a rush, cruised past Kozlov, and deflected Hull's pass on net. Kidd's left shoulder stopped the shot, but it fell to the ice and was knocked in by Kidd when he turned to locate the puck. Dallas opened the scoring just 2:42 into the game. Panthers defenseman Todd Simpson took responsibility for the miscommunication that caused Florida's penalty-killing box to do a Red Sea imitation in front Nieuwendyk. Nieuwendyk went through the right circle and banked a shot home off the far post. Using the energy from a big Mark Parrish hit on Carbonneau and three fights, the Panthers took some control of the game late in the first period. But their best scoring chances kept going under sticks at the right post -- a cross-crease pass for Rob Niedermayer, a rebound eluding Len Barrie. Both were among the few cases of misbehaving pucks that couldn't be credited to the ice. Perhaps the night's best statement on the ice was when Bure wiped out untouched on a partial breakaway.
"We never have good ice here to start with, but tonight was probably as bad as it's been all year," Panthers left wing Ray Whitney said.
Bure spoils Belfour's shutout bid
avi: 578 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1 The Dallas Stars were unfazed by the absence of injured captain Mike. Scott Thornton scored a pair of goals and Ed Belfour stopped 36 shots Wednesday night as the Stars clinched their fourth straight Pacific Division title, winning 4-1 over the Florida Panthers. "We heard they wanted to use us as a measuring stick to see how they stand up," said Thornton, who returned after a two-game suspension. "We looked at that as a challenge and we wanted to be ready. I don't know if we're making any kind of statement or not, all I know is we're focused and gearing up for the playoffs." Modano, who has 20 goals in his last 29 games, has a hip flexor injury and was held out for precautionary measures. Florida lost for the first time in four games. The Stars, unbeaten in seven road contests, have six wins in eight contests (6-1-1). Dallas has won an NHL-record 34 straight road games when scoring at least three goals. "They're Stanley Cup champions," Florida's Todd Simpson said. "They played a solid game and we never got it going. I think we learned we've got a little ways to go." Belfour was not expected to start because of a court hearing that resulted from his March 8 arrest for assault and resisting arrest. The Panthers got scoring chances, but Belfour was up to the task nearly every time, including a nice glove save on Pavel Bure in the second. Bure scored on a rebound off a Ray Whitney shot with 11:14 to play -- extending his point-scoring streak to nine games -- ending Belfour's bid for his 50th career shutout. "You definitely want to be ready for him," Belfour said of the league's leading goal scorer. "You want to shut him down and limit his scoring chances. I enjoy playing against the best and meeting the challenge." The Stars went up 1-0 in a fight-filled first period. Joe Nieuwendyk scored on the power play just 2:42 in after Florida's Mike Sillinger was sent off for interference. Nieuwendyk's shot from the right circle beat Trevor Kidd on the stick side. The Stars added a pair of goals 59 seconds apart in the second to take command. Guy Carbonneau scored his 10th when his shot from the left circle hit Kidd's pads and trickled in at 12:24. Thornton made it 3-0 when he flicked the puck in behind Kidd. "It was a tough night out there," Kidd said. It was made tougher by the poor condition of the ice, something both teams complained about after the game. Bure and Mark Parrish had shots hit the goal posts in the second period as well. The last time the teams met, Dec. 10 at Dallas, Florida also fell behind 3-0 but rallied to tie it. The Panthers were then beaten by Jamie Langenbrunner's late goal. There would be no comeback in the rematch. Thornton added his second goal at 4:32 of the third and Brett Hull broke a two-game scoreless streak with three assists. Stars defenseman Sergei Zubov sprained his right knee in a third period collision with Panthers defenseman Bret Hedican. "He'll certainly be ready for the playoffs," Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. "But I don't know if he'll play any more games for the rest of the year." Dallas has won five of six meetings between the clubs. "We've been improving each time out over our last 15 games," Belfour said. "I think it's our way of getting revved up going into the playoffs."
Bure gaffe fatal blow A year and change ago, when Pavel Bure was in mid-sulk and the Vancouver Canucks were trying to get the best they could for him, one of the teams in the running was the New York Rangers. In fact, the story goes, the Rangers all but had Bure in their clutches. But there was a sticking point: As part of the deal, the Canucks wanted Manny Malhotra, the promising 18-year-old centre who'd been the Rangers' first pick in the '98 draft. The Rangers balked. No way, said general manager Neil Smith, were they going to give up a prospect like Malhotra. The deal fell through and off went Bure to Florida in a package deal that brought the Canucks Ed Jovanovski and a bunch of guys who stayed in the spotlight about as long as the cast of Freaks and Geeks. Flash forward one year. Malhotra is so key to the Rangers' plans that they lent him to Canada in mid-season to play in the world junior tourney. Bure is dazzling the NHL before crowds of 'gators and water moccasins in Florida. And Neil Smith is unemployed. Smith and coach John Muckler got the warm blanket, the apple and the road map yesterday from Madison Square Garden boss Dave Checketts, who seemed to feel that a $61-million payroll and a clutch of free agents making more money that the gross national product of Liechtenstein should have produced more than a team buried so deeply in the NHL muck its players could moonlight as truffles. John Tortorella is the interim sacrificial goat to replace Muckler and the Rangers will spend a lot of time wondering how they got into this mess. And speaking of Mess ... Where do you suppose the Rangers might be today -- not to mention the Canucks -- if the Rangers hadn't seized up on the re-signing of Mark Messier in 1997 and had made the Bure deal last year? Yes, it would have cost them a bundle to keep Messier. But this is a team that's paying Theo Fleury $8.5 million and has 11 other guys making a mil or more including the immortal Tim (Not the Tool Man) Taylor. So, for argument's sake, say they'd kept Messier and got Bure this season. Automatically, that would have meant leadership from Messier (among Vancouver media, it is now considered a faux pas of the highest order to write or utter his name without adding 'the greatest leader in professional sport.') And Wayne Gretzky would still be playing. He's said so publicly: The chance to play with Bure would have been inducement enough to bring him back for one more Cup pursuit. Yes, he's having the time of his life in retirement and Hollywood couldn't have written a better final scene than that last game in New York. But part of the reason he left surely was the discouragement at the prospect of another season trying to carry too much of the load on a team seemingly bound for nowhere. We could have had a season of Gretzky feeding the puck into those spaces only he could see and putting it on the tape of a Russian Rocket on full thrusters. You think Bure wouldn't have been big in New York? You think Madison Square Garden would be in the state it's in today, full of empty seats, disgusted jeers and negative vibes? Instead, he's big in Florida, the hockey equivalent of being the best yachtsman in Saskatchewan. Instead of Wayne Gretzky, playmaker without peer, we've got Wayne Gretzky, part-time sports columnist and Little League coach. That's the trouble with hindsight. It's always 20-20. And sometimes, it makes you want to weep.
Dallas 4, Florida 1 The Dallas Stars clinched their fourth straight division title while hurting the Florida Panthers' chances of winning their first. Ed Belfour made 36 saves and Scott Thornton recorded his first two-goal game in more than three years as the Stars extended their road unbeaten streak to seven games with a 4-1 victory over Florida. The defending Stanley Cup champions also got three assists from Brett Hull as they captured their second Pacific Division crown in as many years. Before that, they won back-to-back Central Division titles. Dallas played without red-hot Mike Modano, who suffered a hip flexor during Tuesday's 4-2 win in Tampa Bay. But the Stars never trailed tonight after Joe Nieuwendyk scored on the power play 2:42 into the first period. Guy Carbonneau and Thornton struck 59 seconds apart in the second before Thornton scored again early in the third for a four-goal cushion. Belfour lost a bid for his 50th career shutout when Pavel Bure scored his league-leading 55th goal off a bad-angle rebound with 11:14 remaining. But that was all the Panthers could put past Belfour, who improved to 7-1-1 lifetime against Florida. Bure was denied twice in succession in the second period as Belfour made a glove save on a breakaway. His one-timer from the low right faceoff circle hit the near goalpost. Florida had a three-game winning streak stopped and remained six points behind first-place Washington in the Southeast Division with six games to play. Pavel was even on the plus minus stats with six shots on goal.
Kournikova in no-win situation She calls herself "a serious tennis player," but it's getting harder and harder to think of Anna Fraudikova, I mean Kournikova, as anything more than a cartoon figure. She is Dennis Rodman in a halter top, a self-promoting genius who knows how to cash in on celebrity without doing anything meaningful. At least Rodman rebounded like a banshee and helped bring home NBA titles in Detroit and Chicago as he devolved into a caricature. Kournikova, on the other hand, has won nothing. Except the hearts of gawkers everywhere, the ones who whistle while she works, download her image off the Internet and shout, "Anna, I love you!" in the middle of her losing matches, like the one against Monica Seles at the Ericsson on Monday night In getting bounced by Seles, the ghost of greatness past, Kournikova didn't do much to trigger hope for greatness anytime soon She dropped the first set 1-6. She showed some life winning the second 6-3. But then she didn't win a game in the third, a rash of unforced errors sending the half-full stadium crowd scurrying for the exits "I completely lost my rhythm," Kournikova said. "I have to play more consistent against the top players." Hard to believe she made it to the finals here two years ago Oh, there have been some doubles titles here and there, the tennis world's version of consolation prizes, and she works hard, and she's only 18, and she's learning, and she was hindered by a stress fracture last summer that caused her to miss three months, including the U.S. Open But the inescapable fact is that she's 0 for 62 on the singles circuit and her farthest foray at a Grand Slam (1997 Wimbledon semifinalist) came three years ago, in her first full season on the WTA Tour She keeps getting richer ($11 million in endorsements last year, according to Forbes magazine), but she doesn't appear to be getting any better She keeps getting more famous, her off-court exploits with various suitors keeping the paparazzi and gossip columnists in a frenzy. One week it's Pavel Bure and his alleged engagement ring at The Forge, the next it's 240 roses from Sergei Fedorov at a tournament in Arizona, the next it's a cat-and-mouse game in clubs and sports cars with another tennis pro But it's time she proves herself more than just a pretty face, more than a whirlwind of hype who knows how to keep fast company. Because when it comes to her craft, the sport she professes to be so serious about, she's been nothing but a tease It would be one thing if she has milked her talent for everything it's worth. But the sense among tennis people is there's more there, that there's no reason she couldn't be a top-5 player who wins her share of titles and the odd Grand Slam. Instead she seems to be squandering her talent, content to sell herself short by living the tabloid life. Worse, she seems to be trying to convince herself that she's progressing just fine, that her No. 10 ranking is all she needs "For me ranking is much more important (than winning) and the only people that keep bringing it up is you (reporters)," Kournikova said. "For me, if a person is in the top-10, she must have pretty good results. Sooner or later (winning) will come "I think my game has matured a lot in the last six months since the injury. It is stronger. All I have to do is continue playing the same way and then it will all get together. I see a lot of progress. Every match I am getting better." Hard to say what match she was analyzing Monday, because everyone in the crowd could have won as many third-set games as she did. And it's hard to believe she really could be satisfied by rank alone Great players want wins, not ranking points Seles said it's only a matter of time until Kournikova breaks through, but she wanted no part of predicting how many Slams she would win. She practically rolled her eyes at the question. Nothing rankles those who have been robbed like wasted potential "Anna is a very hard worker, a very big fighter," Seles, the former No. 1 whose dominant run was cut short by a stabbing attack, said diplomatically But you wonder if Kournikova has the tunnel vision needed for greatness. Because in individual sports like tennis and golf, great players usually live in some gated retreat in the middle of nowhere, where they can hone their games and cut down on distractions. Kournikova lives in a penthouse atop the biggest party on earth, South Beach
After getting run out of her home tournament in the fourth round, you expected a little more disappointment. Her week was done at 11:30 on a Monday night. But Fraudikova -- that beautiful, rich, self-promoting genius -- seemed perfectly content.
Lose a Rocket, gain a rock There is no anger in Ed Jovanovski's voice, just a hint of exasperation. Well, maybe more than a hint. "He didn't even want to be here," said Jovanovski, shaking his head as he ponders yet another question about The Trade. "The Canucks had to make a move. I have no control over what happens. He's going to score lots of goals. That's what he's paid to do. He's electric." Of course, Jovanovski is talking about Pavel Bure, the Russian Rocket who jettisoned himself out of Vancouver by refusing to play for the Canucks and getting himself traded to Florida last winter. Jovanovski was the centrepiece of the deal for the Canucks. More than a year later, Bure seems to be scoring at will against NHL goalies and is having a potential MVP season. Jovanovski might be stewing on the hot seat, if he weren't playing so well lately. "I'm not going to score goals like that but I do things well, too," said Jovanovski, who's averaging more than 24 minutes per game on the Canucks blue-line. "You look for a defenceman to carry the puck and make good passes. I think I do that." Some people still question the trade. "It doesn't bother me," Jovanovski said. "I know what I can do and (Canucks) management knows what I can do. That's all that matters." Jovanovski has been a big part of the Canucks' late-season drive, which continues tonight against the Red Wings. Jovanovski, who grew into his 6-foot-2, 210-pound frame just across the river in Windsor, Ont., has four goals and 20 assists this season. He has a goal, two assists and is a plus-6 in his last six games. "Ed was our best defenceman against Edmonton Saturday," said Canucks coach Marc Crawford, referring to a 3-2 win over the Oilers. "We've been getting a big contribution from our whole defensive corps and Ed's been a big part of that. He probably has more confidence, offensively, now. When he first got here he probably had a lot of weight on his shoulders. "Defencemen are hard to find in this league and quality defencemen are even harder to find. Everyone wants them. He's a reason why we're excited about our chances." Jovanovski had no goals through the first 63 games. Then he got his first of the year in Toronto, the game-winner in a 4-1 win against the Maple Leafs. His third-period goal against Toronto at GM Place on March 6 ignited a comeback that erased a 5-1 Leafs lead and earned the Canucks a point for an overtime loss. Jovanovski scored a key goal in a 6-1 pounding of Ottawa on March 18. In Edmonton on Saturday he rushed out of his own end, created a 2-on-1 and fed Markus Naslund whose goal won it 3-2. "I'm enjoying the way I'm playing now," said Jovanovski. "This year I just wanted to be more consistent. I just wanted to be a steady contributor game in, game out." If you need another opinion about Jovanovski, ask goalie Felix Potvin. "Ed's a real powerful player," said Potvin. "He's been getting the puck out, making really good passes out of our zone. He plays most of the night against their top guys. I'm confident knowing he's on the ice. He's proving he's a great defenceman."
Tennis star Anna hounded by FBI over her flying dog
 IN THE DOGHOUSE: Anna Kounikova with her beloved Affenspinscher TEENAGE tennis beauty Anna Kournikova faces FBI charges after a fracas erupted when she allegedly let her dog out of its carrying case during a flight. Kournikova allegedly let her Affenspinscher out to sit on her lap in a trip from a tournament in Dallas to her Florida home. Small pets are allowed on domestic flights but only if kept in a cage under a seat. A row allegedly started when Russian Kournikova, 18, was asked to put the dog back by a flight attendant. The captain said he had to leave the controls and intervene when the dispute between Kournikova, her mother Alla and the crew became heated.
When the plane landed and police boarded, the dog was back in its cage and Kournikova said it had wriggled out accidentally.She may be charged with interfering with an aircraft's crew. The FBI was called in as this is a federal offence.
Kournikova predicts... Anna Kournikova predicts topless tennis. Anna Kournikova dumps one hockey player for another. Anna Kournikova battles an airline crew that wants her to put her miniature Doberman pinscher in a carrying case. You know what this means, don't you? She and Dennis Rodman will be an item any day now.
Kournikova is more soap star than sports star It is great to be great. But it isn't good enough. Not anymore. We demand more from our athletes today. We want their games to be framed in fluorescence. We are like fashion photographers, taking something that is already beautiful and demanding that it give us more attitude (click!), give us more personality (click!), give us more sparks (click! shutter! click!). And that's why Pete Sampras, a gentleman champion, bores us. And that's why Anna Kournikova, a celebrity sideshow, does not. Because too often these days we'll select the packaging over the gift. Kournikova walked onto the big stage at the Ericsson during prime time Monday evening, and the place filled with the sound of men whistling when she took off her warmup top, a charming tennis venue reduced to a construction site. Kournikova lost -- Monica Seles trouncing her, 6-1, 3-6, 6-0, a victory for substance over style -- but our sports culture has warped and mutated Kournikova into something that makes the result spectacularly besides the point. Hard to say, given how voyeuristic we can be about celebrity, whether all the folks who gathered for this match were here to watch Kournikova play tennis or here to watch Kournikova, period. Among the other sports lured here Monday were football (Jason Taylor), baseball (Brady Anderson), basketball (Bob McAdoo), golf (Stuart Appleby) and auto racing (Mark Blundell). No, Florida Panthers star Pavel Kournikova did not make an appearance. Kournikova is more soap star than sports star, the way she allegedly gets engaged to Pavel Bure at The Forge and then gets 240 roses later from hockey star Sergei Federov, too. Kournikova pleads that we please judge her as a tennis player, asking us to ignore the paparazzi flashes that frame her every footstep, but you can see how it's difficult to concentrate on her game when she shows up in Rolling Stone revealing so much of her panties. Kournikova sells sex appeal, and we buy it. That she asks us to ignore that is patently ridiculous, seeing as how Forbes estimates she made $11 million in endorsements last year. She did not make that much endorsement money with her tennis, seeing as how Monday's elimination from the Ericsson means she has now played in 62 pro WTA Tour events without winning a single one. Among the anonymous names who did not make $11 million in endorsements last year: Julie Halard-Decugis and Nathalie Tauziat, both of whom are ranked ahead of Kournikova. "She have good body," Tauziat said in fractured English. "That's it." Kournikova, capable of overwhelming petulance, can be catty and curt with the press for asking her anything, so it surprised no one here to read the Associated Press' Monday account of Kournikova's flight to Miami, when she and her mother allegedly got into an argument with the flight attendants that forced the pilot to intervene. So close-mouthed is Kournikova that, at the tournament before this one, she steadfastly refused to tell reporters the name of her dog. Asked this weekend to help readers understand the real Anna, Kournikova said, "Nobody will get the real Anna, the way I am at home. Everything off the court should be mine, nobody else's." Asked if there was anything about her personality she wished to share with people, she said, "I think they know a lot. I think they know everything. More than they need to know." Bure and Kournikova seems perfect for each other, judging from how little both of them reveal of themselves. Bure, while accessible and polite, is a painful interview, showing you nothing, so one can only imagine their private conversations if they are as deep with each other as they are with reporters. Bure: ``God, you're good-looking.'' Kournikova: ``You, too.'' Or, to break up the monotony, maybe a little variety. Bure: ``God, I'm good-looking.'' Kournikova: ``Me, too.'' We remain hypnotized by Kournikova, though, probably for the same reasons that authors keep writing biographies about Marilyn Monroe nearly four decades after her death. Mix a pretty face with personality, and you'll always have something that sells in sports. This dates all the way back to Joe Namath and Muhammad Ali, but here's the one difference between then and now. At least Namath and Ali did us the courtesy of winning, too.
Pilot, police intervene in Kournikova dispute with flight crew An airline crew said tennis starlet Anna Kournikova and her mother caused a commotion during a recent flight, forcing the pilot and police to intervene. The dispute occurred March 19 while Kournikova and her mother were on an American Airlines flight from Dallas to South Florida. The crew told police that Kournikova, 18, refused to put her miniature Doberman Pinscher in its carrying case, as FAA rules require, Miami-Dade police Maj. Mike Hammersmith said Sunday. The incident was referred to the FBI. According to the police report, when Kournikova and her mother, Alla, argued with flight attendants about the dog, the pilot became involved. At the crew's request, police met the plane when it landed in Miami and by then the dog was back in the case. Both denied refusing to put the dog in the case, Hammersmith said. "They said the flight crew was being obnoxious with them and treated them rudely," he said. The FBI will decide whether to file charges of interfering with a flight crew, Hammersmith said. Kournikova flew to Florida to participate in the Ericsson Open, where she won her third-round match Sunday against Natasha Zvereva, 6-1, 6-4.
Pavel Bure scores twice as Panthers beat Canadiens Are you ready for another black-cloud report on the Bad News Canadiens? Uh-huh: they lost another game - this one 4-2 to the Florida Panthers - at a time when any loss is a stab in the heart in terms of the Canadiens' pursuit of a playoff spot. And, yeah, they lost another key player. Would you believe Martin Rucinsky? "Back spasms," an exercised coach Alain Vigneault said. "When does this end? I mean . . . I know there's nothing you can do about injuries, but look at the guys we've lost early in the season and those we've lost the last few games. They're our most important players." You want names? Here's names: Saku Koivu, Trevor Linden, Eric Weinrich, Shayne Corson and Benoit Brunet for brief periods. Now, team scoring leader Rucinsky, who probably won't be in the lineup against Tampa Bay tonight (6 p.m., RDS). You want details? Rucinsky suffered the injury after being cross-checked in the first period by Panthers defenceman Todd Simpson. Rucinsky tried returning in the second period, but left after only 18 seconds. Rucinsky left behind him a tanned coach Vigneault, who spent most of the night watching his millionaires get tanned by Pavel Bure, whose two goals - the second on the power play - were more than enough to leave the Canadiens dead in the water. Mark this down about last night's loss, which leaves the Canadiens one point behind the No. 8 Buffalo Sabres: while they did a man-sized job of holding the Panthers to a mere 21 shots, without the Canadiens' best defenceman in the lineup, the fact is this one was a loser from the start - with or without Rucinsky. The Panthers led 4-0 after two periods, prompting Vigneault to replace starter Jeff Hackett with Jose Theodore for the start of the third. "Hackett has played a lot of hockey lately," Vigneault said. "He wasn't getting much help from anybody in the first two periods. It was time for a change." Len Barrie and Alex Hicks were the other goal-scorers for the Panthers, who pretty well did as they pleased in the first two periods with a Canadiens team running out of juice, as well as bodies. Sergei Zholtok scored the first Canadiens goal in the third period - but only after Dainius Zubrus was dumped into Florida goaltender Mike Vernon, leaving him easy pickings for Zholtok's 24th goal of the season. Juha Lind added the second in the game's final minute. Bure scored his 53rd precisely the way he's scored so many others this season. He sneaks around the opposition's blue line, waiting for the break . . . waiting . . . and waiting, and then poof! he's off! The remarkable thing about it, albeit difficult to understand, is that Bure knows what he wants to do, the opposition knows it, everybody in the arena knows. Yet, the Canadiens were caught chasing him time and again - and, needless to say, didn't catch him. Only 74 seconds into this laugher, Bure sprinted in alone on Hackett, with Sheldon Souray chasing him. Hackett stopped him, but only after Bure was knocked off-balance en route to the net. On the other hand, Hackett didn't beat him the second time Bure had a crack at him in the game's 14th minute, at precisely the split-second defenceman Mike Wilson completed serving an interference penalty. This time, Bure slipped behind Christian Laflamme - so is it necessary to mention that this foot race was a no-contest, as well as a no-brainer? And, oh: for those of you who came in late, Bure has another gilt-edged game plan for scoring goals - although it helps when his colleagues are on the power play. Nothing complicated or mysterious about it: he simply establishes squatters' rights alongside the net and waits for what normally is a cross-ice pass. The idea, needless to say, is get him out of there. Alas, somebody pulled the plug last night. Lights off. Result: the pass came from Ray Whitney, nobody laid a hand on Bure, which meant Valeri's brother had all the time he needed - and more - to re-direct the puck into the open side. Nine Florida shots, three goals. Ugh!
Bure boys aim at record book Hockey has been Bure, Bure good to brothers Pavel and Valeri Bure. So good, in fact, that entering the weekend, the brothers from Moscow had 87 goals between them with their respective NHL clubs. Pavel had a league-high 52 for the Florida Panthers and Valeri had a team-high 35 for the Calgary Flames. Together, that was just one fewer than the 31-year-old NHL record for most goals scored in one season by a brother combination. Bobby and Dennis Hull combined for 88 in 1968-69, and until recently, also had the second-most total (84 in 1970-71). "Thirty-one years ago, that's quite awhile," Valeri Bure said. "This record will mean a lot, especially with scoring down. We didn't know it at the time, but we set a record at the All-Star Game (for most points by a brother combination). That was a real kick, but this, because it's been around so long, is going to be something extra special." Pavel wanted his brother to do the honors and score the next two goals to break the mark. "I've done my part," he said, laughing. "He has to score 40, anyway, so let him score the next five." It doesn't matter who scores the deciding goal, according to Valeri. "It's cool, because he can be thousands and thousands of miles away, we can be on different teams, and it's still something we can share," he said. "It doesn't matter if he scores 88 goals and I score one, it'll still be our record. "It's taken a long time for this to be broken. Who knows? Maybe it'll take another 31 years for two other brothers to break it." Speaking of brothersFlorida's Rob Niedermayer has been thrown into a rather unusual storm of controversy after his brother Scott was suspended 10 games for whacking his stick over the head of Rob's teammate, Peter Worrell.Worrell has called Scott Niedermayer just about every name in the book since the incident and vows, "He's gonna get his." So how is Rob supposed to react? He and his brother are as close as the Bure boys and to hear Worrell spout off in the Panthers' locker room about exacting revenge can't be easy to take. "This isn't the most comfortable position you could be put in," Rob Niedermayer said. "You've just got to put it behind you and move on. I mean, what am I supposed to say? It was out of character for (Scott). I've never seen him do anything like that. I guess it was just frustration on his part. I think it's just something that happened." Worrell triggered the incident with a series of elbows and taunts, but clearly, Scott Niedermayer reacted the wrong way. The NHL won't tolerate any more sticks to the head, and the sooner players figure that out, the better. In the meantime, how will Rob Niedermayer's relationship with Worrell play out? It's been discussed, internally, but Worrell says there shouldn't be a problem. "I consider Rob my friend," he said. "I don't play with Rob's brother, I play with Rob. I'm not going to let something that happened between his brother and me affect my relationship with Robbie. He's a real good, decent guy, and I value him as a friend." At least Rob hasn't lost his sense of humor. Badgered by teammates about his brother's stickwork, he joked, "Scott must have been adopted, I think."
Bure-led Panthers get slot in playoffs
 Oh, brother! Finally a little drama at National Car Rental Center: A lively crowd of 17,917 in playoff form, a Panthers' team beginning to heat up and Pavel Bure, plenty of Pavel Bure. On the same night Bure helped catapult himself and his younger brother, Valeri, into the NHL record books as Super Siblings, the elder Bure helped the Panthers clinch a playoff spot for the first time in three years with a 4-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night. Bure scored twice, his league-leading 53rd and 54th goals, but more significant, the goals were Nos. 88 and 89 for the Bure Brothers (Valeri has 35 to lead Calgary), thus breaking the 31-year-old single-season record set by Chicago Blackhawks brothers Bobby and Dennis Hull. "It is special," Pavel said. "You don't break NHL records every day. I'm real lucky that I can join my brother. It's not just me." It was quite a night for the Panthers, heading to the playoffs for the third time. Captain Scott Mellanby and defenseman Todd Simpson said securing a spot was anticlimactic because the team knew all along that it would make the playoffs. "That's been the goal all along, but we've still got our eyes on Washington," Simpson said. "They're only four points up on us, and we want to get home-ice advantage and finish as high as we can." For the second time in seven years, the Panthers hit the 40-win, 90-point plateau, one win and two points from tying the franchise record. They won for the 23rd time at home, tying the team record set in 1995-96. They extended their winning streak to three games, the longest since winning five in a row in mid-January. And to top it all off: Alex Hicks scored. The popular Panthers' forward, who has had a difficult season recovering from knee surgery, has been snakebit during his entire Panther career. But his breakaway goal with 2:33 left in the second period to provide a 4-0 lead was his first Panther goal in 54 games. "I was kind of shocked at first," Hicks said. "I was thinking, O my God. Here I can score a goal. It's been so long since I have in this league. But I was actually a little more relaxed as I got closer to the goalie. It was a move (deke and a backhand) that I've done a thousand times in practice and I figured I'd just see if he'd bite on it. He did." Jaroslav Spacek hit Bure with a home-run pass on his first shift, but Jeff Hackett denied Bure on the breakaway as Bure endured a slash from Sheldon Souray (he would pay his next shift when Paul Laus fought him). Maybe that angered the game's most electrifying goal-scorer, because he made up for it by scoring on another breakaway after another long Spacek pass. "The first time I didn't see how far behind me the defenseman was, so that's why I shoot early," Bure said. "The second time, I knew where the defenseman was, so that's why I had a more comfortable shot." On the goal, Bure, who hasn't played in postseason since 1995, extended his point streak to eight games (9 goals, 5 assists). Len Barrie extended his point streak to three with 1:29 left to give the Panthers a 2-0 lead. Goalie Mike Vernon, who made 30 saves, set it up when he found Mellanby at center ice. Mellanby carried the puck into the zone, delayed a bit, then hit Barrie, who one-timed his second goal as a Panther from a sharp angle. Mellanby extended his point streak to five, while Vernon assisted on his third goal. Bure scored his league-leading 13th winner 1:38 into the second when Ray Whitney spotted him at the back door on a power play. Bure easily slammed it home as Viktor Kozlov set a team record with his 50th assist. "The motivation was the fans tonight," coach Terry Murray said. "That was the driving force. The only way a team can say thanks to fans is by getting into the playoffs. We understand the business today as far as the commitment that fans have to make financially and as far as time.
"You're playing for the crest in front of the sweater, and the fans are a big part of that."
Cats clinch playoff spot The expectation going into the season was that Pavel Bure would put the Panthers into the playoffs. Saturday night, he did. So did goalie Mike Vernon. Two brilliant performances got the Panthers a 4-2 victory against Montreal Saturday night that clinched Florida's first playoff spot since 1996-97. Bure got some offensive help from Len Barrie, whose scoring touch lost its passport at the minor league-NHL border, and left wing Alex Hicks, who is two NHL cities and years from his last NHL goal. Vernon got some defensive help from the iron bordering the Panthers goal and strong penalty killing that snuffed six of seven Montreal power plays. "Obviously, we're ecstatic," said Florida's Paul Laus, one of five Panthers remaining from the last Florida playoff team. "Now, we want to catch Washington for our next goal and keep Ottawa below us." "The motivation was the fans tonight," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "We wanted to go out and get the job done. The fans have been outstanding for us all year long and they gave us really good support here tonight." From his second shift on the ice, Bure was sending adrenaline jolts through the 17,917 fans at National Car Rental Center. His two goals give he and brother Valeri 89 for the season, breaking the previous NHL record by a brother combination of 88 by Bobby and Dennis Hull during the 1968-69 season. "Well, it is special because you don't break NHL records every day," Pavel Bure said. "I think we're lucky because it's not just me, it's my brother as well." Vernon took the thriller baton when Bure wasn't on the ice. Vernon had 30 saves on 32 shots, a shot count that doesn't factor in the four that hit the post or crossbar. He also had an assist, his third as a Panther, on Barrie's goal. So stout was Vernon that it took not one goof, but two by Panthers defenseman Robert Svehla for Vernon to lose his shutout at 6:29 of the third. With the Panthers shorthanded, Svehla tried to finesse a breakout pass instead of simply blasting it clear. Montreal held it in, and Sergei Zholtok scored on a rebound while Vernon was on his back after Svehla shoved a Montreal player over him. Juha Lind got a garbage-time goal for Montreal with 32.1 seconds remaining in regulation. Viktor Kozlov's second assist on that goal gave him a Panthers franchise record 50 for the season. It was the Panthers 23rd home win of the season, tying the record set during the 1995-96 season. Bure took just 1:14 to impose himself on the game. His breakaway prompted Montreal's Sheldon Souray to desperately slash Bure on the left arm as Montreal's Jeff Hackett turned away Bure's shot. The Panthers didn't score on that power play, but the tone was set. Montreal's second power play was expiring when Bure took his second home run pass of the night from Jaroslav Spacek. A blast through the five-hole of Montreal's Jeff Hackett gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead 13:33 into the game. "The first time I didn't see how far behind me the defenseman was. That's why I shot early," Bure said. "The second time, I knew where the defenseman was. That's why I had a more comfortable shot." After stoning Benoit Brunet from the slot later in the period, Vernon chipped in some offensive help of his own. Both teams were starting wholesale line changes when Vernon whipped the puck up ice to Scott Mellanby at the red line. Mellanby moseyed into the Montreal zone, which was filling up with Canadiens. Instead of shooting, which looked like the only logical play, Mellanby smartly swung the puck down to Barrie deep in the left circle and Barrie one-timed it by Hackett. Next time someone asks you to define a ``stupid penalty,'' say ``an offensive zone hooking penalty as time runs out in the period.'' That's what Montreal's Craig Darby did. So, the Panthers began the second on the power play. They were off it in 1:38, when Ray Whitney found Bure with a cross-zone pass at the right post for a slam dunk and 3-0 Florida lead.
The puck behaved quite skittishly all night and Souray was victimized by this on Hicks' goal, at 17:27 of the second. A hard around skipped over Souray's stick at the right point and Hicks raced onto the puck in the neutral zone for a breakaway. Hicks went to his backhand and beat Hackett between the legs for his first NHL goal since April 15, 1998, with Pittsburgh.
Unofficial record Pavel Bure's eight empty-net goals is an unofficial record, according to the NHL. It ties Keith Tkachuk's eight in 1996-97.
Oh, brother! Bure too much for Habs
  Pavel Bure fires the shot past Jeff Hackett for the score.avi: 470 k Real: 56.6 | ISDN | T1 It was Florida's third consecutive win, following a stretch in which the Panthers lost three of four. The Panthers are four points behind Washington in the Atlantic Division while ninth-place Montreal is struggling to get into the playoffs, trailing Buffalo in the final spot by one point. Bure leads the NHL with 54 goals. The Panthers took a 1-0 lead on Bure's first goal. It was almost a short-handed score as Mike Wilson just left the penalty box when Bure broke free down the middle and sent a slap shot past Jeff Hackett. Florida went up 2-0 with 1:29 left in the first when Len Barrie, claimed off waivers from Los Angeles on March 10, one-timed a Scott Mellanby pass by Hackett's left side. Just 1:38 into the second, Bure put the Panthers up 3-0 with a power-play goal. After camping out at the edge of the crease to Hackett's left, Bure poked in a goal assisted by Ray Whitney and Viktor Kozlov. Kozlov's assist was his 50th, breaking the team mark he shared with Robert Svehla. Bure's second goal gave him and brother Valeri of the Calgary Flames 89 this season, breaking the mark for NHL brothers. Dennis and Bobby Hull totaled 88 in the 1968-69 season. It was the eighth straight game with a point for Bure, tying his second-longest stretch of the season. He has nine goals and five assists during the span. Alex Hicks, who has missed much of the season after knee surgery, notched his first goal with the Panthers at 17:27 of the second.
Montreal finally got on the board on their sixth power play as Sergei Zholtok's tallied his 24th goal at 6:29 of the third. Juha Lind added a goal with 32.1 seconds remaining.
Panthers clinch playoff berth with win over Habs The Russian Rocket led the Florida Panthers to their third straight win, and their first playoff berth in three seasons. Pavel Bure scored a pair of goals as the Panthers clinched a spot in the postseason with a 4-2 victory Saturday night over the Montreal Canadiens. "Pavel has had that effect many times," Florida coach Terry Murray said. "To see Pavel come down the ice and score is what we needed. It's like he was reading anything that you would put down as a gameplan." It was Florida's third consecutive win, following a stretch in which the Panthers lost three of four. The Panthers are four points behind Washington in the Atlantic Division while ninth-place Montreal is struggling to get into the playoffs, trailing Buffalo for the final spot by one point. "It's a relief, but obviously we want to catch Washington as our next goal and keep Ottawa below us," said Paul Laus, one of only three original Panthers players remaining from the team that advanced to the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals. Bure leads the NHL with 54 goals, and his two against the Canadiens couldn't have come at a better time for a team needing a spark. "Pavel played his usual -- exciting," Laus said. "Getting big goals when we needed them." The Panthers took a 1-0 lead on Bure's first goal. It was almost a shorthanded score as Mike Wilson just left the penalty box when Bure broke free down the middle and sent a slap shot past Jeff Hackett. Florida went up 2-0 with 1:29 left in the first when Len Barrie, claimed off waivers from Los Angeles on March 10, one-timed a Scott Mellanby pass by Hackett's left side. Just 1:38 into the second, Bure put the Panthers up 3-0 with a power-play goal. After camping out at the edge of the crease to Hackett's left, Bure poked in a goal assisted by Ray Whitney and Viktor Kozlov. Kozlov's assist was his 50th, breaking the team mark he shared with Robert Svehla. Bure's second goal gave him and brother Valeri of the Calgary Flames 89 this season, breaking the mark for NHL brothers. Dennis and Bobby Hull had 88 in the 1968-69 season. "It is special because you don't break NHL records every day, and especially I think I'm real lucky because it came with my brother," Bure said. It was the eighth straight game with a point for Bure, tying his second-longest stretch of the season. He has nine goals and five assists during the span. Alex Hicks, who has missed much of the season after knee surgery, notched his first goal with the Panthers at 17:27 of the second. By then, the Panthers were well on their way to the playoffs. "That's what we were talking about at the beginning of the season," said Bure, who hasn't played in the postseason since 1995. "That was our goal. It's great." Montreal finally got on the board on its sixth power play as Sergei Zholtok's tallied his 24th goal at 6:29 of the third. Juha Lind added a goal with 32.1 seconds remaining. But the Canadiens are rapidly losing ground in their attempt to play into the spring. "Well, right now we are fighting for that last playoff spot and we are fighting to put 20 healthy guys out in the lineup," Montreal coach Alain Vigneault said. "It's been that way all year long. It's been a challenge." For the Panthers, the challenge will be to see if they can catch the streaking Capitals. "It's been a lot more fun this year," said Mellanby, the Panthers captain. "The last couple of years there have been some tough times because we didn't expect to take a step back as we did. "The expectations have been pretty high and it's nice to be back and now we just got to keep going."
Bure scores twice against Montreal; Florida clinches playoff berth Pavel Bure scored two goals and the Florida Panthers clinched their first playoff berth in three years with a 4-2 victory Saturday night over the Montreal Canadiens. It was Florida's third consecutive win, following a stretch in which the Panthers lost three of four. The Panthers are four points behind Washington in the Atlantic Division while ninth-place Montreal is struggling to get into the playoffs, trailing eighth-place Buffalo by one point. Bure leads the NHL with 54 goals. Len Barrie and Alex Hicks also scored for Florida. Sergei Zholtok and Juha Lind replied for Montreal. The Panthers took a 1-0 lead on Bure's first goal. It was almost a short-handed goal as Mike Wilson just left the penalty box when Bure broke free down the middle and sent a slapshot past Jeff Hackett. Florida went up 2-0 with 1:29 left in the first when Barrie, claimed off waivers from Los Angeles on March 10, one-timed a Scott Mellanby pass by Hackett's left side. Just 1:38 into the second, Bure put the Panthers ahead 3-0 with a power-play goal. After camping out at the edge of the crease to Hackett's left, Bure poked in the puck with an assist going to Viktor Kozlov, his 50th, breaking the team mark he shared with Robert Svehla. Bure's second goal gave him and brother Valeri of the Calgary Flames 89 this season, breaking the mark for NHL brothers. Dennis and Bobby Hull totalled 88 in the 1968-69 season. It was the eighth straight game with a point for Bure, tying his second-longest stretch of the season. He has nine goals and five assists during the span. Hicks, who has missed much of the season after knee surgery, recorded his first goal with the Panthers at 17:27 of the second. Montreal finally got on the board on their sixth power play when Zholtok scored his 24th goal at 6:29 of the third. Lind added a goal with 32.1 seconds remaining.
Florida 4, Montreal 2 Pavel Bure is the best goal-scorer in the National Hockey League this season, relatively speaking. Bure scored his 53rd and 54th goals of the season and joined brother Valeri in setting an NHL record as the Florida Panthers clinched a playoff spot for the first time in three seasons by defeating the Montreal Canadiens, 4-2. After extending his points streak to eight games with a goal in the first period, Bure scored on the power play 1:38 into the second period, taking a brilliant pass from Ray Whitney at the doorstep and banging it in past goaltender Jeff Hackett. With that goal, the Bures set an NHL record for most goals by brothers in a season. Valeri has 35 goals for Calgary and the 89 total goals for the brother duo broke the record of Bobby and Dennis Hull, who combined for 88 in the 1968-69 season. Mike Vernon made 30 saves for the Panthers, who won for the fourth time in five games and improved to 90 points on the season, two off the franchise record of 1995-96. Florida remained four points behind Washington in the Southeast Division with seven games left for each team. Pavel had four shots on goal and was a plus one for the game.
Kournikova's love matches are tennis talk of the town
It's off the court where these stars -- tennis teen queen Anna Kournikova and Florida Panthers hockey prince Pavel Bure -- have produced sparks. For the first time since their reputed engagement made headlines from Miami to Moscow last month, they're both in town again for the newest episode in a sudsy soap opera. Where's that big bauble that Pav supposedly slipped on Anna's finger at Miami Beach's swank Forge restaurant? Who's the suave tennis player she has been partying with this week? What about the third corner of the Russian love triangle -- Detroit Red Wings hockey star Sergei Fedorov, who reappeared at a recent tournament bearing roses? Is he desperate to get Anna back or just the $1.6 million South Beach condo he sold her for a whopping $100? Stay tuned -- but not necessarily for resolutions. The characters have clammed up, and so far the Ericsson has only confirmed who the show's star is. Kournikova, without winning a single tournament, has become one of the biggest names in tennis. Clearly, many fans consider her 123-miles-per-hour serve, the fastest on the women's tour, less of an asset than her honeyed hair, shapely figure and taste for leopard skin apparel. "I don't know much about her game, actually," admitted Ryan McDonald, 22, a Pennsylvania college student among gawkers at a publicity event this week. "I do know she has some awesome Web sites." Thousands, actually. A virtual cyber pinup, she's the most downloaded female athlete in the world. Just after the engagement, in fact, "Kournikova" jumped to the 19th most popular Internet search term, according to Lycos. Two weeks ago, she was voted sexiest player in an on-line poll. A more practical measure of her impact on tennis can be found on the Ericsson Open's list of 14 tips for ball girls and boys. No. 7: "Do not stare at Kournikova."
ETIQUETTE LESSON
Kournikova, Russia-born but an American resident since childhood, hasn't been shy about exploiting her looks, posing for a variety of provocative ads since she debuted as a pro at 15. The attitude hasn't endeared her to other players, but it has made her rich. Forbes magazine estimated she made $11 million on endorsements last year. Veteran Tennis magazine writer Peter Bodo considers Kournikova pleasant, even down to earth, not much different from any young, wealthy, gorgeous woman. Seeded ninth, Kournikova recently changed agents and coaches to improve her game, which he calls top-notch.
`LITTLE MISUNDERSTOOD'
Her relationships, nevertheless, have raised eyebrows on several continents -- she being, until this year, below the legal age of consent. When she appeared, at 16, at Wimbledon escorted by Fedorov, then 28, the London tabloids dubbed her "Lolita of the Lawns" tennis there being played on grass. She showed up in the locker room, in a leopard-skin mini, to help Fedorov celebrate a Stanley Cup. Last January, she was seen smooching tennis hunk Mark Philippoussis at the Australian Open and has been romantically tied to a few others. Then there's the boyishly dashing Bure, 28, nicknamed the Russian Rocket for his blazing speed. His relationships have drawn nearly as much international media speculation. Bure has been linked to a string of women, including a former Latvian prime minister.
IN GOSSIP COLUMNS
After a four-month courtship, The Herald's People column dropped the bomb that Bure had popped the question. In Russia, the news bumped the war in Chechnya out of the lead slot. Izvestia gushed, "The first groom of Russia has found the first bride of Russia in Florida." Other papers added unconfirmed details that the couple had downed a $3,000 bottle of bubbly and Bure had proffered a $1 million rock. Pravda, according to the English-language Moscow Times, announced a summer wedding in Moscow.
SOUNDS OF SILENCE
That was before Fedorov reentered the plot last week, jetting to Arizona to deliver roses -- reports range from a dozen to 20 dozen -- to Kournikova. Before Jose Lambiet, a gossip writer for The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel who has doggedly sniffed the Bure-Kournikova trail, sprang his latest juicy tidbit Friday: Kournikova, dressed in six-inch heels and a form-fitting knit dress displaying her leopard skin bra, was squired Wednesday to an awards party at the South Beach club Level by Nicolas Lapentti, an Ecuadorean tennis player. Afterward, she slipped from her limo into his Porsche. Kournikova's handlers forbid questions about her private life, and during interviews this week she greeted reporters' prying with a stare colder than a Siberian wind. But at publicity events with children on South Beach, one prepubescent wise guy squeaked, "What's your favorite hockey team?"
"I don't have a favorite hockey team," she said. "I don't even like hockey."
Oh my word, Anna serves up a treat
TEENAGE tennis sensation Anna Kournikova wowed the audience at an awards ceremony after swapping her whites for an outfit that left little to the imagination The statuesque star, 19, wore a leopard-print bra under a revealing black crocheted jacket and matching miniskirt as she tottered to the stage on six-inch strapless stilettos. Anna was in Miami, Florida, to accept an award for the excellence of her doubles partnership with Martina Hingis. Away from the court she is playing doubles with ice hockey star Pavel Bure. The pair announced last month that they are engaged.
For B's, it's no Cam do: Effort excellent in 3-1 loss to Panthers The Bruins kept the Russian Rocket from taking off last night but they were targeted by the Michigan Missile. The B's accomplished their mission against the Florida Panthers when they contained Pavel Bure only to watch former Bruins forward Cam Stewart of the University of Michigan score the winning goal in a 3-1 Florida victory at the FleetCenter. The loss further dims the B's slim playoff hopes. But the effort was another in a series of solid performances by a youthful team which has played with exuberance, heart and success in the eight games since Ray Bourque was traded to Colorado March 6. "We had our chances to win the game," said Bruins coach Pat Burns. "We outchanced them quite a bit. I was talking to Bryan Murray, their general manager. That's the best he's seen (goalie Mike) Vernon play in a while." Vernon was spectacular, making 32 stops, including a startling glove save on the B's Sergei Samsonov on the power play at 10:05 of the final period with the Panthers holding a 2-1 lead. Vernon's glove approached the goal line as he made the stop, prompting a call from an official in the press box requesting a review, which was denied. Vernon was puzzled and upset that the request came from upstairs rather than from an on-ice official. The Bruins took a 1-0 lead on a tricky individual effort by Cameron Mann at 4:12 of the final period. But the lead lasted only 1:45, when Mark Parrish ended a Bruins shutout streak of 106:26, putting a rebound past John Grahame. Grahame played nearly as well as Vernon as the B's outshot Florida, 33-28. It was Stewart who killed the Bruins at 8:48 when he was left alone on the weak side and banged in a pass from Scott Mellanby. "Grahame made the big saves at the right times," said Burns. "We lost our man on the goals that they scored, but he came up big. You have to contain the other team. You can't lose those guys. That's what causes goals." Bure was covered by P.J. Axelsson, who held the Rocket man to one shot in the first two periods. Bure scored his league-leading 52nd goal into an empty net at 18:58. "We just had the one line on against him," said Burns.
"He had the empty netter but I don't think he broke a sweat more than that all night long. We contained him pretty good. It was the only open ice he saw all night long."
Bures closing in on goals record Pavel and Valeri Bure have been quietly sneaking up on the NHL record for most goals by brothers in a season, and the pair needs just one more to tie the mark of 88 set by Bobby and Dennis Hull in 1968-69. Pavel, of Florida, scored his 52nd goal of the season in a 3-1 win over Boston on Thursday night. Valeri, of Calgary, did not score a goal at Buffalo, but has 35 for the season. "We're aware of it," Pavel said after the morning skate. "I know we're three goals away (from breaking the record). "I've done my part," he smiled as he reflected on his 51-goal season. "My brother needs to take care of it. He needs to get 40. He's got five to go." Pavel became the 12th player in NHL history to compile four 50-goal seasons when reached that milestone last weekend. He needed two more goals in his last nine games to have the most goals since Mario Lemieux scored 69 in 1995-96. Valeri's best season prior to this one was last year, when he scored 26 goals, also for Calgary. Worrell still woozy: Left winger Peter Worrell missed his second game since taking a stick over the head from New Jersey's Scott Niedermayer Sunday. "He's feeling better," coach Terry Murray said, "but the doctors want us to be very cautious with him. They want to see him (today)." Murray said no one had concluded that it was a concussion yet; like every other NHL player, Worrell went through a series of baseline tests prior to the season and likely will be tested again today. Noteworthy: Panthers captain Scott Mellanby played after missing both Wednesday's practice and Thursday's morning skate with an elbow injury. "I really don't know what I did," Mellanby said. ... Ray Sheppard missed his second straight game with a groin strain suffered in Saturday's morning skate on Long Island. ... In a rarity, coach Terry Murray had to chase some of his skaters off the ice after the morning skate; the last two on were Bure and third-string goaltender Mikhail Shtalenkov, who were practicing breakaways.
Bure brothers closing on Hulls' scoring mark The Bure Boys, Florida's Pavel and Calgary's Valeri, went into their respective games Thursday night two goals behind the Hull Hunks, Bobby and Dennis, for the most goals in an NHL season by a brother combination. The Hulls scored 88 goals during the 1968-69 season, Bobby rocketing in 58 and Dennis firing in 30, both for Chicago. Pavel had 51 when he took the ice against Boston, while Valeri had 35 when the puck dropped between Calgary and Buffalo. "I've done my part -- my brother has to score three," Pavel joked after Thursday's morning skate. Both sets of brothers share physical characteristics and style. The Bures: relatively small, fast, shifty. The Hulls: broad, powerful builds and the hardest shots seen to that point. Hall of Fame goalie Glenn Hall once recalled the Hull's terrorization of goaltenders extended into Chicago's practices. In a way, Bobby Hull was to the 1960s what Pavel Bure is to today's NHL. Being the NHL's fastest skater and hardest shooter made Hull the era's most exciting player, and his blond good looks made him a heartthrob away from the ice . "Bobby, I heard of him, but never saw him," Pavel said. "Dennis, I never heard about him."
Flashy Bure kills the lights Florida Panthers right winger Pavel Bure is very proficient at lighting the lamp behind the opponent's goal. But in Florida's 3-1 victory over the Bruins last night at the FleetCenter, Bure discovered a knack for putting the lights out from long distance. In a hard-fought game that was just as important to the Panthers (39-30-5) as the Bruins (23-34-17), Bure provided some comic relief for both benches. With 15:36 to play in the second period, Bure unloaded a slap shot on Bruins goalie John Grahame. But as Bure's bullet was en route to the Boston net, it deflected off the stick of Bruins defenseman Kyle McLaren. The sheer force of Bure's slap shot caused the puck to clear the glass and take out five bulbs in the No. 5 on one of the auxiliary scoreboards. "I was laughing when I saw it take off and it was funny when I saw where it came down," said Bure. "I took a slapper and somebody tipped it and it went really high." "I don't know how hard my slap shot is, but it went really high," he added. Bure put the lights out on any hopes the Bruins had to force overtime when he scored an empty net goal at 18:58 of the third period. Bure broke in to score the clincher just as Grahame was heading off the ice for a sixth skater. The Russian Rocket now has 52 goals, including seven in the Panthers' last seven games. While acknowledging Bure's strong efforts, Florida coach Terry Murray insisted it will take a team effort for the Panthers to catch first-place Washington in the Southeast Division. "He's a star player but you can get lost on focusing in on one guy," said Murray. "The team is the most important part of it and Pavel's made a tremendous contribution to the hockey club." "He's a 50-goal scorer and he's coming back from knee surgery last year," said Murray. "He's just having a tremendous year." Bruins coach Pat Burns didn't have a specific plan to contain Bure, but said he thought the B's did a good job limiting his scoring opportunities. "We just had one line out against him all night," said Burns. "That (play) he got the goal on, he didn't even have to break a sweat."
"I thought we were able to do a pretty good job on him," he added. "That goal was the most open ice he saw all night."
With Bure away, Kournikova courts a new playmate
While Panthers puckster Pavel Bure is out of town for a series of away games, tennis beauty Anna Kournikova -- who's supposed to be his fiance, although there's still no rock on her finger -- has been partying with pretty tennis man Nicolas Lapentti. Kournikova spent Wednesday night at Club Level on SoBe with the doe-eyed tennis upstart, then left solo in a stretch limo. But soon, the spanking new virgin-white Porsche of the Ecuadoran Lapentti was tailing the Russian. The cars turned two corners, then, away from knowing eyes, Kournikova pulled a switcheroo: she sent the limo on its way and jumped in Lapentti's car -- which disappeared like a ghost. No comment from Anna's mouthpiece. The 18-year-old Anna was at the club for the '99 Women's Tennis Association's award gala, where she caused a stir with her get-up. She graciously accepted an award for the best doubles team wearing 6-inch heels, and a skintight see-through knitted dress offering a plunging view of a leopard-skin bikini underneath. The outfit actually had emcee Robin Roberts, the ESPN commentator, quipping: "I see this ceremony has its own Jennifer Lopez." Those who saw Lopez's green Versace at the Grammys got it. "It'd like to thank that special someone who couldn't be here tonight," Anna said in her acceptance speech, a nod to Bure. Lapentti watched from the back. The intrigue should make for an interesting Ericsson Open: Bure is back in town today, and Anna and Lapentti are both in the tourney.
Florida 3, Boston 1 The Boston Bruins have to be frustrated after this one. Cam Stewart scored the go-ahead goal against his former team with 11:12 left in the third period and Mike Vernon made the lead stand up as the Florida Panthers posted a 3-1 victory over the Bruins. The Bruins held Bure, who led the NHL with 321 shots, without a shot until five minutes remained in the second. Then they got careless. A blown defensive assignment led to Stewart's ninth goal. Scott Mellanby skated out unchecked from behind the net and found Stewart at the doorstep, where he one-timed the puck past rookie goaltender John Grahame. Pavel Bure sealed the win an empty-net goal, his league-leading 52nd, with 62 seconds remaining. The "Russian Rocket" has seven goals and five assists during a seven-game points streak. Vernon stopped 32 shots and was at his best in the third period. His best save of the period came with 9:55 remaining, when he made a sprawling glove stop on Sergei Samsonov. He also had some help when Cameron Mann hit the right goalpost with 3:42 to play. Mark Parrish also scored for Florida, which completed a 3-2 road trip and defeated the Bruins for the third time in as many tries this season. Pavel recorded three shots on goal, and was a plus one for the game.
Valeri prods Bures toward their goal
With three goals needed for the Bures to erase the Hull brothers' NHL mark of 88 goals in a season by a sibling duo, Valeri Bure isn't boiling over with pressure.
Super siblings What Orville and Wilbur were to aviation; what George and Ira were to jazz/pop music; what John F. and Robert F. were to American politics (and to Marilyn Monroe). That's what Bobby and Dennis were to hockey: Standard-setting siblings. "Thirty-one years ago? That's quite a while ago, all right," says Val Bure, as the SportHawk charter flight whisked its way yesterday morning from Calgary to HockeyTown. "So, obviously, this record will mean a lot, especially with scoring being down these days. "We didn't know it at the time, but we set a record at the All-Star Game (most points by a brother combination). That was a real kick. But this ... because it's been around so long, is going to be something extra special." Yes, the Bure boys are on the verge of a unique collaboration -- most goals by a brother act in a single season. And Val has more than held up his end of the bargain. The Bures are two shy of the Bobby and Dennis Hull watershed of 88 combined goals, established during the '68-69 season when both were Blackhawks. That year, Bobby hit for 58 and Dennis 30. Pavel Bure is trying to improve on 51, while younger brother Val takes his aggregate of 35 into Joe Louis Arena this evening. Among the Russian hockey stars of the '70s, Bobby Hull, above all others, was a god-like, almost mystical name. But for a skinny kid growing up in Moscow, it held little magic. "I'd heard the name, but I didn't really know anything about him," admits Val Bure. "I know he's a legend now, but then I lived in another world. At home, we learned about our players -- Kharlamov, Yakushev -- and how good our game was. "It's funny, I don't think I've ever seen video of the Hulls. I met Bobby Hull at the All-Star Game. That was fun. But I've never actually seen him play." Whippersnapper, you're missing something. Built like a blacksmith, armed with a shot that had every goaltender who faced him soiling his underwear, Bobby Hull was just flat-out stronger, faster and more intimidating than anyone of his generation. Dennis, too, had the big, heavy shot, but lacked his brother's undeniable charisma. CFR hockey analyst Gerry Pinder saw plenty of the Hull brothers, joining the Hawks the year after Bobby and Dennis combined for the 88. Now living in Calgary, he's seen plenty of Val Bure, and, obviously, everyone gets an eyeful of Pavel on TV highlight packages. "What's interesting to me about the Bure brothers vs. the Hull brothers is the different styles involved," says Pinder. "Both the Bures rely on speed, quickness. One of Val Bure's best assets is his deceit. By that, I mean he finds open ice, he gets his shot away quicker than the goalie figures. "Bobby was a blend of power and finesse. Dennis was just pure power; brute strength. Of the four, Bobby, by far, was the most dominant player. He killed penalties, played powerplay, took his regular-shift and did it 76 times a year. He never took a rest because he never needed one. "But as far as explosiveness is concerned, as electrifying as Bobby could be, as often as he lifted people out of their seats, you might have to give the nod to Pavel Bure." Until this season, Bobby and Dennis Hull also held down second spot on the list, scoring 84 goals in the '70-71 season, with third belonging to Anton and Peter Stastny of the Nordiques, 83 in '83-84. Now, however, it's a Hull-Bure showdown. Which tandem is better? Well, wrestling with that debate is like watching the Ali-Marciano computer fight, which also spanned eras: Intriguing, certain to provoke argument but, despite the outcome, hardly definitive. It's comparing apples with oranges, circles with squares, Jets (Golden) with Rockets (Russian). "Different eras, different games," says Pinder. "So I don't think there is an answer. "I will say this, though -- back then, you didn't play as many games as they do now. With only 12 teams, there were more better defencemen on every team. And you had to play the better teams more often." Whatever, Val Bure is just happy to be a part of something with his big brother. "It's cool because he can play thousands and thousands of miles away, we can be on different teams, and it's still something we can share," he says. "Doesn't matter if he scores 88 goals and I score one, it'd still be our record. "Like I said, it's taken a long time for this to be broken. And if we do it, who knows, maybe it'll take another 31 years for two other brothers to break it."
Shaq seems bigger than life All the winning, all the fun, as well as a oversized dose of Shaq is why everyone from actor Andy Garcia to baseball's Cal Ripken to the tennis Williams sisters was on hand for Monday's game. Shaq noticed another tennis player. "What was her name?" he asked. Anna Kournikova, he was told. He also was told she had a boyfriend, perhaps even a fiance, in Panther star Pavel Bure. It wasn't enough for Shaq to better one South Florida star. Now he wanted another. "If Anna meets me, she's not going to marry a hockey guy," he said.
The jesting is still there with Shaq. It just doesn't overflow into his basketball the way it did for years.
Florida 4, NY Rangers 3 The more the New York Rangers relinquish leads, the more costly the losses get. Mike Sillinger scored his second goal of the game with 9:10 left as the Florida Panthers rallied from a two-goal deficit and defeated New York, 4-3. The Rangers blew a third-period lead for the fourth time in five games, falling to 1-3-1 in that span. They are 1-5-1 since a win in Anaheim on March 8. "I don't want to tell you what's going through my mind," New York center Tim Taylor said. "I'm depressed right now. I don't want to say anything I'll regret in the morning." "It looks like we are running out of gas in the third," defenseman Mathieu Schneider added. "We're sitting on the lead instead of going out and getting it." New York entered the night a point behind Montreal and Buffalo for the final playoff spot in the crowded Eastern Conference. The Rangers have only seven games remaining, the fewest in the East, and have two each against Detroit and Washington. "Each point we lose digs us deeper," Schneider admitted. "And it's tougher and tougher to get out of the hole. We have to stay positive and keep believing." The Panthers scored the final three goals to improve to 2-2 on their five-game road trip and stayed a point ahead of Ottawa for fifth place in the East. They had only two wins in their previous eight games (2-5-1). "This win is a little bit different, I think, because you're playing a New York Rangers' team that is absolutely desperate for some wins," Florida coach Terry Murray said. "This is really a devastating loss for them, I think." Playing at Madison Square Garden for the first time since December 1992, veteran Mike Vernon made 22 saves for the Panthers, who took the season series, 3-1. Florida trailed 3-1 before Scott Mellanby scored his 15th goal with 4:13 left in the second period, tapping in a rebound of Jaroslav Spacek's point shot off the end boards. Mark Parrish tied it on the power play 7:21 into the third, getting to his own rebound at the left hashmark and beating Mike Richter for his 23rd goal. Sillinger's 22nd proved to be the game-winner. Richter left a rebound below the left hashmark and Sillinger beat the goaltender to the glove side. "We got back on our heels with the lead," Rangers coach John Muckler said. "The only thing that I can think of was that we were uptight. You can sense our tightness in the second period." Florida's comeback helped hand the Rangers another disappointing loss. They blew a 4-3 lead in Sunday's loss to Pittsburgh, a 4-3 edge before settling for a tie with Tampa Bay on Wednesday and a 3-1 advantage in a 4-3 loss to Dallas on March 13. "I thought we were more on our heels in Pittsburgh," Richter said. "I think a team in our position does get tight, and that leads to mistakes. Each time it happens, it's harder to make up for it next time. We know what we have to do. We just have to get it done." Six teams are within seven points of one another for the final two playoff spots, and the other three in action tonight won. Pittsburgh is seventh with 76 points and Boston is 12th with 69. Mike York scored his team- and rookie-best 24th goal 2:44 into the second period to snap a 1-1 tie, and Schneider added his 10th at 9:35 for a 3-1 Rangers' lead. Rookie Jan Hlavac opened the scoring 11:34 into the first period with his 19th goal. Sillinger tied it at 19:11. Pavel Bure had an assist on Sillinger's second (and winning) goal, extending his points streak to six games. He recorded three shots on goal and was a plus one for the game.
Bure: 'Just too hard to score' As the only man in the NHL likely to score 50 goals this season, Pavel Bure, surely this year's Maurice Richard Trophy winner, has some advice for traditionalists. "They have to change the standard (of goal scoring excellence) from 50 goals to 40," he said having hit the former magic plateau Saturday night on Long Island. "And they should change everyone's bonuses, too. It's just too hard to score goals. The game is just so much different now." It is for just about everybody but Bure, whose 15th ca-reer hat trick and assist Saturday and his 51st goal here Sunday night meant he'd been involved in eight consecutive goals his Florida Panthers had scored, concluding with their second goal here in the 5-2 loss which ended with Bure on the bench. For the Russian Rocket, it's goal scoring just like the olden days because he's a much better, more mature player now than when he had consecutive 60-goal seasons. "In Vancouver he had the serious injury and at the time I was there, he wanted and needed a change," said Mike Sillinger, a Bure teammate in Vancouver and again now in Florida. "It was nothing to do with the city, it was all contract and management stuff I didn't know much about. "He is completely different here. He's happy to be playing hockey in Florida, happy to be coming to the rink, to practice every day. But he still has that love of scoring goals. He's like that in practice, even in the pre-game warm-up. He's like a kid. He just loves scoring. The old fire in his eyes is back where it was when I first saw him." His maturity level now is such that he is like Wayne Gretzky in some ways. Every time he touches the puck and gains control, he seems to do something clever with it. And, also like the Great One, he comes off the ice when he's good and ready. "If I'm not tired, I sometimes stay out a little longer," he said about one of Saturday's goals with one second left in the second period. This shift extension came after the Panthers had discussed keeping the shifts shorter, something which has been a problem during their ongoing 4-10-1 skid. For Bure, however, the rules were different until last night. Panthers coaches had a meeting with the Russian Rocket this week, encouraging him to pay more attention to the defensive side of the game as they head into the playoffs. Sunday night it reached a boiling point when after a Sillinger turnover which led to the third goal against for the line, coach Terry Murray benched the trio for 15 minutes of the third period. "I just felt going into the playoffs it wasn't something we could let slide," said Murray. "It can't always just be the second- and third-line guys who pay the price." For his part, Bure was not amused by Murray's actions. "We had a couple of goals earlier and unfortunately we had a few goals against too," he said. Suffice it to say, given Bure has $40 million US coming over the next four years, this tempest will blow over or it will be Murray looking for work, not the player. In the meantime, had Bure not missed the first eight games of the season, he might have had another shot at 60 this season, though the likes of Paul Kariya, Jaromir Jagr, Teemu Selanne and others would probably have hit or approached 50, too, had they remained healthy. But that's another reason why Bure's argument about lowering the standard applies. It's so hard to stay in one piece these days. As it is, at his zenith, Bure still needed seven empty netters to reach 50 goals. As always, he makes his point with his play.
Panthers tumble; top line benched Here's the definition of being in the doghouse. For the final 14-plus minutes of Sunday night's 5-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils, the No. 1 line sat directly in front of coach Terry Murray. One night after being the toast of Long Island for exceptional plays to create the winning goal against the Islanders, Pavel Bure, Mike Sillinger and Len Barrie did not get up from their seats for nearly the entire third period. The final straw came when the trio combined to allow the Devils a 2-on-0 en route to their fifth goal, and Petr Sykora's second of the game 5:38 into the third. It was a stunning finish to another disastrous defeat. One night after basically saying that Bure's long shifts can be the exception to team rules, Murray benched his superstar for the first time as a Panther. The Panthers were just awful Sunday. When you're on the power play and every single possession you have there are short-handed chances headed the other way, there are problems. Big ones. It was the Panthers' 10th loss in 15 games, and with 1:45 left, it got nasty with a 10-player melee with fists flying. It was started when Scott Niedermayer shockingly swung his stick with two hands and connected the top of Peter Worrell's head. "That was as bad as (Marty) McSorley's (high-stick to Donald Brashear's head)," assistant coach Billy Smith said. The Panthers could thank goalie Trevor Kidd for the 2-1 lead they took into the second period. That's because Kidd, who has given up three or more goals in his six starts since returning from a dislocated shoulder, made several magnificent saves to in the first period, especially on a two-minute 5-on-3. But in the second, Kidd was unable to shelter the Panthers any longer. Their subpar play caught up to them as they were outshot 14-5. In all, they surrendered three goals in the period to trail 4-2 going into the third. With all the talent on the Panthers, it's amazing how the Panthers struggle during 4-on-4 situations. They gave up the tying goal to Scott Stevens on a 4-on-4 after Mark Parrish was crushed face-first into the glass by Colin White. Dazed, Parrish fell to the ice. White was assessed a five-minute major and Peter Worrell a two-minute minor for jumping White during the aftermath. Even though Stevens scored after turnovers by Bure and Jaroslav Spacek, a confident Panthers' team would have realized all was okay because they still had a three-minute major ensuing. But the Panthers were a confused mess during the power play, unable to connect a pass or get to a loose puck before the Devils. The Panthers failed to even get a shot. Moments after goalie Martin Brodeur robbed a tired Mike Sillinger deep into a shift on a shorthanded breakaway, the Devils jumped ahead 3-2 with 4:12 left when Patrik Elias redirected Bobby Holik's pass for his 31st goal. A little more than a minute later, it was 4-2 when Holik scored his 22nd by blasting a Randy McKay pass. That came after Parrish, in his first shift back after the White punishment, tried to make a curious fancy play at the offensive blue line. Leave it to Bure. With the Panthers on their heels the entire first period, a Bure discharge from the blue line ended up exploding in the back of the net. Before Bure's league-leading 51st goal on the power play, the Panthers had given up four shorthanded chances on their first two advantages. But Bure took Jay Pandolfo's missed shot on a 2-on-1, skated the length of the ice and fired at a stunned Brodeur for a 1-0 lead. One must wonder what direction the game would have head in if Bure was able to make it 2-0 on a breakaway with a minute left. Brodeur made a tremendous save however, and the play went the other way toward defenseman Bret Hedican. After another Hedican blunder (he's made a trunk full of them lately) led to Petr Sykora's 20th with 47 seconds left, the Panthers were fortunate to take a 2-1 lead with 11.1 seconds left. Five seconds after Ken Daneyko clobbered Rob Niedermayer to draw a double minor (an unsportsmanlike conduct to go with his tackle), Brodeur was beat when Scott Mellanby and Sillinger double deflected Mike Wilson's point shot. Sillinger scored his 20th goal and first as a Panther.
Murray angered by Panthers' line There's a hockey saying that you can't score from the bench. Sunday night, Panthers coach Terry Murray traded the certainty that Pavel Bure wouldn't score from the bench for the certainty that New Jersey wouldn't score because of Bure and his linemates. Bure, center Mike Sillinger and left wing Len Barrie were benched for the final 14:22 of the Panthers' 5-2 loss to New Jersey. Miscommunication by Sillinger and Barrie led to New Jersey's fifth goal and, for the second time in three games, the most pivotal goal in a Panthers loss was on Bure's account. Sillinger's drop pass for Barrie, who was breaking for the net just inside the Jersey line, turned into a two-on-one and Petr Sykora's second goal of the night. That got the Sillinger line hockey's version of sitting in the corner. "That goes to many meetings that we've had where we're talking about the turnovers, getting the puck in and making sure we're going to be smart in that critical area on both sides of the blue lines," Murray said. "It's the second-line guys, the third-line guys, the fourth-line guys that you end up putting down. With 10 games remaining, it's very critical that we understand that this includes everybody." Bure said: "He's the coach, and he has to make decisions." Bure showed no emotion, while Florida's Peter Worrell said he was too emotional to comment on getting conked by the stick of New Jersey's Scott Niedermayer with 1:45 left. Worrell pinballed off New Jersey's Randy McKay and into Niedermayer, catching him in the head with a forearm or elbow. Niedermayer windmilled his stick and hit Worrell on the top of the head. Worrell went at Niedermayer, McKay jumped in as did everybody but the goalies. A furious Worrell gave the throat-slashing motion to the New Jersey bench twice as he was pulled off the ice. The most significant among the penalties was Niedermayer's match penalty, which is an automatic suspension. "It was time I felt I had to take matters into my own hands," Niedermayer said. `"He elbowed me several times to the head. He got a penalty for elbowing me back in the first period. The guy's 6-6, I'm lucky I'm 6-0." "I take responsibility. It wasn't the right thing to do." The Panthers lost the game in the second period after they took a 2-1 lead into the middle period on power-play goals by Bure and Sillinger. Ironically, the Panthers' problems began with a New Jersey penalty at 5:46, Colin White getting a boarding major for military pressing Florida's Mark Parrish face first into the glass. When Parrish looked injured while remaining down, Worrell obeyed hockey code and attacked White. Worrell's charging penalty meant there would be a four-on-four for two minutes and a three-minute Panthers' power play. That which could have been a leap propelling them up to victory turned out to be a leap into a plunge into defeat. Jersey's four-on-four goal, by Scott Stevens, was a flashback to the four-on-four goal Pittsburgh scored to tie the game and turn around Thursday's Panthers loss. Bure picked off a Devils pass in the right circle of the Panthers' zone and, just as he did in Pittsburgh, turned it over by making a blind back pass. This kept Jersey in business until Stevens lasered a left-circle wrister into the top right corner past Trevor Kidd, who was almost in the circle himself. Bure and Sillinger, the forward pair on the ice, were immediately recalled to the bench. "The turning point for me was the four-on-four," Murray said.
New Jersey 5, Florida 2 Petr Sykora scored twice and Patrik Elias had a goal and two assists, leading the New Jersey Devils to a 5-2 victory over the Florida Panthers in a battle of slumping playoff-bound teams. Alexander Mogliny recorded a pair of assists for his first points for the Devils since he was acquired from Vancouver at Tuesday's trade deadline. New Jersey won for only the third time in nine games but extended its unbeaten streak over Florida to eight (5-0-3). Pavel Bure scored for the sixth time in five games for the Panthers, who are 4-10-1 in their last 15 contests. Pavel's goal was only one of two shots recorded on goal by him, and he was a minus 3 for the game.
Bure's hat trick lifts him to 50 A day after General Manager Bryan Murray said it would take an individual performance or two to break out of this exasperating funk, Pavel Bure hoisted the Panthers onto his shoulders. Yes, a total team effort, their finest in weeks, was most responsible for Saturday night's thrilling 4-2 victory over the New York Islanders, but it was the Panthers' superstar who delivered the jab, uppercut and then knockout punch to become the franchise's first 50-goal scorer Bure notched his fourth hat trick of the season, sixth as a Panther and 15th of his career to reach the 50-goal plateau for the fourth time in nine seasons. Bure usually shows electrifying emotion after every goal he scores, but when he put his 50th into an empty net with 20 seconds left, he began leaping wildly "You can only score 50 a few times in your career, so it's really exciting," Bure said. "But the win is most exciting. To get back on track, you have to start somewhere." It was only the Panthers' fourth win in 14 games as they moved to within four points of Washington going into tonight's game in New Jersey "Pavel is obviously our marquee guy, and great players seem to rise to the occasion and thrive when you need them most," captain Scott Mellanby said. "He's proved what kind of playoff player he is, and right now we feel like we're in the playoffs." "We looked like we played with a little more emotion," said goalie Mike Vernon after a terrific effort of his own "That's what we have to do night in and night out now with 11 games left. We have to bring emotion and hard work every night. We have to build on a game like this." Mike Sillinger, who has two strong games since joining the Panthers, assisted on three goals and has won 25 of 37 faceoffs. Centering the first line, Sillinger assisted on two Bure goals, including the winner, which was Bure's league-leading 12th decisive goal, with 1:10 left If not for a long, long shift by Mellanby, Bure would not have been in position to score. Bure stole over the boards and received Sillinger's pass above the red line for a breakaway. He beat Kevin Weekes, traded from the Panthers to Vancouver in the Bure blockbuster, between the pads "(Jaroslav) Spacek made a great play on the reverse," Sillinger said. "(Isles defenseman) Kenny Jonsson came flying down the boards and all I saw was the middle open. So I threw it up the middle and Len Barrie lifted (Jamie Rivers') stick. Of course, there was our buddy Pavs. I liked his chances." "That's the last guy you want to see there," Isles winger Mariusz Czerkawski said Jonsson blamed Rivers "He told me to go pinch," Jonsson said. "This game is about a lot of trust. If my teammate tells me to go, I go. He didn't back me up." Bure played a part in every goal for four points and 81 on the season, and he has a point on the last seven Panther scores After a solid first period in which the Panthers still left trailing 1-0, the Panthers came out soaring in the second to outshoot the Isles 19-4 After Mellanby scored his 14th on the power play 3:11 into the period, Bure, playing one of his 90- to 120-second shifts, scored the go-ahead goal with 1.4 seconds left Ray Whitney, who had been demoted to the fourth line, made a pretty pass to a surging Bure after Viktor Kozlov drew Czerkawski and Rivers to him. It was the last of Bure's team-record seventh shots in the period "When (Bure's) full of energy like he was today, you don't mind if he stays out there that extra time," coach Terry Murray said. "He is a special guy. We as a team need to operate the right way, but there are always exceptions to team rules." And that exception is Bure, the league's first 50-goal man "We've had lots of meetings, and we were saying to each other, 'We have to play the way we're capable,'" Bure said "Some guys have to go in the corner. Some have to fight. Some have to score goals. If you're trying too extra, it doesn't work."
Bure reaches 50 with hat trick Both Murrays, Panthers coach Terry and general manager Bryan, have been saying the Panthers would need an individual star performance or two to lift the Panthers to victory and maybe out of their month-long slump. They were right Saturday night. And it was the biggest star, right wing Pavel Bure, who hoisted the Panthers to a 4-2 victory against the Islanders with his fourth hat trick of the season, all goals coming in the final 20:01.4. Bure also became the first 50-goal Panther. "Fifty goals is nice," said Bure, who has reached that hallowed plateau four times. "You don't score 50 every day." The Panthers talk about short shifts, short shifts, got to keep the shifts short, can't stay out too long. That will kill you, they kept saying. They were wrong Saturday night. Two of Bure's goals, the one with 1.4 seconds left in the second period and the game-winner with 1:10 left in regulation, were the result of shifts that lasted longer than Ben-Hur. "That's just normal for me," Bure said. "If I'm not tired, I don't go to the bench." Said Terry Murray: "When he's full of energy like he was tonight, I don't mind when he extends his shifts. He's a special guy. We have to do things right as a team, but there's always exceptions to rules." Actually, it was Panthers captain Scott Mellanby whose long shift set up the game-winner. "We had some pressure and kept getting the puck back to the point," Mellanby said. "I was trying to get to the net and create confusion." Meanwhile, Bure was sitting on the boards, legs dangling, waiting as so many right wings whose shifts follow his have done. When play finally came back toward the Panthers' zone, Mellanby was able to finish the line change almost a minute after it had begun. This allowed Bure to sneak behind the Islanders' defense and when the puck was fired through the neutral zone and high into the Isles' zone, Bure was there to race on it for a breakaway. Isles goalie and former Panthers prospect Kevin Weekes could be forgiven if he thought that if he had signed with Florida before the 1998-99 season, he would be in the Panthers' goal and Bure would be somebody else's problem. Bure scored through the five-hole for a 3-2 Panthers lead. He finished his hat trick with an empty-netter with 19.5 seconds remaining, giving him points on seven consecutive Florida goals. "He's proven what kind of playoff player he is, and right now, we're kind of in a playoff situation," Mellanby said. Little can be said about the game's first 15:26. Then, referee Dan O'Halloran got involved. O'Halloran whistled Panthers defenseman Brad Ference for interference, a call the Panthers objected to right into the first intermission. Ference's partner, Bret Hedican, got the seat next to him in the box 1:01 later for elbowing Olli Jokinen. The five-on-three paid off for the Islanders when Mariusz Czerkawski rocketed a one-timer in from the right circle. The Isles went into the break with a 1-0 lead and the last seven shots of the first period. Second verse, quite different from the first. The Panthers looked a step quicker and moved with a sense of purpose that has been missing lately. With the Isles' Jamie Rivers off for holding, Florida's Mike Sillinger centered from behind the net to Mellanby in the slot and Mellanby tied the game 3:11 into the second. That was part of an 18-4 shot advantage the Panthers built over the period's first 17:30. In some ways, however, it only more clearly defined the way things have been going for the Panthers lately because they kept a-knockin' but couldn't get in. Viktor Kozlov rang the crossbar on a wrister from between the circles. Sillinger tried to roof a Bure centering feed and came closer to hitting the roof of Nassau Coliseum. Bure upshifted around New York defenseman Eric Cairns and forced Weekes to make a glove save. As is his wont, Bure augmented a shift, his last of the period, and joined former linemates Kozlov and Ray Whitney. Czerkawski and Rivers went to Kozlov, who got the puck ahead. Whitney raced onto it and fed Bure in the slot for a one-timer that gave the Panthers a 2-1 lead.
Russian Rocket nets 50th goal; Panthers win
 Pavel Bure gets congratulatio | |||||
