The NHL / Chris Baker : Dionne Off to Another Slow Start, but Kings Aren’t Worried

Has Marcel Dionne lost it at 34?

The veteran King center is off to another poor start.

Dionne, who has 3 goals and 9 assists in 13 games, hasn’t scored a goal in his last seven games.

Asked about his slow start Tuesday afternoon, Dionne said: “Don’t ask me that. It’s like that every year. Go read the paper.”

OK, let’s take a look at what Dionne has done the last five seasons.

After 13 games last season, Dionne had 3 goals and 10 assists. He finished the season with 46 goals and 80 assists, fourth best in the National Hockey League.

Dionne had 4 goals and 15 assists in the first 13 games of the 1983-84 season, but he finished with 39 goals and 53 assists. In 1982-83, Dionne had 4 goals and 8 assists after the first 13 games but finished with 56 goals and 51 assists.

Dionne got off to good starts in 1981-82 and 1980-81. After 13 games in 1981-82, Dionne had 11 goals and 13 assists, finishing with 50 goals and 67 assists. He had 10 goals and 16 assists in 1980-81 and finished with 58 goals and 77 assists, just two less than his career high.

King Coach Pat Quinn said he isn’t worried about Dionne’s start. In Dionne’s defense, Quinn said that Dionne hasn’t played on a set line this season. Quinn has moved Dionne to right wing in the last two games.

“Obviously, you can be patient with a player of his caliber,” Quinn said. “He usually starts slowly. But it’s not just him. We have some other guys who haven’t been scoring either.”

King captain Dave Taylor, who has played on Dionne’s line in the past, said: “Marcel has had slow starts before. I think he’s working hard, but maybe he isn’t quite as sharp around the net.

“But he’s such a good player that I think he’s going to bounce back. He’s had to play on a different line. It’s always tough to adjust to new players.”

With Dionne not scoring goals, second-year defenseman Garry Galley has taken over the club lead. Galley has six goals. He scored eight goals in 78 games last season.

“I’ve never done an interview about my goal scoring before,” Galley said. “The puck has been going in for me. Sometimes you just get on those types of streaks. But I’m sure Marcel is going to pass me.”

Defenseman Jay Wells has also become a scorer for the Kings.

Wells has scored three goals in his last two games. He has four goals this season, just one short of his career high for one season. Wells had five goals in 1980-81. He had one goal in 1981-82, three goals in the 1982-83 and 1983-84 seasons and two goals last season.

“I’ve never scored a lot of goals before so I don’t know how to act,” Wells said. “But to be realistic, that’s not my job. My job is to stop goals from being scored.

“Things are going to change around. Marcel has had a lot of good chances, and they haven’t been going in.”

Wells has two black eyes after three fights with Dave Brown of the Philadelphia Flyers in last Sunday’s game. It took six stitches to close a cut under his right eye. Wells has taken to wearing sunglasses to cover up his black eyes. “Actually, I feel kind of cool because I get to wear my glasses all the time,” Wells said.

Defenseman Mark Hardy, who hasn’t played since having wrist surgery, skated with the team Tuesday for the first time since he was injured in the Kings’ final exhibition game of the season. The cast on Hardy’s left wrist is scheduled to be removed next week.

“Hopefully, I’ll be back in three weeks, but it will probably be four,” Hardy said. “It felt good to skate today.

“It’s kind of fun just being back with the boys again. I really missed them. It wasn’t too bad at first because my wrist hurt, but after a while I really started to want to get out here again.”

Coach Mike Keenan of the Philadelphia Flyers got a big surprise after signing a new contract recently.

Flyer General Manager Bob Clarke and team President Jay Snider told Keenan that they wanted to talk to him in the parking lot at the Spectrum.

When Keenan got outside, they handed him the keys to a new Mercedes. It was a reward for taking the team to the Stanley Cup final last May in his first season.

“He lets me drive it to the garage when it needs to be serviced,” quipped Joe Kadlec, the Flyers’ director of team services.

When former Boston Bruin great Bobby Orr showed up at the Boston Garden recently to film a commercial for the Massachusetts State Lottery, Bruin officials refused to let him be shown next to a Bruin logo at center ice, a Boston paper reported.