NHL Stars on Display Tonight

Tonight’s National Hockey League All-Star game at the Hartford Civic Center looks like a rerun of last year’s Stanley Cup final between the Edmonton Oilers and Philadelphia Flyers.

There are nine Oilers on the Campbell Conference team and five Flyers on the Wales team. And the late Pelle Lindbergh, the Flyer goalie who was killed in a car crash last November, was also selected to the team. There will be a moment of silence for him before the game.

The All-Star coaches are Edmonton’s Glen Sather and Philadelphia’s Mike Keenan, who exchanged heated words during the final seconds of the 1985 Stanley Cup series.

The Oilers, who won their second consecutive Stanley Cup last season, have five players in the Campbell Conference starting lineup: center Wayne Gretzky, defenseman Paul Coffey, right wing Jari Kurri, goalie Grant Fuhr and left wing Glen Anderson. Defenseman Doug Wilson of the Chicago Black Hawks is the only non-Oiler in the starting lineup.

Why not just change back to the old All-Star format, which was used until 1968, and have the defending Stanley Cup champions play a team of stars from other teams?

Gretzky is against that idea.

“We have enough tough games,” he said. “I don’t like it. You’d have 21 guys left off if we had that format. And I can see someone getting hurt. That would be the end of that format.”

The teams were selected by the fans this season for the first time. They previously were picked by the Professional Hockey Writers Assn.

Sather, who is coaching in his third consecutive All-Star game and is allowed to select the 14 remaining players, added four other Oilers to the team: defensemen Lee Fogolin and Kevin Lowe, left wing Mark Messier and backup goalie Andy Moog.

The Oilers tied the league record for most players in an All-Star game. The Chicago Black Hawks had nine in the 1971 and 1972 games.

Asked why he chose so many of his own players, Sather said: “We won the Campbell Conference and these are the guys who got us here.”

Right wing Dave Taylor was the only King selected by Sather. It will be Taylor’s third All-Star game.

“‘I’m looking forward to it,” Taylor said. “It’s always an honor to play in the All-Star game. This may be my last chance.”

Although center Marcel Dionne, the Kings’ leading scorer, was overlooked, he is here to attend NHL Players Assn. meetings.

“Dionne should be in the game,” Sather said. “A guy like that, who’s played in as many games as he has and scored as many goals as he has should be here. But I don’t think you can please everyone. There were other centers who were more deserving than him this year, like Neal Broten and Denis Savard.”

Right wing Tim Kerr, the league’s leading goal scorer this season, was the only Flyer other than Lindbergh who was voted onto the team by the fans.

Keenan added Flyer goalie Bob Froese, defenseman Mark Howe, left wing Brian Propp and center Dave Poulin.

The other Wales Conference starters are center Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins, left wing Michel Goulet and goalie Mario Gosselin of the Quebec Nordiques and defenseman Rod Langway of the Washington Capitals and Ray Bourque of the Boston Bruins.

Lemieux, the 1984-85 NHL Rookie of the Year, was the MVP of the 1985 All-Star game, scoring two goals and and one assist to lead the Wales stars to a 6-4 win.

“Both Lemieux and Gretzky play in another dimension,” Sather said. “They both have eyes on their sticks. They analyze the game from a different perspective. They see everything in slow motion.

“Lemieux is Pittsburgh’s franchise. Whatever they pay him he’s worth it.”

The meetings accompanying the All-Star game aren’t usually very important, but it’s a different story this year.

The NHL’s collective bargaining agreement will expire this fall and the players’ union has threatened to strike over the issue of free agency. The NHL limits free agency by requiring heavy compensation.

“I don’t think we’ll strike just to prove a point,” Gretzky said. “Of course, stranger things have happened.

“Right now the system is not geared for players. I’m not sure free agency is the way to go, but we do have to have some form of bargaining power.”

NHL Notes ESPN will televise the game live at 5 p.m. (PST). . . . Rich Little was the headliner at the $250 a plate NHL All-Star banquet Monday night at the Hartford Civic Center. Last year in Calgary, everyone dressed in cowboy outfits in keeping with the western theme, but it was back to black tie this year.