SLUMP FOILED RECORD BID : Nieuwendyk Happy That Pressure Is Off

A season that should have ended with raised fists instead ended with a sigh of relief from Joe Nieuwendyk.

No longer would the Calgary Flames’ celebrated center be asked about Mike Bossy, whose rookie record of 53 goals Nieuwendyk seemed certain to break before he fell into his most prolonged slump of the season.

Nieuwendyk, admittedly affected by the pressure, failed to score in the last 2 1/2 weeks of the regular season, finishing with 51 goals.

So obvious was that pressure, as Nieuwendyk walked off the ice after a practice last Saturday at the Olympic Saddledome, General Manager Cliff Fletcher told him: “Don’t worry, Joe. It’ll be over tomorrow.”

It ended Sunday with Nieuwendyk failing to score for the eighth straight game since March 17 when he put in his 51st goal at 8:21 of the third period to break a 5-5 tie in the Flames’ 7-5 victory over the Boston Bruins.

But, despite the late-season scoring drought, Nieuwendyk is nothing less than an overwhelming favorite to succeed Luc Robitaille of the Kings as the National Hockey League’s rookie of the year.

While his name isn’t as much of a mouthful as it might seem--it’s pronounced NEW-in-dike--his opportunistic play around the net is more than a handful for opposing defenses.

With Mike Bullard, the Flames’ No. 2 scorer, expected to be out of the lineup with a charley horse, the Kings will certainly keep an eye on Nieuwendyk tonight when they open a best-of-seven Smythe Division semifinal series against the explosive Flames.

A great weight having been lifted from his shoulders, Nieuwendyk said he will be more relaxed as the Flames, owners of the best record in the National Hockey League, make a run for their first Stanley Cup championship.

“The way I look at it, it’s a whole new season,” he said.

It couldn’t come at a better time.

“I think he’s just been overwhelmed by the attention and the notoriety,” Fletcher said. “It finally caught up with him. I don’t think it’s a physical thing. I think it’s mental fatigue, and a lot of it has to do with all the attention that goes with the type of year he’s had.

“I really think that when the playoffs start, the pressure will be off and he’ll be able to just go out and play.”

That’s what he did a year ago, when Nieuwendyk left Cornell for Calgary at the end of his third year in the Ivy League. In nine games with the Flames, he showed his potential by scoring five goals.

Still, nobody could reasonably expect 51 goals from Nieuwendyk in his first full season in the NHL.

He was a second-round draft pick in 1985, but only because the Flames saw something that the NHL’s Central Scouting Service, which rated him no better than a mid-fifth-round choice, did not.

As Wayne Gretzky before him, Nieuwendyk developed a special sense for hockey as a youth by playing box lacrosse. Box lacrosse is a physical game played in an iceless rink, and those who learn to dodge the more vicious blows are often the most successful.

Bryan Maxwell, the Kings’ assistant coach, describes Nieuwendyk as “sneaky,” but that’s not to say the 6-foot 1-inch, 175-pound Nieuwendyk is reluctant to take a hit.

In fact, he has scored many of his goals by planting himself in the slot and fending off defenders. All but 20 of his goals have been scored on the power play.

“He’s not got a lot of bulk,” Flame Coach Terry Crisp said of Nieuwendyk. “But he’s got a lot of sinew to him.”

But Nieuwendyk, who honed his talents in the Ivy League to the point that former Cornell Coach Lou Reycroft called him “the best college hockey player I had ever seen,” can also be shifty.

“I try to pick my spots,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s important to be in front of the net to take some screen shots, but a lot of times I’ll weave in and out and try to get the odd tip-in here or there.”

Said Crisp: “He reads the ice surface very, very well. He moves in, moves out. He’ll take some of his goals in heavy traffic; he’ll take them from the side of the net; he’ll take them coming out of the corner. Whatever. That’s hockey sense.”

That’s something that seems to have eluded Nieuwendyk in recent weeks.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself,” he said. “I kept thinking, ‘I need a goal tonight.’ I used to just go out and play and work hard, and things would fall into place. I got into a situation where I was thinking too much, and the game got away from me.

“I’ll be honest, the record meant a lot to me. But now I’ve got more important things to worry about.”

Playoff Notes

The Flames were 48-23-9 in the regular season, which ranked first in the National Hockey League overall standings. The Kings were 30-42-8, which ranked 18th and was worse than three teams--the New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Quebec Nordiques--that did not make the playoffs. . . . The Kings and Flames split the season series, each winning four games. . . . In 20 previous seasons, the Kings won only four of 17 playoff series, two of them best-of-three series against the Flames (in 1976 and 1977) when the Flames were based in Atlanta. The Kings have not won a best-of-seven series since 1969 and have never advanced beyond the second round of the playoffs. They last won a playoff series in 1982, beating the Edmonton Oilers, three games to two. . . . A league spokesman said that Brian F. O’Neill, executive vice president of the NHL, reviewed a tape of Calgary goaltender Mike Vernon’s spear against the Kings’ Mike Allison last Friday night and ruled that a hearing was not warranted. The Kings thought Vernon might be suspended.

How popular are the Flames in Calgary? After last season, when the Flames were eliminated from the playoffs in the first round by the Winnipeg Jets, only 12 fans canceled their season tickets. All but 2,800 of the Saddledome’s 19,626 seats are sold on a season basis and the waiting list for season tickets includes 5,000 names. In contrast, after the Edmonton Oilers won their third Stanley Cup championship last year, about 1,500 fans failed to renew their season subscriptions. . . . In the final NHL statistics, Luc Robitaille was tied for fifth with 111 points and Jimmy Carson was eighth with 107.