Flames, Caps to Play in Soviet Union

As expected, The Calgary Flames and Washington Capitals will be the first National Hockey League clubs to play in the Soviet Union.

Each team will play two warmup games, probably in Sweden or Finland, and four games against Soviet club teams in Moscow and Leningrad during an eight-day period in September.

Alan Eagleson, co-chairman of the NHL’s international committee and executive director of the NHL Players’ Association, said he hopes such visits will be made annually.

NHL all-star teams and Canadian and American national teams have played in the Soviet Union, but this will be the first time individual NHL clubs will do so. Eagleson said the Flames and Capitals were chosen because they are two of the league’s better teams and their managements support international play.

Calgary was host to the 1988 Winter Olympics. The choice of Washington has implications for detente, but Caps GM David Poile said he has another reason for making the tour. “We traditionally don’t start seasons very well,” he said, “and we were looking for a way to do that. If this doesn’t do it, I don’t know what will.”

Flames GM Cliff Fletcher, whose club is favored by many to win this year’s Stanley Cup, said playing the Soviets “will make us a better team.”

Eagleson said the Canadiens likely will be named to play in the Soviet Union in 1990. He said he would like the other team to be “the Rangers, the Devils or the Islanders” for the media attention such a visit might bring, but said officials of those teams have been lukewarm to the idea.

Will the NHL ever ban fighting? On President John Ziegler’s watch, the answer is: probably not.

“The customer is buying our product,” Ziegler said at a news conference Monday in Buffalo. “He’s not rejecting it. And under those circumstances, you always have to be a little cautious about how dramatically you change your product.”

Asked about Wayne Gretzky’s recent pronouncement that fighting “will have to be eliminated” to erase the sport’s “bad image,” Ziegler said, “anytime Wayne speaks, I listen.” But Ziegler added, “No one person in this game is decisive--not me, not the chairman of the board, not one team. It will be up to the clubs.”

Ziegler called a Canadian poll in which 74% of those surveyed said hockey would be more entertaining if it were less violent “worthless . . . It doesn’t tell us anything. You could talk about what you don’t like about violence and I could use that term and we may not be talking about the same things.”

Ziegler said “acts of attempt to injure” are down, because “in the last 10 years, there’s been more legislation to deter that than in the 63 years of National Hockey League history before that. There are less fights, and bench-clearing brawls are almost a thing of the past.”

He added, “There’s some people who do not watch hockey because they do not like fights. How big an audience it is that we’re losing, nobody knows.”

How do you rejuvenate a 37-year-old defenseman? Fly him to Florida. That’s what the Canadiens did with Larry Robinson from Feb. 15-19.

Robinson, who had played in eight previous All-Star Games, figured there was no way he would be named to the Wales Conference team for this year’s game on Feb. 7 and made plans to spend the All-Star break in Florida. Surprise. Bruins Coach Terry O’Reilly added Robinson to the roster.

The Canadiens then decided to dispatch Robinson to West Palm Beach for five days of rest and relaxation. He missed a trip to Philadelphia, St. Louis and Chicago, returned Monday and was held out of Wednesday’s home game against Winnipeg. Robinson, who is to return Saturday against Buffalo, said he feels great.

Meanwhile, Finnish defenseman Jyrki Lumme blew a big chance to play while Robinson was away. Lumme and right wing Claude Lemieux missed last Friday’s 11:30 p.m. curfew in St. Louis. Both were suspended without pay for two games by Coach Pat Burns. On Monday, Lumme was sent to Sherbrooke of the AHL.

Two coaches--Chicago’s Mike Keenan and Quebec’s Jean Perron--were ejected from games last weekend and probably face disciplinary action.

Keenan was ejected by referee Dan Marouelli after the first period of the Blackhawks’ 4-4 tie against Montreal Sunday. The Canadiens’ Eric Desjardins had scored at 19:59, just before the first-period horn. Keenan swore at Marouelli in the corridor leading to the dressing rooms.

Marouelli apparently thought Keenan was upset about his allowing the goal and later sent word that Keenan was ejected. But Keenan, who watched the last two periods from the press box, said he was questioning Marouelli’s failure to call an instigating penalty on Montreal’s Steve Martinson for a fight with Adam Creighton. Keenan was assessed a gross misconduct penalty, which carries a $100 fine.

Perron was ejected by Don Koharski for making an obscene gesture at the referee with 3:58 left in an 11-3 road loss to the Kings Saturday. Observers say Koharski had given Perron a delay-of-game penalty for protesting his call of an instigating penalty on Quebec’s Greg Smyth for a fight with Ken Baumgartner.

The Islanders have switched left wing David Volek to right wing but hope reporters who vote for the all-rookie team will consider him a left wing--he played there much of the year.

The Rangers’ Tony Granato (34 goals) is a lock as best rookie right wing, ahead of Vancouver’s Trevor Linden (25) and Winnipeg’s Pat Elynuik (23). Volek has 20 goals, tops among rookie left wings and four more than Boston’s Bob Joyce. The Islanders have never had a representative on the all-rookie team.

There are less than two weeks until the March 7 trading deadline and the Red Wings say they are not actively trying to trade alcohol-troubled left wing Bob Probert. Detroit GM Jim Devellano said he has had no serious discussions involving Probert for two weeks and will not trade the former 29-goal scorer unless he gets a young rushing defenseman (such as the Rangers’ James Patrick) in return.

Coach Jacques Demers said he hopes Probert, who is practicing but has not played lately, will return to the lineup shortly.

The Flames’ Joe Nieuwendyk scored his 100th career goal in his 144th game last Saturday in a 4-3 home loss to Boston. Only the Islanders’ Mike Bossy (129) and Montreal’s Maurice Richard (134) needed fewer games to score 100 goals. Nieuwendyk has accomplished the feat faster than any active player, including Wayne Gretzky, who needed 145 games.

Former Sabres center Gilbert Perreault recently declined to have his jersey number retired, telling the Montreal Gazette, “I wasn’t that good of a player.” He had 512 goals in 1,191 games.

Oilers’ coach-president-GM Glen Sather was somewhere Tuesday night other than Edmonton, where co-coach John Muckler supervised a 7-4 victory over Hartford. Is a trade brewing?

Blackhawks goalie Alain Chevrier suffered only a sprained left knee, not ligament or cartilage damage as feared, in Wednesday’s 5-5 tie against Minnesota. Chicago is 9-4-2 since Chevrier arrived in a trade from Winnipeg. He is expected to be out 10 days to two weeks.