NHL NOTES : Winnipeg Coach Murdoch Is All Tied Up

After his team recently came back with two goals late in the game to tie the New York Rangers, Winnipeg Coach Bob Murdoch left listeners scratching their heads with this remark: “They say a tie is like kissing your sister,” Murdoch said. “Heck, I’d rather be kissing my wife.”

Now that Michel Bergeron is out of New York, Ranger forward John Ogrodnick apparently is out of his doghouse.

When Bergeron was coach of the Rangers last season, Ogrodnick saw little ice time, scoring only 13 goals. But in a recent game against Quebec, the team that Bergeron is coaching now, Ogrodnick scored his 15th and 16th goals of the season.

After the game, Bergeron said of Ogrodnick: “He’s flying. I like Johnny. I’d like to get him back in Quebec, but I know he doesn’t want to come back.”

Told of Bergeron’s remark, Ogrodnick said with a laugh:

“You don’t want me to comment on that, do you?”

An injury more frightening than harmful has Montreal Canadien defenseman Jean-Jacques Daigneault experimenting with a visor.

“I can see pretty well with the visor,” said Daigneault, still not fully convinced after a few days of practice with the plexiglass eye protector. “There’s a little glare inside the visor but that’s just one of the things I’ll have to get used to.”

The 24-year-old Daigneault was struck on the eyeball by a deflected puck in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs recently and spent five days in a hospital in fear of losing an eye.

Swelling in the eye subsided in a couple of days and his vision returned to normal, but the scare was enough for the Montreal native to have a visor attached to his helmet.

Detroit Coach Jacques Demers holds himself accountable for the Red Wings’ poor start, and sounds as if upper management should hold him accountable, too.

“I really feel embarrassed,” he says. “This is no laughing matter. If it’s one man’s fault and I’m the man maybe management should so something about me.”

If Boston Bruins Coach Mike Milbury was voting for the NHL’s best hockey player, it wouldn’t be Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux, but his own Ray Bourque.

“That man is the best in hockey right now. Better than Gretzky. Better than Lemieux. Anybody. He takes the game to a higher level.”

Bourque, one of the league’s top defenseman, is renowned for his power-play work on the point.

NHL officials are wearing a shoulder patch that says, “JMcC”, in honor of John McCauley, the director of officiating who died during the off-season.

Chicago’s Darren Pang on the shortcomings of Blackhawks goalies (Pang is 5-foot-5, Jacques Cloutier is 5-7 and Alain Chevrier is 5-8): “I think our goalie scout must be that guy from Fantasy Island.”

Pittsburgh Coach Gene Ubriaco, commenting on 6-foot-4, 230-pound defenseman Jay Caufield: “I am going to send him out for the warmup some night without his sweater on to scare the opposition. And then I am not going to play him.”

The NHL Players’ Association has voted 469-49 in favor of salary disclosure. Five teams (Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Washington) were unaminous in support of the move. Only the Montreal Canadiens opposed it, by a 14-12 margin.

The Canadiens apparently bucked the trend because of the way many of them receive their pay -- salary and bonuses in the form of promotional appearances from Molson Breweries, owner of the club.

“Our guys were concerned about a couple of things,” said Bobby Smith, the NHLPA’s vice-president. “One, the kind of feeling that no information is better than the wrong information.

“And there was a question of privacy. Guys don’t want to see it as open as it is in baseball, where all the salaries are printed in the papers.”

Union president Bryan Trottier of the New York Islanders sides with Smith.

“It’s a big joke,” says Trottier. “It shouldn’t be enforced. It puts players in an awkward position. It could create tax problems. “

Siding with the majority is Kevin Dineen of the Hartford Whalers.

“Talk to any baseball or football player,” says Dineen. “They can’t believe we don’t do this already.”