NHL : Rule Put Too Much Strain on Lemieux

After scoring at least one point in 46 straight games, five short of Wayne Gretzky’s mark, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Mario Lemieux was forced off the ice after two periods against the New York Rangers last week because of the pain from a herniated disk in his back.

It was all so pointless.

Fact: In the NHL, a consecutive-game scoring streak ends automatically if a player doesn’t play. Therefore, Lemieux, bothered throughout the streak by a back condition that continued to worsen, had to stay in the lineup.

Opinion: What are we counting here, consecutive games scored in or consecutive games played in? One has nothing to do with the other. The object is to determine who is best at scoring every time he is on the ice, not who is best at getting on the ice to score. There’s a difference.

Joe DiMaggio is remembered for hitting in 56 consecutive games, Lou Gehrig for playing in 2,130 consecutive games. They are separate records. DiMaggio would not have been penalized for missing a game. Nor was Gehrig’s mark broken by the failure to get a hit.

By requiring Lemieux to play when he wasn’t physically able, the NHL lost a chance for a memorable run at a hallowed mark. That would have meant a media blitz, not the worst thing for a league that finally made it back to network television last month for one afternoon after an absence of a decade. By penalizing Lemieux, the NHL hurt itself.

When Gretzky set the record, he was playing with an injured shoulder. Had he been allowed to rest, his streak might have continued, creating an even more memorable mark to etch into the public consciousness.

And maybe made more of the public conscious of the NHL.

Why not?

Fact: Under NHL rules, the consecutive-game streak ends with the season. For example, Gretzky, then an Edmonton Oiler, actually scored in 60 consecutive games, since he had at least one point in each of the last nine games of the 1982-83 season, before getting one in each of the first 51 games of 1983-84.

Opinion: Another dumb rule. When Orel Hershiser threw 59 consecutive scoreless innings at the end of the 1988 season, that wasn’t the end of it. His streak continued into 1989. As it turned out, he was scored upon in the first inning of his first 1989 outing. But the opportunity was there. Along with a lot of good publicity.

What if Lemieux had scored in the last 50 games of this season? Would he have lost his streak because of a bad break in the schedule? That’s almost as unfair as losing because of a bad back.

Rogie vs. Mario? The Pittsburgh Press recently researched that rarest of the rare in the NHL, the penalty shot. Checking all the way back to 1934, it was discovered that Lemieux has the best record on penalty shots, having gone five for five in his 5 1/2 seasons.

The best in defending against the penalty shot was Rogie Vachon. Now the general manager of the Kings, Vachon spent 16 seasons as a goalie, including seven with the Kings. In that span, he was six for six in stopping penalty shots.

The Less Than Great One: Gretzky’s greatness extends to many areas. This isn’t one of them. He has taken four penalty shots through 10 1/2 NHL seasons, and made one.

Coming and Going: While the Minnesota North Stars keep threatening to beat the Raiders to Oakland, amateur hockey is getting bigger than ever in Minnesota.

The state legislature has allocated $30 million for facilities for the sport. The first result is the $9.5-million, 6,000-seat National Ice Hockey Center which has opened at St. Cloud State University.

NHL Wars or War of the Roses? Hartford Whaler rookie Adam Burt gets the heavy duty handed to several first-year players, lugging around the videotape recorder his coaches use on the road to analyze games.

Or do they?

“I’m beginning to wonder if the coaches actually use it to go over the games,” Burt said in an interview in the Hartford Courant. “They may just be too cheap to pay for Spectravision in the hotel.”