NHL Stars Turn Over a New Leaf

Vincent Damphousse was so nervous, he couldn’t skate. Just standing on the ice at Chicago Stadium before 18,472 was difficult.

Handling the puck seemed out of the question.

After all, here he was, a star with the Toronto Maple Leafs, but not, in his mind, deserving of being in the same company with the others gathered for the 42nd NHL All-Star game Saturday.

“I just tried not to look out of place,” Damphousse said. He failed.

Damphousse separated himself from the crowd by leading the Campbell Conference to an 11-5 victory over the Wales Conference, becoming only the third person to score four goals in an All-Star game.

He joins some pretty good company, the others being Wayne Gretzky in 1983 and Mario Lemieux in 1990.

Damphousse was named the game’s MVP, but he had some stiff competition from linemate Adam Oates, who scored a goal and added four assists to tie Mats Naslund’s 1988 point total of five, one shy of the All-Star record. That was set by Lemieux in 1988, when he had three goals and three assists.

Oates was in there as a last-minute replacement for teammate Brett Hull, who was forced to sit out with a sprained ankle after getting the top vote total in fan balloting for the game.

Gretzky got yet another entry in the record book with his only goal of the game. It gave him a All-Star record total of 11, one more than Gordie Howe.

Gretzky shrugged off the accomplishment.

“It was nice,” he said, “but it will probably be broken in a year.”

Damphousse wasn’t about to shrug off anything when he was selected to his first All-Star game after leading the Maple Leafs in both goals (14) and points (39) going into the All-Star break.

“I was nervous last night at the skills contest,” he said. “I was nervous when they presented us. It made it worse because we were standing around for 45 minutes before we started playing. I stumbled with the puck at first. My feet felt like cement.

“I was ecstatic just to be there. I didn’t think I’d score.”

Damphousse learned he was wrong on that account in the first period, putting a rebound past Patrick Roy of the Montreal Canadiens off a missed shot by Oates.

Damphousse’s final three goals came in the third period. The last one could have been Steve Yzerman’s, but he skated aside on the breakaway to give Damphousse the shot at his fourth.

He got it, skating into goalie Andy Moog’s face before flipping the puck over the Boston Bruin goalie.

There was little Moog could do. But then, there is little any goalie can do in these games where offense is the buzzword and defense is a bad word.

Everybody gets a chance to cash in during these games because checks are not accepted.

Or at least acceptable.

Proof of that came when Phil Housley of the Winnipeg Jets picked up the first penalty of the game 57 seconds into the final period.

There was only one other penalty, and Housley got that one as well.

The two teams didn’t reach last year’s All-Star record 19 goals in a game the Wales Conference won, 12-7, but they came close.

“I feel sorry for the goalies out there,” said John Muckler, the Edmonton Oiler coach who stood behind the bench for the Campbell Conference Saturday. “I don’t think the fans want to see much defense out there. I think they enjoy the game the way it is.”

As if there wasn’t enough pressure in the net Saturday, Bill Ranford had a little extra.

Mike Vernon of the Calgary Flames was voted the starter by the fans, but Muckler picked his own Oiler goalie, Ranford, as the backup over Chicago Blackhawk Ed Belfour, the hometown favorite.

The Blackhawks have the best record in the league, thanks in large measure to Belfour, a rookie leading the league with a 2.38 goals-against average.

Starting with the skills contest Friday night and continuing into Saturday, any time a Campbell goalie was involved in a play, the fans chanted, “Eddie! Eddie!”

One brought a sign that asked, “Where’s Eddie?”

The other goals were scored by Pat LaFontaine of the New York Islanders (two), Dave Gagner of the Minnesota North Stars, Gary Suter and Theoren Fleury of Calgary, Rick Tocchet of the Philadelphia Flyers, Jeremy Roenick and Chris Chelios of Chicago, John MacLean of the New Jersey Devils and Kevin Stevens of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

All-Star Notes

The NHL Players Assn., following its practice of a year ago, released a list of annual player salaries to help in future negotiations. This time, they gave out only the top 100 with signing bonuses over the length of the contract included, but not option years. No surprise, Wayne Gretzky is at the top with a listed salary of $3 million per year, followed by Mario Lemieux at $2.33 million. Others listed at over a million are Brett Hull, Steve Yzerman, Denis Savard, Patrick Roy, Ray Bourque and Scott Stevens. The second-highest King is Larry Robinson at $550,000. . . . This game has matched the Wales and Campbell Conferences since the 1974-75 season with two interruptions for other formats. The Wales still holds an 11-4 edge. . . . To honor the Allied troops in the Persian Gulf, each player wore a United Nations decal on his helmet.