THE NHL : Sather Passes Buck to Former Coach, Now With Sabres

Glen Sather knows how the coach of the former Soviet Union hockey team must feel. One minute you are sitting atop a dynasty; the next, you are trying to keep the whole thing from collapsing.

The Edmonton Oilers were a superpower in the NHL during the second half of the 1980s. Even after trading Wayne Gretzky to the Kings in 1988, the Oilers won the Stanley Cup, their fifth of the decade.

This season, however, Sather, the Oiler general manager, has been forced, for economic reasons, among others, to oversee the final dismantling of the team of the ‘80s.

Gone is center Mark Messier, goalie Grant Fuhr, wing Glenn Anderson and many of the bit players who contributed in the glory years.

Adding to Sather’s woes is the loss of one of his remaining stars, forward Esa Tikkanen, because of a broken shoulder. Tikkanen won’t be back until the end of the regular season at the earliest.

It has been a painful process. One of the players Sather received in trade for Messier was Bernie Nicholls. It has turned out to be a bad marriage.

Nicholls refused to report for two months because of complications surrounding his wife’s pregnancy. Since his arrival, Nicholls and Sather have been sniping at each other constantly. And now, Sather has been involved in yet another war of words with his former coach, John Muckler, now the Buffalo Sabres’ coach and general manager.

This time, the issue is Sather’s trade last season of Czechoslovakian center Vladimir Ruzicka to the Boston Bruins for defenseman Greg Hawgood.

Hawgood hasn’t been much good for the Oilers and has been sent to the minors.

It has been just the opposite for Ruzicka, whose four goals and an assist Sunday gave him 34 goals and 56 points in 55 games for the Bruins.

Ruzicka had a tough time fitting in with the Oilers because he was struggling with English at that point, because he was unfamiliar with the team concept employed in Edmonton and because the Oilers already had a lot of talented players.

Sather told the Boston Globe the reason he traded Ruzicka was because then-Oiler coach Muckler didn’t like the Czech’s style of play and wouldn’t work him into the lineup.

Responded Muckler: “He (Ruzicka) is a talented hockey player. He’s always been a talented hockey player. But I think the decisions that were made were good ones.

“I don’t want to get into a name-calling contest. The Edmonton organization meant a lot to me, and I want to keep it that way. I guess I should be kind of proud. This kind of puts me in an elite group, because anyone who has ever left Edmonton is knocked by Sather in one way or another. He did the same thing with (Wayne) Gretzky, (Paul) Coffey, (Jari) Kurri, (Grant) Fuhr and everyone else who was in the organization.”

Odd team out? If the Smythe Division-leading Vancouver Canucks can maintain their pace, the tightly bunched Kings, Oilers, Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames could battle to the last week for the three remaining playoff spots.

So who figures to be left home when the postseason begins?

Says Winnipeg Coach John Paddock:

“Assuming we make the playoffs,” he said, “and we very well might not, I’d have to say Los Angeles. Wayne (Gretzky) doesn’t seem to be that happy . . . but if Gretzky cranks it up, all bets are off.”

Badgered Bob: Since Bob Johnson died last year of a brain tumor, there have been nothing but pleasant memories of his final job, which culminated last spring when he led the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Stanley Cup, the first for both the team and Johnson.

But the 60-year-old coach wasn’t always confident things would work out.

His son-in-law, Tim McConnell, told the Pittsburgh Press of Johnson’s initial reaction to the thought of taking over the Penguins.

“Bob rubbed his face with his hands,” McConnell recalled, “and said, ‘It’s a terrible job, a horrible job.’ ”

New city, old story: When 34-year-old wing John Tonelli learned last summer that he wasn’t in the Kings’ plans, he was determined to find a club that wanted him.

He thought he had done so when he joined the Chicago Blackhawks. But he finds himself in the same position he was a year ago. He has appeared in 33 of Chicago’s 56 games, getting one goal and seven assists.

Tonelli is playing under a one-year contract, and it doesn’t appear the Blackhawks are interested in re-signing him.

Going for the real gold: Everyone assumes that Eric Lindros, who has refused to sign with the Quebec Nordiques, will be part of a blockbuster deal at season’s end, involving three or four starters and, perhaps, a lot of money.

But exactly how big a deal and how much money he is worth might well be determined in France.

For all the talk about Lindros being the next Gretzky, a lot of interested NHL personnel want to see how he performs in his first big test, the Winter Olympics.

So far, no one is disappointed.