THE OLYMPICS / WINTER GAMES AT ALBERTVILLE : NOTES

Center Shawn McEachern, the U.S. Olympic team’s leading scorer in pretournament play, acknowledged he was immensely relieved to score his first Olympic point Saturday, a goal in the U.S. team’s 3-0 victory over Poland.

“It is a little load off my mind, breaking the ice in the Olympics,” said McEachern, who had 26 goals and 49 points in 57 games before the Olympics. “But I’d just as soon not score any goals and get a gold medal.”

Uli Hiemer, former New Jersey Devil playing for the German Olympic team, has agreed to a contract with the expansion Ottawa Senators. . . . Canadian winger Kent Manderville has agreed to a contract with Calgary. . . . New York Islander General Manager Bill Torrey said he plans to talk with U.S. defenseman Scott Lachance and Lachance’s family here in hopes of signing Lachance. Torrey said the Islanders and their top farm team, the Capital District (N.Y.) Islanders have 11 injured defenseman between them, and Lachance would help alleviate that situation.

For Canadian goaltender Sean Burke, who joined the Olympic team after reaching a contract impasse with the New Jersey Devils, this tournament is the equivalent of the Stanley Cup finals. Although he is giving up about $250,000 to play for Team Canada, he doesn’t mind.

“The bottom line is you’ve got to be enjoying the game, and I wasn’t enjoying it where I was last year,” said Burke, who was overshadowed by Chris Terreri in the Devils’ goaltending plans. “I can’t look at this and say this was the second-best thing for me to do. To me, it’s every bit as good as it would have been in the NHL. I don’t think I’m making any sacrifices. Money, maybe, but there’s more to life than that. . . .

“I want to be back in the NHL, sure, but I’m prepared for whatever happens. If this is the end of my year, I can accept that. I’m definitely not going back to New Jersey.”

Gene Ubriaco got the Pittsburgh Penguins into the NHL playoffs in 1989, but his chances of coaching Italy’s Olympic hockey team into the tournament’s playoffs are slim. Italy gave up three goals during the third period Saturday and lost to Germany, 5-2, drastically reducing its hopes of grabbing the fourth Group A playoff spot.

Italy and Germany have 1-3 records with one game to play, but a tie would be broken based on the goal differential between the two teams. Germany would then get fourth place.

“We expended so much energy to tie it, we just self-destructed a little,” Ubriaco said. “It’s frustrating. This is the first time in (top-level) competition for a lot of guys, and when they’re finding they can’t do certain things they’re used to doing, they get frustrated.”