HOCKEY / LISA DILLMAN : Talks Are Easy--at a Distance

The new age of NHL sanity is a bit difficult to comprehend. Realignment, often a troublesome process, was as easy as a simple wrist shot.

How did Commissioner Gary Bettman manage to get Chicago owner Bill Wirtz and the Kings’ Bruce McNall in the same room and come out with a newly aligned league, let alone leave the room alive?

Easy. He never got them in the same room.

Bettman’s best tactical move during the realignment talks was to forge a consensus by phone and fax. There was never a chance for back-room bickering or the development of factional in-fighting.

Never before has an NHL move been greeted with such enthusiastic approval from the fans, the media and the players. A quick look at the ramifications for the various parties, among them:

Pittsburgh: The Penguins get the class award for making life simpler for almost everyone else. By moving from the Atlantic (formerly the Patrick) to the Northeast (Adams), the Penguins lose several natural rivalries and gain a tougher travel schedule now that they are in a division with three Canadian teams. When baseball tried to move the Cubs, the Cubs ran off to court.

The Penguins could have threatened legal action, but they didn’t. Instead, they looked beyond pure self-interest for the greater good of the league.

Ottawa and Hartford: Someone has to lose, right? Even before realignment, making the playoffs was a difficult proposition for these teams. Now, forget about it for the next few years.

The fans: McNall termed the new format “user-friendly” for the public. And he is right. How many people have grown tired of watching the Kings play the Oilers almost every year in the playoffs? Has anyone ever yelled ‘Go Wales!’ during an All-Star game? Isn’t it hard to get people talking about the Norris Division at a neighborhood bar? More than anything, the revised schedule, new playoff format and name changes will breathe new life into a stale system.

Los Angeles: In a perfect world, the Kings would have found a way to get rid of Winnipeg and stay in the soft Smythe Division with the likes of San Jose and Anaheim with the current divisional playoff system. Under the current system, the Kings would make the playoffs for the foreseeable future. Now, instead of needing to finish ahead of only two teams, the Kings will have to be better than four other clubs in the new conference-based playoff system. More difficult, certainly, but not impossible.

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There seems to be no end to the fallout from that Eastern blizzard last month. Team captain Wayne Gretzky had spoken up for the players and criticized the Kings’ upper-level management for accepting difficult schedule modifications, which forced the club to play in Buffalo one day and in Los Angeles the next.

Afterward, General Manager Nick Beverley said he was going to present his side to the players. Less than a week later, he did--in the form of a memo. The memo was mocked by the players.

Then, the next salvo was fired by several King players last week in a Toronto Globe and Mail column, the theme being that the team is having success despite upper-level management, not because of it.

Since then, the column has made its way around the league. One anecdote dealt with the treatment of Beverley’s memo in the dressing room.

“Gretz was really funny,” one player said. “He came in the room and everybody started laughing and slapping their wrists and saying, ‘Oh, Gretz, you’re in trouble, you’re going to get your wrist slapped. Read the letter.’

“He just carried it over to the garbage and dropped it in. He never even glanced at it.”

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As expected, the New York Rangers summoned 20-year-old goaltender Corey Hirsch from their minor league team at Binghamton, N.Y., and he will start tonight against the New Jersey Devils.

Monday, the Rangers received a shaky effort from their No. 1 goaltender, John Vanbiesbrouck, in a surprising loss to the Hartford Whalers. They have lost seven of their last eight games at Madison Square Garden. Heading into tonight’s action, the Rangers are three points behind the third-place Devils and one behind the fourth-place Islanders.

Although Neil Smith, Ranger president and general manager, received a vote of confidence from his bosses late last week, he isn’t leaving himself open to second-guessing regarding the goaltenders. Hirsch is 35-4-5 with a goals-against average of 2.75 in the minors, and he tied the Detroit Red Wings and beat the Kings earlier this season.

“We’re asking the players to play with desperation,” Smith said. “I think we have to run the team with desperation at this point.”