At Least Maple Leafs’ Fans Can Smile : Hockey: The gruff Burns instills a concept of team play that has produced a 12-1-2 record.

Pat Burns is scowling. Passes go crisply in every drill and the defensemen do their appointed jobs efficiently, but the Maple Leafs’ coach never looks content as he watches his team’s game-day practice.

“You won’t see him smile much,” Bill Watters, Toronto’s assistant general manager, says of Burns. “Not during business hours, anyway.”

Burns’ expression rarely reflects it, but he has more reason to smile than any other NHL coach.

The Maple Leafs launched their season with a 10-game winning streak, the best start in NHL history and a club-record for consecutive victories. A 5-2 loss at Montreal Oct. 30 ended that string, but that’s their only loss in a league-best 12-1-2 record.

“We’re not going to dominate each and every game. We’re going to beat teams by working hard and playing good defense,” said center Doug Gilmour, the Maple Leafs’ best defensive forward and the league’s second-leading scorer, with 25 points.

“The streak was a great run. . . . We were winning because every night, different lines were coming up big and the defense did its job. Each and every guy has a role to play, and that’s how we’re going to win.”

Said goaltender Felix Potvin, whose .930 save percentage ties him for the league lead: “It doesn’t matter if the goalie is good if the team doesn’t play good in front of him, because you won’t win. Everybody here shows up and works pretty hard.”

Their work habits are exceptional, enabling Burns to build around tight checking and a disciplined offense that takes few foolish chances.

“It’s their defensive game that impresses me most, and the game plan that has been put in place by the coach,” Washington Capital Coach Terry Murray said. “He not only puts it in place, he demands that it be followed and he knows how to do it so everyone is having fun, having a good time.”

The Maple Leafs have turned the drudgery of penalty killing into an art, killing 64 of 72 (89%) to rank second in the league. Their power play is also second, at 26.3%, fueled by Dave Andreychuk’s league-leading eight power-play goals and six from Wendel Clark.

It’s no coincidence that the Maple Leafs are 32-10-4 since they acquired Andreychuk from Buffalo last Feb. 2 for Grant Fuhr, a deal that energized their offense and cleared the way for Potvin to play regularly.

Potvin began last season as Fuhr’s backup and played only after Fuhr and Rick Wamsley were injured. He was sent to the minors in early January but returned two weeks later, this time for good--and good enough, at 21, to lead the NHL with a 2.50 goals-against average.

“Dave just fit in so well to what our requirements were,” Toronto General Manager Cliff Fletcher said. “He’s a big left wing, a proven scorer, and he’s made our power play go.

“As for Felix, well, you’re never sure if a kid can play. For a young goalie like Felix, Grant Fuhr was a security blanket. The pressure was on Grant because he had won the Stanley Cup (with Edmonton) and he was the one looked upon to carry the load. Until the pressure was on Felix’s shoulders, you never know. From that standpoint, it was a gamble. But we knew expansion was coming and we’d only be able to protect one goalie, and we felt the longer we let it go to make a deal, the less we’d get.”

They couldn’t have asked for more from Andreychuk or Potvin.

“We played well defensively and we got goals out of people we didn’t normally get goals from,” said Andreychuk, who set a club record with 12 postseason goals during Toronto’s drive to the semifinals last spring. “Everybody enjoyed themselves. We wanted to practice every day and we were looking forward to the next game to see what would happen.”

Potvin, who is in the top five in goals-against average at 2.35, spared the Maple Leafs a loss Thursday at Detroit, when they faced a 3-1 deficit with 11 minutes to play. He made 20 saves in the third period and 45 overall to salvage a 3-3 tie.

“Potvin deserves a lot of credit for what we’ve done,” Burns said. “The confidence has grown between him and the team ahead of him. It’s a two-way street. It has to be.”

Said Watters: “If you rated us from an individual talent standpoint, you’d flatter us if you put us in the top 10. But from a team standpoint, we’re in the top 10. . . . I attribute (the team’s success) to a feeling of getting to know how to win, of the coaches impressing on the players how to win. They bought the program.”

Burns’ program gives players specific roles and fosters a feeling of one for all.

“Everybody feels he’s adding something to the team,” said Mark Osborne, who scored his only two goals in victory number nine, which broke the previous NHL record for victories from the start of the season.

Even after 12 victories, no Maple Leaf has more than two game-winning goals. The new offensive catalyst is Clark, whose two goals Saturday in a 5-3 victory over the Atlantic Division-leading Flyers gave him eight goals in six games, and his surge is well timed.

His production will help ease the loss of right wing Nikolai Borschevsky, who had 13 points in 13 games before suffering a ruptured spleen that has sidelined him indefinitely. Burns already had lost third-line center Peter Zezel--the team’s top faceoff man--to a back injury and second-line right wing Rob Pearson to a torn knee ligament. Bob Rouse’s four-game suspension for a stick-swinging incident and Todd Gill’s groin injury reduced the defense to four at times, but Burns wasn’t fazed.

“Commitment is the whole thing, what the team is committed to do,” said Burns, who was voted coach of the year last season for guiding Toronto to a record 44 victories and 99 points--this after the Maple Leafs had failed to make the playoffs three times in four seasons. “If the team is committed, we’ll be OK. If not, we’re just an ordinary hockey team.

“I was trying to play (the streak’s importance) down. Too much hype can get you away from the stuff you’re supposed to do. A couple of games we were lucky, sure, but you have to work to be in position for luck to help you.”

They will need luck this month. Their schedule bounces them all over North America for 15 games in 30 days, including their first West Coast trip.

“After winning the first 10, if we play just over .500 over the next 74, we’re going to end the season with 94 points,” Fletcher said. “That’s a nice starting point.”

But .500 won’t get a smile out of Burns.

“You’ve got to play 84 games like you’re going to play in the playoffs,” Burns said. “It gets me when I hear teams say, ‘We’ll turn it on in the playoffs.’ That’s ridiculous, and it insults the fan who pays $65 for a ticket. You’ve got to play hard every game and let things take their course when you get to the playoffs.”