THE NHL / HELENE ELLIOTT : Red Wings, Penguins Insist on Taking Difficult Route

Few opponents tested the Pittsburgh Penguins or Detroit Red Wings this season, so both might have been merely testing themselves--and their coaches’ patience--by twice falling behind in playoff series.

In their first-round series against the Washington Capitals, the Penguins lost the first two games but won the next four. In the Eastern Conference finals, they lost the opener to the Florida Panthers, won Game 2 and lost Game 3 before a strong defensive effort on Sunday brought them even.

Even Panther forward Bill Lindsay noted the Penguins’ pattern. “Of course,” he added, “we’re not the Washington Capitals.”

The Panthers are superior to the Capitals, which makes it less certain the Penguins can rally again even though they play Game 5 today at home.

Two years ago, Ron Francis said of the Penguins, “Sometimes we feel like we can flip a switch,” and that mentality still prevails. They play when they feel like it, and Coach Ed Johnston can’t do anything about it.

They didn’t feel like it in Game 3, when they let the Panthers take 61 shots in a 5-2 victory. “Until we get our backs to the wall, we don’t respond,” Johnston said. “This time of year you should be ready every game. . . . Hopefully, our wake-up call was [in losing Game 3] and we’ll get back to playing the way I know we can play.”

Said Tomas Sandstrom: “We have to try to play harder than they do. With all the skill we have, we should win the hockey game.”

Skill doesn’t mean everything, as the Red Wings discovered. They set an NHL record this season by winning 62 games but had to win the last two games of their quarterfinal series against the St. Louis Blues--including a double-overtime finale--to defeat a team that had won 30 fewer games.

Facing the tougher Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference finals, the Red Wings put themselves in a deeper hole. They staved off elimination Monday with a 5-2 victory but still trail, 3-2, with Game 6 Wednesday in Denver.

Pittsburgh winger Kevin Miller perfectly summed up the essence of playoff hockey. “You can throw away all the talent and statistics,” he said. “The hard-working, gutsy stuff is going to win.”

The Penguins have shown they’re capable of gutsy play when pressed. The Red Wings showed some fortitude Monday but must show even more Wednesday.

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

The West finals took a bizarre turn last week in Colorado when both coaches displayed behavior more suited to the schoolyard than the NHL.

Scotty Bowman, upset over Colorado right wing Claude Lemieux’s sucker punch of Red Wing forward Vyacheslav Kozlov in Game 3, yelled obscenities at Lemieux from Detroit’s team bus as Lemieux walked through the parking lot with his wife and child after the game.

Bowman, more than a little anxious that the Red Wings will again fall short of winning the Stanley Cup, was out of line. To heckle a player from the bench during a game is marginally acceptable, but to harangue him in front of his family is inexcusable.

Colorado’s Marc Crawford is equally reprehensible. In discussing Bowman’s gamesmanship in sending a tape of the punch to the NHL and requesting Lemieux be suspended, Crawford said, “He’s a great thinker, but he thinks so much that he even gets the plate in his head to cause interference in our headsets during the game.” That was a crude reference to a fractured skull Bowman suffered when he was 18, which left him with a metal plate in his head.

The NHL is investigating Bowman’s actions and it is likely both coaches will be fined. Both have tarnished what has otherwise been a dramatic and exciting series.

ROUTE 66

Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux, who won his fifth NHL scoring title this season after taking a year off to recover from the effects of Hodgkin’s disease treatments and back surgery, is considering retirement.

“It’s a real possibility,” said Lemieux, who turned 30 last October. “We’re going to sit down after the season and think about a lot of things and go from there.”

The long season took a heavy toll, especially combined with the premature birth of his third child in March. The baby is scheduled to go home from a Pittsburgh hospital soon.

Lemieux’s retirement would be a great loss for the game. He’s having an outstanding spring and has played well defensively too.

MY FATHER, THE COACH

Among the most interested spectators at the Colorado-Detroit series was Kent Forsberg, who will coach Sweden in this summer’s World Cup tournament. He and 16 other Swedish coaches traveled to Canada and the United States to observe North American coaching and training techniques, and they were treated to sessions with NHL coaches Terry Crisp and Jacques Martin during the Memorial Cup finals, Canada’s junior hockey championship.

Forsberg, however, has a special interest in the Avalanche. His son, Peter, is among the team’s top players and was the NHL’s 1994-95 rookie of the year.

“I am a little surprised he has done so well because it was a big step to come from Sweden and play in the NHL and be one of the best,” said Forsberg, who coached his son at the junior and elite levels. “I get a little nervous when I watch him play. This is a good series with two strong teams. Who will win, I cannot say.”

The elder Forsberg is pleased with his World Cup roster, but he wouldn’t predict the outcome of the tournament. “I think Sweden will have a strong team, but Canada, Russia and the U.S. teams are extremely strong,” he said.

RATS TO THE RATS

Not everyone likes the Miami Arena fans’ custom of throwing plastic rats after each Panther goal.

“It’s a stupid thing,” Penguin forward Tomas Sandstrom said. “But the guys they have cleaning up the ice do it pretty quick.”

SLAP SHOTS

Officials of the Miami Arena, embarrassed by the slushy ice during the Panthers’ series against the Philadelphia Flyers, rented 10 dehumidifiers to keep the air dry and ice frozen during the Eastern finals against Pittsburgh. The price tag was $35,000, but they won’t go broke. Arena operations workers anticipated the drier air would make fans thirstier and lead to more soft-drink sales at concession stands. . . . Colorado winger Warren Rychel, who played for the Kings when they went to the finals in 1993, says he’s having more fun now. “This is better. This is a better team,” he said. “The only bad thing is I’m not playing.” Rychel, a grinder who isn’t slow to drop the gloves, made an appearance in Game 2 and scored a goal. But in 1993, he played a lot and was a favorite of then-King Coach Barry Melrose. If Melrose were Colorado’s coach, “I’d be on the power play,” Rychel said.

Tom Renney, former coach of the Canadian national and Olympic teams, had two interviews for the Toronto Maple Leafs’ coaching job and appears to be the favorite. . . . Red Wing forward Darren McCarty became a father last week and proclaimed that the infant takes after him. “He sleeps with his dukes up,” McCarty said. . . . Pittsburgh General Manager Craig Patrick, whose contract expires Jan. 31, is expected to reach agreement on a new deal before the playoffs end. . . . The San Jose Sharks’ coaching job is Brian Sutter’s to turn down, but his family doesn’t want him to take it because of the stress he endured coaching in St. Louis and Boston.