Tocchet’s Knee Strikes Again, Gets Yzerman
Rick Tocchet said he didn’t mean to hurt Detroit’s Steve Yzerman.
Yeah right, Red Wing Coach Scotty Bowman said.
Martin Lapointe’s power-play goal midway through the third period gave the Red Wings a 4-4 tie with Phoenix on Wednesday night in a game at Detroit that was marred by an injury to Yzerman.
He was sent off 5:39 into the second period after taking a knee from Tocchet, recently suspended for a similar incident. The damage to Yzerman, who was helped off the ice, was announced in the press box as an injured left knee and a charley horse.
He was taken to Henry Ford Hospital for an MRI examination, the results of which wouldn’t be known until today.
“You don’t want to see a guy like Steve Yzerman get hurt,” Tocchet said. “But when he’s trying to get out of the way, I couldn’t stop in time. I’ve known Steve Yzerman for a long time. I would never try to hurt him. I think too much of him.”
But Bowman called it a vicious injury. He also said Tocchet stuck out a knee on Nicklas Lidstrom late in the game.
“It doesn’t matter,” Bowman said. “The player who sticks out his knee can say he didn’t mean it. But it’s like a guy who shoots a guy and says he didn’t mean it.”
Bob Corkum, Keith Tkachuk, Jeremy Roenick and Deron Quint scored for Phoenix. Vyacheslav Kozlov, Brent Gilchrist and Brendan Shanahan also scored for Detroit.
Carolina 3, Tampa Bay 2--Goals by Martin Gelinas, Robert Kron and Kevin Dineen in Tampa helped the Hurricanes rally to deal the Lightning its 11th loss in a row.
Tampa Bay is winless in 1998 but held a 2-0 lead after two periods. But Gelinas and Kron scored 42 seconds apart in the third period and Dineen put the Hurricanes ahead by beating Mark Fitzpatrick from just inside the blue line at 5:34.
Washington 2, Pittsburgh 2--Alex Hicks scored on an improbable shot with 2:31 to play to give the Penguins a tie at Washington and end the Capitals’ five-game home winning streak.
Hicks took a rising slap shot from just inside the blue line that appeared headed to the left of the net. But the puck bounced off goaltender Olaf Kolzig’s outstretched glove and into the net, enabling Pittsburgh to extend its unbeaten streak to five games (3-0-2).
N.Y. Islanders 6, Philadelphia 1--Zigmund Palffy scored three goals for the Islanders, who won at Uniondale, N.Y., for their second victory in their last 17 games.
Along with his fifth hat trick, Palffy also assisted on Kenny Jonsson’s goal.
New York is 2-13-2 in its last 17 games.
Colorado 6, Vancouver 1--Claude Lemieux scored two goals and Peter Forsberg ended a mini-slump with a goal and three assists for the Avalanche in a win at Denver.
New Jersey 1, Edmonton 1--Curtis Joseph and Martin Brodeur, two of Canada’s Olympic goaltenders, dueled for 65 minutes at Edmonton in a game in which an Oiler goal and three Devils’ goals were disallowed.
