Is NHL Blandly Entering New Millennium?

The NHL season is more than five weeks old and only 10 points separate the top teams from the bottom feeders.

No one is more than four points out of a playoff spot--even the Chicago Blackhawks, who are 0-8-2 since Oct. 24. The Nashville Predators are a point out of the final Western Conference playoff spot 15 games into their first season. Only the Dallas Stars (9-3-2) and Phoenix Coyotes (8-2-2) are more than four games above .500 and only the Blackhawks (4-10-3), Kings (5-10-3) and San Jose Sharks (3-7-4) are more than three games below .500. There have been 34 ties and probably will be a record number of them by season’s end.

“It’s been a few years now where everybody plays between .400 and .600,” said Pierre Gauthier, general manager of the Mighty Ducks. “Very few teams are over or under that. Every game, you don’t know who’s going to win.”

Ah, parity. In the NHL, that means on any given night, any team can be as awful as any other.

The prevalence of mediocrity is curious, because the NHL is drawing on an expanded talent pool. Non-North Americans accounted for a record 23.9% of players on rosters Oct. 17. Theoretically, with more players available, the skill level should rise. Instead, power-play efficiency has declined over the last five years and scoring is down, too.

Goaltending is better than ever, thanks to training techniques, specialized coaching and the willingness of top athletes to play a position they previously scorned. Elsewhere, it’s worse. Because of over-expansion, few teams have more than two good lines. Desperate to keep their jobs, coaches resort to safe defensive tactics that stifle creativity. Goal scoring is a talent and can’t be taught, but anyone can learn to play defense. Almost everyone does.

The result is often tedious hockey, but Gauthier thinks closeness, on the ice and in the standings, adds drama.

“Most games I’ve seen are good games,” he said. “Whether you play as a team is a major determinant of your won-lost record. When I was [general manager] in Ottawa, we didn’t have that much talent, but we were young and disciplined and played well as a team. . . .

“What it does for any club in the league, including a club like Nashville, is, it’s in your hands to win. Where it really has an effect is if you can get to the playoffs, anybody can win. Take last year, the Edmonton-Colorado series. Everybody said that was an upset but it really wasn’t. Over the length of the year, Edmonton was .500 and Colorado was .600. When a 6-4 team plays a 5-5 team, who’s going to win over seven games? You can’t say.”

In truth, a little disparity wouldn’t be bad. The great Edmonton, Montreal and New York Islander teams had distinct styles that were copied by opponents. With so many teams on near-equal footing now, there’s little incentive to take risks or change tactics. Which is too bad, because blandness won’t produce personalities who can lead the NHL into the next millennium.

BLACK DAYS ON MADISON STREET

The Blackhawks’ acquisition Monday of goaltender Jocelyn Thibault and defensemen Dave Manson and Brad Brown from Montreal for Jeff Hackett, Eric Weinrich and Alain Nasreddine can be seen as General Manager Bob Murray’s backing of Coach Dirk Graham, who has been denying rumors he will be fired.

Graham lost confidence in Hackett and Weinrich during the team’s 0-8-2 slump, and it’s doubtful Murray would have traded them if Graham weren’t sure of staying. Thibault, who has more than 200 games’ experience at 23, is a good pickup. He struggled under the media microscope in Montreal and asked to be traded. His chief sin is that he’s not Patrick Roy, who was adored by Canadien fans, and getting away from that pressure will help him.

The Blackhawks haven’t done much right lately, including their free-agent signings last summer. A pinched nerve prevented Paul Coffey from making his season debut until last Saturday, and center Doug Gilmour’s talents have been wasted because Graham favors a dump-and-chase style and Gilmour likes to hold onto the puck and make plays. The results have been ugly.

“What step do you go to after being a disgrace to the uniform?” Graham asked after a 10-3 loss to Toronto last week.

For the moment, it doesn’t appear that Graham’s next step is out the door.

A REFEREE WORTH ROOTING FOR

Paul Stewart was always a battler, but now it’s in the best sense.

Stewart, who began his hockey career as an enforcer but turned to refereeing, worked his first NHL game last Friday since he underwent colon cancer surgery and chemotherapy. He saw a doctor only after hearing Katie Couric of “Today” discuss her late husband Jay Monahan’s struggle with colon cancer and realized he had the same symptoms. The disease was diagnosed last February, a day after Stewart’s first child was born.

Stewart, who was given only a 50-50 chance at recovering, invited Couric to Friday’s game but political tensions between the U.S. and Iraq kept her at work. Nothing could have kept Stewart away.

“This is something I didn’t think I’d have--a second chance at what I love to do, skate and be part of the NHL,” he said. “I think now, having gone through what I’ve gone through, I will be the best father you have ever seen, the best husband, and I’ll be a better person, a better neighbor, and hopefully, I will be a better referee.”

THE EYES SHOULD HAVE IT

Daniel Alfredsson was lucky he didn’t lose his eye after being high-sticked by Edmonton’s Sean Brown last week. Jeff Libby wasn’t as lucky.

Libby, who plays for the New York Islanders’ Worcester (Mass.) farm team, had his right eye removed after he was accidentally slashed by the skate blade of a falling opponent. He wasn’t wearing a visor, although he wore one when he played for the University of Maine.

Alfredsson wasn’t wearing a visor, either, when he was struck by Brown’s stick. He experienced bleeding behind the eye and is expected to be out a week.

Old-school thinking is, visors are for wimps. Broadcaster Don Cherry recently labeled them harmful. Using videotape of Philadelphia’s Eric Lindros slamming Ottawa’s Andreas Dackell a few weeks ago, Cherry said Dackell wouldn’t have been hurt if he hadn’t worn a visor. However, Cherry ignored a key fact: Dackell acknowledged he hadn’t cinched his helmet tightly, causing the visor to be jarred and cut him. He vowed to tighten the chin strap.

Players should wear visors. But if they choose not to, their decision shouldn’t be based on Cherry’s inaccurate and biased information. Besides, Ron Francis, Jaromir Jagr and Peter Forsberg wear visors, and no one would accuse them of being wimps.

SLAP SHOTS

Reporters who declared Flyer center Chris Gratton guilty of a racial slur against Florida left wing Peter Worrell last Thursday, after supposedly reading Gratton’s lips during a TV close-up, were too hasty. The Miami Herald and Philadelphia Daily News reported Gratton, who is white, called Worrell, who is black, “a . . . ape.”

Gratton, Worrell and on-ice officials denied it. An NHL investigation found no supporting evidence and took no action against Gratton, who said he told Worrell to “learn how to play the . . . game.”

The principle of innocent until proven guilty applies in hockey, too, and it shouldn’t have been ignored in such serious circumstances.

Brett Hull insists he wasn’t rebelling when he said he couldn’t do anything in 11 minutes’ ice time against the Kings. No matter. Dallas Coach Ken Hitchcock doesn’t want to hear it.

“It’s unacceptable in this organization,” Hitchcock said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Hull, we don’t do it. We don’t air our dirty laundry in public, period.”

Gary Suter, who played only one game for the Sharks before again tearing his triceps muscle and ending his season, showed class by offering to defer some of his salary this season and next if the Sharks would guarantee the fourth year of the deal he signed last summer. With some of his $2.8 million this season and $2.7 next season, the Sharks have some flexibility in personnel moves.

Phoenix backup goalie Jimmy Waite has started three consecutive games since Nikolai Khabibulin bruised a hand in practice. Waite gave up two goals in those games. . . . Right wing Donald Audette, who led the Sabres last season with 24 goals, asked to be traded because the club wants to guarantee only the first year of a three-year, $5.7-million deal. His knee problems no doubt make the Sabres reluctant to put themselves on the hook the last two years, when he would earn $4.5 million, and their hot start strengthens their bargaining power. . . . Cam Neely ended his comeback attempt with the Boston Bruins after only four practices, saying he couldn’t play as he was accustomed.