Old Baggage Doesn’t Weigh Down Bure With the Panthers

Pavel Bure knew what was coming.

Not a pass. Not a goal. The Florida Panthers’ brilliant right wing knew he was about to face a question regarding his friends, some of whom the NHL views as more like enemies.

“Oh, you mean the Mafia?” Bure said, smiling.

In an investigative report on Russian crime aired Wednesday on Canada’s CBC TV network, Bill Daly, the NHL’s chief legal officer, said the league is concerned about and is monitoring Bure’s friendship with Russian businessman Anzor Kikalishvili, who was barred from entering the United States because of alleged criminal ties. The report also examined a friendship between Valeri Kamensky of the New York Rangers and Vyacheslav Sliva, who was deported from Canada two years ago for extortion and other criminal activities.

Several Russian NHL players were targets of extortion in the mid-1990s. The NHL has investigated possible links between players and Russian organized crime figures, but Daly said no evidence exists of any attempts to fix a game or of any player’s involvement with organized crime.

When the extortion threats surfaced in 1996, Bure denied he had been a victim. He said he had not been contacted by the NHL about Kikalishvili and finds nothing wrong with his friendship with Kikalishvili, with whom he’s pictured in advertisements on Moscow streets for a company called 21st Century.

“I can’t control what people say. I don’t feel any guilt. I feel innocent,” said Bure, who set up the tying goal and scored into an empty net in a 4-2 win over Kings.

“This is getting old. [Reporters] have nothing to say and they just write it over and over. I was really mad when it happened in 1995 and 1996. It’s the same thing now.”

Same story, maybe, but his life has since changed dramatically.

Bure had grown unhappy in Vancouver, where his 60-goal seasons in 1991-92 and 1992-93 and 51-goal effort in 1997-98 made him an icon but robbed him of his privacy. After asking the Canucks to trade him--and sitting out when they didn’t quickly oblige--he was sent to Florida last January in a seven-player deal. He signed a five-year, $47-million contract and energized the Panthers, scoring 13 goals and 16 points in 11 games before tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee for the second time and undergoing surgery.

With Bure in the lineup, the Panthers were 5-4-2, challenged for an Eastern Conference playoff spot and drew sellout crowds. Without him, they fell to ninth in the conference, 12 points out of the playoffs. Season-ticket sales fell by 3,000 as fans wondered if Bure would return in top form.

“I still believe if he had stayed healthy we would have made the playoffs,” teammate Scott Mellanby said.

If Bure’s first two games this season are any indication, the Panthers won’t miss again.

Although he didn’t play in any exhibition games because he was told to wait six months after his surgery, Bure scored a goal on his first shot of the season. On Wednesday, his one-touch pass sprang Ray Whitney and Viktor Kozlov for a two-on-one on the game-tying goal and he held off King defenseman Rob Blake to jab the puck into an empty net with 34 seconds to play.

He’s skating as smoothly and rapidly as ever, quashing doubts about the strength of his knee.

“The waiting was really difficult, but you just work hard and think what you can do to make it stronger,” he said. “It was easier this time because I knew how hard it was going to be, especially mentally.

“Now, hockey is a business. You’re putting your health on the line every night. Guys are bigger and faster and that’s why so many guys are getting injured. I played seven years in Vancouver and I was the only guy on the team who had a torn ACL. Now, there’s a lot of guys.”

He is not yet at full strength, but the Panthers are encouraged. “He’s our marquee guy. This team needs him,” Mellanby said. “But it can’t be just him. We’ve got to have a good supporting cast.”

The kind the NHL approves, anyway.