Larionov Signs With Florida to Center Top Line With Bure

Center Igor Larionov, who spent five seasons with the Detroit Red Wings and helped them win two Stanley Cups, signed a free-agent contract with the Florida Panthers on Saturday.

Larionov, 39, chose the Panthers over the Calgary Flames. He signed a one-year deal worth $1.8 million with a club option for 2001-2002 at $2 million.

Panther General Manager Bryan Murray said Larionov, a 10-year NHL veteran, will center the team’s top line, playing with wing Pavel Bure, the league’s leading goal scorer.

“We believe that his poise and character, along with what he can add to our younger players in the organization, is well worth bringing him on board,” Murray said.

Larionov played 79 games last season for Detroit, with nine goals and 38 assists. He had one goal and two assists in nine playoff games.

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Dallas Star center Guy Carbonneau, 40, a three-time Selke Trophy winner as the NHL’s top defensive forward, announced his retirement. Carbonneau won three Stanley Cups. . . . The San Jose Sharks signed free-agent left wing Scott Thornton, who played last season with Montreal and Dallas.

Pro Basketball

Karl Malone wants no part of a youth movement with the Utah Jazz.

According to Malone, teammate John Stockton and Coach Jerry Sloan plan to retire after next season. And Malone told Salt Lake City television station KSTU he doesn’t want to end his stellar career on a team under construction.

“I’ve been involved in the so-called rebuilding process, when I got here,” Malone said. “I don’t want to go through it again, I really don’t.”

Malone, 36, is a two-time league MVP who has played 15 NBA seasons, all with the Jazz. Last August, after signing a four-year, $67-million contract, he said he planned to end his career in Utah.

College Basketball

While two of the nation’s premier basketball schools waited, Roy Williams left for his beachfront home in South Carolina to ponder whether to leave Kansas to take the job at North Carolina. Signs and banners have sprung up all over Lawrence, Kan., urging Williams to stay.

Delaware has signed men’s Coach Mike Brey to a five-year contract extension, through the 2006-2007 season. Last season, the Blue Hens recorded their third consecutive 20-win season and received their first NIT bid.

Miscellany

Despite being spiked in a meet at Stanford, Mark Crear won the 110-meter hurdles in 13.20 seconds, the fastest mark by an American this year.

Dick James, the former University of Oregon and Washington Redskin running back, died of prostate cancer Wednesday in Grants Pass, Ore. He was 66.

James, one of the NFL’s smallest players at 5 feet 9 and 175 pounds, played for the Redskins from 1956-63, spent 1964 with the New York Giants and played four games for Minnesota in 1965.

Ryan Shafer won his second PBA Tour title of the season, defeating Bob Learn Jr., 217-205, in the championship game of the Wichita Open in Kansas. Shafer, who earned $15,000, won The Orleans Casino Open in Las Vegas for his first tour title.

Washington defeated the University of London by a quarter-length to reach the debut final of the Henley Prize for women’s eights at the Henley Royal Regatta on the Thames River in England. Washington, which defeated Virginia by two lengths in the quarterfinals, will face Canada’s University of Victoria in today’s final.

Brown defeated NCAA champion California by two lengths in the semifinals of the Ladies Plate, the eights event that is second only to the Grand Challenge Cup in prestige.