Even Roadrunner Is Sad for Coyotes

Not even the Great One can heal the sick and wounded.

The Phoenix Coyotes, partly owned and mostly run by Wayne Gretzky, have lost more than 325 man-games to injuries and have slipped near the bottom of the Western Conference. There’s never a good time for a bad season, but their struggles couldn’t be more inopportune: Their new arena is rising out of the desert in nearby Glendale, and they must sell naming rights, suites and season tickets to ensure their economic future when they move there in December.

However, the Coyotes, who haven’t won a playoff series since 1987 -- when they were the Winnipeg Jets -- might not make the postseason tournament. They’ve lost four of their last five games and fallen 12 points out of eighth place with 28 games left.

“You don’t like to use injuries as an excuse, because everyone has them, but we’ve had an extraordinary number by anyone’s standards,” General Manager Mike Barnett said. “The disappointing aspect is, we haven’t yet had an opportunity to have on the ice at any one time the team we had at the start of training camp.”

Their woes have ranged from the usual broken bones and groin strains to Landon Wilson’s devastating eye injury and the sprained knee Ossi Vaananen suffered in a taxi accident during All-Star weekend. Goalie Sean Burke sat out 41 games because of a high ankle sprain, then played four games before spraining a knee Jan. 3. He’s expected back Wednesday against New Jersey.

“The difficulty in the NHL today is, that with 30 teams, nobody has a lot of depth,” said Cliff Fletcher, the Coyotes’ senior executive vice president of hockey operations. “When you’re missing key guys, you struggle.”

The onslaught caused a domino effect. Barnett traded center Michal Handzus to the Philadelphia Flyers in June, believing that Krys Kolanos would play a major role, but Kolanos suffered a concussion Oct. 9 and hasn’t played since.

“Instead of two 6-foot-4 centers, we had none,” Barnett said. “The difficulty with injuries like those is, you don’t know how long they’re going to take. This, obviously, has lasted much longer than we anticipated....

“I tend to look at who’s stepping up despite the injuries, who’s going to rise above the number of injuries we’ve had. But it’s tough in a lot of ways. We’re paying one set of players to watch and paying another set of players to play. Your payroll limits your ability to go out and buy other players. And teams that want to trade want your young, healthy players, and we’re not going to do that.”

It doesn’t help that Tony Amonte, their big free-agent signing last summer, has fizzled. He has scored 11 goals and 27 points in his rapid decline.

“I think he’s at a point out there where you can see he’s very tight,” Barnett said. “No one wants to help more than Tony himself. We’re in it for the long haul with him. Scorers being what they are, when [shots] go in the net, they go in bunches.”

Barnett said he hasn’t given up and hopes that as players return, they’ll stimulate competition for jobs. If nothing else, he’s getting good reads on players’ character.

“We’re a young team and they’ve come together nicely as a group,” he said. “The nucleus is here. It just would have been nice to see what our lineup would have looked like with everyone there.”

Money Matters

The Ottawa Senators’ bankruptcy protection was extended Monday through April 17, and they were promised additional interim funding.

Owner Rod Bryden’s plan to sell shares of the club to a limited partnership was approved by creditors, among them the NHL and several banks. The Senators owe about $160 million. Bryden is expected to buy the Corel Centre in a separate deal.

The Senators have plenty of company in their misery. The St. Louis Blues, following King President Tim Leiweke’s lead in opening the club’s books to The Times, opened their books to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the figures were grim.

President Mark Sauer said the Blues lost $43.1 million last season and might lose as much this season. The city-owned Savvis Center, which is leased by Blues’ owners Bill and Nancy Laurie, breaks even.

“If we can’t significantly improve the economics of the whole operation, I don’t think we can retain quality ownership on a long-term basis here,” Sauer told the Post-Dispatch. “And the Lauries’ ownership is of the highest quality.”

Mario Lemieux, owner and captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins, said last week that shaky finances would lead him to cut costs this summer, and he asked for more corporate and fan support. The Florida Panthers have estimated their losses at $17.5 million, and the Coyotes face losses of $20 million or more.

“We’re losing a lot of money, and we have since Steve Ellman and Wayne [Gretzky] took over,” Fletcher said.

Generally Managing

An interesting idea from the general managers’ meetings after last week’s All-Star game concerns goals scored with apparent high sticks. Their proposal would allow referees and linesmen to confer in cases when video replays don’t show beyond a doubt if a puck was directed into the net with a stick above the level of the crossbar.

“It’s difficult for the referee to see in a split second and the camera angles sometimes are not very good and it comes back inconclusive,” King General Manager Dave Taylor said. “We talked about allowing the four officials to consult, and maybe the referee who was closest to the play asks the other referee and officials.

“The bottom line of all the things we discussed is, we’d like to see the right call, and if consulting leads to the right calls, we’re for it.”

Taylor said the NHL’s hockey operations department, led by Colin Campbell, would work on the wording of the proposal before bringing it to the board of governors.

Also discussed were ways to differentiate between goals that are kicked in and are directed in, ways to eliminate diving, whether elbow pads contribute to concussions, and regulating goaltenders’ pads.

“We’re seeing way too many concussions,” Mighty Duck General Manager Bryan Murray said. “Elbow pads are so hard, we want to see if that has had an effect.”

Although rules limit the width of goalie pads, there’s no limit on the height, leading some goalies to wear pads as long as the Lincoln Tunnel.

“It’s interesting to see the span,” Taylor said. “They probably range from 34 inches in height to a little bit better than 40. But goaltenders also have a six- to eight-inch disparity in height. So they might set a limit that’s proportional to height or maybe set a limit for the height.”

Slap Shots

Give retired Colorado defenseman Ray Bourque an assist. During a recent visit to Denver, he gave a pep talk to Patrick Roy, who reeled off three shutouts in six games. The Avalanche is 7-0-2, despite missing Joe Sakic (broken foot) and defenseman Derek Morris (broken facial bone). Milan Hejduk and Peter Forsberg had consecutive hat tricks over the weekend, signs the offense has shaken off its long slumber.

The Detroit Red Wings, however, remain puzzling. They’re in a 1-4-2 slide and Sergei Fedorov carped about his lack of playing time after a 5-3 loss to Colorado on Saturday. Fedorov had 17 goals in his first 30 games, but three in his next 25.... Detroit center Steve Yzerman, recovering from knee surgery, practiced Sunday after knee pain had kept him off the ice for 10 days and hopes to return later this month. In the end, the Red Wings’ fate will rest on Curtis Joseph’s play, and he has been less than dazzling.

The Calgary Flames are last in the Western Conference, but they lead the NHL in Hobey Baker Award winners. They have three winners of the award given annually to the top player in U.S. college hockey. Chris Drury won it in 1998 at Boston University, Mike Mottau in 2000 at Boston College and Jordan Leopold last year at Minnesota.

For the first time in too long, the Ducks had reason for optimism when they returned from the All-Star break. “Last year at this time, we didn’t have a chance at the playoffs, and it was disappointing,” defenseman Keith Carney said. “It wasn’t a lot of fun to be around here, and it was a long year. Now, it’s a better atmosphere, better attitude. We’re working hard and pushing ourselves to get better.... We expect to be a good team and win most of our games. We expect to be in the playoffs.”

Carolina put goalie Arturs Irbe on waivers, but his $5-million salary is prohibitive to even the neediest teams. In trading Sami Kapanen to the Flyers last week, the Hurricanes conceded the season.... Atlanta is 7-3-1 since Bob Hartley took over as coach and is playing tighter defense. Give the Thrashers time to upgrade their defense and give budding superstars Ilya Kovalchuk and Dany Heatley a year or two to develop, and they’ll be a threat.... The New York Rangers are a threat only to themselves. They’re 0-2-1-1 since GM Glen Sather took over as coach and have given up 14 power-play goals.... Dallas center Mike Modano will play in his 1,000th game tonight.