In the Box with John Kreiser

In the Box with John Kreiser
But Is Expansion Ready for the League?
By John Kreiser, Featured Columnist

Gary Bettman and his expansion committee hit the road this week for visits to the six cities the league has deemed potentially worthy of dropping $80 million for a new team. Though the NHL is on the upswing, Bettman & Co. will find a mixed bag of applicants who may not be as prepared as the league would like.
Of the six cities, only Nashville is ready with a modern (read: lots of luxury boxes and other revenue-enhancers) arena and the big-bucks ownership the league wants. How interested Music City residents will be in watching an expansion team slog through its first few seasons--especially with the NFL Oilers headed to Tennessee next year--is an open question. Of course, there's also the case to be made that the NHL owes Nashville a favor for helping the New Jersey Devils get a better deal from the Meadowlands a couple of years ago. Add a point or two to Nashville's chances for that one.
All of the other candidates are either building new arenas, planning them--or promising that one will be built. Atlanta, with Ted Turner backing its bid, seems a lock to get a team as soon as its building is ready. Houston would also seem to be a lock, but the Summit is antiquated by 1990s standards and there's no definite commitment for a new building. St. Paul seems more interested in rehabbing the Civic Center than building a new facility, while Oklahoma City is at work on a downtown arena that will be constructed debt-free. Columbus has a May 6 referendum scheduled on a new arena, but the Ohio capital, whose ECHL team has been a box-office hit, could well end up as the future home of the Hartford Whalers.
Just call it a free-for-all.
Unfortunately for the NHL, the list of applicants doesn't include one city the league really wants. Though Bettman knows Portland Trailblazers' owner Paul Allen from his days in the NBA, he wasn't able to get the co-founder of Microsoft to apply for a team that would fill hockey's hole in the Pacific Northwest. Though Portland has a long hockey history, Allen has never shown a great deal of interest; much to the NHL's dismay, Portland didn't even applay for a team. Nor has Seattle, a bigger market that the NHL would love to tap.
The expectation is that the NHL will have 30 teams by the end of the century, with three five-team divisions in the Eastern and Western Conferences. That will lead to a different kind of free-for-all, as teams jockey for divisional pairings.
JOY FOR JOEY: If there was any doubt that Joe Mullen belongs in the Hockey Hall of Fame, it disappeared last Friday when the New York City native became the 25th player to record 500 career goals. Admittedly, getting 500 goals isn't necessarily the challenge it was in Rocket Richard's day--but then again, the Rocket (and the other members of the 500-Goal Club) didn't start by playing roller hockey. Nor did they have to wait until they were almost 25 to get a chance in the NHL.
Mullen holds one mark that no 500-goal scorer is likely to match: Getting 20 goals in the minors and the NHL in the same season. The former Boston College star had 40 and 59 goals in his first two minor-league seasons, then added 21 in his first 27 games with Salt Lake City in 1981-82. He finally got a full-time shot with St. Louis in midseason and connected 25 times in 45 games.
At 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds, Mullen's stature belie his accomplishments. He was a First-Team All-Star with Calgary during the Flames' 1989 run to the Cup and a key contributor on Pittsburgh's 1991 and 1992 Cup-winners. Reaching the 500-goal mark --the first American-born player to do so--couldn't have happened to a more deserving player.
GAME OF THE WEEK: Don't think Eric Lindros won't come out pumped for Sunday night's showdown between the Flyers and Colorado Avalanche in Philadelphia. It's been almost five years since Lindros was sent from the Quebec Nordiques, Colorado's predecessor, to the Flyers for a pile of players and money. Lindros has been everything the Flyers could ask--when he's been able to stay on the ice. But injuries and the Avalanche's Stanley Cup triumph last spring have made many wonder if Lindros was worth the price. His mission for this season: Get the Flyers to the finals--and win.
STAT SHOTS: Paul Laus could be about to punch his way into history. The Florida Panthers' defenseman enters the week with 32 fighting majors, by far the most in the NHL. According to Front Page Sports in Floral Park, N.Y., which has tracked fighting majors for the past decade, no player in the last 10 seasons has had more than 34 fighting majors (records before that are incomplete). The Panthers had three games last week; Laus fought in all three. ...
The New York Rangers entered the week having won three straight one-goal games. That's something they hadn't accomplished since February 1987. The Rangers, who sleepwalked through February while spending most of the month on the road, won five of their first six games in March before Monday night's loss to Ottawa. ...
The Senators' victory over the Rangers was a milestone of sorts. The Senators had gone 0-11-3 in their last 14 games against teams with winning records. Their last previous win over an over-.500 team? A 5-2 victory over the Rangers on the night after Christmas.