In the Box with John Kreiser

In the Box with John Kreiser
Claude's Time of Year
By John Kreiser, Featured Columnist

To compete against Claude Lemieux is to loathe him. There are few NHL players who, if given the chance, wouldn't mind using him for bayonet practice -- but even fewer who wouldn't want him on their side at playoff time.
Lemieux is the personification of effective playoff hockey in the '90s: Big, fast, cheap, nasty -- and effective. He'll do whatever he feels needs to be done to help his team win, whether it's scoring a goal or sending an opponent to the hospital. It's not pretty. But it works.
During his decade-plus in the NHL, Lemieux has scored 40 goals exactly once. He couldn't handle the media pressure in Montreal, where he helped the Canadiens win in 1986, and freaked out in New Jersey, then talked his way off a Stanley Cup champion in the Meadowlands after the 1995 season -- only to walk right onto another with the Colorado Avalanche last spring, making him one of a short list of players (four) who've been part of a Cup-winner with three organizations. He's let personal problems affect his game at times and spent chunks of his career seemingly on cruise control.
But when playoff time rolls around, Lemieux is like a Crusader who's searching for the Holy Grail. "You can never compare my regular season to the playoffs," he says in one of hockey's greatest understatements. "There's more emotion. It fits my game."
The emotions Lemieux evokes in rivals such as Detroit's Kris Draper run more toward disgust and anger. Lemieux rolled Draper into the boards from behind during last spring's Western Conference finals, busting up the Detroit forward's face and sending him to the hospital with multiple fractures. Lemieux got a two-game suspension; Detroit tough guy Darren McCarty finally exacted a form of revenge in late March by pummeling Lemieux, whaling away as Lemieux "turtled" during the NHL's most fight-filled game of the season.
After scoring 11 goals during a regular season marred by injuries, Lemieux needed only 13 playoff games to match that number. He was one of the few Avalanche players to distinguish himself during the first two games against Detroit, scoring a point in each contest and powering to the net to make goaltender Mike Vernon's life miserable.
Lemieux's goal in Saturday night's loss was the 68th of his playoff career--tying him for 11th on the all-time playoff list with Gordie Howe. Lemieux is third in all-time playoff game-winners. Those are pretty fair numbers for a guy whose regular-season total of 272 goals is nowhere near the top 100 all-time scorers. So what if he'll never win the Lady Byng. All he wants is another Stanley Cup.
SO WHO NEEDS A REF? Officials, so the party line goes, want the players to decide the outcome of a game. Maybe that's why Paul Devorski didn't bother breaking out his whistle for most of the last two periods of Sunday's Rangers-Flyers game. There was more blocking and tackling during the final 30 minutes than most Eagles fans see in a Sunday contest at nearby Veterans Stadium in the fall -- but Devorski was content to just stand there and watch the bodies crash to the ice.
It certainly made for a passionate afternoon, if not a happy one for the home side. But does the NHL want hockey -- or just Wrestlemania on Ice? Hard, clean hitting is one thing; what's become more common as the playoffs head for the finals are vicious, dirty shots -- high sticks, slashes to the back of the leg and a myriad of other uncalled fouls. No one from the NHL seems bothered, publicly at least, but it makes for some awfully ugly hockey at a time when the league should be trying to put its best product before the public.
JACQUES IN THE BOX: The New Jersey Devils aren't making it easy for Robbie Ftorek to get another head coaching job. GM Lou Lamoriello has denied at least two teams the chance to talk to his team's top assistant about their coaching vacancies. Most likely, Ftorek is being used as an insurance policy while Lamoriello and coach Jacques Lemaire decide whether Lemaire returns next season. Lemaire has been evasive on the subject, saying only that he has three option years and that he and Lamoriello will talk. It's unlikely that Lamoriello would fire Lemaire; whether the coach has had enough and wants to step back, as he did in Montreal, is another matter.
HOCKEY WEAR DAILY: Don't be surprised if the Rangers use their "Liberty" jerseys as their regular road sweaters next season. A source says it's all but a done deal. So far, the third jerseys have been a good-luck charm for the Blueshirts: They're 10-5-1 while wearing Lady Liberty.
STAT SHOTS: The team that scored first won 48 of 67 games in the first two rounds (a .716 winning percentage, up from .704 during the regular season). But of the four teams that opened the scoring in the first four games of the conference finals, only one (Philadelphia in Game 1) won the game. ...
The team winning Game 2 has won 11 of the first 12 playoff series. That's a good omen for the Red Wings and Rangers. The only Game 2 loser to win a series was Buffalo, which took Games 1,3,6 and 7 against Ottawa. ...
Detroit has rallied to win three playoff games when trailing after two periods. The Wings managed only two winning comebacks in the regular season. ...
The Rangers have lost the first game in nine straight playoff series, but won the second game seven times. They're also 6-2 in Game 3s over that span as the Eastern Conference finals head for Madison Square Garden.