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Penguins Notebook Sunday, December 27, 1998 By Dave Molinari, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
Jaromir Jagr has discovered over the years that being one of the solar system's most gifted and accomplished hockey players comes with a few hazards.
You get a whole lot of attention, all of it unwanted, from opposing players. You end up in the tax brackets that can make even veteran accountants light-headed. And you become a regular at all-star games.
And while Jagr has gotten used to dealing with persistent checkers and accepts that much of the money he earns will go directly to the government, he never has been able to develop anything more than a thinly veiled tolerance for the NHL All-Star Game.
"It's not my type of game," said Jagr, whose list of all-star gripes includes the skills competition, limited ice time during the game and relentless media attention.
Nonetheless, it's a given that when fan voting for the NHL All-Star Game ends tomorrow, Jagr will be a starter for the World team that will face the North American squad Jan. 24 in Tampa.
This will be Jagr's fifth all-star game appearance; he has missed two others because of injuries. It would be easy enough for him to get out of going to Tampa by feigning an injury, but Jagr said he wouldn't consider doing that. Nor would he simply decline to participate.
"I don't think it would help me if I would do that," Jagr said. "It's better for me to just go there. Even if you don't enjoy it, just go there."
Trivia question
The Penguins were the first team in the 1967 expansion to defeat an Original Six club. Which one did they beat? Answer at end.
Looking ahead
There are lots of years when scouts probably wonder why they bother attending the world junior championships.
More often that not, most of the top prospects competing in the event already have been drafted.
But Greg Malone, the Penguins' head scout, said that is definitely not the case with this year's tournament, which began yesterday in Winnipeg.
"This year, there is definitely a reason for going," he said. "The U.S. team alone probably has at least eight [draft-eligible] kids."
He added that players the Penguins rate as top prospects from countries such as Finland and Sweden also will participate.
European scout Mark Kelley and Herb Brooks, who covers Minnesota, are scheduled to handle the early games for the Penguins, with Malone joining them Tuesday. Kelley and Malone are expected to stay for the balance of the tournament, while Brooks might leave after a few days.
Two Penguins draftees - defenseman Andrew Ference of Canada and Finnish goalie Mika Lehto - will compete in the tournament and a third, winger Alexander Zevakhin, was making a late bid for a spot on the Russian roster.
Being in Winnipeg will give Malone a chance to assess how players like Ference and Lehto stack up against world-class competition. It also will afford him an opportunity to evaluate the prospects in other organizations, gathering information that might be useful at some point in the future.
"You never know," Malone said. "If there's a kid who plays very well there, obviously the information gets back to Craig [Patrick, the Penguins' general manager]. If he's making a deal, maybe we can get the kid thrown in.
"It's like the world championships: It's always nice to go and have some coverage, just in case you want to make a trade."
Clean plate
Nameplates above players' lockers at the Civic Arena and the Penguins' practice rink at Southpointe were changed recently.
Most of them, anyway.
The rectangular nameplates feature the surname of the player who dresses in that stall, flanked on each side by a logo of a newspaper, the Tribune-Review of Greensburg, that sponsored them.
There is, however, one guy who apparently wants no parts of anything even remotely connected with a media outlet: Goalie Tom Barrasso, whose relationship with reporters has been prickly - or worse - for most of his career with Buffalo and the Penguins, does not have a newspaper-sponsored nameplate.
The ones over Barrasso's lockers still bear the emblem of Powerade, the sports drink that underwrote the previous batch of nameplates.
One Penguins staffer, displaying an admirable gasp of the obvious, offered simply that, "it's probably not a coincidence."
Top 5 test
While teams like Toronto and Buffalo have exceeded expectations so far this season, five clubs - Dallas, Phoenix, Detroit, New Jersey and Philadelphia - figure to make up the short list of serious Stanley Cup contenders when the playoffs begin.
And, with the season more than one-third over, the Penguins own precisely one victory against any of them.
That stat isn't as discouraging as it might sound, however, because the Penguins have faced only two of those teams. They are 1-1 against the Devils, 0-1-1 against Philadelphia.
They'll get their first look at Phoenix Jan. 13, but won't see Detroit until Feb. 7 or Dallas until Feb. 26.
It's impossible to project how the Penguins will fare against those teams, but that's a dramatic improvement over a year ago. Early in 1997-98, the Penguins found themselves overmatched every time they faced one of the league's elite clubs.
"We only won one of our first 10 games against those teams," Coach Kevin Constantine said. "After that, we began winning games against top teams. It just took us a long time to get used to being able to compete against the best in the league.
"This year, so far, I haven't seen that trend, where we can't beat a good team. Maybe because there's parity, it's a little less clear about who the top teams are."
Role change for Barnes
It remains to be seen whether the concussion right winger Aleksey Morozov received in Toronto last Monday - his second such injury in less than six weeks - will affect whatever plans the Penguins might have to trade left winger Stu Barnes.
Until Morozov was hurt, Barnes was the odd-man-out among the seven forwards qualified for work on the top two lines, and had spent two-plus weeks working on the third and fourth units.
Within days of Barnes' demotion, speculation that he would be dealt began to swirl across the continent, evidence that there's always a market for a guy with his scoring touch.
And while he moved back into the top-six mix after Morozov was hurt, Barnes doesn't seem certain that will have a significant bearing on his long-term future here.
"I don't know how that's going to affect anything," he said. "Kevin [Constantine] and Craig [Patrick] are going to have to make decisions, as far as whatever happens."
Barnes has made it clear that he wants to remain with the Penguins, and is emphatic that he isn't pleased to have his role upgraded because of a teammate's injury.
"I would never wait around for someone to get hurt, so I can play," he said. "Lexy's been playing great for us. Hopefully, he'll get healthy as soon as possible for us, and get back in the lineup."
Trivia answer
The Penguins defeated Chicago, 4-2, at the Civic Arena Oct. 21, 1967. It was the first home victory in franchise history.
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