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Sunday, January 06, 2002

By Dejan Kovacevic, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

When the Penguins' coaches placed Dan LaCouture on the power play a couple of games ago, they were clear in defining his job description. A grinding winger and owner of only six career NHL goals, he wasn't about to be asked to generate offense. Rather, he was instructed to skate hard, go to the net, create traffic, hit people.

	Johan Hedberg stops a shot by the Rangers' Mike York for one of his 35 saves. (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette)

Amend that last one:

Hit opponents, not teammates.

"Yeah, yeah," LaCouture said, shaking his head. "I know."

Right winger Alexei Kovalev earned the raves and the tossed hats by scoring the Penguins' first three goals in their 4-1 victory against the New York Rangers yesterday at Mellon Arena. But LaCouture also had a significant impact, perhaps bigger than he would have wanted.

Midway through the second period, the Penguins still had the game's only goal and were on the power play. Center Robert Lang whizzed through the middle of the ice, then cut to his right upon gaining the New York blue line. Trouble was, LaCouture, who had been to Lang's right, cut just as sharply to the left.

Boom.

LaCouture and Lang collided so hard that Lang was sent flying backward, LaCouture soaring over him.

"I thought Langer was going to dump the puck behind their defense. I really didn't know what he was going to do," LaCouture said. "I was just a bad read. I should have seen the play better. I was trying to get out of his way, so I jumped. I guess that made it look even worse, huh?"

Both players bounced right back up, but that didn't take away the sting of what happened next.

Rangers defenseman Brian Leetch, who had challenged Lang and forced him to change direction, coolly scooped up the puck and bolted the other way. He moved into the Penguins' zone, then left a drop pass at the blue line for right winger Radek Dvorak and a one-timed blast that tied the score, 1-1.

"That's tough," LaCouture said. "Watching the puck go into our net like that after we were playing pretty well ... man, that hurt. But you know what? You've got to bounce back from it."

LaCouture did precisely that on the decisive goal 4:33 into the third.

Again, the Penguins were on the power play, and they had the puck deep in the New York zone. LaCouture dug out a puck for left winger Jan Hrdina and gave it to him behind the goal line. Hrdina slid it out to Kovalev at the left point. Kovalev had been gunning all afternoon, but he paused this time and looked over the scene in front of goaltender Mike Richter. There was New York defenseman Vladimir Malakhov in the line of fire. LaCouture, too, right where he belongs.

So, rather than crank up a slap shot, Kovalev opted to take advantage of the traffic and zipped a high wrist shot that found its mark past Richter's glove.

"Great shot, unbelievably hard for a wrist shot," LaCouture said. "It went zinging right by my head. I tried to get a piece of it to deflect it, but it didn't matter."

That's because LaCouture did exactly as he was told. He planted his 6-foot-2, 208-pound frame near the crease, refused to budge and made sure the goaltender saw nothing more than the No. 33 on his back.

He was added to the power play for the 4-2 road loss Thursday to the New York Islanders, and that unit has scored in each of the past two games after firing nothing but blanks in the previous four.

"Any opportunity I get to help the team, I just want to do my best," LaCouture said. "I know my job is to just go in front of the goal or dig in the corners and get pucks for the other guys, use the muscle a little bit. If I create room for those other guys, watch them move the puck around and make the plays, hey, that's fine with me. I just have to make sure I do what's expected of me."

LaCouture finished the game with two assists, a satisfying team victory and, most important, his health when he survived the completion of Kovalev's hat trick 48 seconds later.

Last time Kovalev scored three goals on home ice, Nov. 14 against the Islanders, fans threw roughly 100 souvenir pucks toward the rink, one of them nailing LaCouture in the right eye. This time, LaCouture skated to the Penguins' bench and buried his head for safety as the hats rained down.

"Who knows what was going to be flying?" he explained with a laugh. "I didn't know if it was going to be bobblehead doll night or stick night or what might be coming at me. It was a good day, and I didn't want anything to spoil it."