Home >  Sports >  Notebooks

Sunday, October 08, 2000

The Penguins are flying back from Japan today. Or maybe tomorrow. Or perhaps they did it yesterday.

Doesn't matter much. Regardless of when they get home -- they're due back early tomorrow evening -- the players, coaches and staff members won't necessarily know what time it is. Or what day. Or what continent they're on, for that matter.

Now, that wouldn't be a big deal, except that the two games the Penguins played against Nashville this weekend were just the first of 82 this season.

And while they'll have a few days to get acclimated to being back before their next games -- Friday against Tampa Bay and Saturday against the New York Rangers, both at Mellon Arena -- they might feel the effects of going through a 13-hour time difference for a while.

Trying to minimize the impact of the change is the job of conditioning coach John Welday, which means he has a lot in common with a guy in charge of holding back the tide with a tennis racquet.

Welday has checked with training staff members of teams that played in Japan in previous seasons, and they gave him precious little hope of a magic bullet for treating the mega-jet lag the Penguins will experience.

"The teams that have done it already have just said, 'It's brutal, '" Welday said. "Not so much going over, but coming back."

Welday planned to pass along the standard advice given to long-distance travelers -- to drink plenty of fluids on the flight home and to move around the plane as much as possible -- but he has no delusions about what's facing the Penguins in their first few days back.

"I'm sure Tuesday's practice is going to be brutal," he said. "Wednesday, it will probably be a little better, and Thursday, you would hope to be back on a normal schedule, somewhat."

What's encouraging for the Penguins is that, according to Welday, there's no physiological reason to believe that starting in Japan will sabotage the Penguins' season.

Other teams that have gone there have blamed the trip for problems that dogged them for months after they returned to North America. Welday, though, is emphatic that any trouble the Penguins go through will be strictly short term.

"If anything, the first two games we play back-to-back after coming back, we may see some effect," he said. "I don't know. But I can't see where, a couple of weeks down the road, that would affect it."

Trivia question

Defenseman Randy Hillier scored 13 goals in 343 regular-season games with the Penguins. How many of those were overtime winners? Answer at end.

Get the camera

Defenseman Jiri Slegr, like most of his teammates, figured to cram in as much sightseeing as possible during the team's visit to Japan.

Fact is, he's a rather accomplished tourist, as evidenced by a visit he made to Florida during the off-season.

Slegr and his stepfather were in the Fort Lauderdale area when Slegr suggested they check out the National Car Rental Center in Sunrise.

"They have a new arena, and he'd never been in a new arena, because I played in Vancouver, Edmonton and [Pittsburgh]," Slegr said. "All those teams have old rinks."

Slegr introduced himself to arena officials, and he and his stepfather were given a tour of the building, but they didn't get to see everything. The Florida Panthers' locker room, which Slegr had figured would be a highlight of the visit, was off-limits to him.

"They didn't let me in because some trainer there was training with some young prospects," Slegr said. "He said he didn't like [the idea of Slegr observing the workout]. I don't know why. Obviously, I wasn't very happy about it, because that's what I wanted to show my dad."

This is easy

Rookie center Milan Kraft never had played in Japan before this weekend, but he is quite familiar with the kind of grueling travel the Penguins are going through.

When he criss-crossed the far side of the continent while playing with the Prince Albert Raiders of the Western Hockey League, Kraft did it on a bus, not in a business-class seat on a jet.

Which explains why he isn't likely to complain about how rigorous the Penguins' trip to the Orient has been.

"You can spend 18 hours on a bus, going from the West Coast back to Prince Albert," Kraft said. "Then you have four games in five nights."

Hotbed for goaltenders

Two of the three goalies on the Penguins' current roster, Jean-Sebastien Aubin and Sebastien Caron, are products of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, and that's no coincidence.

Quebec has been turning out quality goaltenders for about 15 years, since Patrick Roy captivated the province's young players with his stellar play for the Montreal Canadiens. Suddenly, quality players -- not just poor skaters -- began to play the position.

"The better athlete plays goal now," Penguins goaltending coach Gilles Meloche said.

Quebec goalies get quality instruction early -- "There are a lot of good coaches at the minor level," Meloche said -- and the offense-oriented style of play in the QMJHL assures that junior goalies get plenty of work.

"The Quebec League is a very good place for goaltenders," Caron said. "I took a lot of shots."

He also stopped enough of them to lead the Rimouski Oceanic to the Memorial Cup championship this spring.

Caron, though, doesn't credit Roy with sparking his interest in tending goal. Turns out Roy is a little too old for him. Caron's idol while growing up was New Jersey's Martin Brodeur.

Strong start crucial

It is easy to shrug off a loss in October, even for players who grasp the mathematical reality that a victory then counts every bit as much as one in April.

But when those defeats begin to pile up, as they did for the Penguins last fall, they can threaten to sabotage an entire season. That would have happened to the Penguins if they hadn't gone on a 9-3 run after the trading deadline and manufactured victories in Toronto and Buffalo during the waning days of the season.

The scare they got then might be enough to prevent a recurrence during the first quarter of this season.

"We were very lucky," winger Matthew Barnaby said. "We don't want to be in that situation again. We want to get off to a good start. It makes everything else a lot easier."

Defenseman Bob Boughner didn't join the Penguins until mid-March, but he also recognizes the value of a strong start.

"It means everything, the first 20 games," he said. "If you find yourself in last place after 20 games, you're fighting an uphill battle all season. It's hard to play with confidence that way.

"Getting off to a big start is key, especially in our conference, our division. You don't want to play catch-up. If we get off to a good start and bat .700 or .600 in our first 10 games, I think a lot of good things are in store for this team."

Familiar faces

It wasn't entirely surprising when Penguins alum Ken Wregget balked at reporting to the Manitoba Moose of the International Hockey League last week when Detroit assigned him there. After all, Wregget hadn't played in the minors since the 1985-86 season.

But Wregget, who lost his job as Chris Osgood's backup in Detroit to Manny Legace, eventually decided to join the Moose and probably recognized more than a few faces the first time he entered the Manitoba locker room.

His new teammates, after all, include former Penguins such as Bobby Dollas, Dan Kesa, Sean Pronger and Rusty Fitzgerald.

If Wregget stays in the IHL -- it's still possible that he'll retire rather than accept a long-term separation from his family -- he'll see a few more former Penguins as he travels around the league.

Late last week, Rob Brown and Wendell Young (Chicago), Tom Chorske (Houston), Brad Lauer (Utah) and Jean-Jacques Daigneault, Brian Bonin and Richard Park (Cleveland) were among the Penguins alums turning up on IHL rosters.

Trivia answer

Two of Randy Hillier's 13 regular-season goals were overtime winners, giving him a share of fourth place on the Penguins' all-time list. He trails Mario Lemieux (9), Jaromir Jagr (9) and Kevin Stevens (3) and is tied with Rob Brown, Kip Miller and Kevin Hatcher.