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Tuesday, April 03, 2001

UNIONDALE, N.Y. -- Mario Lemieux doesn't have a vote for the Hart Trophy, and it's probably better that way.

He would have a hard time deciding who to put at the top of his ballot.

Lemieux knows Colorado center Joe Sakic, widely regarded as the front-runner, is a worthy candidate for the Hart, which goes to the player deemed to be most valuable to his team.

He also believes that linemate Jaromir Jagr, who is closing in on his fourth consecutive NHL scoring championship, deserves serious consideration, although it seems unlikely Jagr will be a major factor in the balloting.

"I don't know," Lemieux said. "It's a tough call between Sakic and Jagr, I would say."

Just how Lemieux feels about other contenders like, say, Nicklas Lidstrom of Detroit, isn't known. But there is one guy who would be conspicuously absent from Lemieux's ballot: Himself.

Never mind that he's averaging better than 1.7 points per game, easily the best in the NHL. Or that the Penguins, who are lucky to play .500 hockey when he's not in the lineup, win nearly two-thirds of their games when he is.

Lemieux knows those stats. He's probably pretty proud of them.

But the number that's most significant, he believes, is this one: 44. That's the maximum number of games in which he can appear this season, and Lemieux said that missing at least 38 games should eliminate any possibility of him winning the Hart.

"You can't play half a season and win that trophy," he said.

Not even if, in that half-season, you pile up 34 goals and 37 assists in 41 games, and lead your team -- which has gone 15-15-6-1 without you -- to a 25-12-3-1 record.

Trivia question

Fifteen men have won or shared the Penguins' end-of-season award for community service since it was instituted in the 1991-92 season. Of those, how many are still with the organization? Answer at end.

Just ask him

The Penguins have had five players chosen to compete in the 2002 Olympics, and there are several other legitimate candidates to be added to their countries' squad for the Games in Salt Lake City.

One is defenseman Hans Jonsson who, like goalie Johan Hedberg, figures to get serious consideration from officials of Team Sweden. And if he receives an invitation, Jonsson won't have to be asked twice.

"I know I have a chance, but the Olympics are next year, so it's nothing I think about now," he said. "Of course [I would accept an offer]. I think every [invited] hockey player will be in the Olympics."

Icing debate

The merits of calling icing as soon as the puck crosses the goal line -- the way it is handled in international hockey -- has been debated in NHL circles for years. The issue flared again when Penguins left winger Kevin Stevens was injured last Tuesday while trying to overtake Buffalo defenseman Jason Woolley before Woolley could touch up an icing.

"I knew I couldn't catch him, but then I kind of got to him and said, 'Maybe I can catch him,' " Stevens said. "I went in and kind of caught a rut [in the ice]. My foot got stuck."

Stevens sprained his knee and hasn't played since. And while he apparently will return in plenty of time for the playoffs -- perhaps as early as the Penguins' game against Tampa Bay tomorrow night -- his injury provides additional fodder for those who contend it shouldn't be necessary to touch the puck to get icing called.

Stevens, though, is surprisingly ambivalent, even though many who saw him get hurt realized instantly that the injury would have been avoided if he hadn't been trying to chase down Woolley.

"That's what the ref said right after it happened," Stevens said. "But I don't know. It would probably protect the defensemen a little more than the forwards. I'm the guy chasing them. I'm in pretty good position.

"It doesn't really matter to me. I don't mind the icing as it is now. It keeps the game interesting."

Talented teammates

It was, by any measure, a pretty fair youth hockey team they had in one Montreal neighborhood back in the early 1970s.

The Ville Emard Hurricanes featured no fewer than three future NHLers -- Lemieux, Marc Bergevin and Jean-Jacques Daigneault.

Those three played together until they were 16, and that Hurricanes club ultimately sent about a half-dozen other players to major-junior hockey.

"It's rare," Bergevin said. "It was special."

Bergevin was one of a kind, too. Unlike Lemieux and Daigneault, he didn't have the talent -- or the reputation -- to be a first-round draft choice, but the sense of humor that has served him so well during his 17 seasons in pro hockey was evident.

"Not as bad [as now]," Lemieux said, smiling. "But he was funny."

No regrets

Sean Pronger of the International Hockey League's Manitoba Moose has played 153 NHL regular-season games, including seven with the Penguins. But he is doomed to be best known as the brother of St. Louis' Chris Pronger, probably the NHL's best defenseman when he is healthy.

Sean Pronger, who is 6 feet 2, had the size to work on the blue line, too, but insists that he has no regrets about ending up as a forward.

"I get the puck sometimes back where the defensemen usually get it, and I don't think I have the poise to handle the puck the way they do," he told the Winnipeg Sun. "It would have been interesting to see [what would have happened] if I'd started back there, but I'm happy with the way things have turned out."

Looking good

Anyone who has watched Martin Straka play can't help but be struck by the non-stop nature of his game. Straka isn't just fast; he's perpetually in motion.

That's the way it looks, anyway, although Straka contends that it's something of an optical illusion.

"My style just looks like I'm trying all the time, I guess," he said. "Some guys aren't that quick, and they kind of look lazy on the ice. With my style, even when I probably don't give everything, I still look like I play hard."

Lasting impression

Although checking-line forward Tom Chorske didn't make much of an impression on the Penguins during the partial season he spent with them, the organization made one on him with the way it reacted after his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The Penguins gave Chorske, now playing for Houston in the IHL, permission to return to Minnesota during last season to be with his father and continued to pay him his salary.

"It had been a tough year in Pittsburgh already, but they supported me and made me feel like I was making the right decision," Chorske told the Salt Lake [City, Utah] Tribune. "They were great, and I appreciate that."

Chorske's father died at about the same time the Penguins were eliminated from the playoffs, but then-coach Herb Brooks made a point of showing up for the funeral.

"That really meant a lot to me," Chorske said. "He didn't have to come. He hardly knew my father."

Trivia answer

Defenseman Ian Moran, who split the honor with Matthew Barnaby last season, is the only one of the 15 players who have won or shared the Penguins' award for community service who remains with the team.