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Sunday, June 10, 2001

Not even Nostradamus would have guessed back in October that Mario Lemieux would lace up the skates again. Or that Martin Straka would net more points than all but three players in the NHL. Or that Johan Hedberg would be one of four goaltenders left standing in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

It's a tough job, predicting an NHL season.

In our annual preseason awards picks, published before the first puck dropped in Japan, we correctly forecast that Jaromir Jagr would win the Art Ross Trophy as the scoring champion and that the Panthers' Pavel Bure would win the Maurice Richard Trophy for having the most goals.

That's not too bad, but the true measure of our success -- or failure -- won't come until Thursday night, when the NHL dishes out its voted-upon awards in a ceremony at Air Canada Centre in Toronto.

Here's a look ahead to who should win the major prizes, along with a somewhat red-faced look back at those preseason choices:

Hart Trophy: We figured Jagr would be peeved enough at losing by one voting point to the Blues' Chris Pronger last year that he would win it hands-down this time. He did earn a spot among the three finalists, along with Lemieux, but most valuable player honors are a virtual lock for the Avalanche's Joe Sakic. He was the league's No. 2 scorer on the league's No. 1 team. End of argument.

Norris Trophy: Our choice, Pronger, missed 31 games because of injury, leaving the door open for the Red Wings' Nicklas Lidstrom to finally be recognized as the game's top defenseman. Lidstrom, who had 71 points in 82 games, will beat out the Avalanche's Raymond Bourque and the Devils' Scott Stevens. But expect a tight vote.

Vezina Trophy: The Maple Leafs' Curtis Joseph, our pick, might have won if voting had been conducted at the All-Star break. But the Sabres' Dominik Hasek rode a freakish tear in the second half to finish with 11 shutouts and should have no trouble topping the Devils' Martin Brodeur and the Flyers' Roman Cechmanek.

Calder Trophy: We chose Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo, whose strong year went virtually unnoticed because of the leaky defense in front of him. Instead, it will be another goaltender, the Sharks' Evgeny Nabokov, who will be honored as top rookie ahead of the Lightning's Brad Richards and the Senators' Martin Havlat. Although he tailed off near the end, Nabokov was terrific at 32-21-7.

Lady Byng Trophy: Our pick, Pavol Demitra, was as gentlemanly as ever, but he missed nearly half the year with injuries, rendering his politeness moot. Lidstrom had 18 penalty minutes, remarkably low for a defenseman, and that should give him the nod over Sakic and the Capitals' Adam Oates.

Jack Adams Award: We will stubbornly stand by our choice on this one. No coach did a better job, in terms of strategy or motivation, than the Sabres' Lindy Ruff, who shrugged off Michael Peca's year-long oldout and guided his club to a 46-30-5-1 record. Still, he is not among the three finalists. Expect the Red Wings' Scott Bowman to edge the Flyers' Bill Barber and the Senators' Jacques Martin.

Finally, for the only trophy that matters, the Stanley Cup, we penned in the Avalanche. And our pick for the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP was Peter Forsberg.

If not for the small matter of that spleen operation ...

Looks like the Thrashers will have to look somewhere other than Buffalo for a young goaltender in exchange for the No. 1 overall pick in the NHL Entry Draft. The Sabres have taken Martin Biron off the table, ruling them out of the bidding for the top choice.

Clever way to get good publicity out of a publicly-funded arena: The Devils' owners will pay $115 million of the cost of a new facility in Newark. The remaining $240 million will come from taxes generated by sales of luxury boxes, tickets and merchandise in the building and surrounding area. It's still tax money, but politicians are praising the owners for getting this done without direct government aid.

With the help of a grocery chain buying up roughly 1,000 season tickets, the Hurricanes topped their goal of 12,000 by June. That met the challenge put forth by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman two months ago to reach 12,000 and get the 2006 All-Star Game.

Igor Larionov, who already speaks good English, is taking more lessons to sharpen his language skills this summer. His plan is to move into NHL management when he is finished playing.

The Islanders aren't interested in acquiring Jagr, but they most definitely are out to land a top-shelf talent, perhaps on the open market. Sakic, Pierre Turgeon, Rob Blake and John LeClair are among those set to try unrestricted free agency. "I've never seen this number of big-name players available," General Manager Mike Milbury told Newsday. "We have the assets to either pay them or trade for them. I'd be disappointed if we didn't make an impact with an acquisition."

The Rangers have authorized General Manager Glen Sather to use $20 million to buy out contracts of unwanted players. Those thought to be on his hit list are Adam Graves, Valeri Kamensky, Sylvain Lefebvre and Tim Taylor. Buyouts must happen by June 30.

Sather also is interested in trading up from his No. 10 position in the draft to No. 2 to land forward Jason Spezza. The Islanders own the No. 2 pick.

Looks like the Red Wings were serious about getting younger. General Manager Ken Holland has told Larry Murphy and Doug Brown they will not be back, and he has no immediate plans to offer Pat Verbeek or Todd Gill new deals. All are 35 or older.

Don't fret over hockey season having ended last night. If the next one starts Oct. 1, you'll have only 105 days of hibernation until then.

Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@ post-gazette.com.