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Sunday, November 11, 2001

By Dejan Kovacevic, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Tomorrow, the hockey world will celebrate the tremendous offensive accomplishments of Jari Kurri, Mike Gartner, Dale Hawerchuk and Slava Fetisov, the four players being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Each made his mark on the game with a rare dash and flash, each in his own distinctive manner.

Get a good look. They're a vanishing breed.

After eight seasons of declining offense in the NHL, the past two saw modest increases, giving hope that the market had bottomed out. But three depressing sets of numbers from the first month of this season paint a gloomy picture.

Through games Friday:

An average of 5.12 goals were being scored per game. That is significantly down from the 5.51 final mark of last season and, if it holds up, would be the lowest average in four decades.

Power plays were converting at a rate of 14.9 percent, down from 16.6 percent last season.

Goaltenders recorded 40 shutouts, with an incredible 10 in the past week alone, putting the league on pace for 204 by season's end. There were 186 shutouts last season.

Part of the problem is evident simply by glancing at the names currently atop the individual scoring list. Or rather, by noticing which ones are missing.

Because of injuries, half of the players who finished in the top 10 last season -- Jaromir Jagr, Martin Straka, Alexei Kovalev, Zigmund Palffy, Peter Forsberg -- haven't been able to post their usual production. Add to that list Mario Lemieux, who had more points per game than anyone.

Still, that isn't the major issue, for it can't explain the seemingly unstoppable sagging in offense over the past decade.

It's the coaches.

No, it's not just Jacques Lemaire in Minnesota or Ken Hitchcock in Dallas, and it's not even necessarily those in the NHL. At every level of hockey, peewee to juniors, youngsters are being taught that taking offensive risks is bad and being defensively prudent is good, that there's no point in trying to beat an opponent one-on-one when you can just dump the puck past him. Skill has taken a back seat to strategy.

As the Stars' Pierre Turgeon passionately pointed out in his team's visit to Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago, "I know one thing: In junior, I never played that trap. For us, it was just forecheck, pursue the puck all the time, maybe keep one guy back. It changed. The game changed a lot in the past 10 years."

There is hope, though.

For one, the first five teams to reach 10 victories this season -- the Red Wings, Islanders, Flames, Oilers and Blackhawks -- all play an attacking style. The NHL is hockey's standard bearer worldwide, and if coaches in other leagues or levels see that success can still be had from aggressive rather than passive play, they surely will follow. Just as those 1995 Devils began the nightmarish trend toward defense, so might the next Stanley Cup champion put that in reverse.

For another, there is an intriguing handful of young players such as the Flames' Jarome Iginla, the Islanders' Mark Parrish, the Thrashers' Ilya Kovalchuk, the Panthers' Kristian Huselius and the Penguins' Kris Beech who seem to have some of that flair, that sixth sense for making the great play that is so glaringly missing from the game.

If those of us who follow this sport are lucky, we will have a chance to see those players follow the same exhilarating path Kurri, Gartner, Hawerchuk and Fetisov took to get to the Hall.

If not, we can wait for the day when Lemaire, Hitchcock and the like can claim their own wing.

Only it will always be locked.

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