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Tuesday, January 15, 2002

By Dave Molinari, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Ed Johnston negotiated a lot of trades in his two stints as a general manager in the NHL.

Some were memorable (what Penguins devotee ever will forget when Johnston, then general manager with Hartford, sent Ron Francis, Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Jennings here for John Cullen, Zarley Zalapski and Jeff Parker?). Most were not (who, including the principals, can remember Tom Thornbury for Brian Ford or, when Johnston was with the Whalers, Cam Brauer for Marc Laforge?).

But of all the deals Johnston worked out, it was a seemingly minor one he struck Sept. 9, 1983, when he sent Anders Hakanson to Los Angeles, that will be remembered as his finest.

For while Hakanson, a serviceable forward, drifted into the mists of hockey history a few years later, the guy the Kings gave up for him went on to become a cornerstone of the Penguins' championship teams.

Which was more, quite frankly, than even Johnston expected when he arranged the trade that secured the rights to a teen-age forward named Kevin Stevens, a sixth-round draft choice who was just beginning his freshman year at Boston College.

"I thought he'd be like a 25-, 30-goal guy," Johnston said. "We projected that he'd play at least on the top three lines. We never thought he'd be a checker. We just thought he'd be a good player."

Instead, Stevens evolved into one of the finest power forwards in recent NHL history, a left winger whose game melded speed and size and strength and skill. He scored 40 goals in 1990-91 as a member of the Option Line with Cullen and Mark Recchi, then ran off 54 the next season and 55 in 1992-93.

"He just got better and better every year," said Johnston, by then general manager of the Hartford Whalers. "He went from the third line to the second line to the first line.

"He was a horse. He had a good pair of hands and would go to the net and stay there. He just turned out to be a tremendous player."

Coincidentally enough, yesterday was the first anniversary of Stevens' return to the Penguins -- they got him back from Philadelphia for minor-league defenseman John Slaney -- although the events of the past few days, when Stevens left the team because of displeasure with his downgraded role, stripped any luster the date might have had.

But earlier this season, before he became frustrated by his reduced ice time and responsibilities, Stevens insisted that, at age 36, he still enjoyed his work. Even if he didn't enjoy it quite as much as he did a decade or so ago, when the Penguins had the best -- and most boisterous -- team in the NHL.

"It's still fun, the game's fun," Stevens said. "But I don't think anybody who played on any team after they played on that team we had in the early days ... if you could have more fun than we did, more power to you."

The Penguins' locker room was a harmonious, high-volume place in those days. Their lineup was filled with wildly diverse personalities -- the quiet dignity of Francis and Larry Murphy was nicely countered by the raucous antics of guys like Stevens and Samuelsson -- who meshed perfectly, on and off the ice.

"That was a bunch of guys put together and, for some reason, everybody got along," Stevens said. "Everything seemed to work. We had backup goalies who were willing to be backup goalies, fourth-liners who wanted to be fourth-liners.

"Craig [Patrick, the general manager] put teams together back then ... we sure did have fun. It was the best time of my life, I know that."

Trivia question

On Jan. 18, 1992, the Penguins had a team-record five players in the NHL All-Star Game at Philadelphia. Who were they? Answer at end.

Focus on Kovalev

All of the Penguins were delighted when Mario Lemieux returned from a 24-game absence Saturday, and understandably so. It's not often that a struggling team gets to graft a Hall of Famer onto its lineup.

No one, though, could have been happier than members of the No. 1 line. During the time Lemieux was out because of a hip problem, opponents focused their defensive efforts on that unit, justifiably confident that the Penguins' other lines wouldn't hurt them.

That's part of the reason Alexei Kovalev, who scored 44 goals in 79 games last season, has just 16 -- nine of those in the form of three hat tricks -- in 31 games as the Penguins prepare to face Vancouver tonight. And having fellow right winger Jaromir Jagr, a five-time NHL scoring champion, traded to Washington in July didn't help, either.

"You look at the [Penguins' top] two right wingers last year," Coach Rick Kehoe said. "If you take the other team's best left-handed defenseman, he has to play against one of them. You can't play him against both."

This season, that defenseman -- be it Kenny Jonsson or Brian Leetch or Chris Pronger or whoever -- invariably shows up opposite Kovalev.

"I want to score," Kovalev said. "I want to help. But it's also tough for our line, because some teams put their best lines out against us. We need two really consistent lines to be able to compete."

Patriots supporter

Left winger Dan LaCouture grew up in Massachusetts and describes himself as a "huge Pats fan," so he is understandably excited about the NFL playoff game between New England and Oakland Saturday.

And knowing the matchup that would follow if the Patriots beat the Raiders and the Steelers defeat Baltimore the next day just makes him look forward to the weekend even more.

"It's not going to be an easy game against the Raiders, but I hope they win, because I want to see them come to Pittsburgh," LaCouture said. "I'll be there, for sure. I like the Steelers, too, but I'm from Boston, so it's going to be tough. It'll be exciting just to go to the game."

It's far from certain that a Steelers-Patriots game will come off, of course, but if it does, LaCouture believes it could be an epic struggle.

"That could be a Super Bowl-type game," he said. "One team's going to have to lose, and that's going to be hard to see, because you want both teams to go on. It's too bad they can't meet in the Super Bowl."

A different Lemieux

Although Lemieux became somewhat insulated from many of his teammates as the first phase of his playing career wound down, it was clear when he came out of retirement 12-plus months ago that one of his greatest joys was simply being back in the locker room on a daily basis, interacting with other athletes.

"The first thing I noticed when he came back was that he wanted to be with the guys, wanted to have dinner with all the guys and hang out," defenseman Ian Moran said.

"When anybody retires, they really miss the interaction with the other players. He came back and was a part of it right from the start."

Three's company

At least three Eastern Conference teams -- Washington, Buffalo and the Penguins -- that qualified for the playoffs last spring are in real danger of sitting them out this season.

Knowing that they are not alone in their predicament is little consolation for the Penguins, although it does underscore how quickly a team's fortunes can change. And how it is folly to take anything for granted.

"Look at Washington," center Robert Lang said: "They're loaded with good players. On paper, you'd never think they'd struggle, and they're in the same boat we are."

Baby struggles

The Penguins' power-play problems have been exhaustively chronicled, but their minor-league team in Wilkes-Barre doesn't seem to be doing much better when it has the extra man.

Not, at least, based on the reaction of Norfolk goalie Michael Leighton, who recorded a 2-0 shutout against the Baby Penguins Wednesday after Wilkes-Barre/Scranton failed to convert any of its eight tries with the man-advantage.

"They've got a couple of guys who should probably pass the puck a little more," Leighton told reporters. "But they carry it around by themselves and hold onto it on the power play and don't shoot it that much. That's a big help for us."

Trivia answer

The five Penguins in the 1992 All-Star Game were Mario Lemieux, Paul Coffey, Kevin Stevens, Jaromir Jagr and Bryan Trottier. The first four were voted starters for the Wales Conference, while Trottier was added in the veteran's category.