Home >  Sports >  Notebooks

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

By Dave Molinari, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

None of the Penguins who played for Kevin Constantine were surprised to learn yesterday that he has resurfaced in the NHL, this time as coach of the New Jersey Devils.

But a few expressed relief, at least privately, that it's not with a team they're playing for.

It's not that anyone questions Constantine's knowledge of the game or his commitment to his profession. If anything, they figure he takes his work a little too seriously. After a while, his staff's interminable meetings and the shift-by-shift video reviews that most players have to endure the day after a game lose their appeal.

"Sometimes, it's too much," right winger Alexei Kovalev said. "Sometimes, it drives guys crazy. He's trying to give as much information as possible, but we play so many games and to watch video over and over again, it's kind of tough."

Actually, Constantine's approach in his two-plus seasons with the Penguins seemed a bit more player-friendly than it had been in an earlier stint as coach in San Jose, and it could be that he'll be a bit less rigid with the Devils.

"Maybe it's going to be a little different," forward Martin Straka said. "Maybe he's learned from his mistakes. I'm sure he did."

Devils General Manager Lou Lamoriello made it clear that he's counting on Constantine to provide discipline and structure that wasn't coming from his predecessor, Larry Robinson, and that shouldn't be a problem. No detail is so small that Constantine isn't willing to spend hours dwelling on it.

"There's a lot of meetings, a lot of video," defenseman Ian Moran said. "In one way, that's what has you so prepared. And in other way, it's so much."

Constantine's style led to some celebrated run-ins with former Penguin Jaromir Jagr, who had a radically different philosophy about the game, but it also produced some very tangible rewards, like the Penguins' upset of New Jersey in the first round of the 1999 playoffs.

That was the high point of Constantine's tenure with the Penguins, and underscored the upside of his methods.

What makes Constantine's new challenge so intriguing is that his greatest asset to this point in his career has been his ability to get the most out of players -- and teams -- that aren't especially talented.

How he fares working with a club that has gone to the Stanley Cup final in each of the past two springs -- and whose lineup features the likes of Patrik Elias, Scott Stevens, Jason Arnott, Brian Rafalski and Scott Niedermayer -- will be fascinating to observe.

Trivia question

What is the franchise record for most overtime losses in a season?

Lesson for the future

The NHL appears to be headed for Armageddon of a sort when its collective bargaining agreement with the NHL Players Association expires in 2004 -- many observers believe a protracted work stoppage then is inevitable -- but labor and management aren't always at cross purposes.

Witness the way the Penguins will handle this week's All-Star break.

Under terms of the CBA, NHL clubs are supposed to refrain from practicing Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Penguins, though, play their final game before the break tomorrow at home against San Jose, and the coaching staff determined that the team's interests would be best served by taking Thursday off and having a workout Sunday.

Because that couldn't be done without approval from the NHLPA, Moran, who is the team's player representative, polled his teammates and concluded that they liked the idea of making the switch.

"I think every guy was in favor of it," Moran said. "Maybe some guys didn't even know it was going on. I think it's a good idea. There's no need to have that practice on Thursday, then have Sunday off. You're better off doing it the other way around."

He subsequently contacted officials at the players union and secured their OK for deviating from the prescribed schedule.

Moran said it "wasn't a big deal," and that obviously is true. But the idea that players and management can settle on a course of action that's beneficial to both is something negotiators might want to keep in mind when they're working on the next CBA.

Forget the stats

Goalie Johan Hedberg has been a leading figure during the Penguins' six-game winning streak -- he's earned the victory in five of them -- and has added a little luster to his personal stats in the process.

Hedberg, however, contends that he pays no attention to individual numbers, that keeping tabs on them serves no good purpose for him. And his logic is pretty sound.

"I never watch the stats, my personal ones or anything like that," he said. "I used to do that, and it seemed to work negatively for me. If you have a bad game, you start to worry about your stats, and what does that matter, anyway?

"What's done is done. You can't change anything. So I just try to go out and win every game, then when the 82-game season is over ..."

Cup highs

Carolina center Ron Francis, a Penguins alumnus, became the No. 2 assist man in NHL history Saturday and continues to be one of the most underappreciated stars to play in the league.

That's partly because Francis isn't very flashy and, quite possibly, because he has never gotten caught up in personal achievements. Fact is, he has made it pretty clear that, unless he wins another championship, the two Stanley Cups he picked up while playing for the Penguins will go down as the high points of his career.

"I have just tried to go out there and play as hard as I can and bring my best each and every night to my hockey club so I don't let my teammates down," Francis told a recent conference call. "And not really [be] concerned with individual accolades, whether they come or don't come.

"It's more the success of the team, and winning the Cups in '91 and '92, that was the ultimate, to get a team together to accomplish that. Anybody will tell you, it's just the most incredible feat. That's sort of where my focus has been."

Trivia answer

The Penguins went 3-6-8 in overtime in the 1999-00 season, setting a franchise high for overtime defeats. They went 1-5-6 in 12 overtime games in 1983-84, when regular-season overtime was instituted.