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Sunday, December 01, 2002

By Dejan Kovacevic, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

No one had a November to remember quite like the Canucks.

After beating Florida last night, Vancouver was 12-1-1 for the month, including a 10-game winning streak. The 12 victories in a month and the streak are franchise records.

Most impressive has been the team's balance, especially given the modest payroll of $31.8 million.

The power play ranks 14th in the league, the penalty-killing first, the overall offense sixth, the overall defense eighth.

"A lot of guys have been contributing, and you need that to happen," Coach Marc Crawford told reporters. "It's not going to happen if you rely on two or three guys."

Even so, three have stood out: Markus Naslund has 15 goals, Ed Jovanovski has anchored the defense, and Dan Cloutier has started all but two games.

Hot as the Canucks have been, they're not drawing the raves the Stars hear. Listen to the Coyotes' Daniel Briere after his team lost to Dallas, 5-1, Monday: "They're definitely the best I've seen so far. You can't concentrate on one line because they have so much talent. In the past, all you'd talk about is Mike Modano. Now, they throw Bill Guerin, Jason Arnott, Scott Young, Pierre Turgeon, Jere Lehtinen, all those guys at you. They've got Brenden Morrow playing on the third line. That's how good they are." Dallas has 11 players into double digits for points, most in the NHL.

Painful enough for the Predators that they have lost by one goal 10 times. Worse yet that they've failed to score as many as three goals 16 times. But losing Andreas Johansson, their leading scorer with 22 points, a game after his first hat trick? Johansson will miss a month because of a shoulder injury that came Friday after he was tied up by the Devils' Joe Nieuwendyk, then nailed by Colin White. Coach Barry Trotz was angry afterward: "It was a clean hit by White, but I have a problem with Nieuwendyk grabbing A.J. around the neck and straightening him out. I didn't get the memo between periods about the rules being changed."

Recall Roman Cechmanek yanking himself from one of the Flyers' game last season? Now, another Roman has done it. The Flames' Roman Turek skated to the bench Friday after giving up his sixth goal on 15 shots in a 7-2 loss at St. Louis. Turek did not meet with reporters afterward. Things could not be lower in Calgary, the league's smallest, saddest market.

It doesn't quite match the premature plans Minnesotans once made for a Stanley Cup parade in 1991, but it was eyebrow-raising still that Wild Coach Jacques Lemaire acknowledged this week that his team might qualify for the postseason. He had been careful never to tag his team that way in its first two years of existence. But when asked by a Minneapolis reporter why he suddenly has been going with the hot hand in goal after rotating Manny Fernandez and Dwayne Roloson most of the season, Lemaire replied: "Why not give him another game? I'm thinking about that because let's say we go further during the season and we still have a chance to ... I hate to talk about that."

Anyone still think Theoren Fleury will help the Blackhawks this season? Three days after being cleared to practice following a month of behavioral treatment, he was late to a session Friday in Los Angeles. Upon arrival, he criticized his taxi driver for getting lost and for not having a satellite directional system built into his car.