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Sunday, January 19, 2003

By Dejan Kovacevic, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Jaromir Jagr doesn't feel NHL referees are enforcing the league's crackdown on obstruction as they did at the season's outset.

"For whatever reason, I don't think they call it that closely anymore," he said on a conference call Wednesday. "Maybe it was too much. Maybe the players are a little more careful right now. ... I think there were too many power plays early in the season."

In the next two days, two other star scorers echoed that.

The Sharks' Teemu Selanne: "They really started to call a lot of penalties in the beginning, but I think now it is old style."

The Maple Leafs' Mats Sundin: "We're pretty much back to where we were."

Andy van Hellemond, the NHL's director of officiating, bristles at such talk and uses data to make his case. Through mid-January, obstruction fouls were up, 469 to 174, from the same point last season; power plays up, 6,355 to 5,771; and power-play goals up, 1,055 to 921.

"I think the players have adjusted and our game is better for it," van Hellemond said. "We've tried to free up the north-south movement of players so they could go up and down the ice without people hooking and waterskiing behind them. We're calling a lot more than we called last year. What the right number is, everybody has an opinion."

The most important number is the goals-per-game total, which has increased only from 5.2 to 5.3.

A few more games like the Capitals' 12-2 rout of the Panthers last weekend, and the NHL would be able to help that statistic out a bit. The Elias Sports Bureau found that such blowouts are increasingly rare. It was the first 10-goal margin since 1996, the first time a team scored 12 since 1995. Between 1980-95, a team reached a dozen goals 17 times. The Penguins haven't reached a dozen since a 12-1 rout of the Maple Leafs Dec. 26, 1991.

Another former member of the Penguins is an NHL captain. The Thrashers this week scrapped a rotating captaincy and gave the 'C' full time to Shawn McEachern. "Shawn has set an outstanding example for his teammates on and off the ice all season," General Manager Don Waddell told Atlanta reporters. The other former Penguins with that distinction are Stu Barnes in Buffalo and Markus Naslund in Vancouver.

The Thrashers and Sabres are among the teams in the dubious running to best position themselves for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft. The league-run Central Scouting Bureau this week issued its mid-term rankings. Eric Staal, center for the Peterborough Petes of the OHL, was rated first among North American skaters. But the popular thought is that Ukrainian left winger Nikolai Zherdev, the top-rated European skater, is the better prospect.

Used to be that only men of impeccable credentials could coach the legendary Canadiens. But the hiring of Claude Julien marks the fourth consecutive bench boss Montreal has hired with no NHL coaching experience, following Mario Tremblay, Alain Vigneault and Michel Therrien, the man fired Friday. Julien does come with a strong AHL resume, having guided the Hamilton Bulldogs to a league-best 33-6-3-3 record.

How big a deal is that job in Quebec? Bernard Landry, the province's premier, was asked shortly after the announcement his thoughts on the coaching change. "No comment for the time being," he replied. "My expertise is too miserable compared to the amplitude of the problem."