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Sunday, February 02, 2003

By Dejan Kovacevic, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Nikolai Khabibulin will start in the Eastern Conference net in the All-Star Game today, the recipient of the most votes in fan balloting.

But if the voting were up to his coach in Tampa Bay, John Tortorella wouldn't even pick him first off his own roster at the moment. He would take John Grahame.

Grahame is 4-1 for the Lightning since being acquired from the Bruins for a fourth-round draft pick Jan. 13, and he has all but taken the No. 1 designation from Khabibulin. He has a 1.36 goals-against average and .947 save percentage. Peculiarly, his only loss came to the Penguins, a team he previously dominated.

Only last season, Khabibulin was being hailed as the franchise savior, but he is 0-4-2 in his past six starts and has one victory in his past 10 with an .881 save percentage. For the season, he is 18-19-6.

"This guy is dying because he knows how important he is to the club," Tortorella told the St. Petersburg Times. "But we can't survive as a hockey team with just a decent goalie. We can't live like that as the Tampa Bay Lightning."

Pat Quinn, the Maple Leafs' general manager, made clear this week that he was unhappy with his assistant, Bill Watters, for blurting on the radio that his team was interested in Alexei Kovalev if only because he treaded perilously close to tampering. Such statements were rampant when teams were bidding for Eric Lindros' services two years ago. "It was different in a way with Lindros because he was a free agent. He is not," Quinn said of Kovalev. "I know that to talk about other team's players is wrong."

Alexander Mogilny felt plenty free to discuss the matter when asked his feelings on acquiring Kovalev: "A quality player doesn't come around like that very often. It's exciting to hear those things."

Some players just aren't cut out for the playoffs: Word in New Jersey is that Oleg Tverdovsky, one of the game's best-skating defensemen, wants out because he feels stifled by Pat Burns' rigid system. The Devils are 10-0-1-1 in their past 12 games. Tverdovsky's teams have been eliminated in the first round in each of his four postseason appearances.

When Glen Sather predicted Thursday that the Rangers would make the playoffs with him behind the bench, you can bet he wasn't simply emulating Joe Namath or Herman Edwards. It is highly likely he has been told by management that only a postseason berth can save his job.

The Penguins are paying NHL-level salaries of roughly $1.5 million to Mike Wilson and Alexandre Daigle to perform in the AHL, but they don't come close to being the top squanderers of such money. The Canadiens demoted Donald Audette to Hamilton this week and remain on the hook for his $3 million salary. Last month, Mariusz Czerkawski collected on his $2.6 million pay in Hamilton.

Anyone who questioned Bob Hartley's sanity for taking the Atlanta job might reconsider. The Thrashers are 5-2-1 under him and talking openly about making a run at a playoff spot. It's still a far cry from where he was in Colorado, but he isn't complaining. "I'm only 42, so Atlanta offered a chance to work long-term with a good young team," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Who knows? It might be the next feather in my cap."

Hartley shrugs off the idea that teaching megatalented Ilya Kovalchuk defense will be difficult: "It's easier to slow down a thoroughbred than it is to kick a donkey to get him going."