Teams with young legs have a bridge to the stretch run

Sporting News, The, Jan 22, 2001 by Larry Wigge

It happens every night in the NHL during the hump months of December and January, when motivation and new life are needed to get a team on stride to the spring and into the playoffs.

Players such as Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Pierre Turgeon, Mark Recchi, Owen Nolan and Joe Sakic still may get the headlines and be the stars in TV highlights, but there are always one or two young players--sometimes unrecognizable in the scoring summaries--who provide the spark.

"It's a long season," the Flyers' Recchi says, "and it gets sort of ho-hum unless you have some young legs, some young enthusiasm pushing you along the way."

Recchi says last season's play of Simon Gagne ("a kid who doesn't know when to quit"), Andy Delmore and Brian Boucher was "contagious" for the Flyers, especially helping to bolster veterans during Eric Lindros' absence. This season, Recchi says, the Flyers have gotten a similar spark from Roman Cechmanek, Justin Williams and Ruslan Fedotenko.

Look at the Devils to see how they drew on the enthusiasm of Brian Rafalski, Colin White, John Madden and Scott Gomez as they stuck together through last season's playoffs and won their second Stanley Cup in six years.

Pick a contender--any legitimate con tender--and you will find a youngster helping keep that team in the race. This theory of young legs carrying teams is not new. It has been a trend since I began covering the NHL in 1969. Most teams on the rise have had at least two young players who either are greatly self-motivated or just don't know they should be scared of the pressure.

And I've watched the same kind of development this season.

Examples: When Stephane Yelle suffered an injury and a struggling Peter Forsberg was demoted to the third line in Colorado, Dan Hinote stepped in and filled the void. And when Adam Foote was recently injured, Martin Skoula and Aaron Miller stepped up.

When Pavol Demitra was sidelined, Tyson Nash got even nastier and lifted the spirits of St. Louis. When Ed Belfour walked out on the Stars, Marry Turco stepped right in with three straight solid starts in goal. In Detroit, Chris Osgood was having trouble stopping a beach ball and the defense was left without the leadership of Chris Chelios, so Manny Legace and Jiri Fischer helped keep the Red Wings afloat.

And where would the Sharks be without the play of goaltender Evgeni Nabokov, defenseman Brad Smart and center Patrick Marleau?

"Every general manager worries about lulls during the season," Blues G.M. Larry Pleau says. "You worry about your team coming out of training camp and in early November. And you worry about them in January and February before the trading deadline. That's when you hope you have a youngster or two who can help inject life into your team.

"Look back at the teams that are in it down the stretch and into the playoffs over the past decade, and you'll see young legs and young minds right in the mix."

The Stars, last season's other Stanley Cup finalists, got a big lift from rookie left winger Brenden Morrow when second-line center Joe Nieuwendyk lost his scoring touch. Morrow, who could be a top power forward of the future, stepped in and showed the Stars' veterans a fearlessness by going to the net nearly every shift.

When you look at the heavy workload most teams have in January, it's easy to see how a team loses its edge.

But that's all part of the chemistry general managers must maintain to have their teams ready to handle the pressure of the playoffs. Even a coach like Scotty Bowman, who prefers to rely on veterans, knows the value of having a spirited young player and using those qualities, as he has with Legace this season.

Experience can't be replaced when the going gets tough down the stretch and into the playoffs, but neither can youthful enthusiasm.

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Coming up: The results of our New Original Six playoffs, which will be printed in the February 5 issue.

Youth movement

With Scott Niedermayer out of the lineup in a contract dispute earlier this season, young defensemen Willie Mitchell and Sascha Goc were asked to fill Niedermayer's 25 minutes.

It didn't work.

But that doesn't mean the Devils don't have a young defenseman capable of stepping in and giving them a lift.

Mike Commodore is a 1999 second-round pick who had a successful career at the University of North Dakota. Commodore showed in his first professional season that he has the skill and spirit to make it.

Several teams have one or more young players like Commodore who can provide a spark.

Vancouver: LW Daniel Sedin, C Henrik Sedin, C Matt Cooke

Los Angeles: D Lubomir Visnovsky, LW Steve Reinprecht