Dangerous game

Sporting News, The, Feb 19, 1996 by Larry Wigge

There are two definitions of Russian roulette in the dictionary. Maybe it's time for a third:

... a move by a general manager in the National Hockey League, in which a star Russian player is acquired, at great expense nd reservation, with the expressed purpose of leading his new team to a Stanley Cup title.

Far-fetched? Silly? Absurd?

Nyet, nyet and nyet.

There are those who say general managers in the NHL play this game every day. The belief that a team cannot win the Stanley Cup with a Russian in the lineup because they, uh, well, they're foreign and don't understand the importance of Lord Stanley and his silver goblet the way we do in North America still exists, right or wrong.

This is a form of roulette, NHL style -- even though it should have ended when the Rangers won the title in 1993-94 with Alexei Kovalev, Sergei Zubov, Sergei Nemchinov and Alexander Karpovtsev in the lineup. Still, there are those who believe bringing in a high-quality Russian player can be just as risky as playing Russian roulette.

Chemistry and timing on an NHL team is fragile enough without incorporating a high-profile talent who might not pull his weight. So what do you do? Play it safe, stand pat and never be questioned? Or do you reach for the phone -- and the Maalox -- and call the rival G.M. to make the trade?

Alexander Mogilny is like the guy who has the skill and expertise to do a triple leap on a high wire, but on the ice his reputation is of guy who isn't a team player and who looks out only for himself. He definitely is one of those players who can push to the edge the general manager who acquires him.

Mogilny had 76 goals in 77 games to share the league lead in goals in 1992-93. But he had never had as many as 40 goals in any other season until this one. He was traded by the Sabres to the Canucks in the offseason -- Mogilny and a '95 fifth-round draft choice for gritty third-line center Mike Peca, junior defenseman Mike Wilson and a '95 first-round pick. The deal made little sense on paper, considering the immense talent Mogilny possesses. But the stigma of an underachieving Russian player -- that roulette philosophy -- had some expecting the worst in Vancouver.

"I don't care how many goals he scores," Flyers General Manager Bobby Clarke says. "Muck (Sabres G.M. John Muckler) could not live with Mogilny anymore. What is a coach gong to say to the little guys he wants to bust their butts, when this guy is making $3 million and isn't? It's a trade the Sabres had to make."

Do I take the chance ...

"This was a great opportunity to add some explosiveness to our team," Canucks General Manager Pat Quinn said, a smile as wide as an open net crossing his face after he announced the trade in july. "Winning games with talent helps bring fans out of their seats. Except for Pavel Bure we haven't had that.

"But moving into a new arena we have to put on a show to fill those extra seats. We have to make sure the people will come."

Quinn was gambling that Mogilny and Bure would combine the boyhood skills they displayed in Russia when they played with Red Wings center Sergei Fedorov and formed perhaps the best scoring unit in the world.

Early in training camp, Mogilny and Bure struggled. The fact that Mogilny switched from left wing as a youngster in Russia to right wing in the NHL was confusing since Bure also plays right wing. The two bumped into one another. They were no threat.

"Does Alex have a pulse?" frustrated Canucks Coach Rick Ley said after watching Mogilny go through the motions in vet another uneventful preseason game.

... or play it safe?

"We gave up a front-line player who moves Vancouver closer to winning the Stanley Cup, but it was a move we had to make to begin our change of direction," Muckler says. "Our salary structure is way out of whack. We were not going to stay at $19 million. The first thing we had to do was get that rectified."

What he meant to say is Mogilny was great when he scored 76 goals and the team played a wide-open game. But when Buffalo, which picked Mogilny in the fifth round of the '88 draft and welcomed him as a defector in '89, asked Alex to sacrifice, to play a little defense, he sulked.

The clock ticks down to a precious few seconds at Kiel Center in St. Louis on February 1. The Blues have a 2-1 lead. 10, 9, 8 ...

Mogilny takes a pass from Trevor Linden just inside the St. Louis zone. All-Star defenseman Al MacInnis slides toward Mogilny. There doesn't seem to be any way Mogilny will get his shot past MacInnis and still get enough power on it to beat goal-tender Grant Fuhr. But Mogilny isn't just any player. He fires a shot that rockets past Fuhr with 7.8 seconds left.

"Only a player like Alex could score in that situation," Vancouver center Cliff Ronning says. "I played a lot of years with Brett Hull and saw him score a lot of goals, but I don't think even he could have scored that one."

The clock has not expired for the Canucks this season, even though the grand plan of seeing Bure and Mogilny in the lineup ended prematurely when Bure was sidelined with a serious knee injury in November.