Knutsen Remains Mane Man to His Fans in Norway

Svein Birkemoe paces outside the double doors of the Mighty Ducks’ training room like an expectant father. And when the news finally arrives, he’s beaming: Espen Knutsen, who left the Ducks-Edmonton Oilers exhibition game with an injury, has only a slight groin strain.

Birkemoe can pass out the cigars now. His meal ticket hasn’t been punched out and he’s got some real news for a change. Birkemoe is a sportswriter and his beat is Espen Knutsen, the Norwegian center/left wing the Ducks signed to a one-year contract July 15. He writes about Knutsen for the Oslo Dagbladet, Norway’s biggest paper, and he writes about him every day.

“We run something, not always a lot, but something, every day,” Birkemoe said. “And when he had three assists [in an exhibition against Vancouver], it was the top story in the newspaper. I had two full pages of stories and pictures.”

Knutsen’s own corner of the Dagbladet is entitled “The Daily Shampoo,” because “Shampoo” is the nickname he inherited as a youngster, a reference to his long blond hair and his father, a hairdresser who was known as “Soap.”

So this works out great. Birkemoe can e-mail home a detailed account of Espen’s groin injury to feed his country’s obsession with tabloid-like tidbits about the first Norwegian with a shot at making it big in the NHL.

“He’s just enormously popular, sort of a cult hero,” Birkemoe said. “The nickname, the long blond hair, he’s a special image for us.”

New Duck Coach Pierre Page, apparently, is more interested in substance than image--the guy uses the word “grit” in every other sentence--so Knutsen went so far as to cut off a few inches of his signature golden tresses. Don’t fret, there remains plenty of hair whipping in the breeze behind his helmet. But the gesture was a symbol of Knutsen’s desire to shed his Scandinavian proven-star status and find a place as an NHL rookie in North America.

“This is the best players in the world,” he said. “I’m just hoping to make the team.”

That much seems likely. Disney doesn’t pay too many minor leaguers $600,000 a year. In fact, the Duck front office is hoping--maybe even expecting?--Knutsen to make an immediate impact. You know, something along the lines of Teemu Selanne’s record-breaking rookie season with Winnipeg (76 goals, 132 points) in 1992-93 would be great .. . . but they’d happily settle for about a third of that.

There has been much excitement surrounding Knutsen’s playmaking skills and knack for the spectacular during training camp and the exhibition season. There also has been considerable hand-wringing over his lack of defensive prowess.

Page moved him from center to wing, where Knutsen can better exploit his speed and instincts without worrying about as many defensive responsibilities. Page points out that there are a number of centers fighting for a few available jobs and he would also like to explore his options.

The idea was to relieve some of the pressure on Knutsen, but when you’re skating on the left wing of a line that includes center Steve Rucchin and right wing Selanne, it’s not exactly an experiment in stress reduction.

How would you like to replace Paul Kariya?

*

OK, you’re a 5-foot-10, 180-pound Norwegian who’s known for fancy skating, school-boy good looks and long blond hair. And everybody calls you “Shampoo.”

Think there might be a couple of NHL goons looking forward to welcoming you to North America with a little conditioner up against the boards? Maybe someone particularly nasty who’s looking to take off your head and shoulders?

“Probably,” Knutsen says with a nervous grin. “I guess so.”

Page, however, says he has the right kind of players to make sure Knutsen does not become a target. “Espen will be tested, but this is a team thing too,” he said. “We won’t allow abuse against anyone on our team.”

Selanne, from Finland, had some advice for his fellow Scandinavian.

“Every player has to go through that when he’s a rookie,” Selanne said, “but I told him, ‘You don’t have to fight. The best way is to get your revenge on the scoreboard.’ ”

So far, Knutsen has taken his advice. After four exhibition games, he led the team with five assists and had not been in a single fight. He may be a rookie in the NHL, but he’s 25 and had a good idea what he was getting into when he got out of a $1.5-million, five-year deal with Djurgarden of the Swedish elite league to sign with the Ducks.

“It’s what I expected,” Knutsen said. “The guys are bigger and stronger and the game is faster and rougher. Playing defense has been the biggest adjustment for me. You can’t chase the puck, you have to catch up to your guy. And I’m not 6-4, 230 pounds, so I have to use my head more, play smarter and use my quickness.

“The smaller rink [15 feet narrower than the Olympic size used in Europe] is difficult. It takes many games to get used to. On the bigger rinks, you have more space and time to look around and pass the puck. Here, it’s important to just know where the other guys are.”

That, Selanne believes, will eventually become a positive for Knutsen. They have played against each other many times over the years, including the 1996 World Championships, and Selanne has always been impressed with Knutsen’s instinct for the game.

“The first time I played against him, I was 17,” Selanne said. “You could see then that he was really talented. He can really pass the puck. When you can see the ice, see the game the way he does, it makes the game much easier. It’s something you can’t teach and it makes him very dangerous.”

Last year, Knutsen led Djurgarden with 16 goals and 33 assists in 39 games, finishing second in the league in scoring with 49 points despite missing 11 games because of a finger injury. Those numbers might not wow NHL fans, but Page is clearly impressed.

“You don’t score 49 points in 39 games in Sweden easily,” he said. “It’s very, very difficult to get points over there. They play a much more team-oriented style of defense, similar to soccer really, than we do over here.

“So there’s no question that he has the smarts and the focus and he can shoot and he certainly can pass the puck.”

But does he have the true grit?

*

Page insists he wasn’t testing Knutsen’s mettle recently, when he moved him out of the first group into a practice session with the second unit, but he was willing to admit that he liked the way the rookie handled it.

“He responded very well,” Page said. “It’s a case of, ‘Well, you’d better make sure you stand out in that group,’ and that’s exactly what he did.

“Some guys might have felt like a victim and moped around, but he went out and did something about it, proved where he belonged.”

Knutsen has played a lot of hockey under an array of different coaches and he’s not easily deterred by a momentary setback, or a motivational kick-in-the-butt, if that’s what it was.

His father, the hairdresser, was also the accountant for a club hockey team in Oslo and Espen the toddler spent many hours wandering around the locker room. By the time he was 6, he was on the ice playing competitively.

His idols? Marcel Dionne? Mike Bossy? Guy Lafleur?

“The guys who played on the senior team at my club in Oslo,” he says.

Hockey is not a big sport in Norway. Soccer is No. 1, with downhill and cross-country skiing a close second. Knutsen, who played soccer every summer and hockey in the winter, probably never would have picked up a hockey stick if it hadn’t been for his father’s affiliation with the club team.

But he soon became a star in the weak Norwegian leagues and was drafted by the Hartford Whalers in the ninth round of the 1990 draft. Knutsen decided not to take an offer to attend training camp. He thought he was too young and too inexperienced.

“I stayed in Norway until I was 22,” he said. “But after the Olympics, I knew if I wanted to be better, I had to move. Sweden was the natural choice. I learned very much there. I got better in every area, physically and mentally. I matured there.”

He found out that he had been traded from Hartford to the Ducks--for right wing Kevin Brown on Oct. 1, 1996--when he read about it in a Swedish newspaper.

“I was happy, very excited,” he said. “I felt I would get a chance here.”

The opportunity awaits and halfway around the globe, 4 1/2 million countrymen, are eagerly waiting for more news, praying it’s good news. The only thing most Norwegians would rather see--other than Knutsen making it big in the NHL--is their soccer team, which recently won European Group 3, win the World Cup.

“There is big pressure,” Knutsen says, “because I want every young player in Norway to see if you work hard, you can make it to the NHL.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Knutsen File

* Position: Center (shoots left).

* Height and Weight: 5-10, 180.

* Born: Jan. 12, 1972, in Oslo, Norway.

* How acquired: Rights acquired from Hartford for right wing Kevin Brown on Oct. 1, 1996; signed one-year contract on July 15, 1997.

* 1996-97 highlights: Led Djurgarden Stockholm of the Swedish Elite League with 49 points--second best in the league--in only 39 games. . . . Missed 11 games with a finger injury.

* Career highlights: Played five seasons for Valerengen in Norway, scoring 54 points in both the 1990-91 and 1991-92 seasons. . . Played last three seasons with Djurgarden.

* Personal: Nickname is “Shampoo,” for his long blond hair.