Key Injuries Have Flames Flickering

At their peak, when they were three games over .500 and among the top eight teams in the West, the Calgary Flames seemed to be doing it with mirrors. Their best-known players were much-traveled goalie Grant Fuhr and veteran defenseman Phil Housley, both well past their primes. Yet, buoyed by superb goaltending from Fred Brathwaite, they rode a wave of enthusiasm to a playoff position and bravely carried the flag for small-market teams.

Three weeks later, the Flames’ season is unraveling. Weakened by injuries to their most experienced defensemen, they are on an 0-8-1 slide after Monday night’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Kings at Staples Center. But six of those losses were by one goal and another was by two because of an empty-net goal.

“We need to get over the hump here,” General Manager Al Coates said. “We’re right there, knocking at the door, but it’s been one thing or another every game.”

They miss the poise of Tommy Albelin (shoulder surgery) and Steve Smith (spinal fusion), and the toughness of Denis Gauthier (injured shoulder) and Wade Belak (dislocated shoulder). Acquiring Darryl Shannon from Atlanta helped fill the void but, like most teams, they’re not deep enough to compensate for losing so many support players.

“When we were winning, we were playing to our potential and the way we have to play to be successful, and that’s as a team. We were getting good goaltending and converting our power-play opportunities,” Coates said. “I don’t know whether we were overachieving, but we were hitting on all cylinders. We’re not far off that now.”

All-star winger Valeri Bure, the Flames’ leading scorer with 28 goals and 55 points, agreed that the Flames can regain a playoff position.

“It’s how bad we want it,” he said. “We have a good enough team to do it. If all 20 guys put their heads together and play the way we were playing before, we can do it.

“Sometimes you get down on yourself and wonder, ‘Should I do anything different?’ But Brian [Sutter, the Flames’ coach] keeps saying we’ve got to stick with how we’ve been playing.”

Making the playoffs would be especially significant to the Flames. They missed out last season, eroding fan support enough to jeopardize the aid they get from the NHL’s Canadian Assistance Plan. And since the Canadian government has refused to help the six Canadian NHL teams, fans fear the Flames may be sold or moved.

“Being in the playoffs is important, not only for the team but for the franchise,” Housley said. “We’re aware of what’s going on outside but our concern is mainly what happens on the ice. We can’t control outside things and we can’t worry about them.”

Besides, their slump is worrisome enough.

STAR TURN

Plagued by a succession of injuries, the Dallas Stars again looked outside for help when they acquired defensemen Dave Manson and Sylvain Cote from Chicago for Derek Plante, Kevin Dean and a second-round draft pick in 2001. They had previously signed free agent winger Kirk Muller, whose grit is a good fit with their tenacious style.

“My situation in Chicago wasn’t the best,” Manson said. “It was a matter of time before I was traded and I was real happy it was the Dallas Stars.

“I can add depth. It’s good to have depth down the stretch.”

Coach Ken Hitchcock acknowledged his surprise at how well his team has fared without key players such as Joe Nieuwendyk (separated shoulder) and Derian Hatcher (cut calf).

“The thing when you have veterans like Muller and [Guy] Carbonneau is, they don’t allow you to get too high or too low.” Hitchcock said. “They keep everybody steady, and you can’t put a price tag on that type of stuff. What you find in this business is, the dressing room is really the players’. I don’t think coaches can affect the chemistry in the dressing room. The chemistry is there or it’s not. This is just such a solvent group. They mesh. When everybody is around, they play together. They like each other.”

Even though they might not like Hitchcock.

“That’s fine, as long as they’re all pointed in the right direction,” he said.

“If they all hate me, that’s great. As long as they stay on the same page.”

FROM NET TO INTERNET

The NHL’s decision to buy its NHL.com Web site from IBM, its partner since the site began in 1996, is good for the league and for fans. The NHL gets more marketing opportunities and fans will get an enhanced Web site that will provide more and faster information.

“Our demographics are younger than the other leagues and surveys have found our fans own more PCs than fans of other sports,” said Bernadette Mansur, NHL group vice president of communications. “Our fans are more computer literate and consume more of their information off the Internet. Combine that with our international aspect--30% of our hits are from outside of North America. It made sense for us to say, ‘We don’t want to license this out.’ The time was right for us.”

The NHL Web site, already a good resource for news, features and links to scores, broadcasts and statistics, will be relaunched in March with more, wider-ranging features.

“What we like to call it is a global hockey portal,” Mansur said. “It’s similar to [the Web site] Oxygen. If you’re a woman, you can go to Oxygen and find they’re running a story about a group of women who take their sons to hockey practice every day and were sitting around at 6 in the morning and talking and they decided to form a league of their own. We can offer something similar to that.

“If you’re sitting in Moscow and want to know Russian stats, we can make that happen more than any other portal.”

FAREWELL, CHARLIE BROWN

Hockey lost a good friend Saturday with the death of “Peanuts” cartoonist Charles M. Schulz.

A lifelong hockey fan, Schulz built and operated a hockey rink in Santa Rosa, where he played and refereed games.

He also made hockey a frequent theme in his popular comic strip: Woodstock was often pictured driving a tiny Zamboni to groom the ice atop his birdbath, and during the 1970s, characters would tell one another to hurry “on your Bobby Orr legs.”

Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the rest of the gang will be missed.

SLAP SHOTS

The Kings have a bid form from the NHL to host the 2002 All-Star game. They haven’t returned it, but it’s likely they will--and that the league will approve. The All-Star game hasn’t been in Los Angeles since 1981. . . . Vladimir Malakhov, suspended without pay by the Canadiens for going skiing while he was supposed to be recovering from a knee injury, recovered quickly when he heard he would take a hit in the wallet. He played in Montreal’s 5-4 victory over Ottawa last Saturday, but club executives have tired of his attitude and may soon trade him.

Montreal forward Trent McCleary, who nearly died after he was hit in the throat by a shot by Philadelphia’s Chris Therien and suffered a fractured larynx, will soon need a third operation to determine how his voice box is healing. He can’t speak--he used a pencil and paper to answer questions during a news conference last week at Montreal General Hospital--but he’s expected to regain his voice and hopes to play again.

NHL representatives are talking to each team, explaining the new focus on goaltender interference. Colin Campbell, the NHL’s director of hockey operations, sent a memo to general managers saying he had told referees “to more strictly enforce existing rules that are designed to protect the goalies and let them do their jobs, including by tightening up the standards on goalkeeper interference.” He told referees to give “more significant consideration to the degree and nature of the contact with the goalkeeper than to the exact location of the goalkeeper at the time of the contact.”

The Ottawa Senators extended to Feb. 22 their deadline for adding 1,500 season tickets and getting 90% renewal of their 11,200 seats. They have gotten 1,200 new season tickets and a renewal rate slightly above 75%. “We can expect to see [the club] here for generations,” Senator owner Rod Bryden said last week. Players discussed how they can help. Many buy suites or tickets and donate them to charities. Senator employees also bought tickets. . . . Vancouver General Manager Brian Burke met with Mark Messier last Thursday and said he won’t ask Messier to waive his no-trade clause. That doesn’t rule out Messier’s asking to be traded.

Top-seeded USC will face Stanford and No. 2 UCLA will play Oregon in the Pac-8 championship tournament starting at 5 p.m. Friday at the HealthSouth training center in El Segundo. The third-place and championship games will be played Saturday at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., respectively. USC (18-0) is led by Nicholas Nickson, son of King radio announcer Nick Nickson. Day admission is $10 for adults and $5 for children and students.