UKRAINIAN PRO HOCKEY UPDATE
by Ihor Stelmach
Unheralded Konowalchuk effective against Stars
Steve Konowalchuk will not win the Selke Trophy as the National Hockey League's top defensive forward. Heck, he might not even finish in the top five. Too bad. It's high time a guy this deserving and this unknown got some ink.
You can bet if Selke voting were done by NHL scouts instead of hockey writers, the recognition for the best player ever to come out of Salt Lake City, Utah, would be overflowing.
"Every time we've looked at a player to fill a (checking) role, he's the one we've (wanted) - and we tried, but couldn't get him," said one scout.
In a recent survey conducted by The Hockey News, Konowalchuk beat out Edmonton's Todd Marchant and New Jersey's John Madden for the Selke nod.
Konowalchuk's anonymity has little to do with his tenacious play and everything to do with the nature of the team he plays for and the Selke itself. Unless you can score like Peter Bondra or stop 'em like Olaf Kolzig, it's tough to get noticed in Washington. Just ask the man who tied for the NHL lead in assists this season. Great year, Adam Oates. Anyone see it?
The Selke also defies simple analysis. Defensive excellence doesn't translate into stats. Furthermore, angles and backchecking and positional play aren't what anyone really writes about - unless the player doing it happens to be a superstar having undergone a career transformation, à la Steve Yzerman or Mike Modano.
So guys like Steve Konowalchuk, no offensive slouch himself with career highs of 24 goals and 47 points this past season, often get left out. The Caps, though, can't imagine where they'd be without him and his linemates, Jeff Halpern and Ulf Dahlen, to match up against top lines.
"That's one thing you can control, being a good defensive player," said Konowalchuk, who was plus 8. "We all take pride in defense first."
They do it primarily by cycling the puck down low in the offensive zone and eating time off the clock. When the play turns the other way, Konowalchuk tries to keep attackers to the outside and not take himself out of position looking for big hits.
The defense-first mantra is nothing new for him. Konowalchuk has a hockey card from his junior days in Portland which describes him as "a Dave Poulin-type player." When he broke in with the Capitals in 1992-1993, Poulin was his roommate and finished runner-up in the Selke voting.
That's something that probably won't happen to Konowalchuk in this year's Selke voting, though he sure is deserving.
Deadline day sees Burke take back seat
Vancouver Canucks General Manager Brian Burke likes to make a big splash whenever he can, but he did not make even a ripple on trade deadline day. The Canuck boss completed his only move in March four days earlier when he picked up Ukrainian defenseman Drake Berehowsky from Nashville, dealing a 2001 second-round draft choice. The pick actually had belonged to Atlanta and was acquired at the 1999 draft as a result of the machinations that allowed Burke to select both Sedin twins.
"We obtained a quality player to add to our defense," Burke said. "He's experienced, he's big, he's still within our age group and he's not a rental player. The media focused a lot on our center-ice position, but depth on defense was our biggest priority."
The Canucks satisfied their need for another veteran on the blueline. Mattias Ohlund, Ed Jovanoski, Scott Lachance and Murray Baron were all logging bigtime minutes, and an injury to any one of them would have meant elevating rookie Brent Sopel into the top four.
Berehowsky, 29, was a first round draft pick of Toronto in 1990. He is in the final year of an $800,000 (U.S.) contract. In games with his new team Berehowsky played an average of 20:10 and saw action on the ice in all situations. He took a regular shift on defense, while also manning the point on the second power play unit and helping kill penalties.
Ukrainian Wild man may return
He's gone, but maybe not for good, and he's certainly not forgotten. Defenseman Curtis Leschyshyn was traded by the expansion Minnesota Wild to Ottawa for a third-round draft choice moments before the NHL trade deadline on March 13. However, don't be at all surprised if the Ukrainian rearguard ends up wearing a Minnesota sweater again next season.
The Wild traded Leschyshyn because he is due to become an unrestricted free agent this coming summer, but Leschyshyn said he would seriously consider coming back to Minnesota.
"I felt comfortable here (Minnesota) and I like the way Jacques (Coach Lemaire) approaches the game," Leschyshyn said after being traded to the Northeast Division-leading Senators for a third-round draft pick in the 2001 draft and future considerations.
And it's likely the Wild would welcome him back. In fact, Minnesota GM Doug Risebrough almost didn't trade Leschyshyn. Risebrough was talking to Leschyshyn's agent, Rick Curran, the night before the trade deadline about a possible new deal.
"I thought there was a 50-50 chance that he was going to stay because of how he fits with our team," Risebrough said at the time. "But ultimately my responsibility is to get what I can for a player who could have potentially left for nothing."
Veteran stay-at-home defender Curtis Leschyshyn just may end up re-signing with Risebrough's Minnesota club and playing out the rest of his career as a Wild man.
UKRAINIAN UTTERINGS: Contrary to published reports, Washington sniper Peter Bondra said he would have been happy playing for the Canadiens had a trade been completed. "I would have been in Montreal the next morning," the right-winger told the Montreal Gazette ... With about two months to go this past regular season Coach Duane Sutter said he wanted to give Louisville call-up Denis Shvidki time with centers Vaclav Prospal and Rob Niedermayer. Shvidki, a left-winger, was called up because of Ray Whitney's back injury ... Shvidki's puck-handling is excellent, and he has a young player's hunger. Sutter said he'd like him to circle less in the neutral zone, so he'd be in better position to take a pass ... Caps' center Andrei Nikolishin finished the year with 25 assists. He had just 25 total points in 1999-2000 ... Left-winger Keith Tkachuk sustained a concussion in Edmonton when he tripped and fell to the ice, face first ... Tampa Bay signed 26-year-old goaltender Dieter Kochan last year from Binghamton of the United League. He made a big impression in two games against the Colorado Avalanche when he allowed just four goals on 62 shots ... More Bondra: the right-winger had 23 power play goals in 82 games, breaking fellow Ukrainian Dennis Maruk's 19-year-old franchise record of 20 ... Bondra proceeded to also break Mike Gartner's franchise-best career total of 98. With his 45 goals, Bondra totalled 21 more than any of his teammates ... Of course, gritty Ukrainian left-winger Steve Konowalchuk was second ... Oh, and Bondra declined the opportunity to be an injury sub at the All-Star Game because he had already promised his family a trip to Disney World ... And finally, hey, you Ukes: the NHL suspended defenseman Drake Berehowsky for one game after referees ruled he had deliberately tried to step on Anaheim defender Vitaly Vishnevski. Berehowsky, in his defense, said he was only trying to help center Cliff Ronning (a Nashville teammate), who was tangled up with Mighty Duck winger German Titov ... Fellas, don't maim each other!
(Konowalchuk quotes courtesy of Washington beat writer Mark Brender; other quotes from The Hockey News.)
| Player | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | PIM |
| Peter Bondra | Washington | 82 | 45 | 36 | 81 | 60 |
| Keith Tkachuk | Phoenix-St.Louis | 76 | 35 | 44 | 79 | 122 |
| Oleg Tverdovsky | Anaheim | 82 | 14 | 39 | 53 | 32 |
| Steve Konowalchuk | Washington | 82 | 24 | 23 | 47 | 87 |
| Dmitri Khristich | Toronto-Washington | 70 | 13 | 25 | 38 | 16 |
| Tony Hrkac | Anaheim | 80 | 13 | 25 | 38 | 29 |
| Andrei Nikolishin | Washington | 81 | 13 | 25 | 38 | 34 |
| Alexei Zhitnik | Buffalo | 78 | 8 | 29 | 37 | 75 |
| Ruslan Fedotenko | Philadelphia | 74 | 16 | 20 | 36 | 72 |
| Dave Andreychuk | Buffalo | 74 | 20 | 13 | 33 | 32 |
| Drake Berehowsky | Nash-Vancouver | 80 | 7 | 19 | 26 | 121 |
| Richard Matvichuk | Dallas | 78 | 4 | 16 | 20 | 62 |
| Denis Shvidki | Florida | 43 | 6 | 10 | 16 | 16 |
| Brad Lukowich | Dallas | 80 | 4 | 10 | 14 | 76 |
| Daniel Tkaczuk | Calgary | 19 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 |
| Maxim Sushinsky | Minnesota | 30 | 7 | 4 | 11 | 29 |
| Vitaly Vishnevski | Anaheim | 76 | 1 | 10 | 11 | 99 |
| Todd Fedoruk | Philadelphia | 53 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 109 |
| Curtis Leschyshyn | Minn-Ottawa | 65 | 2 | 7 | 9 | 19 |
| Glen Metropolit | Washington | 15 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 10 |
| Mike Maneluk | Columbus | 39 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 33 |
| Joey Tetarenko | Florida | 29 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 44 |
| Ken Daneyko | New Jersey | 77 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 87 |
| Wade Belak | Calgary - Toronto | 39 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 110 |
| Steve Halko | Carolina | 48 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| Stanislav Gron | New Jersey | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Yuri Babenko | Colorado | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Peter Ratchuk | Florida | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Darcy Hordichuk | Atlanta | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 38 |
| G | MINS | GA | AVG | W | L | T | PCT | ||
| Dieter Kochan | Tampa Bay | 10 | 314 | 18 | 3.4 | 0 | 3 | 0 | .870 |
| Gregg Naumenko | Anaheim | 2 | 70 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .759 |
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 24, 2001, No. 25, Vol. LXIX
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