Early indications are that Vancouver General Manager Brian Burke made a shrewd move when he traded to secure the Nos. 2 and 3 draft picks in 1999 and used them to select the Sedin twins from Sweden.
Left wing Daniel Sedin, the No. 2 pick, went into Tuesday night’s game with the Blackhawks with five goals and six assists, while his twin brother and center, Henrik, had four goals and five assists. Daniel was plus-11 on the plus/minus scale and Henrik was a plus-6. Both were playing in their 18th game.
Last season the twins concluded their junior hockey careers with MoDo in Sweden. Daniel collected 19 goals and 26 assists and Henrik bagged nine goals and 38 assists, both in 50 games.
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Nevertheless, Burke and coach Marc Crawford didn’t envision the twins contributing this much this soon.
“It’s almost uncanny the way they use each other,” said Crawford. “I think how well they read each other is their key strength.”
Oh brother! Scouts from NHL teams spent the weekend taking a long look at center Mikko Koivu, playing for Finland in a four-nation under-20 tournament against national teams from Russia, the Czech Republic and Sweden.
Mikko is the slender, younger brother of Montreal’s injury-prone captain, Saku Koivu, and he’s expected to be a first-round selection in the NHL’s 2001 entry draft.
Czech conflict? Just because Pittsburgh’s new coach Ivan Hlinka and the Penguins’ superstar, Jaromir Jagr, both are from the Czech Republic it doesn’t mean they have a shared vision of the way hockey should be played.
One of the reasons Hlinka was hired as Pittsburgh’s coach during the off-season was to make the temperamental Jagr happy.
But the honeymoon may have already ended.
Jagr, the Penguins’ captain, recently presided over a players-only meeting in which he and his teammates devised a blueprint of how they want to play. “We have veteran guys, and it’s up to us how we’re going to play,” explained Jagr.
Hlinka agreed to try the system, which deviated from his defensively structured game plans and accentuated offense.
It brought the Penguins a 5-2 victory over Philadelphia last week but it didn’t bring Jagr happiness. He and Hlinka had a difference of opinion during the second intermission. After the game, they met for 20 minutes.
The four-time NHL scoring champion is reportedly upset because his point production has dropped off. He began the week 11th on the list of individual scoring leaders with 11 goals and nine assists in 16 games for the Atlantic Division leaders.
Jagr got two more goals Monday night in Colorado, but the Penguins lost 3-2 in overtime.
Hlinka knows that squabbling with Jagr could cost him his job if the Penguins are unable to sustain their early-season momentum.
Jagr’s $9,482,708 salary is by far the highest on a team that began the season with a $30.16 million payroll that is modest by today’s standards. The Penguins’ second-highest-salaried player, Alexei Kovalev, is earning $2.3 million.
Fans get hot: Disgruntled New Jersey Devils fans incessantly chanted “We want Arnott” during the third period of Saturday’s 5-0 loss to Buffalo. It was the fifth straight defeat for the defending Stanley Cup champions, who went into Tuesday’s home game with San Jose tied for last in the Atlantic Division.
The chants were evoked by the inability of Devils GM Lou Lamoriello to sign Jason Arnott, their free-agent center.
Arnott scored the double-overtime goal that ended the Devils’ quest for the Stanley Cup with a 2-1 victory over Dallas in Game 6 of the championship series.
Also unsigned is free-agent defenseman Scott Niedermayer, another contributor to New Jersey’s second Stanley Cup in six seasons.
Sundin returning: Toronto’s captain and leading scorer, Mats Sundin, is expected to be back on the ice Wednesday night when the Maple Leafs meet Philadelphia. Sundin was hit in the head with a puck Saturday against the Blackhawks.
Impasse continues: Philadelphia GM Bob Clarke won’t accept a conditional trade in which strings would be attached to the number of games or seasons his holdout superstar Eric Lindros is able to play.
Lindros turned down an $8.5 million offer from the Flyers during the summer and is now a restricted free agent.
Skeptical of the diagnosis of a Philadelphia team doctor, the concussion-prone player is a patient of Dr. James Kelly, a Chicago neurosurgeon.
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Lindros’ lawyer and agent, Gordon Kirke, has told reporters that the six-time concussion victim now is symptom-free.
Because Dr. Kelly isn’t affiliated with the team, Clarke said, “I don’t want to see anything Kelly writes.”