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Thursday, October 10, 2002

-- By Dave Molinari, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

SCOUTING REPORT

Matchup: Penguins vs. Toronto Maple Leafs, 7:38 p.m. today, Mellon Arena.

TV, radio: Fox Sports Net; WWSW-FM (94.5), WBGG-AM (970).

Probable goaltenders: Johan Hedberg for Penguins. Ed Belfour for Maple Leafs.

Penguins: Have all-time record of 15-14-6 in season openers, 19-9-7 in home openers. ... Are 1-1-1 in season openers against Maple Leafs, including 8-3 victory Oct. 7, 1995, in Pittsburgh. ... C Alexei Kovalev has 11 goals, 12 assists in 19 career games against Toronto.

Maple Leafs: Will be starting season on road for just second time in the past seven years. ... D Robert Svehla, who has appeared in 300 consecutive games, and LW Jonas Hoglund (253) rank 2-3 on NHL's list of active ironmen. ... C Mats Sundin has tied Maple Leafs record by leading team in scoring eight years in row and needs three goals for 400 in his career.

Hidden stat: Penguins have lost three consecutive season openers, longest current streak in NHL.

NOTEBOOK

Special teams got much of the attention during the Penguins' final preseason workout, a 50-minute session at Mellon Arena yesterday. The No. 1 power play featured Mario Lemieux and his linemates, Jan Hrdina and Aleksey Morozov up front, with Alexei Kovalev and Michal Rozsival on the points. Kent Manderville and Shean Donovan look like the top penalty-killers. Coach Rick Kehoe described those two as "experienced guys" who "have done that throughout their careers." He also said he has no immediate plans to use skilled forwards such as Lemieux and Kovalev when the Penguins are short-handed because he doesn't want to drain their energy reserves, although he did attach an asterisk. "There might be situations where we have to use them," Kehoe said. "That's something that, as you go along, you might change a couple of things."

LW Martin Straka's recovery from an off-season back injury continues to progress nicely. Straka said he plans to begin taking contact during practice tomorrow and hopes to be back in uniform by early next month. "When they have drills, one-on-ones and two-on-twos, I can go in," said Straka, who skated as the fourth forward on Lemieux's line yesterday. "And if I feel fine, I'm going to keep doing that for a couple of weeks. I would say that in three or four weeks, if everything's OK, I'll be ready to go." Straka had been scheduled to have a Magnetic Resonance Imaging examination of his back this week, but he said yesterday the procedure has been canceled because "they said it's not going to show anything in a month [since his previous MRI], and that if I feel fine, I should just keep going with what I'm doing and start trying to hit people, get contact."

Lemieux, who got a season-sabotaging hip injury in an exhibition game in Wilkes-Barre last September, isn't second-guessing his decision to skip the Penguins' preseason games this fall, even though that means he hasn't been subjected to significant contact in months. "It wasn't too successful last year, [participating] in the preseason games," he said. "So we tried a different route this year." Besides, Lemieux has come back from enough extended layoffs to know that he rarely needs much time to get his game in sync. "I think I can adjust pretty quick, feel my way around the first couple games," he said. "I've always done that in the past, so it's not a big change for me." Kehoe, who reiterated that Lemieux will be excused from practice occasionally, said having him skip the preseason games did not cause a problem because "he knows what he has to do."

With season tickets down from 9,700 equivalents at this time last year to about 8,100 now and about 2,800 seats still available for the game tonight, attendance obviously is a concern for Penguins officials. Lemieux, who fills the unique role of No. 1 center/owner, said he believes there will be a direct connection between the number of points the Penguins earn and how many people are willing to pay to watch them. "It's important for the team to start pretty well," he said. "If we have a bad start, it's just going to hurt the ticket sales. So it's important for the team to get a good start and show that we have a strong team ... that is able to compete."

Barring late changes, LW Dan LaCouture, D Marc Bergevin and D Dick Tarnstrom figure to be the Penguins' healthy scratches tonight. LaCouture was the only Penguin to appear in all 82 games last season. If he doesn't play tonight, the Penguins' lineup will feature only nine players -- Lemieux, Kovalev, Hrdina, Morozov, Rozsival, G Johan Hedberg, G Jean-Sebastien Aubin, D Josef Melichar and D Ian Moran -- who dressed for the opener against Colorado last season. Straka and fellow forwards Milan Kraft, Kris Beech, Toby Petersen, Robert Lang, Kevin Stevens and Stephane Richer, along with defensemen Andrew Ference, Darius Kasparaitis and Mike Wilson also played against the Avalanche.

The game tonight will mark the official Maple Leafs debut of G Ed Belfour, signed as a free agent after Curtis Joseph defected to Detroit in July. And while Belfour, 37, is widely regarded as being something less than Joseph's equal, Kehoe hardly is ready to write him off. "There's something about veteran goaltenders where they can move their game up to another level," he said. "You think they're getting old or whatever, and they'll come and bite you."

Toronto will be without LW Gary Roberts, whose productivity, ferocious checking and leadership were so critical to the Maple Leafs' run to the Eastern Conference final this past spring. Roberts is recovering from shoulder surgery and is not expected to resume playing for at least a couple of months. And, make no mistake, the Penguins are aware of his absence and won't miss having to deal with him tonight and in a rematch Monday at the Air Canada Centre. "You definitely want to take advantage of the time when he's out," Moran said. "If that makes it a little bit easier to break the puck out, that's good for us."

The most unlikely member of Toronto's 23-man roster is 19-year-old D Carlo Colaiacovo, a first-round draft choice in 2001. Colaiacovo agreed to a three-year contract with the Maple Leafs Monday, less than an hour before the league's deadline for unsigned players to return to their junior teams. Colaiacovo, who spent last season with the Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League, might not play tonight but can appear in up to nine games before his contract kicks in and he is credited with a full season for matters such as waivers and arbitration rights. If Colaiacovo convinces management to keep him, he likely will take a job from one of three veterans: Aki Berg, Ric Jackman or Jyrki Lumme.

MINOR-LEAGUE REPORT

WILKES-BARRE/SCRANTON opens its AHL season tonight at home vs. St. John's.

WHEELING opens its ECHL season tomorrow at Reading.