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 Stars report No sense worrying: Mo's teammates treat crisis with humor
Posted: Saturday June 12, 1999 07:18 PM
By Jamie MacDonald, CNN/SI BUFFALO, N.Y. (CNN/SI) -- Mike Modano stepped on to the Marine Midland Arena ice for Saturday morning's skate and looked surprisingly good under the circumstances. We won't know until faceoff if No. 9 is a go, but he didn't appear to be in much pain during his 20 or so minutes on the ice. If you listen to the press-room oddsmakers, a cynical lot to be sure, many think that he'll sit. In any case, Modano worked up a sweat in the warmup, moved the puck as the rest of his teammates did and generally looked, as coach Ken Hitchcock likes to say, "like a player." He showed no apparent trepidation handling the puck. The first he picked up, somewhere around 11:45 a.m. local time, was not done so gingerly. He gobbled it up at better-than-half-speed and took aim with a snap shot from the high slot. (High and wide left, but with plenty of mustard.) It should be noted, however, that Modano did not step into any shots that would have really tested his wrist. It's still his decision, and even though he looked good in 20 minutes of a morning skate, he still has a lot to consider -- a full four days of rest if he doesn't skate Saturday night, and the fact he'll be skating around a bunch of players who know exactly where he's hurting. "There will be a little bit of a bull's-eye on it," Modano admitted. "But that's kind of the way it is. Injuries in hockey are kind of kept secretive this time of year, but I think everybody kind of knows where it's at. I think whether it was injured or not it would be a target out there." The weight of Modano's decision, and it appears that it is his decision, isn't keeping at least one of his teammates from having a bit of fun with it. Brian Skrudland, tongue firmly in cheek (as is often the case with the man they call Skrewy), said, "We know that if Mike doesn't play, we don't stand a chance and that's really it. "And you believe that ..." But seriously, folks ... "I really don't know," Skrudland said. "At this point in time, it's in Mike's hands." Regarding the possible absence of their best player, Stars forward Jamie Langenbrunner said, "All year we've dealt with injuries. Whoever comes in, if Mike isn't going to play ... I mean, I think he's going to, but depending on what guys step up, they're expected to play bigger roles. Everybody will have to elevate their games if Mike can't go." Langenbrunner, who set up camp (with both feet) in Dominik Hasek's crease in Game 2, also addressed his role in GoalieGate. "You always go as hard as normal [to the net]," he said before chuckling about his campsite-made-for-two. "I gotta go there if I want to score. I'm not going to score from out at the blue line so you gotta go there and try to create space and create traffic in front. If he wants to skate around his net and we bump into him, that's fine, but we're not out there trying to run him or anything." Langenbrunner's having a little fun, too, with some of the sideshow theaters of goaltenders and possibly-broken wrists. "Either way, you guys [the media] have something to play with," he said. "There's a lot of things we get a kick out of that you do. It's all part of it. I'm sure you guys get a kick out of some of the things we do."
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