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'We need him' Stars looking for Nieuwendyk to shake slump
Posted: Sunday June 04, 2000 07:17 PM
DALLAS (AP) -- With the Dallas Stars stuck in a scoring slump, it may be time for coach Ken Hitchcock to make another late-night phone call. Hitchcock's surprise pep talk this time last year helped center Mike Modano refocus his game, lifting Dallas past Buffalo for the Stanley Cup. This year, Hitchcock needs to go one page deeper in his address book, from the Ms to the Ns, and find the number for Joe Nieuwendyk. Nieuwendyk, the MVP of the last postseason, has been practically invisible in the Stanley Cup finals against the New Jersey Devils. His failure to score a goal or even generate an assist is magnified with the Stars trailing 2-1 in the best-of-seven series. Game 4 is Monday night. "We need him," Hitchcock said Sunday. "Now." The Stars are 5-0 this postseason when Nieuwendyk scores a goal, 7-0 when he registers a point. Dallas is 6-7 in the games he's been shut out. Nieuwendyk has been blanked the last five games, which is exactly how long his favorite linemate, Jamie Langenbrunner, has been out with a knee injury. On Sunday, Hitchcock said Langenbrunner is likely to play Game 4. "It's been difficult because we're missing one of our keys guys, so it's been a matter of survival in a lot of ways," Nieuwendyk said. "But we're fighting, scratching and we're clawing and we're three wins away. That's the way we've got to look at it." Just having Langenbrunner back won't necessarily flip the switch for Nieuwendyk. As Hitchcock noted, they haven't even played together much this season because of various injuries that kept each out of the lineup for long stretches. The key is simply for Nieuwendyk to play with more hunger. He's shown it in spurts, but he hasn't been able to sustain it. "Joe is a streaky player," Hitchcock said. "If he scores early, like he did at times in the last two series, then he's a very effective player for that game and the next few games. "But when you don't score, you start thinking too much, and I find that with great offensive players that when they start thinking, they're at their worst." The top line of Modano, Brett Hull and either Brenden Morrow or Jere Lehtinen has been about all Dallas has had this series. The other lines have basically been used to buy time until those guys return to the ice. New Jersey knows it and has been able to gang up on them. Hitchcock used Lehtinen, his best defensive forward, on Nieuwendyk's line in the third period of a 2-1 loss Saturday night. He saw enough encouraging signs that he may try it again. "We use Lehtinen as a catalyst," Hitchcock said. "When anybody is not going well, we just put them with Lehtinen. If I'm having a bad day, Lehtinen comes to get coffee with me." His point is that a tweak in the system isn't enough. Players in general, scorers specifically, need to crank up their own performance or else Dallas' lease on the NHL's most prestigious hardware will soon be up. "New Jersey forces you to dig in a little bit deeper that sometimes you even want to for offensive chances," he said. "They make you pay a heavy price to get into those areas to score. At the end of the day, you're going to have to decide whether the Cup and the accolades that go with it are worth it. "We know the gear that has to be moved to. Whether we can do it or not, time will tell."
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