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Goat turned hero Turek stands on his head to spark the Flames
From the playoff disaster in which he undermined the St. Louis Blues, goalie Roman Turek has emerged as the improbable hero of the unlikely Calgary Flames. Turek's shutout streak was stopped at 153 minutes, 23 seconds Monday, but he has two wins and helped his new team amass seven of a possible eight points in its first four games. The 6-foot-3, 215-pound Turek always has displayed good lateral movement and excellent puck-handling skills, at least by the reduced standards applied to stay-in-the-net European goalies, but his confidence and reliability ebb and flow. At the moment, with the Flames defense keeping most shots from the perimeter, Turek has never looked better.
Blue line blues for BlueshirtsFor New York Rangers free agents Igor Ulanov and David Karpa, it was hardly an auspicious start. They were brought in to shore up the back end of the defense, but in their first shifts in Broadway Blue, each made a costly gaffe. Ulanov turned the puck over in the first 30 seconds of the opener in Carolina, leading to a 3-on-1 rush and a 1-0 Hurricanes lead. Karpa then deflected a bad-angle shot into his own net minutes later. General manager Glen Sather was particularly irked by Ulanov's play. After practice the next day, Sather asked Ulanov why he thought the Rangers had signed him. When Ulanov answered, "To play well defensively," Sather cut him off, saying the Rangers wanted Ulanov for his physical play. The defenseman was more aggressive the next night although New York's defensive problems continued in a 5-4 overtime win against Buffalo.
Victims of circumstanceNHL commissioner Gary Bettman has put the best spin on the NFL's decision to play the Super Bowl a week later, on a date that coincides with the NHL's All-Star weekend. Bettman notes the hockey game is being played on a Saturday this year, which, theoretically, means no conflict. But privately the NHL is unhappy because prospective corporate sponsors it had hoped to schmooze will be in New Orleans that weekend, not in Los Angeles where the All-Star Game, a bigger corporate deal than the Stanley Cup, is being played. For a league that recently lost some sponsorships from Nortel and IBM, a delayed Super Bowl is distinctly bad news. Sports Illustrated senior writer Michael Farber covers the NHL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
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