The Nhl

Playoff Payoff
Postseason bonuses make a big difference to low-salaried skaters

Players drive themselves through the grueling postseason with the hope that when it's all over they'll be the ones raising the Stanley Cup. For most, the bonus money the NHL doles out in the playoffs is a trifle, the equivalent of a few games' pay. For a handful of players, however, the bonus can be significant.

This year the league will distribute roughly $8 million among the 16 playoff teams; it's likely that reaching the Stanley Cup finals will guarantee a player about $40,000 and winning the chalice will result in a windfall of roughly $60,000. "That's pretty substantial for someone with my salary," says Flyers rookie defenseman Andy Delmore, who earned $260,000 in base pay in 1999-2000. "In the summer you'd be celebrating because you won the Cup, and then a nice check would come too."

Stars defenseman Brad Lukowich, whose salary was $350,000 for the second straight season, knows just how nice. Last year, after helping the Stars win the title, Lukowich used his bonus check for a down payment on a house in Cranbook, B.C. In mid-August he and the Stanley Cup played host to a housewarming party for 400 people. "That check came in handy," Lukowich says.

The roughly $14,000 that each player on a first-round winner receives is a big deal to relatively low-paid performers like Delmore, Lukowich, Maple Leafs defensemen Danny Markov ($215,000) and Tomas Kaberle ($238,000), Penguins center Tyler Wright ($350,000) and Sharks center Ron Sutter ($350,000). Then there's Sharks left wing Dave Lowry, the league's lowest-paid player at $150,000. "Bonus money?" says Lowry, who is 35 and dressed for only 32 games this season. "My bonus is that I get to play another two weeks."

Lowry, a journeyman, has been a surprising postseason force, and his excellent forechecking has earned him a place on San Jose's top line with Vincent Damphousse and Owen Nolan. Yet Lowry and the other aforementioned low-salaried players had combined for only 15 points in the 48 postseason games that had been played through Sunday, which means that none of them is likely to be a contender for the Conn Smythe Trophy. That award, incidentally, comes with a $10,000 bonus.

Scotty Bowman
His Future Is Up In the Air

However far the Red Wings go in the playoffs—through Sunday they trailed the Avalanche 2-0 in the Western Conference semifinals—these may be the last games in which we see Scotty Bowman shifting his weight behind the Detroit bench. Bowman, 66, is in his 28th season as an NHL coach, and he has been working on one-year contracts and pondering retirement since undergoing angioplasty and a left-knee replacement in the summer of 1998. Predictably, Bowman won't comment on his plans, although there has been speculation that he may become a general manager for another team.

Bowman has won a league-record 1,148 regular-season games and an NHL-record-tying eight Stanley Cups, and has come to be regarded as one of the greatest coaches in pro sports history largely because of his uncanny instincts. No coach better understands the needs of a team, the mood of his players or the atmosphere of a game. Says Predators assistant Brent Peterson, who played for Bowman on the Sabres in the 1980s, "He gets the right players on the ice at the right time."

A classic Bowman maneuver came in mid-March when the Red Wings were playing poorly. He announced that he was making the unusual move of putting star center Steve Yzerman at the point on the power play. The decision sparked Detroit, which went 6-3-1-0 down the stretch. "When he said what he was going to do, we all looked at each other like, Where did this come from?" says Wings scout Mark Howe. "Of course it turned out to be the right thing."