Sunday, February 17, 2002
Mario might miss game
By AL STRACHAN -- Team Sun
SALT LAKE CITY -- Team Canada captain Mario Lemieux might play against Germany tonight. Then again, he might not.
"It will be his call," head coach Pat Quinn said.
But whether he does or he doesn't, the coaching staff has juggled the lines with the hope of getting more offence from the forwards than was the case against Sweden.
That wouldn't be hard. Both goals in the 5-2 loss were scored by defencemen.
WANTS TO PLAY
Lemieux is not in bad shape and definitely would be in the lineup if this were a key game. In fact, he wants to play.
But he still is having some discomfort from his hip injury and the coaching staff thinks it might be a good idea for him to rest.
After all, Canada has to play six games in 10 days -- nine days if it is in the bronze-medal game -- and Lemieux routinely sits out occasional games when the Pittsburgh Penguins' schedule gets busy.
In practice yesterday, Lemieux skated gingerly and was the odd man out.
Because of his strong game on Friday, Owen Nolan has been elevated to the top line. Paul Kariya will play the right wing and Eric Lindros will be the centre.
For a checking line, Mike Peca will move back to his best position. He will be the centre between left wing Brendan Shanahan and Theoren Fleury.
One of the criticisms of the Canadian performance on Friday was that Swedish captain Mats Sundin was allowed to be the best player on the ice for 60 minutes without receiving any special attention.
It now appears that Peca has been earmarked as the man to call upon should a similar situation arise. "If we play Sweden again," Team Canada executive director Wayne Gretzky said, "Mr. Sundin will see a lot more of Michael Peca."
In the interim, so will anyone else who threatens to dominate the game.
Ryan Smyth, who was a scratch on Friday, will be inserted into the lineup tonight as the left wing for Steve Yzerman and Joe Nieuwendyk.
It's Yzerman's turn to be moved away from his natural position. He will be the right wing. But Nieuwendyk played such a strong game on Friday, it was decided that it made sense to have him as centre, even though he can play all three forward positions.
That leaves a fourth line of, from left to right, Simon Gagne, Joe Sakic and Jarome Iginla.
The defencemen, who received severe criticism from Quinn after the loss on Friday, also will be subjected to some modification.
The pairing that was put together for the final 10 minutes and played well -- Al MacInnis and Chris Pronger -- probably will remain intact.
By putting those two together, Quinn had to move Eric Brewer away from MacInnis and use him with Rob Blake. Those two also played well together and likely will start the game tonight as a partnership.
The other pairing of Adam Foote and Scott Niedermayer may be occasionally broken up to allow some playing time for Ed Jovanovski.
MAY DRESS 22
Many of these decisions will be made later today.
Although Team Canada's original plan was to dress only 20 players for each game despite the international-hockey rule that allows 22, that plan may be changed tonight.
That way, Lemieux could dress and play sparingly but Quinn would still have four forward lines for regular use.
Also, the coaches feel that because of his strong play it would be unfair to sit Brewer to allow Jovanovski to play, despite the fact that as the defenceman with the least seniority Brewer seemed the most likely to sit.
Accordingly, Canada may dress seven defencemen.
2002 Games Men's Hockey Coverage
