Kehoe Has Turned Around Penguins in Less Than Two Weeks By ALAN ROBINSON AP Sports Writer Thursday October 25, 2001 7:10 PM PITTSBURGH (AP) - Well, that didn't take long. The Pittsburgh Penguins, whose 0-4 start under former coach Ivan Hlinka tied for the worst in team history, needed only 10 days under new coach Rick Kehoe to get back to .500. One of the Penguins' better comebacks in recent seasons, a 3-2 victory Wednesday over Dallas in which they trailed 2-0 early, made them 4-4-0-1 and gave them nine of a possible 10 points in Kehoe's five games. The Penguins, 2-0-0-1 on a road trip before the Dallas game, play again Saturday night in Toronto. "We've beaten good teams, too," Kevin Stevens said, referring to Ottawa (twice) and Dallas. Kehoe, who has been associated with the franchise for all but eight of its 35 seasons, hasn't transformed the Penguins with endless meetings, locker room oratory or tons of personnel changes. His most visible move was to tinker with the lines, such as moving Martin Straka and rookie Toby Petersen onto Mario Lemieux's line. What he has done, quietly but authoritatively, is bring organization, cohesion and discipline to a team that, partly because of Hlinka's well-documented language problems, had lacked all the above. He also has spent considerably more time on special teams than the Penguins did before. Even if it has cost him the sleep he might have gotten as an assistant coach. "There's a lot more to this than you think," Kehoe said. "A lot goes through your mind. You want to relax, but it's always there. You want to sleep, but there's always things on your mind." Things like the next day's practice routine. Or how much the Penguins will miss star forward Alexei Kovalev during the additional two weeks or so he will be out following arthroscopic knee surgery. Maybe he even thinks about something few Penguins coaches have had to worry about: Will Mario Lemieux start scoring goals again? The Penguins have turned it around without their owner-captain-star going on one of his accustomed scoring binges. Lemieux went six games before scoring a goal Tuesday in Atlanta - he missed two other games with a hip injury - then failed to score Wednesday. Dating to last season, Lemieux hasn't had a goal in 12 of his last 13 games. Last season's slump at the end of the playoffs was attributed largely to the fatigue he experienced after playing half a season and six weeks of the postseason without a training camp. This season, he has been visibly bothered for several weeks by a hip flexor injury. Once Lemieux is fully healthy again, Kehoe has no reason to doubt Lemieux will again be Mario Lemieux. Kehoe, a former Penguins player, scout and assistant coach, also has given general manager Craig Patrick no reason to doubt he made the right move by promoting Kehoe to coach without looking outside the organization. Until Hlinka was let go with nearly two years on his contract, Kehoe had never shown an inclination to be the head coach. He enjoyed his role as assistant coach, one that allowed him to work with the players without all the accompanying pressures that nag at a head coach. "So far, the players have responded very well," Patrick said. "We're pleased with that. There's a good cohesiveness out there."
