Without Top Stars, Pens Need Young Players to Keep Them in Contention By ALAN ROBINSON AP Sports Writer Wednesday October 31, 2001 3:10 AM CANONSBURG, Pa. (AP) - With some of the NHL's best offensive talent filling the Pittsburgh Penguins' lineup, players such as Milan Kraft, Aleksey Morozov, Kris Beech and Jan Hrdina couldn't break into the top lines. Now, with the Penguins suddenly depleted by one of the worst runs of injuries in franchise history, it might be up to the young and mostly unknown forwards to preserve the Penguins' chance for a 12th consecutive trip to the playoffs. With only Robert Lang left from the five Penguins who were among the NHL's top 20 scorers a year ago, the Penguins must replace the 1,022 career goals of Mario Lemieux (649), Alexei Kovalev (209) and Martin Straka (164) with a group that has only 11 goals this season - five by Lang. Lemieux is expected to be out 3-to-4 weeks following arthroscopic hip surgery. Straka, the Penguins' leading scorer with five goals and four assists, is all but certain to miss the rest of the season with a broken right leg that required surgery Monday. Dr. Charles Burke, who performed the operation, tells patients with a broken tibia - Straka's injury - that it usually takes a year for them to start feeling normal again, although the recovery time can be less for a pro athlete. "Sometimes you have to play with one or two guys out, but we're playing with a lot of our top guys out," said coach Rick Kehoe, who, in more than a quarter-century as a player and coach in the NHL, cannot recall a team losing so much offense at one time. And don't forget the Penguins still are adjusting to being without five-time scoring champion Jaromir Jagr, who was traded to Washington. "We're not feeling sorry for ourselves, we're going out there to play," Kehoe said Tuesday. "I have a lot of confidence in our team that we're going to be all right until the guys come back." For that to happen, the Penguins (4-5-1-1) must get lots of goals from players who, until now, have filled complementary roles, playing on the third or fourth lines or taking an occasional shift with one of the top lines. "As a player, you're always looking to maybe getting on that power play, maybe getting that extra ice time," said Kehoe, the Penguins' leading career scorer until Lemieux and Jagr came along. "You always have in the back of your mind that, if I played on the power play, I'd help the team more. Now you've got the opportunity, so let's see what happens." Kehoe doesn't think it is necessary to personally deliver that message to players such as Kraft, Beech, Morozov and Billy Tibbetts. Tibbetts was recalled Tuesday from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the AHL. "You have to understand that you just don't get this opportunity very often," Kehoe said. "When it comes along, whatever you are doing in your life, either you take advantage of it or you don't. And that's the other thing; I shouldn't have to tell them. They know they have the opportunity, now it's up to them." The Penguins expected to also be without defenseman Darius Kasparaitis (bruised left knee) for their two-games-in-two-nights stretch against Philadelphia and Toronto. But he surprised them by returning to practice Tuesday and saying he expects to play. "I said before the season I wasn't going to play hurt, but I guess I am," Kasparaitis said.
