Mathematics don't add up
By JIM TAYLOR -- Calgary Sun
Pat Quinn limps through the concrete bowels of smoke-free GM Place, headed for a small, windowless room where he can do an interview and sneak a cigar, not necessarily in that order.
He's the general manager of the Vancouver Canucks, a big-budget NHL team with a work ethic that comes and goes at the whim of the over-paid talent that fuels it. A few hours later it would disappear for 40 minutes and then surface just long enough to turn a drubbing into a 6-5 near-miss loss to arguably the worst team in hockey.
A huge man, iron-grey and shaggy, Quinn is stalling on an inevitable hip replacement, trying to find the missing pieces that might turn his team into a contender or at least make a playoff spot a surety, and shaking his head at the widely-held media contention he's lost the trading touch.
"I know what our needs are," he says. "We need a passing centre and a big tough centre, a tough defenceman and one who can move the puck and run the power play. But pick up the rosters and call the teams that have those guys. They're keeping them, because they know there aren't any available replacements.
"The point is," he adds, in an obvious shot at winger Alex Mogilny, "if you don't get them, you've got to go out and do your job anyway. If you're a winger you can't just say `I don't have a centre.' Baloney. Go out and do your job."
He also has Esa Tikkanen, who's got 10 goals, a suspect knee, makes just over $1 million per season and wants $3 million US. He has talent. He's been a winner. But is he worth anywhere near that? Not likely -- but in this marketplace, who knows?
Mogilny is symptomatic of the problem facing a league that has already expanded past its ability to stock its franchises, and plans to add two to four more teams in the next couple of years.
Quinn gave Buffalo three promising youngsters (Mike Pecca, Mike Wilson and a first-round pick who turned out to be Jay McKee) and took on Mogilny's huge contract because he thought the Russian could lift the team to the next level. He responded with 55 goals last year, but the spark has gone. Meanwhile, Pecca is assistant captain and the top plus-minus guy on the Sabres, Wilson is playing regularly and, though McKee is now in the minors, GM John Muckler feels he could be the best guy in the trade.
"We gambled," Quinn concedes, "and it hasn't happened. But we all have holes, and there aren't a lot of ways to fill them."
Now the pressure is on him to gamble again, to give up whatever it takes to win the bidding war for centre Doug Gilmour, a battle-scarred war horse who'll be 35 in June and a free agent the June after that.
"Gilmour goes to the well," Quinn says. "He knows how to get it done. He's a leader. He'd be a great asset to any team. But you ask yourself two questions: How much does his body have left, and how high do you go for a guy you could lose in a year? You have to think in those terms, and what you'd have to give up, because there isn't that much available talent out there."
It's a stand the local media, the customers and the hot-line yahoos fail to comprehend. They want a trade, they want it now. Somehow, Quinn is to reach into his cigar pocket and pull out a rabbit who can fill one of his four holes without gutting the team he has.
He isn't alone. General managers all over the league are in the same boat. But, he's right. Mathematics have caught up with the NHL. And, by the very plans already in place, it's only going to get worse.
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