Friday, February 22, 2002
The Big E put in rare position
By AL STRACHAN -- Toronto Sun
SALT LAKE CITY -- You have to be pretty good to shove Eric Lindros to the sidelines.
But that's what Michael Peca did during Canada's Olympic quarter-final hockey game against Finland.
To be fair to Lindros, it wasn't that he was having a bad game.
But the Finns rely heavily on Teemu Selanne and were double-shifting him. Every time he showed up on the ice, Peca joined him.
With one Canadian centre doing the job of two, that meant someone wouldn't get his turn.
Dropping Steve Yzerman off Mario Lemieux's line was out of the question and Joe Nieuwendyk was having such a strong two-way game that he too had to get a regular shift.
So, for the second half of the game, Lindros was left out.
But executive director Wayne Gretzky, filling in for coach Pat Quinn who once again couldn't be bothered to address the world's media, said he expects Lindros to get plenty of ice time in the next two games.
It is, after all, a team game and on Wednesday, Peca's contributions were more important to the team than Lindros'. Canada had a lead and the best chance of keeping it was to negate Selanne. And the best chance of doing that was to put Peca on him.
"If they want to use me in that role I feel very comfortable with it every time I have to do that," Peca said yesterday. "I feel like I have adjusted to the altitude so I feel pretty good.
"But I feel one of the strengths of our team is that we have so many versatile players we can really match anybody up."
Some have suggested Lindros was hurting. However, he says that is not the case.
"No (I am not injured) ... I feel really good," Lindros said. "There was some changes with the lines. You do whatever is best for the team. It's a short tournament and you go out and do what you can in a short period of time."
For Peca, this is his first involvement with a national team of this stature, and the manner in which it has become a cohesive unit amazes him.
"Everybody has come together," he said. "When you see all this individual talent, there's always a question of how quick they can come together as a team, but there's great camaraderie in our league.
"You stick guys in a locker room for more than 24 hours and they feel like they've been teammates forever."
-- with files from Bruce Garrioch
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2002 Games Men's Hockey Coverage
