Khristich gets a bad rap

By STEVE SIMMONS -- Toronto Sun Tell a story often enough and it somehow becomes true.
Even when it isn't.
The word around is that Dmitri Khristich is trouble. That's the word so pass it on. "He's like a black cloud in the dressing room,'' one person told me yesterday.
"He has had problems everywhere he has been,'' another said, "and you're not going to quote me are you?''
"The players didn't like him in Los Angeles and I'm told they didn't like him in Boston either,'' another hockey voice said.
"He has a different personality,'' another source said. "He doesn't fit in with teams. Even the other Russians didn't like him.''
That is the story that's out there on the newest Maple Leaf. His reputation is hardly happy. His name is a synonym for glum. Talk about him around the National Hockey League and all kinds of word-association games are played.
With just one problem. It isn't true.
"You know, I've been hearing that for years,'' said Terry Murray, the coach of the Florida Panthers and Khristich's first NHL coach. "I heard he had some problems in Los Angeles but then you ask around and you never get a specific answer.
"All I can tell you is what I know from being there. He played for me in Washington and he was terrific. He has good goal-scoring ability, he's a strong player physically, he loves the low-cycling game and is very responsible in the defensive end of the rink.
"You remember when Sergei Fedorov defected from the Goodwill Games? (The Soviets) needed a centre to play with (Pavel) Bure and (Alexander) Mogilny. They picked Khristich.
"I hear he doesn't fit in with teams. Well, he fit in immediately in Washington. I remember his first NHL game. We were in Chicago Stadium, and that's a tough place for a kid to play his first game. You know what that's like? Small ice, all that energy. You know what I remember from that? He was the best player on the ice.''
The Maple Leafs asked a lot of questions before signing Khristich. General manager/coach Pat Quinn had heard the same stories everyone else in hockey had heard. The Leafs called coaches. They called administrators. They called former teammates. They even called trainers.
They wanted to find out for themselves what was fact, what was fiction, and what was merely hockey conjecture. The hockey world, from the inside, likes nothing better than to take a story and run with it, the truth be damned. The Leafs wanted to make sure they knew the story before throwing money at a talent that can help them.
"In my opinion, it's a bad tag,'' Quinn said when asked about the Khristich reputation. "We go by opinions of people who should know. Not by those who have opinions and don't know.''
David Poile knows. As general manager of the Washington Capitals, he drafted Khristich in 1988, signed him to his first contract, and traded him five years later to the Los Angeles Kings.
"There wasn't any great story to why we traded him,'' said Poile, now the Nashville Predators general manager. "Dmitri Khristich is a very good person and a very good player.
"I think it's a real good fit for Toronto. I don't see this as anything but a positive move for Toronto. I think the Leafs are very fortunate to have him.''
If that's the case, why trade him?
"I know why,'' Poile said. "But I'd rather not say.''
What he would rather not say and someone else did was that the Capitals coach for the moment was Jim Schoenfeld, who had little use for Khristich. There wasn't any incident. There wasn't any big story involved. The coach didn't like the player and the player didn't like the coach. These things happen in sport all the time.
If there is a dubious part of Khristich's career it is the two years he spent with the Los Angeles Kings from 1995-97. The first season, he finished second to Wayne Gretzky in team scoring. The second season, Khristich finished first on the team. That summer he was traded to Boston.
He had a stick-swinging incident with a teammate in practice while with the Kings but still managed to produce on some terrible hockey teams.
"Nobody was happy on that team,'' said Leafs centre Yanic Perreault, a new teammate and an old teammate of Khristich's. "I never had a problem with him in Los Angeles and I can't talk for anybody else.''
"I don't know where these stories get started but once they do you can't stop them,'' Terry Murray said. "One thing about hockey players. They know a good player when they see one and Dmitri Khristich is a good player. He was very easy to coach. He loves to play. He loves the game. I played for Pat Quinn and I can tell you Pat Quinn will be good for Khristich. This is a great move for the Leafs.''
Steve Simmons' column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. He can be reached by e-mail at ssimmons@sunpub.com

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