Special tinkering

By LANCE HORNBY -- Toronto Sun When Pat Quinn took over as Maple Leafs coach in the autumn of 1998, he inherited a team whose power play the previous season was dead last in the NHL Western Conference, while the penalty killing was third.
A year into the job, Quinn still is trying to get both special teams on the positive side of the ledger. Last season saw both areas fluctuate, ending with the Leafs in the NHL's mid-to-lower echelon in both regular season and playoffs. After 10 games this month, they're in a similar statistical bind.
Their 3-2 win Saturday over Montreal saw a five-game power-play goal streak stopped. As well, the Leafs gave up a power-play goal for the seventh consecutive game.
Both units were in danger when Mats Sundin went on the injured reserve list about two weeks ago, but it has given Quinn a chance to experiment, such as putting five former Soviets on one power-play squad. The combination of Sergei Berezin, Igor Korolev, Dmitri Khristich, Danny Markov and Alexander Karpovtsev didn't score, but the puck control did conjure memories of the Red Wings' Russian Five that helped Detroit win two Stanley Cups.
"We were told before the game that the three of us would play forward (on the power play), but we didn't know about having two Russian defencemen, too," Korolev said.
"I never thought of the Russians on Detroit being anything but good hockey players and I hope that's the same with us. We all speak English most of time, but it's fun when we can all speak Russian on the ice," Korolev said. "Other teams have no idea what we're saying to each other when we set up in the faceoff circle."
Quinn, who had been getting good power-play production out of regular first-liners Jonas Hoglund and Yanic Perreault, said the five would stay together for now, but he wants to see some goals during the team's three home games this week.
The penalty killers have been victims of bad luck as much as bad coverage and their slump has not had a huge effect on the Leafs' 6-3-1 start, which has them tied for first place in the Northeast Conference with Ottawa. During the Canadiens' first power play on Saturday, Mike Ribeiro stepped into a shot that seemed to glance off Karpovtsev's rear end and into the top corner.
"It could have," netminder Curtis Joseph said. "Believe me, I've seen 'em all."
The Leafs defused five other Montreal chances, including three in the third period.
Though Quinn said he wasn't dissatisfied with Khristich's debut on a line with centre Nik Antropov and Mike Johnson, he likely will try the Ukrainian with a few different troikas in future games to best determine Khristich's place on the Leafs. With Sundin expected back in three to four weeks, there will be the temptation to use Khristich on the first line, especially if Steve Thomas, who has not scored a goal this season, is still looking for his scoring touch.

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