Elusive Joe

Forty recently hit Newwendike. Age, of course, is respectable, but in the NHL often the fifth dozen does not become the frontier of a career - remember the legendary Gordy Howe. Chris Chelios, for example, will turn 45 in January, and he missed only one match this season, and who knows, maybe we will see him again as part of the US team at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Nyuvendayku would also play and play, but the consequences of a back injury were more serious than the doctors initially thought. This season, he spent 15 matches, scored five goals, made three assists. For Elusive Joe, these are certainly not numbers.

The brilliant 20-year career of Newwendike in the NHL should certainly lead him to the end of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Three times he won the Stanley Cup, each time with a new team - “Calgary”, “Dallas” and “New Jersey”. Only in his last two clubs, Joe was left without awards - but here the timing was different. He spent one season (pre-lockout) at Toronto, and a little more at Florida. You look, play Joe a couple of seasons for the “Panther”, and the Southerners would have run out into the Stanley Cup.

In 1999, Nyuvendyke received “Conn Smyth Trophy” - a prize for the best player in the playoffs. By the way, the final series of that season between “Dallas” and “Buffalo” is called the most boring in the last decade. I would probably agree with this definition if Ken Hitchcock’s team did not have Joe Newwendike. Thanks to his participation in the NHL for 20 years there have been no boring matches.

In the regular championships, Joe scored 564 years and made 1126 assists. In the first indicator, it entered the top twenty, in the second - in the first fifty in the entire 90-year history of the league. He has always been the leader of the locker room - and North American experts rightly consider the respect, love and admiration of partners to be just as important elements of hockey culture as victories and defeats.

This season is a season of parting with players of an outstanding generation in NHL history. Most recently, career partner Nyuvendike champion “Dallas” Brett Hull. The farewell ceremony took place last week in St. Louis. Also, with honor, held in the "Tampa" captain "Lightning" Dave Andreichuk. Mark Messier's 11th number was posted under the Madison Square Garden in New York, where he won the last of his six Stanley Cups, and will soon take a similar place at the Edmonton Rexall Place.

The great ones are leaving, and probably now, as never before, the NHL needs new names. Last season, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin went on promotion, but their teams - “Pittsburgh” and “Washington”, respectively - went outsiders, and without big victories, without championship rings, it is unthinkable to become a hero of the generation. In the same “Pittsburgh” began his Enhael career Evgeni Malkin. He himself invariably claims that while in America everything suits him, but even from a purely hockey perspective the situation is more than unusual for him. In “Magnitogorsk” he was the leader of the country's strongest club (or one of the strongest), and in “Pittsburgh” he should get used to the fact that the team wins one match out of five. Or try to make a difference. After the opening matches of the season in front of the “Penguins” for once there was a faint hope of getting into the playoffs. The next segment of the championship they spent is not so great and now they torture every victory, every point. Like Sunday night against Atlanta - 4: 3 in overtime. Malkin scored himself and twice assisted partners, with Colby Armstrong scoring the decisive goal precisely from his submission.

“Washington” Ovechkin, perhaps, more than meets the requirements of a competitive team than today's “Pittsburgh”. In any case, the wards of Glen Hanlon are able to give out a series of four convincing victories in a row, during which the “Dallas”, “Buffalo” and “Ottawa”, as well as “Tampa” are defeated. In the last match of the past week, “Capitals” defeated away “Philadelphia”. Ovechkin made a feasible contribution identical to Malkinsky - a goal plus two assists, and at the moment, “Washington” closes the first eight of the Eastern Conference. But the playoffs are still far away, and to hold this position will be oh, how difficult.

Mikhail MELNIKOV