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Slap shots

By DAMIAN CRISTODERO

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 4, 2001

BUZZ-KILL: The reporter who covers the Thrashers for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found out recently Atlanta goaltender Damian Rhodes doesn't read the local paper.

Asked if he was concerned general manager Don Waddell was trying to acquire either Coyotes goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin or Philadelphia's Brian Boucher, Rhodes said he hadn't heard anything.

"Has it been in USA Today?" Rhodes said. "If it's been in USA Today, I would have seen it."

IN THE MIDDLE: Ryan Smyth is one of the most fearless goalie disturbers in the league. The Oilers left wing camps out in front of the net and takes serious cross-check abuse to his back as he tips shots and interferes, on the edge of illegality, with the netminders.

He takes so many shots to the back, he has begun wearing a flak jacket.

"The play never dies with Ryan down low," former Oiler Craig Simpson said. "The thing about Ryan is he just doesn't stand there. You do that, you get beat up all the time. He's in motion, reading the play."

"I don't feel the pain during the game," Smyth said. "Afterwards? Maybe there's a few ice bags."

A few? Smyth sticks his feet in buckets of ice after every game.

SMILE: Panthers forward Mike Sillinger, whose nickname is Chops, was rendered chopless after his two false front teeth were swiped, as a joke, Feb. 21 from a dressing room in Pittsburgh.

Sillinger suspected an inside job. So, as the team traveled from Ottawa to New York on Feb. 23, the former Lightning player staked out the X-ray machines as the team went through customs, hoping to find his missing teeth buried in a teammate's bag.

Nothing.

The teeth were anonymously returned when Sillinger threatened to trim his teammates' clothing with scissors.

BY THE WAY: Remember Minnesota's Sylvain Blouin, who scored goals in consecutive games after going 30 games over four seasons without one? We joked that Patrick Roy better watch out. Well, Blouin upped his scoring streak to three games Feb. 23 at Colorado by beating none other than Roy.

TRAVELIN' MAN: The most memorable trade for Nashville's Bill Houlder came in 1994, when he was dealt from Anaheim to St. Louis at the start of training camp.

"I'd just driven 3,000 miles to get to camp and two days later I had to drive 2,000 miles to St. Louis," the former Lightning player said. "That was also the year we had the lockout, so I drove 1,000 miles home."

- Compiled by Damian Cristodero.

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