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Clearly, Modin seeing visor as safety solution

The Lightning forward is protecting himself, and his productiveness has not been hurt - in fact, it has picked up.

By DAMIAN CRISTODERO

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 25, 2000

DETROIT -- The way Fredrik Modin sees it, he has two strikes on him. He doesn't want to take a chance with No. 3. The Lightning left wing has been injured twice in the face by sticks in the past four seasons. To minimize the risk of another, he said he might keep wearing the visor he donned last week to protect his broken nose.

"It's just so easy to get a stick in the face," Modin said.

It is a serious consideration for Modin, who took a goalie stick to the left eye while playing for Sweden at the 1996 World Championships.

Though he was able to resume playing in a week, he said the stick scratched his cornea and there was so much blood and swelling, all he could see out of the eye at first was a yellow haze.

He said his left pupil still doesn't react as quickly to light as his right.

During an Oct. 17 practice, Modin took an inadvertent stick blade to the nose from teammate Todd Warriner. The visor went on for the next day's game against the expansion Wild.

Funny thing about that visor. Since Modin put it on, he has been on fire.

He has five goals in his past three games, including his first career hat trick Sunday night against the Rangers. Going into Tuesday night's games, his seven goals were tied for second in the NHL with Jaromir Jagr and Peter Forsberg. His 11 points were just four behind leader Ziggy Palffy.

"It's fun to see your name on there with those guys, but there are a lot of games left to play," Modin said.

The Lightning faces the Red Wings tonight at Joe Louis Arena.

"I think he's playing the way he wants to play," Lightning coach Steve Ludzik said. "He sets some pretty high standards for himself."

The standard the team set for Modin was simple: Shoot the puck.

Modin is 6 feet 4, 220 pounds with a 104 mph slap shot, yet he took just 167 shots last season, an average of two. Lightning general manager Rick Dudley has said he wants Modin to average five or six.

He has 24 shots in seven games this season, an average of 3.4. At that rate Modin will take 281 shots. Using his current scoring percentage of 29.2, Modin would be expected to score, oh, 82 goals.

That is absurd, of course, so use last season's more reasonable scoring percentage of 13.2. That figures to 37 goals, which would blow up last season's career-high of 22.

Shooting more is only part of Modin's success.

He also has been moved from down low to against the sideboards on the power play. That puts Modin farther from the net, which means he can wind up when he gets the puck. And with Vinny Lecavalier quarterbacking from the point, it is assumed Modin will get more chances.

Modin has two power-play goals. He also is getting the bounces that seem to come to players on a hot streak.

Against the Rangers, Modin got credit for a goal when New York defenseman Rich Pilon inadvertently poked the puck past goalie Mike Richter after Modin's shot hit the post.

Wild goaltender Jamie McLennan is still looking for the bomb Modin put past him late in a 6-5 Lightning loss.

"I hit that as good as I probably could. I didn't even feel it," Modin said. "Every time you have personal success, you're happy. But the main thing is to win the game. That's why it felt so good to beat the Rangers."

Modin is taking nothing for granted. That's why when he discovered he could see clearly out of his visor with no discomfort, he decided it was probably worth a long-term commitment.

He would like to make the same commitment to scoring goals.

"Come back at the end of the season. If it's there," he said of having his name at the top of the charts, "we'll talk."

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