Wilson already shuffling the deck

TIM WHARNSBY

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

September 24, 2008 at 11:40 PM EST

PITTSBURGH — When his top two forward lines displayed little chemistry in their first outing together, Ron Wilson was eager to conduct a secondary experiment.

The new Toronto Maple Leafs coach, whose team dropped a 3-2 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins Wednesday night, had all summer to formulate line combinations. What he came up with was Mikhail Grabovski between Nik Antropov and Alexei Ponikarovsky, and centre Alex Steen alongside Niklas Hagman and Nikolai Kulemin.

But when the two units produced little offence through 40 minutes and the Leafs were down by three goals, Wilson dropped Ponikarovsky to the Steen line and moved Kulemin up to the Grabovski unit in the third period.

The move ignited the offence and resulted in a power-play goal from Ponikarovsky and a dandy individual effort from Grabovski for the second tally with 11 seconds remaining and Toronto goalie Justin Pogge on the bench for an extra attacker.

"That's what training camp is all about," Wilson said. "I was hoping there would be chemistry with Grabovski, Antropov and Ponikarovsky, but there obviously wasn't.

"I've seen what Kulemin can do, but he was lost in the noise. It was like Babel, you know, where you hear all these languages? Unfortunately, on his line, no one was speaking his."

Kulemin is from Russia, while Steen and Hagman are from Sweden and Finland, respectively. They speak perfect English, a language that Kulemin has yet to grasp.

"I saw in the summer Kulemin and Grabovski go on the ice together and have some magic," Wilson said. "I thought they played much better as a group when I switched wingers. So it might be something to look at as we go ahead."

The Leafs know that Kulemin will need time before he feels comfortable, living away from his hometown of Magnitogorsk for the first time. He demonstrated a will to learn the Canadian way of life when he moved into a Toronto apartment two months before the Leafs' training camp began.

The Leafs wound up outshooting the Eastern Conference defending champions 29-21, including a 17-3 difference in the third period. They gave up two power-play goals from Petr Sykora and Ruslan Fedotenko in the opening eight minutes when their attempted passes to teammates deflected off the skates of Toronto defenceman Josef Boumedienne and Anton Stralman, respectively.

The third Penguins goal came when they were shorthanded. Stralman fell in his own end and coughed up the puck to Evgeni Malkin, who played the point on the power play in the absence of injured power-play specialist Sergei Gonchar.

The Penguins revealed that Gonchar is out indefinitely with a dislocated left shoulder and will miss Pittsburgh's opening two games next weekend in Stockholm against the Ottawa Senators. Gonchar began rehabilitation yesterday and will decide next week what course he will follow after seeing how his shoulder responds to treatment and consultation with a specialist.

Surgery could be a possibility, but Penguins general manager Ray Shero said Wednesday night that it will be up to Gonchar to decide.

"It's his body, his career," Shero said. "We thought Evgeni Malkin needed surgery when he dislocated his shoulder [two years ago]. But he didn't and missed four weeks. But each shoulder dislocation injury is different."

Sidney Crosby also did not play. The Pittsburgh captain was supposed to suit up against Toronto, but the Penguins scrapped that plan when Crosby showed up with a mild groin injury. However, he skated in the morning and is expected to play against the Leafs at the Air Canada Centre tomorrow.

Crosby, at least, was one player that young Toronto defenceman Luke Schenn did not have to worry about. Schenn, 18, was playing in his second preseason game in a row and this time was paired with veteran Tomas Kaberle.

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