It's good the players of the Russian Central Red Army Penguins are young and resilient. The Russian Penguins - most in their teens and early 20s who are NHL draftees or prospects - are taking a physical pounding, learning the North American way on their whirlwind tour of every team in the International League - 13 games/13 cities/24 days against pros who know the Russians aren't used to gut-wrenching checks and elbows to the throat. They are off to a 2-5-1 start. Their cut and scraped faces show it.
"This tour will teach them a lot," said Red Army coach Victor Kuzkin, who played 18 years for this once-legendary club, 49 percent of which now belongs to Pittsburgh Penguins principal Howard Baldwin and friends Mario Lemieux and Michael J. Fox. "It is most important to get them used to the physical game," Kuzkin said. "This is very fruitful, even though we are losing."Wednesday night in the Delta Center (ticket sales 6,677), Salt Lake's Golden Eagles gave the Russian Penguins more of the same, knocking them off their feet and hammering them into the boards with referee Dennis LaRue frequently letting the hard stuff go while calling holding, holding the stick and interference.
The Russian Penguins withstood Eagle checks. They pushed back for the first time on the tour, said an IHL official traveling with the team.
And they prospered, winning 6-4 over the Eagles, sending Salt Lake further into the IHL basement since the result counts in league standings.
"We're tired of losing," said Kuzkin through a team interpreter.
The same could be said of the Eagles, who endure similar road trips all season and who are 0-7-1 in their last eight games, 15-37-5 overall. The Eagles have some of the same problems as the Russian team - youth and inexperience.
"I wouldn't say we played better," Kuzkin said of his team that had lost its last four games including 10-1 Tuesday in Phoenix. "Maybe our rivals were weaker than usual," he said.
"Today, our rivals were our peers."
Kuzkin shrugged off the physical play. "It was a normal game," he said. But he did not care for LaRue. "The referee spoiled it a bit," he said. "He was for the Americans, against the Russians. He was our most inobjective referee (of the tour)," Kuzkin said.
The Russian Penguins, however, did what everyone else in the IHL does against Eagle penalty killing that ranks 14th (behind the Russians) in the 13-team league. They scored on three of seven power plays. The Eagles scored on their last of eight, a 5-on-3 via an illegal-stick call with 2:24 left.
If there was good news for the Eagles - coach Dave Farrish for the first time this season did not talk with the media; he was meeting with scouts - it was that new Eagle Kimbi Daniels tied a prospective Eagle, Russian Andrei Vasiliev, as the game's top scorer with two goals and an assist each. Daniels had the game's first and last goals, his second and third since joining the club nine games ago. Dave Chyzowski and Derek Armstrong got other Eagle goals.
Vasiliev, 21, a 1992 New York Islanders' draftee, could be a '94-95 Eagle if the parent Islanders sign him. He said he's willing, and Kuzkin said the Red Army would release him.
Vasiliev tops Red Army scoring. He had their second and third goals (Nos. 7 and 8 of the tour) Wednesday. "He is probably one of our best forwards on the tour," said Kuzkin. "He can easily find ways out of difficult situations and scores easier than other players, but we have to press him; he cannot maintain this pace alone."
Vasiliev's impression of the Eagles is that they are "a typical American team," but he has hopes of playing in New York. "It is better to play with the main team," he said.