At The Mike
Daigle May Be Key To Pen's Season
By Mike Prisuta

The Big Guy, Mario Lemieux, is in "tip-top shape," according to The Guru, a.k.a. Tom Plasko, Lemieux's personal massage therapist, trainer and confidant.

Lemieux is also skating again and "feeling strong" on the ice, according to no less an authority than The Big Guy himself.

Does this mean the Penguins aren't doomed after all?

Or does even a healthy Lemieux no longer make enough of a difference?

Sure, the new sweaters are nice, but who's going to wear them?

With no Robert Lang and probably no Martin Straka, are the Penguins destined to be the best-dressed bad team in the league?

Perhaps not.

The early stages of Lemieux's latest comeback attempt are encouraging.

The Pens signing of Alexandre Daigle, meanwhile, is intriguing.

When last seen in the NHL some two years ago, Daigle could skate and he could play; he just didn't seem inclined to do either one very often.

Still, we are talking about the former No. 1 overall pick of the 1993 NHL Entry Draft, a 27-year old who somehow turned the French Canadian-to-English translation of his name from "can't miss" to "dog."

Armed with an astounding upside because of his speed and skill and a whopping five-year, $12.25 million contract not long after his 18th birthday, Daigle chose to infuriate rather than ignite the teams that employed him (the Senators, Flyers, Lightning and Rangers preceded the Penguins on that front), too often displaying only disdain when passion was demanded.

Can he bounce back two years after the fact?

It's worth the Penguins' while to find out.

It'll cost them nothing and could result in a windfall invigoration of chemistry and ability, the type of which the Pens could surely use in the wake of Lang's departure and Straka's continued residence beneath some inexplicable Czechoslovakian black cloud.

Let's assume for the moment that Daigle is serious this time, that at 27 his skills haven't eroded, and that as a Montreal native he'd rather be forced to speak English for the rest of his life than dog it in the presence of Lemieux. Let's also assume, while we're at it, Lemieux is able to play in the neighborhood of 70 regular-season games.

Under such circumstances, the Pens' line combinations could look something like this (left to right):

o   Daigle-Lemieux-Aleksey Morozov.

o   Jan Hrdina-Randy Robitaille-Alexei Kovalev.

o   Ville Nieminen-Wayne Primeau-Dan LaCouture.

o   Ian Moran-Kent Manderville-Shean Donovan.

Should Straka regain his health and manage to maintain it, he could always be worked in there somewhere.

Should Daigle approach anything resembling the player people always believed he could be, should Lemieux hold up, should Robitaille establish that his strong second half last season wasn't a fluke, and should Hrdina continue to shoulder more of an offensive load, the Pens may just find out that there's life after Lang and without Straka (assuming it comes to that) after all.

Can Daigle do it?

Bringing him into camp is a no-lose proposition as far as the Penguins are concerned. If he doesn't pan out, no fuss, no muss; just send Daigle packing without any guaranteed money weighing him down. But if it works out and Daigle becomes the real deal he was perceived to be back in 1993, look out, Loretta.

Suddenly, Lemieux will have more than enough talent festooning his wings.

Suddenly, the loss of Lang and the effect of the latest Straka rehabilitation will be greatly minimized.

Suddenly, youngsters Kris Beech and Milan Kraft can be kept in the minors, where they belong (Beech for at least a season until he blossoms; Kraft until the Pens can become more certain about his long-term prospects).

Such an occurrence isn't out of the question.

Straka bounced from the Pens to the Senators to the Islanders to the Panthers to the scrap heap before the Penguins re-signed him as a free agent in September of 1997.

And Lang was jettisoned in one form or another by the Kings, Penguins and Bruins before the Pens reacquired him through the waiver draft, the very process that had landed Lang in Boston in the first place.

Both became stars eventually.

Neither was less of a long shot than Daigle before they did.

Mike Prisuta is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and sports director of WDVE-FM in Pittsburgh.