Czech Prucha uses quick splash to join bigger names at Olympics

The names on the Olympic hockey rosters read like a who’s who in the NHL.

Dominik Hasek and Jaromir Jagr are in, as are Martin St. Louis and Jarome Iginla, who starred in the most recent Stanley Cup finals.

Todd Bertuzzi is in Canada’s good graces, but a great public relations machine and a solid three months weren’t enough to land Sidney Crosby a spot among the great Canadian forwards.

His time will come, but Petr Prucha’s suddenly did.

Prucha is not a who’s who – he is much more of a who’s he?

The 23-year-old right wing came to New York Rangers training camp this summer trying to make the team. He was chosen in the eighth round of the 2002 draft but caught the eye of teammate Jaromir Jagr while playing on the Czech Republic national team. Jagr encouraged team brass to bring him over.

After surviving the last cuts, Prucha was scratched for three of the Rangers’ first four games and then was sent down to AHL Hartford for three games after scoring two goals in his first seven contests.

Since returning, he has been nothing short of amazing. On the season, Prucha has 16 goals – second only to Jagr on the team. Nine have come on the power play and he recently netted goals in a club rookie record six straight games.

Now he has made an Olympic squad that will be a serious contender for gold in the Turin Olympics.

Shanahan succeeds on many levels

Brendan Shanahan did much more during the NHL lockout than try to figure out better ways for the game to be played.

While the players’ association and the league prepared for important negotiations that ultimately proved futile in saving last season, Shanahan held a summit in Toronto in which experts from all sectors of the hockey world were represented.

Those sessions turned out to be anything but a waste of time as they produced concrete suggestions as to what rules should be changed.

Many were adopted this season, which has seen a great start following the lockout.

That alone made Shanahan’s season a success. What he has done on nearly 37-year-old legs might be even more astonishing.

Through Detroit’s first 35 games, Shanahan had a team-high 20 goals and was second on the club with 37 points. Not bad considering the Red Wings entered this weekend tied with Ottawa for the NHL lead in points.

His two goals and seven assists in four games earned him player of the week honors.

“I spent most of the lockout, or actually all of the lockout, working out and being ready for when we do come back,” said Shanahan, who started the season with 558 goals. “Going into the lockout, being 35 years old, I knew that it was really a key and important to stay very active. … We were having a baby, so I knew I wasn’t going to go to Europe. I knew a year away from the game, if I just basically sat around, would have been lethal.”

Brodeur dislikes trend

Just when it seemed that players might be getting used to the crackdown on obstruction, New Jersey Devils goalie Martin Brodeur is noticing a trend he finds disturbing.

“It’s like preseason now,” Brodeur said after Wednesday night’s 4-2 road loss to the New York Islanders in which 18 total penalties were whistled against both teams. “I guess maybe a memo was sent down to call games tighter again.”

Brodeur might’ve been voicing an accurate assessment, or maybe simply showing frustration because New Jersey’s power play has been anemic. The Devils netted one man-advantage goal in eight chances against the Islanders, only their fourth power-play goal in their last 95 chances.

Anaheim, New York take it easy

Every NHL team has at least this weekend off, but two clubs – Anaheim and the New York Rangers – were given an extended break.

Of the league’s 30 clubs, only Anaheim and New York were kept off the schedule Friday, when 14 games were on the docket in advance of the two-day Christmas break. That is just one game off the maximum, done only once. That was on opening day this season to relaunch the NHL.