After the Goal Rush : Mighty Ducks’ Kurri Is Trying to Focus on Playoff Chase Rather Than Scoring Mark

EDMONTON —  In the days when the Oilers ruled the NHL, the goals used to come easily for Jari Kurri, like shavings falling from a stick. They were commonplace.

Six goals? That was a week or so’s work, sometimes.

Now? Six goals? Is it half a season, another year, forever? It’s the difference between this-close and a piece of history for Kurri--not that his place isn’t assured after seven Stanley

Cup finals, five championships and 1,369 points.

Only seven players have scored 600 goals in the NHL: Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Marcel Dionne, Phil Esposito, Mike Gartner, Bobby Hull and Mario Lemieux.

Kurri, two months shy of his 37th birthday, is poised to be next, with 594. But the torrent has slowed to a trickle. Eleven goals this season with the Ducks. Four since January. And not even Kurri knows how many games he has left to reach his mark.

“Every time I miss a chance, it just hurts so much,” Kurri said with a little wince and a smile. “The breakaway against St. Louis, I made just a horrible move. I was really mad at myself.”

Two nights later, Teemu Selanne fed Kurri on a shorthanded two-on-one, but Kurri shot the puck into the goalie’s pads.

“I told him, maybe he doesn’t want to score 600 goals,” Selanne said, teasing the player he idolized as a boy. “The good sign is, he’s getting more chances. For a couple of months, he didn’t get shots, and when a goal-scorer doesn’t get chances, he should be worried.”

The worry, though, seems to have slid from Kurri’s shoulders in recent weeks, partly because reaching 600 this season is no longer likely, with only 10 games left.

“I don’t think he expects to so much,” Selanne said. “If he doesn’t believe anymore, now he can play more relaxed. He knows he’ll do it sooner or later.”

Instead, Kurri’s eyes are on a different prize: the playoffs. In 15 NHL seasons, he has missed the playoffs only twice, both times with the Kings before making it last year with the Rangers after a late-season trade.

“What we’ve been able to accomplish, that’s re-energized him,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said. “I think he’s in a playoff mode. Jari’s been with the Kings, and they haven’t made the playoffs for three years and they weren’t as close as we are.”

“This is the fun part of the season,” Kurri said. “If you don’t get pumped up this time of year. . . . We missed twice with the Kings. Other than that, seven finals. I enjoy the playoffs. Every shift, every game, there’s so much on the line. The intensity of the games is like night and day difference.

“Before this season, my two goals to come here this year were to get the 600 goals and make it to the playoffs and enjoy that part. We’re playing well. I think we deserve to get to the postseason. We’re a good team right now. I think we’ve proved we belong in the playoffs. But we have to press ourselves and make sure. We don’t have any excuses not to make it.”

One of the little notes about Kurri’s quest for six more goals is this: He actually has scored 699 goals, but 105 have been in the playoffs and don’t count toward the milestone. (Kurri is one of only three players, along with Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier, who have scored 100 playoff goals.)

There are other things you can think about: The season he spent playing in Italy, the games he lost to the 1995 lockout. Kurri wouldn’t dwell on those things; he knows the rules. But 600 is never far from his thoughts.

“It’s always there,” Kurri said. “Any time you’re getting close to a milestone, it’s always on your mind. People talk about it. You’re facing that situation every game. It’s something you’re always trying to deal with. You’d rather just come out and try to play the game, concentrate every day.”

One of the telling things about Kurri’s season is that it has never devolved into a personal quest. When Kevin Todd was in a 27-game goal drought, Kurri passed up shot after shot to set him up, finally succeeding. With the Ducks in the thick of the playoff race, Kurri gave the puck to Selanne on a two-on-one during one game, and Selanne pointed straight at Kurri after scoring a critical and emotional goal.

“It helps everybody to see that unselfishness,” Wilson said.

“He’s said he wants to come back and play next year, and that takes some of the pressure off scoring goals. He’s going to get his 600, no doubt. I’d like to see him do it this year.”

There really is no guarantee Kurri will get a chance to score his 600th, though, if he doesn’t do it this season. As a free agent, he signed a $1.5-million contract last summer that gives the Ducks the option on next season. At $1.5 million, will the Ducks bring him back? Are his intangibles enough to make up for his tired legs?

“I don’t see why not, but I don’t make those decisions,” Wilson said.

Perhaps the Ducks will offer Kurri a contract at a lower salary. Perhaps he’ll be looking for another team. (Wouldn’t the Oilers like to see him score No. 600 for them?) Perhaps he’ll even consider retiring. But if he’s still, say, four goals away from 600 this summer, what will he do?

“It’s tough to ask that question,” Kurri said. “I really don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s really too early to speculate. We’ll answer that question once this season’s over, after we see how we finish. I think I’ll get an answer [from the Ducks] pretty soon after the season’s over.”

Every athlete thinks about how he will finish his career, whether it’s walking away on top--even if it’s too soon--or staying until they make you leave--even if it’s too late.

Kurri’s career has been marked by a quiet grace, and he doesn’t figure to hang on forever. Gordie Howe’s latest comeback, with Syracuse of the American Hockey League, does not impress him.

“What is that, an April Fool’s joke?” Kurri said. “I love the game. I enjoy it a lot, but I’d like to finish in . . . good taste . . . with a good feeling. That’s what I’d like to have when I walk away from the game, a good feeling that I did everything, I gave everything. And I wasn’t there hanging around, asking for favors. That’s important for me, to leave in good taste.”

There’s a difference between favors and the goodwill of his teammates, so many of them eager to witness his 600th, but none so much as Selanne.

“It’s going to be a great night when he reaches 600,” Selanne said. “I hope he does it here. He was my hero and my idol growing up. I followed him very closely, and so did every Finnish hockey player. When we realized a Finn could play so well in this league, it gave us hope and confidence.”

Selanne thinks about it whenever he gets the puck with Kurri on the ice, it seems, passing to him sometimes even when he has a better shot.

“I don’t blame him for that,” Wilson said. “Really, I don’t.”

That kind of gesture isn’t uncommon in hockey, once the game is in hand.

“Usually with other guys, you’ll see them go out of their way to try to help get somebody’s 500th goal,” Wilson said. “Pittsburgh was trying for the longest time to get Joe Mullen’s. With Dave Andreychuk, [the Devils] got an early lead and just tried to pass to him the rest of the game.”

Empty-net goals are another possibility. Kurri doesn’t have any this season, but he wouldn’t turn up his nose at six of them.

“I’ll take anything,” he said, laughing.

Chances at the empty net go most often to Selanne and Paul Kariya, who are on the ice trying to preserve a victory, or as a reward for their hard work. From here on out, watch for Kurri on the ice when there’s a safe opportunity.

“With a one-goal lead, you’ve got to make sure you win,” Wilson said. “But if we have a two-goal lead and an empty net at this point, I’ll have Jari out there the whole time.”