St. Louis Post-Dispatch - December 23, 1989

Brind'Amour Seeks to Snap 13-Game Goal-Scoring Skid

by Tom Wheatley

od Brind'Amour has gone an unlucky 13 consecutive games without a goal. By all accounts, the rookie left winger is handling the drought like a grizzled veteran. Brind'Amour, 19, is looking for goals, not alibis. ''I feel fine,'' he said Friday afternoon, before the Blues flew to New Jersey to play the Devils tonight. ''People keep asking me if I'm tired, but I don't feel tired. I feel all right, strength-wise and everything. Really, I feel pretty good.''

Drought or not, Brind'Amour still ranks second among rookie scorers. He has 12 goals and 19 assists for 31 points. Sergei Makarov of Calgary, the 31-year-old rookie from the Soviet Union, leads with nine goals, 32 assists and 41 points.

Brind'Amour says he hit the odd dry spell as an amateur. ''It's never gone to this extent, though,'' he said. ''I'm getting a few chances here and there, and I'm not putting them in. I was putting them in before.''

Players in a slump have a way of attracting weird advice from well-wishers. Brind'Amour said he has had some suggestions ''here and there,'' but he is sticking to conventional wisdom. ''You just work out of it,'' he said. ''That's all you can do. Just try to bear down and go after it. Sooner or later, you've got to net one. If not, it's going to be trouble.''

Not according to Blues coach Brian Sutter. ''I admire a kid like that,'' Sutter said. ''He's actually insulted when somebody thinks he might be tired. Fatigue is the worst excuse any hockey player can make. Hey, we've only practiced three times in the last two weeks. ''That's typical of the kind of kid he is. You walk up to him and say he might be tired, and he says, 'Tired, my butt.' ''

As always, Sutter had a less than mystical explanation for the problem. ''Hey, sometimes the puck just doesn't go in the net,'' Sutter said. ''Sometimes teams pay a little more attention to him. And sometimes maybe things don't come as easy as they did at first.'' As always, Sutter had a less than mystical solution for the problem. ''When you're not scoring,'' Sutter said, ''you go back to fundamentals. Shoot the puck and go to the net. He's a very unselfish hockey player. He sees other guys passing the puck, and he wants to pass it, too.''

Brind'Amour has taken only 66 shots. That's nearly a hundred fewer than teammate Brett Hull, who leads the NHL with 29 goals and 160 shots. ''It's tough to convince a kid who's unselfish to shoot the puck more,'' Sutter said. ''But that's what we've been telling Roddy.''

The Bottom Line: Sutter, on Brind'Amour: ''If you had 20 kids like him, it'd be a coach's dream. Brind'Amour, on Sutter's compliment: ''Aw, you just caught him on a good day.''