The Team with "All of Everything"

By Tom Callahan

Winging it happily at the right hand of Gretzky

Ice hockey is perplexing enough without Wayne Gretzky, whose previous feats are yet to be explained, and here he is bettering them. Nearly halfway through the season last week, he had scored at least one point in every game, 39 games and counting, nine beyond the old record. Now and then, hockey teams might expect to be shut out, but not the Edmonton Oilers, evidently. With 42 goals and 71 assists, Gretzky is ahead of his brightest pace, and Jari Kurri, his right winger, is second in the National Hockey League with 34 goals and 43 assists.

No longer merely an opinion, it is now a documented fact that next to Gretzky is next to godliness. In the national newspaper USA Today last week, the player who scored the winning goal in Edmonton's 6-3 victory over Calgary was identified as "God." If this was the work of a mischiefmaker, it caused no confusion among the readers. Considering the company he keeps, no wonder then that Kurri is scarcely noticed. "Playing on the same line with Wayne Gretzky," Oilers Coach Glen Sather denies saying a few years ago, "a fire hydrant could score 40 goals." Whoever authored the phrase, Kurri has worn out several Finnish-English dictionaries trying to decipher it. Most often the third party on the line is Jaroslav Pouzar, a Czechoslovak with his own dictionary. "I do most of the talking for all of us," Gretzky says.

Four years removed from Helsinki, Kurri does speak halting, charming English, learned painstakingly in front of a television set and at the foot of the Fonz. As he explains, "I watched Happy Days every time and Three's Company over and over. In any language, nobody cannot figure out Three's Company." This is the wisdom that passes understanding.

Finland is a country of fewer than 5 million people, and there are more saunas than ice rinks. Though he is the finest hockey player the Finns have ever exported to North America, Kurri returns home each spring to a pleasant obscurity. He is a splendid skater, a strong outside shooter, an artful stickhandler and a responsible back checker. Judging right wingers, Gretzky puts Kurri in a class with the New York Islanders' Mike Bossy. Among all-round players, he may even rate with the Islanders' Bryan Trottier. Kurri does not care to be lumped with the other Europeans in the N.H.L., particularly the Swedes, whom he regards as figure skaters. One cannot grow up next door to the Soviet Union without developing a certain readiness for combat.

When the Oilers were arranging boxing lessons, a valuable sideline in this sport, Kurri was quick to sign up. Later, each player was asked to write out what he considered to be his essential role on the team, and Kurri put down "Beating up anybody who picks on Wayne." But to date he has been held back, despite himself, by an essentially peaceful nature and snug gloves. A formidable if not imposing 6 ft. 1 in., 185 Ibs., Kurri has yet to appear in a fight. "My gloves won't shake off," he moans.

No one has a better view of the great Gretzky. "He's so smart, he's so confident, he's so wide open usually," Kurri exclaims. "We know each other so well now, we're instinctive, I think. He looks out at the whole rink, and can see all of every thing, even into my head." Against Winnipeg a few days before Christmas, they both scored short handed goals 15 seconds apart, a phenomenon that is becoming something of an Oiler specialty. Consider that Calgary, for instance, has scored 21 power-play goals this year, when the opponent was outnumbered. Edmonton has had 20 shorthanded ones, Gretzky eight of those. Twenty-five and ten constitute the N.H.L. records. "We don't ice the puck overly too much," as Kurri says.

Another thing they don't do too often is beat the New York Islanders, who have been the Stanley Cup champions for four years, or as long as the Oilers have been in the league. After rolling up 424 goals during the 80-game regular season last year and sailing through the playoffs, Edmon ton was swept meekly in the finals by the Islanders. Though the Oilers' record is now the best in the league, two more losses to New York last month depressed them momentarily. To be sure, not enough to exchange their freewheeling skaters' game for any proven pattern that emphasizes defense. Knowing Edmon ton's style will stay indefensible until it succeeds, Gretzky withholds argument and simply says, "We still have a long way to go." But Kurri imagines, "Once we break through against the Islanders, we'll have broken through for all and ever," and he is not the only one who thinks so.

Even the New York players talk of holding off the Oilers for just a while longer. "All the talent in the world doesn't mean you're going to win," says Islander Defenseman Denis Potvin. But in the long run, as Damon Runyon would say, that's the way to bet.

Accompanying Gretzky, the Oilers do have talent in unusual abundance: Kurri, Mark Messier (an all-star without benefit of ever playing on Gretzky 's line), Glenn Anderson, Paul Coffey. All of them are trying to perform at the level of Gretzky. He lifts them. Says Kurri: "It's very surprising to me that I'm playing with Wayne Gretzky and second in the scoring lead. But he plays up here, and so I try to play up there too. We don't mind losing some attention to him and his rec rds because he does so much for the hockey team. I haven't changed my style, but I've changed my standards." Eloquently said.

-- By Tom Callahan