Tuesday, March 11, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
As Ruslan Salei made the 4 1/2-hour drive up Interstate 15 from Anaheim to Las Vegas, he had a lot to think about.
Was that his big chance getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror? Will the place that gave him his start get him on track and back to the big time?
Will there be a long line to visit the world's tallest thermometer (in Baker, Calif.)?
Salei, who was sent down by the Anaheim Mighty Ducks Saturday, made the trip Monday. He will be in uniform tonight when the Las Vegas Thunder hosts the Cleveland Lumberjacks in an IHL game at 7:05 p.m. at the Thomas & Mack Center.
"I'm sure Rusty's confidence might be at an all-time low," Thunder head coach Chris McSorley said. "But it's nothing 20 or 30 minutes of ice can't cure."
In 30 games with the Ducks, Salei had no goals, one assist, 37 penalty minutes and was a --8.
Those numbers are a negative image of the ones he posted with the Thunder in his first season of professional hockey. In 76 games, he recorded seven goals, 23 assists and 123 penalty minutes. His +42 was the International Hockey League's third-best.
The Ducks selected him in the first round, ninth overall, in last year's National Hockey League draft. But the emergence of other defensemen, especially Dan Trebil, slid Salei off the ice.
"We had better players," Anaheim assistant general manager David McNab said. "This is not a demotion by any stretch, but rather a matter of if you keep a 22-year-old around to play just a few shifts a game. The answer is no.
"In the front office, it's like, 'Where does Rusty fit in?' With as good a future as Salei has, the last thing we want him to do is be here and not play."
This is the second demotion of the season for Salei. He was sent to Baltimore of the American Hockey League Jan. 6 for more than a month.
"When we brought him back, we generally thought he would be here for the rest of the season," McNab said. "Rusty actually played much better the last 10 games than he did earlier in the year, but he sort of became our sixth, maybe seventh defenseman.
"They've got a great organization in Las Vegas and (Thunder GM Bob Strumm) has guaranteed that he'll play a lot."
McSorley will make sure that promise is upheld.
"I look for this acquisition to spark us further," he said. "It's going to be an added frustration to the opposition.
"Ruslan is known as one of the best defensive defensemen in the league, but the one part of his game that was never recognized is his ability to commit to the transition and his tremendous shot."
Salei was a teammate of Thunder defenseman Sergei Yerkovich when the two played for Tivali Minsk of the Russian Hockey League and their home country of Belarus in last year's World Cup.
McSorley isn't certain if he'll reunite the old friends, but admits it's a natural.
"It does pose a minor problem every coach wishes he had," McSorley said. "At this point, we have eight very competent defenseman capable of playing at this level."
Thunderbolts
* MR. TAMBURRO MAN: The Lumberjacks come into the Thomas & Mack Center with Mike Tamburro, the reigning IHL goaltender of the month. He has won his last eight starts. For the season, Tamburro is 11-5-2 with a 2.63 GAA and a .916 save percentage in 21 games, including a shutout. ... Tamburro isn't the only Lumberjack goalie to have good fortune this season. After 14 games with Cleveland, Patrick Lalime was called up to the Pittsburgh Penguins and became the hottest rookie goaltender in NHL history, starting his big-league career with a 14-0-2 run.
* SLAP SHOTS: The Thunder's game at Phoenix Sunday will be televised live at 4 p.m. on Prime Cable Channels 1 and 48. Satellite owners can catch the Thunder Saturday when it hosts Cleveland. The 7:05 p.m. game will be broadcast by SportsChannel Ohio on C1, Transponder 15. ... There are two changes on the Thunder's upcoming schedule. On March 30, Las Vegas will play at San Antonio at 4 p.m. and not at Utah as printed on the team's pocket schedule. Also, the April 12 home game against Phoenix has been moved to April 14 to accommodate the Oscar De La Hoya-Pernell Whitaker fight at the Thomas & Mack Center.
archive
