Briere to face off against St. Louis

ST. LOUIS - If he appears unusually pale in the face, don't be alarmed. That's just his normal complexion. If he seems wide-eyed and stargazed, don't panic. His eyes always look like that.

Nobody would blame little Daniel Briere if he felt nervous and scared and overwhelmed today in yet another do-or-die game for the Coyotes.

What NHL rookie in his right mind wouldn't be? Especially a skinny, 5-foot-9, baby-faced 20-year-old who looks as if he belongs on the set of Home Alone III instead of an ice hockey rink alongside grown men carrying sticks.

But Briere, the former first-round draft pick from Gatineau, Quebec, looks you squarely in the eye and says he isn't afraid in the least about playing in his biggest game ever against the St. Louis Blues, whom the Coyotes meet at 10 a.m. today at the Kiel Center.

"Knowing Daniel, I'm sure he won't be," said Coyotes assistant general manager Taylor Burke, whose primary responsibility is overseeing the development of players at the club's minor-league affiliate in Springfield, Mass., where Briere tore up the American Hockey League this season.

"The thing that really impresses me is his poise and his composure. He's had a lot of things thrown at him, and for a guy that young, he's handled everything that's come his way. He's a pretty remarkable kid."

Take the other night in Pittsburgh, for instance. With the game on the line in a tight battle with the Penguins, Briere explodes down the boards on a two-on-one rush with savvy veteran Mike Gartner.

He stick-handles in, closer, closer, and everyone in the building waits for the youngster to dish off to Gartner, the 700-goal scorer. But what does the kid do? He keeps the puck and shoots himself, almost fooling goalie Ken Wregget.

"Danny's got confidence," the 38-year-old Gartner said with an approving smile. "He didn't try and squeeze something that wasn't there. That was smart. . . . Although he probably should have shot it sooner."

Hey, he's a rookie.

But the Coyotes know they have something special. That's why they're suiting him up today against the Blues and sitting Gartner. That's why they gambled on him with the 24th overall pick in the 1996 draft, even though many scouts and general managers were scared off because of his size.

"It was somewhat of a risk," Coyotes General Manager Bobby Smith said. "But, at the same time, there were a lot of organizations, ours included, that felt he actually was the best player in the entire draft."

In his first four NHL games, Briere has shown Gretzky-like flashes and shades of Lemieux. He's confounded defensemen from behind the net. He's weaved in and out of traffic like a bicyclist during rush-hour on Interstate 17.

His first NHL goal was a thing of beauty. Taking a crossing pass from a sliding Gartner on the fly, Briere buried a one-timer in Los Angeles that brought the Coyotes bench to its feet.

In that split-second, the transformation was complete.

The critics said he was too small to make it in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. He proved them wrong for three seasons, amassing a whopping 170 goals and 416 points in only 198 games. They said he was too small for the AHL. He proved them wrong again, leading the league with 92 points in 68 games, scoring at least a point in 48 of them before his promotion to Phoenix.

And now, with his first goal out of the way, he's starting to prove the doubters wrong yet again.

"I'd like to think so," Briere said, "but at the same time, that was just one game. That was just one goal. I haven't proved anything here yet. I've got a long way to go. But you've got to start somewhere."

Briere never finished the game against the Kings. He left with a separated right shoulder after taking a check in the corner from Aki Berg. He missed two weeks before rejoining the team in New Jersey to start this five-game trip.

He never imagined he'd be with them at all this season, but after five Coyotes centers were injured in five consecutive games, he got a phone call from Burke.

"I told him to go wait by the phone," Springfield Falcons General Manager Bruce Landon said. "I knew what it was about, but I wanted Taylor to give him the news."

Briere gushes when the topic is mentioned. He said he thought Burke was simply calling to congratulate him for a nine-point performance in a three-game stretch.

"I don't think he believed me when I told him we were calling him up," Burke said. "I think he said to me, "Are you serious?' It was a fun call to make."