Coach, opponent defeat common foe - cancer

TORONTO -- One is a player in his prime felled by cancer at the start of the season. He now returns with his team close to its first trip to the NHL playoffs in three years.

The other is a veteran coach who underwent a stem cell transplant to beat cancer. He now gets a chance for a rare milestone.

Saku Koivu and Roger Neilson both make comebacks this week, adding extra emotion to the last days of an NHL season producing some of the tightest playoff races in memory.

The 27-year-old Koivu will take the ice tonight as his Montreal Canadiens try to secure a playoff berth before their passionate fans, who have suffered in recent years through the disgrace of losing teams and the sale of the franchise that symbolizes Francophone excellence to an American.

The opponent will be Neilson's Ottawa Senators, who announced Monday that Neilson -- an assistant coach -- will change places with head coach Jacques Martin for the last two games of the season to give him 1,000 games as an NHL head coach with a record eight teams.

While Neilson's milestones come later in the week -- on Thursday against Boston and Saturday against Toronto -- the Tuesday match between the Senators and Canadiens could be called the NHL Comeback Classic, at least for this season.

"To make this comeback is probably going to be the biggest day of my life," Koivu said Monday after the club announced his return.

He pronounced himself both "anxious" and "nervous," but said playing his first game at home would be better than on the road.

"The support I got throughout these seven months here was huge, and now I have the chance to give something back," Koivu said. "I can't wait to see how it will be tomorrow night."

Hopes for a Canadiens' revival this season were dashed when Koivu took ill on the flight from his home in Finland to training camp in September. The cause turned out to be non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

With Koivu believed out for the year, and perhaps forever, the team considered a long shot for the playoffs looked out of luck. Instead, the players adopted the team concept of coach Michel Therrien and have received exceptional goaltending from Jose Theodore. With help from acquisitions such as veteran center Doug Gilmour, Montreal has stayed in contention all season.

Perhaps buoyed by Koivu's return to practice in recent weeks, the team has won six straight games for a strong grip on the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, with another victory Tuesday clinching the berth.

"I think that the guys are playing awesome and we're at the situation we want to be," Koivu said.

His comeback is similar to the return last season of Mario Lemieux, the Pittsburgh Penguins' great who also resumed his NHL career after coming down with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Lemieux captained Canada to the Olympic gold medal in February, then quit for the season due to a hip injury.

Koivu, who has struggled through various injuries in six seasons with the Canadiens, had 17 goals and 30 assists in 54 games last season.

The 67-year-old Neilson joined Ottawa as an assistant coach after undergoing chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant to treat the multiple myeloma that was diagnosed in 1999, when he was head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers.

The Senators said Monday that Neilson would be head coach for the last two games of the regular season to make him the ninth in league history to coach 1,000 games. He also would be at the helm of his eighth team, breaking the record he shares with Mike Keenan, who also has coached seven clubs.

"Roger is such an icon of coaching in hockey around the world and in the NHL that we felt it a privilege to have him coach his 999th and 1,000th NHL games with the Ottawa Senators," general manager Marshall Johnston said. "From his contributions to the coaching fraternity to his innovations in improving the game for everyone, it would be an understatement to say that Roger has had an effect on the game as we know it today."

A lifetime coach with the lined face to prove it, Neilson called the opportunity to make history an honor.

"It's been almost 25 years since my first game as head coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs (on Oct. 13, 1977, when Toronto tied Detroit 3-3) and it's still as exciting as ever," he said.

In addition to Toronto and Philadelphia, Neilson coached Buffalo, Vancouver, Los Angeles, the New York Rangers, and Florida.