BY CLARK SPENCER cspencer@herald.com
TAMPA -- Last season is a sensitive topic with Olli Jokinen. ``I really don't want to think about that anymore,'' he said. ``I was pretty happy when the season was over. I felt so empty, like I didn't give anything to the team.'' Jokinen was largely invisible, disappearing for games -- and even months -- at a time. He was nothing close to the player the Panthers expected when they obtained him and goaltender Roberto Luongo from the Islanders.
He is receiving a second chance. Jokinen is using the preseason to audition for the role of second-line center on a unit that will include wings Valeri Bure and Kristian Huselius. He centered that line in Friday's 3-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning, but did nothing extraordinary. ``But overall, I thought he had a pretty darn good game,'' Panthers coach Duane Sutter said.
Still, Jokinen's chief rival for the job -- 18-year-old rookie Stephen Weiss -- might receive one last shot to make an impression in the Panthers' final preseason game tonight in National Car Rental Center.
``We're counting on one of the two to play that position,'' Sutter said. It was Sutter who first recommended Jokinen to the Panthers when Sutter was scouting for the organization. But the Jokinen that Sutter saw then wasn't the one that spent most of last season in a prolonged funk. Even Jokinen knew he wasn't all there, and sensed that his teammates knew as well.
``A game day should be the happiest day of the year, and last season sometimes I wasn't too happy to come to the rink,'' Jokinen said. ``You'd walk in the locker room and it was, `We saw you play last year and you were good. And now you're not doing anything.' They didn't say that, but you could feel it.''
Jokinen had his differences with then-coach Terry Murray, was a healthy scratch for four games in December after a November in which he had fewer points (one, an assist) than even goaltender Trevor Kidd. His final numbers were anemic: six goals and 10 assists, and a team-worst minus 22 rating. And he descended from a second-line right wing at the start to a third- and even fourth-line player toward the end.
To correct that, Jokinen spent the summer in his native Finland working with a personal conditioning coach. After showing up overweight to start the 1999-2000 season with the Islanders, then shedding too much when he arrived in South Florida to play for the Panthers, Jokinen spent the offseason trying to find a median. He said he gained 8 pounds, all in muscle.
``Now I feel much stronger on the ice,'' he said. ``When your legs are stronger, your skating is better. I want to be one of those guys who steps up this year.'' Sutter said he has noticed a change in Jokinen, mentally as well as physically. But he is still waiting for Jokinen to show some consistency.
``I think just by talking to him I see a difference in him mentally and I think he's ready to deal with the role,'' Sutter said. ``He's got to get back to that level. He was really good early in camp. But he's tapered off.''