There was a time when it looked like Barry Trotz might not be able to set the record for longest term of an original expansion coach. Now, it appears that the Nashville Predators bench boss could put the number out of reach.

Trotz tied Terry Crisp (Tampa Bay) for the longest tenure at 390 games Thursday. And after a 6-0 win over Pittsburgh, it appears the Edward G. Robinson look-a-like isn't going anywhere else any time soon.

	CHIRPIN'
	"It would be disheartening. You spend a lot of time rebuilding a team, getting it to where it is…I'm not going to talk about Toronto or anything like that. This is my team right now. If something happens, I'll comment on it.'' -- San Jose Sharks captain Owen Nolan, when asked about trade rumors surrounding his name.
	THE NUMBER
	5.25 That's the number of power-play opportunities the Nashville Predators draw per game, ranking first overall in the NHL.
	WHO'S HOT
	Unlike his painful trudge to 700 goals, Detroit Red Wings forward Brett Hull sprinted through the 1,300-point barrier Thursday night. He now has five goals and eight assists for 13 points in the last six games.
	WHO'S NOT
	Needing some spectacular goaltending to help pull themselves out of a horrendous injury-plagued spiral, the Oilers have received marginal play from Tommy Salo. If he continues this pace (4.19 GAA in past five games), the Oilers might miss the playoffs.
	THIS WEEK'S SIGN ...
	... the times they are a-changin': OK, there's not much that changes at the top of the Western Conference on a year-to-year basis (Playoff table ready for Mr. Colorado, Mr. Detroit, Mr. Dallas and Mr. St. Louis), but the improvements in Minnesota, Anaheim and Nashville appear to be real. Could it be that these are some of the teams that will be making regular playoff appearances in the future?

After a 2-10-4-4 start that had some speculating that Trotz would lose his job, the Predators have rebounded with a more-than-solid fifth season. Nashville was on a 7-1-0 run after the Pittsburgh win that pulled the team to 25-25-9-4 and just four points out of the final playoff spot in the West.

It's a turnaround that's darn near miraculous.

"If you'd had told me we'd be in this situation after winning two of our first 20 games, I'd have said you were crazy,'' Predators captain Greg Johnson told the Nashville Tennessean.

But a thorough inspection of the lineup shows the Predators are building in quite a sane manner. GM David Poile took a calculated risk over the past 12 months, trading away the two players who had formed the heart of his expansion team -- center Cliff Ronning and goalie Mike Dunham. But, in doing so, Poile helped force the growth of his team's other parts.

Now, young center David Legwand has become the team's leading scorer, and Tomas Vokoun has developed into one of the West's hottest goalies.

The result is the team has a new focus and, more importantly, a new energy. Nashville, which has not dented 200 goals in its history (and won't again this season), is now churning out five-goal performances. Legwand has 17 goals, rookie Adam Hall has 16, Andy Delmore has 17, and Vladimir Orszagh has 14. And all should get better in the future.

Maybe most impressive in this stretch has been the perseverance of Poile and Trotz. When the Predators went 50 games without consecutive victories, the entire team could have fallen apart. Instead, the two stuck together and the team grew together.

Poile said firing Trotz never crossed his mind.

"I think in a lot of ways, Barry Trotz is just like his players,'' Poile said. "He's a blue-collar, hard-working guy who's just trying to get better every day.''

Expect Trotz to get plenty more games in his attempt to do just that.

Daze joins 'infected' list
This has been a strange NHL season. "Battling infection" has popped up more and more on injury lists.

A handful of players have missed significant playing time this season with infections. Toronto's Mikael Renberg had a scary incident earlier in the season when he had to be rushed to a hospital because of a hand infection. Teammate Ed Belfour was held out after cutting his finger on the eyelet of his skate. Detroit's Darren McCarty has had to carry a portable IV to feed medicine to his infected elbow.

Now comes word from Chicago that winger Eric Daze has an infected foot and also is going to spend a few days in the hospital. Daze had "skate bite,'' and his ankle began to swell. The Blackhawks weren't taking any chances and immediately sent him to the hospital for intravenous antibiotics.

There is no timetable for Daze's return, but the treatment appears similar to one used for Bruins center Joe Thornton, who returned to the ice after missing five games in January.

Joseph getting his legs in Detroit
Curtis Joseph might have made a huge step forward Thursday with his 7-2 win over the Maple Leafs. He earned the crowd's confidence and went even further in earning the confidence of his teammates.

But, insiders have said, Joseph has been earning his teammates' confidence for the better part of a month as his improved play helped pull them out of a midseason slump.

"There's been some criticism for him, but we haven't played well in front of him,'' winger Darren McCarty told the Detroit News. "We're starting to play better in front of him now.''

Park shining like a diamond
Part of the beauty of being an expansion team is you're forced to look for talent in areas where other teams simply don't want to go.

Take Minnesota's Richard Park, for example. Once a highly touted second-round draft pick in 1994, Park washed out in Pittsburgh, Anaheim and Philadelphia and had played almost three full seasons in the minors before Minnesota picked him up as a free agent in 2000.

Park rewarded the team with 10 goals last season and already has 13 this year. He's part of the scoring depth that has eight Wild players in double-digit goals and has the team pushing its goals per game to 2.46 -- up from 2.05 last season.

Depth Chart