Since Ville Nieminen was benched for four of eight games following a three-game point streak, rumors have been rampant.
Rumors that he was benched for saying he missed Colorado, from where he was traded almost a year ago for defenseman Darius Kasparaitis.
Rumors that he was on the trading block. 
Rumors that he was being punished for hitting Joel Bouchard in the face with the puck, breaking his jaw, on a clearing attempt Feb. 20 against the Avalanche.
The reason coach Rick Kehoe gave for sitting Nieminen three games in a row was that the second-year forward was in a rut, and they were trying to get him out of it, a position he maintains. Nieminen sat in one other game, Feb. 9 vs. Boston, and both Kehoe and Nieminen said it benefited him greatly. Nieminen has played in the last two games.
On Tuesday, Nieminen defended his statements to Colorado reporters when the Avalanche were in town two weeks ago. 
"If you say do I miss back home, where I’m from? Of course I miss it," said Nieminen, who comes from Finland. "I think in life people are allowed to say how they feel. It’s not saying anything bad about Pittsburgh. I love Pittsburgh. But I had good memories in Colorado. Of course, I’m allowed to miss that place. That doesn’t mean I want to go back there."
Kehoe denied punishing Nieminen for his comments, saying that he hadn’t heard anything about it. He also said he wasn’t angry with Nieminen for the accident involving Bouchard. 
"It was a play where he was trying to get the puck out," Kehoe said. "First of all, he tried to make a pass in the neutral zone, and then it went back in our end. He went back to get it, and he was clearing it, and then it hit Bouchard."
Nieminen vehemently denied that hitting Bouchard was anything other than an accident. 
"Of course it was an accident," Nieminen said. "In the flow of the game, things like that happen. I think it’s even weird to think it was something other than an accident. If somebody thinks it was an incident. … It’s just a silly subject to even talk about it."
Management has told Nieminen (eight goals, 12 assists, minus-16) that he will not be traded before the deadline Tuesday at 3 p.m.
 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Ville Nieminen returned to the Penguins lineup Thursday night. How long he’ll be on the team’s roster remains to be seen. Nieminen and his agent, Larry Kelly, said yesterday that they believe a trade is imminent. 
“I would expect so,” Kelly said, pointing to the fact that several of his calls to Penguins general manager Craig Patrick had gone unreturned and “it’s not like Craig not to get back to me.”
Patrick insisted that he isn’t shopping Nieminen, but he also left the distinct impression that he isn’t pleased with him, wondering aloud if there would even be a market for Nieminen.
“Nobody’s called about him,” Patrick said. 
Penguins management sent a loud message when Nieminen was scratched three consecutive games after posting a three-game point streak (two goals, two assists) with a plus-4 rating. He played a pivotal role in two Penguins victories.
“I felt I had a pretty good stretch right there,” Nieminen said. 
Nieminen’s recent stretch of apparently good play came on the heels of a healthy scratch in Boston. He said getting scratched that day helped him. He felt differently about the latest series of scratches, saying he was “disappointed, upset and confused.”
Nieminen was asked before yesterday’s game if the coaches made him aware of what he needed to change. 
“I think, um … to be honest, I haven’t heard anything,” he said. “They asked me, ‘Are you ready?’ I said, ‘I’ve been ready for the past week.’ That’s the only answer I could come up with.”
Penguins coach Rick Kehoe apparently was dissatisfied with Nieminen’s defensive work and his ability to follow coaches’ instructions.
“Right now, he’s in that rut,” Kehoe said. “And we’re trying to get him out of that." 
Nieminen was quoted in Colorado papers last week as saying he missed Colorado and that all the money talk surrounding the Penguins was a drag. 
“(Can't) they talk about anything else but that?” he said. “They talk a lot about the (collective bargaining agreement) here, because one guy (Mario Lemieux) is on both sides. They talk a lot about a lockout. I think us players, we don't care; we just play hockey. But it hasn't been fun all the time."
For the record, Nieminen said he wants to stay with the Penguins. 
“Why would I want to go somewhere else? Why?” he said. “I want to play here. I want to play hockey. I want to play good hockey. Three games being a healthy scratch doesn’t change my mind. You just have to keep playing.” 

Nieminen’s benching remains a mystery
   
By Karen Price
www.pittsburhglive.com
Tuesday, February 25, 2003 

Ville Nieminen recently played perhaps the three best games of his Penguins career, scoring against the Devils on Feb. 15 and the Oilers on Feb. 18. He added an assist against the Oilers, then had an assist and was a plus-1 against his former team, the Avalanche, on Thursday. It was only the second time this year he recorded points in three consecutive games.
He never got the chance to run the streak to four. 
On Saturday, he was a healthy scratch against the St. Louis Blues, and after the win, was watching on TV for Sunday’s loss to New Jersey as well. On Monday, the reason for the benching was still a mystery to him.
"Players play and coaches coach, and coaches tell players when you play and when you don’t," he said. 
Coach Rick Kehoe gave the same reason for sitting Nieminen as he’s given for most every other benching this season. 
"It’s just a combination of guys getting healthy, and he was the odd guy out," Kehoe said. "He’ll get his opportunity again." 
A similar answer prompted defenseman Andrew Ference to sound off after being traded to the Calgary Flames on Feb. 10. Ference was benched in 12 of 17 games leading up to the trade, and then said that the only explanation he got was that it was a matter of timing.
"That’s what I had to take away from it, and it was frustrating," Ference said. "One of the things I craved, was to be told why and know the reasoning and whatever I needed to change."
Nieminen was benched one other time this season, against the Boston Bruins on Feb. 8. Both Nieminen and Kehoe said he responded well. Kehoe did say a week ago that he’d like to see Nieminen shoot more. 
When asked if he was disappointed or upset, Nieminen said, "I don’t know. … both. There’s not much I can say, but those are the only two words in the book right now."
 

Nieminen fired up to face old mates

By Joe Starkey
www.pittsburghlive.com
Thursday, February 20, 2003 

When the Penguins released their 2002-03 schedule last summer, one game just about leaped off the page and smacked winger Ville Nieminen in the face. His old Colorado Avalanche teammates would be visiting Mellon Arena on Feb. 20.
It’s finally here. 
“I’ve been waiting for this game for a long time,” Nieminen said Wednesday. “The timing couldn’t be any better.” 
Well, it could. If Colorado was in the midst of a 10-game losing streak, for example, instead of a 13-game point streak (10-0-2-1), the Penguins might feel a lot better about their chances. But the timing is good for Nieminen, who has played two excellent games in a row.
 

In fact, he pulled off a rare feat in Tuesday’s 4-3 victory over the Edmonton Oilers. How many players in Penguins history have been named the first star after a home game in which Mario Lemieux scored the winning goal — in overtime, no less? Lemieux was named second star.
“Wrong order,” Nieminen said, laughing. 
Tonight will mark the first time Nieminen has faced his former team since he and defenseman Rick Berry were dealt to the Penguins last March, in exchange for defenseman Darius Kasparaitis. Nieminen played parts of two seasons with the Avalanche and helped it win the 2001 Stanley Cup. Even though he has labored to fit in with the Penguins, last year’s trade isn’t looking too shabby from the Penguins’ perspective. 
First off, Colorado failed to reach the Stanley Cup final with Kasparaitis, then watched him sign an incredibly inflated deal (five years, $25.5 million) with the New York Rangers. He has struggled for most of the season. 
Berry, meanwhile, was claimed by the Washington Capitals in the preseason waiver draft, much to the dismay of many Penguins observers. He barely has been heard from since, playing in just 36 games and often a healthy scratch. 
Nieminen isn’t exactly on a Hart Trophy crusade, but he’s had his moments. His 19 points (eight goals, 11 assists) make him the Penguins’ fourth-leading scorer among players in the lineup tonight. He leads the club in short-handed goals with two.
On the down side, Nieminen’s plus-minus rating (minus-13) is second-worst on the team, and he has flat-out disappeared for lengthy stretches, including point-less streaks of 11 and 10 games. The best thing that happened to him might have been watching from the press box Feb. 8 at Boston. Penguins coach Rick Kehoe made Nieminen a healthy scratch after seeing him go minus-4 without a point for 10 games. 
Nieminen contends that he was not an entirely healthy scratch. 
“I was sick mentally a couple of games before that,” he said, jokingly. 
In four games since then, he has three points and a plus-3 rating. He made some nifty plays in the past two games, skating on the second line with center Randy Robitaille and rookie winger Tomas Surovy. Nieminen has two goals and an assist — a pretty tap pass to Surovy — in the two games. He and Kehoe agree that the healthy scratch helped.
“It’s good to get your stuff together, think about it and go from there,” Nieminen said. 
Said Kehoe: “Sometimes, you get in a rut and you need to just sit back and analyze your game. You can show a guy all the film you want. You can talk to him all you want, but sometimes he has to realize it himself. He responded, and that’s what the coaching staff wants when they sit somebody out.”
The coaching staff would love to see Nieminen, 25, add consistency to his game. His ice time appears to have stabilized at a little more than 11 minutes per game, down significantly from earlier in the season. It still isn’t clear exactly what the Penguins have in Nieminen, although it’s clear he’ll need to be one of the players who helps pick up the slack for departed goals leader Alexei Kovalev. 
This is just Nieminen’s second full season in the NHL. 
“He has offensive skills,” Kehoe said. “I’d like to see him shoot more (69 shots in 58 games). He’s got a pretty good shot. He kills penalties. He’s been on the power play. We’re still trying to find out what kind of player he is. Maybe he’s just an all-around player. I don’t know.”
Nieminen isn’t overly excited about his past two games — “Let’s not go building any kind of cloud homes or skyscrapers or something like that,” he said — but he’s seriously pumped for tonight’s matchup. Not because he bears any grudge against the Avalanche but because he’s eager to smash heads with his old mates.
Anybody in particular he’d like to hit? 
“I’ll try to hit the net,” he said. 
 

YOU DON'T SAY 

Penguins winger and Finland native Ville Nieminen has a way with words, and, as teammate Randy Robitaille put it, “He always has something to say.” Often, it’s something worth pondering. Here’s a sampling of Nieminen quotes since he joined the Penguins a year ago:

·  On his recent good play: “Let’s not go building any kind of cloud homes or skyscrapers or something like that. It’s just two games.”

·  On losing Alexei Kovalev: “There’s a hole in the highway. Every player has to chip in a little bit of sand from his own pocket, so we can fill it and keep going.” 

·  On chatting up opponents: “I don't know how they could understand my language. It's Finglish. You need a translator." 

·  On his stretch of minus games earlier this season: “Playing like that — having a green jacket at minus-11 — is unacceptable.” 

·  On Kovalev’s pinpoint shot that beat Buffalo on Jan. 21: “You don’t even want to celebrate on a goal like that. That was from somewhere else. That guy comes out of some other league, some better league.” 

·  On building his summer home: “I had to do axing and lumber chucking. I was cutting down trees. It's good to work out like that. It's like natural work. My hands are thinner than a hockey stick." 

·  On the Penguins’ timid play in a season-ending, 7-1 loss last season at Boston: “Nice guys finish last. It’s as simple as that in the NHL.”