NHL NOTES\Roberts' return fans Flames.

Byline: Ken Rappoport Associated Press 

The way he's playing, the Calgary Flames are glad that Gary Roberts is back. But no one is more glad than Roberts himself.

"I went through a period where, obviously, I was going to retire, and now that I am back at the rink every day and in the dressing room with the guys, you learn to appreciate the game more," Roberts said.

Before coming back on Jan. 10, Roberts had missed 98 games following two separate operations on his neck. Since his return, Roberts has re-ignited the Flames.

"I didn't expect to have this kind of success," said Roberts, who had 13 goals and 12 assists in his first 18 games back to help the Flames jump into the playoff picture. "Sometimes I think that one of the reasons is I never really thought about producing offensively. I didn't want to play bad defensively, so I was really concerned about playing well in our own zone. Then, in return, I ended up getting more scoring chances."

Monster crowd: The Quad City Mallards have been pulling them in this season. They recently drew 9,443 fans for a game with the Madison Monsters, a Colonial Hockey League record. At the same time, the hot-drawing Mallards also set a league record for season attendance with 127,831. That broke the record of 127,830 established during the 1994-95 season by the Flint Generals.

Chris' kids:While Chicago's Chris Chelios is one of the hardest-hitting defensemen in the NHL, he is a soft touch off the ice, especially when it comes to children. When he is not playing hockey, Chelios finds time to work with disabled children in Chicago. The group is called "Cheli's Children."

Name game: When the Winnipeg Jets move to Phoenix next season, the team's name will be either the Coyotes or Scorpions.

A league source confirmed that the Jets will take on one of those two nicknames next season. The source said that the team and league have worked with jersey and logo design people and have come up with prototypes of a coyote and a scorpion. "I've seen both, and I hope they go with the Scorpions, because the logo is fantastic," the source said.

Red-hot river rat:Washington Capitals goaltender Jim Carey recently suffered a loss without even playing a game.

It happened when goaltender Mike Dunham led the Albany River Rats to a 5-3 American Hockey League victory over the Syracuse Crunch. The victory extended Dunham's unbeaten streak to an AHL record 17 (16-0-1), eclipsing Carey's 16-game streak with Portland.

TV stars:When the Pittsburgh Penguins pulled the season's highest NHL ratings for ESPN recently against the New York Rangers, it wasn't anything new.

The Penguins have been rating stars for the sports network for four years now.

They have posted ESPN's top three highest-rated regular-season games - Oct. 6, 1992, against Philadelphia, Feb. 19, 1995, against Buffalo and Feb. 18, 1996, against the Rangers.

The game with the Rangers delivered a 1.3 overnight Nielsen rating, meaning that more than 680,000 viewers watched the game.

The Penguins also have been big on Fox. Fox's televised season opener on Jan. 27 featuring Pittsburgh and Philadelphia was the highest this season for that network.

Stretching a point:Grant Fuhr of the St. Louis Blues is the only goaltender in the NHL to start every game this season. He said it's been easy so far.

Part of the reason is the exercises he's been doing with trainer Bob Kersee, coach and husband of Olympic heptathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

"Now I am doing more stretching than I have ever done in my career," said Fuhr, 35. "I probably put in half an hour a day stretching and haven't been too much in the pool this year.