by By Bruce Brothers bbrothers@pioneerpress.com , St. Paul Pioneer Press

The No. 1 overall pick in the 1988 NHL draft by the North Stars, Modano -- 39 and wearing a three-day beard -- still has that youthful appearance familiar to North Stars fans of long ago.

It's his 20th season in the NHL, but is it his last?

"I hope that it isn't," he said after skipping the Stars' early skate in favor of a massage on the morning after Dallas skated to a 2-1 win over Vancouver. "I'd like to continue playing. I feel up to it; I feel healthy and good about it. The good days outweigh the bad days physically and mentally."

After missing 13 games with a rib injury, Modano returned to the lineup last week and said he's "back in the flow" and excited about finally logging some consistent ice time under new Stars coach Marc Crawford.

Crawford, who recently coached his 1,000 NHL game, has the Stars playing at "a pretty high tempo, a lot of skating, a lot of speed," Modano said. "There's not much standing around and watching, so you're constantly being asked to move, backcheck, forecheck, do a lot of things. Shifts are a lot shorter, so there's a lot of energy put into those shifts."

He compared Crawford to Herb Brooks, who coached the 2002 U.S. Olympic team that won a silver medal, with Modano scoring six points in six games.

Brooks, like Crawford, "was very demanding," Modano said. "He loved execution; he loved the finesse and the speed of the game, but you remember him more for his pregame speeches than anything. He was always fired up, always ready to go. Sometimes that energy kind of spread through the team and the players."

Few players have been able to get up and down the ice faster than Modano, a native of Livonia, Mich., who is the top American-born points scorer in NHL history. Modano's jets were one reason he and Brooks clicked.

"He just thought outside the box," Modano said. "He was all about skating and passing and shooting and just speed, speed, speed. He always had teams that could keep it at a sustained level longer than other teams."

Asked if he would have liked to play full time for Brooks, Modano's eyes lit up.

"Yeah," he said, pausing before adding, "back when you were younger. When you're a little bit youthful and you have some energy ... back then he would have been a real fun guy to have around."

Wild coach Todd Richards was still playing "back then," and one day during summer workouts in Eden Prairie Richards looked up and there was Modano.

"I could not believe how fast he was," Richards recalled. "I thought I was a decent skater until I got out on the ice with him. He literally was standing two feet, three feet away from me, and I would say within a span of about three strides he was a good distance out.

"The thing I was impressed with is truly how explosive he was off the start. ... A great player."

Modano can still bring it, but he said with a smile that the gas pedal doesn't stay floored as long.

"Those sprints are shorter than they used to be," he said. "Sometimes it's still there and you feel like you can still get up and down pretty good, but not as long as you used to."

This is one of just two appearances in the Twin Cities for the Stars, who close out the regular season on April 8 at the Xcel Energy Center. Modano said he loves coming here.

"A lot of those memories come rushing back every time we get here. Landing at the airport and going to our hotel, I see a lot of familiar faces," he said. "I've always enjoyed coming back and playing here."

Briefly: Forward James Sheppard, who played all 82 games last season, was a healthy scratch for the second time this season for the Wild .

Stars defenseman Matt Niskanen, who's from Mountain Iron, Minn., had about a dozen friends and family members at the game and said it would have been more, but "it's the opening of deer season."

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