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Tag: Zdeno Chara

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Feb 22, 2013

The Canadiens Own the Recent Rangers

The Rangers’ second meeting this week with the first-place Canadiens called for an email exchange with Andrew Berkshire of Eyes on the Prize.

The Rangers lost another game in which they led on Thursday night in Ottawa. Now their two-game road trip north of the border stops in Montreal on Saturday night for their second meeting with the first-place Canadiens this week.

Andrew Berkshire of Eyes on the Prize joined me for an email exchange to talk about why no one is giving the Canadiens the credit they deserve, why they are a bad matchup for the Rangers and what it’s like to have Brandon Prust on the Habs.

Keefe: John Tortorella called the Canadiens a “bad team” (which I ripped him for) after their win over the Rangers on Tuesday night. Henrik Lundqvist called the Canadiens “boring” despite their 3-1 win and now first-place spot in the Eastern Conference. No one seems to want to give the Habs credit for their strong start and five-game winning streak before their shootout loss on Thursday, but we are now one-third of the way through this shortened NHL season and while 17 games might not be a strong enough sample size in other years, it certainly is this year.

Why isn’t anyone giving credit to the Canadiens for their 11-4-2 start? They just won five games in seven days and beat the Hurricanes in Montreal and the Rangers in New York in less than 24 hours. They have outscored their opponents 18-9 over the last six games and outside of their loss to the Senators on Jan. 30 and their loss to the Maple Leads on Feb. 9, they have either won every other game or lost by one goal. The Canadiens might not have the type of stars other teams around the league do or an exciting and flashy style of play and maybe they are “boring,” but the Devils proved that “boring” can lead to championships in the NHL.

I’m buying into the Canadiens, but why isn’t everyone else?

Berkshire: As far as Torts goes, he’s always bitter after a loss it seems. His grumpy demeanor is funny from the outside at times, but it also wears thin. The Canadiens team he saw was playing its third game in four nights, all against teams that are fighting to get into the playoff picture. I don’t think the Canadiens were particularly great that night, but calling them a bad team is just Torts blowing hot air.

As for Henrik, I believe he also called them a smart team, which gives it a little context. The Canadiens played a boring brand of hockey against the Rangers on Tuesday, there is no denying that, but they were dog-tired and it ended up working.

I think the main reason no one wants to believe that the Canadiens are a good team is that, especially among the mainstream press, narratives are hard to shake. Under Jacques Martin the Canadiens were labeled a bad team, even though they were actually a good team. When they fell apart last year, many people felt like they’d been given justification for their former misgivings. And these are Habs fans! There are a lot of people who would rather be right than see their team win, and I think that was largely the case there.

As far as national media goes, the Canadiens were so bad last year for two thirds of the year that it was hard to believe they could possibly recover so quickly. At Eyes on the Prize, we go over a lot of data every day and we figured that a quick turnaround was more than possible, in fact it was highly likely. You can only be so bad when you have Carey Price, P.K. Subban and Andrei Markov heading up your back end. But it’s hard for a lot of people to move away from their opinions. The Habs were bad last year, so surely they would be bad again.

All this said, the Canadiens have still been one of the luckiest teams in the league, with high shooting percentages for several players that aren’t really sustainable. They’re going to lose more often in the next few weeks than they have so far this year, but they’re a playoff team in my opinion, maybe a Top 4 team in the East.

Keefe: I’m a Yankee fan, so I understand people wanting to be right and have their opinions be validated rather than having their team win.

It seems like there’s something different about the Rangers when they play the Canadiens. Actually I know there is. No matter how well the Rangers have played leading into the game or for how long they have been playing well, they always seem to either give an awful effort against or look like a completely different team when they face the Habs.

The Canadiens have won 11 of the last 17 meetings with the Rangers dating back to the beginning of the 2008-09 season. (I started counting with the 2008-09 season because the 2007-08 season featured the Rangers’ epic embarrassment on Feb. 19, 2008 when they blew a 5-0 lead in Montreal with 34:57 left in the game. I’m sure you remember that game well.) After Saturday’s game, the Rangers and Canadiens will only meet one other time this season (unless they meet in the playoffs) on March 30.

Why do you think the Rangers seem to never have their best game or anything that closely resembles their normal game when they play the Canadiens even though the names on the rosters change?

Berkshire: It’s an interesting question. I believe heading into that 5-0 comeback game the Rangers had dominated the Habs for a couple straight years, but I could be wrong.

I think part of it could be psychological. That game between the Rangers and Habs in 2008 was a turning point in that season for Montreal, and they blitzed through the rest of the season to finish first in the conference. One guy who always seems to be ordinary against the Habs is Lundqvist and we all know that he’s anything but ordinary. It’s possible that he’s still annoyed with that game a few years later. Something I’ve noticed with Lundqvist is that if you put a few past him, he stops fighting to make saves, and gets visibly frustrated.

Other than perhaps some latent mental frustration lasting from that game, I don’t really think there’s a logical explanation. The Rangers are a strong team, especially defensively that they shouldn’t be too far below .500 against the Habs.

It reminds me a little of the Habs and Leafs. The Leafs have been a terrible team by pretty much any measure for the last five or so years, while the Canadiens have been OK to strong over that time, yet they split the games down the middle. Something about the way the two teams match up that isn’t readily apparent causes results that shouldn’t happen.

Keefe: Brian Gionta has been one of my favorite players in the league since he debuted during the 2001-02 season even though his career has been spent with New Jersey and Montreal. I had the chance to watch him in college at Boston College and admired his scoring ability and his style of play despite being 5-foot-7, which he’s listed at, but appears way, way smaller.

Scott Gomez was also a personal favorite of mine after his Calder Trophy campaign in 1999-2000 despite playing for New Jersey and I was ecstatic when the Rangers signed him before the 2007-08 season. I was even more ecstatic when they were able to trade him to the Canadiens before the 2009-10 season.

The two of them formed the EGG line in New Jersey with Patrik Elias before teaming up in Montreal, but now their careers have gone separate ways with Gionta being the captain of the Canadiens and Gomez being told to go home for the year before ending up with the Sharks.

How much do you enjoy getting to watch Gionta play for your Canadiens and how did you feel about Gomez’s time and unusual departure?

Berkshire: I’m one of the few Canadiens fans who doesn’t harbor any ill will against Scott Gomez. It’s not his fault that Glen Sather signed him to an insane contract and it’s not his fault that Bob Gainey gave up Ryan McDonagh and Chris Higgins for him (two players that are younger and better than he is).

Gomez had the misfortune of being in Montreal when his career plateaued and he began to decline into old age and he was eviscerated for it. That said, he did have one very good year in 2009-10, and probably could have had a second one in 2010-11 if the Pacioretty-Gomez-Gionta line was a thing from the start of the season to the end.

I enjoyed watching Gomez’s transition game and neutral-zone play, which is still a strong skill set of his, but the rest got to be pretty mind-numbing by last year. I was glad to see him go, although it was still surprising. I think in the end, the buyout is good for both the Canadiens and Scott Gomez, who no longer has to worry about being labeled overpaid.

Gionta on the other hand, has been excellent for the Habs. He’s also at the age where his scoring has taken a slight dip every year, from a near 40-goal pace in his first year, to near 30, to an injury plagued year and now he’s likely a 25-goals-per-82-games kind of player.

He’s still solid defensively and plays a strong possession game against top competition though, and he rarely takes a shift off. Watching Gionta go in on the forecheck against Zdeno Chara and winning the puck battle tells you all you need to know about the Habs captain.

Keefe: Brandon Prust became an important part of the Rangers after being traded to New York in the Olli Jokinen deal three years ago. His grinder style of play and his willingness to fight anyone at anytime made him a blue-collar player and fan favorite in the city. My friend Dave went so far as to buy a Prust jersey last season, which I strongly advised him not to do.

So far this season Prust has already has two goals and five points after having just five goals and 17 points in all 82 games last year. He has a plus-7 rating, leads the league in penalty minutes with 76 (on pace to break his career high even in a shortened season) and is second in the league with six fighting majors. At four years and $10 million it seemed like the Habs overpaid for Prust in the summer, but he is giving them everything he gave the Rangers in two-plus seasons and more. Right now the Rangers could use Prust, but instead he’s helping your team try to achieve the 1-seed this season.

Berkshire: I really like Brandon Prust. I think his contract is a little too much money for a little bit too long, but that’s what happens with unrestricted free agents who have a unique skill set.

He’s already a fan favorite here, which has led to fans and media completely overblowing his value to the point where our local sports radio station asserted that he’s been the second most important player on the team this year. That’s pretty crazy and I wrote about what his real value is to the team on Wednesday.

I think he’s an above average fourth liner who can play on the third line if necessary, something the Canadiens have four of now along with Travis Moen, Colby Armstrong and Ryan White. He’s also been lights-out on the penalty kill, which is a welcome surprise since he was only middling by the numbers on the Rangers.

Is he going to be worth his contract by the last year of it? I don’t know, but for now I really like what he brings to the team.

Keefe: When the two teams met on Tuesday night, it was ugly. It was the second-worst game of the year for the Rangers after their 3-0 home loss to the Penguins on Jan. 31.

On Thursday night the Rangers blew a third-period lead to the Senators, and lost in a shootout, to drop their second straight game in which they led and it was their third loss in a row in which they scored the first goal. The Canadiens also lost on Thursday, but it was the first in six games as they blew a two-goal lead to the Islanders and lost in a shootout.

Saturday night will be the second-to-last meeting of the season between the Rangers and Canadiens (the last one is March 30) and hopefully we see a better all-around game than we saw on Tuesday. But in the bigger picture, what do you see for the Rangers and Canadiens over the remaining two-thirds of the season?

Berkshire: I think what we’ll see on Saturday is a much more entertaining game than what we saw on Tuesday. The Canadiens were extremely disappointed with how the game ended against the Islanders with Max Pacioretty being particularly fired up. The Canadiens are also a much stronger home team than they are on the road and won’t be coming off of three games in four nights.

Similarly, I think the Rangers are going to be a lot better as well. It’s possible that Rick Nash will be back in the lineup and that’s a big boost on its own, but I also think they have something to prove after the last game. I think we’ll see a high tempo game.

As for how the season will go, I think the Habs will be taking a step down sooner or later, because they’re not as good as their record. They should challenge the Bruins for the division title, but I’m not sure that they’re there yet. They’re a playoff team though, and a pretty good one.

The Rangers don’t seem to be the team they were last year. They’re still fantastic defensively, but they lost quite a bit of depth when the traded for Rick Nash, and they seem to miss Brandon Prust on the fourth line. They’re still a playoff team in my mind. I don’t think they’re as good as the Penguins over an 82-game season, but over this 48-game one, they could begin a hot streak that propels them up the standings to a division title.

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Blogs • NHL

Feb 19, 2013

The 2012-13 NHL All-Animosity Team

It’s the first ever NHL All-Animosity Team.

Last week during the third and last (well the last for now) Rangers-Bruins game, Milan Lucic took exception to the way the Ryan McDonagh plays hockey and decided he was going to try to prove that he’s tough. This wasn’t the first time the two had had sort of mixed it up since last March, Lucic didn’t like that McDonagh didn’t like that Lucic hit from behind. So Lucic, the owner of 30 penalty minutes in 2013 and 555 career penalty minutes (in 371 games) decided that McDonagh and his 66 career penalty minutes (in 136 games) was someone worth bullying.

But this is who Milan Lucic is. He’ll try to intimidate the guys that are in the league because they can play and every once in a while he will prove to those that are in the league even though they can’t play that he is in the league because he can. And it was this latest example of Lucic’s “toughness” that led me to create the first edition of the NHL All-Animosity Team the way I had for MLB.

Five years ago this list would have been a lot easier to make. Ten years ago, this list would have written itself. But in 2013, things are a little trickier. It actually took time to complete a defensive pair (and it’s not even a real defensive pair) for the team when in 2002-03 I would have had to make three separate weeks of cuts just to get it down to six or eight.

But to go along with the MLB All-Animosity Team, which will celebrate its fourth season this spring, here’s the first edition of the NHL All-Animosity Team. (Note: Brian Boyle wasn’t ineligible to make the team.)

FORWARDS

Milan Lucic
I’m not sure there’s anything left to be said about Lucic that wasn’t captured in the opening of this column. But if I could add anything to justify his placement on this team it would be his unnecessary running of Ryan Miller and that Boston fans so badly want him to be Cam Neely 2.0 and some are even crazy enough to think that he is. (FYI: He’s not and it’s not even close.) And there’s nothing worse than a Boston sports fan overrating their player’s talent and ability. (Hey, it’s Trot Nixon!) Also, according to Jack Edwards, Lucic still hasn’t lost a fight.

Matt Cooke
Show me someone outside of Pittsburgh that likes Matt Cooke and doesn’t have the last name Cooke and I will show you a liar. Cooke has become the unanimous number 1 choice as the most hated player in the league (though Raffi Torres really wants that spot), and had I not cared about this column flowing, I would have listed him first instead of Lucic.

Cooke has supposedly changed his dangerous ways and knack for hits and cheap shots that make you wonder what goes through someone’s mind right before they decide to go through with a hit like this.

But it’s not the hit from behind on Fedor Tyutin that I will always think of when I think of Matt Cooke. When I hear Cooke’s name I will always think of him starting the end of Marc Savard’s career with an elbow to the head, which he wasn’t suspended for. And while Cooke continues to play, Savard is left tweeting things like this one from Nov. 8 or this one from Dec. 17. No big deal.

Cooke has been suspended five times and four of those have come while with the Penguins. (If Colin Campbell had never been the league disciplinarian, that number could be doubled.) After being suspended for the remainder of the 2010-11 regular season and the first round of playoffs the year for elbowing Ryan McDonagh in the head, Cooke said, “I don’t want to hurt anybody. That’s not my intention. I know that I can be better.” At the time, no one believed him. I’m not sure if anyone does yet.

Alexander Ovechkin
You probably didn’t expect to see this name here. He’s the cleanest player of the group and a Top 3 talent in the world. But for me Ovechkin has been a problem as I have had to argue against him in what seemed like a never-ending Crosby vs. Ovechkin debate that has now ended with Crosby at the clearly better player.

Ovechkin has 15 goals and 14 assists in 29 regular season games against the Rangers and has been a key player in two first-round exits for the Rangers (2008-09 and 2010-11). On top of that, it seems like every time I get to see him in person he doesn’t do anything (which is both good and bad), including on Sunday night at the Garden and the first time I ever saw him play on Jan. 26, 2006 in Boston, he missed a shorthanded breakaway and then also failed to score on a penalty shot. Give me Crosby every day of the week.

DEFENSEMEN

Zdeno Chara
Jack Edwards will likely tell you that Chara is the best defenseman in the league, but he’s the same guy who thinks fights are decided by whichever plays ends up on top of the other player on the ice. Is there anything worse than when broadcasters talk about Chara’s 108-mph slap shot in the Skills Competition in a real game? No, there’s not. Because there are a lot of times in real games when you get to sprint untouched from the blue into a still puck in the slot and rip a bomb into an open net. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg that is the lovefest for the 6-foot-9, one-time Norris Trophy winner.

It’s tough to say that Chara won’t fight or fight frequently since there aren’t many willing opponents to go against his reach, but unlike Lucic, when Chara picks his spots, he picks them correctly, except when he intentionally tries to injure someone like Max Pacioretty (listen to Jack Edwards blame it on the geometry of the rink), which I wrote about after it happened. But it’s not tough to say that outside of being a massive body on the ice with the longest stick in the league, Chara’s game is overrated by everyone and anyone willing to form an opinion based on his name alone (except for maybe Mike Milbury who thought that Chara, Bill Muckalt and the pick that turned into Jason Spezza was worth Alexei Yashin). But Chara has always been good at standing in front of the net on the power play, which has always been good for a good laugh when rebounds appear at his feet.

Maxim Lapierre
I know Maxim Lapierre isn’t a defenseman, but here’s the thing: there are a lot more forwards in the league to hate than defensemen (probably because there are a lot more forwards in the league than defensemen), so for the sole purpose of not trying to fake hate someone for the sake of this team, I’m going to make a forward play defense for the sake of this team. And when you’re talking about Maxim Lapierre, it’s easy to bend the rules and make exceptions and change things to make sure he’s part of something that includes “Animosity” in the title.

It was hard to pick a Western Conference player since the Rangers play the Canucks once a year and won’t play them at all this year, but Lapierre’s antics go back to his time when he was in the Eastern Conference with the Canadiens. And any Bruins fan taking exception for Lucic and Chara making the team should forgive me for including the 2010-11 Final agitator.

I’m not sure which of the dozens of Lapierre cheap shot moments or examples to break down here, but I think this attempt to draw a penalty against fellow Animosity teammate Zdeno Chara proves his worth to this team. And on top of me breaking the rules and putting a forward on defense just to get him in the lineup, Lapierre is part of the first tier of the “Athletes I Hate To Look At” List, which is led by Josh Beckett. And I’m not the only one who thinks so since someone made a video of his many punchable faces from one game.

The problem with Lapierre is that even though he plays the game in a way that no one should play the game, he does it within the rules because the rules allow for players like him to run around without the fear of paying the price for their actions. But in order to fix that, the NHL would have to care about the game, its integrity and the fans, and there’s a better chance of me giving Nick Swisher a welcome applause when the Indians arrive in the Bronx this season than there is of the NHL caring about any of those things ever.

GOALIE

Martin Brodeur
Was there any other choice?

It’s simple: If you’re a Rangers fan, you don’t like Martin Brodeur. If you’re any other fan, you (most likely) like Martin Brodeur. (Unless you’re a fan of the Ten Commandments.)

Brodeur has been a part of the Rangers-Devils rivalry for 20 years now. Twenty! And when I watch highlights from the ’94 season (since those are all the memorable moments the Rangers have provided in the last 19 years) I can’t believe that he’s still the Devils goalie.

I have friends that try to discredit most of (and sometimes all of) Brodeur’s career by citing the depth and system Lou Lamoriello built around him, and I will agree that there is some truth to the situation he was put in in 1993-94 and the one he has played in since. But that’s sports and there’s no way of knowing if Brodeur would be the NHL’s all-time winningest goalie as part of another franchise or if the Devils would have three Cups if someone other than Brodeur had been their goalie.

In 2008-09 this theory looked real when career backup Scott Clemmensen went 25-13-1 for the Devils with a 2.39 goals against average and .917 save percentage. The theory looked even more real in 2010-11 when injuries to the core of the Devils forced Brodeur to be outstanding and he posted a career-low .903 save percentage and posted a sub-.500 record for the first time in his career (though age could obviously be cited as a factor). But then Brodeur had to go and record 31 wins in 59 games in 2011-12 and beat the Rangers along the way to his fifth Stanley Cup Final appearance at the age of 40 even if he didn’t look like the three-time Cup winner in the process.

Brodeur isn’t the same goalie in 2012-13 at 40 that he was in 2002-03 at 30 when he won his first of four Vezinas. But my animosity for him remains the same.

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Blogs • NHL • Team USA

Feb 25, 2010

Heavenly Hockey

Thirty years after the original “Miracle on Ice,” one game separates Team USA and the gold-medal game and a chance at history.

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on Feb. 25, 2010.

If you like hockey, then you liked Wednesday. And even if you don’t like hockey, chances are that you probably watched it at some point on Wednesday because it was on for 11 1/2 straight hours. Hockey had its version of March Madness, and in this case, the Elite Eight. Aside from not being able to watch three of the four games in high definition, it was a perfect day for a hockey fan. It was a day I didn’t want to see end, and on Sunday it will be a tournament that I wish didn’t have to disappear for four years. But if Gary Bettman has his way, the magic of Wednesday won’t ever return.

Between trying to decide if Pierre McGuire’s tenure as a “sideline” reporter between the benches has been a bigger failure than the FoxTrax puck was, and wondering if the over 2 ½ will hit on how many times Eddie Olczyk says “active sticks” during the USA game (it went under, he only said it once), I tried to imagine watching Olympic hockey without NHL players and I couldn’t.

Since allowing NHL players to participate in the Olympics in 1998, the decision has been the only one the game deserves credit for in recent years. Now the league is prepared to tell their fans – the ones they have left – that the Olympics will have to do without NHL players in the future because the league is losing too much money during the two-week layoff.

Gary Bettman isn’t exactly crushing it in approval rating and he is certainly isn’t winning any popularity contests. The same man who has watched two teams relocate from Canada during his tenure as commissioner is now ready to destroy the best thing the game has going for it.

With Bettman at the helm, fighting has been basically taken out of the game thanks to the instigator rule, a trapezoid has been painted behind the net and two-line passing has been allowed. He contemplated changing the size of the net, first allowed goalies to expand the size of their equipment and then created restrictions for them. He permitted the change of the overtime format to 4-on-4 and OK’ed shootouts deciding games and playoff berths. He let the Sabres change their colors to red and black before they changed them back, and then there was that time where the NHL didn’t play for an entire season. If people cared about hockey then Bettman might have to answer for his decisions. But no one cares enough to make a stand because Bettman chased away casual fans, and the only fans remaining are those that would watch the NHL no matter what type of mud Bettman drags it through.

It didn’t have to be like this and it doesn’t have to continue to be like this. I can’t remember the last time people I wouldn’t expect to be excited about hockey were this excited. Team USA’s resurgence, and the overall talent level of the tournament has casual fans finding out that there are other stars in the sport than Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. Even if those fans missed entire first periods because they were trying to find out what NBC ancillary channel the Olympics relegated hockey to, they have still become attracted to the game. There is a throng of new hockey fans with a desire to watch a sport that can use as many fans as it can get. And the commissioner who has spent the last six-plus years trying to attract new audiences is ready to deprive his newest fans of the reason they watched hockey in the first place.

On Monday I wrote about how Americans were interested in how Team USA would perform in the tournament, and mainly how they would perform against Team Canada. Well, according to the New York Times, the USA-Canada game matched MSNBC’s election-night viewership and was the most-watched sports program in Canadian history. It was a non-elimination game and it had more viewers in both countries than Game 7 of last season’s Stanley Cup final, in which the game’s biggest star was playing against one of the game’s most popular teams.

Did NBC do the NHL – its business partner – an injustice by not airing important preliminary games and even the Canada-Russia quarterfinal on its main station? Yes. If the games were on NBC, more people would have stumbled upon them while looking for The Office or 30 Rock, but the amount of positive exposure the NHL has received during the tournament can’t be rivaled by anything the league has done itself to increase popularity.

Maybe the NHL and the television networks of future Olympics can work out a marketing partnership or the networks can promise to put the intriguing matchups on their No. 1 channel in place of the biathlon or ski jumping or curling. If the NHL is so hung up on trying to make money off the Olympics rather than letting the Olympics work its magic for the NHL, then OK, find a business strategy that works. Just don’t sacrifice the participation of NHL players as that strategy.

The Olympics deserve the best hockey players from each country and that means NHLers. NHL-filled rosters offer an experience for viewers that isn’t duplicated at any other time. Sure, there is the IIHF World Championship each year, but that takes place during the NHL playoffs, so many of the top players aren’t available, and those who are usually decline to play. Amateur lineups would create a tournament similar to the World Junior Championships, and teams like the United States and Canada would be at a disadvantage against the European teams that include former NHL players currently playing in the KHL or European elite leagues.

The uniqueness of the event creates a bond among each country’s fans that rarely happens. The tournament allows for fans of NHL rivals like the Rangers and Devils to pull for each other’s players in the same way Yankees fans are asked to pull for Red Sox, and Mets fans for Phillies with home-field in the World Series on the line at the MLB All-Star Game. There aren’t too many times Rangers fans hope Zach Parise scores a goal and hope Henrik Lundqvist gives one up. For a week, Devils fans are allowed to hate Martin Brodeur and love Chris Drury.

Most importantly, NHL players in the Olympics just makes for better hockey.

Yes, the two-week break and lack of an All-Star Game is costing the NHL money today, but maybe Bettman doesn’t see what this tournament is doing for tomorrow and the future of the game. The Winter Classic is nice, but it’s not doing the trick, and the only thing that could get the game back on the map in the United States would be an American star equivalent in talent to Crosby or Ovechkin. The Olympics are doing a job that Bettman has tried to do since he cancelled the 2004-05 season, and no one cares that there wasn’t an All-Star Game or a skills competition this February. Fans want to see competitive hockey games with the world’s best players. They don’t want – or need – to see Zdeno Chara skate untouched and put all his weight into a slap shot that goes into an open net at 103 mph. Fans want to watch Olympic hockey with NHL players. They can live without the All-Star Game and its festivities once every four years.

Right now, there is a buzz in the hockey world following Canada’s rout of Russia and Slovakia’s upset of Sweden. United States fans are anxious for Friday’s semifinal against Finland and sports media outlets are asking whether or not Team USA can knock off Team Canada twice in the same week if they meet again. Players like Ryan Miller and Patrick Kane are watching their stock rise thanks to national television exposure. It has all contributed to one very pleasant surprise because when was the last time the talk anywhere focused on hockey?

If Team USA takes home the gold, it will be the perfect ending to a perfect tournament, and will do wonders for the final weeks of the NHL season. I suggest you watch because it might never be the same again.

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Blogs • NHL • Team USA

Feb 22, 2010

Digging for Gold

Team USA’s 5-3 win over Canada sent a message to the hockey world four years after the U.S. was embarrassed in the Olympics.

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on Feb. 22, 2010.

Mike Milbury predicted that Team USA would lose to Canada in Sunday night’s pregame show. At that point, I knew that an upset was assured because, let’s be honest, when has Mike Milbury ever been right?

It’s hard to remember Milbury ever having been right as general manager of the Islanders. He wasn’t right when he drafted Rick DiPietro ahead of Dany Heatley and Marian Gaborik, and traded Roberto Luongo. Or when he traded Zdeno Chara and the second pick in the 2001 draft (Jason Spezza) for Alexei Yashin. During his time with the Islanders, Milbury compiled a long list of questionable and controversial decisions in his quest to become the worst GM in hockey history. He was wrong again on Sunday night when he picked against his own country.

After letting a 1-4-1 performance in 2006 resonate for four years, Team USA made wholesale changes for 2010. General manager Brian Burke scrapped the entire ’06 roster except for Chris Drury and Brian Rafalski, choosing youth and inexperience to replace the face of USA hockey. Burke skirted conventional wisdom by replacing the team’s core of Mike Modano, Keith Tkachuk, Bill Guerin and Doug Weight. On Sunday night in Vancouver, Burke’s moves paid off in a game Eddie Olczyk referred to as “tremendously tremendous.”

Doc Emrick isn’t used to seeing Martin Brodeur get lit up, and he probably can’t recall a two-goal game from Brian Rafalski’s tenure with the Devils. These two factors — Brodeur’s shakiness and Rafalski’s offensive outburst — contributed to Team USA’s first win over Canada since 1960. Team USA entered Sunday’s main event at plus 250 on the money line. They left with all of Canada calling for Roberto Luongo to replace Brodeur in Tuesday’s quarterfinal qualifier.

Ron Wilson’s club won in exactly the manner that Burke envisioned they could when he selected the next wave of American talent. Burke built the current squad with an emphasis on speed and goaltending, and it was enough to drop a Canadian team that outshot the Americans 45-23. Team USA limited their mistakes, stayed disciplined and remained out of the box, and Ryan Miller did his best Jim Craig impersonation with a 42-save performance. Team USA was outplayed and outshot by a roster that perhaps no Americans other than Patrick Kane or Zach Parise would crack, but they stuck to Wilson’s system and capitalized on the few opportunities they were afforded.

The win was the most significant for Team USA in Olympic competition since the second Herb Brooks-led team knocked off Russia in the 2002 semifinals. The game created interest in the young club for the American people, and the winning result has turned that interest into an attachment. People now seem to care about the team’s outcome in Vancouver, and this wouldn’t have been the case had Ryan Miller played more like Martin Brodeur. The dream of achieving gold in the tournament for the first time in 30 years has hockey back in the spotlight, and it’s going to be a challenge to sustain the current hype around the team and the sport.

Gary Bettman would love for that enthusiasm to carry past the end of the week and into the stretch run of the NHL season, however, just keeping Americans attached for this week is a step in the right direction. It might be wishful thinking to believe that Team USA can bring the game back to where it was prior to the 2004-05 lockout, but it seems to be a possibility, at least for the moment. Team USA has a chance to change the landscape of hockey in the United States, and give the NHL the boost of interest the league has unsuccessfully tried to achieve through rules changes, marketing and the Winter Classic.

An upset of Canada and the revival of American hockey in the Olympics won’t carry as much weight if Team USA falls in quarterfinal action or loses to Canada in a possible rematch. Team USA knocked off the favorites on their home ice. They have proven they can play with — and beat — any team in the tournament, and in doing so, they have made the goal medal game their end game. If Sunday’s win was their last of the 2010 Games, this last week of perfect hockey from Team USA will be a letdown.

Many hoped that after the 2006 debacle, Team USA would contend for a medal game in the tournament, though no one truly expected them to beat Canada and earn the No. 1 seed for the playoff round. As long as the Americans didn’t bow out the way they did four years ago, it would have been a successful trip to Vancouver. The expectations changed on Sunday, and now it’s up to this Team USA to show America and the world that they aren’t the same team that won only once — against Kazakhstan, no less — in the ’06 Games. It’s up to them to prove to Sidney Crosby that Sunday’s 5-3 win wasn’t “just one game.”

A week ago Team USA was hoping to avoid embarrassment and provide a respectable showing in Vancouver. Now they are the top seed in the tournament and three wins away from achieving Olympic glory, and improving the outlook on the game for the entire country.

Let’s just hope Mike Milbury doesn’t decide to jump on the Team USA bandwagon.

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