By RON COCQUYT
Entering the Stanley Cup Finals, the Boston Bruins have been able to put a check mark in every one of the boxes that’s required to win the first three series. As of this writing, St. Louis and San Jose are still battling it out to see who will represent the West and face off against Boston sometime next week. What I’ve found most interesting in watching the playoffs, especially the teams in the East (where I have a vested interest) is that they have to put check marks in a variety of boxes in each series.
What I’m talking about is combining talent, determination, discipline, and great goaltending. If any of these boxes isn’t checked, it’s highly unlikely that the team can proceed. Let’s take a look back to prove my point.
Tampa Bay was the best team in the National Hockey League this year, scored a record number of points in the regular season, and showed up in the first series of playoffs as the predetermined favorite to hoist the Cup. This would be Steve Yzerman’s celebratory moment before he left Tampa to return to his beloved Detroit and rebuild the Red Wings. What a disaster. Tampa Bay showed up healthy, and in the first twenty minutes of the first game, looked as if they’d simply snowplow their way to the finals. That was it – twenty minutes of the first game, and they simply stopped playing. It was a determination factor: Tampa Bay could not muster the determination and discipline necessary to overcome Columbus throughout the next 3 2/3 games. Columbus was more disciplined, more determined, and in the battle of the goaltenders, excelled . . . goodbye Tampa Bay.
A similar situation occurred in Washington. The defending Stanley Cup Champions looked tired and rather undisciplined as they were taken out of the playoffs by the Carolina Hurricanes. Again, not all the boxes were checked.
I won’t go through and summarize all the other series on both sides, other than to state that there is no more stressful and serious tournament in all of sports than the chase for the Stanley Cup. Each team has reached a place where its flaws rose to the surface and could not be overcome. In the East, only Boston has a goaltender with a save percentage close to 96%. Only Boston has been able to combine high levels of penalty killing and power play to overcome the opposition. Unlike basketball, the Stanley Cup teams do not just depend on talent. Stanley Cup teams depend on TEAM. This means preparation, execution, and accountability. This means making sure that your power play operates somewhere around 20 to 25%. This means making sure that your penalty killing operates somewhere in excess of 80%. If either of these two is substandard, the opposition will take advantage. In today’s ice hockey, speed is an attribute that every team possesses. And as the old adage goes, speed kills. From the teams that are no longer in the playoffs, you can look back and see that trying to play too fast led to mistakes. Trying to play too fast, in many cases, meant overlooking fundamentals, thereby providing the opposition with scoring chances they didn’t really earn.
The game of hockey is a copycat exercise. Back in the 70s, Fred Shero built a Stanley Cup team known as the “Broad Street Bullies.” They fought and intimidated their way to back-to-back championships. For several years, teams built squads that could be equally as intimidating. And then both the NHL and other teams decided to go in a different direction. Thus came the era of the Edmonton Oilers. Even with the red line in place, the Oilers prevailed, scoring obscene numbers of goals, applying incredible offensive pressure, and relying on their goalie to make only a few key saves on their way to a series of Cups. Had the Oilers been able to afford to keep Gretzky, they might have been able to go on a run comparable to that of Montreal in the 60s and early 70s.
As you watch the Finals, check the boxes. I think you’ll find that Boston may be the best constructed team for this year’s Cup. I’m not saying they will win, because the two teams in the West are also pretty good. But when you have a goaltender whose operating with a 96% goals against average and specialty teams that don’t allow power play goals and who put excessive pressure on the other team’s penalty killers, it’s the right formula for another Cup. Boston is my choice, and as a Panther fan, I look at our South Florida team and realize that we have a long way to go before we can even put one check mark in one box.
