Game 7 is ‘what you play for’: Marchant
ANAHEIM, CALIF. Todd Marchant says he was never the same after playing a Game 7 — nobody is.
Nothing builds character more than the deciding game of a playoff series between two opponents who can’t afford to lose. And nothing reveals it more, either.
“You’re going up against a team that’s just as good as you are and it can go one way or the other: You’re either going on or you’re going home,” the former Edmonton Oilers winger and current Anaheim Ducks assistant coach says. “It can tell you a little bit about yourself. You go out and it’s winner take all.”
Marchant played in 1,290 NHL regular season and playoff games. Few compared to his four Game 7s.
“It’s awesome. It’s what you play for,” he says. “Hundreds of times you’ve been on a driveway or a pond or a backyard rink and it’s Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. When you find yourself in that opportunity as a player … I loved every minute of it.”
Marchant is 3-1 in those Game 7s, scoring that famous 1997 overtime winner over the Dallas Stars in one of them while a member of the Edmonton Oilers. It’s a goal he is asked about to this day.
“It’s kind of a blur how that play happened,” he says. “It was four-on-four and I remember being on the bench and we were pretty tired as a group. Our sole goal was to out-hit them every game — that’s how simple the game plan was. We were trying to get 100 hits every night.
“Then an opportunity presented itself. I saw Dougie (Weight) get the puck and I just took off.”
He blew past defenceman Grant Ledyard, corkscrewing him into the ice, and scored far side on goaltender Andy Moog.
“The thing that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle is the save Cujo (Curtis Joseph) makes just before that,” Marchant says. “It was just tremendous.”
The Oilers were decided underdogs in the 1997 series, but won it with the character and determination that revealed itself in that Game 7 win.
“Once it starts, everything is important,” he says. “There are no little things in the game of hockey. People say we have to do the little things well, but to me there are no little things.”