National Post (National Edition)
Plenty of narratives could be flipped
SHARKS-PENGUINS STANLEY CUP FINAL MATCHUP FULL OF UNDERACHIEVERS
It is a rare fantasy players’ bracket that remains intact in this upset-fraught chase to the Stanley Cup, though no doubt some statistical smarty-pants picked the Sharks and the Penguins to be the two left standing and will never let you forget it.
But there are still predictions to be made.
Here is one man’s prognostication of the storylines that will be ground into paste during all those travel-day plane flights.
REDEMPTION
❚ On San Jose coach Pete DeBoer, a slight underdog to be hoisting the Cup 19 days or fewer from now, while the two men who fired him as head coach, Lou Lamoriello in New Jersey and Dale Tallon in Florida are, respectively, looking up from 30th place with the Toronto Maple Leafs and adapting to having been replaced as GM by the Panthers.
On Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan, ever-so-slightly favoured to be drinking from ❚ Lord Stanley’s old cuspidor while silently celebrating that the man who fired him from his only previous NHL head coaching job, Peter Chiarelli, has since been fired himself and is trying to solve the Rubik’s cube with 29th-place Edmonton.
❚ On Penguins’ Phil Kessel, who was traded from the Toronto Maple Leafs and appears to have given up hotdogs for scoring clutch goals, and Justin Schultz, dismissed as part of the problem in Edmonton, playing on the Pens’ power play.
OLD HOME WEEK (OR NOT)
Sullivan coached the Bruins for two seasons when Sharks’ superstar Thornton played there: one very successful year, before the lost lockout season of 2004-05, and one very unsuccessful one coming out of the lockout, when the Bruins seemed utterly unprepared to deal with hockey’s new look. Especially after they traded Jumbo to San Jose, 23 games into the ’05-06 season. Did Sullivan push for the Thornton trade, fight against it, or keep his head down?
(Also, Sullivan played 171 games over three seasons in San Jose, his first NHL club,
and Sharks D-man Paul Martin played five seasons with the Penguins.) SCHADENFREUDE
Taking the temperature in San Jose to see if people blame ex-coach Todd McLellan for the Sharks’ annual playoff shortcomings, and if they are delighted that he has since been unable to move the needle with the dysfunctional Oilers. This won’t play well in Edmonton, where McLellan was briefly made the highestpaid coach in the league (for about five minutes, until the Leafs signed Mike Babcock).
For what it’ s worth, DeBoer, after the conference final win over St. Louis, said of the Sharks team he inherited: “They’d been wellcoached. Todd McLellan and the previous staff are as good as there are in the business.”
IRRITATION
No one on either team is as consistently annoying as Sharks’ Tommy Wingels, who opponents figure should get the annual Greg Louganis award for excellence in diving. He might as well be wearing a target. In Game 6 against St. Louis, the Blues’ Scottie Upshall high-sticked Wingels in the face, drawing a considerable amount of blood, then turned around and fired the puck at his head just because.
The Penguins have somehow managed to get this far without an obvious irritant, unless Patric Hornqvist getting Sidney Crosby mad enough to yell at him on the bench counts. Hornqvist fired back at Sid, too, which is probably punishable by law in Pittsburgh.
HAVE SKATES WILL TRAVEL
The long and winding roads of 39-year-old John Cullen, still scoring after all these years (and eight teams) for the Penguins, and Dainius Zubrus, 37, the Sharks forward who first hit North America as a pup with a touring Ukrainian youth team 24 years ago.
DÉJÀ VU
The parallels between the Penguins’ only previous Stanley Cup winner of the Crosby era, 2009, and this one: Sullivan having been elevated to coach the big squad after starting the season as Pittsburgh’s farm team coach in Wilkes-Barre, replacing Mike Johnston. In ’09, it was Dan Bylsma getting the battlefield promotion when the Pens fired Michel Therrien.
PILOSITY
A full explanation of what the heck is going on with Brent Burns’ hair, both the outstanding defenceman’s Duck Dynasty-like beard and that man-bun or whatever that topknot thing is called. Must run with a Joe Thornton sidebar on the Tom Hanks/ Castaway look, and a stern reprimand for Pittsburgh forward Nick Boni no’ s neck-beard from the Andrew Luck collection.
OTHER POSSIBLES
That other former Bruins great, Sharks goalie Martin Jones. (He was dealt last June by L.A. to Boston in the Milan Lucic trade, and flipped four days later to San Jose for a first-round pick. Maybe “great” is overstating his impact in Boston) ... The life and times of San Jose GM Doug Wilson, who may still look like a 35-year-old Ken doll, but is actually 58 and evidently is more than just another pretty face, given the deals he made to put this team back on the rails …. The “lost years” of Sidney Crosby, during which he only won two Olympic gold medals … There’s more, but we’re out of time. You’re welcome, fellow scribes. See you at Game 3.