‘It’s not about me and Mika’
Sens, Rangers swapped centres Brossard and Zibanejad last summer
OTTAWA CITIZEN
After his strong opening round performance against the Boston Bruins, Derick Brassard is doing everything he can to deflect attention away from his individual match-up with Mika Zibanejad in the second round. Good luck with that. “It’s not about me and Mika,” Brassard, the Ottawa Senators centre, insisted following Wednesday’s practice in preparation for Game One Thursday against former Senator Zibanejad and the New York Rangers.
“Yeah, we did have the trade last summer, but there are other guys on the teams, it’s about the other 23 guys on both rosters.”
New conflicts will develop as the series rolls along — they always do — but off the top, the marquee match-up centres around the organizational shift that prompted the deal last summer.
The Senators gave up the future promise of the 24-year-old Zibanejad in exchange for the veteran leadership of the 29-year-old Brassard, who had the added bonus of being a Gatineau native.
The Rangers needed a jolt of youth in the middle, while the Senators wanted to add a proven playoff performer to a younger core.
The fact that both are former sixth overall draft picks — the Senators chose Zibanejad in 2011 and Brassard was selected by Columbus in 2006 — adds more flavour to the comparisons.
Neither had stellar regular seasons. Brassard struggled to find his place in the first half of the season, deferring too often to the club’s existing players. He finished with only 14 goals and 25 assists. Zibanejad suffered a broken leg early and never gained full stride. He ended up with 14 goals and 23 assists in 56 games.
Come playoff time, though, both have had big moments. Zibanejad broke a 2-2 series deadlock against Montreal with the overtime winner and leads the Rangers with four playoff points.
Brassard exploded for two goals and six assists against Boston, putting him in a tie for second in the playoff scoring race, re-establishing the “Big Game Brass” reputation he earned after three previous extended playoff runs with the Rangers.
Brassard has 20 goals and 32 assists in 65 career playoff games.
“There’s always pressure,” Brassard said. “I think I can handle in pretty well and I always showed up on the big stage. At this time of year, you expect guys to step up and be better players and to try to get out of their comfort zone. You see a lot of players on our team doing that and that’s why we’re here today.”
The difference for Brassard this time around, of course, is that he’s going head-to-head against the Rangers, where many of his friends remain and where he first earned his playoff name.
“It’s a little bit more special than usual,” he acknowledged. “(Madison Square Garden) is a special place to play. They have passionate fans, die-hards, just like our fans here in Ottawa. And it’s going to be a great atmosphere. If we can control the game down there, control the momentum, I think we can surprise them at home.”
Senators coach Guy Boucher says that Brassard’s recent success is all about shooting a fraction of a second quicker than he was in the first couple of months of the season. He also doesn’t believe there will be nerves playing against his old team.
“Those guys are used to it, especially this generation (when) not a lot of guys stay in the same organization for a long time,” said Boucher.
“It’s something now where he’s not playing his buddies (Thursday), he’s playing the opponent. We’ve seen the Primeau brothers fight and the Sutter borthers fought. Guys understand it’s war out there, but once the series is over, they go back to real life. With Derick, he’s a professional. He absolutely understands that.”
Indeed, nobody watches the playoffs closer than Brassard. When he’s not making his own mark in the post-season, he’s busy studying the league’s other elite players. As Senators defenceman Marc Methot pointed out Tuesday, Brassard is a student of the game, with an encyclopedic knowledge of everything from the curves on players’ sticks to how they tie their skates.
“If you watch hockey and watch some of the really good players, depending on your position, you can really learn a lot,” Brassard said. “Sometimes you can struggle and watch other guys and how they do stuff, how they move on the ice, and just their positioning on the ice can help you.”