Thoughts on another Jays love-in
Ed Willes Canadian fans lifted team up last September. Will this visit have a playoff payoff?
Just four more sleeps to the Lions’ only home pre-season game, and if that doesn’t get you excited, this will: the Monday morning musings and meditations on the world of sports.
n Interesting to compare and contrast the Blue Jays’ last two trips into Seattle. In 2016, they came into the Emerald City in the throes of a terrible September, took two of three from the Mariners before adoring crowds and rode that wave to the American League Championship Series.
This year the setting wasn’t as dramatic, but the series turned into another Jays love-in. They took two of three from the Mariners and left with something resembling momentum.
Despite sitting a game under .500 on the season, they should be in the mix for the AL’s second wild card spot right to the end, but there’s one big difference between this year and last, and it concerns their division.
Last year, the Yankees finished five games behind the Jays. This year, they’re a monster. Last year, Tampa was 26 games under .500. This year, they’re two games over.
Thirty-three of the Jays’ last 99 games, in fact, are against the Yankees, Tampa and Boston. The road back to the playoffs runs through those three teams and it’s not a particularly easy one.
n The Pittsburgh Penguins have now produced back-to-back Stanley Cup champions twice in their history: in 1991 and 1992 and now 2016 and 2017.
Let’s compare the two teams. The ’91 Penguins were led by Mario Lemieux, one of the three greatest players in the game’s history, and featured five other Hall of Famers in Paul Coffey, Larry Murphy, Joe Mullen, Ron Francis and Bryan Trottier. Jaromir Jagr will be a sixth if he ever retires. Their lineup also had Mark Recchi, who led the team with 113 points; Kevin Stevens, who scored 40 goals that season; and Tom Barrasso in goal.
The next year the Pens traded away Coffey and Recchi, brought in Rick Tocchet and Kjell Samuelsson and repeated again. The loss of one Hallof-Famer didn’t seem to hurt them.
Now, let’s look at the ’16 and ’17 teams. They had Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. They also had Phil Kessel, who’s an elite goal-scorer. And Kris Letang in ’16.
As for the rest of the lineup, it’s almost inconceivable they made up a Stanley Cup champion but there they were in Nashville on Sunday night, skating around with the chalice.
The leading goal scorer in the playoffs Jake Guentzel, played half the season in the minors. Their lead defensive pairing were Brian Dumoulin and Ron Hainsey, who hadn’t played a playoff game in 14 NHL season before this year. The changed goalies half way through their post-season run. Their coach, Mike Sullivan, was run out of Vancouver as an assistant two years before he landed in Pittsburgh. He’s now the first coach in 20 years to win back-to-back Cups.
The last one, of course, was Scotty Bowman.
Sorry, there’s nothing about this team that makes sense. They had no business beating Washington in the second round. They needed overtime in Game 7 to beat Ottawa in the Conference final. In the final, the presumption was Nashville would hold serve on home ice in Game 6 to force a Game 7. But no. True, the Pens got a fantastic break when a quick whistle nullified a Nashville goal in the second period but you just sense they would have found some way to close the deal. The two Cup wins are a testimonial to Crosby’s greatness and his second-straight Conn Smythe was richly deserved. But there remains something indomitable at the heart of this team, something which defies reason but is there for the hockey world to see and it was there again on Sunday night. It really is the damnedest thing. n Projecting the NHL draft is a mug’s game, but for the Canucks and their fifth overall pick, the two most intriguing names are defenceman Cale Makar and centre Cody Glass.
Makar is a smallish defenceman who played Tier II in Alberta last year and has drawn comparisons to Ottawa’s Erik Karlsson. Glass is a size-and-skill centre who Mike Johnston, his coach in Portland, compares to Nashville’s Ryan Johansen.
Now, if you knew Makar was Karlsson in the making — i.e. a dynamic, game-breaking blue-liner — he’d be the pick. But it’s one thing to be compared to Karlsson and another thing to be the guy.
The Canucks’ greater need is centre ice. In Glass, they’re looking at a kid who’s six foot two, will fill out to 200 pounds and had 94 points in the WHL this season. Just not sure if this is the time to get fancy with this pick.
n And finally, Wally Buono is 67 and this figures to be his last year as head coach of the B.C. Lions.
But if you were expecting the old lion to mail it in, you just had to watch the team’s training camp in Kamloops to understand he’s not wired that way.
Even as he approaches 70, Buono remains a force, setting a high standard for this team while refusing to accept mediocrity. After one session in Kamloops, your agent asked if he was impressed by a particular player
“Honestly, I’m not impressed with anybody,” he said.
The message is clear. Last year’s 12-6 record in the regular season is inconsequential. The only thing that matters is their crushing loss to Calgary in the Western final. Their entire focus this year is avenging that loss.
Don’t know if that will happen, but it would make quite a story if it did in Buono’s last year.