LACK OF DEPTH DIDN’T HELP HAWKS
Defending Cup champs relied too heavily on Keith and Seabrook
Items that may grow up to be columns, Vol. XVIII, Chapter 9: NEW WORLD ORDER: The last Original Six team left standing, the Chicago Blackhawks, stands no more. So that’s every Canadian club and every one of the old guard gone now.
We all know these things are cyclical, but this is some watershed stop on the old ferris wheel of life for the National Hockey League. Tradition? Pfft.
Small wonder Rogers is getting puny viewership for its Stanley Cup playoff games, although Washington-Pittsburgh should do well in the second round.
Also, if you tune in to watch coaches coach, the Ken Hitchcock-Lindy Ruff rematch from the 1999 Stanley Cup Final — Ruff, then of the still-sour Sabres, now coaching Dallas, Hitch’s old Cup-winning squad — ought to be worth a story or two. BLACKHAWKS DOWN: The Blackhawks’ semi-dynasty ended (or was interrupted) by the narrowest of margins at the hands of a former teammate, St. Louis’s Vancouver-born Troy Brouwer, but Hitchcock’s Blues were the better, deeper club. They just had a heck of a time proving it against a team with massive reserves of moxie.
But the Hawks could only go so far on three stud defencemen and a supporting cast of suspects. Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Niklas Hjalmarsson had to do all the heavy lifting because Joel Quenneville couldn’t find enough competent bodies to help handle the traffic. Too many David Rundblads, Erik Gustafssons, Brandon Mashinters and Viktor Svedbergs moving in and out of the lineup.
Then the famously hardheaded (in all ways) Seabrook got cranked by Brouwer and fell heavily, melon-first, into the boards in Game 7, and though he returned, he probably shouldn’t have. WATCH YOUR BACK: Seabrook’s longtime partner, Keith, may be exactly who Florida’s young D-man Aaron Ekblad was talking about, both ways, at the Panthers’ locker cleanout day. For a 20-year-old, the remarkably mature and polished Ekblad made some bold statements about the need for players to protect themselves if the NHL isn’t doing it
Dan Boyle ended his two-year Rangers career the same way he managed the puck in New York — he lost it.
adequately.
Among his pointed comments: “There are some guys you have to watch out for ... you can’t overlook any shift in this league and you have to be aware who you’re on the ice with ... When it comes to the league, I can’t comment too far on that. Older guys will take care of that. I’ll keep my mouth fairly shut, but ... I think there should be stiffer punishment for guys that don’t respect other players’ health in the league. It’s a dangerous game. We all signed up for it, but ... I think the league should come down harder on repeat offenders and guys that don’t respect other players.”
Keith has his head on a swivel at all times, and he’s very difficult to hit. That’s hockey IQ. OFF THE BOYLE: Dressing room cleanout day after a hockey club’s season ends is usually a place for kibitzing, gathering off-season phone numbers and talking about the future, with a little rehashing of the past.
Not so in Tarrytown, N.Y., where Rangers defenceman Dan Boyle seized the opportunity to lay into New York Post hockey columnist Larry Brooks, who had been critical of Boyle’s play even before coach Alain Vigneault made the 39-year-old a healthy scratch the night the club was eliminated by Pittsburgh.
There were a lot of F-words from Boyle’s side, and he wanted Brooks out of his scrum before he would talk to the other reporters. Brooks politely refused to leave, and it got louder and uglier. BOYS, BOYS, PLEASE: It is not written in the NHL standard player contract that players are immune from criticism. It is also not written in the NHL media agreement that a player isn’t allowed to tell a reporter to go have sex with themselves.
As for refusing to commence a post-season interview until a particular columnist removes himself from the scrum, well, that’s dicier. The proper response, in a free-speech-respecting media, would be for the others to adopt a “talk to all of us, or none of us” show of solidarity. But because Boyle is usually a good if sometimes cantankerous quote, that would never happen. So basically, it’s two guys having an argument, exchanging unpleasantries, and parting ways, each then resuming business as usual.
No biggie. If you dish it out, you have to be able to take it, and Brooks did. CREDIT WHERE DUE: Hand it to the rival New York Daily News, though, for getting the best line out of the Brooks-Boyle brouhaha. Pat Leonard’s lead: “Dan Boyle ended his two-year Rangers career the same way he managed the puck in New York — he lost it.”