WARD PREACHES THE IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING EMOTIONAL BALANCE
Geoff Ward can remember every single slight — real or perceived — the Boston Bruins felt from the Vancouver Canucks during the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals.
Ward was an assistant coach with the Bruins back then and can list off all the things the Canucks did that provided bulletin board material to get his team motivated.
That might not be quantifiable, but Ward — the current Calgary Flames interim head coach — has no doubt in his mind that the things the Canucks did to get under the Bruins’ skin helped his thenteam rise to a higher level.
It’s also why he wasn’t surprised to see the Edmonton Oilers come out flying in Saturday’s Battle of Alberta. The Oilers had three days to think about Flames’ goalie David Rittich’s celebratory stick-flip after the Calgarians won in a shootout last Wednesday
night. That’s the type of thing that’s going to put a little fire in the bellies of any team heading into a rematch.
“You’ve got to be mindful of it,” Ward said. “I can go back to the Stanley Cup Final in 2011 and all the things that fed our emotional level as a team that Vancouver did. It’s all things in the same vein. Biting (Patrice) Bergeron’s finger. Their goaltender going after Tim Thomas verbally … There was so much that happened in that series that kept emotionally feeding us.
“I think when you win say little, when you lose say less. It’s one of those things where you don’t want to emotionally feed it and we learned an important lesson (from Rittich’s stick flip and the Oilers’ response). That’s part of the process of learning how to win and now we move on for it.”
There’s been no shortage of debate about Rittich’s celebrations in the days since the Flames outlasted the Oilers in a shootout last Wednesday evening in Edmonton.
For many, it was just a bit of fun.
The Oilers were open about using the stick flip as motivation after their 8-3 shellacking of the Flames on Saturday night, though.
The Flames are in the middle of an ever-so-tight playoff race right now and they definitely don’t want to be giving divisional rivals any added incentive to play at their best.
For his part, though, Rittich spoke with reporters after Monday’s practice and reiterated that he had meant no disrespect. He was just celebrating a big win after an intense, hard-fought game.
“I didn’t do it to make somebody mad,” Rittich told reporters. “Are we not allowed to celebrate in this league, or what? I didn’t want to do something wrong. I just celebrated and that’s all.
“Why should I change myself? My personality, that’s why I’m in the NHL, so I’m not going to change anything.”
The Flames don’t necessarily need Rittich to change anything, and Ward was careful not to call out his goalie. Instead, he was more reflective about his team needing to find the right emotional balance.
If they’re going to do things that provide extra motivation for their opponents, they need to be matching the emotional energy those opponents bring to the rink. That’s not easy.
“When you look at it, 10 years ago guys would get their heads taken off for doing something like that,” Ward said. “Just across the culture of the game, you never taunted because you were going to pay the price. Now, it seems to be shifting a little bit, but it’s still there.
“You saw Edmonton the other night. They used it to their advantage, fully, but for us, it’s an important lesson to learn because we’ve got to make sure we stay humble and on-task ourselves because we’ve got to stay emotionally engaged so that things like that don’t generate any unnecessary things we don’t need. Even though it’s moving towards it, I’m still a proponent that you don’t want to have showmanship or one-upmanship. There’s too much emotion and down the road, this isn’t going to end after just one game. They’re going to keep talking about it and remembering it every time we play for a long time.”