Not for the faint of heart
BOSTON — Jaromir Jagr kept saying he would not talk to Czech media until he scored a goal. No, he would say (usually in English): “I told you I would do it when I scored a goal, and if I talked to you now, it would make me a liar.”
Over and over, as his goalless streak stretched through the playoffs, he came close, and never closer than in overtimes. In Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final, in double OT, a shot from Zdeno Chara clipped Jagr and then hit the inside of the post, but not inside enough. In overtime of Game 2, Jagr loosed a heavy shot from the slot that rang the crossbar like a doorbell, but it stayed out. The old man says he howled, “God, where are you?” at the rafters. He didn’t get an answer.
“I bet (overtime) is great and exciting for the fans who are watching hockey games,” Jagr said after Boston’s 2-1 win in Game 2 tied the Cup final with the Chicago Blackhawks at a game apiece. “If you have a bad heart, you might not watch the game because you might get a heart attack.
“For young people, it’s pretty exciting to watch.”
This has been a heart-stopping playoffs, because of all the heart. With a maximum of five games left, there have been 26 overtime games in these playoffs, tied with 2001 for the second-most ever behind 1993. It’s the second straight year the first two games of the final went to overtime. Before that, it hadn’t happened since 1951, when all five games went to overtime. Oh, and the only two games the Bruins have lost since winning Game 7 against Toronto (in overtime) were against the Rangers (in overtime) and the Blackhawks (in overtime).
“It’s two evenly matched teams,” said Chicago defenceman Niklas Hjalmarsson. “There’s probably going to be a couple more overtimes. Who knows? You’ve got to enjoy the situation, and embrace it.”
“You don’t try to overthink it too much,” says Tyler Seguin, who made the pass that led to the winning goal in Game 2 while playing perhaps his finest game of the playoffs. “Every shift, whether it’s Tuukka (Rask) making a big save or what, you’re going to celebrate for that, but you’re going to keep trying to bury the puck. You keep focusing on (defence) first, getting scoring opportunities at the other end, and I think that’s why when you lose the overtime game you’re just in such shock ….”
You can almost trace overtime by listening to it. The collective gasps of the home crowd, whether terrified or anticipatory.
And almost very time teams come close, and every time it’s a window into what could have been. Matt Frattin hit the post in overtime of Toronto’s Game 4 loss to Boston. Craig Adams hit the post in Pittsburgh’s Game 3 loss to Boston. Daniel Paille hit the post in overtime in Game 2 of the final, but he got enough of it that the puck went in. Game of inches.
“I actually thought we deserved to win in overtime, we had so many chances,” said Jagr. “But there is no such word, deserve, because it’s sometimes more about the luck.”
Playoff overtime is the best part of hockey, its adrenalin needle, partly because of this. In the first two games of the Stanley Cup final the two teams have played nearly 186 minutes, or a little more than three regulation games. They have scored five goals apiece.