Hrudey wants Hart for Quick
FOCUS ON: NHL Former Kings goalie and current HNIC analyst proud to see his old team doing so well
Kelly Hrudey is the most recent goaltender to have surrendered a Stanley Cup-winning goal to the Canadiens. It came off the stick of Kirk Muller 19 years less a month ago, at the Forum on June 9, 1993, in the 4-1 Game 5 Habs victory over the Los Angeles Kings that would earn Montreal its 24th championship.
“Thanks for reminding me,” Hrudey said with a laugh on Friday, the popular Hockey Night in Canada analyst on the phone from his Toronto hotel.
“So all these years later, has the emotional scar healed?” he was asked lightly.
“Actually, no, in all seriousness,” Hrudey replied, laughing no more. “I don’t think it will ever heal. Some would suggest that I’d have some pleasant memories of the final. And yet it happens to be by far – nothing even gets close to it – the worst hockey memory of my life.”
This is a special spring for the 51-year-old native of Edmonton who now calls Calgary home – that is, when he’s not living in a Toronto hotel or elsewhere on Hockey Night’s playoff road.
Hrudey is a fiercely proud Kings alumnus, second only to Rogie Vachon as the most successful netminder in franchise history. He’s thrilled that Los Angeles is one victory from a berth in the Western Conference final, up 3-0 on St. Louis.
And Hrudey, like the rest of us, is dazzled this postseason by the stellar play of Kings goalie Jonathan Quick.
This week, Vachon suggested that Quick should win the Vézina Trophy as the NHL’S best goaltender. On Friday, Hrudey had another idea.
“He should win the Hart (as the league’s most valuable player),” said Hrudey, who played 360 regular-season games and 57 more in the playoffs for the Kings from 1989-96. “That’s what I’ve thought of his play the entire season.
“I feel a real optimism for the Kings. I’m really proud of them because they’re doing it all in the right way. This is a team that works incredibly hard. It starts with their top players, who are their hardest-working guys. They’re the real deal.
“I think that, because of what we accomplished in Los Angeles when Wayne (Gretzky) was there, this just seems really special. I remember how cool it was back then, the popularity that hockey was gaining in Southern California. To see that it’s at that level again brings back really pleasant memories.”
If only Hrudey could let time soften the hues of his team’s 1993 loss to the Canadiens.
The Kings opened the series with a 4-1 victory in Montreal, then were leading Game 2 by a goal with 63 seconds to play when defenceman Éric Desjardins scored the tying goal on the power play.
The Canadiens won 51 seconds into overtime, Desjardins scoring again, then won Games 3 and 4 in overtime back in Los Angeles. It wasn’t that close in Game 5 at the Forum, Muller scoring the go-ahead goal at 3:51 of the second period before the Habs added two to clinch the Cup.
“It was all right there for us,” Hrudey said, “but Montreal just played better in the end.”
Kings coach Barry Melrose lauded his goalie for getting his team into extra periods in three consecutive games. Two decades later, Hrudey appreciates the sentiment, but quickly thanks Melrose and his teammates for rallying around him for months leading to the final.
“That was my worst year in pro hockey,” Hrudey recalled of a gruesome personal slump that spanned from
Carey Price “is a cornerstone to the franchise.”
HNIC COMMENTATOR KELLY HRUDEY
December to February, “during which I went from being an okay NHL goaltender to being, bar none, the worst in the league.”
But Hrudey pulled himself out of it, then appeared in 20 of the Kings’ 24 playoff games, No. 2 Rob Stauber backstopping the others.
Lifetime regular season against the Canadiens, Hrudey won five, lost 10, tied three and lost two in overtime. For some reason, he recalls having had a harder time against the Habs on home ice, though the records show he was 3-4-2-0 at home and 2-6-1-2 at the Forum and then Molson Centre.
At least he bookended his career vs. Montreal nicely; Hrudey won his first game against the Habs and tied his last.
He’s been a popular CBC analyst full-time since 1998, an insightful voice who doesn’t need to be a whitecap in a Hockey Night intermission sea that many nights is a tsunami. That’s not to say he doesn’t have strong opinions.
Of first-round knockout victim Boston, Hrudey says the Bruins were at least partially undone by the “turmoil” that he viewed consuming the team for much of the season.
Of Vancouver: “They weren’t in a good place entering the playoffs, certainly not the Canucks of last year that believed they were a great team and willed it to happen.”
In Montreal, Hrudey views impending restricted freeagent goalie Carey Price as “a stud.”
“You’ve got to get him signed,” Hrudey said. “He’s a cornerstone to the franchise. I’ve always been in awe of guys who are able to play in such tough markets and mentally not get beaten up too badly while finding a way to get the best out of themselves. With Carey, it goes to how he carries himself on the ice. He looks so calm and relaxed. To me, that’s why he has so much success.”
On whether Hall of Famer Patrick Roy, the goalie who outduelled him in the 1993 Cup final, would thrive behind the Canadiens bench?
“One of the things you want in your coach is passion and Patrick has tons of that,” Hrudey said. “Those days when it’s hard to get prepared for a game and your coach is as passionate as he was the first game of the season, that can help you. Patrick has such a good hockey mind that he would be fine as Montreal’s coach.”
Hrudey was laughing again when he spoke of the six Mcdonald’s did-didn’t commercials shot last summer in which he stars with fellow Hockey Night analyst P.J. Stock.
“P.J. and I can get into arguments,” he said, chuckling. “He’s a trusted friend. But I know this: f rom watching him, we’re not going to get any acting gigs any time soon.”