Habs’ Eller puts forth dominating performance
Play hints at reservoir of talent yet untapped
Most times, quotes from hockey players are about as useful as parkas at Daytona.
As insight into the human condition goes, “Bobbsy got the puck to Jiggsy and Jiggsy one-timed it through the five-hole,” is not Shakespeare.
That’s why, nine times out of 10, a post-game visit to the locker room is pointless, unless you have a thing for smelly socks and getting elbowed in scrums.
But there are exceptions. Lars Eller delivered one Saturday night. Here it is, courtesy of Abe Hefter of CJAD: “At some point in your career you have to define what kind of player you’re going to be. I feel that’s where I’m at right now.”
OK, so it’s not “to be or not to be,” as spoken by Eller’s fellow Dane, Hamlet, who played an indecisive left wing for the Elsinore Castle Eagles back in the day. But as hockey player introspection goes, this is Nobel Prize stuff.
It helps that the comment came as a postscript to Eller’s first-star night, when he and linemates Alex Galchenyuk and Erik Cole each scored a goal and swept the threestar selections — an almost unheard of event when the enormously popular Carey Price pitches a shutout.
“You can get the guidelines and point the player in the right direction but in the end you have to do the work yourself,” Eller also said. Looks like the young man is doing the work, in more ways than one. Eller’s emergence is very much part of the surprising fashion in which the Canadiens have ambushed the Eastern Conference this season.
Every time Eller plays, he does at least one thing that hints at an untapped reservoir of talent. Until recently, you would see it only in flashes — but now he’s dominating games at times, as he did Saturday night against the Rangers.
Of course, it didn’t hurt that he had Galchenyuk on his left and Cole on his right. Galchenyuk is the kid with the preternatural hands and a penchant for driving the net, even though he still has the upper body of a cyclist. When he’s on his game, Cole brings speed, toughness and a similar drive for the net. All Eller has to do is to orchestrate the ensemble, which he did with panache Saturday.
Then he followed a splendid effort with some dazzling quote. I’m telling you: the kid could have a future in this little game. Take two Prozac and call me in the morning: These are sweet times to be a fan of the Montreal Canadiens. Less than a year after Pierre Gauthier was sent packing with his vegan recipes and his penchant for disaster, the CHC is riding high.
Marc Bergevin is more popular than any general manager since the glory days of Serge Savard. Therrien, who seemed to be a risky hire when Bergevin brought him back as head coach, is on everyone’s short list for the Jack Adams Trophy.
Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher are playing like veteran stars. Brandon Prust has been a brilliant addition. Andrei Markov is reminding us all of what he can do when he’s healthy, and Tomas Plekanec is proving that the only thing he was missing last season was healthy linemates. The team has dropped one point in the past seven games.
Oh, yes. And the Canadiens are also first in the Eastern Conference with 26 points, although the Boston Bruins hold 671 games in hand.
But try telling that to the fans. When I mention how precisely Raphael Diaz plays the game, they scream like tweens at a Bieberfest. When I mention David Desharnais’s grit and drive, they insist that he’s slow, soft and he can’t shoot straight. And Plekanec? Don’t get them started on Tomas Plekanec.
It’s a long-standing tradition. We’re talking fans of Canadiens here, the people who are always somewhere between total-body hysteria and their 19th Nervous Breakdown. In 1976-77, the year the Habs lost eight games in total, they went into St. Louis the night after beating the Colorado Rockies 6-0 in Denver and lost to the Blues, 7-2. It was January, some players were down with the flu. It happens.
This was before we had Twitter and talk radio to hype the hysteria, but there were still people saying that Scotty Bowman should be fired, that Ken Dryden should be traded and that Larry Robinson was a bum. (No one, then or ever, would criticize Guy Lafleur.)
The Canadiens turned right around and produced another 6-0 shutout, this one at home against the Los Angeles Kings. Bowman’s job was safe. Dryden and Robinson stayed. And the greatest team in the history of the NHL was able, somehow, to complete a magical season.
So the next time you want to wax apoplectic over Desharnais, Diaz, Plekanec, Markov or anyone else on the roster, take a pill and, like, chill. Gentlemen, stop your brains and start your engines: It is, bar none, the single dumbest sports spectacle on the planet: several dozen cars going around and around an oval track a mindnumbing 200 times, leavened only by the occasional bumper-cars wreck.
Really, there are only two possible ways to watch the Daytona 500: With a dozen beers in your gut or a full frontal lobotomy or, preferably, both. It’s loud, it’s stupid and it’s an orgy of waste and pollution, covered by announcers with Too Dumb for Texas accents that sound as though they’re talking from the bottom of a barrel of moonshine.
But Daytona hit a new low this weekend, after the crash that sent engine debris ripping through the fence and injured at least 28 fans, two of them (including a child) critically.
Time to shut down, right? Show a little respect for the injured? Nope. After the predictable teary-eyed moment of silence, they trotted out a shabby country singer for an off-key national anthem, then it was chug your beers and start your engines — but only for those with strong stomachs and the IQ of a lug wrench.
Line ’em up: If the proposed NHL realignment we’ve seen is accurate, the only real change for the Habs is that they will be in the same division as the Detroit Red Wings. (They’re calling it “Conference 2,” but really, it’s an eight-team division.)
Meanwhile, the teams in Conference 1 (the Flyers, Rangers, Penguins, Devils, etc.,) get to pick on the Columbus Blue Jackets instead. All in all, fans in Montreal should love it. They get regular visits from Boston and Toronna, a potential new/old rivalry with the Red Wings — and fewer games against Winnipeg. Win-win, right? Why this? Why now? After marvelling at the nearly complete lack of supplemental discipline levied in the NHL so far this season (if chomping a guy’s arm doesn’t draw a suspension, what does?) we were surprised to see Max Pacioretty get the dreaded call Sunday.
The Pacioretty play was a borderline retaliation hit on former Canadiens prospect Ryan McDonagh, but since McDonagh’s hit on Pacioretty was borderline to begin with, you either call both or neither.
Brendan Shanahan made the right call when he did not suspend Pacioretty, because the league has taken such a soft tack this year — but hits from behind into the boards have to go. Heroes: Lars Eller, Alex Galchenyuk, Raphael Diaz, Andrei Markov, Carey Price, Michel Therrien, Marc Bergevin, Saku Koivu, Sheldon Souray, da Blackhawks, Paul McLean, the Binghamton Senators, Alex Ovechkin, Roberto Luongo, Steven Stamkos, John Tavares, Alex Harvey &&&& last but not least, Geoff Molson — for presiding over the turnaround. Zeros: John Tortorella, NASCAR, Danica Patrick, UFC, Matt Cooke, Taylor Hall, Colton Orr, Luis Suarez, Sepp Blatter, AC Milan, Silvio Berlusconi, FIFA, Jeffrey Loria, David Samson, Pierre Gauthier, Jeremy Jacobs &&&& last but not least, Gary Bettman.