When teams pray for some blue snow
The veteran pitcher Jim Bunning called what happened to the Philadelphia Phillies during the 1964 season “the summer of the blue snow.”
It was, in other words, the season when everything went right — until it went terribly wrong.
And either stretch (the good that was so very good and the bad that was so very bad) was as rare as blue snow in summer.
It’s one of the ineffable mysteries of sport. Why does a team come together — and why does it fall apart? If Gene Mauch could have answered that question in the summer of ’64, he wouldn’t have gone into the history books as the skipper who arguably made more mistakes down the stretch than any manager in baseball history.
And if Nashville GM David Poile and head coach Peter Laviolette understood the mysterious process that brought the Predators together for what they might call the “spring of the blue snow,” they could patent it and become very, very wealthy.
The truth is, no one quite knows what magic makes it happen. That was as true in 1964 as it is today. I stumbled across Bunning’s comment over the weekend, while re-reading David Halberstam’s October 1964 on the World Series between the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Phillies play only a bit part in Halberstam’s book, but it’s a fascinating bit. They weren’t supposed to be a factor that season, but (thanks in part to the offseason acquisition of Bunning from the Tigers) they appeared a lock to win the National League pennant as late as September.
That’s when the good blue snow was falling.
Then it all fell apart for a dozen different reasons, including Mauch’s insistence on repeatedly pitching Bunning and fellow ace Chris Short on two days’ rest. The Phillies had a 6½-game lead with 12 games to play and blew it. St. Louis eventually won the pennant (and went on to win the World Series) through a series of events so complex and improbable that it’s probably best to blame it on the blue snow.
It’s the same snow that’s been falling on Nashville this spring. If the Predators had it spectacularly right, it certainly wasn’t obvious during the regular season. The Predators finished tied with Calgary for the final playoff spots in the Western Conference, each with 94 points. Over the course of the season, they scored only 14 more goals than the Canadiens, but they gave up more as well and finished at a plus-16 (compared to Montreal’s plus-26).
No sign, in other words, of a team that was about to make a significant playoff run. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, everyone is pretending this was all planned in advance, that it happened because Poile is a genius and Marc Bergevin is an idiot, that The Trade killed the Canadiens and made the Predators.
Horse patootie. In all likelihood, The Trade made no difference at all. If there was no trade, it’s entirely possible the Canadiens would have gone out in the first round, beaten by hot goaltending and a lack of scoring, and it’s equally possible the Predators would be exactly where they are now.
To the foolish and the terminally angry, Nashville’s success means the Preds did everything right, while the Canadiens did everything wrong, beginning with The Trade. Mercifully, the people who run things know better.
The Canadiens know all about the blue snow phenomenon. It doesn’t happen to bad teams — it strikes when you have a good, but not great team, and things break your way. It happened to Montreal in 1971, 1986 and 1993.
But just as good teams can come together, they can also fall apart.
Ask the Chicago Blackhawks, Nashville’s first victim this season. The Blackhawks are the nearest thing to a contemporary dynasty.
They have Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith and this year, they appeared to have a clear path to the final. But the Blackhawks’ core has played an awful lot of hockey in the past decade and Chicago appeared to implode just as Nashville was putting it together.
Does that mean Stan Bowman is an inept GM, that Joel Quenneville can’t coach and the Blackhawks have to fire everyone and put together a new core? Hardly.
Does it mean the Predators have a formula that everyone else should copy?
Not in the least. In the NHL, by the time you find a way to make it to the final, chances are the team that got you there is already outmoded.
Does that mean Nashville is simply lucky? Absolutely not.
You have to be very good to make it this far — but you also need some luck, especially when you make the playoffs as a wildcard team.
Does it mean Bergevin made no mistakes this season?
No, it doesn’t.
But it’s a tricky business, building sports teams. And no matter how hard you work and how many things you do right, now and then you need a little blue snow to come your way.