Boudreau faces nemesis: Game 7
“I got to walk that lonesome valley. I got to walk it by myself. There’s nobody here can walk it for me. ...” — from Johnny Cash’s The Reverend Mr. Black.
ANAHEIM — Bruce Boudreau said he reached out to Todd McLellan of the San Jose Sharks a couple of weeks ago to talk over the difficulties presented by the Los Angeles Kings.
But McLellan must have had his own problems — either arguing for his job or, more likely, getting assurances that if he did come back as head coach of the Sharks, all the same suspects wouldn’t be on board the ever-leaky ship — and one way or another, he didn’t return the call.
Facing Game 7 now, against the team that may be the toughest ‘out’ in the National Hockey League, Boudreau, the Anaheim Ducks head coach, has decided he isn’t going to ask any of his coaching colleagues for advice on how to get over the hump.
“Had Chicago lost, I know those coaches pretty good,” he said Thursday. “But I don’t think I’m going to get anything from them now.”
The Blackhawks await the winner of Friday’s night’s Ducks-Kings finale.
So Boudreau’s got to walk that lonesome valley. The 59-year-old hockey lifer — pretty much walking proof that hockey isn’t a personality contest; otherwise he’d be unbeaten — has to try to put to use whatever he has taken from the five previous Game 7s he has coached, in Washington and Anaheim.
All were as the coach of firstplace teams. Only one ended in victory. Three of his first four playoff series as an NHL head coach ended in Game 7 losses — to the Flyers, Penguins and Canadiens. Last year, the Ducks lost their firstround series to Detroit in seven. His lone victory was with Washington, over the New York Rangers in the first round in 2008-09.
“You learn more every year you’re in this league, every time you’re in that situation. My Game 7 record wouldn’t indicate that I’ve learned anything,” he said, smiling, “but I tend to believe I have. A couple of things that were done last year, I’ve already addressed, that hopefully won’t happen this year.”
“You’re due, then. Is what you’re saying?” a reporter asked.
“I am due,” Boudreau said. “I’m 1-4 right now. So I’m due. Because we lost all four at home.”
No doubt that was why the angst was audible in his voice after the Ducks lost Game 6 in Los Angeles Wednesday.
“You never wait until the seventh game. Look what happened to Boston,” he said, post-game. “You want to win it when you can, and we didn’t get it done.”
But he, and the Ducks, had to move on from that thought in a big hurry, and Boudreau says he hopes all the lessons have been learned when his players step onto the Honda Center ice.
Not only lessons taught by the Kings, who were ferocious in defending their turf Wednesday, but by the Red Wings last spring.
“This may sound stupid, but I think we’re in a different place than we were last year,” Boudreau said. “We never felt we were as good as Detroit, you know. It was, ‘How are we going to beat this team?’ They had beaten us three overtime games up to that point. I think the experience of going through it will make (the Ducks) better suited for (tonight).”
He didn’t quite spill his coffee when Kings coach Darryl Sutter declared L.A. the underdog for Game 7.
“Like, you guys write that stuff ?” Boudreau asked. “You can ask anybody here (media) who they think the underdog is, and the underdog is us. They’ve already gone through (essentially) five Game 7s in the playoffs. They’ve been there. They’ve won the Stanley Cup. I thought it was pretty funny when Darryl said that, and he actually said it with a straight face. I don’t know who he’s trying to buffalo, but it sure isn’t us.”
The Game 7 losses are the hardest to get over. Harder than being swept.
“You got to have played it to understand that,” the coach said. “It’s not one game, it’s eight months. It’s a dream that’s even longer, 50 years, depending on who it is. If you get swept, at least you’ve got preparation that you’re losing. When you go into Game 7, one minute you’re thinking we’ve got a game in two days and the next minute you’re done. It happens pretty quick.
“And there’s not a person in either room that hasn’t dreamt about, if they’re successful tomorrow, what are the opportunities that await them?”
Ducks’ Devante Smith-Pelly, ubiquitous in Game 5 but, like his linemates Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, underwhelming in the Game 6 loss, is among those dreamers Boudreau mentioned.
Growing up, playing street hockey in Toronto, he said, “I always wanted to score that winning goal in Game 7. I would pretend I was someone on the Leafs, probably Mats Sundin, getting a chance to win a Stanley Cup.”
That must have been some dream.
Getzlaf, the Ducks’ captain and on-ice leader, has had several somewhat closer looks at the real thing. He’s won a Stanley Cup, two Olympic gold medals and now he feels the responsibility of taking his team to the next rung of the playoff ladder.
The Ducks, with a lot of young players, are going to look to him to see how to act, how to prepare, how to calm the nerves.
“I’ve been in a lot different situations. I’ve been fortunate enough to play in a lot of big games,” he said. “That’s part of my job as kind of leading by example in those areas. I’m going to try to do that.”
That said, it can’t be all about a team’s best player or Getzlaf ’s fellow Hart Trophy finalists — Philly’s Claude Giroux and Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby — wouldn’t already be on the sidelines licking their wounds.
“Anyone will tell you, your best players have to be your best players and your other guys step up in different situations,” Getzlaf said, but added: “It’s usually not the top goal scorer in the league that scores the Game 7 winner, if you look in history. Our depth has been our strength throughout the whole year and we’re going to use that tomorrow.”
If the Ducks win, the conference final begins here Sunday. If it’s L.A., it opens in Chicago. Either way, it will be about a 36-hour turnaround.
Boudreau knows, and all his players, too, that it’s going to take something extraordinary to penetrate the aura the Kings have about elimination games.
“Well, somebody is going to have to,” the coach said. “Why not us?”