It looks like Bryan McCabe has finally grown up
That would mean good news for Leafs
As with most sports, pre- season records in hockey don’t mean much. Individual stats mean even less. But if there was a number a Maple Leaf fan could be excited about after this fall’s slate of friendlies, it would be the number 2. As in the two penalty minutes attached to Bryan McCabe’s name after five matches.
Having watched the very passionate, sometimes hyper- emotional McCabe as a Leaf since he arrived on Oct. 2, 2000, and having seen him wage a nearly constant, nightly war with the officials ever since over his defensive techniques and alleged diving, I view the 120 seconds he spent in the penalty box as a bit of a revelation. Has McCabe, at the tender age of 30, finally grown up?
If he has, this could be very good news indeed for a Leaf squad that has only five proven NHL defenceman — if you count Aki Berg — and will rely heavily on that small clutch of rearguards to get a lot done over the next seven to nine months.
Interestingly, if there was a Leaf one suspected would have trouble adjusting to the new standards of rule enforcement, it would have been McCabe.
Instead, while gentlemanly captain Mats Sundin has taken no fewer than seven minors in the pre-season, McCabe appears to have adjusted beautifully to the new environment, at least so far in five games that didn’t matter.
If it is a case of newfound maturity, it would be partially, one figures, the product of a series of humbling career developments. The last we saw the defenceman in NHL competition, he was being embarrassed in every which way imaginable by the Philadelphia Flyers in the second round of the 2004 Stanley Cup playoffs, with the puck seeming like a time bomb on the end of his stick.
In the penultimate contest, he was a horrifying minus- 5.
“ You can put the loss solely on me,” he told reporters, impressively facing the music like a champ. When the lockout came, he ventured to Sweden to play but soon found himself headed back home in a fit of pique when the team he was playing for benched him. As the Leaf player rep, he uttered a series of unfortunate comments, including vowing never to play in a league with a salary cap, and then when Team Canada came to organizing a summer camp in preparation for the 2006 Winter Olympics, he wasn’t among the dozen rearguards invited to camp. When the lockout ended and there was a period in which teams could buy out the contracts of players without having those salaries count against the salary cap, many speculated that the Leafs would be wise to do just that with McCabe.
Instead, he enters this season earning $ 3.4 million, about 10 per cent of the Leaf payroll, and about double the percentage he would have eaten up in the old days when Toronto payroll costs soared well above $60 million. He matters more now because he must. These are the new financial rules of the NHL. The club couldn’t or wouldn’t bring back Brian Leetch, which means McCabe, as well as Tomas Kaberle, has to handle the puck just a little bit more this season. Always big, strong, fast and skilled, since junior McCabe has played with great emotion. His weakness has always been that he doesn’t always read the play correctly or the moment of the game particularly well.
At his best times, his physical talents and emotion make him soar, particularly when producing offence from the blue line.
At his worst, reliance on those natural attributes leave him hopelessly out of position or trying to do too much when less would suffice.
If he can be a little bit more Wade Redden and a little less Ultimate Warrior, he still has a chance to be the dominant blueline stud this team hasn’t had since Borje Salming. The quality of McCabe’s work this season is absolutely pivotal. If he has finally grown up, a team that looks likely to be fighting and scraping all season just for a playoff berth may find the road slightly smoother.