Save the sandpaper for April, players say
Regular season more about wins and skill, while playoffs demand rougher, tougher style
Eventually, the camel’s back couldn’t take it anymore.
Or, in the case of Vladimir Tarasenko, it was his shoulder that finally caved in. It was only a matter of time. It’s the same shoulder that the St. Louis Blues forward underwent surgery on two summers ago and which he dislocated during last spring’s playoff run.
That shoulder, which was on the pointed end of 50 hits in 26 games, seemed to sum up how the Blues had bullied their way into becoming Stanley Cup champions. The only problem was Tarasenko didn’t just save his shoulder for the playoffs.
When the season started, he and the rest of his teammates were back ramming themselves into everything that moved as they charged headfirst into defending their title. Ten games later, Tarasenko is undergoing yet another surgery and will be out five months or more.
Surprised? Well, you shouldn’t be. Weeks earlier, Don Cherry had pretty much predicted something like this would happen.
“They cannot play a regular season like they do the playoffs,” Cherry said of the Blues in an Oct. 19 Coach’s Corner segment. “The game is not the same and they’re trying to play the game like they do in the playoffs: tough, honest, good hockey. No, you’ve got to play the sweetheart game … they’re playing rough, tough hockey. Wait until the playoffs to do that.”
Cherry, of course, is the same commentator who had previously lamented that the Toronto Maple Leafs were not tough enough to go deep in the playoffs. And while he might be correct, there is a difference in the two statements.
Teams, such as the Leafs or Tampa Bay Lightning, might need to get tougher to win a Cup. But it’s a problem for another day. The regular season isn’t about finishing checks and blocking shots. It’s about winning games with speed and skill, while staying healthy.
It’s why a team such as St. Louis, which was dead-last in the overall standings in early January, was able to ramp up its physicality and go on an unprecedented run to a championship. But it’s also why a team such as the Washington Capitals, who also played a heavy game en route to claiming their first ever Cup in 2018, went from winning it all to being bounced in the first round a year later.
“I just think it’s hard to win back-to-back when you play that physical grinding style of hockey,” said Capitals head coach Todd Reirden. “I think when you see a team like Pitt that played a speed game where you’re relying on your speed all the time and flip a lot of pucks out to space and chase pucks down, their personnel wasn’t based on playing physical at all. That’s totally the opposite of what our team did in the Stanley Cup.”
There’s a balance between playing physically and not physically breaking down by the time the playoffs arrive. The latter is basically what happened to the Capitals last year. Other teams, such as the Bruins, rely on skill to rack up points in the regular season and then save their “Big Bad” moniker when they need it the most.
“The thing is, if you look at regular season compared to playoffs, it’s different hockey is what it is,” said Los Angeles Kings captain Anze Kopitar, whose team missed the playoffs a year after beating up on teams to win the Cup in 2014. “In order to get into the playoffs, you have to be fast and skilled and everything.
“Playoffs is a little bit different. You have to wear teams down. That’s what it is. It’s not as high-scoring as the regular season. You obviously still have to have some grit and some hard-nosed guys that do that. But it’s a fine line. You’ve got to play consistent. That’s what it comes down to.”
Maybe Toronto will be able to flip the switch when the time arrives. After all, Tarasenko was averaging just 1.15 hits per game during last year’s regular season before ramping up to 1.92 in the playoffs.
For the Capitals, the change between the two “seasons” is less dramatic. Washington entered Tuesday night’s game against Toronto with the best record in the Metropolitan Division. And the Capitals are doing it by blending speed and skill with physicality. Alex Ovechkin not only had nine goals in 13 games. But he, along with Tom Wilson and Garnet Hathaway, are ranked among the top 20 in hits.
It’s a style of play that could be difficult to keep up for 82 games, not to mention four rounds of playoffs.
“I wouldn’t say it’s physically exhausting over a whole year,” said Wilson. “It’s more that there’s more skating involved in our game this year, there’s more you have to go the distance to finish the check.”
According to Reirden, the extra skating could be worth it, especially against smaller teams like the Leafs and the Lightning.
“We have some speed, for sure,” Reirden said. “But we’re also not that fun a team to play against … and we know that two years ago our success as an organization in winning a Stanley Cup was based on a speed game that was a heavy game. It’s what’s set us up for success for a good regular season and hopefully a long push into the post-season as well.”
Playoffs is a little bit different. You have to wear teams down. That’s what it is. It’s not as high-scoring as the regular season.