Naslund’s only real regret: ‘Choke Speech’ after key 2003 game
As the Canucks celebrate their 50th season, we’re looking back at the moments that stand out as the biggest in franchise history on the ice and off, good and a few bad. We highlighted the top moments from the 1970s in November, the ’80s in December and the ’90s in January. We look at the ’00s this month and the ’10s in March.
Looking back at his NHL career, there’s not much Markus Naslund would change.
He was a star, he won accolades from fans, players and media alike, his body of work getting the recognition it deserved by being slung from the rafters of Rogers Arena with six other Vancouver Canucks.
But there’s one moment, a fleeting choice of words, he’d like to have back: The Choke Speech.
“I didn’t realize that the word ‘choke’ was such a strong word,” he said this week. “I would’ve definitely used different words to describe how I felt, if I got a chance to do it all over again.”
The moment was one of brutal honesty. It became a definitive moment of Naslund’s career.
And it wasn’t even supposed to happen.
April 6, 2003 was supposed to be a day of triumph, the long-awaited validation of years of hard work and perseverance. It was supposed to be the Canucks’ first division title in a decade. It was supposed to be Naslund’s coronation as the goal-scoring and points king of the NHL. It was supposed to be the glorious ignition of a run to the Stanley Cup.
What it wasn’t supposed to be was a 2-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings, a team long eliminated from playoff contention, and the team the Canucks had thumped 5-1 just a week before.
The Canucks needed a single point to clinch the division, after letting slip a chance in their previous game. A 3-1 lead against Phoenix — another team pulling their golf clubs from the closet — turned into a 3-3 tie.
But the Canucks, a squad that had set a team record with 104 points, didn’t look like a championship side against the Kings. They played tight. Skittish. On six power plays, they mustered eight shots. They made uncharacteristic mistakes, like Brent Sopel’s giveaway in his own end, that resulted in Mikko Eloranta’s game-sealing goal and dropped a lead blanket of hush on the arena.
“We choked,” Naslund told media after the game.
“We had this game in our hands to take care of it. Just get a point. One point and we would have won our division.”
Now, nearly 17 years later, Naslund still isn’t sure what happened. They’d been atop the Northwest Division for nearly four months, and had their best shot at knocking Colorado off their perch atop the division for eight straight years and two Stanley Cups.
“It was one of those games where we couldn’t find a way to get out of the funk and get some energy going,” he said. “Tough to describe, but it happens for some reason once in a while. We had winning our division as a goal for a few years, and wanted to beat Colorado, who’d reigned the division for a long time.”
While Naslund and the Canucks were getting shut out by the Kings, the Avs were on their way to demolishing the St. Louis Blues 5-2, with Peter Forsberg leading the way with three points.
That clinched the Art Ross for Forsberg, while teammate Milan Hejduk had snatched the goal-scoring title away from Naslund by scoring twice over the previous two games.
And while the Art Ross went to his fellow Swede, Naslund’s 48 goals and 56 assists — making him just the third Canuck to crack triple digits in points at the time — was recognized by his peers as he won the player-voted MVP trophy, the Lester B. Pearson Award (Now named after Ted Lindsay).
“The Pearson means more to me and is more flattering as it’s voted on by my peers,” Naslund said. “Although I respect that the Hart is probably a more correct MVP award as you guys in the media weigh all the aspects of the game in your decision.”
Not all media agreed. The influential Hockey News named Naslund as their MVP that year, and he took home the second of his three Viking Awards — the prize given to the top Swede in the NHL — over his hometown compatriot.
It represented Naslund’s high-water mark with the team, the halcyon days of the famed West Coast Express line with Brendan Morrison centring wingers Naslund and Todd Bertuzzi, with the trio responsible for 45 per cent of the team’s total goals that season.
The labels he was slapped with in his playing days, that of a choker and playoff underperformer — 13 goals in 45 career post-season games with Vancouver — have been eroded by the passage of time, and his undeniable legacy. The player who is third all-time on the Canucks’ scoring list (346 goals, 410 assists) had a mob of fans outside his box after Monday’s game, a group he willingly obliged with autographs and pictures.
There is just one other thing he wishes he could change, however.
“I’m generally pretty hard on myself, and what frustrates me the most looking back at my career is the fact that I never won a Stanley Cup,” he said. “Being part of a championship bonds you forever with your teammates, and that’s something I would’ve loved to been a part of.”