New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Old-time hockey returns with coaches sniping in playoffs
Not long after Peter DeBoer quipped that Minnesota takes a lot of penalties, Dean Evason accused Dallas players of diving.
Sheldon Keefe suggested Tampa Bay players had manipulated referees during a fracas, prompting Jon Cooper to say he was confused by what his Toronto counterpart was getting at. Rod Brind’Amour sounded off about a missed call that left Carolina’s Teuvo Teravainen with a broken hand, which surprised Lane Lambert after his Islanders got zero power plays in the game.
No one is standing on the benches and yelling at each other — yet — but the first round of the NHL playoffs is an old-school throwback to coaches of yesteryear having it out off the ice to set the tone for their teams in the midst of hard-fought series. The sniping is on full blast.
“I love it,” retired Stanley Cup-winning coach Ken Hitchcock said Monday. “It’s one-upmanship. You’re doing anything you can to get an edge on the other guy. There’s no backoff from some of the coaches that are in there right now.”
Hitchcock knows all about it from his warring words with everyone from Lindy Ruff and John Tortorella to late Hall of Famer Pat Quinn.
Ruff — older and more mild-mannered now coaching the New Jersey Devils in the playoffs — in 2006 said Hitchcock’s Flyers “acted like idiots.” Tortorella — age 64 and back in the league with Philadelphia — in 2004 said Hitchcock “should shut his yap.”
“Is he back out of that gopher hole again?” Hitchcock replied during that Eastern Conference final. “I’m going to have to do that ‘whack-a-mole’ thing.”
The back and forth this spring is significantly more subtle.
After his Stars evened their series against the Wild in a Game 2 that featured seven misconduct penalties, DeBoer made it a point to say: “Minnesota takes penalties. They’re the sixth-most penalized team in the league, so we’re ready for that.” Evason the next day said he and his staff watch every interview, adding Dallas “had some bigger people probably go down pretty easy in that hockey game.”
DeBoer called it “deflection” by Evason.
“Listen, if I was coaching one of the most penalized teams in the league I’d probably do the same thing,” DeBoer added. “That’s good coaching by him.”
The same night, Brind’Amour complained about a “tomahawk chop” by New York’s Jean-Gabriel Pageau that injured Teravainen and wasn’t called a penalty. Lambert called it a play that happens 25, 30 times a game and wasn’t done with an intent to injure.
Toronto’s Keefe applauded opponents Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov for fighting Auston Matthews and Ryan O’Reilly during the Lightning-Leafs game Saturday night, — “a classic example of a veteran championship team like Tampa Bay manipulating the officials and taking advantage of a situation.”
TE (6-5, 253 pounds)
Projected: Third/fourth round The Hamden Hall product broke out during Michigan’s 2021 campaign, catching 17 passes for 165 yards and three touchdowns. As a fifth-year senior last