LABEL-BUSTER
Teddy Blueger’s career has been built on defying expectations. So where does the next surprise lay?
Teddy Blueger wasn’t the scenestealer in the highlight goal. But a series of smart, simple plays set up one of the most memorable moments of this season. During 3-on-3 overtime in a 3-2 win in Washington Feb. 23, Blueger stepped into Dmitry Orlov’s shooting lane to force the Capitals defender to miss wide. Then Blueger, whose skating has noticeably improved over his NHL career, booked it down the right wing to create a 2-on-1 with Kasperi Kapanen.
He crossed the Washington blue line with the puck on his backhand. A year ago, he might have gotten rid of it. Instead, Blueger waited another beat or two, pulled the puck onto his forehand and spun a perfect saucer pass over the outstretched leg of Orlov to set up Kapanen’s winning one-timer.
That play, adding offense on top of solid defense, summarized Blueger’s rise.
“If you think about the big picture and look at where I am now compared to a year or two ago, I think there’s been some good progress,” Blueger said the other day. “[The development] has not always been as fast as I would have liked. But that’s the main goal -—just keep getting better.”
The Penguins have been looking for the right third-line center since Nick Bonino left in 2017, a frustrating search that included paying a premium for Derick Brassard. The past two years, Blueger quietly kept grinding to become that guy.
Entering the weekend, he had three goals and 11 points in 22 games. He’s won a career-best 49.5% of his faceoffs. And defensively, he is not far off from where he was a season ago, when he received a vote for the Selke Trophy.
The Latvian has come a long way since he arrived — with a hunched-over stride but a high hockey IQ — at Minnesota prep school Shattuck St. Mary’s in 2008.
Blueger exceeded the expectations of others there. And then at Minnesota State. And then in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, where he slowly but surely climbed the depth chart from a fourth-line plugger to an all-situations player who tallied 21 goals and 39 points in 45 games in his final American Hockey League season.
Along the way, as he realized he needed to work harder than hyped-up peers, his work ethic developed into a habit and then into a borderline addiction. “If I’m not working as hard as I can, it eats away at me mentally,” he said.
After the playoff loss last summer, Blueger spent about six weeks in Latvia before heading to his offseason home in Minneapolis and getting back to work.
From late September until December, he worked with “skating dynamics” coach Barry Karn. Or he dropped in at pickup games featuring NHLers such as Anders Lee, Brock Nelson and James van Riemsdyk. Or he did skills drills in a small group. He was typically on the ice five days a week. What, just five days? Slacker.
“Well,” Blueger said, chuckling at himself a little bit, “no one wants to do anything on the weekends.”
This year, Blueger’s focus was stickhandling, hanging onto the puck longer and displaying more poise and identifying areas to attack in the offensive zone.
“My first two seasons, I was just focused on not making a mistake, chipping every puck out and once I got to the red line, I’d dump it in a lot,” he said. “Now, the game has slowed down to the point where I can look to make a play.”
That pretty pass he made to Kapanen in D.C. was a perfect example.
OK, so where does Blueger go from here? Pigeonholed as a bottom-six player, he doesn’t want to put a ceiling on his potential. He can look across the dressing room at Bryan Rust, another Penguins draft pick who was seen as a fringe prospect before becoming a pointper-game player at 27.
“I think sometimes players get labeled as certain things because that’s how they start out,” he said. “It may not happen quickly. But it’s ultimately up to you.”
So while Blueger is embracing the third-line center role now, he doesn’t plan to settle. As far as he is concerned, if he keeps putting in the work, why can’t he be a top-six player five more years down the road?
Minus star freshman Cade Cunningham, No. 17ranked Oklahoma State still found some welcome momentum going into the postseason.
Sophomore Avery Anderson III scored a career-high 31 points and the Cowboys, with Cunningham sitting out the regular-season finale because of a sprained ankle, beat No. 6 West Virginia, 8580, Saturday in Morgantown, W.Va.
West Virginia (18-8, 11-6 Big 12) had a chance to tie the score near the end, but Keylan Boone stole McBride’s pass into the lane with 11 seconds left. Anderson then hit two free throws for the final margin.
“We had no bounce. We had zero bounce,” Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins said.
Oklahoma State (18-7, 117) has won six of seven heading into the Big 12 tournament.
Virginia
Sam Hauser scored 24 points and No. 21 Virginia beat host Louisville, 68-58, to win the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season championship. Assured of least a No. 2 seed in the conference tournament entering the regular-season finale, the Cavaliers (17-6, 13-4) received a huge opening when firstplace and No. 11 Florida State lost, 83-73, earlier in the day at Notre Dame. Louisville fell to 13-6, 8-5.
Creighton
Five players explained in a short pregame video why they were hurt by coach Greg McDermott’s remarks in his locker-room talk after a loss last weekend. Star guard Marcus Zegarowski said after the No. 14 Bluejays’ 93-73 win over Butler Saturday that even though McDermott made a mistake, he loves and supports all of his players. McDermott twice used the term “plantation” as part of an analogy urging team unity. The university suspended McDermott indefinitely
Penn State
The Nittany Lions women closed the regular season with an 88-61 loss to host No. 8 Maryland, which leads the NCAA in scoring. Niya Beverley led Penn State (9-14, 6-10 Big Ten) with 15 points. The Terrapins (21-2, 17-1) shot 52%from the field.
Liberty
The Flames (22-5) earned the NCAA tournament’s first automatic berth late Friday without playing in their conference championship. They play North Alabama for the title Sunday, but the Lions are in a transition period to Division I and ineligible for the tournament.
Morehead State
TheEagles (23-7) earned an automatic NCAA berth, winning the Ohio Valley Conference tournament, 86-71, over No. 1-seeded Belmont (26-4) in Evansville, Ind. Freshman Johni Broome scored 27 points for second-seeded MoreheadState, which previously made the tournament a decadeago.