Australian Rules Football was invented to keep cricketers fit. Cricket was invented from the Dutch term for Hockey, met de (krik ket)sen. And Hockey? Well, if you believe my all time favourite player former NHL super star Brett Hull, hockey was invented to stop
men talking about their feelings. And while that may or may not be true, the fastest sport in the world deserves more than a passing mention as the puck is about to drop on the 2012 Stanley Cup finals. So please ladies and gents, sit back and enjoy my light hearted preview of the greatest show on ice that doesn't involve Disney characters as the Los Angeles Kings prepare to do battle with the New Jersey Devils...
Sacramento Los Angeles Lakers, um, Clippers, um, Kings?
If you are unfamiliar with the sport of ice hockey, as people in the small, insignificant market of Los Angeles are, you could be forgiven for not knowing who the Kings were. So we can't fault the poor sub-editors at the tiny little operation known as the NBC confusing one ice hockey team in California for a basketball team in California some 400 miles away, can we?
Oops.
But can we really blame them? Where Cameron Diaz is a regular at Lakers games, we have Alyssa Milano live tweeting Kings games. Where Jack Nicholson fist pumps when Kobe drains a clutch jump shot in the final minute, James Gandolfini stands and applauds when
"Brad Doty" breaks up another odd man rush. And even when the Kings contrive to make the finals for the first time since
some guy called Gretzky single handedly took them there in 1993, you can rest assured basketball was the top highlight on Sportscenter, presumably because some guy dunked the ball. It's not exactly fair is it?
Fortunately the good people in the Kings' social media department got on board and
set the record straight and now, with not only Beiber but Beckham in frequent attendance, maybe the Kings will get their due because this is a scarily good hockey team and will start the finals as favourites.
THE DEVILS!!!
You may, however, be a little more familiar
with these guys.
It isn't why you should be though. Unlike their Californian counterparts, cup finals are no mysery to the Devils as this will be their 5th visit in less than twenty years already having achieved the
ultimate success three times. The name Lou Lamoriello is legendary in hockey circles with the veteran General Manager once again putting together a team that steamrollered through more fancied opponents in the Eastern conference. Where the Kings are scary good, the Devils are scary competent. That is a mighty complement in a lightning fast game where mistakes can make all the difference and it is an asset that will have New Jersey right there until the end.
California, know how to party...
It's the summer of 2011 and Philadelphia Flyers General Manager Paul Holmgren has a problem. He has re-signed two key young players of the team that went to the cup finals in 2010 but struggled to deceive the next season with allegations of late night boozy partying coming to the fore. Of course it hasn't helped that his starting goalies have proven as adept at preventing goals as a hybrid of Zac Dawson, Ryan Schoenmakers and Cale Hooker. So in a desperate attempt to light a fire under his team, he trades captain and heart and soul player Mike Richards to Los Angeles, and lethal scoring weapon Jeff Carter to Columbus. This gives him the salary cap relief to sign star goalie Ilya Bryzgalov to a monster ten year deal that will pay him a cool fifty million dollars.
It starts off well, Richards plays for a Los Angeles side that concede very few goals but score even fewer. Carter throws a tantrum upon his arrival at a terrible Columbus team and promptly spends half his games injured and the other half indifferent. Philadelphia start the season strongly with the play of young talent Claude Giroux ensuring the former star attractions are not missed.
And then something happens to cause consternation. First, their solution to the goalie problem starts
philosophising about the cosmos on national TV. Then he becomes a
human seive as the Devils eliminate the Flyers in the quarter finals.
But the heartache doesn't end there.
Realising that their star acquisition would rather be anywhere else than in Columbus, the Blue Jackets trade Carter in the hope of getting some return on investment. With his indifferent play and large salary, teams are not kicking the doors down with offers. But one team has a pressing need for goals in order to make the playoffs and are willing to take that risk.
Naturally, that team is Los Angeles.
So to re-cap, the Los Angeles Kings decided it was a good idea to re-unite (NSFW warning)
the two good time party boys who couldn't get the job done in Philadelphia due to their apparent boozy ways, and to re-unite them in California no less. Hollywood. The beaches. The babes. The nightclubs. As expected, it was a disaster.
For Philadelphia, of course. For L.A.?
Notsomuch.
Ilya Kovalchoke? Not anymore.
Ilya Kovalchuk was rich but Ilya Kovalchuk was not happy. The high scoring Russian winger had just signed a contract worth One Hundred Million dollars over fifteen years but after playing on an awful Atlanta team his whole career, suddenly and dramatically the New Jersey team he signed for were no longer competitive. In situations like these, media experts begin to wonder if the common denominator is not the quality of his team but the quality of his play.
It wasn't as absurd as it sounded. What was the point of being the most consistent goalscorer in the NHL over ten seasons if your style of play meant the opposition scored twice that number while you were out on the ice?
His team-mates said all the right things in his defence. Consummate professional. Great guy in the locker room. Is willing to change his style, to help his comrades, to do anything to win. The heart and desire of Russian players had long been questioned by the xenophobic contingent of the Canadian hockey media so much so that when two Soviet players of the Nashville Predators were caught drinking at 4am the night before they were due to play, it became a national outrage.
Not that Ilya Kovalchuk cared. He was too busy putting into place a new style of play that came from a season's worth of drills from the famed Devils coaching staff. He cut off passing and shooting lanes. He harassed defenceman into bad turnovers with the puck. He even fought for the honour of of his team-mates laid out by a dirty hit. But most of all, he
kept on
scoring.
Now, Ilya Kovalchuk is rich and he is happy. I won't be calling him Ilya Kovalchoke anymore. If the Devils win the cup he may just become Ilya Kovalclutch.
Banjaxed by Flapjacks - Pancake Penner.
It was an awful time to be Dustin Penner. The marquee trade deadline acquisition less than one season ago was playing on a poor Kings team that couldn't score to save themselves. It was largely because he couldn't score to save himself. Usually when you are contributing in other ways by blocking shots, throwing hits and creating chances for your team-mates such things can be overlooked. When you turn up to training camp overweight and out of shape however, you get cut a little less slack.
Then when you
injure your back eating pancakes, things just get ugly.
At the time I gave Penner great credit for his honesty and for accepting that although he was already a laughing stock, that didn't mean he couldn't see the funny side and joke about it either. It didn't get easier for him. His wife left him, he was left out of the lineup on many an occasion and the rumour mill had him being dealt for a bag of pucks and a 9th round draft pick in draft that no longer goes 9 rounds.
In the background, however, Pancakes Penner accepted he had hit rock bottom and started working harder than ever. Devoid of confidence he at least could fall back on the fact that he had been a good player before, a key part of the Anaheim Ducks one and only cup winning team. So he got fit, got back in the lineup, started doing those little things that hockey players should do when the puck is not bouncing their way. He was able to do this because his Los Angeles Kings team-mates never once gave up on him and kept looking out for him the whole time because they knew he was hurting and they hated to see it.
The playoffs started. He scored a couple of timely goals. He used his big frame to protect the puck, keeping possession for the Kings and creating scoring chances for his team-mates. Then something wonderful happened. Something
he worked hard for and deserved.
As Bruce MacAvaney would say, redemption was "delicious" for Pancake Penner.
The Wash, who wins the Cup and why.
It's not the cup finals that everyone wanted, the Kings and Devils struggle for attention in their own markets let alone on a national level. There is no doubt however that the two teams that are in the finals have comfortably proven themselves as the best two in the league.
The other good news is that they are pleasures to watch. New Jersey have long been derided for their defence-first, clog the neutral zone, borderline legal clutch and grab tactics that have also been the blueprint for championship wins. Those Devils are gone.
These Devils can be likened to an AFL side that plays with a perfectly executed press, getting the puck in deep to the attacking zone and then trying to regain possession and keep it in that zone like crazed terriers employing what is called a ferocious "forechecking" system. You can liken it to winning the tackle count laid inside the 50m arc; their forward pressure is only matched by their skill. Turn the puck over and players like Kovalchuk, Zach Parise and Travis Zajac will make you pay.
And yet, these Kings don't make those sort of mistakes and if they do, they have a goalie who will likely bail them out. Jonathon Quick is exactly as his surname describes; athletic and agile with incredible reflexes and completely on top of his game. It's hard to believe the Kings will have an edge in netminding when the Devils boast the winningest goalie in the history of the NHL, a man who has been stellar in backstopping them to three championships. At forty years of age, Marty Brodeur has shown signs of slowing but is having a late career renaissance that has had hockey scribes out with the superlatives once more. It's going to be a great battle to watch.
The Devils will also believe they have home ice advantage and yet, against Los Angeles this season all teams have had home ice disadvantage. The Kings are a perfect 8-0 away from home this season, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact the home team in hockey gets two huge advantages aside from playing in their own arena. Firstly, an away player is made to put his stick down first during a faceoff, the equivalent of a rugby scrum if you will. It's an enormous advantage to the home player who can likely anticipate how to block his opponent's stick and win possession of the puck for their team. Secondly, at most stoppages in play it is the away team who must choose which unit of five players they will deploy first, giving the home team an opportunity to select a group of five players that may cause a mismatch on the ice.
Neither issue has been a problem for the Kings. Why? Because they have three faceoff specialists in Anze Kopitar, Mike Richards and Jarrett Stoll who are so adept at the skill that they will likely gain possession of the puck first despite the disadvantage. This does not bode well for a New Jersey team who have been horrible in the faceoff circle this postseason, dead last in the statistic.
As for the issue of creating mismatches? When every Kings player has not only held their own but also contributed on the scoresheet it makes it almost impossible to steal a march on them. Although New Jersey likely have the deepest set of forwards the Kings will have faced in these playoffs I'm not certain it will matter if L.A. can, as is likely, keep the puck away from them for large periods.
My light-hearted look has taken a more serious tone. The Devils will have enough talent to win at least a couple of games off the Kings and if L.A. contrive to let the nerves of a first championship run get to them then New Jersey could defnitely win it all. But I don't see it happening. It's destiny for the Kings. They are the best team in the league and it is their time. I'll take them in six games with only one thing that can possibly stop them.
I picked Vancouver to win last year. It only
turned out so well.
