Jean-Pierre Allard weighs in during the run-up to a do-or-die Game 5 for the Senators vs. the Ducks in the Stanley Cup final.
When times are tough, I always turn to music for comfort. Here’s an explanation for the current plight of the Ottawa Senators" Selfishness.
All through the day
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
All through the night
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Now they're frightened of leaving it
Everyone's reading it
Comin' on strong all the time
The above are the opening lyrics to "I Me Mine," a Beatles song written and sung by the late George Harrison.
According to Wikipedia, "The final recording session for this song is also the last recording made by The Beatles. Quoted from Harrison: "[I Me Mine is] about the ego, the eternal problem."
The Senators, to a tee (no pun intended), will be golfing this weekend instead of being back for Game 6, if they don't check egos at their dressing room door tonight at the Honda Center in Anaheim. This team needs to resume playing as a gritty and hungry group and not as 20 high-flying, dipsy-doodling and perimeter-playing individuals.
The worst thing that could have happened to them was their total dominance of the Ducks in the opening 20 minutes of Game 4, because they started taking the easy way out on plays, whether it was deep into the Anaheim zone or in their end of the rink, thinking that their blinding speed and offensive excellence alone would suffice to earn them a desperate victory.
This resulted in them breaking away in droves toward the net, looking for a pass that never came or that was blindly turned over, causing odd-man Anaheim rushes. Or made them curl away from close-in situations or broken up plays instead of stopping or going to the corner to engage in the battles for the puck in an up close and personal basis, and not as mere skate-by breezers.
This also left them vulnerable in their defensive zones, as the forwards never made it completely back to support an already-challenged defense, which directly resulted in all three Anaheim goals, not to mention the three posts that they also hit.
If you go back and watch the tapes, you'll see Jason Spezza, Daniel Alfredsson, Chris Kelly, Chris Neil and Antoine Vermette each be guilty of letting their check off easy. The usually steady and shutdown duo of Chris Phillips and Anton Volchenkov also joined veteran Wade Redden in letting Ducks forwards skate unencumbered on a very good but still not great Ray Emery.
This team continues to drive me nuts with their multi-faceted personality and once again, I have no choice but bring the entire leadership question on the table.
Exhibit A: The Ducks' classy captain and three-time Cup winner Scott Niedermayer urging his mates, in the aftermath of l'affaire Alfredsson, not to retaliate.
Exhibit B: The Sens' bush captain and ring-less Daniel Alfredsson simply incapable of motivating his troops in a must-win Game 2 (16 shots) and, more importantly, in a do-or-start-dying third period of Game 4 in which the score was 2-2 after 40 minutes, seeing his team only muster six shots in the final period.
According to All-World Motormouth Pierre McGuire, the between-periods trash talk in the aftermath of Alfie's gutless shot rose to such a nasty level from the visitors that it could well be that the turtling Senators went in the final period scared. A team facing its biggest challenge simply cannot allow these types of distraction to get in the way of the big picture.
Plus, it could well be that our brave captain was lying when he claimed he was aiming at the net and not Niedermayer. If that's true, no wonder he's not scoring, but it might explain his untimely slump and he was intentionally trying to put Anaheim off their game while hoping to shake up his listless army who had just followed a brilliant first period with a sorry no-show in the middle frame.
For one second, the defining moment of a series is possibly Alfie's Game 3 controversial goal, the next, it is Alfie's slapper, which should have been punishable with a minor for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Add to that a minor for the other gutless gesture Alfie did, when he sucker-punched Travis Moen in the ensuing melee and the Senators were quite fortunate that the zebras gave brother Daniel two mulligans on the play.
So the Senators better bring their lunch buckets and hard hats tonight. Oh, and it might also help if they bothered showing up for 60 minutes for a change. And if Mr. Emery would stop the pucks he's paid to stop.
Otherwise, they will be praying to Mother Mary that Eugene Melnyk has not switched musical allegiances from the Eagles to Pink Floyd. For he may have a huge axe to grind, and he certainly won't be careful this time around.
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3 comments:
This has nothing to do with "leadership", which is vastly overrated by media and fans anyway. This is about the team on the ice. The Ducks have built an outstanding one, and that is why they are winning.
They are also proving at the same time that "balance" is a bit of a myth. The Ducks had two forwards on Monday night play two and a half minutes each, and one defenceman who played six minutes. Like the Lightning in '04, the Ducks are riding the heck out of their top guys, and getting away with it. There may be a lesson in there for GMs regarding how utterly disposable the bottom three players on your roster can be, and perhaps for the league itself as to whether they really need 20 man rosters. (Clearly they don't.)
Well, it would be hard to play 82 games with only 16 skaters... but it's about time someone went back to the Mike Keenan technique for the playoffs.
That's why God made the AHL. :-) It would be no different than today in that you just bring guys up as you need them, although the tough re-entry waiver rules under the new CBA might have to be changed. I'll tell you what -- if you cut the game day rosters down, fighting would be virtually eliminated, as no one would save a roster spot for a dancing bear like Parros or McGrattan under those circumstances.
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