I started writing this yesterday, planning to post it before Game Five, but I never got around to finishing it. I think a lot of the same ideas still apply to this series, though, so I figured I might as well just wrap it up. So without further ado, “There Is No I In Team…”
If the Canucks lose to the Blackhawks tonight tomorrow for the second straight year in a row, it won’t be because they’re not talented. Because they don’t have a goalie who, when he wants to, can’t stop rebounds from even existing (like we saw last night). Because they don’t have a few lines full of forwards and centers that can’t shut you down if they really want to. Because they don’t have a defensive corps…
Okay, that one might be true. Even more so now that Sami Salo might be out for various… um… nether-region reasons.
But the point is, if the Canucks lose to the Blackhawks, it will not be because they’re, on paper, the vastly inferior team. I can argue the depth of the Hawks until my face turns blue and still be one hundred percent right, of course, but the ‘Nucks have talent too. An Art Ross winner and Hart trophy nominee, a Selke award finalist, a goalie that theoretically backstopped Canada to Gold just a few short months ago – the talent is there. What’s not there in my opinion, however, is the right mindset.
It starts with letting the Blackhawks into their heads in the first place, making villains and bogey men out of a bunch of guys who see them as, really, any other opponent. Intense rivalries that make you want to pull your hair out and punch holes through walls are all well and good for fans, but for actual players? They don’t generally get you anywhere good outside of the penalty box.
It starts with Roberto Luongo winning the Gold Medal and then, roughly fifteen minutes later, pulling Patrick Kane aside from the handshake line and saying, “I’ll see you in the playoffs.”
It starts with a team that can’t even finish celebrating their first round win over the L.A. Kings (a series they were down in to begin with and could have theoretically lost) before they’re filling the team bus up with tales of Chelsea Dagger and how much they couldn’t wait to see us again in the Semis even though, at the time, it was still far from a sure thing that the Hawks would even be the ones meeting them.
It starts with twelve months of see you next years.
It starts with a team so concerned about one man parking his butt in Luongo’s crease that they flat out ignore the other five guys doing the same exact thing.
But more than all else it starts with the word team, and with the ways in which the Canucks don’t seem to quite know the definition of it.
This is the major difference between the two teams in my mind. They’re both talented (one more so than the other, but I won’t bother getting into that), they’re both supposedly built to succeed, but one team sticks together even when the chips are down and the other? Well the other is the Vancouver Canucks.
It’s easy to be a team when you’re winning. We saw this last night after the game when Luongo was perfectly comfortable showering the rest of his team with praise, deflecting questions about him carrying them and saying it wasn’t just him, it was a total team effort. It’s easy to be a team then, but what about when you’re losing? What about when your team falls apart for two straight games on home ice and everyone is just scrambling to figure out what the heck went wrong?
Good Captains, for one, don't hide from the media like Lou did before last night's game. They meet the media every day even when they suck out loud like our Captain, a twenty-two year old "kid" who knows more about leadership than the thirty-one year old veteran, because that's a part of their job. An integral part of that "C" on their chest.
And good teams themselves will still stick together. It doesn’t matter how much talent they have, or whose “fault” the losses really are, good teams back each other up. They carry each other forward. They don’t start tossing their “team”mates under the nearest crosstown bus they can find. Which is exactly what the Vancouver Canucks were doing the other night.
Luongo blamed his teammates. He used the word “we,” sure, but when he’s talking about how “they” have to clear the shooting lanes and how “they” have to play better defense? His message is clear: He would’ve played better if they’d cleaned out in front of him because all of those rebounds he gave up would not have been shoved back into his net.
O’Brien blamed Luongo. He said it started with their goalie, their Captain, and his inability to keep rebounds from going all over hell and gone.
Vigneault blamed… everyone. He called his goalie the “second best” one on the ice. He made sure the press knew exactly what he thought about his team’s effort, forgetting that it’s HIS responsibility more than anyone else’s (even more than Luongo’s) to provide a strong front. To keep his boys together.
Say what you want about Joel Quenneville, but I can’t ever see him saying that Antti Niemi is anything but “big in the net.” You want to call your guys out? Do it in the locker room, not in front of national media.
It’s easy for the Canucks to be in a good mood today. It’s easy for them to provide a united front. To make themselves appear to be an actual team. But I for one am not fooled. I have no doubt in my mind that if they crumble again, they’ll do what they always seem to do – turn on each other and let the blame fly.
The Blakhwawks on the other hand? Say what you want about them as well, but they live and die as a team, and that’s something to respect.
About two months ago Troy Brouwer’s dad had a brain hemorrhage. He went home to Vancouver, missing six games at the end of the regular season to be with him. His dad, as soon as he was better to say so, told his son to leave him, to go back to Chicago, to be with his team because he knew how much that meant to him. How much Brow needed to be with his new family, the one that lives on Madison Street.
He had a rocky start coming back, couldn’t quite find his rhythm, undoubtedly because he was still thinking about his father in a hospital back in British Columbia. It carried over into the playoffs, his production going downhill so fast (remember, he was a top six forward in the regular season, a twenty goal scorer), that he got shifted to the fourth line and, eventually, moved to the booth.
Did Brouwer complain? Did he puff up his chest and say he didn’t deserve to be sat? Did he make excuses? Shout from the rooftops about how his daddy was sick and people should feel sorry for him?
No.
He apologized to his team. He felt bad that he was letting them down. Just look at his comments right before he got benched:
I may be lacking a little bit of confidence. I have to take it upon myself to be better. As far as this playoff goes, I haven’t been good enough and haven’t helped my team. In fact, I feel I’ve hurt them more than helped them.
If I don’t play, I completely understand why I’m not in the lineup. It’s coach’s decision and it’s one of those things he has to make the best decision for the team. If I’m not going, it’s not the time of year to try and get me going. I have to take it upon myself.
No mention of his father, no mention of any excuses, just blunt honesty. He was playing poorly, that was hurting his team, and it was all his own fault.
That, right there, is a real teammate.
In Game Two, Kris Versteeg, arguably the Blackhawks most egotistical player (I love him to death, don’t get me wrong, but the boy has a very high opinion of himself, you can’t deny that). Versteeg scored the winning goal in that game, though. And in the locker room afterward, he could have easily puffed himself up even more. Bragged about how awesome he was, like he was sometimes guilty of doing during the regular season. What did he do, though? Without being prompted to in the slightest bit, he thanked and gave credit to five other players for winning that game:
That, right there, is a real teammate.
In the series against Nashville, Brian Campbell was still at least a week and a half out from a “full” recovery. He was not physically ready to return. Not only was he probably sore as hell even practicing, but he ran the risk of getting injured worse if he set foot out on the ice. One good hit and he could’ve been out for a lot longer than a few games. But his team needed him, they needed him, and what did he do? He came back early, risk of injuring himself be damned, because he couldn’t stand sitting in the booth watching his team lose without him. If they were going to go down, he wanted them to all go down together:
That, right there, is a real teammate.
Jonathan Toews, the Captain of our team, got a hat trick in Game Four. A bevy of scoring that put him into the lead in all of the playoffs for points (points that, mind you, mostly came from the less selfish assist than goals themselves, setting up his teammates for glory that I’ve never seen him actively seek out). What did he do afterward, though? Did he dis a Canucks team down and out? Did he praise himself for a game well done? Did he even smile? No, he remained his standard, stoic, team-first self that he’s always been, win or lose:
That, right there, is a real teammate.
I can go on for days about this team. About how we might not have any fifty goal-scorers on this team, but we have six guys with more than twenty goals on the season, the definition of sharing the wealth. Or about how Seabrook was quoted in an interview a while back talking about how even when they’re at home the team still hangs out together, still spends as much time together as possible, because they’re just that close. There are no clubhouse cancers on this team. There isn’t a single player that has thrown or, in my opinion, ever would throw another one of them under the bus because that’s just not the type of team they are. When one of them is playing bad, they’re the first to admit it, but that doesn’t mean anyone else on the team has to agree with them.
In Game Four, Buff was getting beat to you-know-what by the Canucks, but did he retaliate? Complain to the refs? Do anything besides get up and move on? No. And why is that? Because he knew that to do so would hurt his team.
In Game Four, when Niemi was getting bumped just as bad as Luongo, getting run over even behind his net, did he flop around like a dying fish? Did he yap at the refs and complain about goalie interference? No. And why is that? Because he knew it wouldn’t do a damn thing to help his team if he acted that way.
The Chicago Blackhawks, from my vantage point, are all about putting the team above the individual. We had six guys go to the Olympics, one of whom was named the best forward in the entire competition, and another who is a finalist for the Norris trophy this year, and yet none of them act that way. Each and every one of them, and each and every one of their teammates, is willing to go wherever Coach Q tells them to go, do whatever Coach Q tells them to do, and shut their mouth in the process because they know that what’s best for the team is what matters the most. And for my money that, right there? Is the definition of the word team.
Game Six is tomorrow night. May the best team win.
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