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Welcome to the fourth season.
There are actually five in hockey, by a measure once offered up by no less than Wayne Gretzky. There is the exhibition season, which means nothing. There is the regular season, which runs quietly until the trade deadline. Then comes the stretch season, which ended rather dramatically last weekend. Now begins the playoff season, leading up to the Stanley Cup final, which Gretzky always considered a separate season.
As season No. 4 gets under way tonight, perhaps a playoffs primer is in order:
Goaltending: Some say the position has become too dominant and requires a hockey equivalent of the lowering of the mound in baseball. Still, as former Philadelphia Flyers head coach Terry Murray once said, "You only go as far as your goaltender takes you." Goaltending has been a major factor in Stanley Cup wins in every year since the Montreal Canadiens' Patrick Roy all but won it on his own back in 1993 — the only year goaltending being not all that important coming in 1998, when powerful Detroit won with Chris Osgood in net.
First-round knockoffs: Playoff interest is at its height, oddly, when there is still snow on the ground in many NHL cities and at least one game on every night of the week. Hall of Fame coach Al Arbour always considered the first round the most dangerous time of all for a good team with high expectations. "There is a hump you have to get over," said the man who won four Cup titles coaching the New York Islanders. "And it usually comes in the first series. You get over the hump, and you're on a roll."
Playoff beards: Hockey took forever to get rid of the mullet look, but it is today a rarity apart from the odd retired player commentator. Playoff beards are still in style, despite Anaheim Ducks captain Scott Niedermayer looking like Rip Van Winkle last year when he finally hoisted the Stanley Cup. It would be nice to see something original.
Surprises: Usually linked to the above two — hot goaltending and a team unexpectedly getting through the opening round. This has all but become the rule of thumb in today's NHL, with the Calgary Flames (Miikka Kiprusoff) and Edmonton Oilers (Dwayne Roloson, before his injury) reaching the finals in recent years and the Tampa Bay Lightning (Nikolai Khabibulin) and Carolina Hurricanes (rookie Cam Ward) actually winning the Cup when few experts saw it coming. The Canadiens' Stanley Cup success with young and inexperienced goaltenders (Ken Dryden in 1971 and Patrick Roy in 1986) is a prime reason for Montreal's high hopes for young Carey Price this year.
Hometown nerves: Few things in Canada are as fragile as the hometown fans' confidence. Price gets stoned first game against Boston, and Montreal will panic. Calgary fans are queasy about their team's sometimes erratic performances. And in Ottawa, where the skilled Senators are entertaining even when struggling, ticket sales are slow and, so far, few vehicles are sprouting team flags.
Playoff performers: The established stars — Calgary's Jarome Iginla, the Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby and the Washington Capitals' Alexander Ovechkin — are expected to continue to shine in the postseason, but the Stanley Cup playoffs have a history of producing character players who emerge when the going gets toughest. Mike Peca and Claude Lemieux types. Or John Druce's amazing 14-goal performance for the Capitals in 1990 after a regular season in which he scored only eight times. It will happen again, and you can't even guess who it might be.
Conn Smythe: The award for the most valuable player in the playoffs usually goes to the obvious — Mario Lemieux during Pittsburgh's two-Cup run, Patrick Roy in 1986, 1993 and 2001 and even Jean Béliveau in 1965, when the trophy was introduced. But once in a while a player, usually a goaltender, on the losing team gets it: the Detroit Red Wings' Roger Crozier in 1966, the St. Louis Blues' Glenn Hall two years later, the Philadelphia Flyers' Ron Hextall in 1987 and the Anaheim Ducks' Jean-Sébastien Giguère in 2003. Only once has it gone to a skater on a losing side, Philadelphia's Reggie Leach in 1976. It has never gone to a player whose team did not make the final, but should have in 2002, when the Colorado Avalanche's Peter Forsberg missed the entire season because of injuries, came back for the playoffs and led all scorers with 27 points. One day, it may happen.
Obstruction: Fans of the Senators are convinced that Ducks general manager Brian Burke was able to bully the league last year into permitting prelockout hockey to prevail in the final. Obstruction and interference were, once again, allowed. The NHL swears that the officiating standards of the regular season will prevail right to the end, but don't count on it.
Injuries: With two Canadian teams — Montreal and Ottawa — missing their captains to begin the playoffs, it goes without saying that injuries will, as always, play a critical role. As Columbus Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock said yesterday in an NHL telephone conference call, there sometimes isn't much left to a team when you get to final rounds: "Health is going to be a major issue."
Defending champs: Some believe there will never again be a dynasty in hockey, certainly nothing like the Canadiens, Islanders and Oilers of yesteryear. The last team to win back-to-back Cup titles was Detroit a decade ago. A Stanley Cup win, Hitchcock said, is "the target you wear." Other teams take dead aim at it. The Ducks are going to have to be at their best from the moment the puck drops against the Dallas Stars.
European captains: It's really only a matter of time before this happens. Montreal and Ottawa are fervently hoping this is the year a European leader raises the Cup; Calgary is just as fervent that it isn't.
June 9: Last possible day for the Stanley Cup final.
Which brings us to hockey's sixth season, something the Toronto Maple Leafs, Oilers and Vancouver Canucks are already into.
The off-season.
