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PHILADELPHIA — As far as playoff beards go, this one is a little spotty.
But then, too, so had been much of his season and even parts of his postseason.
Not being always immediately noticeable has always been both Danny Brière's great problem and his greatest asset.
On the ice, he has at times been so easily missed, at one point, all 30 teams in the NHL were willing to take a pass on him. On the ice at other times, he has been dominant on the final score sheet – even if not so noted by those who believe they know the game so well.
As Igor Dmitriev, a coach with the old Soviet team once said of Wayne Gretzky, he “is like an invisible man. He appears out of nowhere, passes to nowhere and a goal is scored.”
Take the other night in the fourth game: Brière sets up the first Philadelphia Flyers goal with a seeing-eye pass to R.J. Umberger and scores the winner late in the third period when he finds himself all alone with the puck at the side of the Montreal net during a Flyers power play.
It marked a remarkable fifth time in seven Philadelphia playoff victories that the diminutive centre has scored the winning goal.
As Patrick Roy was to the 1993 Montreal Canadiens, little Danny is becoming to the 2008 Flyers – the one who is there when it counts the most.
There are long stretches in the Wachovia Center when his presence on or off the ice goes unnoticed, but never so in Montreal, where the fifth game in this best-of-seven series will be played tomorrow night.
It is a game Montreal must win to survive. It is a game where Brière wants “to finish them off” so the Flyers can move on to the Eastern Conference final.
When the red-hot playoff scorer so much as touches the puck in Montreal's Bell Centre, the booing is roughly the equivalent of a Quebec response to a federal power grab.
A small, quick man who sometimes looks like a weasel in a woodshed as he works opposition corners, Brière would be honoured to be described as a “sneaky” player. He just finds the right place to be.
His timely goals bothered the Washington Capitals in the first round, but are driving the Montreal Canadiens to distraction, for there is far more at play here than mere resentment of a gifted player on the other side.
Last summer, despite an open invitation to the native of Gatineau, Que., to join the Canadiens for many millions of dollars, the unrestricted free agent elected instead to sign with Philadelphia for eight years and $52-million (all currency U.S.).
It made him, at 30, the top-paid player in the league this season at $10-million.
A far cry, to say the least, from the 25-year-old who had once been placed on waivers by the Phoenix Coyotes, only to go unclaimed by every one of the 29 other clubs, including the Canadiens.
But hockey's a funny game.
Sometimes people also get the bounces.
Brière is usually an easygoing and even self-deprecating personality – he once showed up at a Halloween party dressed as a sumo wrestler – but there was nothing to smile about back in 2002-03. No one wanted him.
He spent a period feeling sorry for himself, but then “looked in the mirror” and simply decided he would prove everyone wrong. Again. He had done it before when they said he was too small for junior hockey. That insult delivered by the waiver draft, he now says, may well be the best thing that ever happened to him.
Brière took strength training and benefited hugely from the lockout year that ultimately reinvented the game to reward speed and skill rather than hooking and holding.
Brière shone. He became a scoring sensation with the Buffalo Sabres, was the most valuable player in an all-star game and cashed in big last summer as an unrestricted free agent – only to have the season turn into a bit of a struggle.
He had anticipated playing with the Flyers' slick Simon Gagné. He even studied game tapes to gain a better sense of Gagné on the ice. But then Gagné was lost for the season to injury, the Flyers lost their game and only a trade-deadline pickup of Vaclav Prospal turned Brière back into the on-ice force his contract demanded.
They have a “chemistry,” both say. So far these playoffs, they have combined for 11 goals and 13 assists when on the ice together. Not bad for one player no one seemed to want and another who has bounced around in the league like an unfrozen puck.
The boos in Montreal, Brière says, are “a compliment.
“It means they don't want you to succeed.”
But it's too late for that.
It means, on the contrary, that you have succeeded marvellously.
And they only wish it were in bleu, blanc et rouge.
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