By Any Means Necessary

When Broken Leadership Breaks a Team … Literally.

Hockey is a brutal sport. It’s physical. It’s grueling. It requires an insane level of physical endurance, prowess and agility. It’s hard-hitting and intense. At no time are all of those things more true than during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Four rounds that roll through the better part of two months. Best of 7 in each. So if each round goes all the way, there’s a possibility of 28 games before a team hoists the Stanley Cup.

Now factor in the travel back and forth between hosting team arenas. First three rounds are East/West Conference so not too bad, but by the time the finals roll around teams are flying back and forth across the country, changing time zones, climates, and altitudes.

It’s not for the faint of heart. Granted these players are compensated handsomely for enduring this backbreaking journey, and there is the expectation that they will play all out, pushing through exhaustion and even through injuries.

That’s hockey.

Rarely in other sports do you see players endure the kind of things that hockey players do and then return to the field of play. This year it kicked off in major fashion when in Game 1 of round one Morgan Barron of the Winnipeg Jets left the ice after taking a skate to the face.

Seventy five stitches.

He was back on the ice in the same period.

So there is something of an ethic for hockey players. Homage perhaps to the Black Knight of Monty Python.

But there are injuries and then there are injuries. There are the kind of injuries that playing with them could mean permanent damage, or worse. Kind of like a broken foot or fractured sternum. If players are playing through those kinds of things you have to question the leadership that would allow that to happen. Perhaps even demand that it does.

Plenty of people are overly salty about the Vegas Golden Knights winning the Stanley Cup this year. The team isn’t “old” enough. Hasn’t been around long enough. As though there is some requirement of extended participation in a league before winning is accepted.

Whatever. It’s fine.

Putting aside the fact the Knights have a deeper bench of players, a major factor leading to their win was their leadership — Coach Bruce Cassidy.

And a key reason for the Panthers’ loss, was Paul Maurice.

This isn’t a new view from me. I wrote about Paul Maurice just the other day. I would have thought, given how the series was going, that he’d shift.

I was wrong.

This is a coach who had players playing through the injuries mentioned above. Injuries that have no business being on the ice — broken foot (Ekblad), fractured sternum (Tkachuk). This could have been a brilliant opportunity to truly lean into the balance of the team. Mix up the lines more, pull from some other talent on the bench, and give other players the opportunity to seize new levels of leadership and skill for themselves.

Instead, Maurice doubled down on those star players, pushing them beyond reason, and in the end, they broke.

There is no love lost for me with Matthew Tkachuk. His style of play just doesn’t appeal to me. He is, however, a brilliant hockey player and he deserves better. Even if he insisted on pushing through, that is the point where a coach (and coaching staff) get to be advocates for their players.

Back in 2014 Paul Maurice was behind the bench for the Winnipeg Jets when a puck came sailing off the ice and nailed him in the head. Got cleaned up. He never left the bench and within a few minutes he was back coaching.

Admirable, perhaps; but I have to wonder whether he is taking his own tendency to push, and inflicting that on his team. Hockey players are tough for sure and no question that especially with the Cup on the line the inclination should be for the players to persevere.

But at what cost?

At what point does that commitment turn into an overly aggressive ego drive that leaves wreckage in its wake?

Seeing the Florida players struggle through the game, urgency and flow turning to desperation was difficult to watch. Before the game was even half way done, the energy coming from each of the team benches was palpable. One the one side it was energized, engaged, leaning forward to the boards with anticipation; on the other deflated, defeated, shoulders slumped and heads down.

Some folks don’t believe the Panthers belonged in the Finals at all. They were a wild card team that pulled out miracles — including an utterly jaw-dropping win over the Boston Bruins in round 1 — so of course they lost.

There are those who don’t think the Vegas Golden Knights belonged there either. That a team in only its 6th year of existence doesn’t “deserve” to be Cup contenders, let alone take Lord Stanley’s Cup home.

I find those discussions amusing — as though there is some level of suffering required before a team deserves to win a championship. That somehow an underdog team doesn’t deserve to have a miraculous run.

In the end the team that lifts the Stanley Cup represents more than just hockey skill and prowess. They represent the best of all that is hockey — leadership, respect, honor and commitment.

This year that honor goes to the Vegas Golden Knights.