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DANIEL ALFREDSSON Shades of Middleton |
Hockey notes
One of hockey's subtle arts is the ability to steal the puck. In today's ramped-up NHL, with its emphasis on speed, big collisions, and pulverizing hits, those who have mastered the sleight-of-hand art of taking the puck away are too often overlooked.
But they're out there, lurking, just waiting for their chance, the game's sticky-fingered shoplifters.
"[Daniel] Alfredsson is the guy who first comes to my mind," said NHL commentator Mike Milbury, the former Bruins defenseman and coach. "How would I best describe him? Oh, 'Nifty'-like, I guess.
"It's a skill that has little to do with strength, which is true of both Alfredsson and 'Nifty' [ex-Bruin Rick Middleton]. Most of all, it's about anticipation, game sense, and that little bit of stealth."
Alfredsson, Ottawa's skilled Swedish winger who is second in the league in scoring, is third in what the league charts as "takeaways" with 59. The king of kleptomania is Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk, who has 92 takeaways to his credit. The 29-year-old Russian center has a stick as quick as his legs.
"The guys who are best at it have a very quick stick," noted Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli. "It's that speed with the stick, and also how to use it - block shots, take away lanes. It's a really valuable skill."
Chiarelli, who was Ottawa's assistant GM prior to moving to the top job in Boston, used to marvel over Alfredsson's ability to handle the puck when the Senators would finish practices with a game of "hog."
"When he would have the puck," recalled Chiarelli, "no one would be able to take it off his stick. And when other guys would have it, there was no getting by him - he'd take it away from them every time. [Marian] Hossa was that way, too.
"I think perhaps some of the rule changes have been part of the reason it's become a bit of a lost art. They've loosened up on it some, but for a while, the referees were calling a penalty on guys whenever they got their stick horizontally across the stick of the guy carrying the puck."
Headed into yesterday's games, the five players with the most takeaways this season were:
Pavel Datsyuk, Det. 92 Todd White, Atl. 60
Daniel Alfredsson, Ott. 59 John Madden, NJ 56
Mike Modano, Dal. 54
Datsyuk, by far, has the best ratio of takeaways to giveaways (92-39, for a plus-53). Alfredsson is at plus-18, White at plus-39, Madden at plus-31, while Modano is just above water at plus-2, charged with 52 giveaways.
Slick pivot Marc Savard leads the Bruins with 27 takeaways, but for every one he has stolen, he has given away nearly two (27-51). Patrice Bergeron led the category for Boston last season with 49 takeaways, nine more than he gave away, while Savard clipped 48 and handed over 68.
"Some guys just have a knack for it," said Middleton, who was certainly one of those guys, applying a skill he sharpened with endless games of street hockey while growing up in Scarborough, Ontario. "More than anything, it's about anticipation, and after that I'd say positioning is very important if, say, you're coming up from behind a guy and you're reaching in there to get it."
Derek Sanderson was the league's Rookie of the Year in 1968, and he won a few of those votes with his trademark sweep check.
"You have to have quick hands," said Middleton, who often turned blue line takeaways into break-ins that he would finish off with clever goals. "You can't be a lumberjack out there. To make that steal, and then make that transition from defense into offense, you've got to be quick with your hands and quick with your feet."
The best thieves, said Milbury, are forever moving their feet.
"It's not the guys who are in a defensive posture who get those pucks," he noted. "They never stand still. They're cat-like out there - they know exactly when to pounce, and they make that sneakiness a tremendous strength."
Whistle while you work
Former NHL linesman Kevin Collins, now in his third season as one of the league's officiating managers, encourages youngsters to think about a career in on-ice officiating.
There is no shortage of teenagers, typically 16-18, who take up the job, he said. However, persuading them to keep the whistle is another issue.
"The attrition rate past age 18 is 70 percent, maybe even higher," said the 57-year-old Collins, whose enthusiasm for the sport, and the career of officiating, is genuine and infectious. "It's a huge problem, and the reason they leave might not be what you think. It's not the kids. It's not the job. It's not the skating. It's the parents."
Overbearing parents, said Collins, prompt young officials to run out of the rinks by the scores. Those who brave the boorish moms and dads, he said, can aspire to a career in which many NHL linesmen and referees work well into their 50s. Top-end pay for both jobs exceeds $200,000 per year.
"The trend in recent years has been for us to get guys who've played hockey at a higher competitive level," said Collins. "Guys like Paul Stewart and Kevin Maguire, guys who played in the league and went on to have good careers as officials. And it's often guys who played college hockey, or the ECHL, maybe Europe."
Judgment and on-ice presence eventually begin to separate the contenders from the pretenders, but initially, they all have to be excellent skaters.
"If a kid can't skate in today's game, forget it," said Collins, in his day one of the league's strongest officials and an excellent skater. "The speed out there is so great, even greater than when I worked it."
O'Donnell puts some painful memories into print
Former Bruins defenseman Sean O'Donnell, now patrolling the Anaheim back line for a third season, recently penned a book covering his career (now 900-plus NHL games and counting). Globe sportswriter Nancy Marrapese-Burrell, a former Bruins beat reporter, edited "Along the Way," a self-published tome.
O'Donnell, in great detail, recalled his anguish in watching then-captain Joe Thornton suit up for the seven games against the Canadiens in the opening round of the 2004 Stanley Cup playoffs. Jumbo Joe, playing despite a painful rib injury, finished the series without a point.
Some excerpts:
"Playing all season and then not being able to help your teammates come playoff time might be the cruelest punishment in sports. He wanted to wear a protective shield, take an injection for the pain and play. When I looked at the big picture, it didn't make sense to me and that's where I thought the Bruins made a huge mistake.
"You couldn't fault Joe for doing anything he possibly could to play for his teammates, but Joe could be stubborn and he couldn't see how this was about more than just getting by Montreal. He wasn't even close to 100 percent and the injury was going to get worse the more he played."
"In hindsight, I wish I had taken Joe aside and pleaded with him to think more clearly about what he was doing. In the end, however, it wasn't my call.
"The medical staff didn't think he should be playing and I don't think Sully [coach Mike Sullivan] felt he should be playing, but no one stopped him. If he wouldn't listen to reason, then his jersey shouldn't have been put out when he arrived for the game. You can't blame the player for wanting to play through pain, but you've got to do what's right for the team when the player is blinded by his desire to compete."
"It's difficult to describe the pain and disappointment after that last game . . . We were done and we knew that most of us wouldn't be back with Boston. The team was built to win that year. Mike O'Connell did everything in his power to give us what we needed and in the end it fell on our shoulders and we didn't get it done.
"Joe came under tremendous heat from the media for his playoff performance, in which he had no points in seven games. It seemed so clear after the fact that the right thing to do was to simply not allow him to play until he was healthier. I really believe we would have beaten Montreal had he sat out because other players would have had to step up their roles in his absence. Instead, a lot of forwards looked to Joe to carry us much like he'd done for the past couple of seasons but he was physically unable."
Etc.
Bertagna remembers Bhutto
Former Bruins goalie coach Joe Bertagna, a Harvard goalie in the early 1970s, lived in Eliot House with most of the Crimson hockey players. "Why there?" he said. "Closest house to the rink, that's why. Standard hockey player reasoning." Two floors below Bertagna's digs lived Benazir "Pinky" Bhutto, who went on to serve two terms as prime minister of Pakistan. Bhutto, 54, was killed Dec. 27, the victim of a suicide bomber in Pakistan. Sadly, said Bertagna, many of her friends at Harvard feared the worst might happen once she chose to return to her native land from her more recent home in London. Among his cherished keepsakes, said Bertagna, is a hockey story in the Crimson, the school paper. The story, without a byline, featured Bertagna, and was written by Bhutto. "She wanted to write for the paper, and the editor felt her best shot was as a sportswriter," he recalled. "There's no byline because she was a 'comp,' which meant she was competing, or basically auditioning for a spot on the staff. Comps didn't get bylines." A little over four years ago, Bhutto returned to campus, and Bertagna met his old friend for dinner in the Square. Back in school days, she sometimes visited his family home in Arlington for dinner. Bhutto loved to go to hockey games, he said, but contrary to lore, she was not the team manager. "One day when we were students, she asked if I could bring her a puck after practice," recalled Bertagna. "I said, 'Pinky, of course, but why?' Well, she told me she was going to make a cake for one of the guys on the team, Jay Riley, and she was going to have a hole in the middle, and put the puck in there. I hand over the puck, and think nothing of it, until she calls my room a couple of hours later." Bhutto, said Bertagna, couldn't figure out how to open the puck. "I went down to her room," said Bertagna, "and there she was, holding it, trying to pry it open. And if you look at it, the outside of the puck has that textured edge, so it sort of looks as if it could open. We had a good laugh over that. I just handed it back to her and said, 'Sorry, Pinky, it's just a puck - that's all there is to it.' "
A league of his own
Mike Milbury, 55, will hustle home from TV duties today in Montreal, ideally in time to watch the second half of the Super Bowl. As a kid growing up in Walpole, he recalled, pro football fans had to turn their eyes to the New York Giants, until hometown hero Butch Songin and the Boston Patriots began to win locals over with the AFL product. "When I was just a little kid, 8-10 years old, I used to shag balls for Butch Songin at Bird Park," recalled Milbury. "He'd be out there drop-kicking balls, throwing passes. I'm sure if I tried to catch one, it would have killed me. Great memories." Songin, a Boston College star, suited up for the Patriots against the Broncos in the AFL's first game.
Progress reported
Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli believes both Glen Murray (hip flexor) and Andrew Alberts (headaches, possible post-concussion syndrome) will be back in the lineup soon. Murray, said Chiarelli, was showing continued improvement with his on-ice workouts. "And Andrew's had a bunch of days without headaches," said the GM. "He's been doing some work on the bike. I think you'll see both of them in there very soon."
Loose pucks
Ex-Yale standout Jeff Hamilton, placed on waivers last week by the Hurricanes, prompted some conversation in Boston's front office. "He's an intriguing player," said Chiarelli, noting his reluctance to say much more, because Hamilton, though having cleared waivers, remains Carolina's property. "He has a good shot - a big shot - and, yeah, we've talked about him." . . . Fabian Brunnstrom, the 21-year-old undrafted Swede who is gaining a lot of attention as an unrestricted free agent, constantly comes up in rumors connecting him to the Leafs, Wings, and Canucks. "But we're in that mix, too," said Chiarelli. "He's a kid with some dimension to his game, some size [6 feet 2 inches, 205 pounds], can play either wing." Could make for an interesting September camp if the Bruins signed Brunnstrom and persuaded fellow Swede Carl Soderberg, the center picked up from St. Louis in the Hannu Toivonen deal, to give the NHL a try . . . Agent Kent Hughes said he and the Lightning had preliminary talks immediately after the lockout about a 10-year contract for franchise center Vincent Lecavalier. Given dollars of the day for top-end talent (the "max cap" figure then was $7.8 million), a likely settling point would have been in the $72 million-$75 million range. "Remember, there was a lot going on at the time, and everyone in hockey was still trying to understand the CBA and all the ramifications," said Hughes. Lecavalier next season will finish up a deal that paid him a cap average of $6.875 million, and he is on target to become an unrestricted free agent July 1, 2009. He will be 29 years old, and with a "max cap" figure possibly then set around $10.5 million a year, a club such as the Canadiens might consider paying him that $72 million-$75 million, but over seven years instead of 10 . . . Owen Nolan's hat trick last week - his first since Oct. 4, 1999 - helped the Flames edge the Sharks, 5-4. The drought of eight years 118 days was the 10th longest between hat tricks in league history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Bruins Hall of Famer Dit Clapper holds the record of 11 years 345 days, between March 1933 and February 1945. And Clapper, born Feb. 1, 1907, did not miss playing time because of military service.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
