It’s not easy, sometimes, being a Red Wings fan.
Okay, I’m lying. A lot of the time it’s easy as hell; I get to watch elite players share the puck and play keepaway from lesser teams, the best management and scouting in North American sports continually drafts and develops all-stars, the finest captain in hockey history and the best defenceman since Bobby Orr both played their entire careers in the Winged Wheel and, every five or six years there’s a Stanley Cup banner heading to the rafters.
(Oh, and speaking of Bobby Orr, the iconic image came immediately to mind last night)
The only problem with being a Wings fan is the reckless hate that gets thrown around, forged in the fires of jealousy and spite, by the fans of other teams.
The Red Wings are not the Yankees of the National Hockey League — no matter how much the rest of the league may want to paint them that way. They draft and develop their elite talent, bring in only a couple of free agents to round out the picture and swing a small deadline deal to prepare to the team for playoff runs.
The Yankees buy their team. And, recently anyway, don’t even do that good a job of it.
But watching the collective meltdown by the Pittsburgh Penguins and their fans over the first two games of this Stanley Cup final has been highly entertaining — if only because it’s fun as all hell to watch an entire team, led by their coach, degenerate to the level of the average fan.
The Pens — especially head coach Michel Therrien — are whining about diving, complaining about the Refs, accusing Niklas Kornwall of dirty hits … in short, they’re acting like fans, and not even the most rational of fans at that.
How else can you explain these quotes from Therrien in the post-game press conference?
Between games, Penguins coach Michel Therrien radically altered his forward lines in the hopes of sparking something approaching offensive pressure. It didn’t work. After Game 2, he suggested the problem was that the Wings were cheating.
“It’s really tough to generate offense against that team,” Therrien said. “They’re good on obstruction. It’s going to be tough to generate any type of offense if the rules remain the same. So, it’s the first time we’re facing a team [where] the obstruction is there and we’re having a hard time skating to take away ice.”
Therrien also accused Osgood of diving on both of the goaltender interference penalties assessed against the Penguins in Game 2.
“I’ll tell you something, I reviewed those plays. He’s a good actor. He goes to players, and he’s diving.”
Yeah … if we could only somehow change the rules, maybe the Penguins would have a chance.
I won’t jinx this series by saying that it’s over. The Penguins haven’t lost at home in more than three months, and Sidney Crosby is the real deal, even if his buddy Evgeni Malkin looks a little bit lost these days.
I’m just pointing out that when a coach is reduced to talking about anything except the quality of his own team’s play, that’s because he knows his team is thoroughly humiliated and beaten down. The Penguins are beyond criticism from Therrien right now, and he knows it, so he lashes out.
The problem is that he’s lashing out at the most disciplined, effective and utterly professional NHL team I’ve ever had the fortune to watch. How do you think the Red Wings will react?
Well, first, they’ll ignore the bullshit.
“I’m not really concerned about it right now,” Osgood said. “The minute the buzzer goes, it’s out of my head. I don’t think about the past. I just played between the whistles; that’s all I do. I’m more concerned about next game than about this game.”
Then, they’ll answer with their play. If I were a Penguins fan (or player or coach, since right now they have all been reduced to the same spectator status) this quote would scare the living daylights out of me:
“We’re going to play better. We’ve been a good road team all year. We’re going to have a real good game in Pittsburgh. And we’re excited to get on the road. And sometimes at home, when you’re matching all the time, it disrupts your flow a little bit. We can get to Pittsburgh and let the guys just go, let them go out the door and play hard.
“And we feel we can be better. We thought when we got up 2‑0, we kind of got a little cautious, instead of staying and going after them. But we’ll be better next game.”
– Mike Babcock
Well … yikes.
Two to go, and should they go as planned, I’ll have a nice little essay up here shortly afterwards; an essay about the most effective NHL team I’ve ever seen play.
Two to go.
