Buffalo Sabres fans should thank Milan Lucic and Brendan Shanahan for what has transpired over the course of the last few days.
With all due respect to Ryan Miller, who I hope is not seriously injured, the pair exposed the Sabres for what they are--a very talented, very soft team.
It's been that way for years as the John Muckler era gave way to the Darcy Regier era for Buffalo.
The Boston Bruins are one of the Original Six teams in the NHL, as a team they've been through all of the NHL-era's. In the 70's they were the Big Bad Bruins. A donnybrook was common place in that "Slapshot" era where benches cleared, you grabbed a partner and danced amidst the gloves, sticks, sweaters and wild punches being thrown.
As an Original Six team, the Bruins still have that old-school intimidation factor ingrained deep within their psyche. Lucic embraces that. As do teammates, Zdeno Chara, Shawn Thorton and Adam McQuaid. Even diminutive Brad Marchand has a serious edge to his game.
This edition of the Buffaol Sabres? Meh. The Lucic hit proved that they do not.
The 2011/12 Sabres are eerily similar to another Sabres team that played in a different era, that of the Scotty Bowman years.
Bowman took over the team and proceed to move aging vets for high draft picks.
The team he built was high on skill, or supposedly highly skilled, with a few "tough guys" throw in for backbone. But that team proved that they didn't have Original Six sensibilities.
The Detroit Red Wings are another Original Six team who had of one of the greatest hockey players ever, Gordie Howe. Howe was as old-school as they came and he's immortalized with "the Gordie Howe Hat Trick": a goal, and assist and a fight.
During the 80's the Wings were slowly coming out of the "Dead Wings" era of the previous decade with the Steve Yzerman leading the way. Yzerman, by the way was drafted 4th overall in 1983, one spot ahead of Buffalo Sabres goalie, Tom Barrasso. Those two would be a part of a melee four years later as Yzerman would define himself as a leader.
Another quick note on Yzerman, he took over the captaincy of the Wings from former Sabre Danny Gare. The diminutive Gare hit the 50-goal mark twice for the Sabres and once jumped out of the penalty box to join a melee, was in the mold of Wings legend "Terrible Ted" Lindsay who was also small, but old-school tough with a mean-streak.
Bowman had loaded his team with highly touted, skill players taken in the first round. Players like Norm Lacombe, Adam Creighton, Paul Cyr and Phil Housley.
In 1987, those players along with the likes of rookie #1 overall pick Pierre Turgeon, Christian Ruutu, Dave Andreychuk, John Tucker and Uwe Krupp formed "the core" of Scotty Bowman's Buffalo Sabres. That "soft-but-skilled" core was balanced by "tough-guys" Lindy Ruff and waiver acquisition, Kevin Macguire.
Yzerman, Barrasso, Macguire and legendary Wings tough-guy Bob Probert, all came together in a game between the Wings and the Sabres back in 1987. And it starts with this hit.
Bob Probert nails Sabres goaltender Tom Barrasso behind the net. Sabres color-commentator Mike Robitaille sheds light on the subject when he says "Somebody's got to jump in there...it happened the other night with [Jacques] Cloutier when everybody looked the other way."
"When everybody looked the other way." Sound familiar?
Unlike the recent Lucic-on-Miller hit, one Sabre came back and pulled a little old-school payback on Red Wings goalie Greg Stephan. Kevin Macguire proceeded to run Stephan:
Four Red Wings jump Macguire behind the net for his "payback."
One of the defining moments was Steve Yzerman, a player not known for fighting, goes after Macguire in defense of his teammates. This from NHL.com fan blog: "A big melee ensues on the ice. Battles with goalies going head to head. Bob Probert being restrained by the referees, all the players are tied up except Stevie Y and Kevin Maguire; the Sabres heavyweight (aka Buffalo's answer to Probert). Not to be outdone and give Maguire a chance of hurting one of his players, the selfless Yzerman charges Maguire and starts a fight; a fight Maguire clearly finishes. But kudos to Yzerman because he wasn't about to let Maguire contribute to a gang up on one of his teammates. Team first."
Probert knew his role as well. He was the enforcer, there to protect his teammates, especially his captain, Steve Yzerman. The reckless abandon with which he pursues Macguire from start to finish is something to be seen. The cheap-shot he delivered to the restrained Macguire was a payback for running his goalie and fighting his ill-equipped captain. He would not be denied and no Sabres player denied him.
The NHL is different these days. But there are still players who eschew personal safety in defense of their players, especially their goaltenders. It's woven into the fabric of their hockey existence.
Nearly every team, it seems, has these moments where another team exerts their will through intimidation, and dominates them. A moment where they realize they aren't as tough as they thought they might be and/or they'll need to dig deeper in order to beat the big kid on the block.
Take the Red Wings.
In a most unusual rivalry, the Wings and the Colorado Avalanche, two teams with no history and no proximity to speak of, grew to hate each other to the point where it was the toughest, meanest rivalry in hockey during the mid to late 90's and into the 2000's.
In 1996, the Avs, who had just been relocated from Quebec, played the Wings, the President's Trophy winner for best record in the NHL, in the Western Conference Finals.
The Avs boasted some highly skilled players like Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Valerie Kamensky and Sandis Ozolinsh. But they also tough-players like Adam Foote and Mike Keane along with legendary uber-pest (and recognized cheap-shot artist) Claude Lemieux.
The 1996 Western Conference Finals between the Red Wings and the Avalanche represented the Avs casting the Wings aside to claim king of the hill. In game six, Claude Lemieux took a cheap shot on the Wings Kris Draper that sent him to the hospital with a broken jaw (1:20-mark):
With that hit the rivalry was on.
It took a little while for the Wings to establish their machismo vs. the Avalanche. They had played three times prior to March 26, 1997, but not much happened. With the playoffs on the horizon, and an eventual Wings/Avs playoff series pretty much a formality, two unlikely candidates, the Wings Igor Larionov and the Avs Peter Forsberg, started what has become and NHL classic brawl (interesting to note that former Sabres coach and GM, Scotty Bowman was behind the Wings bench):
Wings enforcer Darren McCarty saw the opportunity to exact some revenge upon Claude Lemieux for his cheap-shot on Draper. And Brendan Shanahan provided one of the all-time great goalie checks as the Avs Patrick Roy came flying up ice to defend his teammate only to be hit by a full-speed Shanahan.
Shanahan, not known for his fighting, dropped the gloves with Foote, a player who has held his own on many occasions, four seconds after play resumed.
So what does this all mean? Well we do know one thing. The Red Wings ended a 42-year cup drought that year by sweeping Philadelphia in the Finals. They repeated the next season sweeping the Washington Capitals in the Finals as well.
Hockey is the only of the four major professional sports in America where your manhood can be challenged and you can answer the bell immediately as part of "the code." Or, in some cases, injustices and stupidity can be addressed further down the road. But you have the opportunity to answer it.
The Boston Briuns were challenged by the Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins in 2010. Milan Lucic was on the ice when the Pens' Matt Cooke flatten unsuspecting Bruins center Mark Savard with an elbow to the head. The Bruins did nothing immediately after the hit, much like the Sabres after the Lucic hit on Miller:
Over the course of the last two post-seasons after the Cooke/Savard incident, the Boston Bruins have developed an "Original Six" mentality in that they play that old-school, intimidating brand of "man-hockey." Hockey that Gordie Howe and Terry O'Reilly would be proud of. A sense of team is more important than self-preservation. Hockey that would eventually end a 39-year Stanley Cup drought in 2011.
After his hit on Miller, Lucic summed up where the Bruins mentality was when saying, "Definitely," when asked if the response would have been different if Thomas had been hit like that. "We wouldn't accept anything like that. We would have taken care of business, but we're a different team than they are."
They are a different team than they once were only a year and a half ago.
Looking back on history, it's no wonder that Shanahan did not suspend Lucic. He's seen enough to know that it should have been taken care of on the ice (or eventually will be) and he's smart enough to know the there was no iron-clad case for a suspension. In fact, I could probably see those two talking more about old-school hockey than the hit.
The fact that there was no suspension is a good thing for the Sabres and even though the NHL GM's are in their annual meetings with goalie protection in the forefront, not too much will happen except some more definition. So, in reality, this Sabres team will need to fend for themselves. And if the desired goal is the Stanley Cup, they'll need much more than NHL-intervention to protect their manhood.
For the Sabres, or any Eastern Conference team, the road to the Stanley Cup Finals will probably go through either Boston or Philadelphia, both of whom know how to intimidate. And if they even want a chance to make it there, much less win the Cup itself, they need to reach deep down to find that intestinal fire. That's if they even have it.
The bullying of Lucic is nothing new, and the only way the victim will get any respect is to fight back. What it takes to bring out that inner fury is something only the individual knows. But there comes a time where you say enough is enough and the inner warrior comes out with a vengeance. The pain of humiliation is much worse than a punch to the face. And usually good things follow.
Darcy Regier and other GM's of his ilk are having their Tipper Gore/PMRC-moment trying to protect their players (children.) Go ahead. But bullies will always remain and be a threat until the players themselves--individually--man-up and do something about it.
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