VANCOUVER — The greatest playoff stories are full of exactly that: great playoff stories.
So, inside the novel that the Calgary Flames began Wednesday night are are micro-tales, like the chapters spun by David Jones and Sam Bennett.
Jones had the initials of his newborn niece Makenna written on the stick that blasted home Calgary’s first goal, a puck he simply knew was going to find the net behind Eddie Lack even before Michael Ferland had dropped it to him between the Vancouver hashmarks.
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“I was screaming at him,” said Jones. “If he didn’t give it to me, he’d better have scored himself. I told him, ‘Just give it to me and put your hands up, man.’ I knew it was going in.”
Confidence? When is the last time you heard a Canadian NHLer talk like that?
It was the first ever playoff game in Vancouver for Jones, who grew up in North Vancouver and played his early hockey at North Van Minor. He had bought 11 tickets, but then his sister — Liz Taylor is her name — had the nerve to give birth on the day of Game 1.
“My brother-in-law was a bit choked. If they’d have had the baby in the middle of the night, he’d have been here, but…,” Jones said. “My parents were like, ‘Should we go to the game? Should we be at the hospital?’ My Dad, he came to the game.”
That stick will be leaning in the corner of little Makenna’s freshly painted room by the time she gets home from the hospital today. But it was another baby — pink-cheeked Sam Bennett, playing only his second ever National Hockey League game — who may have been the best Flames player on the ice Wednesday.
He made a few lovely scoring chances for himself early on, walking out of the corner like a bull coming out of the chute, and ended up with an assist on the game-winner, screening Eddie Lack on Kris Russell’s 2-1 goal with 30 seconds to play. Bennett was everything he was billed to be, and in return, his first NHL playoff experience gave him all the goose bumps he expected it would, lying awake those nights as boy, living this moment over and over again.
“It was everything that I dreamed it could be. It was so much fun out there, so fast. To get the win in our first playoff game? It felt amazing,” said the No. 4 overall pick from a year ago. He already has one more playoff game under his belt than every player drafted by the Edmonton Oilers since their rebuild began.
“Nothing compares to this,” he said. “It’s so much faster so much more exciting. Just everything about it was everything I imagined it would be.”
I can recall many outstanding rookie moments in 25 years of watching these Stanley Cup playoffs from up close. But ask me to recall an 18-year-old in his first playoff game who had an impact like the one Bennett had Wednesday night, and I can’t come up with a single one.
“During his rehab … we were doing video with him to teach him our system. We had no clue that he would be with us in the playoffs,” said Calgary head coach Bob Hartley. “Today it turns into a great investment. He can skate. He’s a gritty player. He’s built for the playoffs.”
We’ve seen teams like this before. Teams that won’t take no for an answer. That simply find a way 16 times in a single spring. Or sometimes, like the last time Calgary was this team back in 2004, 15 times.
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The captain, Mark Giordano is out. Their first-line centre, Sean Monahan, appears to be nursing an injured shoulder, and was dormant in Game 1. Defenceman Dennis Wideman, playing more minutes now that Giordano is gone, is showing signs that perhaps those minutes are too many, and his game may erode.
Then they’re down 1-0, on the road, seven minutes into the third period, the degree of difficulty increasing with each Jonas Hiller save. The first-line isn’t getting it done, and Calgary needs a hero. Someone, anyone…
Then Matt Stajan has the sense not to touch a puck turned over by Vancouver defenceman Yannick Weber, lest it be whistled as an offside, and Ferland grabs the biscuit, making the deft pass to Jones for a goal. And the tide starts turning, turning…
Then Gaudreau awakes, creating two chances in the final five minutes that put Vancouver on its heels. And finally, a wrister from the point with 30 seconds to play that “finds a way” — a phrase you’d better get used to if you’re going to watch this Calgary team play.
“There are lots of unknowns about our team,” Hartley admits. “Yes, we’re young, but I always tell them we’re going to replace experience with grit and character.
“It was as calm after the second period as if we’d have been in the lead. These guys are amazing. It seems like nothing rattles us. We stay composed, we keep our focus. In the third period, we could feel it on the bench. As soon a Jonesey scored, I felt like we had another gear.
“Those guys are unbelievable,” Hartley marveled. “They always find a way.”
You can’t say they don’t.