NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Every Stanley Cup Final features names we all know, players at the top of the sport and the top of the name-recognition list. In every final key storylines wind around those biggest of names.
You also have guys emerge who were under-appreciated if not completely off the radar before. And in a lot of ways these are the more fascinating stories—with each you wonder if it’s real or if it’s just a player having his career moment or if it’s a sustainable phenomenon.
The 2017 final is no different on these two counts.
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With Pittsburgh, you have two winners of the Conn Smythe Trophy in Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby. With Nashville you have P.K. Subban, once ubiquitous in Montreal, who now is enjoying a moment he worked towards.
With the big names, it can be serious and substantial or it can be trivial, even goofy. On Sunday, much of it was a bit goofy.
At practices in the wake of the Predators’ home victory in Game 3, Subban bated Crosby in the media, saying that the Pittsburgh captain had complained about the defenceman’s breath, which led to an escalation of hostilities between the two. Saying that this was pure fiction, Crosby suggested that P.K. enjoys getting attention—which to Crosby’s mind is as implausible as someone enjoying dental surgery.
Crosby also suggested that other teams and other players have tried to get under his skin and failed—which is > 99 percent true. Of course, by saying that Subban likes attention, Crosby was legitimizing a knock against the blueliner that tracked back to his days in Montreal.
Yeah, it was the sandbox sans tiny buckets and shovels.
As far as serious stuff goes, all you need to know was that Crosby and Malkin combined for zero shots on Nashville’s Pekke Rinne. Now, I wouldn’t say that the Penguins can’t win a game without these two getting the puck on net—in Game 1 it seemed like Pittsburgh were trying to win a game without putting any pucks on net at all, waiting for the Predators to kick the puck past Rinne.
Coach Mike Sullivan suggested that the stat didn’t tell all, that they might be finding better shots for teammates than the ones available to the stars themselves. Maybe. Still, anybody in the NHL taking on Pittsburgh would like their chances more with Crosby and Malkin going shotless than with the two firing away.
So what of the players who have previously not loomed so large in the public consciousness previous to this spring? Well I’ll work through a not-comprehensive list of those who are working out of the ensemble into prominence. (And I’m not going to include Pittsburgh’s Jake Guentzel here because the rookie is leading all goal scorers and ceased to be Jake Who by the end of the second round.)
On this count, you’d have to lead with Nashville defenceman Roman Josi although you might question his qualifications—he’s not really obscured so much as always obscured. I loved his game at the World Cup—he was the blueliner that Team Europe leaned on most and maybe the second-place finishers’ most valuable skater. In that way he was a revelation because in Nashville he had never been the franchise defenceman, not with Shea Weber around until last summer and not with Subban in the fold when the mega-trade was made.
He was exactly what Predators coach Peter Laviolette described him as this weekend: a 200-foot defenceman, effective from whichever square yard of ice he happened to be occupying. I didn’t think that he had his best games in the opening pair in Pittsburgh but he, as much as or more than Subban, defined play from the Nashville blue line, albeit without trash talk or grist for the media tummlers. With the just-turned 27-year-old Josi, it’s hardly a case of a guy having a career moment—he’s been very good for a while and will be better known going forward.
I’d throw Frederick Gaudreau in the mix here as well but really he’s a placeholder, a representative of those Predators who put in time with the AHL affiliate in Milwaukee. Consider: 19 Nashville players have scored in these playoffs and captain Mike Fisher is still looking for his first goal in the post-season.
Goal scorers who put in significant time in the minors this year fit a wide range of profiles: 20-year-old first-rounder Kevin Fiala, who would be playing a larger role but for a leg he broke in the second round; Pontus Aberg, a 23-year-old former second-rounder who scored the prettiest goal of the series (and worst of Pittsburgh’s Olli Matta’s career) in Game 2; and 29-year-old journeyman Harry Zolnierczyk, he of 84 career NHL regular-season games with five teams.
Still it’s Gaudreau that deserves special mention, given that he had never been drafted, had put in time in the ECHL, had only nine games with the NHL club this year and one assist to show for it. The 23-year-old has two goals in the final, including the winner in Game 3. With the loss of Fiala and Ryan Johansen for the balance of the playoffs and a rash of injuries early, the Predators’ depth players had to not only step into the crucible and produce. They have. Each is a testimonial to the Predators’ commitment to pro development—under the direction of GM David Poile and AGM Paul Fenton, Milwaukee has been a model minor-league franchise.
You know there will be further twists when Game 4 plays out Monday and in each game as necessary down the line. You know the best are going to do more than jaw at each other and, at some point, something’s gotta give and the stars will shine. And you know you’re going to be asking a couple of questions. 1. I know that guy but is he that good? And 2. Who is that guy?
