James van Riemsdyk is going to remain on the healthy scratch list for the time being. Of late, he has gotten away from doing the things that earned him praise at the beginning of the season, even though he wasn't scoring goals. He stopped getting involved physically and reverted to playing along the perimeter and trying to do too much with the puck when it's on his stick.
The biggest knock of JVR -- and it's something that people within the organization will only say off the record -- is that he isn't enough of a competitor on the ice. It's not that he's lazy or that he's not serious about his career (as witnessed by his intense off-season training). It was said last year that "he's not the kind of player who will go through a wall to win." That view apparently has not changed.
Peter Laviolette has thrown down a gauntlet to the second-season forward, while publicly spelling out what he wants to see from JVR and any other player who is a healthy scratch. In the process, he expressed satisfaction with the way Nikolay Zherdev has played since being scratched for two ganes, although the scratching came out in the first place because the was angry at the way Zherdev handled unhappiness over his ice time.
As printed in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, Laviolette said of van Riemsdyk, "When James gets back in there, you hope it burns him a little bit to be out of the lineup and he comes back with revitalized energy, like Z [Nik Zherdev] did, and makes it a point to show he shouldn't have come out of the lineup - and shouldn't come out anymore."
Several weeks ago, when I spoke to Laviolette about Ville Leino in conjunction with an
article for Philadelphiaflyers.com about the success of Leino's line with Danny Briere and Scott Hartnell, the coach made a point of talking about the way Leino did everything the right way when he had trouble getting into the lineup after being acquired from Detroit last season. The Finn gained respect from his coach last year for the way he approached showing that he deserved to play.
Said Laviolette, "I give [Leino] the credit in the world. He never complained once, never sulked. He just kept working, and it goes without saying that he’s made the most of his chance. He’s a tremendous young man and a fine player, and his success since then is a testament to his dedication."
Laviolette's comments came before the situation unfolded with Zherdev in which the player got even further in the coach's doghouse by allegedly complaining to Paul Holmgren about his ice time early in the season. But I have no doubt that the expectations were made clear to the players from day one of camp.
JVR and Nikolay Zherdev may not be Peter Laviolette's biggest supporters right now, but they can't say the coach didn't spell out what they need to do to get the playing time they crave. So far at least, Zherdev has responded to the challenge (but he needs to keep it up). Now it's James van Riemsdyk's turn to not only keep working hard until there's a lineup spot for him again, but to make himself impossible to scratch again.
You learn a lot about a player by the way he handles adversity. JVR can either come through this with determination or he can let it further erode his self-confidence. Personally, I think scratching him until he earns his way back is a better way to go than sending him to the mess that is the Adirondack Phantoms. There's no doubt JVR is an NHL player right now -- the question is how badly he truly wants to elevate his game to the next level.
****
Before there was
Joni Pitkanen, Janne Niinimaa was one of the most highly hyped and, shortly thereafter, most maligned defensemen in the league. I always felt that Niinimaa was the victim of his own early success and perhaps the expectations were a little bit unrealistic for him.
By the age of 23, he'd already accomplished just about everything a young hockey player from Finland could ever dream of:
* He captained his country's junior national team at the WJC.
* While still a teenager, he became a regular starter on Jokerit Helsinki, the deepest team in the SM-Liiga at the time.
* He won the Finnish championship with Jokerit Helsinki.
* By age 20, he became a starter on the Finnish senior national team, beating out former NHL defenseman Peter Ahola in the process.
* He won a World Championship gold medal (he was the youngest member of the 1995.
* He played in the 1996 World Cup of Hockey before making his NHL debut.
* He was named to the NHL All-Rookie Team in 1996-97.
* He played in the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals with the Flyers.
* He won an Olympic medal, taking bronze with Team Finland at the 1998 games in Nagano.
* Along the way, he fulfilled another childhood dream by getting to play alongside his childhood idol, Paul Coffey with the Flyers.
Where do you go from there but down? The expectations for Niinimaa were that he'd become a Norris Trophy caliber defenseman, and anything short was a disappointment. Well, he fell short by a considerable margin. But that didn't mean that Janne was a bad defenseman or has had a bad career. He actually played quite well at times in Philadelphia, Edmonton and in his first year with the Islanders, although it ended poorly in each city and he did not fare well in either Dallas or Montreal.
For the last four years, Niinimaa has been back in Europe, playing for two teams in Switzerland and two in Sweden. He won a Swedish championship last year with HV 71. Now, at age 35, he's battling through back problems but has been a crucial factor in why his surprising Lulea HF team is in first place in Elitserien and has gone a perfect 9-0-0 on home ice. Niinimaa ranks third in scoring among defensemen in the league and near the top of the league plus-minus charts as well for a team that was slated (at most) as a bubble playoff team this season.
Today's
Across the Pond at NHL.com takes a look at Niinimaa's season this year, the surprising strength of his LHF squad, and the way his career has come full circle from young phenom to elder statesman. The article should be online by late morning.
****
Today's
Daily Drop at Versus.com delves into the lack of scoring that is plaguing the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs got blanked by Tampa last night, 4-0, and have now dropped nine of their last 10 games. They've been shut out three times in the last six games.
****
November 10, 2010 marks the actual 25th anniversary of the Pelle Lindbergh car crash. His official death date was Nov. 11, 1985. Tomorrow's Philadelphia Daily News will have a special article on Pelle, told from a different angle than Mike Jensen's fine piece in the Inquirer on Sunday.
As promised, here are some more unpublished excerpts from the Pelle book. To counterbalance all the articles about the anniversary of his death date, I'm selecting sections that relate to his life and career.
**
Lindbergh misses a month of action after suffering a broken wrist in the Flyers' exhibition game loss to the Red Army. During his rehab, a photographer from Playboy magazine invites Pelle (still sporting a cast) to pose for a photo feature, along with veteran star Bill Barber, and young players Ron Flockhart and Lindsay Carson.
When Pelle first hears the pics are for Playboy, he thinks that he and his teammates will get to pose alongside a Playmate or two. He's all for that idea. Even when he learns it's just a "regular" shoot that will highlight "Flyers players and summer attire," he thinks it'll still be fun.
The photographer arranges with the team to take the pictures at the practice rink. Pelle invites his friend Roffe Alex to come along and watch.
Lindbergh's excitement turns to dismay when he sees what he and the others have to wear. The players don orange t-shirts with Flyers logos and their surnames on the front, pairs of "fashionable" shorts (which he finds extremely ugly), tube socks and skates.
"Pelle didn't think that was cool at all," Alex recalls with a chuckle. "He was embarrassed by the photographs."
**
During Pelle's absence from the lineup, the Flyers call up Bob Froese from Maine. McCammon quickly installs "Frosty" as the starter, much to the dismay of erstwhile number one keeper St. Croix. Shortly thereafter, the Flyers trade St. Croix to Toronto in exchange for veteran backup Michel "Bunny" Larocque.
Larocque barely sees any action in net, starting just two games the rest of the season. The competition for playing time is between rookies Lindbergh and Froese.
Despite his injury, Pelle is selected to the NHL All-Star Game in Uniondale, New York (home of the Islanders). Mark Howe and Darryl Sittler are also chosen for the game, along with former Flyers starting goaltender Pete Peeters.
When he learns of his selection, Pelle is still unable to touch his right shoulder with his right fingertips. The team equipment managers make sure to tease him about it.
They march around the locker room holding their right arms at a crooked angle, shouting in mock Swedish accents, "Oh, yaaaa! I am an All-Staaar GOAAL-leee, I am an All-Staaar GOOAAL-leee!"
"Guys that's not how you say it at all," Pelle winks. "You say it like this: Ja! I ahm an All-Starrrrrr guhhllll-leee! För fan, en All-Star målvakt! (A goddamn All-Star goalie!)"
**
Practical jokes have always been a staple in the fraternity house environment of hockey locker rooms. Pelle has always been able to be the recipient - or perpetrator - with equal good humor.
On more than one occasion after Pelle develops his fluid-drinking routine to prevent dehydration, he returns to the locker room after practice to find a teammate's false teeth sitting in his cup. He'd claim his revenge by switching other players' dental plates or casually tossing the suspected culprit's shoes in the whirlpool.
Hazing is another matter.
In the early 1980s, rookie hazing is still common in the NHL. Later replaced by more innocuous "welcomes," some of the old-school hazing rituals that endure into the '80s (and beyond that in junior hockey) are downright cruel.
When Pelle returns to the lineup from the wrist fracture, he falls victim to "The Shave". The Flyers arrived in Los Angeles a day early and hold practice.
Afterwards, as Pelle gets undressed in the Forum's visiting locker room, he's quickly surrounded by older players, thrown to the floor and held down at the direction of veteran tough guy Paul Holmgren.
Pelle screams, thrashes and kicks, so his mouth is taped shut as Lindbergh's teammates start to shave the hair off the rookie's head. Ordinarily that's where it ends, but the more Lindbergh protests, the more he eggs on the veteran players to take it further.
Lindbergh has his head shaved into a severe buzzcut (getting nicked and cut several times), and gets shaved over his entire body. Bob Froese gets similarly butchered.
"Is it over?" one of the players asks when the rookie are finally released and allowed to stand up.
"Doesn't have to be over," Holmgren says with a smirk.
Holmgren glances in the direction of Miroslav Dvorak. The Czech is technically a "rookie" despite his decade-plus of international experience. He's a first-year NHLer in any case.
Dvorak wags his finger. "No touch Cookie!"
The other players laugh (except the rookie victims). The 31-year-old Dvorak is spared. Pelle is distraught. He never experienced anything approaching this in Sweden, and is both humiliated and angry.
"Normally on the Flyers, they only maybe shaved off a guy's sideburns or between the legs," Sudsy Settlemyre says. "But even though everyone liked Pelle, they really got him good. He was pretty upset about it."
Hockey statistician and writer Bruce "Scoop" Cooper drives Pelle back to the team's hotel afterwards in a Volkswagen Rabbit that Cooper borrowed from his brother-in-law.
"He didn't want anyone to see his head afterwards, so he wrapped a towel around it. The towel was pink. I'll never forget the sight of Pelle stepping out of the car and walking into the hotel lobby wearing a pink turban on his head," Cooper says.
The next day, Pelle continues to keep his shorn head covered.
"I laughed hard when I saw him the first time after the shave," Ilkka Sinisalo says. "We were having lunch in the hotel and Pelle comes in wearing this big hat, pulled all the way down. He looked like he wasn't in his right mind."
When the Flyers return to Philadelphia, Kerstin and Rolf Alex pick Pelle up at the airport. He's wearing a stocking cap. When they head home, Pelle tells them he went through "sheer hell" and was especially upset that he was held down and couldn't move.
Before long, people around the team get used to seeing Pelle show up in assorted headwear. He does so until his hair fully grows back.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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