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Seventh Heaven and the EJ McGuire Principle |
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Follow Brad on Twitter: @bradmarshnhl
The Stanley Cup playoffs have been a huge success thus far. The first round is living up to its billing as perhaps the best hockey of the entire playoffs.
I am not 100 percent sure if that statement really holds true. No doubt we will have some great games and series the rest of the way. So far, though, there have been so many story lines within each series and actually so many story lines within many games.
I have never seen so many “winning streaks” in the playoffs beginning with Montreal sweeping or winning 4 straight over Tampa Bay. Many people predicted that Montreal would win but not many thought it would be 4 straight! The Boston Bruins lost the first game Detroit and then won 4 straight, Chicago losing the 1st two games in overtime and then coming back and winning in six games. Both LA and the Sharks have had 3 game winning streaks or three game losing streaks depending on how you look at it.
In a league where the team that scores first generally wins about seventy percent of the time, the come-from-behind wins in the various games have been incredible. Not only have several teams battled back to win numerous games they have done so in the late stages of many games.
The best example of this is the Ducks tying the game with 2 goals in the final minutes with the net empty and then winning in it in overtime to eliminate the Dallas Stars. Or maybe it was the Blue Jackets late comeback on the Penguins as Marc-Andre Fleury fell apart late in Game in 4.
However you want to slice it, it's pretty exciting stuff!
So far in the 2013/14 Stanley Cup Playoffs, five teams have advanced to the 2nd round of the playoffs, with the last 3 teams to be determined tonight (Wednesday, April 30). The games that will be played this evening to determine the remaining spots will all be Game Sevens.
A Game Seven is quite a unique atmosphere – nothing during the regular season compares to it, and it is unlike any other game during the playoffs. It is even way different than a playoff elimination game – where it is the much hyped do-or-die scenario for one team, but for one of the teams they will have another chance at winning the series – next game.
Game Sevens are special because, of course, it’s Do or Die for both teams. One team already had to stave off elimination by winning Game Six so they must have the momentum or is it the home team that has the advantage? Maybe it is the road team that has the upper hand – less pressure. Or is it the team that “wants it the most” or perhaps scores the first goal?
Beats me! What I do know that it is going to be a great night to watch hockey.
Game Sevens are also magical in the way that even the sport's casual fans will tune in. I know firsthand that Game Sevens are cash cow nights in the sports bar industry. Everyone wants to be part of something special in a social atmosphere where everyone is rooting together. It's the next best thing to being in the building.
I remember speaking one night with my old friend, the late EJ McGuire, about Game Sevens. EJ was a great hockey coach, a great hockey guy and a great guy in general. I had EJ as an assistant coach both in Philadelphia and in Ottawa.
Anyway, to get to the point, EJ would tape every Game 7 or single-game elimination. The sport did not even matter. Apart, from hockey, it might be baseball, basketball or football. The reason why he recorded them: he watched to analyze any type of common characteristics he could find both in the winning teams and losing teams as well.
EJ put that information to use whenever he was coaching a team in that scenario. As a scout, he also learned a lot by studying prospects in their team's most important games. EJ was uncanny in predicting who would be the winners. It wasn't luck and it wasn't science. It was art and intuition.
During my playing career, I had the pleasure of playing in seven Game Sevens -- pretty cool math there. Yes, it is a great feeling to be standing on the blue line or the bench and listening to the Canadian and U.S. national anthems.
The atmosphere is indescribable. It is incredibly loud, though. In some places you cannot even hear the Anthem. I think what makes this game a little more special, especially for players from my era is this, all we did as kids was to play hockey 12 months a year.
Road hockey, pond hockey whenever we had spare time we were playing some type of hockey. We played organized hockey, too, but not as much. In fact, most of my hockey as a kid was played with no adult supervision, just my friends and me.
The magic of these games: We were allowed to pretend. All dreams could come true. You do not know how many times I was involved in a Game Seven where I had the puck going down the boards and I shot high on the goalie and scored!!!
This scenario played itself out time and time again on the pond and at Westminster High where we quite often played road hockey. It was always Game 7 – never Games One to Six (ultimately, who cares who wins Game Three?) When I was actually involved in a “real” Game Seven, it was cool and it brought back a lot of memories.
For the record, I did score in a Stanley Cup playoff Game Seven. Sure enough, I was going down the left wing boards. I shot and scored on Kelly Hrudey of the New York Islanders. Don't believe me? To this day, I'm not entirely sure if I believe it myself.
OK, I looked it up on Youtube and came up empty. Anyway, I promise it wasn't just a dream. The goal was one of six I scored in the playoffs.
Anyway, in a previous blog, I wrote about my first Game Seven. It came when I was a member of the Calgary Flames and we beat the Flyers at the Spectrum, Kate Smith and all. We were actually up 3-1 in the series, Philly won game 5 and 6 setting the stage for an epic game 7 at the Spectrum – nobody gave us a chance.
Thanks to Behn Wilson’s penalty for closing his hand on the puck (great call, Bruce Hood!) we scored first and basically never looked back. A side note to that game was that my contact lenses were lost somewhere – it was almost game time when I realized this – too late to do something about it – legally anyway.
I never did get the whole story, but it involved someone with the team breaking into somewhere and paying off someone to get me a pair of contacts. I guess this falls into the category of doing “whatever it takes” to win.
I played the first period basically blind, all I did was hit any white, orange and black blur that moved. I couldn't really tell who was who on the other side! When I got the puck, I just shot it out again, which probably was a good thing because I did not have time to think. When I finally get a pair of contact lenses in my eyes, they weren't my exact prescription, but they were good enough under the circumstances.
Maybe I should have played the game like one of the Hanson (or, in real life, Carlson) brothers, wearing their glasses on the ice. It worked, in any case!
In 1986, as a member of the Flyers, we at the Spectrum to the New York Rangers. We lost in a best-of-five. Not exactly a Game Seven but the same effect. It was the deciding game with the series tied at two wins each, so it counts.
What was strange about this loss was that we finished 32 points ahead of the Rangers in the regular season: talk about an upset. John Vanbiesbrouck stole that series for New York. It stung horribly. That was the season Pelle Lindbergh died -- a long and very emotionally tough season for all of us. We had been so good all season and had just been to the Finals the year before. But, for whatever reason, our legs ran out of steam the and emotional well ran dry by the spring of 1986. Such a shame. We had a great team.
In 1987, the year we went to the finals against Edmonton, we played in a pair of Game Sevens. The first one was at the Spectrum against the NYI in the second round. That was the game that I scored in.
The second Game Seven was in Edmonton with the Stanley Cup going to the winner. I have not researched exactly many times this scenario has happened in the history of the game, but I'm sure some of you know off the top of your heads. Anyway, as you could imagine, it was the biggest night of my career and something very special.
I’ll just leave it at that because the game outcome is too painful to discuss. Or, in the words of Forrest Gump, that’s all I have to say about that.
Moving on, in 1988, my Flyers team lost Game Seven on the road to the Washington Capitals. This series was another bitter pill. We had the series lead, 3-1. Washington came back and won three straight, including Game Seven in overtime.
I did not know it at the time but the deciding game turned out to be my last as a Flyer.
My last two Game Sevens came as member of the Detroit Red Wings. We lost on the road to the St. Louis Blues in 1991. The next year, we won at home against the Minnesota North Stars.
So there you have it. I am not sure who has the advantage in the games tonight. I'll leave that to the pundits and the fans at home. I just want to see some great hockey.
Just in case you wanted to use my record in Game Sevens to try and figure anything out, my teams had three wins and four losses in the deciding game. Two of those wins came as a member of the home team, only one of the wins came as the visiting team.As far as the losses go, my teams lost two games with home ice advantage and two games while playing on the road.
One further stat I find interesting is that in my seven Game Sixes, my teams also went three and four. Furthermore, two times my team won game 6 and two times we lost game 7. On the flip side, two times we lost game six and both times we won Game Seven. Twice we lost game 6 and the trend continued as we lost Game Seven. Only once did we win game 6 and then go on to win game 7.
I wonder which teams EJ would pick to win tonight? How I wish I could call him up and ask. He'd have made the time to chat. He always did.
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