One of Us is All of Us, or They’re All MY Guy

  The emotional argument for banning all headshots from NHL hockey

When Hockey Consultant was a fifteen-year-old avid hockey fan (emphasize on FAN) back in the late nineties, her team was the Pittsburgh Penguins.   Those Penguins were led by Hockey Consultant’s all-time favorite player, a right winger named Jaromir Jagr.     At the time, Jagr’s chief rival for the title of “best hockey player in the world” was a center from the Philadelphia Flyers named Eric Lindros.   As a fan, Hockey Consultant hated everything about the Philadelphia Flyers.  And, of course, Hockey Consultant insisted her guy, Jagr, was far better than the Flyers’ guy, Lindros.

A decade and a half later, Hockey Consultant will shake her head in shame as she regurgitates exactly what she thought about Eric Lindros at about the time Scott Stevens was making it a point to bash Lindros’s head very hard.    Lindros, you see, wasn’t as good as Jagr.   Lindros wasn’t as good as people cracked him up to be.  A specific flashback to the thoughts of a 15-year-ols fan yields something like the italicized paragraph below:

 

Eric Lindros is a whiny crybaby who needs to learn how to keep his head up.  If Lindros had the sense and wits to keep his up and not do that stupid stuff, he’d never get concussions and he’d be perfectly fine.  If Lindros were truly as good as people say he is, if he were really as good as he was heralded to be, none of this stuff would have happened to him.    Clearly, Jaromir Jagr has superior hockey sense.   Clearly, if Jagr can play and not get concussed, then Lindros isn’t as good as Jagr.   While Bobby Clarke is an imbecile for insisting Lindros should play through serious injuries, fact of the matter is, if Lindros just had a bit more of that heralded hockey sense and used his brain a little better, maybe he would not have a brain injury in the first place.  If Lindros is really that good, why can’t he just keep his head UP? 

Hockey Consultant winces and is ashamed of her age-15 thinking.    Because, as you’d probably guess, Hockey Consultant doesn’t think the same way she did at fifteen anymore.   As an adult she’s read about the post-playing lives of players like Eric Lindros and Keith Primeau, and she can now see them first as humans, not as she used to see them (when they were Flyers and that’s all they were because, yes, hockey fans are that insane).    Even this season, she’s read about the agony endured by another Flyer, Chris Pronger, and she admits all her italicized thoughts, circa age fifteen, were, are, and will always be completely wrong. 

Yet, in February 2012, Hockey Consultant observes an NHL that still adapts, far too easily, to her fifteen-year-old mindset.    In the 2011-12 season, the NHL still has a Rule 48 that puts the emphasis on a player in a vulnerable position to avoid the hit rather than making the elimination of head shots as black-and-white clear as are the league’s high-sticking penalties.   Hence, head hits that concuss athletes and have the potential to end seasons and careers aren’t always penalized due to the gray area of league rules.   And the men who run the NHL don’t seem to have an interest in changing those rules.   “It’s a hockey play.  He has to accept risk.  He has to keep his head up.”  The most recent such incident happened in a game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Dallas Stars, but the ongoing dialogue has happened throughout the year, and all often, we still hear, “It’s just part of hockey.” 

There are legitimate business reasons to eliminate all headshots from NHL hockey (including the need to insure contracts; avoid legal trouble, both with being sued and have the government intervene and shape the game for you due to serious injuries; and the obvious one of needing to sell and market the players who can do what few others on the planet can do).  Likewise, there are legitimate medical reasons to eliminate any gray area when it comes to “legal” hits to the head in NHL hockey (concussions are a brain injury, not like playing on a broken foot) .   Yet none of these reasons seem to make a dent in in the ingrained mindset of those who are accustomed to viewing incidental head contact, and well, everything awful that’s associated with it, as unfortunate but a “part of hockey and we can’t do anything about it.”

Except they can do something to minimize it, by eliminating the gray area.   And the only thing, it seems, which gets a mindset to change, is when it’s YOUR guy who’s the one who could be the next Eric Lindros.

Let Hockey Consultant admit what she’s felt as a fan.    Twice this season, she’s watched her current favorite player drop to the ice after being struck in the head.   (Yes, Eric Nystrom may not have targeted Kris Letang’s head, but Nystrom still hit Letang in the chin, which, last time Hockey Consultant checked, was part of the head.)   She’s winced each time it happened and wondered if a 24-year-old who’s been projected to win a “Norris trophy or two” by the time his career is over is actually going to get that chance.   

And she understood something, as a fan, which she didn’t understand at fifteen.    Speaking from the mindset of a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins:   Crosby and Letang are her guys.   They’re HERS. 

Do they lack hockey sense?   (Despite what some amusing folks posting on online forums complain about when they’re nitpicking about Letang, hardly.)   Are they soft?   (No.  Ask the Ottawa Senators of 2010, who remember Kris Letang as a player who regularly took hits to make plays.)   Are they players who lack toughness or heart or hockey sense, who somehow “deserve” the concussions they got?  When Letang’s head is slightly down because in both cases, he was actually trying to make a hockey play, that’s supposed to mean it’s OK to hit him in the head?  (Needless to say, Hockey Consultant no longer thinks what she used to think of Eric Lindros, either.)

Now, from the broader perspective.    Take a look at the list of players who have been out with concussions this season.   The Blackwks, Flyers, and Penguins—three contenders for the Stanley Cup, especially if the teams were 100% healthy—are all without their captains and faces of the franchise due to concussions.    The Capitals are without their number one center.    Three of these teams are still in playoff position.  But their fans, and potential fans, don’t get to see these teams at their best. 

And the crazy thing?   A simple change to the rules could fix part of this.   Not fix all of it.  Not eliminate all concussions.   But simply do what’s done for high-sticking, where accidental or not, the penalty is the same.   Eliminate head-shots.   One-time headhunter Matt Cooke has stopped hitting people in the head, and if Matt Cooke can stop hitting opponents in the head, other players can learn to do the same.

Because, when it comes to NHL hockey, they are all “our” guys.   Claude Giroux and Chris Pronger from the Flyers; Jonathan Toews from the Blackhawks; Nicklas Backstrom of the Capitals—these are “my” guys as much as Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang of the Pittsburgh Penguins.   They’re the men who should be the headline stories in the playoffs.     The Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers could easily meet in the first round of the 2012 playoffs.   Both teams could easily be without their franchise players—and not due to “hockey plays” like shot blocks that break bones or inadvertent, accidental, awkward collisions that result in torn knee ligaments. 

But, if you’re a fan, or you’re in the game, you know the agony you feel when it’s “your” guy who goes down?  When it’s Letang who’s sprawled on the ice again, a player who’s beloved both by at-opposite-ends-of-the-spectrum Hockey-Hall-of-Famers Scott Bowman and Paul Coffey, and you’re angry and sad and worried all at once about the player and the game and the league? 

And there’s a simple way to look at reducing the agony that simply says, “Be accountable and don’t hit someone in the head.”

You don’t want it happening to your guy.   Then, remember something else, Eric Lindros is your guy.  So is Keith Primeau.  So are Sidney Crosby, Chris Pronger, Kris Letang, Claude Giroux, Nicklas Backstrom, and Jonathan Toews.

Let the playoffs be a fair fight between the franchise centers and franchise defensemen of the Flyers and the Penguins.    And you do that, simply, by saying that a hit to the head—accidental or inadvertent or not—is not a hockey play, and that it has no place in the NHL game.

Because all those guys.   They’re all your guys, and they deserve to be treated the way you want your guys to be treated.  And if there is any possible way to prevent your guy from being sprawled on the ice in agony, or out for months, or out for the year, or done with his career far too soon, if that injury to your guy could have been prevented--be honest.

You want to do what it takes to protect your guy.   If the injury could have been prevented by a simple change to the rules, you want the rule change.  Because you want your guy on the ice, doing his thing and helping your team.  So, the emotional argument to ban all headshots--accidental or otherwise--is simple.

You don't want it for your guy, and, though your fifteen-year-old self may not realize it, truthfully, they're all your guys.

Kris Letang’s Correct Comparable (Aspirationally)=Chris Pronger

When the NHL suspended Kris Letang for 2 games for a hit from behind on Winnipeg Jet Alex Burmistrov, Hockey Consultant couldn't get a phrase out of her mind. Actually, when it comes to Letang—a player Hockey Consultant followed closely for years before he became an NHL mainstay—the suspension brought to mind a long-held belief about the defenseman who Hockey Consultant has long believed is the closest comparable—aspirationally— for Letang.

Chris Pronger.

Pronger's suspension history is here.

But you'll also want to take a look at Pronger's career playoff statistics. If the average TOI numbers don't say this clearly enough, and if the amount of time spent on the power play, killing penalties, and generally being on the ice more than any other player don't say this either, let Hockey Consultant spell it out, quickly: The eighth-seeded 2005-06 Edmonton Oilers don't advance to the Cup Finals without Chris Pronger on the roster. The 2009-10 Philadelphia Flyers don't get to the Finals sans Pronger, either, and that annoying one game suspension in the 2007 playoffs aside, the Ducks don't win the Cup in 2007 without Pronger.

An in-his-prime Chris Pronger is a dominant franchise defenseman, one who can dictate the pace of a hockey game with controlled, aggressive, physical play (including, of course, shooting, skating, stickhandling, and yes, hitting) in all three zones of the ice.

Throughout his career, Kris Letang has—quite hyperbolically, in Hockey Consultant's view, and she admits to believing the kid was going to be a star before he'd even cemented a permanent place on the NHL roster (and would defend herself by noting NHL luminaries such as Paul Coffey and Scott Bowman did the same at a later point)—been compared to players like Paul Coffey and Nicklas Lidstrom. Given some of Letang's easy-on-the-eyes skills in terms of skating and silky soft shootout hands, it's easy to see how those comparisons might happen, but the comparisons to those players are fundamentally wrong.

Paul Coffey played in the late eighties. He always had the puck on his stick, and no one could catch him. Teams didn't use video and shot blocking as systems the way they do now. While Coffey once broke his jaw blocking a shot with his face in the playoffs, Coffey did not play an era where he was required to do what the modern, tight-checking, systematized NHL requires defensemen to do. (Simply put, there is too much strength and too many systems for the wide-open style played in the eighties and early nineties when Coffey was dominating.) Nor is Nick Lidstrom a good comparison for Letang. Lidstrom, fundamentally, is ridiculously poised and positionally sound. And while Letang does have offensive skills and has learned a lot about defensive positioning, he's not an offense-only guy in today's NHL, or purely a "mobile and minute-munching" defenseman.

Like Chris Pronger, Kris Letang is a physical hockey player who plays aggressively. Like Pronger in his prime, when Letang is "on", he's playing with incredibly controlled aggression, perhaps best called "aggressive poise". When Letang is "off"—and he's off too much for the liking of Pittsburgh fans who have seen him dominate games and expect and believe he can and should do that night after night—he is either far too tentative (seen in early years), or, more recently, his aggression is less controlled, and that unharnessed aggression can result in awful-looking mistakes (things like a giveaway, or a physical defensive error, or well, not letting up on a check when—as another Brendan Shanahan video shows—he clearly knows how to do the right thing.)

Fundamentally, Chris Pronger is the correct aspirational comparable for Kris Letang.

A smaller version of Pronger, yes. A faster version of Pronger, hopefully.

But a physical defenseman who can make the great offensive plays and also make great positional defensive choices, when on, but, whose entire game, when on, is undergirded with an aggressive edge that enables him to dictate the flow of the game on the ice.

Hockey Consultant believes that Letang's learned a lot, and she hopes he'll "take his medicine" from the VP of Player Safety and not stop hitting but take the suspension as a lesson in controlling his emotions and harnessing his aggression appropriately.

But here's the thing about aggressive hockey players, or, more specifically, aggressive hockey players with the physical skills to be franchise defensemen.

You need to control the game 200 feet to 200 feet while playing half the game, and more than half the game if you are in a playoff overtime game? You need to play how Letang played against the Edmonton Oilers the opening road trip of the 2011-12 season, making a marvelous defensive play and quickly converting it to offense, and you need to do that shift after shift after shit? You need to set a tone for a period or a game for your team with a check or a hit? You need to control the entire flow of a game, end-to-end, like a general commands his troops?

If you're a physical player—not a smooth-skating guy who doesn't spend any time in his zone and you play your best defense when you get to pick in the moment if you'll use only your stick, or just sound position, or a legal hit, or some combination thereof, to make the right situational play—you have to play with aggression.

And your aggression—because of how your skill set wires you to play hockey—brings with it way more good than bad.

So Letang's best upside—and please note, we're talking upside here, Hockey Consultant IS ABSOLUTELY NOT saying Letang is anywhere near the level Pronger has reached in his career—is, stylistically, to be a smaller, hopefully faster version of Chris Pronger in his prime.

And do you know the one word that best described Chris Pronger?

"Nasty."

Nasty good. Nasty to play against. And, occasionally, even when he was doing far more good than harm in a playoff run to a championship, nasty in terms of being physically tough on the opposition to the point of being disciplined by an NHL that often failed to suspend star players.

Call Hockey Consultant crazy, but a part of her is relieved to see Kris Letang get suspended. Because it confirms something she's always suspected. That he's not going to be some very lite version of a smooth skating Paul Coffey or a positionally perfect Nicklas Lidstrom. But that he could be different than those players. He could use his own skill set, not exactly the same as theirs, and harness his aggression to play well against the strong, fast, and young players populating the NHL today.

Letang wouldn't be Chris Pronger lite, either. But Letang could be—and Hockey Consultant would argue—he is also wired to be— like Chris Pronger.

Go ahead and ask any NHL GM or Coach who wanted to win a championship: If having Pronger commandeer the ice during playoff game meant they occasionally had to live through a few too many minor penalties, coach him to learn to control his aggression, and well, remind him to play with a CONTROLLED, aggressive edge—they would moan and mutter and complain as they'd accompany him to a discipline hearing or two and remind him to control his snarl in highly critical moments, but they'd do it, honestly, if secretly, with a smirk that they were glad Pronger was on their side and not another team's.

Letang, a one-time All-Star who played important but protected minutes on a Cup champion team at age 22, still has a long way to go to have a career that is anything close to Pronger's. But, in Hockey Consultant's view, his play shows a couple of things: Like Pronger, the league tells him to stop it. Because, well, All-Stars and franchise defenseman don't need to make borderline/illegal hits to play hockey. And it's true—they don't.

But that fine line?

That nasty edge?

Defenseman in the mold of Pronger and Letang play the game best with a controlled snarl. So if a suspension teaches Letang (who has seemed, in other areas, to be receptive to instruction, albeit it may not happen as quickly as most fans would prefer) that his snarl is fine and quite necessary, but to control his snarl appropriately, well….

Look out, NHL, and not for more "fine lines" (though Hockey Consultant knows too well they happen with aggressive players and it's constantly checking in to keep human beings, all of whom have emotions, appropriately in line). Look out for the kind of nasty, franchise defenseman, 28 playoff games out of 28 playoff games, you dread playing against while secretly wishing that aforementioned nasty player were on your side.

And look out for someone other than Hockey Consultant to realize that, perhaps, it's not hyperbole to describe the style of game Kris Letang plays at his best as eerily similar—stylistically, anyway—to the way hockey has been played, excellently, for years, by that so nasty good defenseman, Chris Pronger.


 

 

Jaromir Jagr

Jaromir Jagr is, was, and remains Hockey Consultant’s all-time favorite hockey player.   Jaromir Jagr was the first hockey player she “called” correctly.  (Note: It wasn’t a difficult “call”.  By “call”, she believed he would one day be the best player in the world.   As an eight-year-old, she watched a rookie dominate.  As  a thirteen-year-old, she smiled that she had been right when she called Jagr being the best player in the world “right”.)   No matter what Jagr does—even if it’s kicking her beloved Penguins out of the playoffs in a coming spring—she’ll always love him.   (Hockey love, when it comes to Hockey Consultant and her all-time favorite player, is plainly irrational.)

Hockey Consultant believes she understands Jagr better than most.   Jagr has always been a highly emotional player.   Though Hockey Consultant was disappointed when Jagr chose not to come to Pittsburgh and rolled her eyes about the “left-handedness” of Crosby and Malkin, she ultimately felt she understand Jagr’s reasons—and emotions—for not returning to Pittsburgh.  (And they weren’t actually about “left-handedness”, either.)

  

Fundamentally, the Penguins belong to Crosby and Malkin.  If something had gone wrong—and Jagr’s been through this before, in Pittsburgh—it would have been on Jagr.  It would not have been on Crosby or Malkin.   Jagr didn’t want to deal with that, especially having already lived through it once (no matter how much of  it he brought upon himself back in 2001).

The heart of the matter, though—beyond the basic fundamentals—was simply this:  Jaromir Jagr did not want to come back to the NHL to be a complementary player on a contending team.   (Honestly, this is a fit Hockey Consultant thought would be perfect for a 39-year-old player.  Bookend your career with Stanley Cups as a complementary player.)   Jaromir Jagr wanted to come back to the NHL to be Jaromir Jagr.   To remind the league, one last time, that he’s one of the best players ever to play the game.  To be the face and heartbeat of a franchise.  To make an impact.

Hockey Consultant is aware of Jagr’s age.  She’s also aware of Jagr’s insane work-out regimen.   (To be honest, Hockey Consultant was saddened Jagr did not want to be part of the Penguins.  The workout regimes of players like Crosby, Letang, and Malkin, along with their desire to be the best in the world, remind her that those kids are exactly the same as the hardworking, want-to-be-the-best-in-the-world kid a teenage Jagr once was.)    She’s aware that if anyone can defy age and time and physics, it’s Jaromir Jagr (who’s been blessed to have a healthy career, save for a few annoying groin injuries).  

And, to be honest, in the only flashback to her junior high years Hockey Consultant would ever want to have, she’s actually looking forward to watching Chris Pronger and Jaromir Jagr play for the same team—old men though they may be in NHL years—and see if they can still dominate.    As a fan, she’s looking forward to watching the players who once were promising kids, became the best players in the world at their respective positions, and who will retire as Hall-of-Famers.   She wants to see them play, and play well, for as long as possible.

Hockey Consultant gets what Jagr wanted.    To say he’s, well, Jaromir Jagr.   To dominate.      She understands the choice.   She’s not sure how the choice will turn out—she still thinks Jagr would have been more likely to grab a Stanley Cup as a complementary player, not as one of “the” guys.  

Hockey Consultant tries not to let fandom make her irrational.  But her fandom states this (even if she should not let her fandom inform her consulting, but a secret about life is that being a fan informs most things, even when it's pretended fandom has no impact on any thoughts or calls or decisions).  Betting against Jaromir Jagr isn’t wise.   If the odds are against it—don’t bet against him.   (Though she notes the odds against him never before have been time and age and nature.) 

But, for this one, Hockey Consultant—if and when she gets her cable and Internet installed and up—will be watching with eager eyes to see what becomes of Jaromir Jagr in 2011-12.  But for now, Hockey Consultant would advise anyone—even disappointed Penguins fans who are mad at Jagr—to enjoy the fact that they can still watch, for now, one of the greatest players ever, yet again play in the NHL and who, for now and on the power play, still shows why he is the 9^th leading scorer in NHL history.

Hockey Consultant’s One Sentence on Jaromir Jagr:   Since even the best players ever can’t be the best forever, just enjoy watching every minute of Jagr’s NHL time while you can…and if you’re actually IN the game, then take the time to learn from playing against or playing with one of the greatest players of all time.