Kari Lehtonen #32 of the Dallas Stars waits for the start of overtime against the St. Louis Blues at American Airlines Center on October 28, 2014 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Lots of great videos from Hockey Fights Cancer night at AAC Tuesday.
Then, here is an emotional in-arena video with television broadcaster Julie Dobbs.
Here is Cody Eastwood’s Rewind of the 4-3 OT loss to the Blues.
And Daryl Reaugh takes you through the key moments in his three-minute long video vlog thing.
One of the most oft quoted movie scenes of my generation is Vince Vaughn’s “bear” diatribe in “Swingers.”
In fact, I’m surprised it hasn’t made it into this little corner of the internet any sooner than this.
You know the one, where Trent is telling Mikey: “You’re like a big bear with claws and with fangs…Yeah, man just kinda… you know, you got these claws and you’re staring at these claws and your thinking to yourself, and with these claws you’re thinking, “How am I supposed to kill this bunny, how am I supposed to kill this bunny?”
It’s a delightful analogy that has been used in all manner of life situations, but I’m going to shape it to hockey today. That line might as well be Lindy Ruff talking to the Stars and their uber-talented Superline on Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and Jason Spezza. They have so much power and force, and yet they just don’t know how to use it yet.
They do the most incredible, wonderful things, and then they just fumble the bunny and let it run away. It happened again on Tuesday. This time, the St. Louis Blues came back and won after being down 3-2 in the third period. This time, the game slipped away in overtime when the Stars were nailed for an unfortunate penalty. This time was a lot like last time…and the time before that.
The Stars can show these razor sharp claws. They can flash glistening fangs. But they can’t finish the job sometimes. They don’t know how.
And that’s frustrating.
“Enough is enough in here,” said defenseman Trevor Daley, one of the team’s alternate captains. “I think we’ve had three of them at home where we’ve had leads in the third period. In order to be a good team, an elite team like the team we just played, you’ve got find ways to get the job done.”
Ironically, Ruff was speaking on that subject just that morning, and the subject had a lot to do with Vaughn’s sentiment. We were talking about the Cowboys game the night before, and Ruff saw some similar lessons. When DeMarco Murray was inside the 10-yard line and was struggling for an extra yard and then fumbled, Ruff said he saw a perfect teaching moment.
“We did the same type of thing against the Islanders,” Ruff said. “We had the best shift of the night with that line, but when it was near the end of that shift and time to throw the white flag and retreat, we couldn’t do that. Then, they end up going the other way, and we don’t have any gas left.”
On the shift in question, it was 4-4, Jamie Oleksiak pinched to try and save a play, and the Islanders went off on an odd-man rush and took a 5-4 lead. Ruff said that while Oleksiak has to make a better decision, the situation wouldn’t have occurred if the forwards had known when to stop the attack.
“I told them ‘I loved that shift, I just didn’t love the last five seconds,’” Ruff said. “You have to be smarter than that.”
It’s a common theme in sports, where players are taught to fight until the end. Murray has been fumbling this season because he simply can’t stop running and lay down. He’s hardwired to battle. But Tony Romo used to be the same way, where he would try to run every play out and sometimes force a pass into double coverage. After years of re-training his brain, Romo now knows that sometimes the best decision is to throw the ball out of bounds.
The Superline created some wonderful chances Tuesday, but they threw too many blind passes and got too fancy at times. One of those times was when Dallas was protecting a 3-2 lead in the third period and Jamie Benn was driving to the net in transition. Benn had his back to the goal and was trying to make a fancy pass, when the Blues snatched the puck and counter-attacked.
Before you knew it, Vladimir Tarasenko was bulling in on the right wing and scoring his second goal of the game, tying the contest and setting up an eventual overtime loss for the Stars. You can’t really blame Tyler Seguin for the high stick off the opening faceoff in OT _ it was more unfortunate than anything _ but that play also speaks to the lessons that need to be learned.
You have to be smart…especially at the key moments of a game.
Ruff talks about ending a shift with energy left, about understanding where you are in the game, about learning to play with control. The Superline needs to do that. Heck, the whole team needs to do that.
“I think when we learned that last year, that’s when we became the team we were,” Ruff said.
And that team, when they became the team they were, that team was “money.”
“There’s good players on the ice, they’re going to get some chances – but let’s make them earn their chances. Let’s not hand them their chances. Let’s not hand them the 2-on-1’s when we have the lead,” Ruff said after the game. “St. Louis has good players and they will get their chances, but let’s make sure that the quality of them is on the lower side.”
That’s not weak or slow or old, that’s smart. That’s having these big claws and knowing exactly what to do with them.