System of a down

Upset-happy Minnesota relies on devotion to Wild style

Vancouver general manager Brian Burke uttered the quote of the playoffs on Wednesday while his team was preparing for its NHL Western Conference semifinals series with Minnesota. "It's not a hockey team," Burke said to reporters, referring to the Avalanche-slaying Wild. "It's a cult."

The Wild players -- most of them, anyway -- weren't wearing matching black robes and sneakers when they deplaned in Vancouver, and if there's anything cultish about the franchise it's embodied by the rabid and raucous fan base. But Burke's analogy was perfect in that it spoke to the root cause of the Wild's success in this, their third season of existence. Forget the neutral zone trap, which the Wild excel at, and forget team speed, which the Wild have in spades. Minnesota knocked off Colorado in seven games because every player on its roster has complete faith in the gameplan coach Jacques Lemaire draws up every night. As Burke said, "They've got total buy-in on their system."

Compare that statement to what we heard coming out of the Maple Leafs dressing room after Toronto's Game 7 loss to the Flyers in the first round. The Leafs are vastly more talented than is Minnesota -- Marian Gaborik is the only Wild forward who could play on one of Toronto's top lines -- but they struggled all season to play with cohesion and discipline. Captain Mats Sundin said, "We don't play together." Veteran teammate Gary Roberts lamented the lack of chemistry between forwards and blueliners. "We don't support each other," he said.

Every cult needs a leader, and Lemaire engenders the kind of loyalty Jim Jones -- or Pat Quinn -- might fantasize about. Lemaire, who won the Stanley Cup with New Jersey in 1995, gets criticized for implementing a mind-numbing defensive system everywhere he goes. But to brush off the Wild's style as dull is to ignore the skill and dedication it takes for them to succeed. Every player on the ice must be in proper position at all times. Defensemen must stay at home and ignore the temptation to jump into the offensive zone too soon. Forwards must be ready at all times to jump into backchecking mode, and pounce on turnovers in the neutral zone that can turn into scoring chances.

Politicians talk about winning elections by "staying on message." The Wild, much like New Jersey, do the same. The players, most of whom are nameless -- if you can identify more than Gaborik, goalies Manny Fernandez and Dwayne Roloson, Game 6 hero Richard Park or Game 7 winner Andrew Brunette, you need to get out more -- comprise one of the more disciplined bunches in the league. Their speed and the underrated scoring touch of their top forwards make them extremely opportunistic; to beat the Wild a team has to be as disciplined as they are. The Canucks are a more physical and talented team, but so were the Avalanche.

After Minnesota fell into a 3-1 hole in the series against Colorado Lemaire and general manager Doug Riseborough had a chat with the team. The gist? "It was just, 'Hey guys, stick together," said center Jim Dowd. "It's our group, it's our little family here. Stay with what got us here."

The cult continues.

Broken arrows

They sound cliched, but coaches and players may be speaking literally when they talk about "needing a few breaks" to win playoff games. Dressing rooms have been buzzing about the spate of broken sticks during the playoffs. Over the past two seasons more and more players -- perhaps as many as half of the NHL's 600-plus skaters -- have begun using one-piece composite sticks instead of traditional wood models. The new "lumber" is lighter and more consistent in its feel from stick to stick, plus there's a mountain of anecdotal evidence suggesting that composites add juice to a player's shot.

The new sticks are also fragile, which is why the ice has so often looked like a carpentry shop floor during the playoffs. How many scoring chances have we seen evaporate because a shooter's stick shattered as he tried to send the puck on net? It seemed every other slap shot the Maple Leafs attempted in their series with the Flyers sputtered in a cloud of what used to be sawdust. Philadelphia was victimized, too: Defenseman Eric Weinrich's stick shattered during Game 3, and Toronto's Tomas Kaberle scored while a teammate was handing Weinrich a new one-piece.

"There are some shifts where it's like going around pylons, you have to go around broken sticks all over the place," Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock said. "It's litter on the ice."

Minnesota's Game 7 hero, Brunette, lost a good scoring chance in the first period of Game 5 against Colorado when his stick snapped. A splintered shaft also nearly cost the Wild their first-round series; center Darby Hendrickson's stick shattered late in the third period of Game 7. Forced to play defense with two free hands, he was whistled for holding Milan Hejduk's stick during a scrum along the boards in the Minnesota zone. Colorado scored what could have been the series-winning goal on the ensuing power play. Said Hitchcock, "Somebody is going to lose a series on a blown-up stick."

Unlucky sevens?

Seven-game series create fantastic drama, but the effort it takes to win one early in the postseason apparently takes a heavy toll. Since the Penguins did it in 1992 no team has won the Stanley Cup after being extended to seven games in the first round.

The numbers aren't promising for the Flyers, Wild and Canucks, all of whom won Game 7s earlier this week. In the past 10 years 18 teams have won seven-game series in the first round. Only six of them had enough left in the tank to win Game 1 of the second round, and just a half-dozen went on to win their second series. Other than the 1994 Canucks, no such team has even made it to the Cup finals.

Sports Illustrated staff writer Stephen Cannella covers the NHL for the magazine and will contribute frequently to SI.com throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs.

 

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