The Stanley Cup’s alternate ending
Alternate history is fun, it allows those wacky “what if” questions that make great bar room fodder. Hollywood has embraced the “what if” factor with alternate endings. If a Hollywood director decided to dabble into the NHL, he’d have some great historical material to build off of.
Leaf fans have done this for the last 18 years, asking what if Kerry Fraser called Wayne Gretzky’s high stick on Doug Gilmour in Game 6 of the 1993 Western Conference Final, setting up a dream date in the Stanley Cup Finals with the Les Habitants.
How about a more recent example of alternate history: What if the Lightning and Sharks advanced to the Cup Finals instead of the Bruins and Canucks?
Imagining that the Lightning advanced to the Final instead of the Bruins isn’t difficult – they did only lose by a single goal in Game 7. A few extra bounces going their way or, more likely, a few power plays in the final contest, and it’s the Lightning moving on, not the Bruins.
However, picturing the Sharks replacing the Canucks is much harder. The Sharks lost in five games to a team firing on all cylinders.
But, let’s put aside plain ol’ reality for a minute and ponder “what if” both Tampa Bay and San Jose did make it alive on the other side. What would a championship series involving these two Sunbelt teams look like?
Would a San Jose-Tampa Bay Final have produced the same interest as the current Boston-Vancouver series? Certainly not in Canada, but with two American teams it’s possible the interest south of the border would increase.
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Game 1 between Vancouver and Boston was the highest-ever rated game on CBC and was the highest rated Stanley Cup Finals game in America since 1999, but ratings tumbled in the second match and were down 43 percent from the year before when two American teams – Philadelphia and Chicago – faced off.
What puts an SJ-TB series over the top are the possible story lines.
The story lines surrounding San Jose would focus on whether the Sharks, and specifically players like Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, could finally shed their label of playoff underachievers. Thornton would especially be badgered by the press about his apparent shoulder injury (we now know that it was a separated shoulder he played with in Game 5 against Vancouver).
After receiving praise for his play all postseason, would Thornton’s shoulder injury affect his play in the Finals, and possibly revert everyone’s attention back to the “playoff choker” label he was seemingly shedding?
In Tampa Bay, the story lines would focus on Dwayne Roloson, the 41-year-old who was remarkable in Game 7 against the Bruins and would potentially be making his last attempt at a Stanley Cup. Certainly, not many ‘tenders his age — OK, maybe Hasek — have pushed their squad as far as he did in 2010-11.
Steven Stamkos would also take on mythic status among hockey fans for his return in Game 7 after taking a slap shot to the face. Watching Stamkos fly around the ice wearing his protective face mask during the Finals would embody the toughness and will to win that’s required and much revered in the finale best-of-seven.
It’s hard to predict whether something as bizarre as the Burrows-Bergeron biting incident — and the subsequent Maxim Lapierre biting taunt — would occur, but with both Steve Downie and Ben Eager playing opposite each other, the potential for something crossing the line would be present.
Aside from face washing and scrums, it seems like every year there are grinders and role players who emerge to score huge goals for their teams in the playoffs.
Case in point, in 2009 Max Talbot scored two goals, including the game winner, in Game 7 against the Red Wings to propel the Penguins to their first Stanley Cup since 1992.
Which unheralded players would step up and score timely goals for San Jose and Tampa Bay?
Well, San Jose could count on “The Secret Weapon”, which is the name Carolina fans gave to Niclas Wallin in honor of his playoff goal scoring ability. Wallin has only scored four postseason goals in his career, but all have been game winners and three have come in overtime.
An alternate ending Finals would also provide players the opportunity to erase the previous three series and start fresh. For Tampa Bay, Ryan Malone could make everyone forget that he only registered six points in the Lightning’s 18 previous playoff games.
Likewise, San Jose’s Dany Heatley could redeem himself for the single point he scored in the Western Conference Finals. Although, after the series against Vancouver, it was revealed that Heatley played through a broken hand suffered at the end of the regular season and a twisted ankle hurt during the Conference Final, so his effectiveness would be limited.
A Sharks-Lightning Final would provide a duel between two offensive teams with thin bluelines, so the potential for a back-and-forth offensive slug-feast would be there, which would be reminiscent of the 1980s.
On paper, neither team has a decided edge over the other, so it would likely be a long, hard fought series that went the distance.
Should the NHL recruit Hollywood director Robert Zemeckis? A strange question indeed, but an alternate ending with a Back to the Future twist would certainly answer a lot of questions.
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