The First Soft Steps on the Path to “DOOM”

Regular readers of this blog (when it was a more regular publication) and good friends of mine are well aware of the "DOOM" scenario as often prophesized by my wife Emily.

“DOOM” as defined by Emily involves a Stanley Cup Finals match-up between our two favorite hockey teams; the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks.  The fact that said match-up no longer threatens to impede our pending nuptials, as it would have three years ago is irrelevant.  Simply put, “DOOM” is a bad thing.  To put it in proper perspective, one would likely need to have been involved in our wedding planning and/or spent Super Bowl week with the Harbaugh parents.

When we first started discussing (or more likely dreading) the concept three years ago it was distasteful. Now, it’s FAR worse.  My wife has always been a Hawks fan first but three years ago her loyalties were more closely divided.  Today she is as rabid a Hawks fans as you will find anywhere. She LIKES the Pens…she LOVES the Hawks.

I bleed black and gold and that will never change.  Still, my Hawks fandom has grown as well, sufficient even to attend an away game by myself in San Jose last February.  I do not doubt my wife’s influence on that development (which is unfortunate because I would NEVER try to influence her sports loyalties) but there is more to the story. 

I have lived in Chicago nearly 18 years.  I live one mile from the United Center.  I love hockey.  And five years ago the Hawks performed the most startling sports metamorphosis ever seen.  They changed almost instantaneously from one of the worst organizations in North American sports to one of the best.  On top of which, they dispatched the Orange and Black Goon Squad in the Stanley Cup finals, thus allowing me to remain in existential harmony with the hockey universe.  It’s a debt of gratitude I can never truly repay.

For most of the hockey world, a Pens/Hawks match-up for the sport’s most cherished prize would be a dream.  They are the league’s two best teams bar none and arguably the most exciting as well. With all due respect to Barry Trotz, it is highly unlikely that either Dan Bylsma or Joel Quenneville with unveil the neutral zone trap if that series comes to pass.

For Emily and me, it’s an unmitigated nightmare. 

The two clubs have met only four times since we became “an item”, and the atmosphere around us could be charitably described as “uncomfortable” each time.  Mind you that is with nothing but organizational pride at stake in any of those games.  One cannot help but think that our 1,295 square feet of living space will seem a bit congested if fate and/or Crosby and Toews were to deliver this match-up.  And keep in mind I have not even addressed the Marian Hossa issue.

So the question becomes, how close are we to “DOOM”?  Is it a forgone conclusion that these two teams will meet in the Stanley Cup finals?  NHL history after all is replete with unfathomable post season upsets.  Just last season an 8^th seed Los Angeles team that barely qualified for the post season caught fire and rampaged to a championship.  Rarely do the NHL’s two best regular season teams meet in the finals.

Just as rarely however does the league produce one team, let alone two with a 75% regular season winning percentage. If you toss out shootouts, given the obvious random element involved, the Penguins and Blackhawks COMBINED to lose only 19 of 96 hockey games this season.  The Blackhawks opened the season with a 24 game point streak; the Penguins followed with a 15 game winning streak.  So yes, there is cause for mild concern (if not full on panic).

And yet in the true spirit of being conflicted sports fans, we fear both the prospect of “DOOM” and the absence of “DOOM”.  We can interchangeably dread the potential for this match-up and the equally nerve wracking idea of another early exit for either or both.  It’s the great conundrum of our dual hockey existence.

The merciless nature of the NHL is this; the playoffs truly are a second season, separate and distinct from the first.  Post season failure will eradicate virtually any level of regular season success.  Penguin fans know this well; it took only two dreadful weeks last April to erase six months of inspired hockey from our memories.

There were palatable if not comforting explanations for the Penguins losses to Montreal and Tampa in 2010 and 2011.  Conversely the team is still washing off the stench of last year’s collapse against their most hated rival.  Their performance was completely inexcusable and put virtually EVERY player (short of #87) and coach on notice that another such meltdown could end their time in the Burgh. 

The Blackhawks needed two full seasons to recover from the salary cap armageddon that occurred after they skated the cup in 2010.  Even still, their loss to Phoenix last season was uninspired at best.  The team never looked truly right after the All Star Break and the worst kept secret in the league was the tension between Quenneville and Scotty Bowman’s kid.  I’m not sure exactly where management sides in this dispute but suffice to say, either or both could be unemployed if the Hawks are ousted before Memorial Day.

Which means simply that the Pens and Hawks are both at risk of being branded Washington Crapital style post season chokers if the drop out early again this year.  To that end, my honest belief is that both teams but especially the Penguins benefited from the short-season.  I can only imagine the build-up of angst over 82 games for a team with Stanley Cup or bust expectations and a 20 point lead in the standings.  Even with that, the collateral damage from another early exit could be significant. 

No other sport ascribes less importance to its regular season than the NHL.  For great teams and great players, immortality is earned in May and June.  Brett Favre and Peyton Manning fashioned impenetrable legacies in spite of numerous post season failures because NFL regular season success is considered a noteworthy achievement.  In the National Hockey League, it’s merely a footnote.

When you are as talented as the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks, getting to the Stanley Cup tournament is taken as a given.  It’s what you do afterward that creates or maintains your legacy. 

The Pens and Hawks are championship caliber teams.  Both are deep and talented, exceptionally well coached and experienced under playoff pressure.  Both have a core of players with proven abilities to step up in the biggest of games.  Notwithstanding the wild-card of the shortened season, I cannot remember a year where two NHL teams appeared so obviously superior to the rest of the league. 

Even with that, “DOOM” is still a long ways away.  It remains incredibly difficult to win one NHL playoff series let alone three.  There are completely unpredictable variables such as injuries (see Crosby, Sidney) and hot goaltenders (see Halak, Jaroslav).  There are bad breaks, bad schedules, and bad match-ups.  Any number of things could happen between now and mid June to prevent this match-up.  When Emily and I view either team individually, such concerns are at the forefront of our collective thoughts. 

 
When we view the teams collectively, the “DOOM” scenario seems almost unavoidable.  As such Emily and I are beset by a truly unsettling paradox. If we get exactly what we want, we will get exactly what we do not want. It's the ultimate circular reference in our hockey lives.

As if to drive home this point, the NHL created an almost unfathomable scheduling coincidence whereby the Hawks and Pens play the same night in six of their seven first round games. I’m not a Gary Bettman hater by nature but even his most strident enemies cannot think him diabolical enough to have purposely crafted such a schedule.

For now, I will simply speak in the time honored language of coach-speak.  We will take each game and each series one at a time.  We will worry solely about the teams in front of us.  There is a lot of hockey to be played between now and mid June.  For better or for worse, anything can happen.