Check out our new BayToday Sports Column "Bluelines." Ranjan Rupal is the play-by-play voice and Greg Theberge, a former NHL player, is the colour analyst for North Bay Battalion games on The OHL Tonight on TVCogeco. PHOTO BY LINDSAY SARAZIN.
“It’s important for us to go out there, find our game, and not worry about finishing first, second, third, whatever. Let’s just get in there. If we play good hockey, as you know in the playoffs, it doesn’t matter where you finish.”
Perhaps these were the sage words of North Bay Battalion head coach Stan Butler following, say, a mid-week practice last week, on the heels of a string of losses, in a hockey town whose collective brow had become furrowed with worry? You might have thought so.
Actually, these words belong to another accomplished bench boss: Claude Julien, the Stanley Cup-winning head coach of the Boston Bruins, perennial Cup contenders actually, whose team was in the midst of a quarter pole swoon.
“Guys are feeling the heat,” Julien told the Boston Globe. “They’re feeling the stress of the expectations. I’ve been trying to get these guys not to relax as far as the game’s concerned. We’ve still got to play better. But just mentally, we need to be a little bit more relaxed to be able to execute and think properly out there.”
Of course, at the moment, this provided little solace to Bruins’ fans. But it did illustrate a certain point. Slumps happen.
In an 82-game NHL season, the waxing and waning of a team’s momentum is inevitable, with injuries, fatigue and psychological pressure being the likely causes. Why, just 10 games ago, the Bruins were humming along at an 8-1-1 clip, with sights set on some minor roster tinkering: adding a few trade deadline assets to vault them into the Cup conversation. But scroll through February, and the Bruins were trudging along hip-deep, tough sledding, just 3-5-2, and the sky had fallen. Suddenly the scouting staff was drawing criticism, Tuukka Rask was playing too much, and secondary scoring had gone AWOL.
Sound familiar?
At the beginning of February the Los Angeles Kings were charting a course to become one of those rare defending Stanley Cup champions to miss the playoffs the very next season. Mired in a slump, sputtering at a dismal 2-5-3 pace in early February, they embarked on a trip to Tampa for an innocuous Saturday night tilt. A rip-roaring first period saw OHL alumni Tyler Toffoli (Ottawa 67’s), Justin Williams (Plymouth Whalers) and Drew Doughty (Guelph Storm) stake the Kings to a 3-0 first period lead over the gob smacked Lightning. The Kings held on for the 4-2 win, and then, in the days that followed, surged to a jaw-dropping 8-2-0 run over their next ten. Now, we are told, consensus around the League is to be afraid of the Kings. Very afraid.
Williams' post-game comments sum up his own slump-busting effort.
"It's funny, I didn't think I played all that well but somehow ended up with a couple of goals," explained the forward, known as Mr. Clutch for his playoff heroics, to a throng of reporters. "Some nights you play really well and have nothing to show for it. But that first goal doesn't happen without Trevor making a terrific play. I just happened to be the guy lucky enough to be on the other end of it.”
But luck may only be half of it. Continuing to work hard, on and off the ice, seems to be the other.
During a late-season swoon at the end of the 2011-12 season, following a 5-4 loss at home to the Coyotes, then Vancouver Canucks' goaltender Roberto Luongo, always a thought leader, proposed a time-tested axiom for breaking out of a slump.
“When things are going the way they are, you just want to hit the reset button. You know, start building it up again. It all starts with work in practice. That’s the way it goes, that’s the way I’ve always approached it when things are not going the way I want to.”
That potent elixir: Williams' puck luck and Luongo's hard work, both familiar refrains in the professional ranks, recently held true for the North Bay Battalion as well, and perhaps more so. The Troops, after all, are young men, just finding their way, not only on the ice, but in life as well, and a rough patch can weigh heavily.
TVCogeco’s hockey analyst Greg Theberge, just back from an NHL Alumni game in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, weighed in on the little-known dark side of slump psychology.
“A slump can be individual, or a group of individuals, or a team,” he said, “and your best players feel additional pressure to break the entire team out themselves. But another thing can happen, and I’ve seen it at various times at the pro level. Blame and finger pointing. Not on an individual level, but the forwards can blame the defense, or the defense can blame the forwards, saying “Hey, I can’t even get out of my own zone. I need some help, guys.” Sometimes the forwards and the defense can blame the goalie. It’s not good and the only way out of it is, not as individuals, but by committee.”
For Butler and the Battalion, returning to what they do best is the key.
“I’m not worried about catching any teams, my thing that I have to see right now is playing like the North Bay Battalion play,” explained Butler to BayToday's Chris Dawson. In effect, he was singing from the same hymn sheet as Claude Julien.
Judging by the weekend's results, Butler is starting to see what he hadn’t for several games now. Both puck luck and hard work have permitted the Battalion to shrug off a slump of their own, the team reverting to a more familiar rhythm, known around these parts as Battalion Hockey, in dispatching the Barrie Colts and Kitchener Rangers on successive nights.
The Battalion returned to lunch bucket hockey, severely limiting the Colts chances, and throwing a stifling blanket over the Rangers. They played tough but stayed out of the penalty box. They buried their chances.
But in each game, there was ample opportunity for a slumping team to turn tail and run.
In Barrie, the Colts galloped to an early 2-0 lead. Before a big Kitchener crowd, the Rangers tied the game soon after Alex Henriksson had opened the scoring. But the Battalion didn’t waver. Instead, in both games, the Battalion wrested the momentum back with - you guessed it – a little puck luck and plenty of hard work.
Against the Niagara Icedogs, the team’s fortunes reversed somewhat. But little wonder: an unforgiving schedule and a third road battle in as many nights saw the Troops engage a well-prepared, well-rested Icedogs team that had practiced at home all week, their only test coming in the form of the beleaguered Mississauga Steelheads last Thursday.
The Battalion may not be out of the swamp just yet, but they can see the other side, finally.
…and what about Claude Julien’s Bruins?
They’ve just won two in a row. Slump over.
