Commentary : Don’t Try to Understand the Game of Hockey

Don’t try to understand professional hockey. You’d think the reason the Washington Capitals and New Jersey Devils staged a 499-round brawl at Capital Centre Wednesday night -- with the most penalty minutes ever in a Capitals playoff game -- might have just a teeny, tiny connection with Rod Langway’s injury on Monday.

You know, the bad guys come into town, slash the calf of your star defensemen with a skate on a questionable play and put him out for a fortnight. The Caps’ management even sent game films to the league office, seeking a suspension for Pat Verbeek.

You’d think the Caps would come out seeking some sort of revenge, perhaps even play a chippy game. You’d think the sudden appearance of 225-pound bruiser Ed Kastelic, who had zero previous playoff minutes, might be a response by Washington. After all, Kastelic got a game-misconduct penalty for a series of fights in which he had an exceedingly enjoyable time.

Once, in fact, Kastelic finished pummeling one little Devil, then, practically whistling like an innocent schoolboy, he started to skate away as though his work were done. Then, just as he passed another mugging-in-progress on the ice, he jumped aboard to stomp another Jerseyite.

You might even believe the Caps played a somewhat confused game, as though everybody was not exactly on the same page, because the Cap players and the Caps management were giving off somewhat contradictory signals about the Langway catastrophe. Langway said he considered the Affair Verbeek to be a total accident and even called the Devil -- yes, the victim called the perpetrator -- to say he bore no hard feelings. Meanwhile, Caps Coach Bryan Murray and General Manager David Poile were acting angry and aggrieved. While they made no specific accusations, they did not avoid insinuations.

Above all, you’d think Langway’s absence was a huge factor in New Jersey’s 5-2 victory, especially since goalie Pete Peeters claimed that the largest single factor in the game was the way the Devils “created traffic” in front of him all night so that he saw very few shots clearly. Langway clears traffic better than a squad of cops. He’s Mr. Anti-Gridlock. Could we empty this crease, please, he might say, before someone is forced to remove your head at the neckline.

Langway would make any fan’s all-star team of players capable of throwing a foe directly through the boards; not that such a nice man would do such a thing. It’s just that nobody who plays the Caps wants to find out if he might.

No, don’t try to grasp the NHL. To hear the Caps and Devils tell it -- and who should know better -- none of this had the slightest bearing on the Game Two donnibrook which New Jersey won easily, 5-2, to tie the series.

“The word (revenge) was never mentioned in our locker room,” said Murray. “Rod was in the lockeroom with us. ... I don’t think there was any revenge in our minds.”

Even Verbeek claimed that the Caps did not try the slightest retaliation against him. “No, not at all. It was just a very intense hockey game.”

Wrestlemania XVII is more like it. Games like this give pro hockey the silly-sad reputation it has as a bunch of guys without teeth trying to punch each other in the mouth.

Actually, the Devils acted as though they were the wronged party in Monday’s doings. In the first period, Verbeek was virtually untouched while, in Murray’s words, a “couple of Devils looked like they wanted to establish something (physical) with our guys. ... You could see they were thinking, ‘Be tough, be tough, be tough.’ ”

Why would the Devils be so grumpy? What could they have had against the Caps?

“We won the first game. That’s a lot more important than anything else,” said Langway, analyzing the psyche factor of the two teams. “They knew if they went down two games to none, we’d have complete control. ... They’re the ones who started most of the stuff.”

Hard as it might have been to guess before the gae, it was Verbeek, not some furious retaliatory Cap who was telling himself, “I got to get my nose dirty tonight. I can’t sit around and be part of the scenery.” And it was Verbeek whose goal made the score 4-2 New Jersey. “The big goal,” said Langway.

Certainly the Devils were the early aggressors -- a developement that surprised the Caps so much that they responded gamely, but not intelligently. The Caps punched well, but passed badly. “We took some bad penalties,” said Langway. “Three times we got in (pushing) scrums and we were the ones who came out with a penalty,” said Murray. “We’d get caught up in the pushing and shoving and end up with the wrong people off the ice (in the penalty box),” said the Caps Doug Gould.

While the Devils played the style of game that helped them beat the Islanders, the Caps were out of sync. But not, they claim, because of Langway’s loss. “In the first game, I saw ever shot the whole way,” said Peeters. “This time, they worked. There was so much traffic that I kept getting screened. ... Sometimes our defensemen start laying down to block shots and they end up screening, too. ... We will miss Rod, but it won’t be the reason we win or lose.”

You’ll never guess the lesson that the Caps took from this game. Clear the crease? Get in the first punch? Avoid the fight match-ups that the Devils (who don’t mind taking their chances with tons of penalty minutes) like to encourage?

Veteran Doug Gould saw it all more simply. “Two years ago when we played the Rangers, we got ahead (early in the series) and took them for granted. We lost and didn’t get upset,” said Gould. “In the playoffs, you can’t ever let that happen. You gotta play with determination and fear.”

The fear is the part Gould would line to underline. Fear now; don’t pay later. “We can’t put ourselves in that situation, down 3-1, like we did against the Flyers, because it’s not going to work out that way every time. ... Against the Flyers, we knew if we lost one more game, a lot of things were going to be pegged against us. We have to play with that same intensity in every game.”

Many left the Cap Centre after this game game certain that they had seen a blood-fuel game that bad grown out of Verbeek-Langway. Perhaps what they really saw was the raw intensity that teams discover in themselves when they are driven by determination and fear.

The Devils found it when they needed it. Now, even without Langway to help, it’s the Capitals turn.