If there is one thing I look for when trying to predict playoff success, it's a goal celebration. More importantly, it's how the team celebrates when one of their own achieves success. Not just in the huddle hug. On the bench.
You can tell a lot about how close knit a team is by how they react to when somebody other than themselves accomplishes something.
You could use a lot of cliches, and there are plenty to choose from, when talking about how a team reacts to success.
"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts..." ~Aristotle
"It's amazing what you can accomplish when you do not care who gets the credit." ~Truman
"There is no "I" in team." ~Unknown
"Individual commitment to a group effort--that is what makes a team work." ~Vince Lombardi
"The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack." ~Quote in the Syracuse Crunch Team Room.
You see, a team can be as talented as they want to be. In hockey, the team with the best goal scorers does not always win. The team with the best goaltender does not always win. The team that's the best team often does.
One of my first memories in hockey was the 1995 New Jersey Devils Stanley Cup winning team. They had one of the best young goaltenders in the game in a very young Martin Brodeur. They had an eventual pair of Hall of Fame defensemen in Scott Stevens and Scott Niedermayer. And then they had one of the closest knit team of middling success stories and a sprinkle of spare parts throughout their lineup. But they came together when it mattered. When Claude Lemieux won the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP there was a look on his face of humbleness and shock when he accepted the trophy and held it up to the crowd at Brendan Byrne Arena that spoke volumes about how he didn't believe he was worthy of award. It was a team that could have and should have accepted that trophy.
In 2013 when a first-year Tampa Bay Lightning affiliated squad marched their way towards a Calder Cup Final loss, I sensed the same togetherness in that room.
Many memories of that year come quickly, but a few stand out. The first is Game Four in Grand Rapids when the team was down 3-0. I was sitting in a suite with our scratched players that night, when Mark Barberio took a hit in our defensive zone and his helmet came off. In unison (and I do mean in unison) three of our scratched players said instantaneously "Sick Flow." In hockey terms, they were referring to Barberio's hair cut. Long and flowy. Perhaps even a bit luxurious. But they way they said it, even with the odds this team faced in the biggest of playoff deficits...they were enjoying the moments. However fleeting and limited they may have been at that point.
The second, sadly, after the game 6 loss was of one of our players in the locker room after the game. Not just lamenting our loss. Not sad. Not dejected. Not crying. Openly sobbing of disappointment. For the loss, I'm sure. But more than that, of the fact that, win or lose, this was the last game this group of men would play together.
Perhaps it was the way I was raised, perhaps it was my own fun I discovered playing summer hockey when, one season, our team (of 18-and-under kids) after winning only one game in the season before, went on a playoff run I'll always remember. The team we played in the championship had been undefeated that season. And beating us to win the trophy was a foregone conclusion. But yet something happened that game. Our coach (my dad) put myself and one of our other good players on defense to combat our opponent's speed and skill. Despite us both having played forward all year, we accepted our roles for the good of the team. Another of our teammates (and I say that word loosely as he was very individual accolade driven) scored on a breakaway and, shortly after, had a 2-on-1 in which everyone thought he would shoot (and he probably did too) yet drew the goalie down and sent a beautiful pass across for a game-tying tap in late in the 3rd period. The excitement he had setting up that goal was more than any goal he had scored personally all year.
I'd love to say we fought the good fight that game, but their abilities eventually overcame our collective own. We lost 4-2. But I remember my dad saying afterward that in the post-game handshake, their coach told him after the tying goal, that his team didn't know what to do. They had not faced this kind of adversity all season and he thought what our team had done to come together was the most amazing thing he had seen all season. That was the ultimate compliment to what a team can do when they come together.
Long story not-so-short... I've often wondered why some professional players care more about themselves than the team.
There's a reason Stanley Cup winning teams have trouble in today's salary cap era of staying together. It's because teams who chase titles want championship caliber players on their team. And championship caliber players come with a price tag.
I've often said a 10 goal scorer on a non-playoff team is an underachiever. A 10 goal scorer on a championship team is a quality role player. Collective achievement breeds individual success. And that's something that carries with you anywhere you go. (See: Justin Williams)
So the next time you are watching a hockey team in a non-pressure packed moment, take note of when that team scores a goal. If you see players jump off the bench with genuine happiness when their teammate scores, remember that when their collective effort surpasses their individual talent, you have the makings of a true team. Something that can be applied to your current career- be it mailman, salesman, or hockey player.
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