A particular thought came to mind while watching the Syracuse Crunch finish off the Wilkes Barre-Scranton Penguins in the most inhumane way possible last night. Not only do these prospects know how to finish a series, but most of them won the Calder Cup in Norfolk in the prior season. The players who didn’t go through last years championship run are learning how to harness that killer instinct. (Photos/Susan Ferlita)
A Crunch letdown would have been expected with top player Richard Panik on the sidelines, but instead, here were the Crunchers absolutely, well, crunching the Penguins. Mid season acquisition Phillipe Paradis had a hat trick for his first, second and third points as a member of the Crunch. Young Vladislav Namestnikov continued to grow in front of our eyes with the game-opening goal. Andrej Sustr had three assists and continues to impress after jumping to the AHL from college.
The naysayers will say something to the effect of “AHL wins don’t matter if the NHL team is losing.” This is foolish. The Lightning were not a good team when Steve Yzerman and Jeff Vinik rode into town on their white horses, Tampa Bay’s affiliate teams have always stunk, plain and simple. However, given that these players are now being developed in a winning culture, we’ll likely start to see these winning seeds being planted in Tampa.
Now, this is not to suggest that players like Vincent Lecavalier and Steven Stamkos don’t know how to win. The star players can’t do it alone and part of a young player’s development is learning how to win games. What we should be seeing next season are players like Ondrej Palat on the lower lines
– players who can score, but understand that the ice surface is 200 feet long and every inch matters. It’s not what you do with the puck; it’s what you do when you don’t have it. It’s what you do when you’re on the bench. It’s what you do when you have a chance to advance to play for a trophy – you absolutely, unequivocally destroy your opponent and you never even let them have a thought of clawing their way back.
To reiterate, star players alone cannot win games for your hockey team. They need a supporting cast. Having a supporting cast whose members played for the Calder Cup two consecutive seasons will be a big boost to the Lightning and the impact may be even bigger than Andrej Sustr on stilts.
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