BOSTON — A 6-foot-9 Slovakian Adonis, four well-educated Americans and some kid named “Cliffy” walk into a bar.
No, that’s not the beginning of a joke, it’s the Boston Bruins’ defence corps. And the joke is on those who undervalued the impact of Boston’s defence in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Last year, the Vegas Golden Knights styled themselves as the “Golden Misfits.” These Bruins’ defencemen are a different type of black-and-gold misfits.
Just look at them.
There are two giants in Zdeno Chara (6-9) and Brandon Carlo (6-5), your average-sized NHL defencemen in Charlie McAvoy (6-0) and Connor Clifton (5-11), then two mighty mites in Torey Krug (5-9) and Matt Grzelcyk (5-9).
“Yeah, it’s pretty funny when you look at them,” defenceman Steven Kampfer said.
Coach Bruce Cassidy admitted Tuesday he didn’t know what to expect with this Bruins’ defence in the playoffs, with Carlo, Clifton and Gryzelcyk having no prior playoff experience. No one would’ve dreamt of mentioning the Bruins in the same breath on the backend as Calgary, Nashville, Tampa Bay or San Jose.
But what the Bruins’ defenders lack in star power or pedigree, they make up for in mobility and ability.
As individual parts, they are a hodgepodge, but as one – they have the true makings of a team. They shift pairings around, sometimes mid-game, and everyone can play with anyone.
“They’re great players, every one of them. They’re different in a way, but they all bring the same intense attitude and focus,” Charlie Coyle said. “It’s really special. It’s pretty cool playing with a ‘D’ corps that gets you the puck up the ice that quickly.”
Listen to Kampfer, a Game 1 scratch who scored in one of his only two playoff appearances this spring, tell the tale of this “exceptionally tight” group:
“Well, ‘Zee’ [Chara] is just ‘Zee’ … Brandon is probably the best pure athlete I’ve ever come across … Charlie is naturally gifted … Torey is an elite puck mover … Johnny Moore has maybe the best first two strides in the league … ‘Gryz’ can skate like the wind … And ‘Cliffy,’ well, he plays ‘Cliffy Hockey.’”
What the heck is Cliffy Hockey, you ask?
Ask the Bruins to define it. They laugh hysterically. It’s a catch-phrase, like “Johnny Hockey,” except it’s not a nickname. It’s a style. Clifton scored his second career NHL goal in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday night.
“He plays his own brand of hockey,” Kampfer said. “It’s reckless within himself. He’s just his own thing. You think he’s going to lose the puck and then somehow he’s got it on his stick. He plays off his instincts.”
“He just gets [bleep] done,” Coyle said.
McAvoy is the only first-round pick of the group. Krug is an undrafted free agent from Michigan State. Grzelcyk is a rink rat from Charlestown, Mass., whose father has been on the ice crew at TD Garden forever. Grzelcyk played at Boston U with McAvoy in 2015-16. Carlo is a Colorado kid, a second-round pick by way of the WHL. Clifton was a fifth-round find.
If you were to line them all up, from biggest to smallest, you can see the evolution of the NHL in their size.
The players will say it all starts with Chara, maybe the last of a dying breed. At 42, Chara is the second-oldest player ever to skate in a Stanley Cup Final (Doug Harvey was 43 in 1968). He has been in the NHL as many seasons (21) as McAvoy has years on Earth.
The conditioning king Chara said he’s had to adapt to stay relevant.
“You have to,” Chara said. “You have to make all of those adjustments. You want to be ahead of the game, seeing what’s happening with how skilled they are and how fast they are. If you’re not, you’re going to be way behind. You kind of sense how the game is going the last few years, and I try to work real hard in the summer on the ability to make players better, to not be caught out of position or on the wrong side of the puck, but try to use my size still to my advantage.”
Chara is the glue for the group, Krug said. But when Chara missed 20 games this year, or the deciding game of the Eastern Conference Final, the rest of the group didn’t blink.
At one point this season, the Bruins’ two most experienced defenders were Krug (26) and Gryzelcyk (25). Krug said it was “invaluable” to go through all of those injuries because it forced everyone to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations.
Just further proof that whenever Chara decides to hang up his skates, this group of Golden Misfits will be in fine shape.
“There’s a few things that we talk about before each game. One of them is just doing whatever the game needs,” Krug said. “A blocked shot, or a hit, or a good, clean breakout pass – we do whatever it takes. We just try to bring it. We understand everyone has a great role back there. We don’t need any superheroes.”
Contact Frank Seravalli on Twitter: @frank_seravalli
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May 29, 2019 at 06:31PM
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