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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Lehtonen’s outburst: Good or bad?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When there are a few days off between games, you tend to overanalyze, which I’m going to do today. I’ve been thinking about Kari Lehtonen’s outburst after Washington scored the game-winner the other night. He threw his stick down, kicked his blocker and made it clear to everyone in the arena that he wasn’t happy.
Then after the game, Lehtonen expressed his frustration that a win was taken away from him and that the effort in the third period was, ahem, horsepoop. Now, me as a writer, I love that stuff. Great quotes, some color during the game, a guy is angry and probably rightfully so. It makes good copy, not to mention fodder for the blog four days later. I asked Don Waddell if he had any issues with Kari’s public show of frustration, and he said he didn’t.
“I like seeing his competitiveness because he cares,” Waddell said. “Sometimes we keep our frustrations inside and that’s not always a good thing. I think it’s good sometimes for his teammates to see that. He’s battling hard every night to try to win. I’d much rather have a player in that direction than just live with it. Players know he competed hard and gave us a chance to win and we let him down.”
And Kari’s comments after the game, which didn’t endear him to some teammates, showed his frustrations even further. He admitted today that those were made simply out of frustration and he seemed to have second thoughts about how they came out. And making it even more compelling are the contrasting personalities of Kari and backup Johan Hedberg, who lost the game before and said simply, in so many words, “Cam Ward outplayed me, that’s why we lost.”
Obviously teammates might prefer to hear that coming from their goalie than Lehtonen’s comments. But in reality, both players were speaking the truth and how they felt. Simply put, Ward did outplay Hedberg. And Lehtonen probably deserved a win against the Caps. So do you have any problems with Lehtonen expressing his frustrations about the play in front of him publicly? Certainly you can understand it.
I know Darren Eliot was critical about Lehtonen during the postgame show, although I didn’t hear all of Eliot’s critique. Something about writing a story on deadline. So I gave Darren a call to see if he’d expand on his comments. He’s out in Arizona doing a VERSUS game tonight, and he said he understood Lehtonen’s reaction, but that doesn’t make it right:
“I understood the why and how. You can look at old Don Cherry tapes when I chased [now retired referee] Terry Gregson out to center ice… It was well-documented, I was a hothead. I fought teammates, I chased referees up the ice.”
But an older, wiser Eliot - someone I consider one of the brightest minds in hockey - thought Lehtonen’s response, during and after the game, was the wrong one.
“Let’s put it this way - when you’re older, you know it’s the wrong response. I understand the frustration. Did I do it in the past? Absolutely. It’s the wrong response because it sets you apart from the team.”
And something else Darren said really made sense to me. It might give opponents an edge.
“As soon as you start breaking sticks and shaking your head, the opposition says, ‘You know what? Keep going. He’s thinking of everything he shouldn’t be thinking of,’” Eliot said.
It’s all very interesting to me because one of Bob Hartley’s issues with Kari was that we didn’t see his competitiveness all the time. I don’t think Hartley always appreciated Lehtonen’s laid-back demeanor, especially after winning a Stanley Cup with Patrick Roy, who is anything but laid-back. We’re witnessing the maturation of a young goalie who still is finding himself within the team concept and it’s fascinating to watch as he continues to learn. But you have to wonder if it’s equally fascinating for his teammates.
