Willie Mitchell has already revisited his past once this season and he’ll be doing in again on Tuesday night when the New Jersey Devils come to Staples Center in LA.

“Where it all started. That’s the first thing I think about when it comes to playing the Devils,” the 10-year NHL veteran said. “It doesn’t matter how many teams you’ve played for, and I’ve played for a couple, you always have fond memories of where it all started.”

He debuted for New Jersey on March 25, 2000, nearly four years after they selected him in the eighth round of the 1996 draft.

Life’s come a bit full circle for him, as he now hands out advice to younger players in LA about the experiences he went though as a prospect coming up through the New Jersey organization.

“I think in life in general, you try and learn your whole way. That’s the journey of life, learning. If you ever think you can stop learning, you’re in trouble,” Mitchell said, as we reflected back on pieces of his career that have molded him into the player he’s become.

“As a pro, I try to learn every day. I tried to learn from guys before me, guys who spent a lot of time in the league. I was fortunate enough to start in one of the best environments ever with the Devils – Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer, Larry Robinson, Jacques Lemaire, I could go on and on. There’s a lot of Stanley Cups there. And you don’t win those without having a good model for success. I tried to learn from those guys.”

Some of those lessons have steered him towards being a certain type of player, just don’t necessarily call him a leader.

He says he’s simply tried to be himself since joining the Kings – not a “rah-rah guy who tried to be overbearing at times.” Instead, he’s offered to be someone who guys can talk to, someone who’s there to listen and can offer a suggestion or two on how to navigate through difficult situations.

“A lot of times in this league, we think we’re a lot better than what we are and when we’re not playing well, we think we’re a lot worse than what we are,” he said. “That can be tricky. And I don’t think that experience happens overnight, you don’t learn that right away. That’s how I try to help out. So be it if people think that’s a voice or a leadership role. You don’t strive to be somebody like that. If it comes to you, then that’s flattering.”

He entered this season at the mid-point of his present situation, having signed a two-year deal with the Kings back in the summer of 2010. Still, he thinks the two halves in Los Angeles will be different, with the most difficult part behind him.

“There’s no doubt I was a player who had some risks (attached) to me coming in,” the 34-year old defenseman said. “Although I had a wrist and a knee injury last season, with the head, everything was good.”

This summer was different for him too, both on and off the ice. Last year, he wasn’t able to partake in most of the extracurricular activities he enjoys in his free time, nor was he able to work out much. This summer, not only was he able to do more, Mitchell says he probably hasn’t trained this hard in over decade.

“Outside of maybe when I was 22 or 23 years old, when you’re young and full of energy and the NHL is upon you and you’re just working out like a madman – and sometimes working out without a purpose, you’re working out so hard – this was probably the hardest summer of training I’ve had in a long time,” he admitted.

“The other part that’s just as important, I think, was that I did a lot of things I wanted to do. When you have a concussion, you can’t just go out fly fishing or go out on your boat and relax because the sun bothers you and all those things. Having a chance to get all of that out of your system makes you that much more excited for the season to start.”

That’s lead him to feel pretty confident of late – with one caveat, “Not that I’m going to run up and down the ice like a Drew Doughty. But, I’m going to have a much more consistent, better season.”

He’s not only happy about the work he put in this summer, he’s more than pleased with the changes GM Dean Lombardi made to the Kings roster.

“The organization made some great moves. Being a veteran player, that’s a place you want to be in. What goes a long way to players is when the ownership group and management goes out and brings in players like they did this year. To us, it says they believe in this group. And when you have your ownership, your management and your coaches believing in you, that says a lot. That gives you a big boost of confidence.”

He went on to say, “I absolutely enjoy it here.”

Which brings us to the future.

It’s understandable if Lombardi doesn’t want to talk contracts with any defensemen for a few months. But, if the Kings approached him at some point about signing an extension, is that something he’d be interested in?

“That stuff takes care of itself whenever it does,” he said.

Well, that’s not a very Willie Mitchell answer. All last year he was brutally honest – and insightful – when answering questions. And now he’s going to pull up easy, with a cliche?

“No, I’m dead serious with that answer,” he said when pressed harder. “I think no better experience than that for me was having my concussion and going into free agency (in 2010). I was in a similar situation than I am here. I was having an excellent season (in Vancouver) and if I got through that season, whether it’s term or dollar figures, it might have been a little bit different.

“As a player, all you can do is control the things you can control. For me, that’s going out and being the best teammate I can be for my teammates and being the best player I can be for the LA Kings. That’s what I’m going to try and do this year. If I do that, that’s going to work out quite nicely for the Kings and myself. I’ve done enough contracts after 12 years in the league. You come to know those things always work out how they’re supposed to.”

Fair enough.

There’s a long season ahead, size things up for the team.

“I’m really excited about this year and what’s ahead of us. I don’t want to get too far down the road. But, I think the number one thing for us is to win our division. I think we have a really good shot at doing that. Then, if we win our division, we get to where we want to be and that’s in the playoffs. That’s our first step and that’s our only focus right now. Once we get there, our next step is, obviously, the big prize. To have a shot at being one of 16 teams in the tournament is what it’s all about it.”

So far, so good. The Kings enter the weekend 4-1-1, with the overtime loss coming in New Jersey just over a week ago.

LA will take on the Stars tonight and then host the Devils for a rematch next Tuesday.

The Mayor
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RELATED ARTICLES:

Willie Mitchell on his bro-mance with Mike Richards

Mitchell on injuries, ice time and pre-season chaos

Mitchell not sure what went wrong with the Kings

Willie Mitchell has seen this all before – quotes from the 2011 playoffs

Mitchell says Kings ‘dominated’ vs. Detroit – a game LA lost 7-4

Kevin Westgarth on Willie Mitchell’s fight

the photo above appears courtesy of Ikiri Photography

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As written previously in this space, condemnation against Lemieux was swift, with some calling him a hypocrite for speaking out against violence in hockey while continuing to employ Matt Cooke, a “dirty” player.  Others wondered why Lemieux chose to speak out at all, implying that owners – even those in the Hall of Fame – should be seen but not heard.  The interesting thing about Lemieux is that over the course of his prolific playing career and his 11 1/2 years as team co-owner, he rarely made or makes comments about anything.

When he does speak out, movers and shakers ignore him – to their peril.  Consider these two examples:

In 2007, Lemieux perceived that city and state officials were stalling on approving plans for a desperately needed new arena.  The Penguins played in Mellon Arena, the league’s oldest facility and a new rink was a mandatory condition for the Penguins to stay in Pittsburgh.  In a risky but cunning move to speed up the process of negotiations, Lemieux reluctantly played the bad guy, threatening to move the team out of Pittsburgh and made a visit on March 1 to visit Kansas City’s unoccupied arena to show he was not joking.

“We are meeting with officials in Kansas City today as part of our effort to explore all of our options regarding a new arena,” Lemieux said in a statement on the team’s website. “We have heard many great things about their new building, which is scheduled to open in time for the start of the 2007-08 NHL season.”

Five days later, as recorded in the Reading Eagle, Lemieux added, ”We have made a single-minded effort to bring this new arena to a successful conclusion and keep the team in Pittsburgh.  Our good-faith efforts have not produced a deal, however, and have only added more anxiety to what we thought at best was a risky proposition for us moving forward … We can do no more.”

The sight of Lemieux in Kansas City surely gave Pittsburgh politicians a heart-attack and a settlement was quickly reached.  Less than two weeks later on March 13, Lemieux famously stood on the ice at Mellon Arena and told fans that he had helped to secure an arena deal that would keep “your Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh where they belong” for at least 30 years.

The second and more memorable example of Lemieux speaking out was in 1992 when he observed a disturbing trend: hockey was falling into the hands of “clutch and grab” players.  On Super Bowl Sunday, January 26, the Pens lost at Washington 6-4.  While pressing for the tying goal late in the third period, Lemieux was hauled down by three Capitals with no penalty call.  Several Pittsburgh players including Lemieux and fellow All Stars Kevin Stevens and Jaromir Jagr exploded and were handed game misconducts with less than one minute to play.

Lemieux lashed out at referees and the NHL after the game and made his still-famous disparaging “garage league” statement.

It was a good hockey game until the referee got into it.  It’s just a disgrace for this game, and as long as we’re going to have people like that, the game’s not going to go anywhere.

We’re not making any progress.  Sometimes they wonder why we can’t get a national TV contract.  It’s because of guys like that.  It’s just a disgrace.

The whole game was frustrating for everybody.  There were probably five or six calls that he (21-year veteran referee Ron Hoggarth) didn’t call when we had good chances to score.  The guy just can’t keep up with us.  It’s real bad…

I think the league’s got to go back and do something about that, too.  We can’t go out there and hook and grab all the time.  It’s a skating game, a passing game.  I think that’s what the fans want to see.

The advantage is to the marginal player now.  They can hook and grab, and the good players can’t do what they’re supposed to do.

I think every team does that.  Anybody can get away with it… That’s the way this garage league is run.

Things got even more frustrating for Lemieux once the playoffs began.  In Game 2 of the Patrick Division Final at New York, Adam Graves of the Rangers slashed and broke Lemieux’s left hand sidelining him indefinitely.  Lemieux later revealed that he contemplated retirement after the injury.  Then as now, his critics ripped him, as if to say, “If you can’t take a little whack, then fine, go home.”  But Lemieux was not calling attention to himself, rather noting that the NHL was quickly becoming a less exciting, less skilled league where grinders were able to run wild at the expense of scorers and playmakers.

He was right.  Slowly, the NHL became a cesspool of obstruction as the 1990s progressed.  Speed and skill were replaced by legalized hooking and holding, praised as the work of “blue collar, lunch pail, hard hatted players”.  Finally, after the 2004-05 lockout, substantial rule changes partially served to expunge “clutch and grab” impediments from the sport that had kept goal-scoring down.  In part, excitement, speed and skill returned to hockey - changes Lemieux had advocated nearly a decade and a half before the amendments and rule changes were implemented.

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The big news of the day was the official announcement by the Penguins that centre Jordan Staal will make his 2010-11 debut tonight after missing the first 39 games of the season.  A Selke Award finalist last year, Staal was originally injured during the playoffs this past spring when a foot tendon was severed by an errant skate blade.  An infection developed when he was recovering from surgery and he had to undergo subsequent procedures on the foot.  Then on the day he was to return to the lineup on November 3, Staal fractured his hand during the game-day skate at Dallas forcing him to miss 27 more games.  While he will see time tonight with different linemates, Pittsburgh will eventually be able to use Staal as a centre on the second line with Evgeni Malkin on his wing, as was the projected plan before the season started.

Tonight, when we all sit down to watch the Winter Classic, we will be bombarded by all kinds of flowery rhetoric from broadcasters waxing rhapsodically about “hockey returning to its roots”, “players remembering playing as kids on frozen ponds”, “Elysian Fields”, “Camelot”, “Valhalla Ice”, on and on and on.  Simply put however, seeing the north shoreline of Pittsburgh lit up by city lights and Heinz field glowing in the darkness will cause this writer to react in the same way that James Earl Jones’ cynical character did in Field of Dreams when he sees the baseball field under the lights for the first time – with grateful appreciation.

Yes, in the end, this is an important regular season game for both clubs but there is still something irregular and special – as I wrote back in the summer, hard to put into words – about seeing a hockey rink under the lights.

Yesterday morning, the Penguins – Capitals Alumni Game brought back a flood of memories.  Seeing Mario Lemieux proudly skate onto Pittsburgh ice for a game was definitely a high point of the year in hockey.  As always, Lemieux played a significant part in the proceedings.  He assisted on the game’s first goal by Rob Brown then assisted on a power play goal that gave the Pens a late 5-4 lead.  It looked like he garnered a third assist shortly after when he dangled with the puck on the left-wing boards before passing to Larry Murphy whose point shot entered the Washington net.  However the goal was called back for goalie interference.  Caps’ alumni captain Peter Bondra rifled a shot from the slot with 45 seconds left to tie the game 5-5.

Unfortunately, the game ended in a tie; no overtime or shootout was staged.  Throughout the Alumni Game, all I could think of was that long ago hockey cards, now collecting dust in my parents’ house, were coming back to life for one day.  There was Dennis Maruk, sans moustache, skating for Washington.  I vividly remember back in fourth grade, holding an O-Pee-Chee hockey card of Maruk sporting a garish Minnesota North Star jersey.  Maruk has the distinction of being the last player to skate in the NHL who was drafted and played for the defunct California Golden Seals.  He also still holds the single-season points record for the Capitals franchise.

There was John Druce of the Caps, forever associated with one magical spring in 1990.  Druce had scored only 16 goals in 93 career games up to that point but in the playoffs, he exploded for 14 goals in 15 games to lead all scorers after only three rounds as Washington made its first ever trip to the Wales Conference Final where they were swept by Boston.  The player who eventually passed Druce with 16 goals, the most scored by one man in the 1990 playoffs was …

… Craig Simpson, also on the Heinz Field ice yesterday for the Alumni Game.  Simpson was the Pens’ first-round draft choice in 1985 and went on to become a 50-goal scorer with Edmonton after he was traded to the Oilers in 1987 for …

… defence great Paul Coffey, also a member of the Penguins’ Alumni yesterday.  Coffey had the distinction of quarterbacking the Edmonton offence during their domination in the mid-1980s, winning three Stanley Cups, then added another championship when he joined the Penguins.  As a fourth-grader, I gave myself a fake tattoo, using a ballpoint pen to write “Paul Coffey #77″ on my left forearm, turning the “y” into a hockey stick motif.

… Michal Pivonka, Don Beaupre, Peter Bondra, Sylvain Cote … all 1990s-era Capitals and guys the Penguins gave nightmares to when Pittsburgh eliminated Washington in the playoffs of 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996, 2000 and 2001.

Yet in the end, the Marquee Alumnus was Lemieux.  Most fans know about his well-chronicled on-ice achievements and perseverance, constantly battling back from chronic injuries and of course, cancer.  But his legacy off the ice, especially what he means to the city of Pittsburgh, might be just as significant.  Never mind the hosting of a Winter Classic or an Alumni Game, but having any NHL hockey in the city is directly a result of Lemieux.  He rescued the franchise out of bankruptcy in 1999, returned to the ice in 2000 to revitalize the team, then worked several more years to secure funding for a necessary new arena that prevented the team from leaving town.

His style as an owner, allowing the hockey operations and coaching staff to run the club, avoiding the temptation of using his clout to interfere in daily decisions, in part, allowed the Penguins to add a third Stanley Cup in 2009.  The Consol Energy Center which opened this autumn, is another monument to Lemieux’s work.

FORWARDS
Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Ron Francis, Kevin Stevens, Joe Mullen, Rick Kehoe, Pierre Larouche, Syl Apps, Jean Pronovost

DEFENCE
Paul Coffey, Larry Murphy, Ulf Samuelsson, Dave Burrows

GOALTENDERS
Tom Barrasso, Les Binkley

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In addition, the Penguins honoured notable non-playing builders: former head coaches Bob Johnson, Scotty Bowman and Herb Brooks and general managers Craig Patrick, Jack Riley and Eddie Johnston as part of the All-Time Team.  Broadcaster Mike Lange, organist Vince Lascheid and in-arena announcer John Barbero also received recognition.  The members of the All-Time Team will be able to be appreciated for all time by Pens’ fans because interactive displays with statistics, notes, photos and audio/visual clips for each player and builder have been set up in the Trib Total Media All-Time Team Zone inside the Consol Energy Center.

What surprised me about the content of the All-Time Team was that the final playing roster was limited to just fifteen players.  Surely there could be a way to select five more players to create a standard, game-night, twenty-man roster.  Interestingly, the Pens acknowledged precisely five other players as “Honourable Mentions”, a de facto supplement to the All-Time Team: defenders Ron Stackhouse and Randy Carlyle plus forwards Lowell MacDonald, Rick Tocchet and Martin Straka.

One of the great things about all sports, especially hockey, is the fun of creating all-time teams, for franchises, eras, or countries, then endlessly debating the inclusion or exclusion of certain players.  Here, an attempt is made to create one more forward line consisting of three forwards and one more defence pair so that the All-Time Team features 20 “dressed” players.  Would it be as simple as tabbing every member of the Honourable Mentions “bench” to be the final five players to dress?

No.

While I would have no problem moving Stackhouse, the all-time leader in games played by a Pittsburgh defenceman, and Carlyle, the Pens’ best puck-moving, power play quarterback before Coffey, into spots on the blue line, I would have to make one switch on the final forward line.  Instead of Tocchet, a different past Penguin would skate with MacDonald and Straka.  That man would be Mike Bullard.  The Ottawa native was drafted by Pittsburgh with their first choice in the 1980 draft and went on to play parts of seven seasons with the Penguins.  His 185 goals ranked 3rd, and his 360 points ranked 6th on the club’s all-time list when he was traded by Pittsburgh to Calgary.  Presently, he still sits 6th-best on the goals list nearly a quarter-century after last wearing the black and gold.

Bullard played during a particularly brutal time in Penguins’ history, yet he was still able to put the puck in the net amidst a backdrop of endless losing.  Pittsburgh finished in last place in the Patrick Division for three straight seasons including a franchise-worst 1983-84 campaign that saw them sink to a dubious club-record: fewest wins (16) in a season.  Bullard notched 51 goals that year, seventh-best in the NHL, while the course of team history changed for the better the following summer when Lemieux was drafted by Johnston.

Yet some could argue that with Bullard in and Tocchet out, grit and muscle have been sacrificed from this line even though their scoring skills are reasonably equal.  True, but we can juggle our lines later in the game.  That’s the beauty of making all-time teams.  For every Bullard-Tocchet debate, another Penguins’ fan will say, “neither”, and make an argument to have Bob Errey called down from the booth to lace them up again.

The possibilites are endless.  One wonders if during the process of boiling down the actual All-Time Team, did the team owner cast a vote for his enforcer and one-time personal trainer Jay “Holden” Caufield?

In a sequence that couldn’t have been better scripted, McDonald capped off a hall-of-fame career by hoisting Lord Stanley’s mug after scoring the Cup-clinching goal. An exit like that likely only comes along once in a lifetime. Since McDonald has already done it, the odds are pretty long for anyone else to pull it off.

Even without a storybook ending, plenty of players still make a graceful exit. Coaches rarely get such an opportunity.

John Stevens, now-former coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, is the latest to get his walking papers. While the Philly pitchforks and torches brigade rejoices, a look back at his tenure clearly illustrates just how inevitable it was.

Following an AHL coaching career that included a Calder Cup championship in 2005, Stevens was promoted to an assistant position with the Flyers in 2006-07. Eight games into that season, he replaced Ken Hitchcock as head coach. That move served to foreshadow a nightmare season–the worst in franchise history.

Over that offseason, management re-tooled the roster and announced the team would be “Back
With A Vengeance” the next season. The team compiled a respectable 95 points, good for the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference. They followed that with a run to the Eastern Conference Finals. In hindsight, that taste of playoff success may well have signalled the beginning of the end for Stevens. With Philadelphia still starved for a championship prior to the Phillies’ 2008 World Series win, fans (and possibly management) saw this deep run as proof the team was prepared to contend right away and for a long time, wiping away the sour memories of the previous year, but also those of the 6th-place regular season.

Fans were told the team was “Hungry for More” the following season. There was more to be had, though, in honesty, not much. A four-point improvement to 99 resulted in mere one-position move up to 5th, setting up a playoff rematch with ECF opponent Pittsburgh. Rather than the start of another deep run, the series ended with a huge meltdown of a blown three-goal lead in Game 6. Fan rumblings questioning Stevens’ competence started to burn up the Web.

More offseason re-tooling followed. Prior to this season, Flyers’ GM Paul Holmgren directed Stevens to change the team’s system and style of play. Holmgren wanted to see the players “hunt the puck”, more in line with this year’s slogan: “Relentless“.

Early results this season featured the kind of inconsistent on-ice performances that have marked Stevens’ tenure. Cap-driven lineup changes and untimely injuries only made things worse, culminating in a forgettable November filled with passionless, disorganized “efforts” from the players. Finally, it became too much for management to bear, and the hammer fell.

Stevens’ dismissal was inevitable. Although the change to Peter Laviolette may well be the right move, it doesn’t change the fact that Stevens also fell victim to a set of circumstances that would cost virtually any coach his position: overinflated expectations, growing pains of a young core, yearly roster juggling, micromanagement from above, and, finally, reprehensible lack of performance on the ice.

If, and when, the Flyers’ turnaround occurs and they return to full status as a Cup contender, those who give credit for Stevens’ work during a short but eventful tenure will be far more quiet and deep in the minority compared to those who called for his head, but they’ll be right–no matter how the exit went down.

Communication Breakdown...It's always the same.

Communication Breakdown, it’s always the same…Having a nervous breakdown, could drive you insane
-Led Zeppelin(or some old obscure blues player that they stole it off of)

Listening to some of the comments following the Flyers 4-0 loss to the Leafs in London, Ontario, one could get the feeling that Flyers GM Paul Holmgren and head coach John Stevens may be having a communication breakdown of their own.

Stevens said after the game that he felt the team had put forth a better effort than they had against the Red Wings in their opener. He singled out a few guys for praise, including defenseman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen, who looked pretty atrocious to me.

Holmgren took something different from the game. “I think (Toronto) outworked us to be quite honest with you and that’s somewhat disturbing from a Flyers’ standpoint,” Flyers’ General Manager Paul Holmgren told the Fan 590 in Toronto. ”Obviously (Toronto) has a lot of guys fighting for a spot and they had a lot of fight and spirit last night.”

This is hardly the first time we have seen dissimilar statements from coach and GM, especially in terms of effort and how the team looked. If the Flyers get off to a slow start, I wouldn’t be amazed to see Stevens be dismissed and see the Flyers turn to John Paddock or somebody outside the organization to provide a kick in the tail.

Gagne? Not Until Tuesday
Flyers winger Simon Gagne will likely not play in Saturday’s preseason game against the Toronto Maple Leafs as he rehabs a groin injury suffered during training camp for the Canadian Olympic team.

According to reports, Gagne has been feeling more comfortable with each passing day

Flyers Coach John Stevens has taken an unusual approach in his line-ups so far

The Flyers have looked discombobulated, for lack of a better word, this preseason. Part of that was the short amount of time before they started playing games, and part of it is the integration of the new faces.

I am a bit surprised at the process the coaching staff has used to do the latter, thus far.

Head Coach John Stevens had few scrimmages in the early part of the camp, noting that they team had a 3 game swing out to the midwest.

The problem is, that limits the time in practice where the team’s offensive lines can gel. One would suspect that would lead Stevens to get those lines work during the pre-season tune-ups. That hasn’t been the case.

I am loathe to say that Stevens used a dartborad when determining the line combos for tonight’s game in London, Ontario against the Maple Leafs, but how to explain slick second year scorer Claude Giroux playing between enforcer Riley Cote and agitator Dan Carcillo?

Some very odd line-up choices by the Flyers coach tonight.

STUFF I NOTICED
-Ole-Kristian Tollefsen had a really rough night. He was on for at least the first two Leafs goals(as I write this) and negated a 2 on 1 chance by stupidly engaging in a fight with Ben Ondrus.

-Johan Backlund is either having a rough time adjusting to the smaller North American ice, or the first guy that new Flyers goalie guru Neil Little endorsed is a dud.

-2007 number two overall pick James van Riemsdyk has thus far made a strong case to make this team’s opening night roster. Among the try-out/bubble guys, Blair Betts has been solid overall, but made a costly mistake in tonight’s game against Toronto. Mark Bell seems as serious about making this roster as Mel Brooks was in his telling of Dracula.