The legend of Chris Pronger — and all that goes with it — continues to grow.
Perhaps there never has been a defenceman whose immediate impact on a single team has been so grandiose. This is Pronger’s first season in Philadelphia: The Flyers are playing for the Stanley Cup. And this is nothing new.
In his first season in Anaheim, the Ducks won their only Stanley Cup.
In his first and only season in Edmonton, the Oilers played for the Cup.
“He does things that other players can’t do, haven’t done, don’t know how to do. And he just does them easily,” said Ken Holland, general manager of the Detroit Red Wings, who admitted to being “pretty damn happy” when the Ducks traded Pronger to the Eastern Conference.
“It’s no accident what happens when he joins a team. This isn’t any kind of fluke. This is a special player doing special things very few people in the history of our sport can do.”
This is Pronger’s third trip to the final, on his third team in five years. He has done so playing the same sometimes smart, sometimes controlling, sometimes erratic, often tumultuous game.
But stunning as this playoff run by the Flyers has been, what hasn’t been stunning is Pronger’s play. When the Flyers win, often it is because of him. And when they lose, as they did in Game 3 in Montreal, it’s because Pronger played horribly and the Canadiens took advantage.
Whatever the case, no single player, not the goaltenders, not Jonathan Toews, not Mike Richards, will have the impact in the Cup final that Pronger will have. He will have it because he is what Holland calls a minute muncher. He will have it because he can move the puck quicker and more accurately than any player on either team. He will have it, because, for all he does, he often plays the game as though it is in slow motion.
The greatest players in every sport do that: They slow the game down to their pace. And in his 16th year of a miraculous career as one of the top three defenceman of this generation — you have to put Nicklas Lidstrom first and then argue between Pronger and Scott Niedermayer — this trip to the final may represent Pronger’s greatest achievement.
This hasn’t been an easy season in Philadelphia. The team was a divided mess most of the year. The coach got fired. Some marriages didn’t survive. Some players got caught in compromising positions and has photos of them posted on the internet (although Patrick Kane found himself in similar territory on that one). There was something of an internal squabble between those who believed Pronger should be captain ahead of the younger Richards. This wasn’t a season as much as it was a soap opera.
If ever a team needed Pronger’s frenzied leadership, it was the Flyers. And while some thought Philadelphia would be a Cup contender the minute they acquired him, it took this long, a crazy comeback, a goaltending shuffle and Peter Laviolette’s coaching, to get Philly this far. But it still comes back to Pronger.
What Pronger does for a team is quantified not just when he arrives, but moreso when he departs.
The Oilers didn’t make the playoffs before Pronger came to Edmonton, went to the final the only year he played, and haven’t made the playoffs since. Edmonton went from 95 points to 71 points in the season after Pronger left.
Pronger played nine seasons in St. Louis, never missed the playoffs once. St. Louis missed the playoffs three straight years after trading Pronger. St. Louis dropped from 91 points to 57 in the season AP (After Pronger).
Pronger played three years for Anaheim, made the playoffs all three years, won the Cup. The Ducks didn’t make the playoff this year, although they only dropped two points from 91 to 89.
“If you wonder why we’ve worried about Lidstrom leaving, it’s because look what happens when Pronger leaves teams,” Holland said. “They don’t recover. It’s pretty apparent what he does for teams and he’s even more appreciated when he’s not there because you come to appreciate all he does. Look at Edmonton. They had one great year. That wasn’t an accident. Look what’s happened to them since.
“It was all because they had Pronger. Those kind of special players can do that for a team.”
