Code Blue

Sporting News, The, March 15, 1999 by Larry Wigge

In an offense that is ignited by Al MacInnis and Chris Pronger, no team proves the success and flow of an offense begins with playmakers on defense more than the Blues

Lobster traps. That's one of the first things that came into Chris Pronger's mind last May in the playoffs after he was hit dead center in the chest with a shot that had the force of a train hitting a car trying to sneak through a crossing signal.

Play stopped almost immediately as the 6-5, 220-pound Pronger fell unconscious to the ice. Players on the Red Wings and Pronger's Blues teammates waved for help. Emergency medical staff arrived in the nick of time. Though CPR was not performed, a heart monitor showed Pronger's pulse was skipping a beat.

Finally, after 15 minutes, with some of his concerned teammates standing around him in prayer, there was movement. There was a twitch of his leg and arms before Pronger was placed on a backboard and carried off the ice on a stretcher.

"There was no blinding light, no angels coming to take me home," Pronger says. "Everyone tells me how concerned they were for me, but I don't remember much of that.

"When I woke up, I thought about Mother's Day and then, when I saw Al MacInnis standing over me, praying, all I could remember were those many stories Al tells me about lobster traps and how he unloaded them for pocket change on the docks in Nova Scotia when he was growing up."

MacInnis laughs when he hears Pronger tell the story from his locker stall a few feet away. The anecdote becomes an ice-breaker in a story that could have been of life and death. But, actually, it's a tribute to a relationship between two great defensemen, on and off the ice.

And it is a perfect example of the difference between old school and new school, something that often gets lost in the shuffle in the NHL's attempt to get younger and younger.

"What that shows you," MacInnis says, "is that Chris listens and learns. If he can remember that little lesson about the kind of values and sacrifices I had to make to get to the NHL when he's having trouble breathing, to me, it's a true perspective of Chris' maturity, when a lot of young players never listen.

"When I came into the league, veterans told me it was my duty to know who we were playing and what their strengths and weaknesses were, that the coach would remind us of the game plan, but it was up to us to (go) up and down the starting lineup and to be ready, to be self-motivated for the game. You don't see that often enough with some players in the game today."

MacInnis and Pronger are perfect examples of defensemen who can control the flow of a game by breaking up attacks and starting the play back the other way. Just as a quarterback decides the play in football, the defenseman can determine the success or failure of a play by how he starts it in his end of the ice. This requires a wide range of skills--mobility, strength, speed, balance, excellent vision and a keen sense of timing and judgment.

"Positioning is nine-tenths of the law," Pronger, 24, says. "Al and coach Joel Quenneville (an NHL defenseman for 13 seasons) remind us of that all the time. In today's game, where tight defensive systems rule, if we are in the right position from the start, we will be in the right position to work the transition to offense. And you'd be surprised how many times (we) can catch an opponent flatfooted, giving you a 2-on-1 or 3-on-2 break up the ice."

Avalanche center Joe Sakic knows how a defensively triggered offense can work, having won a Stanley Cup when Quenneville was an assistant coach in Colorado in 1997. It's interesting that he draws a football-related comparison to the Super Bowl champion Broncos and the kind of impact a defenseman such as Pronger and MacInnis have. "You could say it's like facing John Elway and Bill Romanowski at the same time. Pronger can crush you with his size and reach, while MacInnis can use his stick like a scalpel to fend off any player. One-on-one, there's no better pair of defensemen in the game.

"And on offense, except (for) maybe Ray Bourque, no one makes the tape-to-tape outlet pass to ignite the offense like MacInnis and Pronger do."

Kings coach Larry Robinson spells out his game plan for the Blues before a recent game--and even though Pronger is not in the lineup, he fears the way MacInnis can pick apart a defense with his outlet passes from deep in his own zone and he warns his players at the morning skate and again before the game.

"When you play the Blues, you know they want to spread your forwards out in the neutral zone and then fire a long lead pass up the middle of the ice," he says. "But even when you are looking for it, you sometimes can't stop it.

"When they had Steve Duchesne with Marc Bergevin and Todd Gill in the playoffs last year, those five defensemen toyed with us on the transition game. When you have talented playmakers on defense, it's sort of like the West Coast offense in football--there almost always seems to be someone open up the ice."

The Kings thought so much of Quenneville's attack-from-defense game plan, they overspent for Duchesne, giving the free agent a raise from $2 million to $3.75 million. And with Bergevin sidelined with a stomach injury for 20 games and Gill no longer with the team (picked up by Detroit on waivers), the Blues are looking for one more strong playmaking defenseman before the March 23 trading deadline.