Living on the edge

Sporting News, The, Jan 26, 1998 by Larry Wigge

Doug Gilmour has lifted the Devils from being a boring defensive team to one with an attitude

Early in the second round of the playoffs last spring, Rangers center Mark Messier cross-checked Devils center Doug Gilmour to the ice in front of New Jersey's bench. It was a rallying moment for the Rangers, and when none of Gilmour's teammates came to his defense, it was a defining one for the Devils. New Jersey, regular-season champion of the Atlantic Division, bowed meekly out of the playoffs in five games to the fourth-place Rangers despite being considered one of the favorites to make it to the Stanley Cup finals.

Fast forward to this season. On January 7 against Pittsburgh, Gilmour takes a cheap shot from Penguins defenseman Darius Kasparaitis. This time, everyone on the ice jamps into a small portion of the rink, slashing, jabbing and punching at each other. This time, the Devils were ready to fight Doug Gilmour.

The message is clear: Nearly a year after the February 1997 trade that took him from Toronto to New Jersey, the Devils have become Gilmour's team. And this season they are playing with a nastiness and an attitude Gilmour has displayed his entire 15-year career.

"Off the ice he looks like a choirboy, but when he starts using his stick like a scalpel, you know you're in for a long night," says Flyers center Eric Lindros, who at 6-4, 229 is five inches taller and 59 pounds heavier than Gilmour. "The Devils used to try to beat you with their patience, playing that neutral-zone trap of theirs. Now, it seems like they've taken on Gilmour's in-your-face attitude."

Gilmour's teammates have noticed, too.

"I've played against him get that look in his eyes, it's scary," Devils defenseman Scott Stevens says.

Feisty right winger Bobby Holik is having a career year for the Devils. After being used primarily as a third-line checker in his first seven seasons, he credits watching Gilmour with his improvement as an all-around player this season.

"I try to copy everything he does," says Holik, who was New Jersey's second-leading scorer, behind Gilmour, midway through the season. "He's like a mosquito out there, flitting around bothering people and waiting to bite them.

"I think playing like him has helped me so much that I've told a couple of the other young players on our team to study him and try to play a little more like him."

Pest. Instigator. Mean little SOB. All of those titles fit. But Don Gilmour just laughs when he hears people describe his son that way. He has heard it all before.

"Brian Sutter wasn't wrong when he saw him for the first time and started calling him `Killer' because of that look he gets in his eyes. He was always that way, even when he was a kid," Don Gilmour says. "He could never get enough. He once told me he was tired of winning MVP awards against kids his own age. Can you imagine that? He wanted to play against the bigger boys. So we put him in a higher age group, and he'd come home with cuts on his face and a bloody nose almost every night. But he'd also have a smile on his face."

Character players make their teammates better. While the transformation may not have taken place last spring--as the Devils had hoped after obtaining Gilmour in the stretch run for a package of prospects--it is evident now. Stevens still rocks opponents with big hits and Martin Brodeur is just as stingy as even in goal, but Gilmour is the difference. The intangibles he brings the team are not unlike what Claude Lemieux provided in 1995, when the Devils won their only Stanley Cup.

"You don't win hockey games with talent up and down the lineup, you win with players who show character and determination, players who won't quit," Rangers center Wayne Gretzky says. "Doug Gilmour is one of those rate individuals who gives you both--talent and character.

"I don't know how many times I've wanted to slice him in half with my stick, the way he gets under your skin. But I respect him for doing anything he can do to win. And you'd be surprised how contagious that element can be on a team."

Finding character players isn't easy--you have to pay a premium price. But nearly every team that has won the Stanley Cup this decade has paid that price, acquiring the player or players it needed to push them over the top.

The Red Wings gave up Keith Primeau, Paul Coffey and a first-round pick in October 1996 for Brendan Shanahan, a power forward who brings leadership to the locker room in addition to 50 goals on the ice. Shanahan helped transform Darren McCarty, Martin Lapointe, Kirk Maltby and Joe Kocur from being big, slow wingers into productive power forwards. The confidence brimmed over for the Red Wings in last season's playoffs as they won their first Stanley Cup since 1995.

One year earlier, the Avalanche added Lemeieux and Sandis Ozolinsh to a powerful offensive team, but the heart and soul of the 1995-96 Avalanche was goaltender Patrick Roy, a two-time Stanley Cup champion who taught the defensemen how to work and communicate together.

In 1995, the Devils were like scavengers with their neutral-zone trap. They forced turnover after turnover but didn't have the confidence--or the direction--to convert on their offensive opportunities. Neal Broten was brought in to give the team a legitimate No. 1 center and a steadying influence on offense. And it worked as the Devils swept the Red Wings in the Cup finals.