There's no quit in Oilers' Smyth
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http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/story/5649516
There's no quit in Oilers' Smyth
There's a scene in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail where a knight has his body parts hacked off piece by piece by another knight wielding a big sword.
The knight stands his ground until there's little left of him by the end of the scene.
Ryan Smyth of the Edmonton Oilers is perfect for the part of the hacked up knight. If there is anyone who knows a thing or two about being cut to shreds, it's him.
Take Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals between the Oilers and the San Jose Sharks.
Smyth was basically minding his business when he took a Chris Pronger clearing shot right smack in the mouth. Smyth dropped to the ice as the blood flowed from his mouth like crude flows from the Alberta oil fields.
He lost three teeth, one of them complete with the root. But it did not shock anyone when Smyth hustled off to the dressing room, had several needles shoved into his lip and gums, was stitched up and returned for the third period.
Guess who set up the winner in overtime?
People still talk about how during the playoff run by the Oilers in the spring of 2001, Smyth took 11 stitches over his left eye in Game 4 against Dallas. His face was a mess, but he was back on the left wing in overtime and set up the winning goal.
Then in Game 6 of the same series, he added nine stitches over his left ear. He missed two shifts while the stitches were applied as a national television audience in Canada and the United States watched in awe. He raced back out onto the ice with the stitches barely tied and never looked back.
There was a game against Chicago in November of 2001, when Smyth slid into the end boards while chasing down a puck. Smyth knew right away something was wrong, but he thought it was just a bad sprain. X-rays revealed a fracture. With a berth on Canada's Olympic team at stake, Smyth had surgery performed that night in an effort to speed up his recovery, and doctors inserted a steel plate and seven screws to repair the damage. Doctors predicted it would take a minimum of 10-12 weeks to recover and rehab.
Ha.
Less than seven weeks later, Smyth rejoined the Oilers and made it to Salt Lake City, where he won a gold medal as a member of Team Canada.
"It's mind over matter," explains Smyth about dealing with pain. "I don't feel the pain during the game."
"When you're hurt, you don't want to be away too long," continues Smyth, who has five goals and 14 points in 17 playoff games while averaging 22 minutes and 19 seconds of ice time per game. "That's hockey. You want to be on the ice. You want to be part of the action."
Smyth is never far from the action. His never-say-die kamikaze style of playing has earned him respect around the NHL, and he is a big reason why Edmonton is playing for hockey's Holy Grail.
"He's not much of a goalie, but I'd take 12 of him and take my chances," says Oilers coach Craig MacTavish.
Smyth is known as Captain Canada in the land of the frozen north because he has never said no to playing for his country. Smyth would have gone to Latvia for the world championships in mid-May had he not been leading the Oilers into the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1990.
He has been waiting for this ever since he first slipped an Oilers jersey over his shoulders in 1994.
"This is what you play for," says Smyth. "It's all about opportunity. You look at Calgary two years ago. It started with goaltending, and they had four solid lines and six hard defensemen to play against; and they made it all the way to Game 7 (losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning).
"That is what we wanted to do, give ourselves an opportunity and a chance, and now we have that."
The Oilers have eliminated Detroit, San Jose and Anaheim on the way to waiting to meet the winner of the Eastern Conference finals series between Carolina and Buffalo for the Stanley Cup.
"We learned a lot in the San Jose series," says Smyth.
The Oilers have gone deep into the playoffs because of a hot goalie in Dwayne Roloson and an efficient and effective group of penalty killers that include the Oilers' knight in hacked-up armor.
"We have to make sure we are on the same page, and we have been doing that," says Smyth. "Special teams are a huge part of the playoffs, and killing penalties goes a long way."
Smyth possesses little subtlety. At 6-foot-1, 195 pounds, he doesn't overpower defensemen — he jostles and frustrates them into submission. He's not the big hitter or a fighter, but he won't quit. He drives to the net as hard as anyone, and he takes heaps of abuse in the process. He's a master of rebounds and deflections, and that's why goalies hate him.
"He is great at what he does. He gets in front of the net and takes the punishment, and he gets a lot of goals that way," Ottawa defenseman Wade Redden once said. "He is strong (with) the puck, and he is hard to move."
No one can question Smyth's heart and desire.
Smyth was born in Banff, Alta., and in his early years spent almost as much time skiing in the Rocky Mountains as he did playing hockey at the local arena. He excelled at both, but there came a time when he said he had to decide between the two.
Smyth became a rink rat, and he spent every extra second he had at the Banff arena, which had its perks.
When he was 11, an edition of Team Canada that was preparing for a Canada Cup tournament was spending a few days practicing in Banff. Smyth was asked if he would like to run water and handle the sticks for the Canadian team, and from that moment on, he wanted to be like his heroes and wear Canada's jersey on his chest.
He was agog.
"That was something special," he says. "Being a young kid and a huge hockey fan, to see these stars in your hometown, it was wow."
One day, as the players left for a round of golf, Glenn Anderson put his car in reverse and accidentally ran over Smyth. But Smyth didn't make a fuss. The damage was minimal — a twisted ankle — but it was a sign of things to come.
There is no quit in Smyth, even when friends and foes try to hack him to death.
http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/story/5649516
There's no quit in Oilers' Smyth
There's a scene in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail where a knight has his body parts hacked off piece by piece by another knight wielding a big sword.
The knight stands his ground until there's little left of him by the end of the scene.
Ryan Smyth of the Edmonton Oilers is perfect for the part of the hacked up knight. If there is anyone who knows a thing or two about being cut to shreds, it's him.
Take Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals between the Oilers and the San Jose Sharks.
Smyth was basically minding his business when he took a Chris Pronger clearing shot right smack in the mouth. Smyth dropped to the ice as the blood flowed from his mouth like crude flows from the Alberta oil fields.
He lost three teeth, one of them complete with the root. But it did not shock anyone when Smyth hustled off to the dressing room, had several needles shoved into his lip and gums, was stitched up and returned for the third period.
Guess who set up the winner in overtime?
People still talk about how during the playoff run by the Oilers in the spring of 2001, Smyth took 11 stitches over his left eye in Game 4 against Dallas. His face was a mess, but he was back on the left wing in overtime and set up the winning goal.
Then in Game 6 of the same series, he added nine stitches over his left ear. He missed two shifts while the stitches were applied as a national television audience in Canada and the United States watched in awe. He raced back out onto the ice with the stitches barely tied and never looked back.
There was a game against Chicago in November of 2001, when Smyth slid into the end boards while chasing down a puck. Smyth knew right away something was wrong, but he thought it was just a bad sprain. X-rays revealed a fracture. With a berth on Canada's Olympic team at stake, Smyth had surgery performed that night in an effort to speed up his recovery, and doctors inserted a steel plate and seven screws to repair the damage. Doctors predicted it would take a minimum of 10-12 weeks to recover and rehab.
Ha.
Less than seven weeks later, Smyth rejoined the Oilers and made it to Salt Lake City, where he won a gold medal as a member of Team Canada.
"It's mind over matter," explains Smyth about dealing with pain. "I don't feel the pain during the game."
"When you're hurt, you don't want to be away too long," continues Smyth, who has five goals and 14 points in 17 playoff games while averaging 22 minutes and 19 seconds of ice time per game. "That's hockey. You want to be on the ice. You want to be part of the action."
Smyth is never far from the action. His never-say-die kamikaze style of playing has earned him respect around the NHL, and he is a big reason why Edmonton is playing for hockey's Holy Grail.
"He's not much of a goalie, but I'd take 12 of him and take my chances," says Oilers coach Craig MacTavish.
Smyth is known as Captain Canada in the land of the frozen north because he has never said no to playing for his country. Smyth would have gone to Latvia for the world championships in mid-May had he not been leading the Oilers into the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1990.
He has been waiting for this ever since he first slipped an Oilers jersey over his shoulders in 1994.
"This is what you play for," says Smyth. "It's all about opportunity. You look at Calgary two years ago. It started with goaltending, and they had four solid lines and six hard defensemen to play against; and they made it all the way to Game 7 (losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning).
"That is what we wanted to do, give ourselves an opportunity and a chance, and now we have that."
The Oilers have eliminated Detroit, San Jose and Anaheim on the way to waiting to meet the winner of the Eastern Conference finals series between Carolina and Buffalo for the Stanley Cup.
"We learned a lot in the San Jose series," says Smyth.
The Oilers have gone deep into the playoffs because of a hot goalie in Dwayne Roloson and an efficient and effective group of penalty killers that include the Oilers' knight in hacked-up armor.
"We have to make sure we are on the same page, and we have been doing that," says Smyth. "Special teams are a huge part of the playoffs, and killing penalties goes a long way."
Smyth possesses little subtlety. At 6-foot-1, 195 pounds, he doesn't overpower defensemen — he jostles and frustrates them into submission. He's not the big hitter or a fighter, but he won't quit. He drives to the net as hard as anyone, and he takes heaps of abuse in the process. He's a master of rebounds and deflections, and that's why goalies hate him.
"He is great at what he does. He gets in front of the net and takes the punishment, and he gets a lot of goals that way," Ottawa defenseman Wade Redden once said. "He is strong (with) the puck, and he is hard to move."
No one can question Smyth's heart and desire.
Smyth was born in Banff, Alta., and in his early years spent almost as much time skiing in the Rocky Mountains as he did playing hockey at the local arena. He excelled at both, but there came a time when he said he had to decide between the two.
Smyth became a rink rat, and he spent every extra second he had at the Banff arena, which had its perks.
When he was 11, an edition of Team Canada that was preparing for a Canada Cup tournament was spending a few days practicing in Banff. Smyth was asked if he would like to run water and handle the sticks for the Canadian team, and from that moment on, he wanted to be like his heroes and wear Canada's jersey on his chest.
He was agog.
"That was something special," he says. "Being a young kid and a huge hockey fan, to see these stars in your hometown, it was wow."
One day, as the players left for a round of golf, Glenn Anderson put his car in reverse and accidentally ran over Smyth. But Smyth didn't make a fuss. The damage was minimal — a twisted ankle — but it was a sign of things to come.
There is no quit in Smyth, even when friends and foes try to hack him to death.
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