Steve Christilaw: CV’s Tyler Johnson a rising NHL star
Someone recently sent me a video of a bear playing ice hockey.
It was a real bear wearing real ice skates and carrying a real hockey stick. Whoever has the job of lacing a pair of hockey skates on a bear has my vote for being the bravest person on Earth.
Somehow they got the bear into a hockey sweater and strapped on a helmet that was a couple of dozen sizes too small and obviously annoyed the bear.
And before you ask, no, I did not think it was video from my first rookie league game at Ice-A-Rena. For one thing, the bear skates faster than I did but my stickhandling was marginally better.
You don’t see a bear on ice skates every day, thankfully, and I’m trying to get it out of my memory – in deference to the bear.
But there’s another Bear on ice that keeps thrilling the hockey world.
Central Valley graduate Tyler Johnson continues to amaze his way through the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
We’ve talked about this before: On the list of great hockey towns, Tampa will never crack the Top 10 list. In fact, there’s a good bet that the list makers would need a reminder that Tampa even has an NHL franchise.
But our favorite skating former Bear may just change all that, because Johnson is the current favorite to win the coveted Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Already in this playoff season Johnson has posted four multiple-goal games – the first to manage that since 2003. More impressive than that is the fact that all four of those multi-goal games come with Tampa Bay trailing in the series.
Monday night’s clutch performance was a hat trick – the first in the playoffs by a Lightning skater – against the New York Rangers to even their Eastern Conference playoff series at 1-1.
Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said afterward that “the bigger the game, the better he plays. It’s unreal to watch. He put the team on his back and we all followed.”
Even at that, the coach was underplaying how big Johnson was in that game.
With the game scoreless in the first period, Tampa Bay committed a pair of silly penalties and found itself facing a five-on-three situation against the Rangers’ power play in one of the game’s storied venues: Madison Square Garden.
The Rangers’ Marty St. Louis, arguably the greatest player in Lightning history and Johnson’s line mate last year before a trade to New York, saw the puck bounce off his skate in the middle of the Tampa Bay end. Johnson pounced on the loose puck and hit the gas, racing up ice with St. Louis on his heels, tucking it past Rangers’ goalie Henrik Lundqvist a split second before St. Louis knocked the goal from its mooring for the short-handed goal.
He added an even-strength goal and a power play goal for the hat trick.
The former Spokane Chief is listed at a generous 5-feet-8, and his size – or lack thereof – is the reason why all 30 NHL teams overlooked Johnson in his draft year. Tampa Bay signed him as a free agent and to say he has exceeded expectations would be a gigantic understatement.
Anyone who ever watched Johnson during his Chiefs days knows just how tough the 24-year-old is – I once interviewed him after he took a vicious crosscheck to his face. His face was beyond bruised and was obviously painful, but all he wanted to talk about was getting back on the ice and rejoining his teammates.
Pittsburgh star Sidney Crosby scored 15 playoff goals in 2009, the most in the past decade. With 11 goals, Johnson is on pace to eclipse that mark.
USA Today noted that Johnson wasn’t on anyone’s radar when the 2014 Olympic team was chosen, but could easily be the top center picked for the U.S. team that will compete for the 2016 World Cup of hockey.
“You walk into that kid’s house and you look at the trophy mantle and all you see is trophies of where this kid has won,” Cooper said. “Memorial Cup. Calder Cup. World Juniors. Winning follows this kid. You’re a special player for that to happen.”
He now has his sights set on raising Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Bet against him at your own risk.