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| Jack McCaffery , Times Sports Columnist | 05/12/2004 |
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| Jack McCaffery: Esche is just keeping the scorers in check |
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Whether it be the Super Bowl or a high school football game, any pitching matchup or basketball tournament, a good fight or, quite recently, the standard series-to-series looks at the Stanley Cup playoffs, it works, even if more visually than purely analytically. It’s the check-mark graphic, that ever-popular classic that reduces even the most complex sports handicapping to a quick read, applying instant approval to one quarterback or the other, one coach or the other or one team or the other through a basic check mark, and not often much more. You have seen it everywhere, three times already, in fact, in this now-serious run the Flyers are making toward the Stanley Cup. To refresh, it is the one Robert Esche is never permitted to win. Remember the first series, and the goaltender matchup? Martin Brodeur vs. Esche: Check to Brodeur. Round 2? Eddie Belfour vs. Esche: Check and double check to Belfour. And now, Round 3, the Eastern Conference finals -- Nikolai Khabibulin vs. Esche: Check to Goaltender K, and that’s tic-tac-toe. OK, instance by instance, it is difficult to quarrel. Brodeur is the goaltender of his generation, a three-time Stanley Cup champion. Belfour, too, is a Hall of Fame caliber keeper, his name also engraved on the Cup. And even while Khabibulin has yet to prove much more in a postseason than, say, a Roman Cechmanek, he was more experienced than Esche and indeed had been performing brilliantly in the raging 2004 tournament. Basically, then, the take-out package was delivered as ordered -- hold the check marks on Robert Esche. Yet with anything so quickly arranged, there is the danger that it might be hard to digest. And two series and two games into the playoffs, it indeed is difficult to swallow that, for once, the Flyers actually are presenting the better goaltending, on a night-to-night basis. Surprise? Not to Ken Hitchcock, but then again, maybe that’s why he always does have the check next to his name. "We always knew that he had athleticism and competitiveness," said the Flyers’ coach of Esche. "It just needed to be channeled into the right areas. We knew what kind of athlete he was and what we knew how competitive he was. But we needed to just have his focus channeled in the right competitive areas. He had a tendency at times to check, to want to act out being the tough guy. And we need him just to stop the puck and to focus in those areas. And he’s done that this year. "He’s had tremendous focus and that’s why he has been so good." Along that theme of fast-food sports analysis, "focus" is like the little packages of salt that come in the bottom of every bag. Yet in the case of Esche, and how he has helped the Flyers move within seven victories of Stanley Cup III, it is not something to toss away. Rather, it has become the best literal explanation for why he is still playing and Brodeur and Belfour are not, and why, in fact, Khabibulin wasn’t playing in the third period of Game 2 in Tampa, a 6-2 Flyers victory. Said to be a little ticked that before the playoffs he was reported to seem nervous -- not that his supervisors helped, waiting until 24 hours after the regular season to officially name him, not Sean Burke, the playoff goaltender -- Esche has turned steely eyed. Rarely does he say much in public, other than after games, and even then, he guards his words the way he does the short side. Known to frequent sports psychologists (a standard motivational service of the comprehensive big-league franchise, not an indication that he needs reveal his dreams to a bearded man brandishing a straitjacket), Esche clearly has learned to avoid distractions. That he has learned how to avoid on-ice disaster, then, hardly can be considered a coincidence. With the Flyers all but required to win Game 2 to preserve their most sincere championship thoughts, there was the possibility that they could melt down, as they have, to be brutally honest, every spring since 19-bloody-76. And to be even more honest, the meltdown too often began with the goaltender. Yet, there was Esche, spectacular early, at one point making a save -- yes -- standing on his head. Meanwhile, Khabibulin was playing the kind of defense that makes Larry Brown want to quit basketball coaching at least once a week. Simply, in the Flyers’ most important game, they presented the most impressive goaltending. OK, Robert, explain, please. "I’m not a guy that talks that much on how we play the game and stuff like that," he said, to the utter irritation of an international hockey press. "I just kind of, you know, worry about what I’ve got to do. Sorry." Whatever. Besides, it’s just about this time every year that a Flyers goaltender needs to apologize, so it’s nice to know that some things do not change, even while others might. And what is changing is that this year the Flyers have a goaltender who, when it matters most, saves his concentration for stopping the puck. So he doesn’t say much. Cechmanek said too much, sometimes at center ice, on TV. At least Robert Esche wins games, and perhaps more. But has anyone noticed? Check back next round and see. To contact Jack McCaffery, e-mail sports@delcotimes.com.
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