He is, for some inexplicable reason, the poster boy for the new National Hockey League — Rod (The Bod) Brind'Amour, captain of the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes who, in his 17th season, is on pace to shatter all of his personal scoring bests.
Just about every trend that we've seen so far this season is embodied in both Brind'Amour's stats and in his play.
It is a special-teams game: Brind'Amour has 11 of his 31 points with the man advantage.
It is a puck possession game: Brind'Amour is one of the league's pre-eminent face-off men — and earlier this month, he won 20 or more face-offs in three straight games, making him the first player to turn the trick since he did it himself back in January, 2002.
It is a game decided by the stars - and with fewer and fewer on every team, it means the ice time of the top players is going up, up, up. Gone are the days when the Mats Sundins of the world would play less than 20 minute per night to stay fresh. TV timeouts do that for them. Brind'Amour signed a new five-year contract with the Hurricanes in the off-season and they're trying to get their money's worth. Tampa's Martin St. Louis may lead the NHL's forwards in ice time, with 24:12 per night, but Brind'Amour is right behind him at 23:46, about 90 seconds per night more his career average of 22:16 which was high anyway, by a forward's usual standards.
Brind'Amour, who scored his 600th career assist in October and his 1,000th career point in November, was at something of a loss to explain his renaissance, and says: "I'm not a better player, but I like to think I'm a little bit smarter and a little bit more experienced. If I had one thing to say that's the difference, it's just that I'm playing with good players.
"I've been put in a situation where it's a lot easier to succeed."
As the NHL reaches the one-quarter mark of the season this week, Brind'Amour is also at the forefront of the other significant trend: The rise of the golden oldies. There was a thought that the new NHL, with its emphasis on speed, skating and creativity, would act as a graveyard for a particular type of player — 30somethings, with average wheels and a lot of miles on the odometer. It did for some (where have you gone Doug Weight?), but not for others.
Coming into the new season, Brind'Amour would have had every right to suffer through a Stanley Cup hangover. He is, after all, 36; and one of only three players from the draft class of '88 still around in a meaningful way (Mike Modano and Jeremy Roenick are the others). As Roenick fades and Modano hangs in at a lesser level, Brind'Amour was tied with the Atlanta Thrashers' Marian Hossa for second spot in the NHL scoring race, behind the Rangers' Jaromir Jagr.
At this rate — 30 points in 22 games — Brind'Amour will shatter his career of 97 points, set with the 1993-94 Philadelphia Flyers. Last year, Brind'Amour won the first major award of his career, when he took home the Selke as the league's top defensive forward. If this keeps up, he will be in line for the Hart trophy as the league's MVP as well. Honorable mentions also go to the Rangers' Brendan Shanahan and Jagr; and the Thrashers' Slava Kozlov and yes, even to the much-maligned Alexei Yashin, who is finding new life on Long Island under Ted Nolan.
Other interesting signs of the first-quarter times:
1. New kids on the block: Following last year's extraordinary rookie crop that saw perhaps half-a-dozen future stars (including Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Dion Phaneuf, Tomas Vanek and Milan Michalek) all make their NHL debuts, it was thought that this year's Calder race would be duller and less exciting. It may be impossible hard to top the extraordinary class of '06, but guess what: With Evgeni Malkin, Anze Kopitar, Paul Stastny and Matt Carle leading the way, the newest NHL rookies are a fairly accomplished group in their own right. Malkin certainly shows signs of being a dominant player for years to come; Kopitar is big and skilled; Stastny looks like a player; and Carle has a bit of Brian Leetch quality about him. And if that isn't enough, consider that the top 20 in scoring right now includes six second- or third-year NHLers, a sign that youth will be served … and served in a hurry.
2. Right place, right time: Chris Pronger, Dominik Hasek, Eric Lindros and Jason Arnott are all flourishing in their new NHL homes.
3. Wrong place, wrong time: Mark Bell, Martin Gerber, Marc Denis and Anson Carter are all struggling to adjust to theirs.
4. Hard-luck player of the year: Chicago's Martin Havlat, who scored 13 points in his first seven games for the Blackhawks and then suffered a high ankle sprain that was supposed to keep him out for two-to-three weeks. That happened Oct. 20 in Dallas. Havlat is still two weeks away from returning and in the immediate aftermath of his injury, the Blackhawks went weeks without a victory.
5. Surprise, surprise: After years of indifferent, lackadaisical play, the Islanders' Yashin is finally showing a pulse.
6. And finally, whatever happened to: Eric Brewer, Adrian Aucoin, Fernando Pisani and Jose Theodore? Shouldn't they all be doing more than they are at the moment?
