No Stars, Just Talent

The National Hockey League regular season is coming to a close, and those out of the playoffs are providing frank responses as to why their teams failed to qualify. One of them is Chicago Blackhawks' centre Tyler Johnson, whose response to what went wrong (see above) is based on individual play -- at the expense of the team game.

That's my reading of it -- that skilled players have internalized the game to the point where they're playing against themselves -- lost in instantaneous risk-assessment and self-reflexive critique -- and not each other, in teams. It is an unfortunate comment, equating "simple" with "dumb", but we know what Johnson is getting at: that a team is greater than the sum of its players.

Early in the season, one of the leading contenders for the Stanley Cup was the Vegas Golden Knights, a relatively new team built from an Expansion Draft comprised of some of the NHL's best third line forwards, middle six defensemen and a selection of great but older goalies. "No stars, just talent," as Richard E. Grant's character says in Robert Altman's The Player (1992).

Against all odds, Vegas went to the finals in its first year -- one of the greatest sports underdogs of the 21st century. But Vegas being Vegas, it needed a headliner, and this year it traded some of those game changing starter parts for an emerging superstar. At the time of the trade, Vegas was high in the standings. Last night, with its superstar held pointless, Vegas failed to make the playoffs for the first time in its five year existence.