Jan Hrdina was working diligently on a new stick outside the Penguins' Southpointe locker room yesterday, trimming the butt-end, taping the blade, torching the curve.
 |
 |
|
Jan Hrdina has scored a goal in the Penguins' past five games, giving him a career-high 20 goals this season. (Matt Freed, Post-Gazette) |
It's a wonder he didn't get burned.
Not by the tools, but by the natural sizzle all his sticks are giving off these days.
"He's hot, no question," Coach Rick Kehoe said. "Everything that touches his blade seems to go in the net."
Not everything, but close to it.
In the Penguins' 12 games since the start of February, Hrdina has scored eight goals on just 19 shots. That has raised his NHL-best shooting ratio to 23 percent, having converted 20 of 87 shots for the season. He is the only player in the league to score 20 or more goals on fewer than 111 shots.
More important by far, he is flashing the finest finishing form of his career when it is most needed. With Mario Lemieux, Robert Lang and Martin Straka out of the lineup, the Penguins desperately needed a fresh face to find the net if they were to remain in the hunt for a Stanley Cup playoff berth, and Hrdina has obliged in style.
"Some guys are going to get hurt, and somebody else has to be there," he said with a mild shrug. "This is the NHL. That's how it is. Everybody here should be able to score goals."
Not at the clip Hrdina is experiencing. He has a goal in each of the past five games, two shy of the league's season-best, seven-game run by the Detroit Red Wings' Luc Robitaille in early October. Only 14 other players have had goal-scoring streaks of five games or more this season.
That has added to what already had been a career year for Hrdina, just entering his prime at 26.
He has five more goals than in any of his previous three NHL seasons, even after scoring none in the Penguins' first 10 games. He has 43 points, just three shy of his career high. He has six game-winning goals, the third-highest total in the league, including his overtime tip-in Saturday against the New York Rangers. To boot, he was stunned to be chosen for the Czech Olympic team, then spent much of the tournament on the top line.
Still, Hrdina isn't exactly the type to pat himself on the back, his nature being self-deprecating to the point he makes Woody Allen come across as an egotist.
Ask him about pretty much any topic that has to do with his play, and he will reply with the enthusiasm of a dental patient.
On his streak: "I'm kind of lucky right now. The puck goes in for me right now. Sometimes, it goes in. Sometimes, it doesn't. It happens."
On scoring to beat the Rangers: "Yeah, it was nice. It's too bad we lost that point by letting them tie us in the third, though."
On the dazzling give-and-go he worked with Alexei Kovalev to set up that goal: "To start, it wasn't a very good first pass by me because I made him go to the backhand. Then, I went to the net, and Kovy made a great pass back to me."
Reminded of a couple of these recent remarks yesterday, Hrdina managed a rare laugh. But he also flatly rejected the idea he is difficult to stir emotionally.
"I don't think that's how it is. You might be surprised. On the bench, sometimes, I yell, I slam the doors, I break the sticks. Obviously, I don't show it in front of everybody or in front of the newspaper guys. I think I'm quiet in general but not as quiet as you might think."
To be sure, Hrdina is far more outgoing, on and off the ice, than he was as Jaromir Jagr's center for most of the previous three years. He spent much of that span piling up anonymous assists, forcing the puck to Jagr with nearly every possession and seldom taking chances for himself. He scored 13, 13 and 15 goals, and he averaged only 1.16 shots per game.
That led to plenty of criticism that he was little more than Jagr's servant. And it stung.
"It was very tough. He's the best player in the world, but it's not as easy to play with him as it looks, and you have to do a lot of things to be successful. I always played to make sure my whole line was better, not just for me to score a couple of goals, and I think we did pretty well as a line. Yeah, it was tough to listen to the criticism. But every player gets that. You won't find one player in this locker room who didn't read bad stuff about himself in the newspaper."
Hrdina and Jagr remain friends, even with Jagr departed for the Washington Capitals, and Hrdina said he views their time together as an experience that built -- rather than diminished -- his confidence.
"Jaromir's the best player. And if he says he wants to play with you, it means something. How can it not? Players like Mario Lemieux or Jaromir Jagr, you want to play with them. It was a great experience for me."
|
|
| |
Player, Team |
Goals |
Shots |
Pct. |
Jan Hrdina, Penguins |
20 |
87 |
23.0 |
Adam Deadmarsh, Kings |
25 |
113 |
22.1 |
Daniel Briere, Coyotes |
26 |
118 |
22.0 |
Zigmund Palffy, Kings |
24 |
124 |
19.4 |
Mike Comrie, Oilers |
26 |
136 |
19.1 |
Mark Parrish, Islanders |
25 |
132 |
18.9 |
| | |
|
|
Even so, there is a sentiment in the Penguins' organization that Hrdina has blossomed in large part because he no longer operates in Jagr's shadow.
"Jan's always had a good shot, but he had to play a little different style with Yags," Kehoe said. "He complemented Yags in a certain way, and he did a lot of good things. Yags was winning scoring titles every year with Jan next to him, so he must have been doing good things for the guy. The difference now, I think, is that Jan is taking those opportunities to the net, going to the net hard. Before, he relied on other people or Yags to do that."
Hrdina still relies on his teammates, his pass-first mentality firmly intact despite his goal-scoring tear. But he also acknowledged the liberating feeling of generating much more on his own.
"I said before the season it would be nice to score 20 goals finally, and now I have that. I think there were a lot of reasons. Playing for my national team gave me confidence, being there with so many great Czech players. And here, when we lost some key guys, I got more ice time and got to be on the power play, so that helped me, too."
Most important, he added, is the general sense of having the puck leave that searing stick and enter the net.
"It's just about scoring goals. If you score one, you have more confidence that you're going to score another, and then that you'll keep scoring. It's a good feeling, and I like it."
He revealed a smile, as if to add emphasis.
"I'm happy. I'm very happy."
Hrdina's NHL-best shooting ratio gives Penguins a little playoff fever 
E-mail this story 
