Kesler quiets Winnipeg crowd as Ducks sweep Jets out of playoffs
There were no chants of "Kesler sucks" Wednesday night at the MTS Centre, but make no mistake, the Anaheim Ducks' centerman will haunt the dreams of Manitoba hockey fans for days to come.
The most-hated hockey player in Canada put a premature end to the Winnipeg Jets' Stanley Cup Playoff, scoring twice to lead the Ducks to a 5-2 win in Game 4. It completed the sweep, and completed a team transformation of sorts.
Throughout nearly the entirety of last season, Anaheim general manager Bob Murray chased the former Vancouver captain. Kesler's grit, competitiveness and knack for scoring big goals in big moments had Murray wooing him until the day of the draft last summer when he finally agreed to part ways with two of the organization's best young talents in exchange for one of the fiercest centers in the league.
His three goals, five playoff points and that 1-2 punch up the middle behind center Ryan Getzlaf is very close to what the club envisioned that fateful day last June.
"It was pretty impressive, the last two games in this building, the way he played," Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau said. "That is why Bob chased him and knew, it wasn't a surprise what he was getting. He knew what he was getting. Especially the last two games - and all four games - but especially the last two, he was above and beyond."
Kesler is a different breed. He's out for blood in every practice, every faceoff and every game.
Where many players might try and feed off of such a fervent crowd or at least try to take it in, Kesler wanted that crowd silent, to render that home-ice advantage useless.
"Amazing," he said. "Especially when they're heckling me. Obviously, we wanted to silence the crowd tonight and that's what we did... It energizes me. You hear it, it's great. Obviously, I'm doing something good out there. I fed off it and it helped my game."
But that breed was exactly what the Ducks needed in order to develop more of a killer instinct.
Many of the talking heads and so-called "experts" had Anaheim as a one-and-done. A No. 1 seed isn't typically an underdog, but the Ducks don't trend up when it comes to the fancy stats and were called soft in the postseason.
But the addition of Kesler gave the team a new look. Players like Simon Despres and Tomas Fleischmann, added at the trade deadline, essentially helped harden that demeanor.
"Everyone has that kind of demeanor this year," said Ducks' goaltender Frederik Andersen. "We've got to put them away when we can and that's the bottom line."
The Jets were thought to be put away early in the third period when Kesler knocked in rebound off of a Despres backhander, putting the Ducks up 3-1. But less than four minutes later, Mark Stuart scored and put the crowd back into the game.
The fans, stacked all the way up to the rafters, were suddenly reinvigorated by new hope. For a full TV timeout they chanted "go Jets go", waving their flags in cadence. For a few moments, it looked as though the aura of the crowd and the building might take over.
But yet again, it was Kesler who went high over goaltender Ondrej Pavelec on a 2-on-1, taking away all hope.
"That was a huge goal, right after they scored to get the crowd back into it," Andersen said. "It kind of felt like maybe they could have a comeback, but for him to come up with a huge goal like that, it's big at the right time."
The Ducks move on to the second round for the second-straight year and did so in dominating fashion. This is almost what Murray, the club and even Kesler himself envisioned during that long courtship last year.
Almost.
"We didn't come here to win one series," he said. "We came here for the whole thing."
