Anaheim, Calif.
Teemu Selanne took the pass from Chris Kunitz, put on a final burst of speed to get clear of mobile Avalanche defenseman Brett Clark, and lifted the backhander past Jose Theodore for the goal that gave Anaheim a 3-0 lead Friday night.
Didn’t that look familiar?
Of course it didn’t.
At least if the comparison is limited to Selanne’s 2003-04 season with the Avalanche, it was the type of eye-popping play Colorado didn’t get to see from him.
“That was a good example of when the tools are working, when you’re healthy and you can use your speed,” Selanne said after the Mighty Ducks had finished off the 5-0 Game 1 rout of the Avalanche at the Arrowhead Pond.
At age 35 and in his second tenure with Anaheim, Selanne again deserves to be called the Finnish Flash. That’s one of the reasons the Mighty Ducks had a renaissance season and now need only three more victories to advance to the Western Conference finals.
Friday morning, Selanne finally let us in on the secret.
“It was my twin brother who played that year,” he said of his 16-goal season with Colorado.
Teemu really does have a twin brother, Panu, a schoolteacher. But he was kidding about Panu being in the Avalanche sweater. I’m pretty sure, anyway.
When Selanne and buddy Paul Kariya put themselves on the market as a two-man buddy act, and they signed one-year deals with Colorado for what then were bargain salaries, it stunned the rest of the league’s teams.
Put them on a line with Joe Sakic, another client of Selanne and Kariya agent Don Baizley, and watch them put up numbers that in the clogged-up NHL of 2003-04 would seem, well, an avalanche.
Turned out, the rest of the league had little to worry about.
Kariya was hurt much of the season, and listless when he played. Selanne looked overweight and suddenly over-the-hill, with dead legs and stone hands. It didn’t help that he and Avalanche coach Tony Granato weren’t members of a mutual admiration society, despite – or perhaps because of – their status as former teammates. Though he played in all but four games, Selanne’s role was limited, and even when Kariya was healthy, Granato didn’t give a Kariya-Sakic-Selanne enough of a chance.
“There were many reasons, but the knee obviously was the biggest one,” Selanne said of his terrible season. “It could have been a dream come true. But life goes on.”
It wasn’t any secret Selanne’s knee was giving him problems in Colorado, but in retrospect, it was amazing he made it through the entire season, playing 78 games. He underwent major surgery after the season, rehabilitated during the lockout, signed with Anaheim, and returned a new man. The rejuvenated knee helped him rediscover his touch, given the intertwined nature of hockey skills.
He looked more like the Selanne who had 76 goals as a rookie with Winnipeg in 1992-93 than the Selanne who flopped with the Avalanche.
“The best challenge for an athlete, when you start to get to the mid-30s and played the number of games he’s played at world championships and Olympics and whatnot, is to be able to refresh your body and your soul,” said Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle, Selanne’s teammate at Winnipeg. “The lockout was an exclamation point for him to make a decision on whether he wanted to play. He made a huge commitment as far as reconstructing his knee and the workout regime that he took upon himself.”
His goal against the Avalanche was his fourth of the playoffs, and came on a night when Colorado reverted to disorganized and sloppy play in its own end in front of Theodore, who certainly wasn’t the problem. For whatever reason, the Avs were awful after having four days off following the series-closing victory last Sunday in Dallas, and the Ducks remained on a roll after winning Game 7 in Calgary on Wednesday.
“This was carry-over from there,” Selanne said. “Sometimes I think it’s good that you don’t have so much time to think about the next series. We just jumped in right away, and I think we played really solid. On the other hand, too, I don’t think they played very well. It’s going to get tougher.”
He meant that as a compliment. The Avs can’t be that bad again, unless this was a sign that evil twins have kidnapped their siblings and stepped into their Colorado sweaters.
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
