Peter Forsberg sandbagged us.
He said both his chronically troublesome foot and conditioning were bad, so not to expect much in the Friday night Avalanche-Red Wings alumni game at Coors Field.
In the Avalanche’s 5-2 win later, Forsberg, at 42, two years younger than Florida’s Jaromir Jagr, actually showed enough flashes, enough hints, to trigger flashbacks to when — even on a star-studded roster and working against other elite players — he could take games over, most notably in his Hart Trophy 2002-03 season.
“It was fantastic just to be out there,” he said. “Unbelievable. I never thought it was going to be like this. The real game is (Saturday), and I hadn’t imagined that there was going to be this many people. I was sitting on the bench looking around, first at my teammates and then all around. Not a whole lot of people get to experience this.”
The opening goal of the game also was a flashback to when Valeri Kamensky, Forsberg and Claude Lemieux were linemates.
“I got a nice pass from Lemieux and I got to dish it to Kamensky, and we got the win, so you couldn’t beat that,” Forsberg said.
Nearby in the clubhouse for the Colorado Rockies — the baseball team, not the hockey team — Forsberg’s teammates also were winding down from the on-ice experience.
“It took awhile before we could start feeling the energy and hearing the noise,” said Lemieux. “It was great, the temperature was perfect. Nobody wants to be embarrassed, and they played us hard and it could have been 4-0 or 5-0 early, and (Patrick Roy) played amazing, like old days.”
Said winger Mike Keane: “I played alumni games at Boston and Montreal, and just like this one, it’s fun, then it gets a little more competitive and a little more competitive and then you don’t want to lose. They were the same way, too.”
Every time I see Keane, I’m reminded of when he stood at a stall in the visiting dressing room in Joe Louis Arena on March 26, 1997, and to wave after wave of media members accused the Red Wings of being “gutless” for waiting for a home game to attempt to exact revenge on Lemieux for his hit on Kris Draper in Game 6 of the 1996 Western Conference finals.
Keane, now an assistant director of player development for the Winnipeg Jets, laughed when I told him that.
“It’s all behind,” he said. “You still have a healthy respect, but back in the late ’90s, you had a healthy dislike for each other. … But now you see a lot of each other — they’re in the business, in development or scouting — and bump into each other at rinks. That was a long time ago, so it’s all good.”
In fact, there were so many NHL team employees playing in the game, I wonder if conversations in Denver on Thursday or Friday might come into play leading up to the Monday trading deadline. Among them were (Avs general manager) Joe Sakic, Roy, Craig Billington (Avalanche assistant GM), Rob Blake (Kings assistant GM), Brendan Shanahan (Maple Leafs president) and Steve Yzerman (Lightning GM).
Nathan MacKinnon’s Halifax Mooseheads linemate Jonathan Drouin still is suspended and sitting around after refusing to continue playing for the Lightning’s AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch. Roy’s QMJHL experience again could come into play there, since the Mooseheads — with Drouin scoring the deciding goal — knocked off the Roy-coached Quebec Remparts in the league finals in 2013. MacKinnon went first overall and Drouin third in the 2013 draft.
TFrei: tfrei@denverpost.com or @TFrei
Spotlight on …
Adam Deadmarsh, former Avalanche forward
When: Deadmarsh acted as the coach for the Avalanche alumni Friday night at Coors Field.
What’s up: Because of concussion issues, Deadmarsh’s career ended prematurely. When he played his last game in December 2002, he was only 27. He was in the NHL for nine seasons, including six and part of a seventh with Colorado before he went to Los Angeles as part of the Rob Blake trade in early 2001. After spending a stint with the Avalanche as a video coach, he is back living in Idaho.
Background: “I’m doing OK,” Deadmarsh said Friday. “It’s a bit of an ongoing battle for me. It’s something I have lived with and learned to deal with. There are some days I don’t feel great, but I’ve learned over the years how to kind of manage any kind of symptoms I have and get through the day. I have a very supportive family and friends.”
Deadmarsh’s concussion issues seemed to start after he was hit in a November 2000 fight against Canucks defenseman Ed Jovanovski. They went at it again seven weeks later when Deadmarsh drew an instigator minor and fought as a matter of honor.
Deadmarsh said he didn’t regret fighting Jovanovski.
“Listen, anyone can get hit hard, and he’s a big, tough guy,” Deadmarsh said. “I think it’s bound to happen sooner or later. I don’t regret the way I played. That came with the territory.”
Deadmarsh isn’t part of a concussion lawsuit filed by former players against the NHL.
Frei’s take: Sorry, Peyton. When I think of No. 18, I think of Deadmarsh — a real warrior on the ice. Since Deadmarsh, by the way, wearing that number for the Avalanche has been like being a drummer for Spinal Tap — it hasn’t gone well, and the stints have been short. Chris Drury and Alex Tanguay switched to that number and were traded, and the track record for others hasn’t been good, either.