OverDrive - Pronger on the Olympic hockey experience, the importance of leadership on teams and the key to success for playoff teams

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Hockey Hall of Famer and Stanley Cup Champion Chris Pronger joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around the NHL, the Olympics' experience and the leadership on the team, the preparation for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Maple Leafs' key to success, Alex Ovechkin's goal scoring run and more.

Go Beyond this week with Mark Saltzman's Tech Talk, Sundays at 5 p.m. on News Talk 1010, also on the iHeartRadio app, the show that makes sense of the ever-changing world of technology, and you don't need a computer degree to listen. Brought to you by the all-electric Chevrolet Equinox EV. Here's Chris Pronger joining us on the Maple Toyota Hotline. Prongs, take us through this process. Partying at the Olympic Games or at big big tournaments? What is the general rule on that? That's a great question. I think it's team to team. It varies. I've heard varying reports from different World Cups and things like that in the past. I know the US teams have gone,

you can look at it two ways. It's team building or it's gonna affect your play. And I would, in situations like this where you're throwing a bunch of players together, the quicker you can find chemistry, whatever that looks like, in whatever way you wanna manifest that, whether it's going out, whether it's staying in, whether it's din out, whether it's staying in, whether it's dinners

and whatnot. You know, I think it needs to be the total team. Everybody needs to buy into whatever you're doing so that everybody feels like they're a part of it and you can grow that camaraderie and build from within. So Prongs, is it true though that if you wanted something in an Olympic village, you could like scan your passport and get a beer out of a machine or something like that? Is that just a made up story or have you witnessed that?

I don't know. I think you needed to do something, not necessarily when we were in Vancouver, but I think over in Torino and Nagano and things like that when you're in different countries, I think you may have had to do something with your passport just to get out so that they knew you had your passport on you, not necessarily to get the beverage, more to, from a safety perspective, that you're able to get back into the complex. God forbid you lose your credentials or something, you can show your passport and be able to get back in.

You mentioned chemistry and different players coming together, prongs, and you were a leader throughout your career. But when you were a young guy on those teams, those Canada teams, what did you see from an older guy, whether it be a Mario or a different player like that, where you were like, I'm glad I saw that. That was leadership. Even in a small tournament, it might have been just something small, but did you ever see anything like that? Yeah, I think, you know, too, obviously we won, so it leaves more of a mark on you, but

how Mario was around the guys. Stevie Y, what he was doing every single day to be able to play, showing how badly he wanted to win a gold medal and what he felt like that would do for his legacy and his career and to be able to do that, you see what it means to guys and when you see that from those veteran players and guys doing whatever it takes to A, be in the lineup and then B, play at the highest level, as a young guy you're sitting there going, well I need to leave everything I got out here.

And it just elevates your play and you just, the buy-in, when you see that, it just goes to that next level. Well, and when you were on the other side of it by 2010, I'm sure Drew Doughty was like, all right, there's Chris Pronger, there's Scott Niedemeyer watching you. Did you feel like, man, I'm getting old here and I got to be a real leader and I got to show them how it's done or what? Well, yes and no.

He did miss the boss in the last game. Really? I love that. I don't know if that's the leader's fault or if he's just dumb but uh i was on the first bus so i needed to get down and warm up these old bones and he said he was going to be on the second bus

and he may have slept in a little further and needed to come into the building with some of the fans as they filed into uh... gm place at the time so that must be a hellish feeling that it's just the all of the last game and you slayers and like most of all that's a period and by the way this just goes to his mentality and how is it outlook on life

he was he didn't even seem rattled he just said we'll figure it out I'll get in there and clearly it didn't affect his play because he played great that game and he got in just in a nick of time as we started our I guess if the game was a to our 1030 meeting interesting oh yeah that is their fans he got out of the taxi cab and the fans are looking at him like um... i'm coming to watch you play like what are you doing here uh... i was getting ready to go in gold it's a little more minutes at night sir

o'hara and all he did yeah i'll give all night for him all good so prongs uh... you're going into i i don't know if you remember i'm sure you remember uh remember vividly how you guys won and everything, but was anything said in between periods heading into overtime? Were there leaders that stood up and made comments? Was there a lot of anxiety?

Maybe take us in the room heading into overtime and potentially some of the leaders that kind of showed the way. Yeah, you know, Scotty was the first one to stand up and speak and just, you know, as only Scotty can, very casual, matter of fact, low stress. And then I stood up and I'm just like, guys, we have this game in hand, we've been dominating the game. And just more to kind of call the emotions and calm everybody down. They score with a minute left to tie the game and send it to overtime and that can rattle some players. But you've got a group of Stanley Cup winners and soon to be Stanley Cup winners on that

team. They knew the magnitude of the situation and what was at hand obviously going into overtime in the gold medal match but uh... you know i i i i think about looking around the room and looking at guys in the eye and and seeing their faces by i didn't see anybody anxious or nervous or you know i think i've understood what we needed to do we needed to go and execute and and we're going to be

that's exactly what happened. We were chatting with Chris Pronger. In terms of the NHL schedule leading up to the Four Nations faceoff, we have found ourselves on the show doing a lot of scoreboard watching recently. I'm curious if you had an internal clock through your playing days where maybe you hit February 1st or you get closer to the All-star break or trade deadline or whatever where you realize, okay, it's time to ramp up and the cream of the crop will show who they are and the teams that aren't, they're going to fade. Was it around this time in the schedule?

How did you generally react to the standings and watching it and planning for the playoffs? Yeah, take the four nations aside aside usually mid-february two months left uh... give or take and and normally by this part of the season you're playing every other night there's typically around thirty-ish games left so you're you're well past the halfway mark getting close to the

two-thirds mark and and your you're now in that fast-breakestretch where Every other night, you know good people are moving up and down in the playoff race You're solidifying your spot. You're creating some gap and some distance between those that are chasing you It can it can be very interesting, but it's also and then you're prepping for the playoffs You're trying to wrap up and what little time they do practice now I'm sure they're working on certain things that they know they need to be prepared for in the playoffs and you know whether you're Edmonton or Florida

or some of the teams that have been to the very end at the end of the year they're looking at what they did or didn't do well and working on you know the coaches are kind of trying to get ahead of themselves on the pre-scouts and things like that and working on systems that they may want to implement. It can be a taxing time of year but it's the most exciting time of year and one that everybody looks forward to. How would you guess that Craig Barube is trying to prep his team for playoffs, something that they ultimately prongsongs, haven't had success at in the past.

Like, would it be the small details or is it just basically telling the best players that you need to elevate and play better? Like, how do you think he would be going about the preparation for playoffs? Yeah, I think he would be, you know, with it being his first year, he's looking at what he has and probably the first 20 games or so, he's feeling out roles and who's excelling, who's not, what he can do from a coaching standpoint to try to elevate their play and put them in situations to be successful. And then from there, looking at their systems and trying to figure out from a system standpoint

how the players fit into that system. It's much easier for the coach to tweak the system to the players than it is for the players to change everything and have 20 guys change it up and go to a system. So I don't think they're trying to reinvent themselves so to speak, but it's the way in which you're going to utilize players is the way he's going to push their buttons. He's going to know whether they like to be poked and prodded, whether they like to be coddled, whether they like to be left alone. Everybody's different. Everybody handles it in their own certain way and and i think he's gonna have to do something differently because it is that it hasn't worked today and and they're getting they they've got some questions in the off season this might be their last time with this

you know big five or big six are we want to call it and and they need to do you'll put a stamp on this so that it's uh... uh... you know a successful start to his coaching tenure. So Prongs, you played with a lot of high skilled guys that may not have been as physical, may not have been as engaged in the regular season or shied away from certain situations, but then you would see them elevate in the playoffs. What would you need to see from some of these players and i'm talking throughout the league not just specifically about the toronto maybeliefs but

you know you've been to the finals you've won a cup when you see players that are more tuned to just playing a skill game what do you need to see from them to get them over the hump or do you know that they're engaged in deep in the playoffs yeah i i think sometimes people sometimes people get a little mystified with the term tough and and for me tough is more how hard are they on pucks? How are they able to really you know come out with loose pox? You know dig it's not about how hard you can hit somebody it's just getting in the way. It's

sacrificing your body for your teammate taking it to make a play to get the puck out, the blue lines become so important in the playoffs, all these little things that we talk about, showing your teammates how bad you want it. And that, if you're not one of those guys that's typically done that and now you're willing to do it, that just elevates everybody else. Like, oh my God, look what he's doing. I need to do it, that just elevates everybody else like, Oh my God, look what he's doing. I need to do that. And it just picks everybody up and, and they're,

they're able to get to another level that they need. They haven't been able to get there yet. And I think that's something that they can really focus on. That's going to get total buy-in from everybody, quality, goaltending sound defensive play. And frankly, to be honest, they need to get timely goal scoring, which they have not had in the playoffs. Yeah, that is 100% true. That is what is always perplexing, is specifically the Leafs, Matthews, Nylander, Marner, these

guys are uber. I mean, Matthews is the best goal scorer in the world. The regular season, he's been the best five on five everything and come playoff time it just it's not it hasn't been there and they're in their ninth season. Now having said that when you look around the league typically what happens is the top two lines cancel each other out. It's the bottom six are they able to provide some offense you know and and years past, if we're talking about Toronto, their big guys haven't scored, so the top six on the other team has dominated them.

So there's a couple ways to look at it and how the top six and bottom six perform offensively. And if they are struggling, then they need to pitch a shutout and they need to really lock in defensively. And what are they willing to do to make that the focal point and buy in and get are they willing to do to make that the focal point and buy in and get everybody on board to do that because some games

you're going to win 2-1 other games they might be 5-4 and you might be feeling better you might find a hole or what have you and you need to be able to bounce around a little bit and and figure out which style of play you want to use on any given night depending upon You know power plays and whatnot. We know those are tight. You typically don't get a lot of those so You know as as the game progresses or the series progresses, you never know what you're gonna need With Chris Pronger So we were talking a couple weeks ago about how Alex Ovechkin had sent a new record for the amount of goalies

He had scored on and, he got you twice? I think? No, just once. He only got you once. I only played against him once. Okay, you won't say that. Oh, you played against him for a couple years. And Chris, you would have played against him a lot.

Do you have any stories of Ovi? Is there a defense? Is there equivalent of a goalie getting got, quote unquotequote by a Forward in the same vein in terms of defense like any moments You can remember playing over you were like man look at this guy or look what he just did Yeah early in his career, you know being on being in Anaheim I didn't get an opportunity to play against it very much And he was still very young and kind of coming in coming into his own when I got to Philly a little bit more You know by that point, you know, some of these highlight real goals have already been scored and kind of coming into his own. When I got to Philly a little bit more,

by that point some of these highlight real goals have already been scored. And so it's just a matter of not biting on anything and knowing he's either gonna wanna shoot through you when you've talked your goalie beforehand on the power play. This is what I'm trying to do, where I'm trying to make him shoot towards so that you know where to look and you know where to stand

and just conversations like that so that you understand he's gonna get a shot off, he's gonna get his looks. And it's just a matter of you making him miss the net or you making him hit the goalie. Right, and the guys, he's chasing Gretzky and like these empty netters, man. Every night he's sneaking one in and he snuck one in last night, but they all count.

I love seeing them, man. It bothers some people, but I love it. listen, I mean, are we going to go back and look at how many Gretzky got? He got a ton of empty netters too. Yep, he had a lot. He had a lot. Pavel Biry, Pavel Biry, I was told Pavel Biry would hit his grandmother head first of the boards to get an empty netter. That's what I was told. Ray Whitney told me that. I was like, what's it like playing? No, no, he screwed up the sentence sentence for a breakaway he would do it for a breakaway uh... uh...

uh... back i remember watching him from the bench one time in florida and i just i remember saying to myself i would love that routine he'd literally walked to the blue line and then stood there. But the thing was, if he got a breakaway, he was going to score. So it was like that was his way of doing business. It was crazy to watch though. Yeah, he, uh, yeah. And you know what? I have no problem with him getting these empty errors. I mean, listen, it's part of the game. And you know, what I, what I would say though

is as we get, you know, we talked about earlier, as we do get closer to the playoffs and these games become more and more meaningful, is he going to be out there or is he going to be cheating for these empty netters and they go the other way and score and now it's a tie game. It creates a little bit of an issue at times with how they're defending with him looking to get these extra cookies. Oh yeah, he's got his foot over the boards man. The goalie gets pulled, he gets going on the ice.

He's like Reg Dunlop, he's yelling for guys to get off the ice. You're off and I'm going on. I love it. Alright Chris, we'll leave it there. We appreciate you doing this as always. My pleasure, thanks guys. There he is, Chris Prong'll leave it there. We appreciate you doing this as always. My pleasure. Thanks, guys. There he is, Chris Pronger joining us here on the Maple Toyota Hotline.