You wouldn’t have been able to tell that by Ben Holmstrom’s approach.
Just before the buzzer to end the second period in front of a record crowd at Time Warner Cable Arena on Saturday night, Holmstrom dove to block a shot, immediately appeared to be in considerable pain and needed assistance to leave the ice while appreciative teammates tapped their sticks.
Somewhat surprisingly, he took the opening faceoff to start the third period of that game and was back at it for Sunday afternoon’s equally low-stakes rematch. He would have made it through, too, if not for one final knock to his injured leg, one suffered when he again extended it to block a shot with one minute remaining in a one-goal game, that ended his season one week early.
“It didn’t feel good on Sunday at all but I still tried to play, then I felt it completely break on the last shift when I was just standing in front of the net there,” he said. “That’s kind of the cherry on the top of the season.”
They were both key plays in games that were anything but.
What would seem like insanity to most people is just hockey for Holmstom, the Checkers’ 28-year-old alternate captain who is set to enter unrestricted free agency this summer. As he hobbles home to Colorado on crutches, he did not seem to have regrets with the way he handled that injury.
The effort did not go unnoticed by his coach at the time, Jeff Daniels, and Carolina Hurricanes management that attended his end-of-season exit interview. Nor did his approach to another gruesome injury that took place on Halloween, just the team’s third home game of the season.
“If you look back to his shoulder injury, he was only out for four weeks and came back and played,” said Daniels. “Some guys would have been six weeks and some guys would have shut it down. Playing this game you’re going to get some bumps and bruises and you’ve got to play through pain. He showed that he’s willing to do that.”
That’s the kind of impression the undrafted veteran of the Philadelphia Flyers’ system was hoping to make in the only year of his contract with a new organization. As a member of a small, more experienced leadership group on an otherwise young group of Checkers, he undoubtedly made an impression on his teammates.
“He mentioned in his meeting he wants to be a good example for the young guys,” said Daniels. “It’s good to see character guys that are willing to put their body on the line. That’s the stuff you hope they can learn from.”
Of the Checkers’ three captains to start the season, Holmstrom, who wore the “C” in junior hockey with USHL Sioux Falls, in college with UMass-Lowell and again in the AHL with the Adirondack Phantoms, was the only one to play more than 30 games. Captain Michal Jordan ended up spending the bulk of the season in the NHL with Carolina, while fellow alternate Greg Nemisz suffered a season-ending knee injury in early December.
As such, he had a more experienced perspective than most on the team’s struggles throughout the season.
“It made me feel old,” he said, laughing, before getting to the point.
“I’ve been in this league for five years now and the biggest thing is just being consistent. You look at the teams at the top, they find ways to win games even when they’re not playing well. We had a lot of games early that were one-goal games or losses right at the end. When you’ve got guys that have played a little bit they’re a little more calm in those situations and find ways to win. Unfortunately this year was just growing pains.”
While learning on the fly may not have been ideal, Daniels praised the leadership of Holmstrom, along with that of Kyle Hagel and Chad LaRose, the team’s other alternate captains by season’s end, in helping the team through the tough times, especially those near the beginning of the season.
“We buckled down early,” said Holmstrom of those efforts. “We kept bringing guys along and kept being positive, which is easier said than done at times. I’ve been on teams where it has gotten ugly fast like that but we did a good job as a team of holding it together and staying with it. It made it so you’re at least having fun and things didn’t completely get sideways.
“I can only remember three or four games off the top of my head when we weren’t really in them and a couple of those games were late when the season was a little bit out of reach. When we were in the middle of it, games were tight and we were in them all the time. We just didn’t find a way to pull those one-goal games off.”
As for the potential of helping a young team take the next step next season, Holmstrom’s future remains up in the air until the team makes a decision on trying to bring him back or letting him depart via free agency. With the other members of the senior leadership group also without contracts for next season, it will either have to be him or someone similar, much in the same way Holmstrom was sought as someone comparable Brett Sutter one year earlier.
With just 20 points this season, Holmstrom may not be able to provide an answer to the offensive issues that plagued the team, something that could end up being a factor when assembling organizational depth down the middle. That said, efforts like he put forth that last weekend in Charlotte should have a place in any setting.
“For me, that’s the way I’ve always played the game and that’s what I’m about,” he said.
