Former Anaheim Ducks forward Paul Kariya was one of the most dynamic players in the NHL during the mid-90s and through the 2000s.
He was also famously superstitious. Steve Dryden walks us through his stellar sophomore season and the superstitious change Kariya made to his stick in this blast from the past.
From the Archive: SHOOTING STAR
Paul Kariya doesn’t carry a torch for the game he loves anymore.
He hasn’t since May. That’s the last time Kariya took a blowtorch to his stick blade and tried to manufacture the perfect curve.
That was his quest for years, but now he just stuffs a composite blade into his Easton shaft, tapes it heel to toe and plays the game. There’s no more playing with fire for Kariya-and that says more about the emerging Mighty Ducks of Anaheim star than you might think.
It speaks of a new mindset for someone who has long played mind games.
Being a stickler for sticks was but the tip of the ice rink. More significant was intense preparation for games. Kariya eagerly embraced visualization-imagining and playing out situations in anticipation of them-as a teenage hockey sensation in British Columbia, the United States and abroad and, then, as a baby Duck last season.
The net result? Kariya felt prepared for most circumstances he faced in a game. If a situation developed as Kariya imagined, the speedy forward had a programmed rapid response. Problem was, if it didn’t, Kariya would sometimes hesitate as he sorted through new information and the moment would be lost.
It wasn’t a major flaw, but Mighty Ducks’ head coach Ron Wilson suggested Kariya reconsider his approach.
“Ron mentioned that and it was a good point,” Kariya says. “Sometimes I’d get in situations where if they weren’t going exactly as I visualized, I’d be screwed up, whereas all the good players are really natural and fly by the seat of their pants. It’s almost like how the defense plays them, they play the defense.”
In the end, his powers of improvisation were stifled, which, considering Kariya’s intuitive grasp of the game, was like telling Jim Carrey he has to stick to the script. No ad libbing allowed.
“I said hockey is a reactive sport,” Wilson says, “and I told Paul that I thought he was trying to choreograph too much and if the game didn’t go the way he had visualized, he was all bungled up because he wasn’t reacting. I think in this game you can visualize a few little things-like if you’re in alone on a goalie-but you can’t play a 60-minute game in your head. You have to free yourself.”
So, the left-shooting right winger is a changed man in his sophomore season, thinking less and, coincidentally or not, scoring more.
Don’t misunderstand.
Kariya, 21, hasn’t discarded visualization and he certainly isn’t checking his brain at the dressing room door this season; he’s just giving it a rest sometimes. Example No. 1: He doesn’t waste time or energy obsessively fiddling with his stickblade. Example No. 2: He thinks about future games, but he doesn’t chart their courses so thoroughly.
The results have been startling.
Combined with a rigorous weightlifting program that added 10 pounds of muscle during the off-season-and is maintained by workouts three times a week-Kariya’s commitment to keeping his mind free and things simple is working.
Kariya had 12 goals and 21 points in the Mighty Ducks’ first 16 games, including the overtime winner Nov. 8 in his one and only appearance at the old Montreal Forum. Not once did Kariya go more than a game between goals.
More significant is the development of his overall game. This Mighty Duck II is showing in 3-D. He finished minus-17 last season and faced criticism by Wilson for being a one-dimensional player. This season, Kariya has added patience and a defensive conscience to round out one of the most impressive and entertaining talents in the game.
He’s playing the point on the power play, killing penalties and being utilized in decidedly defensive situa-tions-scoring the first empty-net goal of his hockey career, against the St. Louis Blues Nov. 1-and even blocking shots.
Yes, blocking shots!
Kariya threw himself in front of Blues’ defenseman Al Maclnnis, the NHL’s most feared shooter, in the victory over St. Louis. He was spared the firing squad when Maclnnis shot around him, but Wilson rewarded his star nonetheless.
After all, it’s the thought that counts.
“I just said to myself,” Wilson says, “‘If it gets down to it and they’re pulling their goalie, Paul’s going out there because he gets rewarded for doing something like that.’”
Those who don’t know Kariya might think the reward was getting a chance to pad his goal total with an empty-netter. The real reward for Kariya, however, was the chance to have a say in the outcome of the game. Great players long for that opportunity. Kariya is destined to be a great player.
It’s a late autumn evening in Toronto and Paul Kariya washes a pasta dinner down with water, a concoction of half-cranberry/half-orange juice and milk. The restaurant doesn’t have skim milk; he settles for homogenized.
“I like a nice glass of milk before I go to bed.” Kariya says. “It’s calcium, man. You gotta keep those bones strong.”
There’s little that isn’t strong about Kariya these days.
He’s playing the game with immense authority, shrugging off checkers in situations he may have conceded defeat last season. The most important lesson he took from his rookie year was the need to continue weightlifting during the season and not worry about it sapping his energy level.
It has had the opposite effect.
“The biggest thing it has done is that, mentally, it has given me confidence,” Kariya says. “You feel strong after you lift. You’ve got that invincible feeling. It’s all mental.”
Kariya doesn’t think his small stat-ure-he’s a shade under 5-foot-10-is a liability as long as he’s in superb condition.
“A guy at five per-cent body fat at 170 is going to be stronger than a guy 180 pounds at 14 per-cent body fat,” Kariya says.
Like we said, the Vancouver native hasn’t stopped thinking through the game this season; he has merely refined his focus. He is one of the game’s independent thinkers and that makes for lively exchanges between Kariya and Wilson, who works to feed his star player’s appetite for things cerebral.
KARIVA’S STOCK RISINA IN NHL
Kariya is highly selective about what gives him pause for thought. He doesn’t read newspaper reports on himself or the team and says he pays no attention to personal statistics.
“I never read the papers,” Kariya says. “Are (reporters) going to know more than what the coaching staff is saying to me, or what I know I’m doing out there? No matter how knowledgeable the hockey person is, am I going to learn something from reading what they say? Maybe you will, maybe I’m missing something, but in my mind I’m not missing out on something.
“It’s not that I don’t take input from other people. I’m saying the coaching staff, your teammates are going to be better-equipped to do that-because they see me 24 hours a day-than someone who sees me for five minutes after the game.
“If they write something bad about you, you get mad. You don’t know how you’re going to react to it. And if they write something good about you, chances are you’re never as good as what they say you are. To stay on an even keel, you take it out of your life.”
Same goes for stats.
Kariya, who was been flipped from left to right wing and united on a line with center Shaun Van Allen and Pat-rik Camback, says he only knows his goal total because it’s announced after each one at the Pond in Anaheim. He didn’t know he stood second in the league in goals, nor did Kariya want to.
“I don’t like (knowing) things like that because it’s just one more thing I have to think about,” Kariya says. “I don’t want to know things like that.”
Last year, Wilson brought a less flattering statistic to Kariya’s attention. He pointed how much lower the forward’s plus-minus was on the road than at home. It reflected a couple of circumstances: first, that opposition coaches can get their best checkers against Kariya at home; and second, that Kariya, who largely dismisses the plus-minus statistic, grew impatient on the road when things didn’t go his way and ended up cheating de fensively in a bid to make things go right offensively.
The strategy didn’t work and Wilson thinks it cost Kariya the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie. Considering the strong play of Quebec Nordiques’ center Peter Forsberg, the eventual winner, and Washington Capitals’ goalie Jim Carey, the runner-up, that seems an exaggeration, but there’s no denying Forsberg and Kariya were exact opposites in at least one way last season.
“I told him point-blank, ‘You might not think it’s important, but you lost the rookie of the year because you’re minus-17 and the other guy is plus-17. That’s a plus-34 difference,’” Wilson recalls.
Kariya’s plus-minus this season is again lopsided (plus at home, minus on the road), but he was plus-9 overall, tied for second-best on the team. Wilson says he’s very happy with his top scorer’s defensive play on the road.
Paul Kariya entered the NHL as the most heralded pure playmaker since Wayne Gretzky, but he underwent a quick conversion from pass-ivist to shoot-ist as it became apparent he wasn’t just the Ducks’ most dangerous playmaker, he was also its most consistent play-finisher.
In his final two seasons as an amateur, just 25 per cent of Kariya’s points were earned on goals. Forty-six per cent (18 of 39) came on goals during his rookie season. More than 50 per cent (12 of 21) were from goals through 16 games this season. He went the first six games without an assist. But nobody considers Kariya’s relatively low assist total an indictment of his creative genius; it’s considered more a comment on the the goal-scoring ability of his Anaheim teammates.
Anaheim team officials say Kariya’s shot is much harder than last year and insist his wrist shot is as good as any in the league. Kariya says his shot is quicker than last season. He says release is more important than velocity, although his shots lack neither.
“All the best players in the NHL shoot the puck a ton and it’s not how hard they shoot it, it’s the release of their shot,” Kariya says. “I’m learning when to shoot now. I’m shooting through screens. I wouldn’t even contemplate doing that last year. If I didn’t have a clear shot I wouldn’t do it and now 1’11 take something off my shot to put it through a defenseman’s legs.”
Kariya didn’t finish among the Ducks’ top three in shooting or skating in the team skills competition, but teammates sawed his stick in half for the shooting event and a left groin injury kept him from competing in and, probably, winning the skating event.
In any event, Kariya is headed for full-fledged stardom. Kariya says he has no personal goals for goals, assists and points. He views things of that nature as limiting, not as targets that can stretch him to his outer limits.
“I want to focus on the process,” he says, “not the final outcome.”