How Healthy Scratches Contribute to Stanley Cup Winning Teams

Shane Hnidy heard the clock ticking. The 35-year old defenseman hadn't been with the Boston Bruins for long before making the realization that the 2011 playoffs would probably be his last.

Hnidy spent most of that 2011 postseason as a healthy scratch, playing just three games for the Bruins in their march to the Stanley Cup. Every year, there are players like Hnidy on teams competing in the finals. From veteran Blackhawks forward Kris Versteeg, to highly-touted 19-year old Lightning forward Jonathan Drouin, players good enough to be on the best teams in hockey can't always crack the lineup when their teams are on the biggest stage.

But they are still part of the team—their names will still be etched onto the Cup if their side wins. They have to not only be ready to step in and play in the case of injury, but they must find ways to contribute off the ice and away from the spotlight.

"To have a championship team, and I learned this from the older guys in my time, you have to have a role," Hnidy said. "And if you do your role, whatever it is, it all comes together for a Championship team."

Never known for his scoring abilities—he had just 71 points throughout 11 previous NHL seasons—Hnidy realized when he arrived in Boston after being signed as a free agent in February 2011 that it was a special Bruins team and that he was going to play a vital role.

"There's little things you do behind the scenes that won't be in the papers but being at that age and that point in my career I was OK with that," says Hnidy, who had battled injuries early that season.

Hnidy quickly came to epitomize a "depth player," a term you hear about all too often in deep playoff runs.

"[Bruins Coach Claude Julien] and [Then Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli] knew what I could bring to the room. I wasn't a quiet guy. You have to bring some accountability and push," he says.

After being part of the 2003 Ottawa Senators team that came within one game of the Stanley Cup Finals, Hnidy hadn't gotten a whiff of the Finals since. And he wasn't about to let the opportunity pass him by again.

"I dressed for every warm-up," he says with pride. "Claude Julien wanted me in the room before the guys went out for every game. I'd stay all the way through until they went out. I'd always say something on my way out."

"That became my role," he adds. "And that's all I needed. I became part of it."

The NHL Playoffs are serious. Every year, writers write about how the locker room antics subside, and Cup Finals players face the two-month, four-series grind with constant, fixed stern glares.

But Stanislav Neckar, a 10-year veteran defenseman who finished his career as part of the 2004 Cup-winning Tampa Bay Lightning—playing just two playoff games for that team—sheds a little light on how to keep a team loose.

When I ask Neckar what he did to contribute to team morale since he spent most games in the press box, he jokes, "Shoot the pucks around really hard at the guys so I could try to get in."

He's having a laugh, but the 39-year old, who now runs Neckar Hockey camps in Tampa, quickly outlines how important it is for players such as him to remain focused during the playoffs.

"I hadn't played for three months," he says. "And then you jump on the ice and you're ready to go in the playoffs, which is even faster than the regular season."

Increasingly, the NHL has relied on star power to sell its fast-paced games. This season, in his second stint with the Dallas Stars, Tyler Seguin emerged as the dynamic star many knew he could be. But it wasn't long ago that Seguin was a hot-headed young rookie who was a healthy scratch throughout the first two rounds of the 2011 playoffs.

Enter Hnidy, who spent time that post-season in the press box with Seguin, counseling the talented but, at the time, raw 19 year old.

"It's about learning that guys have to pay their dues," said Hnidy on the advice he offered a frustrated Seguin. "Whatever got you by in the regular season, you need a little bit more in the playoffs. That was the point we were trying to get through."

If that point wasn't clear from conversations, Hnidy knew how to deliver the message on the ice.

"I remember we had a bit of a battle in practice and I gave him a little bit extra. And then he came back at me and I said 'That's what I want. I want you to bring more of that.'"

Mark Hartigan won back-to-back Stanley Cups with the 2007 Anaheim Ducks and the 2008 Detroit Red Wings while only playing five total games in those two Cup runs.

The center, who bounced up and down from the NHL to the American Hockey League throughout his career, was traded to Anaheim at the deadline in 2007. While he spent most of the playoffs in the press box, he got his shot to play his first NHL playoff game in Game 1 of Anaheim's opening round series against the Minnesota Wild.

Hartigan remembers it well. It was the last game he'd play that season, a cautionary tale of the fleeting nature of personal playoff success.

"The game I did play in Minnesota my guy beat me coming out of the corner," says Hartigan, now a real estate agent in the oil sands city of Fort McMurray, Alberta.

"I don't remember who it was but I was like, 'Ah, shit.' They didn't score but that was it for me after that. You just have to try to gain the trust of the coach. He didn't know me very well at that point. My leash was very short. Just like a lot of guys that come out of the AHL."

Hartigan calls his time on two Cup winning teams "Bittersweet." He was part of those teams, sure, but still spent most of his time in the press box, eager for a shot that never really came.

"You want to be there and be a part of the game. But if the team is winning then everything is good. You're not hoping the team would lose so you could get in there. But you just hope you can show yourself in practice and hope for a chance."

But the best Stanley Cup winning teams are only as good as their weakest link. It was that belief that helped Shane Hnidy work towards his Stanley Cup win, and forge his own place in hockey lore.

"You have to have a chain with no kinks," he says. "You hear it from every Championship team: 'That's the closest group of guys I've ever played with.' You have to believe that has some meaning."