Pavol Demitra: 38 (screening Sep 5 at Rio threatre)

[I am toxic]

Still sad about his and teammates passing.

From the Province:

Next week, the third annual HeArt of Europe Festival is presenting a documentary about the late Slovak will screen at Vancouver’s Rio Theatre.

Got tix to the Russia-Slovak prelim game at the 2010 Olympics. What a game. Ovy was doing everything he could, but Visnovsky would keep stepping up in the neutral zone and shut down the rush just as the pass arrived. Halak put on a clinic in rebound control, directing shot after shot just wide. The team had Gaborik, Handzus, both Hossas, Palffy, Satan, Zednik, Sekera, Chara as well. Then Demitra with the shootout winner. The building went crazy.

edit: dammit vadim, beat me to it in the former player thread - mods feel free to delete this

Click to read more...

 

[kanucks25]

My main memory of him as a Canuck will always be him almost scoring on Luongo late in the game in the 2010 Olympics and their subsequent friendly exchange in the handshake line.

 

[Likwit19]

Here is the link to the trailer if you understand slovak and/or want to see some sweet highlights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ4HE3tLzxk

 

[Bankerguy]

What a player he was....

Look at the 2006 Slovakia roster

Demitra, Hossa, Satan, Pallfy, Bondra, Gaborik all top line players

then decent supporting guys too:
Svatos, Stumple

 

[EpochLink]

That Sundin/Demitra/Kesler line from the 08/09 season was a treat to watch.

 

[Chairman Maouth]

Still sad about his and teammates passing.

From the Province:



Got tix to the Russia-Slovak prelim game at the 2010 Olympics. What a game. Ovy was doing everything he could, but Visnovsky would keep stepping up in the neutral zone and shut down the rush just as the pass arrived. Halak put on a clinic in rebound control, directing shot after shot just wide. The team had Gaborik, Handzus, both Hossas, Palffy, Satan, Zednik, Sekera, Chara as well. Then Demitra with the shootout winner. The building went crazy.

edit: dammit vadim, beat me to it in the former player thread - mods feel free to delete this

This thread can stand alone. I'll just quote his post to get it and the video over here too.

HeArt of Europe 2016 Festival presents
movie night honouring Slovak hockey legend
"Pavol Demitra: 38” (in Slovak with English subtitles)

Monday, September 5, 2016 at 7pm
Rio Theatre - 1660 E Broadway, Vancouver, BC V5N 1W1

http://www.cityofnations.org/heart-of-europe/movie-pavol-demitra-38

I remember Pavol as perhaps the most outstanding player of the 2010 Olympics.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

edit: dammit vadim, beat me to it in the former player thread - mods feel free to delete this

no no, you were right. this deserves its own thread.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

no no, you were right. this deserves its own thread.

Agreed.

--

The whole tragedy of that flight is still so hard to comprehend. It's nice to see him memorialized like this (with a documentary in his honour).

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

He was great in his first year here. Played a big role in getting Kesler to where he did.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

That Sundin/Demitra/Kesler line from the 08/09 season was a treat to watch.

RPM line is up there for best 2nd lines in Nucks history.

 

[Shareefruck]

Yeah, and I've always preferred the version of Kesler that plays that support-type role too. It appeared for two years and then seemingly disappeared.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Yeah, and I've always preferred the version of Kesler that plays that support-type role too. It appeared for two years and then seemingly disappeared.

Ehhhhhh,

I'm a huge Kes fan so don't stir me. I think he's best at his 2009-10 self, but his 2010-11 temperament. Somewhere there is his happy medium. thus as a player I think 2012 Kesler is his best, but he is an embarrassment in the first two games of the LA series, and I think single-handedly cost us game 1. Kings would have beat us anyways, but Kes made it worse.

Still a huge Kes fan, though. The most human Canuck there has ever been.

 

[Shareefruck]

I'm saying that as a Kesler fan.

While the 40g version of Kesler was obviously incredible, personally, my favorite, and in my opinion, the most impressive version of Kesler was the 2009-2010 one, who was nearly single-handedly driving the 2nd unit PP to a degree where it was often as good as the Sedin unit, playing like a cohesive/chemistry-stricken unit with Raymond/Samuelsson and making them better players, and putting up 50 assists, and 75 points (his highest total). In addition to that, he did that without the luxury of piling up points on the Sedins' wing on the PP, and without a Manny Malhotra playing the shutdown role and taking those difficult minutes away from him.

With Kyle Wellwood behind him, Kesler was heavily (and probably unfairly) relied on to simultaneously be our primary shutdown forward and primary secondary scoring threat that year.

There were some occassionally frustrating, occasionally incredible things about one-man-show Kesler that appeared after that (and before that, when he started to discover his talents on the 3rd line), that worked as a bit of a double-edged sword. 2009-2010 Kesler had no such weaknesses, IMO. He was pretty unthinkably good that year. He was essentially a high-IQ, extremely balanced/well rounded, 75 point, defensively Selke-worthy, offensive play-driver/quarterback both even strength and on the PP (and still every bit the powerplay specialist), all while playing a full-time shutdown role that year and excelling at it. That's absolutely nuts.

The version of Kesler that played with Sundin was a similar precursor to that.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Absolutely agree, Sharee, couldn't have put it better myself.

2009-10 Kesler was probably the best player to not win anything. He would have made off with a Selke easily but Datsyuk won it on reputation alone.

A good example of why +/- is awful. He was +1 that year playing AMAZING on both ends of the puck, but the next year he is what, +24 and wins the Selke.

Bergeron was better that year, but Kesler got it cause media ****ed it up the year before.

I can't even start to explain how much better 2009-10 Kesler was. Like I said, if he was that player, but had his mindset in 2010-11, it may have been one of the best seasons in Canucks history.

And he was overshadowed by the Sedins' brilliance.

 

[Shareefruck]

Oh, I thought I was disagreeing with you. What do you mean by had the mindset of 2010-2011? I would have thought that that was part of the problem. He started realizing that he had enough talent to do it all by himself sometimes and he changed his mindset.

That plus minus was more reflective of his role than his performance. A really great plus minus for a pure shutdown role player is anything close to or above even, whereas a great plus minus for an offensive player is that +10 to +20 range