The story behind the TCU coach who turned in his own team to the NCAA
Kenneth Davis shed more tears than he cares to admit 37 years ago when he was told he was being suspended from TCU‘s football team.
He may shed a few more tears Saturday, tears of joy, when he sees his alma mater playing the kind of high-stakes game he and his teammates dreamed about before the unthinkable happened.
Just prior to the second game of the 1985 season, a season filled with promise for the Horned Frogs, TCU coach Jim Wacker turned in his own team to the NCAA after learning that several players, including Davis, had been accepting illegal payments from boosters. Davis was coming off a season in which he had finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting after rushing for 1,611 yards and scoring 17 touchdowns.
“Yep, the same thing that’s legal now,” Davis told ESPN, referencing NIL. “It was devastating. I just cried and couldn’t quit crying. I think today that I’m still not over it because there was so much we could have done and would have done. They just brushed us out of there for what everybody else was doing in the Southwest Conference back then. And I mean everybody, a lot of it much worse at other schools.
“We didn’t set up any of it. The boosters set it up. They came to us. What kid isn’t going to accept that money if they’re offering it to you, especially the kids coming from tougher backgrounds?
“It was a hard time, not just for us, but for a lot of people who loved TCU.”
As dark as those days were for Davis and the Frog Nation, he said it would all be worth it to see TCU beat Michigan on Saturday in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, then finish off this dream season with a victory in the national championship game Jan. 9.
“They get a chance to do what I always wanted to do, to win a national championship, and maybe this is finally our time,” Davis said. “I’ll always wonder what we could have done because we had the right players, the right coaches, the right team, the right everything.”
They also had a head coach who was anything but conventional. He was deeply committed to doing what he felt was the right thing — even if that meant dropping a dime on his own team.
“Not many coaches would have done that, then or now,” said former TCU athletic director Frank Windegger, who will turn 89 next month. “What a hard decision, but the right decision despite everything we had to dig out of after that. It was a different time in college football. But Jim was determined to stand by what he had been preaching, that we weren’t going to try to win games by breaking the rules.”
Wacker, the son of a Lutheran preacher, died in 2003 at the age of 66 from cancer. Those closest to him said he was tormented by the aftermath of the scandal, but not by his actions.
“Dad never regretted his decision to do what he did because that decision had already been made,” said oldest son Mike Wacker, who played basketball at Texas and coached basketball for 37 years, recently retiring from Texas Lutheran University. “The last thing he was going to be was a hypocrite. He had said very publicly that he wasn’t going to buy players. He didn’t say it once. He said it a million times. He genuinely believed they could win at TCU without cheating.
“What Dad did regret was how much that decision adversely impacted so many people’s lives. He never wanted that to happen.”
Seven players were suspended, some of whom may have had potential pro careers stunted, and there was shame and embarrassment across the board at TCU. All after Wacker, who had come to the school from the NAIA and Division II ranks, had revived a moribund program that had 16 losing seasons in the previous 17 years before his arrival.
Tom Mueller was Wacker’s defensive coordinator and worked with him for 21 years. To this day, Mueller believes some people in the upper administration at TCU failed Wacker because they weren’t completely truthful with him when he took the job about whether players were getting paid.
“There was a meeting, and he looked the people in that room right in the eyes and said, ‘I need to know if we’re cheating because that’s not the way we’re going to do it. We’re going to do it the right way,'” Mueller recounted. “Maybe Jim was naive, but he believed you could win without cheating and was assured that wouldn’t be the case while he was the coach.”
Those close to Wacker, who was the eternal optimist with his catch phrases like “Unbeleev-able,” said he was surprised and disappointed by how harshly the NCAA penalized TCU even with Wacker being so cooperative. Wacker was insistent on turning over all the information the school uncovered from a payment plan that had been launched by boosters, including trustee Dick Lowe, before Wacker was hired. Lowe, a Texas oil man, died in 2020. He told the Orange County Register in 2010 that the payments were “stupid” and were born out of frustration because “everybody else was doing it and we were getting our asses kicked.”
Much to Wacker’s chagrin, the NCAA hardly took it easy on TCU, which was hit with a one-year bowl ban, the loss of 35 scholarships over two years and the forfeiture of its 1983 and 1984 television revenue. Those sanctions were a precursor to SMU receiving the so-called death penalty because of recruiting violations. The Mustangs had to shut down their program in 1987 and 1988. The sanctions against the two schools were part of a series of events that in many ways were the beginning of the end of the Southwest Conference.
“Jim went as far as to find out when NCAA investigators were coming to town and would send a car to pick them up at the airport,” said Bob DeBesse, TCU’s quarterbacks coach at the time. “Jim just felt by doing the right thing, calling the NCAA and handing over everything, that the NCAA would also do the right thing. But, no, it was just the opposite.
“We always said that SMU got the death penalty, but that we got life because we had to keep playing through impossible sanctions.”
In a flash, all the momentum of the TCU football program was gone. The Horned Frogs went 8-4 in 1984 and played in their first bowl game in 19 years. But over the next eight years, they would have just one winning season. It was 15 more years before they would make it back into the AP Top 25. And with the Southwest Conference’s demise on the horizon, TCU ended up bouncing around from one conference to another (WAC, Conference USA and Mountain West) until finally latching on with the Big 12 in 2012.
Davis, who played nine seasons in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers and Buffalo Bills, has talked very little publicly over the years about the way it ended for him at TCU. The same goes for the other six players suspended for taking cash from boosters: Marvin Foster, Gary Spann, Gerald Taylor, Egypt Allen, Darron Turner and Ron Zell Brewer, who died in 2010.
“What happened happened, and there was a lot of anger over it at the time, but we’re all still Frogs,” said Davis. “A lot of the guys from that team keep in touch.”
Kevin Dean was a defensive end on the 1985 team and has remained close with Davis and some of the others who were suspended.
“Some people say they were suspended. I’d say they were more sacrificial lambs,” said Dean, who organizes get-togethers to watch some of the TCU games on television in the Dallas area. “Those guys paid a heavy price, but they’re not bitter. What happened in the past doesn’t define you, and TCU as a university didn’t turn its back on them. Most of them got degrees, and they’ve all been very successful.”
As the SMU investigation heated up in 1985 — and with Texas A&M and Houston also in the NCAA’s crosshairs — the NCAA got word that something might be going on at TCU after talking to other coaches and recruits, and informed TCU officials that it was coming to campus to take a look.
Wacker had already angered some fellow Southwest Conference coaches by sending out a letter soon after he took the job imploring them to clean up their acts in recruiting. Part of that letter, dated March 3, 1983, read: “The major violations — the blatant buying of athletes — is what must come to an end, or we will self-destruct before it is all over. At TCU, we did control our alumni this past recruiting season. We did not buy one athlete. It can be done if we let the alumni know that we will personally turn them in to the NCAA if they are involved in any illegal recruiting practices.”
Mike Wacker said one thing his father regretted was sending that letter because it immediately turned off other coaches in the conference and painted him as holier-than-thou even though that was not his intention.
“I think it became: ‘Who is this guy from Southwest Texas State, a Division II school, coming in here and telling us what we should be doing?'” Mike Wacker said. “That’s one he wished he could have back.”
The letter sparked a well-documented feud between Wacker and then-Texas A&M coach Jackie Sherrill, who called for an onside kick in the fourth quarter in a 53-6 rout of TCU at Fort Worth in the final game of the 1985 season. The following year, Sherrill had the Aggies go for a 2-point conversion late in a 74-10 rout of the depleted Horned Frogs.
Two years after writing that letter, Wacker’s worst fears came true. It was the Thursday before the trip to Kansas State in Week 2 of the 1985 season, and Wacker had given his team an impassioned speech about how proud he was that TCU was having success without cheating. He knew the NCAA was about to pay a visit to campus and wanted to make sure he had nothing to hide.
“Coach was convinced that any payments that had been going on before he got there had stopped, and in his mind, we were an open book for the NCAA and anybody else,” said David Rascoe, the quarterback on that 1985 team. “He was exactly who he said he was, nothing fraudulent about him.”
Tom Perry was the TCU running backs coach. He suspected that some players on the team might be getting money from boosters simply by looking at their cars, expensive boots and jewelry.
When Wacker quizzed his assistant coaches that Thursday about whether players were receiving extra benefits, Perry found himself in an impossible situation. He said he was one of two assistants in the room to raise his hand when asked by Wacker if there was reason to believe that boosters were still paying players.
Later that day, Davis met with Perry and asked if there was any way Wacker would know if players were indeed getting paid. That’s when Perry went to Wacker with the bad news.
“He just kept saying, ‘Why did you have to tell me? Why did you have to tell me?'” Perry recalled. “I know he was hurting because of how outspoken he had been that we weren’t cheating, and I don’t think Jim was complicit in any way. But I was doing what he’d asked us to do. So, yes, I was pissed at the way he reacted. I just think he was one of those guys who always thought the best of everybody. He was that naive, like he’d just fallen off the turnip truck.”
One by one, the players involved admitted they had been taking money from boosters. Six players were suspended late that Thursday night. Wacker went to meet with the chancellor, called the NCAA and conference officials and also alerted some in the media.
Longtime Dallas television personality Dale Hansen broke the story and remembers interviewing Wacker sometime around midnight on campus after doing his newscast that evening.
“There were some in the media who thought Jim was a fraud, but my argument, and I still stand by this, is that Jim knew they were getting paid when he took the job because everybody in the Southwest Conference was getting paid,” Hansen said. “But Jim also made it very clear to everybody at TCU, ‘From this day forward, it stops.'”
Hansen was doing a regular TV show back then with former Dallas Cowboys receiver Butch Johnson, and they showed a clip from Wacker’s introductory news conference where he said, “Wacker don’t cheat and Wacker don’t pay.”
Johnson looked at Hansen on the air and quipped, “Well, Wacker ain’t winning no football games.”
Gil LeBreton was a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram during that time and was on the team’s charter flight to Kansas State. He said TCU and Wacker wanted to be as transparent as possible and offered the seat.
“It was awful, like being on a flying funeral procession,” LeBreton said. “You could hear players just openly bawling and crying with their heads down in their laps. Their faces were red, like they’d been up all night. It was a surreal scene.”
Somehow, TCU won the game, and the Star-Telegram’s headline the next day read: TCU wins anyway.
The number of suspended players grew to seven after the Kansas State game when Brewer admitted that he, too, had been taking money.
“He felt badly for his teammates and didn’t want them to fall on the sword for something he knew he was also doing,” Dean said. “That tells you a lot about him and a lot about the brotherhood on that team.”
Wacker had his supporters on campus after disclosing the violations, particularly among students. A group of them held up “Wacker Backer” signs in the stands of home games. But not everyone was onboard with Wacker’s decision, particularly some of the more prominent power brokers. That was never more apparent than in 1991, the final year of Wacker’s contract, when he guided the Frogs to a 7-4 finish after they struggled through six straight losing seasons.
“We had [officials from] several bowls in attendance at our last game and knew we were going to one of them after we beat David Klingler and Houston in a great game,” Mueller said. “We’re all standing around in the locker room waiting to see where we were going, and Jim gets the call telling him the administration had declined a bowl bid. It was obvious Jim no longer had the support he needed. He didn’t want to leave TCU, but Minnesota came after him and he knew the time was right to leave.”
Wacker coached at Minnesota from 1992 to 1996, resigning after five losing seasons.
Davis said he rarely talked with Wacker after leaving TCU, although Davis said he doesn’t begrudge his former coach for going to the NCAA.
“It was his job to do what he did and to protect the team, and that’s what he did,” Davis said. “I understand and respect him for that. I don’t have nothing against him.”
Perry never coached college football again after leaving TCU, but went on to earn a doctorate degree. He hopes what people remember most from that time is the way Wacker came in and turned around the program and “did it his way by getting kids to believe.”
Mike Wacker said his dad will undoubtedly be smiling down from above when the ball is kicked off Saturday afternoon.
“He’d love this team,” Mike Wacker said. “And you know how he loved crazy things, all the rhyming and joking around and coming up with nicknames.
“The thing he’d really love is the Hypnotoad thing.”
“We know it hasn’t always been easy for TCU, and that’s going back a long way,” current TCU quarterback and Heisman finalist Max Duggan said. “There’s been a lot of tough times, so we’re playing for those guys and those teams as much as we are for anybody.”
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Greg Wyshynski
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Kristen Shilton
Game 1 of the Western Conference finals between the Dallas Stars and Edmonton Oilers was actually like two games in one.
The first 40 minutes belonged to the Oilers, who looked absolutely unstoppable. They built a 3-1 lead against an overwhelmed Stars team, whose only goal was on a Tyler Seguin breakaway.
Unfortunately for Edmonton, a playoffs-long trend continued for their penalty kill. It was torched for seven goals in the opening three games against the Los Angeles Kings. It gave up three goals in the first two games against Vegas. In Game 1 of the conference final, it was like a defibrillator for the Stars, who barely had a pulse after going down 3-1 after two periods. Miro Heiskanen, Mikael Granlund and Matt Duchene all scored power-play goals in the first 5:58 of the third period to rally Dallas to the lead. The Stars never looked back, taking Game 1 by a 6-3 score.
How did both teams perform? What are the big questions facing each team ahead of Game 2 on Friday night?
The Oilers had it all in hand — just to let a win slip through their fingers.
Edmonton had been idle for a week after finishing off Vegas in five games in its second-round series. And at first, the Oilers looked well rested in a fairly clean road game considering the lengthy layoff. Edmonton had a snafu in the first period letting Tyler Seguin free on a breakaway that he converted into a tying goal but other than that, Edmonton put on a defensive clinic to keep the Stars at bay through 40 minutes. The Oilers power play did — as Connor McDavid predicted — arrive at last, with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scoring Edmonton’s first road goal with the man advantage in the postseason to give the Oilers a 2-1 lead, which they extended to 3-1 going into the third. That’s when the wheels fell off.
Edmonton gave up three power-play goals in less than six minutes to sit in a one-goal deficit they never came back from. The Oilers could have recovered on special teams themselves but didn’t convert with their own third-period tries and finished 1-for-3 with the extra attacker. Edmonton’s bench was rightly deflated even before Seguin scored a dagger late in the final period to ice the Stars’ victory. It was a tale of two teams for the Oilers — and the worst of the two prevailed. — Shilton
0:53
Stars score 3rd straight goal to take lead over Oilers
Matt Duchene notches the Stars’ third power-play of the third period to give them a lead.
The Stars’ power play gets an A-plus. It was Honor Society-worthy. It was the valedictorian of Game 1. Dallas was absolutely cooked against McDavid and Leon Draisaitl until their three power-play goals to open the third period. The Stars became the second team since 1934 — when goals by type were first tabulated by the NHL — with three goals on the man advantage in the opening six minutes of a playoff period. They became the first team with three power-play goals in the third period of a playoff game since the San Jose Sharks scored four in Game 7 against the Golden Knights in 2019 — back when Peter DeBoer was the Sharks’ head coach, incidentally.
The rest of the Stars’ game gets a C-plus. The first two periods were not what you want to see against Edmonton, with defensive lapses and high-danger chances handed to the Oilers. Edmonton looked like a team that had won eight of its past nine playoff games. The Stars made Stuart Skinner much too comfortable. The third period belongs in the Louvre, not only for the power-play goals but for a key penalty kill against the Oilers, Sam Steel’s dagger and another strong final stanza by Jake Oettinger, who was 6-for-6 on shots.
It’s a great win, especially when one considers how well teams that win Game 1 fare in their series — teams to win Game 1 of a best-of-7 Stanley Cup playoff series have won the series 68% of time. But not every game is going to have the undisciplined play the Oilers had to start the third or the power-play success. Dallas needs to be better, but the good news is that they got the ‘W’ in a game where they weren’t quite at their best. — Wyshynski
Three Stars of Game 1
Two goals and an assist, including the opening goal for Dallas, his first breakaway goal since November, the team’s fourth this postseason, most of any team so far.
One goal and an assist. His 13th career multi-point game in the playoffs, tied with Sergei Zubov for the most by a defensemen in Stars/North Stars history.
3. Power play goals
The Oilers went 1-3 and the Stars 3-4. Dallas had three power play goals in a row in the third period, their most in the 3rd period of a playoff game in Stars/North Stars history. — Arda Öcal
Players to watch in Game 2
The Oilers netminder has endured a rocky postseason run already, going from the team’s starter, to its backup and then reclaiming the No. 1 role. Skinner appeared dialed in early against the Stars and then was — like the rest of his team — shaky down the stretch. Dallas’ fourth goal was particularly poorly tracked by Skinner, who couldn’t track the puck and was slow to react as Matt Duchene tallied the eventual game-winner. Skinner continued to look rattled from there and displayed less of the confidence he’d shown earlier in Game 1.
Calvin Pickard — who took over starting duties from Skinner in the first round — didn’t travel with the Oilers while continuing to rehab an injury he suffered in Game 2 against Vegas. It’ll be on Skinner to rebound to get Edmonton back on track in Game 2. — Shilton
A lot of quiet sticks got loud in Game 1 when Dallas needed it: Tyler Seguin, Matt Duchene and Sam Steel all tallied goals in the Stars’ stunning win. But one player remains curiously quiet, considering his reputation as a playoff standout: Johnston, their outstanding 22-year-old center. His Game 3 goal in a 5-2 rout of Winnipeg was his only point of that series, and he didn’t register a point in Dallas’ rally against Edmonton. The problem for Dallas is that he hasn’t added much at the other end, struggling defensively. He got walked by Leon Draisaitl for the first Edmonton goal. Depth is already vital in this series. The Stars could use Johnston to deepen it further. — Wyshynski
Big questions for Game 2
Can the Oilers clean up their act?
Edmonton was in control of Game 1 until penalty troubles eroded the positive efforts. Will that total lack of discipline become a factor again in Game 2? The Stars were a commanding 3-for-4 with the extra attacker on Wednesday and that’s no surprise given their regular season and playoff success on the power play. Dallas went into this series with the third-best power play of the postseason — and tops amongst remaining squads — at 30.8% while Edmonton had the third-worst penalty kill (66.7%). That’s a tough battle for the Oilers to win when they’re giving up multiple man advantage tries. Dallas proved (repeatedly) they’ll make Edmonton pay for every mistake and Edmonton made too many in Game 1. — Shilton
Is it time to worry about the Finnish Mafia?
The Dallas Stars wouldn’t be in the Western Conference Finals without Mikko Rantanen. And he wouldn’t have entered this round leading the playoffs in scoring without the chemistry he developed with fellow Finns Mikael Granlund and Roope Hintz. But this line hasn’t produced an even-strength goal since Game 5 against the Winnipeg Jets. Granted, they were cooking on the power play in the third period, with Granlund scoring and Hintz and Rantanen assisting on Duchene’s goal. You take that every day. But Dallas was at its most dominant when this line was leading the charge. The Stars are facing a pair of generational talents. They have a superstar of their own in Rantanen. He needs to bring that level of excellence at 5-on-5. — Wyshynski
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Ryan S. Clark
DALLAS — There’s mounting a comeback, and then there’s what the Dallas Stars did by rallying against what might be the greatest comeback team in NHL postseason history.
The Stars, down 3-1 to start the third period Wednesday night, looked to be on their way to losing their ninth Game 1 in their past 10 playoff series, only to score five unanswered goals to beat the Edmonton Oilers 6-3 to open the Western Conference finals.
It gave the Stars their sixth comeback this postseason — compared to the Oilers, who set an NHL record earlier in these playoffs with five consecutive comeback wins.
“You score a goal and help your team win, it feels great, but the wins are the best feeling this time of year,” said Stars forward Matt Duchene, who scored his first goal of the postseason. “They’re short-lived. The losses are short-lived. That’s a great comeback win for us. Every team we’ve played so far has a very different makeup to them and a different feel. There’s things we can do better. The nice thing is when you win a game in the playoffs without your A-game, it feels like you want to take it and run with it.”
Edmonton opened with a goal midway through the first period from star center Leon Draisaitl before a turnover saw Tyler Seguin score his first of two goals on a breakaway to tie it with 4:38 remaining.
Stars forward Mason Marchment received a tripping penalty, which opened the door for the Oilers to take a 2-1 lead just 25 seconds into their power play through Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Evan Bouchard then scored 100 seconds later for a 3-1 lead.
It appeared Bouchard’s goal had the Oilers in position to win their fourth consecutive playoff game against the Stars, whom they also faced in last year’s Western Conference finals. It also would have been the Oilers’ third straight victory this postseason, part of a string of contests that had seen them lose only once since their Game 2 defeat to the Los Angeles Kings in the quarterfinals.
Instead? The third period proved to be something of a convergence point that saw the Stars answer some questions while posing a few more for the Oilers.
Dallas entered the conference finals facing concerns about whether it had enough scoring depth to match Edmonton. Prior to Game 1, there were five players who accounted for 81% of the Stars’ goals, compared to the Oilers, who had 14 different forwards score at least one goal.
Edmonton, on the other hand, watched its penalty kill struggle in the second round with a 9.1% success rate. That was the worst of any team in the semifinal round, and it was a jarring juxtaposition from 2024, when the Oilers killed 94% of their penalties.
And Wednesday, Miro Heiskanen, Mikael Granlund and Duchene combined to score three straight power-play goals. Those were the first goals this postseason for Heiskanen and Duchene. Seguin, who hadn’t scored in 10 straight games, scored his second goal pushed it to 5-3, while Esa Lindell‘s empty-netter was his first of the postseason and increased the Stars’ edge to 6-3.
“Everyone was talking about our lack of secondary scoring and in the last round … you have to give Winnipeg some credit,” Stars coach Peter DeBoer said. “They defended their ass off in that series against us. They’re the best defensive team in the league. None of our guys were going to have big numbers in the Winnipeg series but I felt confident that they were going to get going.
“Even in that Winnipeg series, particularly late in that series, we started to see some real signs of creating real chances.”
Three of the Stars’ four wins against the Colorado Avalanche in the quarterfinal round were comebacks, including their dramatic Game 7 that saw star winger Mikko Rantanen score against his former team. So were two of their four wins against the Jets. It established a precedent that the Stars could do it again this postseason.
But to do it against an Oilers team that had shut out the Vegas Golden Knights over the final two contests of their five-game series?
“We played with some more energy,” Granlund said. “I think no one was happy with the first two periods of how we played. We know we’re going to raise our level for the first game. The third period was good. The power play was good, but we’ve got some better games ahead of us.”
The Oilers losing a two-goal lead in Game 1 led to another question: What made it difficult for them to find the type of openings that have allowed them to be such a persistent threat this postseason even while trailing?
“We were short-handed for about six minutes in the third period, and that makes it a little more difficult to come back,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “I just think we took a step back. They had the momentum and the energy from the crowd. Obviously, we’re very disappointed. After the first two periods, we felt it was a good start and then it just turned in the third period.
“We’ve had some heartbreaking losses in the playoffs, and we’ve been able to rebound nicely.”
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Greg Wyshynski
RALEIGH — Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said his players have to be smarter about retaliating against the Florida Panthers‘ trademark agitation.
“We know that’s how they do things,” he said on Wednesday, after Florida took a 1-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals with a 5-2 win. “Find a way not to let that get to you. Stick to what is going to win us games.”
At issue for the Hurricanes in Game 1 was center Sebastian Aho‘s roughing penalty against Florida’s Anton Lundell at 6:59 of the first period, which negated a Carolina power play and led to Carter Verhaeghe scoring the first goal of the game on a Panthers’ power play. Aho took a swing at Lundell after the Panthers center cross-checked him. The referees whistled the retaliation but not the initial stickwork that provoked it.
“I mean, the first penalty is bad call, right? You’re going to have those. But that’s my thing: Retaliation penalties are not going to get it done,” Brind’Amour said. “We did a pretty good job with [retaliation], but it just takes one. That’s my point. You can’t have that one, because that really puts you behind the game and now it’s different.”
The Hurricanes are 5-0 when scoring first in the playoffs and 3-3 when they don’t. Carolina’s penalty kill had stopped 14 of 15 power plays at home and 28 of 30 overall in the playoffs until Game 1, when Florida went 2-for-3 with the man advantage.
“They made us pay. It’s a good team that knows how to score goals and finds way to win games when you make mistakes,” Carolina captain Jordan Staal said. “We’ve got to limit those mistakes.”
Another example of the Hurricanes’ retaliation, though a less costly one for Carolina, came in the third period when defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere deliberately shot a puck at Florida forward Brad Marchand. In this case, the Panthers got the worst of it, as Marchand was given a double minor for roughing and a 10-minute misconduct.
“Just heated. I was pretty pissed off. He tried to take a run at me. I shot the puck at him. We had a little [tussle],” Gostisbehere said.
After Game 1, neither Panthers players nor coach Paul Maurice would discuss the incident in detail.
“It happens. It’s what it is. I mean, we block shots all the time, so what’s the difference?” Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad said.
That attitude extends to the Panthers’ composure on the ice. While the Panthers have earned their reputation as an irritating, physical opponent — attributes that helped them win the Stanley Cup for the first time last season — they can dish it out and take it.
Look no further than the Florida crease in Game 1, where the Hurricanes crashed the net of goalie Sergei Bobrovsky with frequency. At one point, forward Andrei Svechnikov‘s hip collided with Bobrovsky’s head. But the goalie wasn’t knocked off his game and his team didn’t retaliate.
“It’s OK. It’s the playoffs. They try to get under the skin. I just focus on my things and try not to think about that,” Bobrovsky said after his Game 1 win.
Maurice praised his netminder’s composure.
“Sergei’s not a kid. He’s been through it. He’s been bumped. He’s just developed a skill set that it just doesn’t bother him,” the coach said. “No one likes getting elbowed in the head, but it won’t be the first time or the last time.”
Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals is Thursday night in Raleigh. The Hurricanes have now lost 13 straight games in that round of the playoffs, including five straight to the Panthers.
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