Habs : Diaz still skating at Worlds

Source : montrealgazette.com

The sophomore season of Canadiens defenceman Raphael Diaz began with great promise, coming on the heels of an excellent, even dominant 32 lockout games played with his hometown Swiss League’s EV Zug.

Having missed the final 17 NHL games of 2011-12 with a groin injury, the defensively reliable 27-year-old worked himself into terrific off-season shape and arrived back in Montreal ready to improve upon his eye-opening rookie year.

With a goal and 12 assists in the Habs’ first 19 games of 2012-13, Diaz fashioned himself into an important part of coach Michel Therrien’s blue-line corps during and after P.K. Subban’s contract holdout.

And then he plunged into a black hole on Feb. 25 in Ottawa, concussed when he stumbled and fell into an Ottawa Senator, his opponent’s boot coming up to sledgehammer him beneath the jaw.
It took Diaz 25 games on the sidelines to recover before he scrambled through the final four games of the schedule to get up to speed for his first NHL playoffs.

And then, in Game 1 against the Senators, came his infamous so-called suicide pass to Lars Eller, leading to the horrifying check inside the Montreal blue line that bloodied and concussed the Canadiens centreman.

Diaz’s remarkable hockey season will end in Stockholm on Thursday or Saturday or Sunday, depending on how far sensational Switzerland makes it in the world championship. The Swiss, 7-0 heading into the medal round, are seeking their first podium finish since 1953 — though you could argue the squad also finished last that year in a three-team tournament.

First up for Diaz’s Switzerland is Thursday’s quarter-final against the Czech Republic squad of Canadiens centre Tomas Plekanec (8:30 a.m., TSN, RDS), the winner advancing to Saturday’s semifinal round.

Of course, the NHL teammates — opponents for a game — would rather be skating in North America. But with the Canadiens eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs a week ago, Diaz and Plekanec gratefully accepted national-team invitations to participate in the Worlds; this is Diaz’s third participation in the global tournament, the seventh for Plekanec.

“It’s really big, it’s a big thing in Switzerland if not so much over here,” Diaz said last Saturday, preparing to head to Stockholm.

“Here, the attention is on the NHL playoffs. In Europe, there’s no more hockey, just the Worlds.
“I learned a lot of things again this year. I want to go and show my best hockey and support my teammates from Switzerland.”

Diaz spoke of the Canadiens’ impressive start, the Habs 12-4-3 during his portion of it. And he pulled back the curtain on his concussion, his first in the NHL and second of his professional career.

“The whole team had a good start, it was really nice,” he said. “And then I had the concussion and was out two months. I couldn’t do anything but wait for it to get better.

“It wasn’t easy to come back in the same shape. I played a few games before the playoffs and, of course, we were disappointed with the tough loss (eliminated by Ottawa in five games).”

Unlike many who suffer concussions, Diaz recalls his in vivid detail, remembering how he tried to brace himself as he fell then being slammed in the head by the leg/skate of a Senators forward.

“It was a one-on-one battle,” Diaz said. “I was protecting myself to fall on my hands when from out of nowhere, his leg or skate hit me in the jaw. It was kind of a knockout.”

Well, not exactly. Diaz finished the game, playing a season’s second-high 23:34, with an assist in the Canadiens’ 2-1 shootout loss.

“I knew something was not right, with headaches,” he said. “I trained the next day but I didn’t get a lot of sleep and I didn’t feel better. There were headaches and pressure in the head and sometimes dizziness.”

The Canadiens immediately shut him down, sidelining him for 25 games from Feb. 27 through April 18.

“It wasn’t that fun,” Diaz said in understatement. “You are at home, you can do nothing. You want to do anything to keep in shape but it’s it’s like your head says, ‘No, that’s too much,’ with the headaches and pressure.

“So you stop and then you wait and wait and wait and then you go back and try again. You want to come back as soon as possible. It was a process with ups and downs.

“I’m not really a patient guy,” Diaz said, smiling. “What was nice was the help I got from teammates, guys who have dealt with the same thing the last couple of years, Max (Pacioretty) especially. At some points, it was really frustrating.”

Diaz couldn’t watch TV or read; he just did a lot of nothing, waiting for symptoms to subside. When he could watch hockey, it was for a single period to start, graduating to two.

“I’d come here (to Brossard), hang out with the guys for an hour, then go home and relax. Maybe
even go for a little walk,” he said.

There was almost no time to get up to playoff speed in his four games before the postseason.

“The playoffs were a great experience,” said Diaz, whose 22:22 average per game trailed only P.K. Subban’s 23:56 and Andrei Markov’s 23:53.

He didn’t register a point and was minus-4, but had a team-high 17 blocked shots with his 11 hits trailing by one the leading defence total of Jarred Tinordi; Brandon Prust’s 19 led the team.

“I learned a lot of things. It was awesome in the Bell Centre, the crowd was so loud,” Diaz said. “The intensity is really high during the season but in the playoffs it’s like two steps more.”

Diaz’s postseason is best remembered by many for his Game 1, up-the-middle pass to Eller, the latter crushed blindside by Ottawa’s Eric Gryba, his season violently ended.

In the words of Senators coach Paul MacLean post-game, it was Diaz’s pass, not so much Gryba’s hit, that caused Eller’s injury, a charge that infuriated the Canadiens and set the tone for the bitterness of the series.

Eller, and Therrien, refused to blame Diaz.

“I feel really bad for him,” Eller said of Diaz last Saturday, speaking at his dressing-room stall almost directly across from the defenceman.

“It’s not his fault. Definitely not his fault, not at all. If he feels guilty in any way, he shouldn’t. People don’t understand how fast it happens out there and you have a split second to make a decision. It’s just that fast.”

Diaz, obviously, feels terrible that Eller was injured, though at first he wasn’t aware of the blame assigned by MacLean.

“I didn’t watch TV all day (the next day). I’m more a guy who wants to focus on his own preparation,” he said. “But then I heard stuff like (MacLean’s).

“This is a pass I do all the time. Of course, you don’t want to do that to your teammate, absolutely not. I also think it was a bad hit. I’m glad it’s over.”

Diaz will take little time off after the Worlds, resuming off-ice training before lacing his skates in August. He’ll study DVDs of this season to see where he can improve his game for his third NHL campaign.

And Diaz expects to be back in Montreal next month to attend his first Formula One race. He’ll probably find his way onto Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, seeing that Lotus driver Kimi Räikkönen lives in the canton of Zug that Diaz calls home and, as a fan of the EV Zug team, has served as a club ambassador.

The plan this summer is to build on the foundation Diaz has poured, on and off the ice, returning stronger physically and mentally and eager to finally play a full season.

“I was expecting (the physical battles), absolutely,” he said of the rugged postseason that ended too soon. “There was a lot of hitting. It was a great experience for my first playoffs.