BOSTON - Landon Ferraro had to laugh at the thought of it.
He didn’t think much of it when he showed up in Detroit as a top Red Wings prospect wearing a Red Sox hat that gave away his famous father Ray’s rabid Boston sports fandom. The elder Ferraro grew up on the other side of the continent away from Boston, but he worshipped at the altar of Bobby Orr as a hockey-crazed kidin British C olumbia.
That helped transform Ferraro into a huge Boston sports fan in general, whether it was the 1975 Red Sox with the Jim Rice-Fred Lynn-Dwight Evans outfield, or even the Celtics and Suns battling it out in triple overtime in the NBA Finals. It’s why Ray’s eldest son’s middle name is James named after his favorite ballplayer, Jim Rice, and it’s why the old man is beaming with pride these days as his son is living out the Black and Gold dream that never quite happened for him in the NHL.
“I became a Red Sox fan in 1975 when I jumped on the Jim Rice and Fred Lynn bandwagon. Landon’s older brother’s middle name is James because Jim Rice is my favorite baseball player. Bobby Orr was and is my idol. I’ve been a Bruins guy for as long as I can remember,” said Ferraro, who scored over 400 goals and 808 points in 1,258 NHL games for the Whalers, Islanders, Rangers, Kings, Thrashers and Blues in a distinguished 19-year career that wrapped up in 2001-02. “So naturally I morphed into [a Celtics fan] with [John] Havlicek and [Dave] Cowens and I remember watching the triple-overtime game with Phoenix.
“How would I remember that Jimmy Ard was in that game, but I do? Jojo White sitting on the floor because he was just exhausted. I’ve been a Boston fan since forever. So, when I see [Landon] in the jersey? I’m sure every parent has immense pride when they see their boy in an NHL jersey and I did when he was in Detroit. But I used to dream of myself in a Bruins uniform, and it’s always even better when it’s your kid.”
It was certainly a fortuitous path for the younger Ferraro and the Bruins. Landon had run into a numbers game in Detroit, where he wasn’t going to get a shot on a bottom-6 forward role unless injuries opened something up. So, the Red Wings tried to slip the former high second-round pick through waivers. Instead he was snapped up by a Bruins team sorely in need of third- and fourth-line candidates that could make an immediate impact.
That’s exactly what Ferraro, 24, has done since notching an assist in his first game with the Bruins. Since then, he’s posted three goals and five points in eight games, while killing penalties and playing all three forward positions, and even tossed in a third period game-winning goal against the Canadiens on Wednesday night.
Boston Bruins
Combine that with the goal Ferraro scored in his home city of Vancouver last weekend when his father and rest of the family were in attendance, and he’s basically been floating on a cloud over the past month since getting picked up by the Bruins.
“Everyone wants to score in front of their family, and especially so with the way this year has gone,” said Ferraro. “Not playing a ton, and then getting hurt and put on waivers...It’s been a lot for my first year in the league. To be able to go back home that quick after being picked up and being with [the Bruins] was really exciting. I was probably undressed and showered within a couple of minutes, and then seeing [my family] and seeing how happy they were is a pretty cool experience.
“This has been perfect. This is all you could ask for. You play four years in the minors and you feel like you’ve done all that you can there. You’re just looking for a chance. There are guys everywhere waiting for a chance and this is mine. I’m just trying to make the most of it right now.”
It goes beyond that, though, as Ferraro is truly helping the Bruins as a speedy, smart and gritty forward who's brought all of the above to Boston’s fourth line. He has some flexibility to play up and down the lineup, as Daniel Paille did in his best days in Boston, and he’s quickly earning the trust of the Bruins coaching staff.
“[Red Wings coach] Jeff Blashill was a huge part of me moving on, and being the player that I am today,” said Ferraro. “He was a guy that told me that I was a guy that was going to have to get into the league being a good PK guy and being solid defensively. And the more positions you can play, the more positions it’s going to allow you to slip into.
“Being comfortable all three is big. Coming in here, [Claude Julien] doesn’t know a thing about me. If he can put me in on the right and it holds then that’s just an opportunity to put me in there again and show that I can play.”
That’s a credit to Ferraro obviously, and to GM Don Sweeney and the Bruins coaching staff for identifying Ferraro as an asset that could upgrade a fourth line that needed a little something. Ferraro’s dad just hopes that his son can bring back a little of that identity the B’s fourth line had in the heyday of guys like Gregory Campbell and carve out a little niche for himself in Boston at the same time.
“The direct, straight ahead style suits him very well,” the elder Ferraro said of his son’s fit with the Bruins. “He’s a good skater, and his strength is supposed to be getting in on the fore-check. So, the Bruins style seems to mesh well with what Landon hopefully can do in the NHL. He’s proven he can do it in the American League, and now he’s trying to do the same [at the NHL].
“Some guys...they just go to a place and it just works. Detroit had a guy they picked up on waivers in Drew Miller and they picked drew up in 2007 and he’s played 500 games [with the Wings]. It just fit. He was on waivers in Tampa and they saw whatever they liked in Drew and he became an anchor on their fourth line. It’s much like the Bruins fourth line for so long had Gregory Campbell as their internal guts to the line. No matter how the line changed in Detroit, Drew [Miller] was a part of it. That’s the opportunity I hope is there with Landon.”
One thing is sure for Landon, beyond the Bruins being the right place at the right time for him: he can also go back to happily wearing a Red Sox hat again after the Red Wings quickly and quietly replaced his old Sox hat with a Detroit Tigers lid in his those first few days in Motown. Now, both Ferraro father and son can let their Boston sports fandom fly proudly as the family finally gets a crack at the spoked "B" that they’ve been waiting a pretty long time for.
FATHER AND SON INTERVIEW
Amazingly, Ray and Landon crossed paths on the ice in his son’s very first game with the Bruins as the elder Ferraro was working between the benches of Bruins/Leafs for the TSN broadcast of the game. It just so happened that Landon was involved in a scoring play right before the intermission that would either end up in a goal or an assist for him, so Ray ended up interviewing his son between periods in a pretty awesome father/son moment that subsequently went viral on social media.
What was it like from Ray’s perspective?
“Our producer said ‘Look they’re either going to give Landon the goal or not, but it would be a really great thing if you want to interview him.’ I kind of hemmed and hawed on it, but I said, ‘okay, let’s do it.’ So [Landon] was going off through the hallway, but Matt Chmura grabbed him and pointed him back toward the bench,” said Ferraro. “I’m standing there between the two benches, and [Landon] had this look on his face like ‘Are you serious…are you really serious?’ The look on his face, I wish I had a picture of it.
“It was very fun, and I was really surprised by how many people found it as meaningful as he and I did. It was my dream to play [in the NHL], and I got to do it. Now it’s his dream to play, and now he’s doing it. It’s just incredible, and almost indescribable, to watch your son getting to play in an NHL game.”
Given the way that Landon has started with the Bruins, it certainly looks like Ray is going to get to enjoy that incredible feeling many times over as things continue to go well in Boston.
ONE-TIMERS
*Steve Stamkos liked a tweet earlier this week that linked a TSN panel talking about whether or not the Maple Leafs should make a run at the Tampa Bay Lightning superstar in the final year of his contract, and it predictably caused a firestorm. It should reach peak levels at the start of this week as Stamkos and the Lightning will travel to Toronto on Tuesday and the natural-born scorer will get a chance to talk more about “liking” tweets.
“People are going to talk about stuff. I’m not too worried about that,” Stamkos told reporters in Tampa. “I guess when you are in the spotlight — and lots of people have done things accidentally — it probably doesn’t look great. But I’m telling you guys, it was an accident and hopefully this is the last time I have to answer questions about Twitter.”
Perhaps Stamkos is being completely honest and it was merely an accident. But it might also be that an NHL player’s new way to tacitly demand a trade is by liking tweets about them getting traded to their preferred destination. This is the third time since 2014 that the Markham, Ontario native has “liked” a story on Twitter about him going to the Maple Leafs. That just seems like such a millennial way to handle that kind of situation, doesn’t it?
Either way, it should be interesting to see how things play out with Stamkos and Tampa Bay as it just doesn’t seem like they’re going to be able to afford paying him the $12 million-plus per year he’d easily command on the free agent market. If the Bolts don’t somehow pulls themselves up from the Eastern Conference muck they’re mired in, Stamkos could become the premier big-ticket item in a robust trade market full of rentals and impact players potentially available.
I still don’t think the Bruins would be the preferred destination for Stamkos, however, as he’s able to control his own destiny with a no-movement clause and all of the leverage as he steers toward a big payday this summer.
*Speaking of the Lightning, last week marked the 25th anniversary of the Tampa Bay Lightning as an NHL franchise dating to the Dec. 6 day that Bruins Hall of Famer Phil Esposito stood and watched NHL President John Ziegler announce that Tampa, along with the Ottawa Senators, had been awarded a franchise.
Espo still does the color analyst work on the Lightning broadcasts in Tampa and was a giant figure in cajoling, coaxing and convincing the NHL that the hockey could work in Tampa Bay. So, it’s no surprise he looks back on his last 25 years with the Lightning as perhaps his proudest accomplishment in the NHL, even beyond the 700-plus goals and Stanley Cups.
“I did a lot of things as a player in this game, I broke a lot of records during my time that I’m very proud of,” said Esposito, 73, who has a statue outside Amalie Arena in Tampa. “But nothing, nothing was as good as getting this franchise. I think it’s my greatest achievement ever in the world of hockey. I’d rather be in the Hall of Fame as a builder than a player.
“I was out of my element. As a player, God gave me talent. He sure didn’t give me talent in the business world. I learned it. I did it on instinct and surrounding myself with good people.”
*One would hope the Calgary loss last week is one of the last times we see Zdeno Chara on the ice for the 3-on-3 overtime session. Chara is having a good rebound season after last year’s injury-marred campaign and the numbers are looking pretty good for the 38-year-old thus far. Still, he’s also playing just shy of 25 minutes a night that’s going to start to cause problems if the Bruins can’t somehow scale back his minutes at this point in his career. Some of that could arrive in the 3-on-3 OTs that are super high-paced and all about teams capitalizing on turnovers from their opponents, the exact scenario that played out when Chara turned it over at the blue line with a no-look pass that led to an odd-man rush and a Johnny Gaudreau goal.
Chara is still a defensive warrior and clearly the best D-man that the Bruins have by a country mile, but there are just too many things that can go wrong in the 3-on-3 OT with a player whose recovery speed is not even what it used to be five years ago.
*Remember, keep shooting pucks at the net and good things are bound to happen.