Dejected But Determined

[der meister 3,407]

 

"Look, the fact of the matter is that isn't the way any team wants their season to end, and we are no different. Even if we felt like we deserved to win, no one ever deserves to win. Did New York get some lucky bounces? Yeah, they did. I thought for the most part we outplayed them, but they ended up on top. Maybe we go on to beat Seattle or Calgary or whoever, or maybe our bad luck hits in the next round. The real takeaway is that I wasn't good enough, and as a team, we were not good enough."

Those were the parting words from Toronto Legion winger-turned-center Konstyantyn Shevchenko on locker clean out day. His words were echoed by various teammates, and by General Manager Doug Stevenson, Jr. later in the afternoon. The general attitude of determined disappointment came up repeatedly, and time will tell what the Legion are able to do this offseason to help their chances of a more successful campaign next year.

"I'm going to head to Vienna to visit with my parents and take some time to heal from a few nagging things," Shevchenko revealed. "Moving to center was not something I expected this year, but I think I played pretty well in the role. I'm going into this summer with the idea that I will be the Legion's number one center, and that means I want to be in the top 10 in points in the VHL. So while the work never ends for my parents and their organization, and I will be working with them in Vienna, I also plan on doing a lot of tape review and conditioning to make sure I'm ready to be the center that the Legion need come Day 1 next year."

As to what went wrong for Toronto, Shevchenko's description of "bad luck" is hard to argue. Despite outshooting the New York Americans in three of the first four games of the series, New York jumped out to a 3-0 series lead before Toronto finally won game 4, 4-2. Unsurprisingly, Toronto couldn't recover from that kind of deficit and fell in game 5. New York's goaltender, the now retired WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, was a real difference maker and the series MVP. He ended up stopping 46 of 47 shots in a game 1 overtime victory, 33 of 35 in game 2, and 35 of 37 in game 3, another overtime victory.

 

 

 

"It's not something I want to keep reliving and replaying in my head," Shevchenko added. "I had, what, 2 goals in 5 games? Even with W playing the way he was, that's not good enough. It was nice to set a new career high in the regular season [Shevchenko finished with 81 points], but 4 points in 5 games in the playoffs is a letdown. I let myself down, and I let my team down, and I let the city down. I want you to listen closely: I will do everything in my power to make sure that does not happen again."