Down Goes Brown's Grab Bag: No One Guarantees Playoff Victories Like Mark Messier

(Editor's note: Welcome to Sean McIndoe's grab bag, where he writes on a variety of NHL topics. You can follow him on Twitter.)

The third star: Patrick Marleau—His muted reaction to the Sharks' win is the definition of "act like you've been there before." Which is odd, given Marleau hasn't. Look, the cliché does say "act."

The second star: Helpful Penguins—After last week's bad breath incident with Pierre McGuire, at least Phil Kessel knows his teammates are looking out for him.

For all that 'bad breath'… — Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins)May 20, 2016

The first star: The Gary Bettman butt tattoo—Careful with those playoff predictions, kids.

I'll get Gary Bettman's face tattooed on my ass if Chicago and LA both get bounced in the first round

— Dj (@SlayIen)February 27, 2016

And yes, he actually went through with it. You can find the whole sordid story here, but the actual inking went down on Wednesday.

— Dj (@SlayIen)May 26, 2016

I hope this poor guy never has to wear a jockstrap, because from now on his butt is getting booed anytime it gets near a cup.

After the Penguins' Game 5 loss to the Lightning, Evgeni Malkin was asked about his confidence level heading into a must-win Game 6. He responded with what was breathlessly hailed as the latest example of one of the hockey fans' favorite postseason storylines: The Guarantee.

Evgeni Malkin: 'I believe in my team, I believe in myself. We're coming back to Pittsburgh for sure. L'

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris)May 23, 2016

The hockey guarantee has been a thing dating back to 1994, when Mark Messier famously vowed that the Rangers would beat the Devils in New Jersey to force a deciding seventh game. They did, with Messier scoring a hat trick in the process, cementing his legend as the greatest leader in sport. It was a great story, and so like everything fun that happens in the NHL, we all spent the next few years beating it into the ground.

But you'll notice that Malkin's version is missing something: He doesn't actually guarantee anything. He just says that he thinks his team will win, which isn't remotely the same thing. If I say I think it's going to rain tomorrow, that's not a guarantee, it's an opinion. And, as Lightning coach Jon Cooper pointed out, that's really the only thing Malkin could say. But as fans, we all jump on board anyway, because we can't resist a good guarantee story. Especially when they work, as Malkin's did.

And when they don't, well… we all just kind of forget about them. That's the beauty of it. A player vaguely promises a win, and when it happens, they're a hero. When it doesn't, the whole sound bite is retconned out of existence. Does anybody even remember Daniel Alfreddson's Game 7 guarantee against the Maple Leafs back in 2004? No, because the Senators lost. But if they'd won, we'd still be hearing about it to this day.

I think we need to set the bar a little higher, and that starts with what we're willing to call a guarantee. What Malkin did shouldn't count. The whole thing is too watered down and consequence-free to matter anymore. Just vaguely expressing a belief that your team will do something is not a guarantee. It's time to raise our standards.

So be it resolved: It doesn't count as a guarantee anymore unless the player actually says the word "guarantee." If that means we have to ask a follow-up question along the lines of "Wait, are you actually guaranteeing a win right now?" then so be it. Most players won't be willing to go that far, of course, and will fall back on some cliché about just playing their best game. That' fine. This is hallowed ground we're talking about here, and it should be rare that a player actually has the guts to walk it.

It's not a guarantee unless you're going to back it up. Let's save the Messier comparisons for the guys who are really willing to stick their necks out.

The hockey world lost a legend this week with the passing of John Brophy. The notoriously crusty coach was one of the toughest men to ever grace a rink. And he expected his players to follow his lead, as demonstrated in this clip from his brief stint with the Maple Leafs:

Most fans who see that clip immediately have three thoughts. One, this guy is insane. Two, how great is the "annoyed coach" line that appears under his name at the start of the interview? And three, who is that poor guy getting hacked by his own coach in front of the net? The answer to that last question is today's obscure player: former tough guy Val James.

James was a long shot to even make the NHL, having been drafted way back in the 16th round of the 1977 draft by Detroit (this was back when the draft went on forever because nothing about the 1970s NHL draft made any sense). He never made the Red Wings, but signed with the Sabres in 1981 and made his NHL debut that season, playing seven games. That was it for him in Buffalo; he'd spend the next five years in the minors, including winning a Calder Cup with Rochester in 1983 under a fiery young coach named Mike Keenan. When Keenan was only your second craziest coach, you know you had a fun career.

James would get one more shot at the NHL in 1985 when he signed with the Maple Leafs. He spent a year in the AHL under Brophy (where the coach, according to legend, would occasionally make him stand shirtless outside the other team's dressing room to intimidate them). He'd appear in four games in Toronto a season later, the last of his NHL career. He never recorded a point in the league, but he made an impression with his hard-nosed style, dropping the gloves often and even holding his own against John Kordic. He continued his career in the minors until a shoulder injury forced his retirement.

While James didn't light up the scoresheet in the big leagues, he had an impact on the NHL's history books. He was the first player born in Florida to make the NHL. More significantly, he was the first American-born black player in league history, a fact that led to him being singled out for a stream of racist treatment from fans in rinks around North America, as James detailed in an excellent book that was released last year.

The rise of the backup has become a running theme of the conference finals, with all four teams using both goaltenders at some point and three teams switching starters. The Lightning had no choice in the matter thanks to Ben Bishop's injury, but both the Penguins and Blues flipped from their normal starter to the backup and then back again.

Heading into Game 6, Penguins coach Mike Sullivan decided not to reveal his starter in advance. And so we were treated to another round of every hockey writer's favorite game: Figure out the starting goaltender based on the game-day skate. There are really only two clues here—which goalie takes the net on which side of the ice, and which one leaves the ice first. Hockey tradition dictates that the starter always takes a certain side, and always gets to leave first.

And hockey writers love using that information to decode the identity of the starter 15 minutes before the coach confirms it. It's like our own personal detective story. And you already knew that, if you follow some on Twitter and have seen your timeline flooded with updates at the same time every day. It's like watching a dozen guys all playing the same game of Clue. "Matt Murray… In the visiting net… with the early exit!"

The whole thing is kind of silly, and in a world where the league and its teams cared about making useful information available, the team would just announce its starting goaltender before the skate and be done with it. But this is the NHL, the land of useless injury reports and "terms were not disclosed," so that option is clearly out.

So instead, let's go with the other approach: NHL coaches need to start messing with reporters at game-day skates. And they need to get creative about it. Have one guy take the starter's net, but then make the other guy leave first. Have the goalies switch sides midway through practice, preferably on the fly during a drill. Have them switch jerseys before they take the ice and see if anyone notices. Make that night's starter sit on the bench and pretend like he's practicing opening and closing the door for the entire skate.

Come on, coaches. Have some fun with this. If the writers are all going to go Sam Spade on your game-day skates, at least make us work for it.

If you're American, you were probably wondering why every Canadian you know was really bummed out this week. On Tuesday, news broke that Gord Downie, the front man of iconic Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, has terminal brain cancer. The cancer is inoperable, and the band announced that they'll hit the road this summer for what will be their final tour.

If you're Canadian, you won't be surprised by this week's clip.

• This clip comes from October 2006, as The Hip debut their new single on Hockey Night in Canada. It goes without saying that Canada's favorite rock band had more than a few ties to the country's favorite game. This song, "The Lonely End of the Rink," was one of them.

• We start off with a 2002 interview with Downie and Ron MacLean, in which the singer talks about his days a goaltender in Amherstview, Ontario. Downie goes on record as the only person to ever defend Tommy Salo's epic gaffe, proving that if you're Canadian enough, you can be nice about literally anything.

• I kind of miss the Ron MacLean turtleneck era, by the way.

• Downie's interview leads into the song. The lonely end of the rink is, of course, a reference to the goaltender at the far end of the ice, left on his own as the action heads the other way. The song is accompanied by clips of recent NHL action, and I should probably warn every Oilers fans to turn this video off right now and… whoops, too late.

• Yeah, sorry about this, Edmonton, but we're leading off with the 2006 Cup final, and the Dwayne Roloson injury that led to the Ty Conklin giveaway, which led to the Hurricanes winning in seven. We get lots of highlights of the series, which seems cruel until you remember that this is only a few months later, and at the time everyone assumed the Oilers' future was bright. Then it seems extra cruel.

• This is, of course, not The Tragically Hip's most iconic hockey song. That would be 50 Mission Cap, which came out in 1992 and tells the story of Leafs legend Bill Barilko's disappearance shortly after scoring the Stanley Cup-winning goal in 1951. Fun fact: This is every Maple Leafs fan's favorite song, and if you try to talk to them while it's playing, they will pull your shirt over your head and pummel you.

• The key to any good montage (as I've mentioned before) is the awkwardly forced syncing between the visuals and a random lyric, and there's some solid work to be found here. I give "waving your fists in the air" a solid A- here.

• Layering Bob Cole play-by-play over a Tragically Hip song is peak Canada. Mr. Dressup packing his tickle trunk full of ketchup chips and Gowan cassettes couldn't top this.

• The Hip's connections to hockey were long and varied; Bob McKenzie has written the definitive account. I'd tell you that it's a perfectly written piece, but I already said it was by McKenzie, so you know what to do.

• Another solid lyric tie-in: "I fell asleep in my seat," as the camera pans to a napping Toronto fan. This moment would end up being the Leafs' highlight of the decade, by the way.

• We get a weird segment that features quick highlights from various Canadian teams, and… the Atlanta Thrashers. They knew! The CBC knew what was going to happen to the Thrashers, all the way back in 2006! WHO TIPPED THEM OFF?

• I'm being told that the answer to that question is "basic economics." Never mind.

• "Oh to join the rush…" That's something that every goalie has thought at some point. Or, in the case of the ones that are completely insane, actually done.

• Wait, was that Alexander Suglobov celebrating something? There's no way that's a real clip. That was CGI. You can't tell me otherwise.

• So this is the part where I should probably take a moment to explain The Hip's popularity to American readers. But I'm not sure I can. It really is a Canadian thing, as evidenced by the band's failure to ever really catch on south of the border. I remember them getting booked on Saturday Night Live back in 1995. They even brought in Dan Aykroyd to introduce them. That was huge news in Canada, because we were all convinced that this was the big moment when they'd break through, and I'm not sure any of us really knew how to feel about that. We wanted them to be successful, and it felt like it was only right to share them with the world. But they were ours, you know? And the fact that we were the only ones who ever really seemed to get them was somehow a source of pride. If you're reading this and you've never heard of The Tragically Hip, that's good in a weird way, because it was part of what made them what they were. But it was still your loss.

• Stay strong, Gord. Courage.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com.