The Grateful Crow has gotten rid of the demons and is shooting again

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Against the background of the central star of the evening, the Russian hero Alexander Ovechkin, who reached 700 assists thanks to two passes and became the sixth hockey player in NHL history to add at least 700 goals to that, another more engaging story took place in Washington, not only for our people. The front page of the sports column of the Washington Post did not belong to the emotional Ovie, the leader of the Capitals, but to the 28-year-old forward Jakub Vrán, as in a large photo with outstretched arms and a shy smile he celebrates at the scene of the crime four and a half years after hitting the Vegas Golden Knights net.

The caption read: The Crow’s Golden Evening.

First game, second substitution, first shot, first goal, 4-2 win. It was hard for the native of Prague to imagine a more spectacular renewed premiere for the Capitals, where in his first year overseas he helped the organization to its first win of the legendary Stanley Cup.

A lot has happened in Vrán’s life in those six years, including joining the NHL assistance program and the players’ association, which helps hockey players and their families with psychological problems or addiction. But let’s start with the recent golden evening.

While Vrán watched the match against the New Jersey Devils (3:5) only in a suit as a healthy substitute and waved from the stands to the spectators who welcomed the lost son home with hearty applause, this time coach Spencer Carbery decided to place the Czech winger in the fourth line. Journalists paid more attention to the transfer of captain Ovechkin from the left wing to the right, but Vrána soon volunteered to speak.

He was only 43 seconds on the ice to renew his shooting account in the capital of the USA.

His formation launched an intrusive forechecking in the attacking third, fullback Vegas Whitecloud made a mess behind the goal, the play was caught by attacking Andrew Mangiapane, who passed the puck to the circle, where Vrána went down, who gave the goalkeeper no chance to hit with a lightning shot.

“It’s a great feeling,” rejoiced the shooter, who played in the NHL for the first time since January and scored after almost a year. “Andrew attacked brilliantly, won a one-on-one duel and served the puck to me. He also timed it perfectly.”

He was then asked by reporters if he knew how long it had been since his last hit for the Capitals. “It will be a few years. Half past four? Well, it’s about time,” he smiled. “Time flies and flies. It’s amazing for me that in addition to the goal, I also experienced a win and we could celebrate it with the boys after the game.”

He spent only eight minutes and forty-six seconds on the ice, the least of all Washington players. Vrana knows that he has to be patient, that there wasn’t much left and the NHL’s star gate slammed shut forever. “He breathed life into the fans, the team. We saw it both from the reactions of the stands and the boys on the bench. We set the standards for the rest of the evening with the whole event with an excellent forekick and the subsequent goal,” Carbery praised Vrán’s contribution.

When Vrana came to training camp this summer with uncertain prospects after talking to Capitals general manager Dick Patrick to apply for a contract, Carbery saw after a few games what the team’s agile skater could be good at: “Speed. His shot. Competitiveness on the puck. He will find several opportunities to display his elite attacking instincts.”

Vrána is very grateful for that opportunity. He passed the test and after three and a half years returned to the club with which he won the Stanley Cup in 2018. He signed a one-year contract for 775,000 dollars (almost 18 million crowns), none of his compatriots in the NHL takes a lower salary, but that is not important for Vrána now. The main thing is the second chance he gets in the organization where he played the best, felt the best and from which he did not want to leave.

“Everyone here is always supporting me the whole time. I really appreciate it,” he said.

“He had a great attitude. He worked extremely hard, the camp went well for him. I’m proud of him, how he fought,” The Hockey News website quoted Carbery as saying.

Washington drafted Vrána in the first round in 2014 as the thirteenth player in the order and made his debut in the 2016/17 season. In the very next year, the young Czech rifle helped the team win the Stanley Cup. Only gunner Ovechkin, guard John Carlson and forward Tom Wilson remained in the club from the witnesses of the historic feat. Even in the next two seasons after winning the most valuable hockey trophy, Vrána was excellent: 24 goals, then 25 goals.

But the sudden ends in the playoffs with Carolina and in the covid year with the Islanders triggered a change in the common staff, which was close to each other even off the ice. Vrana expected more from himself in the fierce battles for the Stanley Cup. He already belonged to the supporting players in the second line and on the power play. A trade to a rejuvenated Detroit, a team with no playoff ambitions, waved him off. However, you could not tell on the ice. He signed a new three-year contract with the Red Wings a year ago with an income of $5.25 million per season. However, he threw away a large amount of trust and a pivotal role.

Although he scored eight goals in eleven matches, he was injured. And unfortunately, not only because of shoulder surgery, he played only 26 games for Detroit with a record of thirteen goals and six assists. When he did play, he mostly looked good in the attacking half. However, he was experiencing a personal crisis outside the guardrails. It was widely speculated that he had a long-standing substance abuse problem.

Vrana still remembers the number of steps he took with a clenched stomach in the bowels of the stadium to the office of Detroit general manager Steve Yzerman, to whom he confided. He took a major step, overcame his fear and spent an hour describing his demons to him. He received support not only from the iconic striker Yzerman.

“A lot of people showed me a lot of support, which was really nice. More or less everyone in America supported me and still does. I needed help from the league to return to the world and to reality,” said Vrána in the Zimák podcast of the Sport newspaper. “I really didn’t want to go up those stairs to his office. But Steve is a great person who understood everything. He somehow knows it from his career, he has played for a long time and has experience. We talked about those things and he supported me. He didn’t look at it from the point of view of hockey and business at all, but as a person, so that he could help me as much as possible. We agreed that it would be like this,” the bronze medalist from the World Championships described his journey to the assistance program, where he joined two years ago.

He admitted that hockey players use addictive substances mainly to turn off their heads from the demanding program and pressure for a while. His case is far from unique, although the NHL is not talking about this problem out loud.

“People close to you will say something about it themselves, but it’s something you have to face yourself by sitting down somewhere alone and telling yourself that it’s not you. And you start doing something about it before it’s too late. Of course, there was a lot of fear on my part, what will happen when I come back,” he admitted. “Maybe after my career, we can sit down and I’ll have some sort of comment.”

Even after the exchange to St. Louis didn’t start. He played 21 games for the Blues last season, scoring two goals and adding four assists. He scored another 42 games with a balance of 16 goals and 20 assists on a farm in the lower AHL.

But now he’s back among the elite, in a place he likes, and he doesn’t intend to mess it up.