Here Are The Top 5 Goals From The NHL Last Night (10/15/18)
There were only 4 games going on in the NHL last night so there weren’t a ton of games to choose from. However, the Toronto Maple Leafs smacked the Kings around 4-1. The Montreal Canadiens took advantage of the only team in the league who might be more poorly run than they are and beat the Detroit Red Wings by a score of 7-3. The Senators beat the Stars 4-1 and then Nashville beat Minnesota 4-2. So there were only 4 games being played last night but there were plenty of goals to choose from. So let’s just get right to it.
5. The Turtle Neck Bandit Strikes In His 1000th Career Game
So right off the bat this is where I need to remind people that these are my personal 5 favorite goals from the night before. So they might not always be the “nicest” looking goals in the world and if I were going to take a goal from this game last night based on beauty points alone, I’d probably go with Drouin’s penalty shot. But the context here jumps this goal into the top 5. This was Tomas Plekanec’s 1000th career game last night. Kind of hard to believe he’s only hitting 1000 now because I feel like I’ve been hating this guy forever now. But yeah. 1000 career games for a 3rd round pick in 2001 that isn’t really known for being much of a goal scorer or anything like that. The fact that he’s gotten 1000 games in the NHL just goes to show that you can make a pretty good living on being a middle-6 depth type of forward. Not a bad game to get your first tuck of the season. Turtle neck wearing son of a bitch.
4. Drew Doughty Now Has To Call Auston Matthews “Daddy”
Drew Doughty made a comment yesterday about how the Toronto Maple Leafs could “use a defenseman like Dion Phaneuf right now”, in reference to the fact that the Maple Leafs have the most goals for in the NHL but also the 2nd most goals against in the league this year. And I’m sure he was also just trying to sneak in a clean shot for his buddy Phaneuf there. But you just don’t say that shit about another team, especially not when that other team has Auston Matthews in the lineup and will make you look like a fool just moments later.
Kapanen blows past Kopitar which is a metaphor for the age and speed differential between the Leafs and the Kings. And then Auston Matthews puts Doughty on a leash and takes him out for a leisurely stroll. Honestly it was a pretty smart decision for Doughty to drop down on his own before giving Auston Matthews the opportunity to dangle his ass to the ground. The dive, the stick swipe. All acts of desperation to try to stop the next Gretzky, but it was to no avail. But sure, the Leafs could really use a defenseman like Dion Phaneuf. 6-1 on the season just ain’t cutting it.
3. Max Lajoie Might Just Make Erik Karlsson Irrelevant In Ottawa
It’s only 6 games into his NHL career but when are teams going to realize that you can no longer give Maxime Lajoie all the time and space in the world before he snipes your ass to death? 6 games into his NHL career and Max Lajoie has already lit the lamp 4 times and has added on another 3 assists. 7 points in 6 games as a rookie defenseman in the NHL. What a beast. The only other defensemen in the league who have more points than him right now are Morgan Reilly (who gets to rack up assists to guys like Auston Matthews and John Tavares), and then Thomas Chabot who is his teammate in Ottawa.
So sure, the Ottawa Senators ended up trading Erik Karlsson away this summer for practically nothing besides 6 assets. But now they have a 20-year-old and a 21-year-old who have combined for 15 points already this NHL season. 7 points for Lajoie, 8 for Chabot, 3 assists so far for Erik Karlsson. All I’m saying is that maybe there’s a pretty decent future here for these little French Canadian beauts and Karlsson was just taking ice time away from them.
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2. Orchestrated Chaos Is A Beautiful Thing
If you hate the Leafs, I’m sorry. I know that they’ve been monopolizing this blog series and especially so today. And it only gets worse because another Leafs blog is coming later this morning since Auston Matthews had another multi-point night. But it’s not my fault that this team just continues to score nasty goal after nasty goal. And this goal right here? Well this is the type of goal that makes hockey such a beautiful game. Because to those in the world who don’t watch and/or appreciate hockey, this looks like the type of play that you’d put Yakety Sax in the background of. It would look like a cluster fuck of chaos that just so happened to end up in the back of the net. But when you watch it closely and see how it all breaks down, you’ll see how much control and orchestration was involved here.
It all starts with the initial move from Hyman to get to the inside of Drew Doughty. This is going to be a really tough game for Doughty to watch back on film because hoooooo boy did he get danced all night. So Hyman gets Doughty’s hips flipped, then he sees that he has Phaneuf coming down on him and he has to make some sort of play with the puck. Now this is where he gets a bit of a lucky bounce because I don’t think this was necessarily meant to become a pass to either Tavares or Marner. But the reason why this puck gets to Tavares in the first place is because Hyman drew 2 defensemen two him so there’s a lot of traffic for that puck to bounce off of. Tavares then picks up the puck, has about zero time or room to work with but is still able to see Marner going to that back post and gives him a perfect pass for an easy tap in. There was just so much going on in the slot there and a lot of guys probably just rush to get a shot on net if they’re Tavares in that situation. But the man is a superstar and he sees the game develop so much faster and so much better than everybody else. So the move by Hyman, the vision and patience of Tavares, and then the IQ of Marner to get himself into a scoring position. It looks like chaos from the outside but when you take a closer look, that’s what hockey is supposed to look like.
1. In Soviet Russia, Goal Scores You
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Okay so I know I typically stick to the NHL with these blogs but if there was one goal from yesterday that deserves to get the Yakety Sax treatment, it’s this own goal on a delayed penalty from the KHL yesterday. Avangard would eventually score 2 more goals so it’s not like they completely blew the game here. But rest assured, if this own-goal had caused Barys to rally back and win that game? We’d be hearing about a lot of players on Avangard just randomly disappearing today.