Ease Into Your Work Week With The Top 5 Goals From The NHL Over The Weekend (10/5-10/7)
You wake up on a Monday morning in October and you turn on your sports highlight show of choice. And chances are that every highlight you see is either from NFL Sunday or playoff baseball or if you’re lucky, maybe even a clip of some preseason basketball. Which is bullshit because October means it’s one thing and one thing only–Hockey Season. So if those fucks over on the big networks aren’t going to talk puck on Monday mornings in October, we’ll just have to do it for them right here. And since everybody is probably still a little hungover and extremely broke from the weekend, you probably don’t want to read a ton of words. So without further ado, here are my top 5 goals/moments from the NHL this past weekend.
5. Ladies And Gentlemen, The Andrei Svechnikov Era Has Officially Begun
Obviously a tip in wasn’t exactly one of the nastiest goals scored on the weekend. But I’m a sucker for guys scoring their first career NHL goal. This is a kid who scored 40 goals in 44 games last year in the OHL as a 17-year-old so you can probably expect to see him score plenty more in Carolina. But you never forget your first. Especially not when you can grab a new profile picture for your Tinder account out of it. Svechnikov probably dominated the town last night.
“Hey babe. You know who the first player born in the year 2000 to ever score a goal in the National Hockey League was?” – Andrei Svechnikov
4. Kopi From Kovy
This right here is exactly what you get when you bring Ilya Kovalchuk on to your roster. He may be a little older now. He may have lost a bit of a step and isn’t quite as smooth as he once was. But watch how much attention he commands when he has the puck on his stick. Everybody has to be alert.
Goes inside-outside. Knows that he draws 2 guys onto him which means that one has to be open. Pulls up. Finds Kopitar streaking down and then Kopi with a goddamn buttery pull from his forehand to his backhand to freeze Sulak, drop Bernier down, and then goes top bunk. Not a bad little sequence there, to be perfectly honest.
3. Two-For-One Bonus Special: Auston Matthews vs Patty Kane Dueling Cellies
Up first we have Auston Matthews Goal scoring with just over a minute left to give Toronto the lead and most likely the win. (Link to video)
Then just over 30 seconds later, it’s Patrick Kane tying that bitch up again to send the game into overtime. (Link to video)
And then boys and girls, we officially have a Celly Off.
The best two Americans in the game. Both playing on a couple of Original 6 teams, doing the damn thing and dicking around with each other in the process. It’s like big brother, little brother out there. Patty Kane just has to make sure that Auston doesn’t get too full of himself in his presence. Gotta remind him who the top dog still is. And Auston knows it since you can see him crack a little smile on the bench there even though his boys just fucked with his game winning goal stats. Couple of certified beauts right there.
2. A Quick Break In The Goals To Highlight Some Of The Fellas Letting The Fists Fly
Brett Ritchie vs Adam Lowry (Link to video)
Jake Muzzin vs Nick Jensen (Link to video)
Mark Scheifele vs Tyler Seguin (Link to video)
Fucking brutal right there. Stick taps to the boys for putting their bodies on the line and letting their fists do the talking out there. It may not always show up on the scoreboard but a good ol’ fashion tilt always has a major impact on the game.
1. Viktor Avridsson. You Sick Fuck.
Viktor Arvidsson is such an underrated player. Which makes sense considering Nashville is already so loaded with star power. Guys like Subban, Johansen, Filip Forsberg, Josi, Pekka Rinne, etc. etc. When you have a team that stacked, it’s pretty easy to overlook some absolute studs who kind of get lost in the shuffle every now and then. Viktor Arvidsson is one of those players. He has so much speed. He has silky smooth hands. It’s one thing to put Pulock in a blender like he did right there with that move but then to make sure he capped it off by dunking it on Greiss? Stud. And if he keeps putting home goals like this–which he’s done before–he won’t stay “underrated” for much longer. In fact, he probably shouldn’t even be underrated right now with how often he pulls this one off. Filth monster.