Mat Barzal Is One Sick Puppy
The Flyers lost to the Islanders last night. Whatever. It happened. They tied the game up with the goalie pulled and only a minute 30 left on the clock. Then they come out the next shift and Ryan Pulock scores the game winner about 45 seconds later. Does it suck? Absolutely. But let's just talk about what a son of a bitch Mat Barzal is. And I mean that in a way that I respect the hell out of his game but I just don't want to fully stroke the man off.
Sure, he didn't have any goals himself last night but just look at this sick bastard on that Jordan Eberle goal that put the Isles up 3-0 in the first. He goes for The Michigan, realizes it's not going to work out so he quickly aborts that mission and not only has the balls but also the brains to flip the puck around the defender to himself, drives the net and sets up the rebound assist for Eberle. It takes a silky set of hands to pull off The Michigan, but it takes an even silkier brain to come up with the audible once he knew it wasn't going to work out for him.
Then we get to the 2nd period and as much as I love Travis Konecny, my poor guy got put on the spin cycle here.
Just two quick cut backs and Barzal gives himself about 10 feet of wide open space to work with. Unbelievably smooth. Unbelievably rude, too. Travis Konecny is one of the better skaters in the NHL. He's not McDavid or anything like that but he's still got some wheels and is great on his edges. He's an all-star. And Barzal just dusted him and left him sprawled out at the top of the circles.
Barzal is a good ol' British Columbia boy so I'll just be over here spending the rest of my day going to every corner of the internet trying to find a picture of him sleeping in some Canucks pajamas as a kid. Need this fucker off the Island.