Here Are The Top 5 Goals From The NHL Last Night (11/8/18)
You see that picture right there? That is what these “Top 5 Goals From The NHL Last Night” blogs are all about. It’s all about making the goalies feel like the biggest most worthless pieces of shit on the planet. I want this to be a trigger zone for goalies. I want these to be the most horrifying blog that goalies could ever imagine clicking on. I want it to ruin their days. I want it to ruin their lives. A miserable goalie means one thing and one thing only–the rest of us just got to witness a nasty goal. So to see Cam Talbot just sitting there in disbelief trying to figure out what in the heck just happened is a work of art in my opinion. I mean just look at those eyes. Those are the eyes of a dead man. The eyes of a guy who has no idea how he found himself in this position but he’s cursing every single decision that has led him to this moment.
So on that note, happy Friday to you and yours. Let’s get right into the filth.
5. Rasmus Ristolainen’s Rocket Emporium
First of all–it was a pretty fun night if you had the over in Montreal last night because that shit hit before the end of the 1st period. 3-3 heading into the first intermission so you knew it wasn’t going to be a classic Carey Price performance come overtime. What we didn’t know, however, is that Rasmus Ristolainen has a rocket launcher attached to his stick and blasted off a missile more powerful than anything Kim Jong Un has ever been able to produce.
That puck was in the back of the net and already out to the top of the circles before Price even had a chance to feel sorry for himself. I’m almost positive that even without Lehkonen hitting that puck, it would have shot back out to at least center ice. What a weapon. Just pulls up from the top of the circle and let’s an RPG fly. And to top it all off, he’s got the celly to boot.
4. Dancing With The Stars
Jason Dickinson to Miro Heiskanen. Heiskanen back to Dickinson. Dickinson over to Gemel Smith and it’s in the back of the net. That right there, boys and girls, is how you EXPOSE a 3v2. I mean I think you knew this was going to end poorly for the Sharks when Melker Karlsson and Joakim Ryan were standing side-by-side. But things went from bad to worse for the Sharks the moment Heiskanen got the puck on his stick. And that’s just the type of respect the rookie has already earned for himself out there. The moment Heiskanen got the puck in the offensive zone, both San Jose defenders immediately tried stepping up to him to take that shot away. Can’t risk your tendy getting sniped to death out there. But when 2 defenders both go to the puck on a 3v2, basic math tells you that leaves 2 guys open. And that’s when the Stars decided to play a little tic-tac-tohhh my goodness.
3. Barrett Hayton (ARI) Confirmed Sick Son Of A Bitch
Last night was the 3rd game in the CHL vs Russia series. In case you’ve never heard of it before, it’s pretty much the Russian junior national team taking on all star teams from the WHL, OHL and the QMJHL. So Russia plays each CHL league team twice and last night was their first game against Team OHL. Unfortunately for the Russians, they came all this way just to get danced by Barrett Hayton, the 5th overall pick to Arizona in the 2018 draft currently playing for the Soo Greyhounds.
The drag. The little triple deke that old geezer taught him. I know that Russians are a little strange when it comes to fashion and they’re typically big fans of silk. But I don’t know if this was the type of silk they were interested in. Barrett Hayton carving up that Russian defense like he was a spoon going into a fresh jar of peanut butter. So I know there were a lot of nasty goals from the NHL last night but it just felt disingenuous to keep this one off the list.
2. Don’t Do ‘Em Eich That
So when you’re only highlighting 5 goals from the night before, there better be a pretty damn good reason to include 2 goals from the same game. I’m pretty sure this Jeff Skinner goal from Jack Eichel qualifies as a “pretty damn good reason”.
What’s so filthy about this goal is watch Eichel’s hand placement. He’s got a motorcycle grip on his stick which would lead most people to believe he’s setting himself up to try to draw this faceoff back to the point. But that deceptive son of a bitch wins the faceoff out front to himself, and then he doesn’t even change his hand positioning before dishing this one over right to Skinner’s tape. You’d think that as he was stepping around Danault he’d try to flip that bottom right hand. But he stays moto-gripped, splits the D with that pass and from there?
1. “Making A Murderer” featuring the Florida Panthers
In case you were trying to figure out why Cam Talbot looked so disheveled up top, it’s because he had to see the Panthers’ top line of Hoffman/Barkov/Dadonov all night last night. And when you’re playing against those filth balls all night, you might come away from that game with a little case of PTSD. Just a little one.
Hoffman with the drag pass to Barkov. Then it’s Sasha Barkov doing what he does best and being the most criminally underrated player in the league with that no-look behind the back pass to Evgenii Dadonov. And then Dadonov shows off his hands by receiving that pass on his backhand, pulling it back to the forehand and dunking it all over Talbot’s life to cap off the play. It’s really hard to try to decide which part of this goal was the nastiest.
I mean the pass from Hoffman to Barkov really sets the tone for the whole thing. I don’t know if it was necessarily a planned pass to Barkov or if it was just a toe-drag gone wrong that just so happened to end up on Barkov’s stick, but either way it was disgusting. And then the no look from Barkov with Klefbom all up in his shit. And then obviously the finish. If I had to rank them, I probably go 1A) Barkov 1B) Hoffman 1C) Dadonov. But as Rick Reilly would say, trying to choose your favorite part of this goal would be like trying to choose your favorite out of Kate Upton’s 3 boobs.