Photo: Robert Moyer
Evgeny Kuznetsov has been the Caps MVP through the first month of the season. He’s assisted on game-winning goals, scored his first career hat trick, and on Saturday, tallied his first game-winning goal of the season, dismissing the Florida Panthers in overtime. All three Capitals on the ice were Russian. (You can’t write a better script than that, especially for this blog.)
And let’s weave: Orlov to Kuznetsov. Kuznetsov fakes to Ovechkin and then scores himself.
What you’re seeing here is what a championship team does. Instead of relying on Ovechkin, their best player, to score, Kuznetsov anticipates Florida over-playing the Russian Machine and takes the puck to the net himself. It’s more than a great play: it’s out thinking an opponent. Hockey can be like chess sometimes and Kuznetsov’s goal was an emphatic: CHECK MATE.
Just look at this.
And he didn’t even freaking smile after scoring goal LIKE HE’S DONE IT BEFORE.
I would like to credit the Hockey Gods for shining on Kuznetsov after Al Montoya got away with playing a dump-in in the trapezoid without being penalized. Who knows? Kuznetsov and the Caps could have won on that play or what should have been the resulting powerplay minutes before.
Totally legal pic.twitter.com/cvxo6Lw9K6
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) November 1, 2015
Great win and no, this wasn’t lucky.
Kuznetsov dropped his "lucky play" line again. Couldn't keep a straight face when he said it.
— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) November 1, 2015
