Midway through the third period of Monday’s game against the Edmonton Oilers, Dmitry Orlov turned the puck over at center ice and started a wild chain of events. The Capitals, in the middle of a shift change, watched helplessly as Oilers’ stars Nail Yakupov and Taylor Hall raced in alone on Braden Holtby.
But the Oilers didn’t score! Or even get a shot off. Hall fumbled Yakupov’s pass and as the Oilers regained possession of the puck, Karl Alzner— playing man-to-man defense against Teddy Purcell — blocked a shot from the point with his shin pads.
The puck squirted to center ice and sprung Alzner, he of 14 career NHL goals, on a semi-breakaway.
Except he did not even get close to scoring. Not even a little.
“As soon as it happened, I knew what I was going to try and do,” Alzner said to the media after the game. “But the guy got some speed that I was trying to beat. I had to improvise.”
“Now I know what to expect, I guess,” he said.
When Alzner was asked if he ever had a breakaway of this nature, he said, “never quite like that.”
And boy it showed. A for effort though, Karl. That shot block was still pretty and no one can take that away from you.
Karl Alzner has probably never had a breakway like that before, because he definitely had no idea what to do.
— Katie Brown (@katiebhockey) November 24, 2015
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