Jakub Vrana, pronounced YAK-oob, scored his tenth goal of the season Thursday night in Boston on a beautiful individual play.
Vrana has six goals in his last 11 games since Barry Trotz’s “participation mode” comments.
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SPEEDY V!#CapsBruins #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/VljABamnDU
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) December 15, 2017
Part of the reason why Vrana has been so successful is that he’s using his biggest strength more: his speed. In the latest example of his good wheels, Vrana peeled around three Bruins defenders in the first period to score on goaltender Anton Khudobin.
The goal went from nothing to something in like five seconds.
The Capitals celebrated the goal by putting their gloves literally in Vrana’s face.
During intermission, Vrana spoke to NBC Sports Washington’s Craig Laughlin and agreed it was the prettiest goal of his career.
“Yeah, I would say so far,” Vrana said. “I just get lots of speed and I saw the D was turning so I just tried to take advantage of it. And then I elevated up and it went in. I take that one.
“I saw O (Alex Ovechkin) was crossing the neutral zone there I was thinking to give it to him, and then it was a little too late. So I just tried to get my speed and skate around their D.”
Vrana has 10 NHL goals in 32 games this season. He’s one of six NHL rookies to have double digit tallies so far.
That's 10 goals for Vrana this season. One of six rookies in double digits in goals:
Boeser 16
DeBrincat 12
Keller 11
Vrana 10
Connor 10
Kempe 10— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) December 15, 2017
Vrana’s on pace for about 25 goals in his first full season.
From yesterday, Kuznetsov on Vrana: "Some players, they're too focused. Sometimes they're not smiling. I like the V. He's always smiling."
— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) October 6, 2017
I also like the V.
