Former Capital Vitek Vanecek may not have appeared in a game during the Florida Panthers’ run to their third-straight Stanley Cup Final, but he made his presence felt ahead of Game 4. And in an intimidating manner!
The Vitek (which is how Vanecek refers to himself in the third person) ambled over to the red line, where he said hello to Stuart Skinner.
As the Oilers’ starting netminder did some visualization work, Vanecek did his best to irritate him. Vanecek skated side-to-side before bending down and staring into Skinner’s face. The move drew the attention of Oilers’ backup Calvin Pickard, who skated over and exchanged words with the Czechia-born goalie.
“Couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it did happen last game,” TNT analyst Brian Boucher said. “Skinner, his routine is to come to the red line, stare off into the Panthers’ zone. Vanecek did the same thing in Game 3 prior to Game 3. What was different this time is that Pickard came over and said something to Vanecek. The music is way too loud in here for me to pick up what they were saying, but Pickard coming over certainly, I wish I could ask him exactly what was said to Vanecek, but yeah, that’s something that happened in Game 3 as well.”
Vanecek had a record of 2-4-1 with the Panthers during the regular season, posting a 3.00 goals against average and .890 save percentage. The netminder was traded to the Panthers by the San Jose Sharks in March.
Tomfoolery during warmups has been an off-and-on theme during this year’s playoffs. Nick Cousins shot a puck at Anthony Stolarz while Dylan McIlrath and Arber Xhekaj had a moment in the first round. The NHL issued meager fines to all three players (between $2k and $3.3k) and the teams to try to keep things from getting too crazy.
We’ll see if Vitek is the next to lose some lunch money.
