Ryan Leonard has shown flashes of brilliance this season, offering tantalizing glimpses of the superstar he could one day become.
His coast-to-coast goal-of-the-year candidate against the New Jersey Devils was the most memorable moment, but his latest highlight-reel play also deserves your attention.
While it didn’t result in a goal, Leonard’s first shift in the third period against the Flyers showcased another exciting dimension of the second-year player’s game: his developing defensive instincts and the relentless competitiveness that could help propel him to NHL superstardom.
The play started in the Capitals’ defensive zone, where Leonard turned up ice and tried to aggressively skate the puck out with the team leading 3-1. Flyers winger Noah Cates, however, had other plans, poking not only the puck away but Leonard’s stick as well and sending it flying into the corner. Leonard didn’t give up on the play, though, and what followed was incredible.
Trying to make up for the turnover, Leonard followed his man to the netfront, where he then blocked a shot with his left ribcage. As the puck bounced to the corner, Leonard retrieved his twig and immediately took a heads-up pass from Jack St. Ivany.
Not content to just chuck the puck out of the zone, Leonard deked around Flyers forward Denver Barkey and raced into the offensive zone, where he tried to send an indirect pass to himself off the boards as he skated around defenseman Oliver Bonk. Unfortunately, the pass had too much starch on it and eluded Leonard’s reach.
The other Flyers’ rearguard on the ice, Hunter McDonald, gathered the loose puck, but Leonard then crushed him hard into the end boards — the second huge physical play McDonald endured on the night — which muddied the Flyers’ attempt to get out of the zone quickly. Leonard then changed and got off the ice.
Leonard’s leadership and tenacity on the play were notable as he tried to make up for his mistake.
“(That was) a little chaotic, right?” Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery said in his postgame press conference. “I need to go back and look at it. I know in the moment, I knew we were hanging on for dear life in a few of those sequences where we didn’t have our stick, and they had us a little bit in the spin cycle there in the defensive zone… There were some chaotic moments there where they were pushing, and we hung on.
Leonard led all Capitals forwards on Wednesday with 3 shot blocks while doling out 2 hits.
The 21-year-old winger currently sits fourth on the team with 8 points (4g, 4a) in 11 games. He leads the team with seven penalties drawn.
