Devante Smith-Pelly had an extreme ice adventure late in the first period against the Montreal Canadiens.
Smith-Pelly lost his skate blade after absorbing a rough run into the boards by Kenny Agostino.
This was problematic (and funny) because skating is hard without one of your skate blades. Who knew?
Late in the third period, the defensive pairing of Carlzner – John Carlson and Karl Alzner – went out for a shift together to keep the rallying Boston Bruins off the board. The Bruins had scored three unanswered goals to tie the game and were pushing for a fourth.
Then a disaster scenario played out. A Bruins player wound up and fired a shot from the point. The biscuit struck Karl Alzner in the slot and the Calgary native went down in a heap. NBCSN play-by-play man Mike Emrick thought Alzner was injured.
On Sunday, Alex Ovechkin and Team Russia lost to Sweden 2-0 at Stockholm Globe Arena during the Oddset Hockey Games, which is basically another international tournament before the World Championships begin on Friday.
We have two important pieces of information to share from this game. First, Mattias Ek of the Swedish website Expressen reports that Ovechkin was named captain of Team Russia for the Worlds. That’s neat and not all that surprising.
Second, Ek shares a story that should warm your our cold, Capital heart. Apparently in the third period, with Swedes Jimmie Ericsson and Andreas Thuresson in the penalty box, Ovechkin “bombed away for Putin and his motherland” and “shot off the blade of Tre Kronor centreman Mikael Backlund” with a huge shot.
Unfortunately, there’s no video, but Backlund spoke to SportExpressen.se exclusively after the game about the incident. He sure was impressed by Ovechkin’s power.
During last season’s playoffs, Washington Capitals rookie forward Tom Wilson lost his right skate blade after attempting a big hit on a New York Ranger player in the defensive zone. This is apparently a huge problem in hockey. Without his blade, Wilson’s legs flailed like a baby giraffe trying to walk for the first time. Wilson fell over a bunch as he desperately tried to inch to the bench.
Good times, but I thought that it’d be the only time I’d ever see that happen in a Caps game. Wrong.
In Vancouver on Monday, defenseman Steve Oleksy experienced the horrible malfunction. After blocking a Kevin Bieksa shot with his left skate on the penalty kill, Binky started to skate up the ice. As he did, his blade popped off. Wuh oh.
Stuck in the middle of the circles without any help, Oleksy tried to get his footing but could not. He even tried, unsuccessfully, to block a shot while sliding on his hip.
Eventually, after a little help from some teammates and the ref, Oleksy made it back to the bench. What an adventure though.
Skating in just the second NHL game of his career, Tom Wilson immediately saw his role on the team expanded. Wilson got a lot more ice time and more of the same with: big hits and strong skating.
For the most part, at least. Wilson lost a skate blade after a collision with Ryan McDonagh and had to hobble his hulking frame back to the bench like a goofball.
