Blake’s highlight goal beats Devils in shootout

December 16, 2008   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

Even though the shootout’s become such a big part of the NHL, rarely does a true highlight reel goal climax the skills competition.

Tonight was an exception.

Jason Blake decided the shootout in the Air Canada Centre with a spin-o-rama – a contreversial move since both the player’s momentum and the puck goes backwards which technically isn’t supposed to be allowed, but it was a showstopper nonetheless and gave the Leafs a shootout win after a 2-2 tie in 65 minutes. 

It was a homecoming of sorts for Scott Clemmensen, who had a three-game cameo with Toronto last year but played most of the season in the AHL.  Early on it looked as if it was going to be a successful one when Mike Rupp scored after only 1:49 on a rebound goal, Rupp’s third goal of the season. 

New Jersey controlled play in the first period but the Leafs (as they did in New Jersey earlier this year) eventually found their legs and scored two in the second to take the lead.  First, big Nik Antropov scored on a pretty turnaround shot off a rebound at 7:24.  Then Leafs rookie Jeremy Williams beat Clemmensen with a stoppable wrister at 15:06.  Perhaps Clemmensen got psyched out by his buddy, as he proved to be too prescient telling Chico Resch he needed to keep an eye on the kid during the game.

Whatever the case, it took a strange Zach Parise power play goal with just 20 seconds left in the second to tie the game, when a loose puck glanced off his helmet and past Leafs goalie Vesa Toskala.  After a review, it was ruled that Parise did not head-butt the puck in (which is illegal) and he scored his 17th of the season. 

After a scoreless third where the Devils must have thought they were the Rangers and sat back playing for overtime, the overtime proved to be back and forth.  Interestingly just moments before the shootout, literally on the final play of overtime, Travis Zajac found himself on a breakaway but failed to get the puck off the ice and it was stopped easily by Toskala.  That proved to be a harbinger.

In the shootout, Clemmensen stopped Lee Stempniak and shootout ace Tomas Kaberle while Toskala got fooled on a Parise deke but managed to get a piece of his stick on the followthrough, preventing Parise from putting the puck in.  Then Elias failed on his skate towards the boards and do no deke move that I thought he’d shelved.  Williams got the best of Clemmensen again with another wrister that glanced off the goaltender’s glove, but Jamie Langenbrunner beat Toskala to send it to sudden death shots, and setting the stage for Blake’s highlight goal.  Brian Rolston took New Jersey’s final chance, and just as he had with the Wild against the Devils in a shootout twice before, cranked a nonsensical slapshot almost from the blue line that missed the net.

BoNY Three Stars:

1. Jeremy Williams (goal, SO goal, +1)
2. Tomas Kaberle (two assists, +2)
3. Nik Antropov (goal, +1)