The next in a series of blogs reviewing some of my favourite moments from the just-completed 2010-11 National Hockey League season:
If you have not seen this goal, you're missing out on perhaps the greatest individual effort of the NHL's 2010-11 season.
Unfortunately for the Anaheim Ducks, they lost this contest 4-3 in OT to the Nashville Predators - it was the Western Conference Quarter Final series - and so the amazing moves and subsequent goal by Bobby Ryan, the pride of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and the first member of Team USA to score a goal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, was somewhat lost in the aftermath of the Preds extra time victory. It was his third goal of the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and most definitely his finest.
That is a shame, for Ryan stole the puck at his own blue line, headed up ice, deked and faked, undressing two defencemen in the process, on his way to bury the puck past Nashville's goalie, an astonished Pekka Rinne. It was one of those goals that almost defies belief, the sort that no goalie, no matter how good he is, should feel bad about letting in. Sometimes, in a league chock-full of brilliance, these things just happen, one of those superlative moments of extreme skill, where the hockey world should feel privileged to witness such a play. Ryan was in the groove: nothing, no one, was going to stop him. Watch the crowd at Honda Centre go NUTS!!!!!
The celebration reminds me of Washington's Alex Ovechkin. He was really the first guy to slam himself against the glass behind the goal after a spectacular tally, and now everyone's doing it. Talk about homage to the Great Eight!!
And, you know what, while we're on the subject of brilliant goals from the 2010-11 season...how about this pearler from Thrasher-turned-Bruin (and now Stanley Cup champion) Rich Peverly, faking out Ottawa defenders on his way to lighting the lamp! And one of the great Jack Edwards goal calls - Oh my goodness gracious! Rich Peverly with some magic on the ice!
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