On Frozen Blog

This is my morning allegation: Boyd Gordon, the quarterback of last night’s second-period, two-on-one that led to Alexander Semin’s first goal, giving the Caps a 4-1 lead and sending the Hab’s Christobal Huet to an early shower, intentionally banked a soft ’shot’ off of him knowing that its rebound would be easily potted by his sniper teammate flanked on his left. It’s a play I’ve only seen in pickup and college hockey. Never seen it in a Caps’ game, ever. It’s a bold and startling allegation — Gordon was in tight, in prime scoring position — but based exclusively on the footage we saw from the play, I’d challenge my readers today, after considering the evidence I put forth, to point out the fallacy of my thesis.

My evidence: Gordon was altogether unchallenged on his approach to Huet’s cage, the lone Habs’ defender clearly cheating to Semin’s side, knowing where the danger odds were positioned and poised. And confronted with that two-on-one personnel, who wouldn’t have made the identical decision? As such, Gordon didn’t have to unleash a rushed or contested shot. He was so much in the clear that, inventorying his surroundings, he slowed up and transferred his weight into a shooter’s perfectly cocked stance.

He clearly didn’t fan on the shot, either. But for a big-league forward in so prime and unchallenged a position, and with no apparent physical error on his part, he sure didn’t place much velocity on his shot.

I next noticed the shot’s placement: on the ice, five-hole. That close to the cage, the ’shot’ could either beat Huet between his pads (unlikely) or deflect low off his stick, almost certainly out front, to Gordon’s waiting and undefended teammate. Had Gordon chosen to shoot high, Huet could have gloved it or blocked it over and behind the cage, or far off to one corner far away from Semin, and thereby purchased precious time for his teammates to recover from the Caps’ odd-man advantage.

This morning I can’t recall ever seeing so soft a shot from a big-leaguer in tight in completely uncontested circumstances that didn’t involve some manner of physical error. And if Gordon had shot high and had Huet gloved it or deflected it out of harm’s way, what manner of rebuke might you imagine he’d have received back on the bench, reminded that accompanying him horizontal on the rush was one of the planet’s finest set of hands?

Is what I’m positing positively preposterous? And if in this particular instance you find my argument unpersuasive, as a general strategy under such circumstances, do you find it plausible to any degree?

Semin’s second goal is also worthy of some reflection. Recall that he sliced in from the left boards of the Habs’ zone and allegedly — for my eyes, nor the television camera’s, couldn’t pick it up — picked the far right top corner while moving laterally across the slot. I only noticed that he scored after the puck had rocketed out of the cage and back out to the blueline. A stunning bit of sniping.

But then I immediately thought about the increasing tendency we’ve seen by shooters this season during shootouts of swerving out wide and approaching the cage laterally, rather than challenging goalies in straight-on fashion. This affords the shooter the advantage of opening the goalie’s pads. And I thought of the struggles we’ve see so often this season in the shootouts from both of our Russian snipers, who’ve yet to make the kind of move Semin was fairly forced to by last night’s third-period rush. Admittedly the shootout circumstances are plainly different from Semin’s play last night, but going forward, I wonder if we’ll see them consider this alternative approach in shootouts?