As the hero in Game 3, Kesler shows flashes of his regular season performance.
NASHVILLE — As the Vancouver Canucks were going, so was Ryan Kesler.
Lots of chances, some pretty decent hockey, but not enough goals to show for their efforts. Or, in Kesler’s case, zero goals entering this, his 10th playoff game of the spring — from a 41-goal scorer who needs to produce if the Canucks are going to accomplish anything this spring.
"For me, it’s about time," he said after a performance that was just this side of heroic.
He scored the goal that made it 1-1, and easy tap-in on the powerplay, but a key goal nonetheless. They’re all key, at this time of year, in this brand of hockey.
Then he followed Chris Higgins’ charge to the net, taking the pursuing Nashville defenceman Kevin Klein just far enough into the crease to knock goalie Pekka Rinne down and out of the net. As Rinne scrambled to stop his slide towards the corner, Higgins fired a prayer that landed inside a vacated net.
You can not be a hero in a game your team does not win, however. So when the teams went to overtime for the second time in three games, Kesler yanked the cape back on, drew the game’s crucial penalty, and then deflected home Michael Samuelsson’s point shot for the winner.
We’ve said it before: The team with the better chances doesn’t always win playoff series in this sport. But the team on which the leaders deliver when it counts? Those teams make it to June, more often than not.
"I don’t think I’m the hero," Kesler said. "As a team we’ve all played good. It’s a team game. I just got some results tonight."
With Samuelsson struggling through a suspected abdominal problem and Henrik Sedin fighting some sort of leg injury that has him skating more like Harold Snespts than Daniel’s brother, Kesler must have realized that, for tonight at least, his number had come up.
So he played like a man possessed, which we’ve seen before this spring. But this time, two goals and an assist did follow, in a 3-2 overtime win.
"It’s not only tonight. He’s a working horse for us," said Samuelsson, a scorer himself whose production has been elusive as his English syntax. "I haven’t seen any frustration in his way to act. It’s not only about scoring. Obviously, you score 41 in the regular season, you want to score goals. But it’s more to it than that in the playoffs."
"I didn’t change my game at all. Really just put the same game out there," Kesler said. "It happens. I didn’t lack in confidence, I knew it was going to happen. It was just, keep shooting, keep going to the net, keep doing all the right tings on the ice to help the team win. To help score goals, I guess."
His game is so solid that Kesler can check Jonathan Toews into the ice in Round 1, then in the crucial moments of Game 3 against Nashville, draw the penalty on which this game turned. Then score the winner.
With Predators captain Shea Weber working him in overtime, Kesler felt the shaft of Weber’s stick on his torso. It might have been there and gone in the bat of an eye, but we’ll never know — because Kesler grabbed Weber’s stick under his arm and held it there long enough to draw the call from referee Tim Peel.
Said Nashville’s David Legwand, in a quote that may just cost him a few dollars: "I don’t know if Timmy Peel had a date or something, but he wanted to get outta here pretty quick."
Was it a good call?
"Guy grabs on to my stick and I get a penalty? One hand on my stick? You tell me," said a surly Weber post-game. "I thought the rest of the game was pretty good. I thought they called a good playoff-style hockey game. It was unfortunate that a call like that cost us the game."
"He chicken-winged the stick and kept moving," said Nashville coach Barry Trotz. "Webs is pushing on him, trying to pull the stick out of there. I’ve seen it before in one of the other games he drew a couple of penalties by (doing that).
"I’ll say it’s a bad penalty, they’ll say it’s a good one."
You can debate the good/bad call. But there is no debate on Kesler’s role in the play.
He drew the penalty, on a fine bit of gamesmanship.
"That’s the call," he protested after the game. "When you put a stick in someone’s gut, it has to be called. When you get a stick caught in my arm… It was his own fault. It was a good call."
When you play the way Kesler played Tuesday, you get those calls. You earn those calls.
It’s called being a clutch player.
If a few more first-lines step up that way, this series won’t last long.
Mark Spector is the lead columnist for Sportsnet.ca
Follow me on Twitter.com @SportsnetSpec
