As I walked out of Scotiabank Place Monday night, Kaspars Daugavins happened to be leaving at the same time.
About an hour had passed since Daugavins set the hockey world on fire with his unorthodox shootout move — which was ultimately stopped by Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask.
We stopped and chatted for a couple of minutes and the first thing I told him was how much I liked his move. He thanked me — but his head was hung low, as he was still upset that the move didn’t work.
“That’s worked on the last seven goalies I’ve tried it on in practice. The guys who haven’t seen it before can’t stop it,” he said with a defeated laugh. “I can’t believe I didn’t score tonight.”
Daugavins told me that if he had just pushed the puck with a little more force, it surely would have beaten Rask’s left pad. By now, everyone has seen the YouTube video of Daugavins’s successful attempt on the same move in the AHL from a couple of years ago. (The most hilarious thing about that video is the announcer awkwardly calling him Dag-o-vans.)
But when he missed the shootout attempt against the Boston Bruins last night, it immediately opened up a debate in the hockey world. During my post-game interview with Bruins forward David Krecji — who followed up Daugavins’s attempt by scoring the winning shootout goal — it was clear that some players around the league were not amused by the unique attempt.
“That’s something I’ve never seen before. But I wouldn’t be happy if someone on my team tried it,” Krecji told me. That comment seemed awfully similar to the ones made by the Tampa Bay Lightning a couple of years ago, when they were offended by Linus Omark’s dazzling shootout goal in Edmonton.
The reaction from other people at the game was less abrasive. Bruins coach Claude Julien applauded the move, saying that the fans found it entertaining and that we’d be talking about this for a long time. Of course, Julien’s reaction may have been different if Daugavins actually scored on the play.
It’s certainly worth noting that Daugavins’s own coach had no issue with the attempt. For starters, he hasn’t scored a regular season goal in 17 games this season — so using him as the fourth shooter in the shootout was clearly a sign that MacLean knew about his bag of tricks.
Everyone in the Sens locker room knows about Daugavins’s move in the shootout, so MacLean wasn’t overly surprised to see him put the blade of his stick on top of the puck at centre ice. MacLean joked that his initial reaction upon seeing that was to “buckle up” — because he knew that whatever happened, this was going to be a significant moment.
The important thing to remember here is that whatever you think about the Daugavins shootout attempt, the players inside the locker room and the coaching staff were on board. If MacLean had come out to his press conference last night and said, “We’re going to have a talk with Kaspars about stuff like that,” then we would have had a full-fledge controversy on our hands.
But he did nothing of the sort — which means that any controversy around Daugavins’s shootout attempt is completely fabricated. Sure, there will be some people around the hockey world who didn’t like the move and they’re entitled to their opinion.
However, on a night when there was only two games being played in the NHL, Daugavins had people talking about hockey. A still photo of his shootout attempt is the main picture on the front of the NHL’s website. His unique attempt will undoubtedly get some play on U.S. networks like ESPN, which usually treat hockey like a poor cousin. And it will certainly be a point of debate on every sports talk radio show in this country on Tuesday.
Those of us who cover NHL hockey spend too much time stifling the fun and imagination out of the game. We love nothing more than to get up on our soapbox and proclaim something is compromising the integrity of the game. If something goes against the code — which is largely unwritten by the way — we get in a huff and denounce it immediately.
But what Daugavins did last night actually showed off the skill and creativity that we were pining for just 10 weeks ago, when our sport was embroiled in a ridiculous lockout. Fans pay a lot of money to go to these games, so watching robotic and scripted shootout attempts gets pretty tiresome after awhile. And for the record, how did the safe shootout attempts go for guys like Jakub Silfverberg, Tyler Seguin and Daniel Alfredsson last night?
The best thing is that kids around the country will be on the ice this week, trying to see if they can carry the puck down the ice like Daugavins did last night. And that’s what the game should be all about — fun and creativity.
As we parted ways last night, Daugavins didn’t rule out trying the move again in the future — with a twist. He told me that he can actually spin the other way when trying that move and that he actually has options when he comes in on the goalie.
Here’s hoping he tries that move in the shootout again — only with a different result.