OTTAWA – We have reached the point where Erik Karlsson is basically bending the game with his mind.
How else to explain the impossible angle he scored from to make sure the Ottawa Senators didn’t waste a strong performance to open Round 2?
Karlsson’s right skate was on the goal-line, the puck a good foot below it. He was literally standing in the corner when he rifled a shot that banked in off Henrik Lundqvist’s mask with less than five minutes to play on Thursday.
“I don’t know how you score from that area and what possessed him to throw it at the net the way he did,” teammate Marc Methot said after a 2-1 win over the New York Rangers. “That’s what separates him from almost every other player in the league.”
It is what has carried Ottawa into the second round and should have fans dreaming of a run that could last even longer than that.
Karlsson appears to be on another level despite playing with two small fractures in his left foot these last few weeks. There were a couple all-world assists against Boston in Round 1 – they are still talking about the pass that travelled more than 140 feet and landed flat on Mike Hoffman’s stick – and Thursday’s goal couldn’t have arrived at a better time for his teammates.
They saw four games go to overtime against the Bruins and were starting to get heavy legs late in this one. They had thrown absolutely everything at Lundqvist and couldn’t find a dent in his armour.
Then, in a flash, Karlsson strikes with just 4:11 left on the clock.
“Relief,” said Methot, when asked what he was thinking when it went in. “I think more relief just because we had so many overtimes in that first round. They’re taxing, they’re hard, they’re long and hard on the body.”
It highlights yet one more skill that makes the 26-year-old Swede so valuable. He plays and plays. Head coach Guy Boucher ran him out for 28 minutes 54 seconds in Game 1 – giving him a security blanket for almost half the night while heavily sheltering his third pairing.
Occasionally, the coach needs to remind himself that he’s watching something special.
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He can be forgiven for overlooking that fact given that Karlsson scored a goal in similar fashion here against Detroit’s Jimmy Howard on April 4.
“Yeah, he’s done exactly that before,” said Boucher. “I’d love to tell you I’m surprised by what he does now, but I guess my mind is not boggled by what he does now. It’s every day, it’s something that he comes up with. …
“I guess I got used to it. I don’t know if that’s good or not.”
The only thing it was bad for is his insistence on painting the Senators as a massive underdog in this series. That simply isn’t true.
Aided by two early power plays, Ottawa poured 21 shots on Lundqvist in the first period alone. The home side controlled long stretches of play – getting solid goaltending from Craig Anderson when needed, including breakaway stops on Michael Grabner and Ryan McDonagh – and finished ahead 43-35 on the shot clock.
“I think the players didn’t want to get swept in four,” said Boucher, straight-faced. “You hear it from everybody how good they are. It’s all we could hear: How much they’re going to crush us, it is a scary team – they’ve got four lines and their goaltender is outstanding, so maybe there’s a lot of fear tonight that helped us.”
Of course, they also had the best player on the ice too.
It has been a fascinating year for Karlsson, who bought into Boucher’s defensive system immediately. At the coach’s urging, he took shorter shifts and fewer risks and still wound up producing a season worthy of a Norris Trophy nomination.
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“It’s been enjoyable to be sitting next to him and playing with him, I’ll tell you that, because every night he’s so dynamic in the way he plays this game,” said teammate Dion Phaneuf. “This year I saw him commit so much to our end and playing real strong defence and being a tough guy to play against – whether it’s blocking shots or finishing a check, competing on pucks – he’s lead our team all year and he continues to do it in the playoffs.”
It says here that they will only go as far as he can take them.
A loss to the Rangers in Game 1 would have been devastating after how well the Senators played. And yet it remained a possibility with the clocking ticking towards zero.
Then Karlsson headed for the corner and fooled the King, his countryman and friend, removing any doubt from the Canadian Tire Centre in the process.
“Our fans have to appreciate what we have here,” said Boucher. “It’s more than a star, right now, and that’s what I think is unbelievable. He’s a skilled player that became a star and now he’s a winner.”
