Like he does with so many things
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There was the time he shot the puck off the post and swatted the rebound into the net out of midair. Or, the time he waited for the puck to drop and
backhanded it in for a goal. Or, when knocked the puck up to himself with his
stick before tapping it in.
”I think it’s just instincts,” Crosby said.
It’s actually a mix of natural talent, instincts, awareness, timing, patience and hand-eye coordination. Crosby’s Pittsburgh teammates are still amazed every
time he does it – and they should be.
”It’s just a reactionary thing,” Penguins winger Conor Sheary said. ”When you see the puck go in the air
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Batting a fluttering piece of frozen rubber 3 inches in diameter and 1-inch thick with a stick blade 2 to 3 inches wide is no simple task. Doing it at full
speed in an NHL playoff game certainly raises the degree of difficulty. Yet a
handful of goals have been scored or saved already this postseason with a player
somehow able to connecting their stick with an airborne puck at the perfect
time.
As recently as Tuesday night, Capitals winger Alex Ovechkin batted the puck out of the air off the post in Crosby-esque fashion for the game-winner to beat
the Penguins.
”I hit the post and it’s a good thing I didn’t raise my arms up,” Ovechkin said. ”I finished up the play and got lucky.”
Teams don’t have drills for this kind of thing, but hockey players are always noodling with the puck, so the familiarity with both stick and puck becomes
ingrained at an early age. Playing baseball and other sports growing up can’t
hurt. Washington Capitals forward Brett Connolly, who scored a baseball-style
goal with Boston in 2015, thinks players learn the skill and try to use it when
they can.
”Your athleticism kind of takes over at that point,” Connolly said. ”Once your hand-eye is at a high level
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we’re staring at the puck. You kind of just take a chance at it and sometimes it
works out.”
It worked out for Toronto’s Connor Brown on his goal in Game 5 of the first round when the puck bounced off a defenseman’s stick and he knocked it in before
goaltender Tuukka Rask knew where it was. Columbus goalie Sergei Bobrovsky
didn’t know where the puck was when captain Nick Foligno whacked it out of the
air to prevent a goal during the first round against Washington, either, a
product of years of work.
”That was actually my guy, so the least I could do was bat it out,” Foligno said. ”Honestly, I practice it so much with playing around with the puck that
you just get used to it playing so many years. Obviously, a little bit of luck
to make sure you get it out and not hit somewhere else.”
To the surprise of no one
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On the ice, Crosby doesn’t have to hit the puck as hard as Aaron Judge hits a baseball or as precisely as Roger Federer hits a tennis ball, but Penguins
winger Bryan Rust correctly points out: ”They’re also looking for it to be in
the air. Our sport, the puck’s not supposed to be in the air.”
Crosby and others figure it out anyway.
”There’s a lot of things you’ve got to be aware of, and you need pucks to be in those areas to do it,” Crosby said. ”Sometimes you can go a period of time
where you don’t get a puck that sits right there for you. I’ve been around the
net when pucks have been able to kind of just lay there for me. There’s a lot of
different factors, but I think just being in and around the net trying to expect
different things and being ready for it.”
Playing peewee baseball explains some of it for Crosby, a two-time season and playoff MVP who works on redirecting and bating pucks so often in practice it
has become a routine way for him to score.
Not so much for others, like Bruins forward Sean Kuraly
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Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen.
”You have to wait for the puck to come down,” the otherwise-impatient Kuraly said. ”I’m a terrible baseball player. It has nothing to do with baseball.”
Goalies with thicker blades on their sticks get into the act, too. Andersen robbed Rick Nash on a sure-fire goal in the first round in Game 6, and
Pittsburgh’s Matt Murray extended his stick to stop Ovechkin in Game 2 of the
Penguins-Capitals series.
Goaltenders are counted on to keep the puck out by any means necessary.
Scoring a goal by batting the puck in? Well, that’s just fun.
”It’s a creative game. You’ve got to mix it up and be creative,” Connolly said. ”To score, you’ve got to try and do something different sometimes to get
one.”
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AP Sports Writers Jimmy Golen in Boston and Will Graves in Pittsburgh contributed.
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