NHL Playoffs: Elliott and Quick Overplay and Garner the Same Result

I imagine everyone is pretty excited about the NHL playoffs.  With this shortened season, however, it seems like it has been playoff hockey right out of the gate, since most teams had to go full-bore immediately.  Even a 5-game losing streak this year would have sunk most teams for a post-season debut, so all teams were playing their best players and their best goalies all the way from the start to the end.  The lock-out made a pretty good case that the NHL season is way too long and to give the fans the very best in hockey, a 48-game schedule may have been the way to go.

Anyways, I enjoyed the tight play around the league that kicked off the post-season.  The Elliott and Quick match-up is going to be interesting, even though both of their regular season numbers are not as stellar as they have been in years past.  Everyone knows well that both these goalies can play when called upon.  I feel a little guilty, then, about talking about their weak goals last night after they both played well up until then.

Brian Elliott seems to have totally misread his goal against.  It was a very comfortable 3-on-3 situation where his defenders had great body position on the Kings driving the net.  For some odd reason, Elliott decided to play this situation quite deep in his net which allowed a great snipe from the perimeter by Williams.  There is lesson here not only for goalies but players, as well.  When driving the net with the puck have a peek at the goalie's depth, as he might be overplaying the winger driving the net.  The goalie may either be too deep or not square to the puck carrier, thereby giving the player a shot option in addition to his pass/tip/rebound options.  

Elliott's goal against could have been a real back-breaker but, Quick also tries to play outside his comfort zone and decides to overhandle the puck behind his own net.  Now I know what he is trying to do.  His team has a powerplay and he feels that if he can sucker a forechecker to chase or at least pressure him, he may be able to get his team to bust up the ice on a 5-3.  This would be a huge play, if he could pull it off.

But Quick gets a little greedy.  He already has Steen well committed to him but he even tries to draw him in deeper past the goal line.  In addition, even though Quick has a great backhand option when Steen charges at him (in a slow meandering way), he desperately attempts to bounce the puck around the forechecker when he has little or no room.  The bounce off the dasher is shallow and hits the back of his own net, and gives Steen his second goal of the game.

 The best comment to come out of that gaffe is when someone on Youtube said, "That was the Quickest change of events I've ever Steen."