Nashville's campaign has amounted to a catastrophe, yet even the darkest patch can produce a glimmer of hope.
Consider Tuesday, when ex-Capitals draftee Filip Forsberg stumbled into a fresh shootout tactic — entirely by accident.
Having recorded a helper and posted a minus-2 over 60 minutes, Forsberg took the second turn in the skills duel once a tally from Ryan O'Reilly had nudged the home side in front 1-0. Veering wide and then doubling back through the middle, the Swede tried a forehand-to-backhand deke.
When Scott Wedgewood turned him away by extending his right pad, Forsberg crashed within the blue paint into the Avalanche goalie. That contact slammed the rear of Wedgewood's masked head hard against the surface.
Forsberg promptly crouched to check on the rattled netminder and waved for the trainers. As Wedgewood climbed up, Forsberg slung an arm over his shoulder and seemed to say sorry.
Making his initial start in seven days following a bout of back tightness, Wedgewood judged himself well enough to keep going and stopped Steven Stamkos on his third attempt. Then arrived the curveball: the zebras came over and pulled him into concussion protocol.
Avalanche bench boss Jared Bednar explained afterward that it had been the spotter reacting to the crash, as he noted in his postgame remarks. Bednar stressed it wasn't his decision at all, adding that if the spotters spot anything questionable they reach out for the players' protection. He said the team is simply informed the goalie is coming off, and off he goes.
In came reserve goalie MacKenzie Blackwood, who wound up facing zero shots, since Colorado's Gabriel Landeskog couldn't prolong the tiebreaker, locking up a final of 4-3 in the shootout for the Predators.
Blackwood admitted afterward that he had no idea what unfolded, according to the Denver Post, saying a skater shouldn't crash the goalie like that during a tiebreaker and calling the whole sequence genuinely strange.
Forsberg skipped his media availability following the contest.
Whether you call it odd or downright genius, the mustachioed sniper might have uncovered a quirk in the league's regulations. As best I can tell from the official rules, no provision explicitly bars a shooter from plowing through a rival keeper on a shootout try, absurd as that sounds.
Sure, a shooter risks being slapped with a misconduct by the refs. Were they to bury the puck on the very try where they flattened the netminder, a review could follow and that marker might be wiped out. The NHL could also certainly issue a ban if it judged the behavior flagrant enough. Even so, in-game there's little the refs can really do when a skater deliberately — or accidentally — barrels through a rival keeper, perhaps a scorching-hot one the team hasn't been able to solve, hoping to trigger a switch.
Granted, the flattened keeper might choose to stay in. But strike them forcefully enough, the way Forsberg did, and a spotter watching for head injuries could intervene, complicating things and pulling a netminder who swears he feels fine.
The skater who opts for this approach — let's coin a fake moniker such as Porey Cerry — might face about a day of media ridicule, a sort of emotional and personal price. Still, if swapping the goalie yields a win plus an additional standings point, the player might conclude the ploy is worth the grief, perhaps tipping the balance between a mediocre club making the postseason or falling short.
So, hats off, Filip Forsberg. Much in the spirit of the Zack Galifianakis "Calculation" meme, you've cracked the code — a brand-new approach to the sport. The remaining mystery is whether anybody would actually attempt this for real.
[Editor's note: Just so we're clear, this piece is deliberately silly. Any NHL player perusing it should not go out and try to concuss opposing goaltenders. That would be terrible, so kindly refrain. We're merely flagging a bizarre gap within the league's rulebook.]