Here’s NHL comic captions – Week 21 of the 2017/18 season
After taking last weekend off to cover the breaking trade deadline news, Comic Captions is back!
"Gee, it's been 300 wins? I had no clue, I just put on my gear and go out there and give it my all." Pekka Rinne, goalie - Nashville Predators
The Nashville Predators' netminder Pekka Rinne became the 34th goalie in NHL history and joined six other active goalies when he reached that milestone with a 7-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks on February 22, 2018.
The amazing part of it is that Rinne accomplished this milestone record in only 552 games, giving him a .552 winning percentage. Not many goalies can add that to their resumes.
The game was definitely filled with emotion for Rinne and his teammates who wanted to win the game for him badly... and it showed.
After the Preds took a 3-1 lead into the final period they brought out the heavy artillery by scoring four goals to blow the Sharks out of the water.
To display the overall parity of the Nashville attack, seven different players hit the net and lit the red light to pace the Predators.
The Predators are definitely on a roll, and after this victory, they went on to win four more games and are now on a seven-game winning streak at the time of this writing. Make the eight, they just beat the Avalanche 4-3. Preds are really on a tear, and peaking at the right time.
They currently lead the second place Winnipeg Jets by six points and hold the second most points in the NHL with 91.
"Man, two goals by Kessel, we're going down hard... again" Justin Faulk, defenseman - Carolina Hurricanes
When you play the twice defending Stanley Cup champs you just can't allow the trio of Phil Kessel, Sidney Crosby, and Evgeni Malkin to dominate the scoring against you.
Apparently, the Carolina Hurricanes didn't get that e-mail. They gave Kessel not one goal, but two to give him 26 at the time of this game. They also allowed Crosby to collect his 20th goal, and Malkin his 34th.
If you let that trio to go crazy on the scoreboard... guess what?
YOU LOSE!
And the Hurricanes were more like a light shower in this game as the Pens thumped them easily 6-1.
Don't look now but as of today, the Penguins are just one point behind second-place Philadelphia Flyers and two behind the Metro Division-leading Washington Capitals.
Expect a dogfight to the end of the season, and we all know which dog has already proven to be the toughest... being the reigning two-time champ has its advantages.
"Rick, I know you're excited to be on your new team, but this not a new Olympic event!" Benoit Pouliot, left-wing - Buffalo Sabres
The way the streaking Boston Bruins had been playing (13-4 before this game), it seemed unlikely that they would blow a game to the lowly Sabres.
BUT... this is the NHL and any team can win at any time. The Bruins were excited to show off their newest trade deadline acquisition Rick Nash whom they acquired from the New York Rangers.
The Rangers got a boatload of returns in defenseman Ryan Lindgren, forwards Ryan Spooner and Matt Beleskey, a first-round pick in the 2018 NHL draft, and a seventh-round pick in the 2019 NHL draft.
Still, in this game, the newly traded Nash did little to help his team be embarrassed by the team with the second-lowest point total in the NHL. He finished with 17:27 of ice-time and had five shots on goal, and was a -1.
The Sabres goalie Chad Johnson had much to do with the Buffalo victory with 34 saves and a .971 save percentage.
Still, the Bruins are not a team to be held down for long. After this last game of a five-game road trip, they went home to take the first three games of a six-game homestand by winning two overtime games against Carolina and Montreal sandwiched by a complete domination of the Penguins by an 8-4 score.
If a team draws the Bruins in the playoffs they had better be ready to play a team who is driving on all cylinders and has a shot at the Cup.
"I've got two more of these, just in case you're wondering." Eric Staal, center - Minnesota Wild
Eric Staal had a great game and had a hat-trick even though he thought he had one earlier in the game. Staal had a goal taken away via a scoring change earlier in the night, so when he scored his second goal of the game in the final period, many fans thought he already had completed the hat trick.
Thus, he got to celebrate the traditional hat toss not once but twice.
It was the Wild's fifth win in a row, and Staal had 13 goals in the short month of February to show he is a premier scorer in the NHL. This hat-trick gave him 33 tallies in just 63 games.
The opposite side of the coin showed that the Blues are really singing the blues of late losing their seventh straight. They currently are tied for fifth in the Central Division with the Colorado Avalanche who both have accumulated 75 points.