Analysis: Elias Pettersson and the greatest shot I’ve ever seen

Mike McKenna
Mike McKenna(MikeMcKenna56)
Analysis: Elias Pettersson and the greatest shot I’ve ever seen

I’ve seen so many goals over the years that it takes something special to really grab my attention. And that’s exactly what happened on Saturday night when Vancouver Canucks center Elias Pettersson scored his second goal of the game against the Dallas Stars.

Hockey is full of exciting moments. Goals. Saves. Hits. Fights. There’s no shortage of drama. But rarely does a play take my breath away purely because of the skill on display.

I watched the replay of Pettersson’s goal countless times, trying to find a reason to believe it was lucky. Or maybe just fortuitous. But I couldn’t. It might be the best shot I’ve ever seen.

Ok, you might think I’m being overly dramatic. But I’ve seen tens of thousands of shots over my lifetime, and I can’t think of one that compares. 

Pettersson had so much confidence taking that shot. Stars forward Joe Pavelski was in a good defensive position. He was using his stick to prevent Pettersson from shooting the puck between his legs. 

It’s a situation where most players wouldn’t have risked having their shot blocked. It’s a 2-on-2 rush for the Canucks, but Pettersson’s teammate Brock Boeser isn’t a realistic pass option.

So what does Pettersson do? He adjusts on the fly. Pettersson pulls the puck around Pavelski’s stick, creates a letter-size space to shoot through, and fires the puck off two posts for his 20th goal of the season.

Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger hardly gave the Canucks forward anything to shoot at. But Pettersson had his head up the entire time and was able to find another tiny window of space high-blocker side on Oettinger. The accuracy of the shot was ridiculous.

The tweet above makes several great points. It wasn’t just the shot that was impressive. It was that Pettersson was traveling at full speed. The slow-motion replay is fantastic because you can see all the details. But watch it again in real time. Pettersson executes the play in a split second.

I retweeted a clip of the goal and got some interesting responses worthy of expanding upon. I love Twitter, but sometimes 280 characters just isn’t enough to give a proper answer. So I decided to include them in this piece.

Adam is correct: NHL players commonly shoot between a defender’s legs. But I think Pettersson’s goal had a higher degree of difficulty than most. Pavelski did a great job of using his stick to deny the shooting lane when Pettersson first presented the puck. And the Stars forward had his legs pretty close together.

Pettersson had to create a shooting space. Then he had to put the puck through it. Those two steps alone weren’t easy. But Pettersson wouldn’t have scored if his shot hadn’t been perfect. It hit the crossbar, then the post before finding the back of the net.

For Pettersson to visually connect the dots – at full speed – is really impressive. So many factors existed that should have prevented the goal. There was nothing routine about it.

Sorry Nerd, that’s untrue. Oettinger’s shoulder was not covering the area where the puck entered the net.

As you can see in the screengrabs above, Oettinger’s basic stance would not have resulted in a save. While the camera angle might not be directly behind the Pettersson’s stick blade, I can assure you that he has space to shoot at. Even from that deep of an angle, Oettinger’s shoulders aren’t wide enough to fill the entire upper half of the net.

Whether Oettinger drops or not is inconsequential. But it is worth asking why Oettinger dropped. And to me, it’s pretty obvious: the Stars goaltender likely didn’t get a clean read on the shot because it came through Pavelski’s legs.

When in doubt, goaltenders drop to seal the lower half of the net. And when players are skating wide down the wing – like Pettersson – they tend to shoot low in an attempt to create a rebound. Oettinger knows that Boeser is driving the slot. So he’s playing the percentages by dropping into the butterfly.

The only problem is that Pettersson isn’t the type of player to toss a safe shot at the goalie’s feet hoping for a rebound. He’s a sniper. Oettinger should have known there was a good chance Pettersson was going to shoot high. He could have been more patient on his edges and exploded upward into the shot with his blocker arm.

Tall goaltenders aren’t dropping too frequently. They might do it at inopportune times occasionally, but that’s true of all netminders.

To me, there shouldn’t be any correlation between size and the number of times a goalie drops to the ice. But to your point, I do think many of today’s goaltenders lack patience and will default to using the butterfly when it’s not necessary.

In this case, I don’t think Oettinger played it perfectly, but Pettersson’s shot was outrageous. Even with a clean read, I’m not sure he makes the save.

I’ve already seen a few examples of similar goals floating around on Twitter. No doubt plenty exist that are equally impressive. But Pettersson’s Saturday night snipe was one I won’t forget any time soon. And I doubt Jake Oettinger and the Dallas Stars will, either.

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