Stop arguing about whether this was Slafkovsky's genius or somebody's defensive breakdown. It was both, in the same fifteen seconds, from opposite ends of the ice. And the man who lost the rep has a name: Darnell Nurse.
⚡ Upset:Sharks had a 29% chance before puck drop and beat Canadiens 4–3.
24%
Early in the second period Tuesday at Bell Centre, with the game tied 1-1, Juraj Slafkovsky flipped the puck to himself around Nurse, skated past him, collected it a couple of feet in front of Alex Nedeljkovic, pulled it to his forehand and buried it. Montreal 2-1, at 1:49. Go pull up the clip. It holds up on the tenth watch.
A lot of people are getting this wrong while they type it up: this had nothing to do with the Edmonton Oilers. Nurse is a San Jose Shark now. Edmonton traded him to the Sharks for Shakir Mukhamadullin and the rights to Zachary Sharp, and that deal closed on July 1. Any version of this that goes "Edmonton's defense broke down" is arguing about a team that wasn't on the ice. There was no Oilers structure to collapse. Nurse was paired with Michael Kesselring on San Jose's top pairing, and Slafkovsky walked through him like a turnstile.
RatingThat's the part the "it was just a breakdown" crowd can't wriggle out of. A breakdown implies a system, a missed assignment somebody else should've covered. Watch the goal again. No second Shark steps up. There's no scramble to clean it up. It's one guy, a 6-foot-4 veteran on a $9.25 million cap hit, getting the puck put through his own skates in open ice. The blame belongs to one defenseman losing a one-on-one in real time, in front of his new team, early in his San Jose tenure.
None of that takes anything away from Slafkovsky. The move takes nerve most wingers don't have. Flipping the puck to yourself around a big defender instead of chipping it in and chasing is the kind of audacity you either have or you don't, and the fans who've spent two years waiting for him to take games over got exactly what they've been asking for. He also set up Nick Suzuki the same night, with Suzuki, Slafkovsky and Cole Caufield each finishing with a goal and an assist. That's what stars do.
There's a nice bit of irony buried in it, too. Kent Hughes signed Slafkovsky as Montreal's GM. Back when he was an agent, Hughes helped steer Nurse toward the monster contract he's still carrying. Hughes built both sides of this.
Montreal didn't win it, though. The Habs coughed up the lead and lost 4-3 in overtime, with Macklin Celebrini scoring twice to pull San Jose through. The goal was the best fifteen seconds of the game. It didn't decide the game. Two points left the building with the Sharks.
The goal was brilliant, the defending indefensible, and it was Darnell Nurse, in a San Jose sweater, who got left on the highlight.
