The Red Wings’ locker room was abuzz with discussion of Team USA’s Olympic victory in women’s hockey last night, as noted by MLive’s Ansar Khan…
Detroit Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill couldn’t stay up late Wednesday to watch the women’s hockey gold medal game at the Olympics but was delighted to learn of the result Thursday morning. The United States defeated Canada 3-2 in a shootout in South Korea.
“I want to congratulate (coach) Robb Stauber and the women on an unreal gold medal,” Blashill said. “I had a chance to watch them win the World Championship last year in Plymouth and it was awesome. Robb was a childhood idol of mine when he was a goalie at Minnesota and he was winning the Hobey Baker. Anytime we can beat Canada it’s a great thing.”
Blashill was impressed by Jocelyne Lamoureux’s dazzling move for the winning goal in the shootout.
“Oh my gosh! What guts to be able to pull that off in that moment. Unreal.,” Blashill said. “Nobody wants to see the game end in a shootout, I think everybody would like to see them play it out, but that’s the rules that they’re given, and the men lost that way and the women thankfully won that way.”
And the Wings’ players discussed Lamoureaux’s shootout winner with DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji:
“That is top-notch,” Howard said. “I’m pretty sure I would have been right there with the Canadian goalie. That’s pretty slick.”Jared Coreau was asked what his chances would be in trying to stop that goal.“I don’t know, I haven’t been too good in shootouts lately down in the AHL but before that I was on a 3-0 streak,” Coreau said. “It’s about 50-50 maybe. I think I would try a poke check, throw my pads one way and stick the other way and hope for the best.”Gustav Nyquist has 13 shootout goals in 36 career attempts but none like Lamoureux-Davidson’s.“By far that’s a better move than any move I have,” Nyquist said. “I don’t know what to say. It looks kind of a little bit like Double-A’s best move but just the opposite since he’s a lefty.”
Athanasiou gave his stamp of approval upon seeing video of the goal.
“She did a really good job selling that fake,” Athanasiou said. “That’s a move I like to do. I do that most of my breakaways. I think it’s just something when you’re coming down with speed, you want to get that goalie to bite on the fake. I think as long as you sell that backhand fake, she actually did a pretty sweet job of bringing it all the way across the ice to the other side of the net so it was a pretty goal.”
It amuses me greatly that the article went from Americans in Blashill and Howard talking about it, to a Swede and a Canadian fanboying a bit over the shootout move.
It also amuses me that Nyquist said that’s AA move, and then AA confirmed that’s his favorite move.
It’s apparently the dumb things in hockey that I love.