I'm A Firm Believer That We'll Never See "The Michigan" Pulled Off In The NHL
Last night Claude Giroux came just a few inches away from scoring one of the nastiest goals in NHL history. He wasn’t the first player in the NHL to attempt the Michigan in game play, but he also wasn’t the first person to ever score using that move in the league either. Earlier just this year, we saw Filip Forsberg try to pull off the same move but couldn’t find the back of the net.
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Evgeny Kuznetsov has gone for it as well before, which was probably the purest attempt of them all because he actually posted up behind the net and pulled the puck onto his blade instead of just getting the puck to roll on the move like Forsberg and Giroux did.
But either way, you see here that all 3 of them ended up just a couple inches short.
Now if you’re a fan of hockey and you keep an eye on the game outside of the NHL, you’ll know that this move has pretty much become a staple to the game. There are at least 5 or 6 of these goals scored every year now throughout all the different junior leagues. Pretty sure there was one scored in the OHL just a week or so ago. But there still hasn’t been one scored in the NHL. And why is that?
Personally, I think it’s all about the Hockey Gods here. I mean these are the best hockey players in the world. Granted, they are going up against the best defensemen and the best goalies in the world as well which would definitely make it more difficult to pull this move off against those guys. But these are still the best hockey players in the world. And guys like Giroux, Forsberg and Kuznetsov all have elite handles. There’s not a doubt in my mind that they could score with this move in every game if you put them in any other league.
But the Hockey Gods simply won’t allow them to tuck it away in the National Hockey League. They can try and try all they want. But each attempt will simply go down as an “Oh my god that would have been absolutely nasty”. There was a time in my life when I was optimistic about the chances of this happening in the NHL. There was a time in my life when I started to see more and more guys at least attempt this move at the highest level, and figured that it was only a matter of time. But if Claude can’t even put that one home, then I truly believe that nobody will. At least not in our lifetime.
P.S. – Flyers lost last night. Season is over. Whatever.