Pavel Datsyuk dazzles Dallas Stars with slick, sick goal (GIF)

Pavel Datsyuk scored a dazzling goal against the Dallas Stars last night. The Detroit Red Wings couldn’t find a way to make the goal stand up—they lost in OT—but the move is likely to be on every highlight reel on every sports show in the country this morning. Datsyuk’s goal gave the Wings a 3-2 lead with less than half of the game remaining.

It’s not very often you see a professional hockey player get cork-screwed into the ice like that. While Shawn Horcoff isn’t known as a defensive stalwart by any means, he flat out whiffs on his attempt at a poke check and ends up looking pretty silly in the process. We’re not quite sure what Jordie Benn is doing on the play either.

He’s the Star that has his leg extended and is trying to somehow block the shot that way.

The best thing about the goal is netminder Kari Lehtonen’s body language after the red light goes on. He puts his stick and blocker up in the air, and if the surrounding players didn’t know how to say “what the hell, will someone cover that guy” in Finnish, they do now.

Here’s the play in full.

There might not be anything in the universe that Mickey Redmond loves more than a good ol’ Datsyukian deke. With plays like this, it’s easy to see why some people consider Datsyuk one of the best players in the world right now. He makes the goal happen from start to finish.

He was the one supporting down below the goal line, he’s the one that cycles the puck back to the defense, and he’s the one that found the seem through which Henrik Zetterberg passed the puck. Of course, he had a sweet move or two that he wanted to bust out after that, but this was all Datsyuk.

The typically reserved Russian pointed out into the crowd after the goal and was on fire for the rest of the night.