Ice Cold Takes: “It’s Pekka Selanne, how you doing?”

Ice Cold Takes is a weekly humor column focused on what is trending around the NHL, written by someone who puts out a quality column about as often as an NHL goalie goal.

Just to clarify, I said “about as often” not “on the same occasion.” Don’t expect this one to be the Pekka Rinne goal of NHL columns. Speaking of! Pekka Rinne scored his first NHL goal last night. Now, he’s answering his phone as Pekka Selanne (rightfully). How amazing is that?

The goal itself was incredible. All goalie goals are, but this one wasn’t quite as easy as some of the ones we’ve seen in the past. Rinne didn’t have much time to get this puck out from behind the net and had to clear the heads of both teams to get the puck to the net. In the end, a true masterpiece.

This column should just end here because nothing is going to top this clip. That said, we’re nowhere near the required word count so let’s dive into a couple more NHL trends from this past week.

Kendall Coyne Schofield

Male or female, professional athlete or amateur, Kendall Coyne Schofield is the master of doing things that you can’t. Last year’s NHL All-Star Game speedster and Olympic gold medalist is out here box jumping two-thirds of her own height.

Ridiculous. When she isn’t making hilarious commercials with David Pastrnak, she could easily be jumping over Brad Marchand and Torey Krug.

Header

There’s absolutely no valid reason why heading the puck into the net shouldn’t count as a goal.

Okay, so by the rule book, there are multiple reasons why it should count. That said, we should change the rule book to accept header goals. If nothing else, it’ll help draw in the global soccer community. Also, you’re allowed to use your teeth to score, how is this any different?

https://twitter.com/NBCSSharks/status/1116179219237629953

(Yeah yeah, purposely directed the puck, blah blah whatever — I don’t care.)

Josh “Charles” Manson

Want to see someone get murdered?

Poor Jason Dickinson was just sent back to last week. Folded like a freshly dried shirt. Piled up like a stack of fire wood. Parked in the garage for the weekend. Stuck into an envelope, licked and mailed across the country. Tossed into a garbage bag, tied up, stickered and sent to the side of the road for collection. Carefully taken off the shelf, bubble wrapped, placed into a box, taped shut, labeled, transported to the shipping wing, put on a truck and sent out with the promise of Amazon Prime’s two-day delivery.

You get it.

McJesus

This already feels as though it happened a year ago, but that’s probably because of how many times we’ve all seen it since Monday night’s game. Put as simply as possible — Connor McDavid does things that should not be possible.

https://twitter.com/NHLonNBCSports/status/1214372588249591811

As nice as the goal is, the extended look off is the best part. McDavid is a salesman. And yes, Leafs fans will tell you that Morgan Reilly just came off the bench so he didn’t really get the chance to get going but let’s be honest, absolutely nothing he was going to do would have stopped Connor here.

I am as good at not scoring NHL goals as McDavid is at scoring them. Think about that for a second…

A moment to appreciate Dominik Hasek

Every once-in-a-while we try to do something a little out of our wheelhouse. It could be something like attempting a physical maneuver you used to do all the time when you were younger, spending a few extra hours out at the bar or trying out a move you saw a professional make, thinking “ehh, it can’t be that hard.”

In the same game McDavid scored his incredible goal, Edmonton Oilers goalie Mike Smith decided he would try to replicate the greatest goaltender of all time, Dominik Hasek. Needless to say, it didn’t go well.

Wheels

Let’s end this week’s column with a celebration, because why not. Take this Blake Wheeler energy with you into the weekend.

Keep your head up.