Mika Zibanejad: Arching His Route Moving Downhill in O Zone
On the Rangers power play last night against the Sabres, Mika Zibanejad scored his 300th career NHL goal off a terrific cross seam pass from Artemi Panarin on the power play. Zibanejad did a great job of curving his route moving downhill and looking to create open space that way, which allowed him to skate into the puck with speed and execute his shot with pure velocity.
Zibanejad Goal
As we see on this sequence to start, the puck gets worked into the corner where Owen Power is forced to make a quick play as the strong side D with the puck. He can go glass and out or choose to force a pass through clogged pressure with no clear passing option. Power tries to keep the puck flat on the ice and move the puck through the middle where there’s no NYR players there, until Adam Fox fills the space and collects the puck effortlessly on his stick.
Fox collects the puck, gets pressured from F1 immediately from BUF at the blue line, and Fox moves the puck down the flank to Panarin. Panarin retrieves this puck, and with no clear shot lane, he sees Zibanejad open in the corner of his eye on the weak side. With Zibanejad slightly behind the play to start when Panarin gets the puck, and then by him skating downhill with speed late, that allows Zibanejad to time his route to get to the puck with pace.
If Zibanejad gets to this puck early and gets to the same space he shot from early, it would likely end up with the puck behind him and wouldn’t allow him to shoot off the catch right away. By arriving late, he skates into the puck, catches it, and all he needs to do is release with power. Arriving early would force him to stickhandle the puck a few times, load the weight for the shot release, and that would likely draw coverage to him faster, allowing the gap to close faster for BUF’s D. Zibanejad arriving late doesn’t draw coverage to him and allows Zibanejad to stay unmarked here. Once Zibanejad shoots, he shoots to the far side of Luukkonen here and is able to score easily on him because of the power on his shot.
Luukkonen isn’t able to get set up in the butterfly right away, and Zibanejad did a great job shooting with an open shot lane available. Zibanejad doesn’t hesitate once he gets the puck on his stick, and quickly shoots with purpose and velocity to get the shot through the D to Luukkonen as well.
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