Nathan MacKinnon magic, 90s fashion, highlights from Lake Tahoe bonanza

NHL deserves a lot of credit

As we delved into in the previous slide, the NHL took a lot of heat over the weekend for the chaos that unfolded on Saturday with the game between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Colorado Avalanche being delayed due to ice issues. The bright sun caused ruts to form in the ice and, with players and officials falling over, the decision was made to postpone the game until the evening.

That resulted in a more than eight hour wait between the first and second periods and, while the game was completed and it looked great under the lights at night, there are those who still continue to bash the NHL like it is a sport.

Now, going after the NHL can be easy sometimes given some of the mistakes they have committed, but they don’t deserve negative backlash for this weekend. I mean, we all know weather forecasts can change and you can argue that maybe the games should have been played at night anyway, but the whole point of this weekend was to put on a scenic and breathtaking two days of hockey.

The league certainly achieved that mission even with the problems they encountered on Saturday, and they managed to repair the ice, get the necessary lighting and finish the game between the Avs and the Golden Knights and it was a pretty good spectacle.

They also moved the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers game a few times on Sunday and it turned out to be perfect, with the two teams battling it out against a beautiful backdrop with the sunlight glaring off the lake in the first period, the sky a beautiful shade of yellow, orange and blue in the second and the third being played under the lights in a romantic throwback to when you would play hockey with your friends out on a frozen lake at night.

So, while the weekend didn’t go smoothly and there were problems along the way, the two games were still pretty impressive spectacles and the overall quality of the matchups were very entertaining, especially Sunday’s, and I would say these were the most breathtaking outdoor events put on by the NHL, who at least showed some initiative to try something different this year and they deserve credit for that.

MacKinnon Magic

My gosh, Nathan MacKinnon is just a special hockey player. Okay, so we all knew that before this weekend but we were really treated to a special show from one of the most talented players in the National Hockey League on Saturday.

He started early too after sending a beautiful cross-ice pass over to defenseman Samuel Girard to open the scoring at 2:58 in the first period and, although MacKinnon was probably limited in what he was able to do in the first due to the condition of the ice, he more than made up for it more than eight hours later once the game was resumed.

After veteran Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Alec Martinez made it a tied game at 7:37 in the second period, MacKinnon decided to take matters into his own hands and he delivered a truly special moment at 11:18 in the middle frame.

With both teams having four skaters on the ice, MacKinnon picked up the puck in his own zone and proceeded to pick up speed as he motored through the middle of the ice, breezing past elite players in Mark Stone and Alex Pietrangelo before ripping the puck far side to beat Marc-Andre Fleury and make it a 2-1 game for the Avalanche.

It was an absolute beauty of a goal by MacKinnon who has a few of them on his resume, and the elite center finished with a three-point night after tallying a secondary helper on Devon Toews’ third-period goal, and it was just one hell of a night from Nathan MacKinnon who has 18 points (4 G, 14 A) on the year.

Special Moment for Trent Frederic

There is never a bad time to score your first career goal in the National Hockey League, but you couldn’t have timed it any more perfectly than Boston Bruins forward Trent Frederic did on Sunday night.

The 23-year-old has skated in 16 games for the B’s in 2020-21 but only had one point prior to Sunday, and had yet to record a goal in 33 career games in the NHL. However, all that changed yesterday and it was beautiful.

Skating in his first outdoors game would have been a pretty special moment for Frederic anyway, but he managed to pull something off that ensured this weekend at the beautiful Lake Tahoe will be a time he will never ever forget.

With the Boston Bruins leading 4-2 in the second period, it appeared to be pretty much game over and it almost was at 16:47 when Frederic got the puck, spun and then unleashed an absolute bomb of a shot past Philadelphia Flyers goalie Carter Hart to put the B’s firmly in the driving seat if they were not already.

It was one hell of way to record your first career goal in the National Hockey League, and it was even better considering that it came in a game the Boston Bruins absolutely dominated against an absolutely stunning and breathtaking backdrop. Sunday is a day that will be spoken about in the Frederic household for quite some time, that’s for sure.

Avalanche, Bruins the real deal

If there’s one thing we learned over the weekend at Lake Tahoe it was that the Colorado Avalanche and the Boston Bruins look the real deal in 2020-21. Okay, so saying we only discovered that this weekend is a bit of a stretch given how elite those two teams are, but you also have to consider who they were playing.

Let’s start with the Avs who absolutely dominated the Vegas Golden Knights from start to finish in Saturday’s game, outshooting them 39-29, and 17-8 in the first period, and the game never seemed that close.

Colorado just looked more ready to go from the first drop of the puck, and they also seemed more equipped once the game resumed more than eight hours later, and they have outplayed the Golden Knights in all three of their meetings so far this season.

Many hockey experts feel as though the Golden Knights, who are an absolutely loaded team in their own right, and the Avalanche will be the two heavyweights in the Western Conference for the foreseeable future, and the Avs proved on Saturday that, for now at least, they may well just have the edge given the abundance of talent they have at their disposal, led by elite stars in Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar.

Maybe Sunday’s outcome wasn’t as much of a surprise given that the Boston Bruins have been an elite team for years now, coupled with the fact that they had already beaten the Philadelphia Flyers in their previous four meetings prior to Sunday, dominating their East Division rivals in the majority of those games.

It was the same story on Sunday night despite it being a different venue as the B’s flexed their attacking muscles once again, with David Pastrnak’s 10th career hat trick, and his second of the year against the Flyers, spearheading the Bruins to a big, big 7-3 win.

They also got contributions from up and down the lineup with rising star defenseman Charlie McAvoy recording his second goal of the year, while Charlie Coyle, Trent Frederic and Nick Ritchie also lighting the lamp and the 11-3-2 Bruins look an absolute juggernaut right now.

And, while the Vegas Golden Knights are an elite team that will be a dangerous outfit in the postseason and the Philadelphia Flyers were missing six key players from their lineup, there is no doubt that we were treated to a tantalizing glimpse of just how dangerous the Colorado Avalanche and the Boston Bruins are when they are at the peak of their powers, which they both were on what was a memorable weekend in a beautiful location at Lake Tahoe.