Kevin Bahl has been lowering the boom.
If you follow the Calgary Flames, you’ve likely noticed that Bahl has delivered several big hits over the last while.
It’s more of a mean streak than we’re accustomed to seeing from this towering defenceman, a dude who certainly has the size to be a menacing physical presence.
The latest example was Bahl’s thunderous check Thursday on Chicago Blackhawks youngster Oliver Moore. This was a bit of a throwback, with Bahl leading with his hip as he hammered Moore along the boards in the neutral zone.
On the Blackhawks’ home broadcast, Darren Pang exclaimed: “Oh my!”
When Sportsnet showed the replay to viewers across Canada, colour analyst Jason York put it this way: “This is a runaway freight train.”
Choo choo.
Listed at 6-foot-6 and 230 pounds, Bahl has one of the best sticks in the NHL, a combination of read and reach that can make it awfully tough to carry a puck past him.
As opponents have recently scraped themselves off the ice, they’ve likely been thinking, ‘I would have preferred a poke-check.’
This isn’t necessarily a change that shows on Bahl’s stat-sheet — he is currently being credited with 1.57 cranks per game, up slightly from 1.49 last season — but it feels like a few of his recent collisions may have registered on the Richter scale.
Just ask JT Compher of the Detroit Red Wings, Cole Smith of the Nashville Predators or Zach Hyman of the Edmonton Oilers.
Bahl’s most notable wallop came on Oilers superstar Connor McDavid. The best player on the planet had just been denied on a breakaway and was stopped at the edge of the crease to try to corral the rebound when Bahl bowled him over.
Moore can commiserate. His bones might still be reverberating a little.
Asked after Thursday’s triumph in Chicago if he has noticed an uptick in physicality from No. 7, Flames coach Ryan Huska replied: “For sure.”
“I think Kevin is just gaining confidence in his overall game,” Huska said. “As a defenceman, when you mature a little bit and him recognizing that he plays against top players all the time, if you can be a little bit harder, a little bit more physical on those players, I think it goes a long way. So I think he’s gaining a lot of confidence in his ability to be a good shutdown defenceman.”
That’s great news for the Flames, who are counting on Bahl to be one of the long-term leaders on their blue-line, even though he’ll need to develop chemistry with a new partner when Rasmus Andersson is inevitably traded away.
While the Flames know they can count on Bahl to be strong and steady, the threat of a heavy hit adds another element to his game. For what it’s worth, the 25-year-old insists he’s always looking for an opportunity to “lay on the bod” but isn’t out there trying to revive the old Rock’em Sock’em brand.
“Just being physical, sometimes you’re gonna catch a guy,” Bahl shrugged in a recent interview with Postmedia. “So just keep laying on the bod and every once in a while, a guy is going to be a bit off-balance or whatever and then you get the better part of him.
“I think it’s just about keeping physicality in our DNA as a team. And sometimes they go down.”
And when they do?
“It’s fun,” Bahl said, smile growing. “Always fun to get the boys going.”