Those Molgaard and Wright plays can only happen if a player is engaged and situationally aware during a game that wasn\u2019t for those shying away from the physical stuff.<\/p>\n
Wright took a nasty hit down in the Lightning end in the first period. He remained on the bench several minutes before returning and staying engaged throughout.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beniers also got roughed up, but persevered and played strong, remaining aware enough in overtime to maintain puck possession and initiate the rush that begat the winning goal.<\/p>\n
Engagement, awareness and perseverance are key parts of player development. The little things are often what you need from younger players not only for their growth, but to justify crucial ice time in games that matter.<\/p>\n
In Tuesday\u2019s game against the Panthers, Beniers got the unlikely three-goal comeback started by scoring to cut the deficit to 4-2. And it wasn\u2019t just any goal: Beniers worked the puck to the net front, then wrapped it around a poke-check attempt by goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and put it over the goal line\u00a0after\u00a0being knocked off his skates and sent sprawling to the ice.<\/p>\n
I immediately turned to the Seattle-based\u00a0Sound of Hockey\u00a0correspondent sitting next to me and mentioned \u201cBobby Orr\u201d in terms of goal style. Of course, as others have since written, Orr\u2019s famous Stanley Cup overtime winner for Boston in 1970 against St. Louis was scored\u00a0before\u00a0he was tripped and sent flying through the air by onetime Seattle Totems defenseman Noel Picard.<\/p>\n
It made for arguably the most famous photo in NHL history because an aerial Orr encapsulated the superhuman player he was.<\/p>\n
But Beniers scoring while\u00a0still\u00a0flying through the air and crashing to the ice? Shhhh! Don\u2019t tell anyone within 500 miles of the Boston area Beniers hails from. But his goal was more impressive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beniers scoring that goal was a sign of his emerging leadership. And not simply because it helped pick up young teammate Wright, who\u2019d accidentally scored on his own net just moments prior.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The goal itself was almost as if Beniers willed it to happen, choosing to carry the entire team, not just Wright, on his back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beniers doesn\u2019t score that goal any prior season. Doing it this season was a surefire sign of his continued development at age 23.<\/p>\n
As for Wright, 22, he\u2019s had a rough few weeks between a scoring drought, the own-goal and the physical punishment taken in Thursday\u2019s game. But he persevered and delivered the game-winning assist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve seen Kakko, 25, elevate his play at a critical time the entire second half. Truth is, he didn\u2019t have much of a first half because of injury. That\u2019s also about perseverance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Those Molgaard and Wright plays can only happen if a player is engaged and situationally aware during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[5,4188,4,2686,234,5318],"class_list":{"0":"post-526260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-kraken","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kraken","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-kraken","13":"tag-seattlekraken"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116302786458630740","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}