Much has been made of Alex Ovechkin’s open-ice hit on Jaromir Jagr in Russia’s 4-2 victory over the Czech Republic on Sunday. It’s been called a “hit for the ages” and an “8.0 on the Richter scale.”
What seems to be getting overlooked, though, is the fact that it was just one-third of an absolutely beautiful sequence that resulted in what proved to be the game-winning goal.
Mere seconds after Ovechkin’s visor-breaking crunch, Alexander Semin collected the puck deep along the left boards and backhanded a perfect cross-ice pass through a defender to Evgeni Malkin all in one fluid motion. Malkin finished the trifecta by dropping to one knee and one-timing Semin’s pass by a sliding Tomas Vokoun.
Watch the video below to see the whole sequence.
