There are bad shifts, and then there’s the shift that Vancouver Canucks defenseman Kevin Bieksa had on Monday night against Minnesota.
The Canucks blue liner had a forgettable few seconds in the second period against the Wild when his careless play almost led to a Minnesota goal moments before he got the worst out of a jab from his own teammate of all people.
The play started with a faceoff in the Vancouver zone. Bieksa, usually pretty reliable with the puck tried to deliver a sloppy pass out of his own zone that was easily picked off. That forced goalie Cory Schneider to make a pair of saves, including a sparkling gloved grab to bail out Bieksa.
Things really picked up after the whistle when Boston villain Aaron Rome decided to mix it up with Minnesota forward Stephane Veilleux in front of the net. Rome popped Veilleux in the face, and he hit him so hard that Veilleux’s head snapped back only to smoke Bieksa square in the nose.
This led Bieksa to hit the ice in a manner that would make one believe he was just picked off by a sniper in the balcony.
Also, and this may be giving too much credit to the Wild’s game ops people, but major bonus points need to be awarded to someone if they decided to play “Zombie Nation” — the Bruins’ goal song — on purpose after the “fight” broke out. Intentional or not, it must have surely sent a shiver up Roberto Luongo‘s spine.
Check out the incident in the video below via SportsGrid.
