Heading into Thursday’s NHL playoff action, almost no one would have guessed that Alexander Wennberg would score the most spectacular goal of the day with a skate-to-stick move.

Wennberg, 25, has never been a big goal scorer in this league (40 goals in 415 regular season games, 3 goals in 19 playoff games). The Swedish centre, a two-time World Junior silver medalist, has long frustrated Columbus Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella with his reluctance to put the puck on net.

Thursday’s magical tally against the Tampa Bay Lightning, however, is what you might have expected from the 19-year-old Wennberg who had 16 goals – the second-highest total on Frolunda Gothenburg – in 2014-15, his last SHL season.

Pavel Bure famously introduced the NHL to the skate-to-stick move in a 1996 Vancouver Canucks exhibition home game against Boston. The “Russian Rocket” zoomed past the legendary Ray Bourque in the neutral zone, dropped the puck back into his skates to confuse goalie Scott Bailey, and tapped it in, electrifying the GM Place crowd.

Afterwards, Vancouver broadcaster John McKeachie asked Bure: “Would you ever try a move like that in an NHL game?” Bure, taking the question literally, said: “I just did.”

Nowadays, the skate-to-stick move is far more common in NHL, European, and IIHF games, but it’s always dazzling in its various permutations. So let’s look back at seven superb skate-to-stick goals – starting, naturally, with “Wenny” giving Columbus fans a reason to celly.

1) Alexander Wennberg, Columbus Blue Jackets: 13 August 2020 vs. Tampa Bay

Wennberg raced down right wing, directed the puck off his right skate with a deceptive backhand, cut around Tampa Bay defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk, and then beat Andrei Vasilevski to make it 3-1 with 8:33 left. The goal added some insurance as Columbus tied up this first-round series at 1-1 after a heartbreaking 3-2 loss in Game One in quintuple overtime.

“I’ve tried it before,” Wennberg told reporters. “Obviously it worked out really good this time. I think it was just perfect timing with how the D approached me. I mean, it’s not often it works that great, and I'm just happy it did.”

“We’ve seen it in practice a lot,” quipped leading Columbus scorer Pierre-Luc Dubois, seated next to Wennberg at the podium.

2) T.J. Oshie, Washington Capitals: 4 June 2018 vs. Vegas Golden Knights

At the 2014 Olympics, T.J. Oshie was nicknamed “T.J. Sochi” after the American forward scored four shootout goals on Russia’s Sergei Bobrovsky. In Game Four of the 2018 Stanley Cup final, Oshie had a different approach. He used some nifty footwork that made him look like a Russian folk dancer to open the scoring against the Vegas Golden Knights in a 6-2 romp. 

“It’s just something that I sometimes find ways to do,” Oshie said about his power play goal, which was set up by Yevgeni Kuznetsov. “Half the time I don’t even really know what’s going on, and it just ends up on the stick.”

Washington would clinch its first Cup with a 4-3 win in Game Five in Vegas.

3) Trevor Daley, Pittsburgh Penguins: 20 March 2016 vs. Washington Capitals

After Pittsburgh defeated the San Jose Sharks for the 2016 Stanley Cup, Sidney Crosby handed the Cup to defenceman Trevor Daley first. Daley, 32, had broken his ankle and was unable to play in the final. Also, Daley’s mother had been battling cancer. So it was a classy gesture by the Penguins captain.

However, less than three months earlier, Crosby and Daley teamed up in a different way. On the rush against Washington, “Sid the Kid” sent a cross-ice pass to Daley, who took it off his skate and then roofed a short-side backhander past goalie Braden Holtby from an impossible angle. That shot was worthy of Patrick Kane or Pavel Datsyuk, giving Pittsburgh a 2-0 lead en route to a 6-2 thrashing.

4) Joonas Rask, HIFK: 2 March 2018 vs. Karpat Oulu

Now 21, Miro Heiskanen is blossoming into a Norris Trophy contender. Yet even before the smooth-skating Dallas Stars blueliner wowed NHL fans with feats like his two-goal outing against the Calgary Flames in a 5-4 win on Thursday, he was creating highlights with HIFK, his Finnish pro club.

Joonas Rask, the younger brother of Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask, sent the Helsinki crowd of 8,200 into a frenzy. The 27-year-old forward took Heiskanen’s offensive zone pass off his skate and fired the puck past Karpat goalie Jussi Rynnas to make it 2-2 with 1:08 left in the third.

Karpat would win this game in overtime and the 2018 Liiga championship, but Rask’s goal was worth the price of admission.

5) Tomas Tatar, Slovakia: 10 May 2019 vs. United States

Host Slovakia’s best day at the 2019 IIHF World Championship was arguably Day One. Facing a stacked U.S. attack with Patrick Kane, Jack Eichel and Johnny Gaudreau, the Slovaks prevailed 4-1 in Kosice. And Montreal Canadiens ace Tomas Tatar provided a little skate-to-stick magic.
 

On a second-period power play at Steel Arena, Richard Panik skimmed the puck past three American defenders to Tatar, lurking at the bottom of the right faceoff circle. The veteran winger stopped the puck with his right skate and beat goalie Cory Schneider for a 3-1 lead at 4:58. Unfortunately, losses to Finland, Canada, and Germany would kibosh Slovakia’s medal round hopes.

6) Tyler Motte, Chicago Blackhawks: 1 November 2016 vs. Calgary Flames

With the Vancouver Canucks, Tyler Motte is an effective energy forward who set a new franchise playoff record for most blocked shots in a playoff game decided in regulation (7) when Vancouver beat Minnesota 3-0 in Game Three of the Stanley Cup qualifiers. However, in his rookie season with Chicago, the 2013 fourth-round pick of the Hawks combined finesse with pure power on his third career goal versus Calgary.

Amusingly, Motte put the puck off Flames defenceman T.J. Brodie’s left skate before kicking it up to his stick with his own right skate and tucking a forehand past netminder Brian Elliott. The Hawks went on to a 5-1 home win.

7) Aleksander Barkov, Florida Panthers: 15 December 2015 vs. Vancouver Canucks

The Florida Panthers missed the playoffs in Aleksander Barkov’s sophomore NHL season, but the towering Finnish centre still pulled off some wizardry, like this 5-4 shootout winner against the Canucks.

Closing in on Vancouver netminder Jacob Markstrom, Barkov feigned losing control of the puck, allowing it to bounce off the outside of his left skate. The future 2019 Lady Byng Memorial Trophy winner swiftly retrieved it and went to the backhand, roofing it over Markstrom’s glove.

Today, Barkov ranks 42nd in NHL history with 22 shootout goals. Chicago’s Jonathan Toews is the all-time leader with 50.