The New Jersey Devils played the New York Rangers on Wednesday night. During it, prospect Mikhail Maltsev scored one of the best goals in recent memory.
Coming in to Tuesday night, all New Jersey Devils fans cared about was beating the New York Rangers. It doesn’t matter that it was just a preseason game, beating the Rangers is always the top priority.
Then, we saw what happened on the ice. A lot of really great things happened. Nikita Gusev looked like a superstar. Nico Hischier scored a goal less than a minute into the game. Sami Vatanen continued his really good preseason, this time without P.K. Subban.
Still, nothing in this game was better than what Mikhail Maltsev did. It was one play, but it was one of the coolest plays we ever seen in the preseason. We haven’t talked much about Maltsev’s chances to make the team, but we are after this:
If a hockey play could be a jaw dropped emoji, this would be it. This is something you don’t even expect to see in video games, but we ended up seeing it in real life. Maltsev skated between two Rangers, was tripped on his way, kept possession of the puck from his knees, get back on his skates, and reached out to put a backhand past Alexandar Georgiev.
This goal got the Devils fanbase going all night long. Just look at some of the reactions to this beautiful masterpiece of hockey greatness.
https://twitter.com/theScore/status/1174492119169458177
MALTSEV WHAT A GOAL
— Amanda (@nhljackhughes) September 18, 2019
nikita gusev and mikhail maltsev are the top 2 russians on the ice at MSG tonight
— evan 🪐 (@evanmnjd) September 18, 2019
So clearly, fans and national media alike have noticed what Maltsev was able to do on Wednesday night. Now, the question is will the Devils? Was this goal enough to put him in the same conversation as Jesper Boqvist and Joey Anderson to fight for the final spot on the Devils roster? It’s an interesting question to ask. Maltsev was KHL ready, so how long would it take to make him NHL ready?
When looking at tonight’s goal, probably not long.