Max Pacioretty has been practising his one-timers since he was a kid at the New Canaan Winter Club in Connecticut.
“I shot pucks my whole life growing up,” the Canadiens sniper said Saturday night. “There was an outdoor rink we always went to and I bugged my buddies to feed me one-timers.”
And then Pacioretty laughed.
“Finally, in my seventh year in the NHL, it’s paying off.”
Pacioretty howitzered home two goals, on reception of gorgeous passes from defenceman Andrei Markov and Nathan Beaulieu, to lift the Canadiens to a 3-1 victory over the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets.
The 26-year-old now has 29 goals on the season; that has him on an unscientific pace for 40, one better than his career high, achieved last season.
“Oh yeah?” Pacioretty said brightly when the math was presented to him. “Tell me how many wins we have. That’s my milestone. This team’s special and I really mean that. It’s a lot of fun winning with this group.”
Pacioretty was also pleasantly surprised to learn that his second goal on Saturday was his seventh game-winner of the season.
Of equal importance to him, he said, was being on the ice in the game’s final minute as a penalty-killer, the Blue Jackets skating 6-on-4 with their netminder pulled and down a goal.
Sitting out was Markov, a cleared puck over the glass having chased him for delay of game with 1:44 left in regulation.
“I would expect to feel some panic but I didn’t at all,” Pacioretty said of the late kill. “Markie has stepped up for us so much this year. A penalty like that is not intentional and it’s bad luck at the same time, so knowing he’s a guy who would have been out there the last minute, we knew we had to step up for him and thankfully we did.”
Pacioretty admitted with a grin that it was with a “premature fist pump” that he celebrated as teammate Tomas Plekanec sprinted away to shovel the puck into the vacated Columbus net, short-handed, to wrap up the 3-1 victory.
Pacioretty’s pair of goals were the split-second work of a natural goal-scorer — no time to think, no time to aim. Just drill the puck as it arrives, its speed coming to your stick adding to its velocity off it.
The one-timer is one of the most impressive sights in hockey when it’s done right, one of the most comical when it fails and the player fans or corkscrews himself into the ice.
Twice on Saturday, from almost exactly the same spot in the faceoff circle to the left of Blue Jackets goalie Curtis McElhinney, Pacioretty was clinically lethal.
His first, 2:29 into the game, came off a perfect power-play feed from Markov, who faked a pass to fellow defenceman P.K. Subban and then, with his body going the other way, diagonally fed Pacioretty on the dot of the circle.
Like Michael Cammalleri had done for three-plus seasons in Montreal, Pacioretty dropped to one knee as he cranked the shot.
And then 13:03 into the second period, he was set up with an exquisite needle-threading, traffic-defying cross-ice pass from the increasingly impressive Beaulieu. Again, just a windup and a blast on which McElhinney had no chance.
“The science is let the stick do the work,” Pacioretty said of the one-timer, crediting Cammalleri for important instruction. “Brett Hull was the best ever at it. Put your bottom hand in position where you’re able to just get it on net. Don’t try to pick any corners.
“There are four quadrants on a net and if you’re getting a pass across the crease, all you have to do is put it short side and try to get it up a little bit instead of trying to put it bar down. That’s what’s going through my mind. Let the stick do the work. It sounds simple but it’s true.”
Pacioretty practises the one-timer a great deal in practice, destroying many sticks in the process.
“I use a lot more sticks than a lot of people on the team,” he joked — since he doesn’t pay to replace them.
The cross-ice feed by Beaulieu was especially impressive given how it unfolded, following the young defenceman’s quick sprint down the wall while reading the seam as bodies fanned out in front of the net.
“To have the wheels to pick up that puck and to go along the wall and have your head up and make a play, that’s world-class,” Pacioretty said of Beaulieu’s effort.
“Hopefully a play like that can carry over as the season goes on because the sky’s the limit for that kid. He played great.
“Tonight was the best I’ve ever seen (Beaulieu) play,” Pacioretty added, the 22-year-old maturing and gaining confidence with every shift. “It’s been building up to this point game after game. He’s been getting more and more of an opportunity, and that’s what happens.
“Every person who makes it in this league has to wait for their opportunity to show what they’ve got. (Beaulieu) has been learning a lot from Gonch (veteran defenceman Sergei Gonchar). He’s been putting it all to work since we’ve had a couple of injuries and he’s had a chance to shine.
“I think he doesn’t know how good a skater he is. Hopefully, tonight can show him that. He was the best skater by far tonight — not just up and down the ice, but cutback and edges. When he’s got confidence on the blue line like that, it’s a treat to watch and a treat to be out there with him.”
Pacioretty is generally impressed by the work of the youngsters on this team, a handful who are growing into their roles and filling in admirably with a number of veterans sidelined with injuries.
Indeed, after having been presented post-game Saturday with the so-called hero’s cape as the Canadiens player of the match, he assembled defencemen Beaulieu, Greg Pateryn and Jarred Tinordi and forwards Christian Thomas and Jacob De La Rose for a group photo.
Tinordi and Thomas both had been physically involved, dropping their gloves. It was Thomas’s first NHL fight, a matter of finally having had enough of being chopped and battered all game.
“The difference tonight is all the call-ups,” Pacioretty said. “I think they felt comfortable out there and that was the difference in the game. I’m really happy for them, the next-man-up attitude. They stepped in and did a great job.
“Look at CT’s face,” he said of Thomas, whose mug was puffy and cut from his third-period battle with Matt Calvert. “He deserves to be in that picture, and those guys do, too.”
This was only Thomas’s second fight in the pros, having scrapped once in the AHL. He’s now only 1,299 NHL penalty minutes behind his father, Steve, the retired, often rugged veteran, though Christian has 1,215 games in hand.
“No way!” Pacioretty said, learning this was Thomas’s maiden NHL dance. “It looked like a 1980s fight. What a tough kid. I loved it. It definitely got our bench going. Something like that goes a long way within the room.
“I had no idea CT had that in him. He just told me that his dad told him that whoever throws the most punches wins, so he put his head down (and punched). It looks like it wasn’t his first fight. He did a great job.”
One intermission earlier, Thomas and Beaulieu had been duelling on the Bell Centre scoreboard writing (bad) Valentine’s Day poetry. And then Thomas was windmilling punches at an opponent.
Thomas would later say that his father was “pretty excited” about his fight, though the 22-year-old understands it’s his finesse, not his fists, that are his bread and butter.
Pacioretty, meanwhile, was liberally spreading the credit for this win around the dressing room.
“The best feeling for me is when my teammates make a great play to set me up. Markie and Nathan deserve most of the credit on my goals,” he said.
“You see a special bond with this team right now. When we win, no one wants to take the credit, everyone wants everyone in this room to feel good about themselves.
“That’s the way I feel. And I’m sure if you talk to anyone else, that’s the way they’re going to feel tonight, too.”
dstubbs@montrealgazette.com
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