It was a night with a humiliating comeback – as the New York Mets combined two big comebacks to lose only to San Francisco and thus kicked the rare self-ass and attacked the Golden State Warriors and swallowed up nearly 29-points in the fourth quarter. Through the introduction of the Death Experience lineup (Jordan Poole, Jonathan Cuminga, Moses Moody, Damien Lee, and Nemanja Bezelica).
But the best single moment of an evening of good leads was this third-period, oh-screw-it special from Rasmus Anderson of Calgary that almost ripped through the Canadian Internet.
Anderson was part of the Flemish Penalty Killing Unit in the middle of the third period when many men tried to eat penalties Edmonton 3-0 after a 3-0 lead. He saw the puck approaching him 132 feet away from the Oilers net, according to GSC surveyors, and decided to do the prudent thing and clean it from the rink. Only he (a) scored it and (b) shocked Edmonton goalkeeper Mike Smith, who never saw the puck and only heard it when it erupted a combined WTF howl from the crowd at home.
That’s the equivalent of, say, Moody’s throwing a ball into a basket 80 feet above his head and out of bounds in front of a Warriors bench – and we’re not entirely sure he did. Do such a thing on the return of the Warriors. But like the Mavericks, who won Game 4 semi-comfortably from their torpedoes, the Oilers beat Ryan Nujent-Hopkins and ubiquitous Evander Kane 5-3 on two late goals to take a 3-1 lead in that series.
“I can laugh at it now, can’t I?” Smith later said he only made sure after checking with his teammates that they would not jump on him. At age 40, he became part of the Eulers’ traditional Achilles heel goal, which is why all of their great players always return home early. But they are now one win away from their first Western Conference final in 16 years, and while they will tolerate Smith smiling today, they will not do it again.
But at least they’re not Mets fans who woke up after 1:30 a.m. to see their boys complete their self-tracheotomy. Yes, we see you, Roth.