I wrote an article on Artturi Lehkonen’s offence a few days ago and. Since then, the winger has offered a perfect occasion for a follow-up. Why? Because he has started finding the back of the net again in effective fashion.
The previous piece touched on a few elements that Lehkonen had to improve in order to get better scoring chances: his sense of timing, his ability to create space for himself, moving away from coverage (not into it), and being more often in a shot-ready position. Those are all aspects he showcased to different degrees on his goal against Buffalo and last night against Florida.
Those two teams are not great examples of sound defensive systems, and were therefore perfect targets for Lehkonen to take advantage of looser coverage to snap out of another goalless streak.
Let’s first take his goal on Saturday:
Lehkonen’s shift already starts in a positive way; he gets a scoring chance right as he skates from the bench. He controls his speed, giving him space to release when he receives the puck coming from the stick of Max Domi.
But it’s a few seconds later that the Finnish forward makes one of his best plays of the season. A turnover is created high in the zone, and Lehkonen (as he often does) skates to the net to capitalize on it. But as in the first sequence, he doesn’t speed there into coverage. He accelerates past the first line of defence with a couple of crossovers, but slows down after them, trying to time himself with a potential pass from Andrew Shaw.
He cleverly fakes going inside on the defender in front of him, but pushes to the wide lane at the last second to get a piece of the puck and redirect it in the net. It was a great display of awareness and timing.
Lehkonen repeated the same fundamentals of goal-scoring against the Panthers:
He starts as the net-front presence, but doesn’t stay there as the play moves below the goal line. He moves his feet, sneaking behind the defender covering him, and reappears in a higher position, exploiting a quiet spot on the ice.
Placing himself in this specific area is smart. There, he can be the responsibility of one of the three forwards depending on the situation. The far winger hesitated before rushing Lehkonen, and it gave the Finn just the second he needed.
Already in a shot-ready position, he one-timed the puck in the net. It wasn’t the greatest shot, but it didn’t need to be. The proximity of the shot due to Lehkonen’s good position and the speed of execution were enough to have the puck slip past the netminder.
It is great to see the winger find some of his scoring touch at the right time. Lehkonen has a history as a big-game performance and of heating up come playoff time. His goal-scoring and defensive awareness will be instrumental in the Habs’ continued push for the post-season, especially if they will be losing one of their key forwards in Paul Byron.
