Washington turned around and won
New York. Niklas Backstrom still has it.
He showed it with a world-class performance when Washington turned around and beat the New York Islanders last night.
Getting to the middle of the season isn’t easy, but he feels better and better with each game, he told Sportbladet after the 4-3 win.
After equalizing in the attacking area thirteen minutes into the second period, the crowd in the UBS Arena got to see a sample of Bäckis’ classic artistry.
Valbo’s star centre-half grabbed the puck by the edge and sprinted behind the stretched goal line, and as he was about to loop around the penalty area, he stopped his opponents by neatly chipping a backhand into Tom Wilson, perfectly clean in front of goal. box – and was able to put a blob on disk easily.
“hard to explain”
It’s so cool to be able to perform such magic when you’ve spent the entire season in rehab after hip surgery and you’ve just come back.
– Do you think? Hehe, well, I saw that Wilson was there, uh, it’s hard to explain, says Niklas when we talk to him next.
– In general, I think things are going well now. Getting to the middle of the season isn’t that easy, but it just keeps getting better and better with every game. Tonight I had good speed on my legs. Now it’s just a matter of continuing to fight.
Decide on extra time
Washington gradually began to pull ahead as a team as well, eventually winning 4-3 with an overtime goal by Dmitri Orlov.
We started badly and ended up 3-0, but in the second half of the game I think we played better, especially in attack, and it’s strong that we were able to turn things around, Bakis points out.
Swedish defender Sebastian Ahu – yes, he shares a name with the Finnish star of Carolina – scored one of the islanders’ goals, as did Markus Johansson and Erik Gustafsson for the visitors.
