Updated on 06.17 | Published on 06.17
New York. Last night, Leo Karlsson was finally able to play again – and scored an instant goal.
He was responsible for both the goal and assist for the upset decider when Anaheim dramatically turned a 1-3 deficit into a 4-3 win away to Boston itself – in a few blazing minutes.
– Crazy fun, the 18-year-old rookie tells Sportbladet.
Anaheim management, to everyone’s surprise, chose to put the Swedish team’s No. 2 draft pick in the stands for several games last week – so as not to actually wear him down during the start of the regular season.
But that plan wouldn’t be a surprise if general manager Pat Verbeek revised it after tonight’s performance at TD Garden in Boston, because Leo was heavily involved in one of the Ducks’ biggest wins in recent years.
With two minutes left in regulation time, the powerful Bruins took a 3-1 lead and appeared to be on track for their seventh straight win.
But then Karlstad’s Karlsson and the other youngsters in the away team took over the show.
Firstly, Leo himself scored the second goal of the first season on the comeback against Linus Ullmark. And then, with just fifteen seconds left, Troy Terry headed home the equaliser, with Leo barking inside the box. And what happened after that? Well, just over two minutes into overtime, Leo broke free on a counterattack from his own zone, shot the puck all over the ice, and made a perfect pass to Mason McTavish — and criticized the decision.
“Crazy fun,” Leo said when we reached him in Boston after the final whistle.
– When you’re down 3-1 against a team like Boston with so little time left, you don’t have much hope of catching up, but we really made a good push and poured shots on goal. Then opportunities will come.
What do you say about your goal?
– Both the goals we scored during the capture were bad goals, but these goals are also important. I was in the right place in the office and was able to push the disc in. Fun too.
What are the preparations for the decision?
– I know what the defender did in that situation, I was given a lot of time and space so it was a fairly simple pass for me.
Leo is satisfied with tonight’s performance overall as well.
Boston is not an easy team to play against, but I still feel like things went well. Some were better and some were worse, but I worked on improving them and it was nice to finally get some points.
During the night, the Ducks flew to Philadelphia. There he is waiting for a morning matchup against the Flyers in a friendly match against Sweden on Saturday.
Then perhaps you can rely coldly on young Mr. Carlson no Sitting in the stands.
