Kovy named All-Star MVP
MONTREAL – The city of Montreal couldn’t have asked for a better finish to this year’s All-Star game.
Canadiens’ forward Alex Kovalev had two goals, an assist and a shootout goal en-route to an 12-11 Eastern Conference victory and more importantly game MVP. Kovalev made it clear all weekend long that that he wanted to win and wanted to be named MVP in front of the Montreal fans.
“When I heard that I’d been named as the captain of the team that, you know, just I said to myself I have one more left to get MVP,” said Kovalev after the game. “I think that’s going to be the full package that I’m going to remember the rest of my life.”
Former Hab and current Edmonton Oiler Sheldon Souray wasn’t surprised by the performance his former teammate put on during the game.
“From the moment that Kovy laced his skates up this weekend you could see that he was loose, he was confident, he was having fun and rightfully so,” said Souray. “In a game of all-star players with all-star skills he stood out by a mile tonight.”
For the first two periods the game was not unlike any other all-star game. There were lots of passing, some breakaways, a ton of goals and no defence.
“In a game of all-star players with all-star skills he stood out by a mile tonight.”
However, entering the third period things changed. At one point the crowd even started chanting “D-fence…. D-fence,” something that Souray hasn’t seen before.
“None that I’ve been a part of, or seen before,” remarked Souray. “I think that towards the end, well I would say from the beginning of the third period it was more like a game game then an all-star game. Guys wanted to win. I think at that point your competitive juices start taking over and you want to point on a good show and everything but you also want to win.”
Eastern Conference winning goalie Tim Thomas agreed with Souray.
“Yea, everybody did, said Thomas about the level of intensity increasing in the third. “Just the whole competitiveness of the play was picked up.”
Kovalev shocked many this weekend by using an off speed shot in the shootout to put the East up a goal.
“There’s no way I’m going to miss that one,” said Kovalev after being asked if there as any chance he wasn’t going to score.
Much like a change up handcuffs a hitter in baseball this off speed shot is something goalies get confused with. It’s a shot that he’s been practicing on goalie Carey Price for the quite some time.
“[Price] has been facing those shots for two months now and he hates me now,” said Kovalev.
“But, yeah, I’ve been doing this for a while, so I was pretty confident what I’m going to do, and it’s going to work. The only thing is like most of the guys ask me afterwards, if I’d ever done it during the game. And I’m just looking for a good moment to do that.”
Topics: Alex Kovalev, Edmonton Oilers, Montreal Canadiens, NHL All-Star, Sheldon Souray, Tim Thomas
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