Oh, it hurts all right, but ‘it’s a good hurt’
Blocking shots in the National Hockey League: ‘You close your eyes and pray’
RALEIGH, N.C. — Brock McGinn was down on the ice, in pain. A lot of pain.
The Carolina Hurricanes forward had just blocked a shot by defenceman Shea Theodore of the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday, the puck catching McGinn near his left ankle. He struggled to get up, finally hobbling to the bench, grimacing as others around him patted him on the back.
Nearly everyone in the arena seemed to have their eyes on McGinn, as if somehow feeling part of his pain.
So what does it feel like to block a shot in the National Hockey League?
“It’s a good hurt,” McGinn said Monday. Come again? A good hurt? “Blocking shots, I’ve always kind of liked to do it,” McGinn said.
Nearby, defenceman Calvin de Haan smiled. “Ginner’s a little crazy,” he said.
It’s a necessary part of being a hockey player, especially a role player like McGinn, who sees a lot of short-handed time on the penalty kill. Defencemen block countless shots, with all parts of their bodies.
“You just close your eyes and brace yourself and hope you get hit in a good spot,” de Haan said. “It takes a big set of cojones to get in front of some of those pucks. Ginner’s pretty fearless and guys really rally around that kind of stuff.”
McGinn was helping to protect a 4-2 lead against Vegas at PNC Arena. Theodore had both goals for the Golden Knights and was winding up for another big slap shot, looking to make it a onegoal game. McGinn lowered his left leg to the ice, putting himself in harm’s way, taking the full brunt of the shot.
Moments later, defenceman Justin Faulk flipped the loose puck nearly the length of the rink and into an empty net for a 5-2 lead. But McGinn was the one everyone first congratulated at the bench, including Faulk.
“It’s an important piece of a team,” McGinn said of shot-blocking.
“When you see guys out there sacrificing and trying to block shots, I think that it shows the guys that you care and want to be there. It just sort of brings everybody in.”
But, man, does it hurt.
A hockey puck is a piece of vulcanized rubber that’s an inch thick, three inches in diameter and weighs about six ounces. The pucks are frozen before games, all the better for moving smoother and faster on the ice.
That’s all well and good until someone like, say, Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals winds up for a 100-mile-per-hour one-timer on that frozen black disk.
Canes defenceman Brett Pesce has been in that position before. And ... “You’re thinking, ‘Don’t hit me,’ ” he said, laughing. “You close your eyes and pray it doesn’t hit you in the wrong spot and doesn’t break anything.”
Pesce and de Haan lead the Canes with 84 blocks apiece this season and defenceman Jaccob Slavin has 83. Carolina, as a team, has one of the lowest totals in the NHL. The Canes also allow the fewest shots against in the league.
Blocking shots is something of an art form and something that has to be practised, Pesce said, as unappealing as that might sound.
“There’s a lot of anticipation,” Pesce said. “You have to anticipate where the puck’s going and when and where it’s going off the stick. It’s like any other read in hockey, reading where the puck’s going to go.”
Pesce said in his first year in the NHL, he caught a shot off his ankle and suffered a fracture.