‘Dutch Gretzky’ stepping up
CLUTCH: Dale Weise has three playoff game-winners for Habs in last two years
TORONTO — He’s been called everything from the Dutch Gretzky to the love child of James Van Der Beek and Joey from Full House.
But on Sunday night, Dale Weise played a familiar role for the Montreal Canadiens.
With his team trailing the Ottawa Senators 1-0 in the dying minutes of Game 3, Weise scored the tying goal with 5:47 remaining in the third period. And then in overtime, he guaranteed he would never have to pay for a drink in Montreal again by sneaking a wrist shot past Sens’ goaltender Craig Anderson to give the Canadiens a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
“Any time you score a winner like that it’s pretty special,” Weise told reporters. “I got pretty excited about that first one, too. That was a big goal. I just felt like we were pressuring and pressuring and we needed a good bounce like that to put the puck in the net. And thank goodness it was me.”
In the process, a fourth-line grinder has once again become Montreal’s most unlikely hero. Here’s a look at the Dutch Gretzky:
1 He has a flair for scoring big goals
Though Weise set a careerhigh with 10 goals and 29 points this season, he is not known for his scoring prowess. That is, until the playoffs begin. Weise scored the overtime winner in Game 1 in last year’s first-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
He finished the playoffs with three goals and seven points in 16 games (he had three goals and four points in 17 regular season games with the Canadiens). In 25 playoff games, Weise has scored five playoff goals. Of those, three are game-winners and two were scored in overtime.
2 Dutch Gretzky?
When many NHLers spent the 2012-13 lockout playing in Europe, Weise went to the Netherlands and dominated. He became known as the ‘Dutch Gretzky’ after scoring 22 goals and 48 points in 19 games for the Tillburg Trappers.
“Has anybody scored at that clip anywhere?” said Weise.
3 He can be a top-line player (in a pinch)
It was during a stretch in January and February when Canadiens head coach Michel Therrien juggled his lines and put Weise along side Tomas Plekanec and Max Pacioretty. While Weise responded with three goals and three assists in six games, fans wondered about the logic of having a fourth-line grinder with 23 career goals in 258 games playing in a skilled role.
“This isn’t to say Weise is a bad player offence went MIA the last few games,” wrote Ryan Szporer of The Hockey Writers. “He just belongs on the first line the way a car does in a tree. Sure, you can easily arrange it, but it amounts to a car wreck.”
4 He can get under the other team’s skin
Weise and Milan Lucic went at each other during last year’s conference semifinal, with both players flexing their muscles at one another. It ended in the handshakes line, when Lucic reportedly told the Canadiens winger that he was “going to (expletive) kill you next year.”
5 He was traded for Cameron Diaz?
Well, not exactly. Sportsnet analyst Glenn Healy had a slip of the tongue when referencing the trade that sent Weise from Vancouver to Montreal last year. The player that went the other way was defenceman Raphael Diaz, not the star of There’s Something About Mary (although that would be something). After just six games in Vancouver, Diaz was sent to the New York Rangers and is now playing for the Calgary Flames, where he is nursing a knee injury.
6 He most likely could be the lost child of James Van Der Beek from Dawson’s Creek and Joey from Full House
Weise was one of several NHLers who were targets for ridicule during a segment on The Tonight Show earlier this month, with host Jimmy Fallon poking fun at the Montreal forward’s hilarious headshot. Of course, it was not as bad as what Fallon said about teammate Sergei Gonchar: “Most likely to be having an affair with a garden gnome.”