Jacob Markstrom was instantly at a disadvantage when he was summoned to replace injured Vancouver Canucks goalie Ryan Miller two shooters into Sunday's shootout in Florida, having sat through 60 minutes of regulation and a five-minute overtime.
And then, with the penalty-shot competition tied 1-1, Markstrom stared down the ice and saw the Panthers' next shooter, Aleksander Barkov, who had scored on three of his five previous shootout attempts and was 5-for-15 in his NHL career.
The left-handed shooting Barkov crossed the blue-line and headed for his off wing, took a couple of strides and played the puck off his left skate before regaining control, freezing Markstrom for an instant.
Barkov had the goalie beat as Markstrom leaned to his right and the 20-year-old Panther responded by pulling the puck to his backhand and lifting it under the crossbar for the decisive goal to seal a fourth straight win for Florida.
"I tried it last year in practice a couple of times and it worked," Barkov told reporters after the game, adding he has tried to improve his shootout moves by watching YouTube clips of elite NHL forwards Pavel Datsyuk and Patrick Kane. "I just tried it [today]. I was pretty confident it was going to work."
Working against a cold Markstrom certainly didn't hurt Barkov's chances to score.
In the first period Sunday, the six-foot-three Finn showed off his playmaking ability by sending a cross-ice pass to linemate Jaromir Jagr, whose one-timer beat Miller for his 732nd NHL goal to move the 43-year-old past Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne into fourth spot on the all-time goals list.
Barkov may be 731 goals shy of Jagr's total but the standout two-way player has wowed crowds with his exemplary moves in the shootout.
Last Dec. 22, he reached into his bag of tricks against Penguins netminder Marc-Andre Fleury.
Last month, Barkov went forehand-backhand versus veteran goalie Jaroslav Halak of the New York Islanders.
And two weeks ago, he beat Sergei Bobrovsky of the Columbus Blue Jackets with a similar move to Sunday.
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