Andrew Shaw's Attempt At A Game Winning Header Says All You Need To Know About Playoff Hockey

That right there is why we watch folks! Expect the unexpected. Who would thought after watching so much hockey, regular season and playoffs, that Andrew Shaw would have you sitting in your living room going "wait, can you do that?". How many times in sports does the entirety of the viewing audience, informed or not, have to go to the rulebook to find out whether something is legal? How many times are we on the edge of our seat genuinely unaware of what is going on despite having seen 57 different views of the play? That play was so unprecedented that Shaw himself was convinced he had ended the game. We aren't talking about a player trying to get one over on the officials. We are talking about a guy who makes his living playing the sport skating around the rink in celebration patting his head like he just put home the go-ahead goal in the 90th minute of the World Cup. Just in utter awe of his creativity, completely positive that he was the hero in what would have been a double overtime thriller.

You know what the kicker is? If that's a regular season game I doubt that heading the puck in even crosses his mind. The fact that he was so desperate to end the game and even the series is a testament to how badly these players want to win the ultimate prize. It's a testament to the work necessary to achieving the pinnacle of their profession. The NHL playoffs are about giving more than lip service to the phrase "by any means necessary". Andrew Shaw head butting a puck in the net might be far more comedic than Patrice Bergeron playing a playoff game with a punctured lung and a broken rib, but they both speak to how much winning a Stanley Cup means to these players. Andrew Shaw may have broken a rule we were completely oblivious to and his effort may have been for naught, but he reminded us why we were watching in the first place. Anything can happen when the Cup in on the line. And I think I speak for everyone when I say, if The Blackhawks were going to win anyway, it would have been cool to see it end on, of all things, a fucking header.