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What could be a extra important accomplishment … Twenty objectives from the blue-line, or 200 blocked pictures?
Calgary Flames workhorse MacKenzie Weegar doesn’t wish to come throughout as grasping, however can’t a man have each?
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“The 200 blocked pictures could be fairly cool,” Weegar advised Postmedia. “You understand, I keep watch over that stat. I assumed I may possibly get to 200 hits, as nicely, however I feel I may need fallen off a bit bit. However these are each fairly neat. I feel with little milestones in your profession, if you hit these numbers, it’s important to acknowledge them a bit, simply because it’s such a grind and it’s a arduous sport and a tough league.”
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The toughest half, after all, is lighting the lamp, though Weegar has been on a roll.
Heading into Saturday’s showdown with the arch-rival Edmonton Oilers, he had 19 snipes on the season, greater than double his earlier career-high. He’d additionally been credited with 189 blocks.
Throughout all the NHL, only one defenceman has extra buries in 2023-24. Solely six non-netminders have dead-ended extra pucks in their very own zone.
“I’d clearly like to get to twenty objectives, too,” Weegar stated. “That might be one other little feather within the hat.”
It might be extra than simply that.
It might be an unprecedented double.
Within the twenty years because the NHL began monitoring among the much less attractive stats, no participant has ever completed a season with 20 objectives and 200 blocked pictures.
Erik Karlsson and Roman Josi are the one dudes to hit each marks at any level all through their careers, however these previous Norris Trophy winners have by no means managed a 20/200 combo in a single marketing campaign.
Possibly that explains why Flames bench boss Ryan Huska was torn when requested which quantity could be a much bigger accomplishment for this heart-and-soul kind. Previous to Saturday’s Battle of Alberta, the 30-year-old Weegar was on tempo for 21 and 207.
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“I feel each,” Huska replied. “All the things about his play during the last couple of minutes has been superior. He’s one in every of our guys that I really feel like has found out the way to get pleasure from himself when he’s taking part in the sport, and but he has discovered a option to elevate his aggressive stage to one thing I haven’t seen since he’s been right here.
“You’ll be able to inform if you have a look at him that he’s happy with the place his sport is at. And if you watch him play, he’s doing all of the issues that we ask of him proper now. He’s been actually vital for us this yr and I feel his sport goes to proceed to develop, whether or not it’s the goal-scoring or his willingness to be a extremely good workforce participant with all of the shot-blocks he’s had.
“Whether or not we’re out of it or in it, there ought to by no means be a change in the way you play the sport, and he has been a terrific instance of that.”
With the Flames now formally eradicated from the playoff race, the main focus has turned to chasing particular person achievements and constructing for the longer term.
And whereas Weegar would like to pad his stats, to hitch a brief checklist of Flames rearguards to empty 20 objectives in a single winter, the precedence is to set a constructive instance for his retooling workforce. There are at present six rookies on Calgary’s roster.
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“I need the younger youngsters to study, I need them to have quite a lot of enjoyable and to not get too happy,” stated Weegar, now in his seventh season as an NHL mainstay and signed with the Flames for seven extra. “I wish to present them that it takes quite a lot of work and consistency is big and simply maintain constructing your sport. I feel it’s large, these final video games, only for them to recollect what it was like right here — that it was enjoyable but it surely was tough — and convey that into subsequent season.
“You’re all the time being watched on this league,” he continued. “You’ll be able to’t take a time without work. It’s a type of cutthroat companies the place it’s, ‘What have you ever achieved for me recently?’ They wish to see your character. They wish to see the way you’re dealing with every thing, your temper, your perspective. I feel it says rather a lot a few man to see how they play in these final video games.”
No matter occurs over this last stretch, it says rather a lot about Weegar that he has a crack at this never-been-done-before double.
Twenty objectives? 2 hundred blocked pictures? Who says you’ll be able to’t have each?
“I assume it exhibits that you just’re competing, you’re contributing, that you’d do something it takes to win for this workforce,” Weegar stated. “That’s simply what my mindset has been like all yr.”
wgilbertson@postmedia.com
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