It’s always been hard to understand how someone with Hemsky’s world class abilities doesn’t have the numbers to match it.

That’s easy: they play defense in the West. Other than demonstrating that Coburn can do a decent Hatcher/pylon impression and that Biron can’t poke-check to save his life, those goals didn’t show anything that dozens of players couldn’t pull off in the same situations.

Posted by shep from california on 11/03/08 at 01:15 PM ET

I have watched hundreds of oiler games over the last couple of years and some common phrase’s that come out of my mouth are “Shoot the F*>King puck Hemsky” “Take it to the damn net Hemsky”
No player in the league drives me nuts like Hemsky, talent is off the chart but everything has to be so pretty.
So every so often he will take it to the net and make it pretty, score and then the next 10 games will return to nothing, and then pop, another highlight reel goal.

Posted by Travis Ro from Calgary on 11/03/08 at 02:19 PM ET

Yeah, I think both commenters are exactly right.  Most of the time, a pretty goal like that only happens because of a defensive breakdown.  All kinds of players have the skill to make those moves in those situations, but not all are smart enough to know when to try.  Maybe Hemsky’s problem is that he doesn’t know when not to try.  Most of the time it won’t work and he won’t be as effective as he should, but occasionally it will and will look spectacular.

Posted by Ryan from Toronto on 11/03/08 at 03:11 PM ET