Goalie beats out Ducks’ Bobby Ryan for ‘play of the year’

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Even though the best part of the NHL season is still ahead of us, that hasn’t stopped TSN (you know, the Canadian equivalent of ESPN) from holding a “Play of the Year Showdown” on its website.

Fans had the opportunity to vote for their favorite play from a list of 20 plays, and TSN announced today that Calgary Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff beat out Ducks rookie forward Bobby Ryan for the top play of the year.

Here’s a quick clip of the winning play:

As spectacular as Kiprusoff’s diving stick save is, I can’t help but think that there was a little Canadian bias involved in the voting. Afterall, how many Canadians would vote for an American-born player such as Ryan who plays on a Sun Belt team? I realize Kiprusoff is Finnish, but he plays for a Calgary team that has some of the NHL’s most passionate fans.

Still, let’s not take away from Kiprusoff’s big-play triumph. Even though I’m convinced his easy victory has something to do with the fact that no one south of the 49th parallel pays attention to TSN except for die-hard puckheads and Canadian Football League fans, his save stands toe-to-toe with Ryan’s hat-trick tally.

Anyway, here’s Ryan’s spectacular goal. Tell me which one you think is better.

-- Austin Knoblauch