There are a lot of ways to record assists in hockey. You can get them off passes, deflections, rebounded shots, or various other fortunate bounces. It turns out you can also get one by laying prone in the goal while your teammate shoots the puck at you.
With the Chicago Blackhawks looking to get on the board against the Boston Bruins Sunday afternoon, Richard Panik recorded one of the strangest assists you’ll ever see on an Artemi Panarin goal. The winger got stuck in the net following a hit, and ended up with a point for his trouble:
The beautiful game pic.twitter.com/0wYwwWLsHE
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) April 2, 2017
With Panik sliding into the Bruins’ net past netminder Anton Khudobin and unable to get out of the crease, the winger decided to just cover his face and hope for the best. The puck ended up bouncing off the boards behind the net to Panarin, who buried his rebound for his 29th goal of the season to cut the Bruins lead to 2-1.
With the puck rebounding off of Panik in the net, the forward was credited for his 21st assist of the season. This may be the strangest assist he’ll ever receive, but hey, kudos to Panik for really putting his body into it.