Finnish player pulls off between the legs shot for highlight-reel playoff game-winner

Teemu Ramstedt had a partial breakaway during a crucial post-season game in the Finnish league and, instead of a high percentage shot, Ramstedt went with a Marek Malik-style move. Ramstedt’s shot went top corner and stood as the game-winning goal.

When the post-season rolls around in the NHL, one common refrain will be that goals are much more difficult to come by, that teams will need to fight for every inch and score some ugly goals to rack up victories. The same will be said about nearly every league in the world.

That said, Teemu Ramstedt, who plays for HIFK in Finland’s Liiga, had a different idea of what a playoff goal should look like Monday evening as the 28-year-old scored a highlight-reel goal the likes of which you’d expect to see in a shootout of a meaningless game, not the third game of the league semi-final.

In the second period of Game 3 of the Liiga semi-final between HIFK and JYP, Ramstedt stripped a JYP defender of the puck during a breakout and was able to get himself a partial breakaway. With no one in front of him, Ramstedt barrelled toward JYP netminder Tuomas Tarkki and pulled off a perfect between the legs shot that popped the water bottle behind Tarkki. Check it out:

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVSKB2dbSlI[/embed]

It’s always impressive to see the presence of mind players have when they attempt to go between their own legs to shoot the puck. Ramstedt narrowly avoided the poke check and left Tarkki looking foolish.

Ramstedt’s awesome goal came just six minutes into the second period, but it stood as the game-winning marker as HIFK cruised to a 7-1 victory and took a 2-1 series lead over JYP. It was his fourth tally of the post-season and he now has nine points in the playoffs. You may have noticed he’s also wearing a gold helmet, but that signifies he’s HIFK’s leading scorer, just as he was during the regular season when he notched eight goals and 52 points in 60 games.

Ramstedt was never drafted by an NHL club, but has carved out quite the career for himself in Finland. He’s been a full-time professional player since 2008 and has bounced around Liiga, as well as having short stints in both Sweden and Russia.