Early Candidates

This article has very little to do with the Pittsburgh Steelers, although Marc-Andre Fleury certainly is involved in today's piece. Tuesday night saw two fantastic goals scored by two young superstars in the same game! I should know since I watched both goals happen, and was astounded by the first goal before being dumbfounded by the second goal. Honestly, the first goal may have left Fleury a little confused, so that's how he gets into this article. Regardless, we have two early goal-of-the-year candidates from tonight's Colorado-Pittsburgh game.

We'll start with Matt Duchene of the Colorado Avalanche. Duchene literally makes Brooks Orpik disappear before backhanding the puck past a sprawling Fleury. Needless to say, this takes "magic hands" to perform at this speed. Here's the clip.

Outstanding move, right? I was blown away by Duchene's move. I knew he was a special player, but that goal was downright spectacular.

However, not to be outdone, Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin shows off his quick hands in close by walking through Gabriel Landeskog, and then dancing around Semyon Varlamov in what appears to be an effortless move.

Wow. Simply wow. Malkin undresses Varlamov in spectacular fashion, and this came in the the third period of the same game! The tipping of the puck past Landeskog - a fairly responsible player in his own end - was the move that impressed me the most, but finishing it with a goal that left Varlamov's jockstrap in the third row of the Consol Energy Center was the icing on the cake.

Now I may be a little biased because I'm a Penguins fan, so I'll turn it over to you, readers. Which goal leads your list as goal-of-the-year thus far? Is Duchene's between-the-legs better than Malkin's tip-deke-goal? Or does Malkin's move outshine Duchene's? What say you, readers?

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!