Jason LaBarbera really wasn’t even supposed to play in Wednesday night's preseason against the New Jersey Devils. He was backing up Michal Neuvirth, who is slated to the Philadelphia Flyers No. 2 goalie this season and was expected to play the whole game. However, when Neuvirth was pulled after two periods for “precautionary reasons,” LaBarbera was thrust into action in the third.
That also meant he would have to be in net when the two teams played in the mandatory 3-on-3 overtime as part of the NHL’s preseason-long test run of the new overtime rules. Having spent some time in the American Hockey League last season, LaBarbera has probably had some experience in this format. That didn’t stop him from committing one of the most disastrous and unintentionally hilarious plays of the NHL preseason.
Knowing that line changes are going to be really dangerous in 3-on-3, LaBarbera went to collect a loose puck in his zone and try to catch New Jersey while they were changing. He must not have seen that Jacob Josefson was still out there until it was too late.
LaBarbera went to send the puck up ice, but short-armed the pass and put the puck right on Josefson’s tape. Since the Flyers netminder was all the way in the corner, all he could do was slide his stick on the ice. That would have been a penalty shot for the Devils forward, but Josefson scored on the play.
The helplessness and the resignation in LaBarbera’s half-hearted stick toss was just perfect.
It should be noted that LaBarbera actually stopped all eight shots he faced in the portion of the game that counted (or however much a preseason game can count), but the Flyers lost 4-2 in regulation before losing the pretend overtime, too.
