Scott MacDonald
Throughout the club’s 25-year history, there has no doubt been many incredible moments for the Avs.
The inaugural, Cup-winning season of 1995-96 is certainly up there. Likely topping that is the ’01 Cup run, capped by one of the greatest feel-good, watery-eye-inducing moments across all NHL history: Joe Sakic passing off Lord Stanley to a retiring Ray Bourque, Gary Thorne’s voice still echoing in the hearts and minds of Avs faithful.
These moments may be hard to beat, but in recent memory—in this era of Avalanche hockey—there’s one moment that certainly ranks up there. It’s been simply, and affectionately, dubbed “Game 82”. And like any great Cinderella story, it all starts with once upon a time…
After a four-year stretch of playoff-less hockey, and after the abysmal 48-point season of 2016-17, the Avs put together an improbable storybook season in 17-18. It all culminated into the final contest of the season—Game 82. The Avalanche were forced into a win-and-you’re-in situation against the St. Louis Blues. Winner gets the final playoff spot, loser goes home.
It’s April 7, 2018.
“It was an amazing night. It was a game that I still look back on,” Avs head coach Jared Bednar said Wednesday, on the three-year anniversary of Game 82. “It was an important game for our team and for our organization to get back into the playoffs. It came right down to the wire. And to be able to play the way we did at home in front of our fans was amazing.”
Tyson Jost remembers it fondly, as well.
“That was unbelievable, just amazing,” Jost added.
Wednesday marks the three-year anniversary of what is sure to rank as a top-10, if not top-5, moment in Avs team history, when all is said and done.
After a string of average play to open the 2017-18 campaign, the Avs head out of the December holiday break with a record of 17-16-3. But after rattling off 10 wins in a row—nearly an entire month without losing a game—the Avs were suddenly in the mix. It then came all the way down to Game 82. A win would mean snapping the 1,438 day long drought of postseason hockey in Denver. A loss, and the drought continues.
It was a Game-7 atmosphere in a Game-82 setting—in front of a Pepsi Center crowd suffocating in its own air of nervous anticipation, fans on the edge of each of the arena’s 18,087 seats.
“Just the buzz building up to that game—I remember driving into the rink and all the fans sitting outside, it felt like a playoff game, and essentially it was,” Jost recalls. “It was just an amazing atmosphere.”
The iconic moment that while forever been entrenched in Colorado Avalanche lore happened with still nearly three-and-a-half minutes left in the game.
“I remember all the guys doing a little dogpile there when we got the empty-netter,” Jost smiled.
The Avs faithful remembers, too, and likely will until our years run out.
The team has been slowly building and improving on Game 82 every since. It’s been the turning point in the Jared Bednar era.
“From there, we’ve been just trying to move the needle, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that the last couple years. We’re looking to try and keep improving here every year,” Bednar said.
“We’ve just kept building on that year after year, and here we are now,” echoed Jost. “It’s pretty cool to look back and see how far we’ve come and how much our team has grown and all the pieces we’ve added.”
Back in 2017-18, and in Game 82, maybe the goal was just to make it.
But the expectations are decidedly different these days.
“It’s a fun memory for sure,” Jost finished. “But we want that big Cup too, so we’ve got to keep building.”