Terry Frei
NASHVILLE — As Predators center Ryan Johansen’s stick poked through the eyehole of the mask of Avalanche goaltender Darcy Kuemper and made contact with Kuemper’s right eye, Johansen was looking to the side.
It wasn’t a high stick, given that Kuemper had dropped to his knees. It was just unfortunately placed.
Even if Johansen had tried to do it, which he didn’t, it would have required uncanny swordsman accuracy worthy of Ogie Ogilthorpe in “Slap Shot.”
But that didn’t help Kuemper, who flipped off his mask, skated a few strides, then went to the ice, in pain so apparent you could feel it at a watch party in, say, Arvada.
This was at 19:03 of the first period in what turned out to be the Avalanche’s 7-3 rout of the Predators in Game 3 of the first-round series Saturday night at Bridgestone Arena. Colorado is up 3-0 in the series and can close it out Monday night in Nashville.
The only storm cloud hanging over the rest of the game Saturday was whether the Avs might have just lost their No. 1 goaltender for … well, however long that was.
After all, an eye is pretty important equipment for a goalie.
Kuemper had made 9 saves on 10 shots at the time and the Avs were leading 2-1. Pavel Francouz came on and stopped 18-of-20 shots the rest of the way.
After the game, though, Colorado coach Jared Bednar mostly calmed the fears when I asked him how Kuemper was, citing some — but not monumental — swelling around the eye.
“He’s good,” Bednar said. “He’s doing better. We’ll get him further evaluated, but he’s got some swelling there and obviously was unable to return. But he’s doing good and is able to get back in the net.”
He confirmed the contact was made with Kuemper’s eye.
“You’re always concerned when you see a guy holding his eye and heading off,” Bednar said. “For either team. He got evaluated right away. By the time we went back out, we had some information that it wasn’t going to be too serious. Serious enough for him not to come back, but at least he’s able to see and do all that. So that made us all feel better, I think.”
He said Kuemper “possibly” could play in Game 4 Monday night. Under the circumstances, it would make much more sense to go with Francouz, though, hoping a win and a sweep would end up giving Kuemper a week off to let the eye completely heal.
During the game, as is the tendency for both the franchise and the sport for in-game injuries, the Avalanche didn’t provide substantive updates on Kuemper’s condition and prognosis, though — as Bednar noted — he had been evaluated by then.
So concerns multiplied.
Kuemper, as it turned out, was at the arena the entire time and wasn’t taken to a hospital. But at least initially, it wasn’t wild overreaction to at least wonder about it. The Avalanche’s failure to pass along an official update — to media, fans, listeners and viewers — was unfortunate. The news didn’t need to be treated as proprietary information or the Pentagon Papers.
“I didn’t see what happened initially to Darcy,” Francouz said of his vantage point on the bench. “I only saw that he was in a lot of pain. I was sure that I was going in. It’s always tough like when you see a goalie get hurt, but you have to kind of focus all your thoughts on the game, on the puck, so that was something I was trying to do.”
The goalies’ teammates, of course, were concerned.
“I think it’s a little worrisome,” said Devon Toews, who had one of the Avalanche’s goals. “We haven’t seen him, really, so we really don’t know what the extent of the injury was, but, yeah, it’s definitely worrisome when you see your starting goalie go down like that. . .
“We just hope he’s all right. If Frankie’s our goalie, he’s our goalie. He played stellar for us tonight. It’s a tough situation to come into and with five seconds left in the first period, he made a huge save (on Mattias Ekholm on a 3-on-2) for us to keep us with the lead at the end of the first there. We’re hopeful on Kemps for sure, but if Frankie’s our guy, we’re ready to go to battle for him.”
The game?
The Avalanche’s power play was 4-for-5, scoring on the first four. It is in such a high-gear, it’s breathtaking and the only question about it is: Why hasn’t it scored every time … all season?
Both of Gabriel Landeskog’s two goals were on the power play and he added two assists. The mind-boggling part of it was when, after Landeskog’s second goal made it 4-3 at 14:02 of the second, the Predators challenged it, arguing that Artturi Lehkonen was guilty of goaltender interference.
It was a gray area call that could have gone either way in review, but think of it: If the goal was upheld, the Avs — 3-for-3 on the power play at that point — go right back on the PP because of the automatic delay of game call on the Preds. And sure enough, that’s what happened. On the ensuing power play, Nazem Kadri’s tap-in after Preds goalie Connor Ingram misplayed the puck behind the goal line made it 5-3.
Bad choice, Preds. Bad choice.
Did Landeskog expect the reviewed goal to stand?
“Ever since the coaches’ challenge came in, you don’t ever want to count it being in until the puck is dropped,” Landeskog said. “I talked to the coaches on the bench. They were fairly confident and thought that one counted.”
It did, and it was instrumental in putting the Avs in position to possibly finish off a sweep Monday night.
“There’s no easy games in the playoffs,” Landeskog said. “They have their backs against the walls at home. They don’t want to be swept at home and we’re going to try to end this thing and don’t give them any life.”
Some other observations about the game from here in Smashville:
The Predators tried to freeze out Avalanche fans by requiring ticket-buyers to have credit card billing addresses in what is considered the team’s television market.
What strikes me about that are:
— It contradicts Nashville’s getaway mission and image. You promote the area as a tourist mecca … for country music, but not hockey games?
— Nashville is a “transplant” market, too.
— Try it in Denver? It wouldn’t work because the “opposing” team fans in so many cases live in Colorado and have the credit-card billing addresses to prove it. Say, a Joliet native and instant, retroactive lifelong Blackhawks fan living in Northglenn. Those types of fans are more annoying than the opposing team fans wanting to visit Denver — or Nashville — for a game or two.
Terry Frei ([email protected], @tfrei) is a Denver-based author and journalist. He has been named a state’s sportswriter of the year seven times in peer voting — four times in Colorado and three times in Oregon. His seven books include the novels “Olympic Affair” and “The Witch’s Season.” Among his five non-fiction works are “Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming,” “Third Down and a War to Go,” “March 1939: Before the Madness,” and “’77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age.” He also collaborated with Adrian Dater on “Save By Roy,” was a long-time vice president of the Professional Hockey Writers Association and has covered the hockey Rockies, Avalanche and the NHL at-large. His web site is www.terryfrei.com and his bio is available at www.terryfrei.com/bio.html
His Colorado Hockey Now column archive can be accessed here