Avalanche Forward Lehkonen Tells Great McDavid Story on Finnish Podcast

Be warned: this story is about as offseason as it gets, so if you’re looking for anything new on the Colorado Avalanche, you probably won’t find it in this story.

But it is a fun story, and nothing is happening, so it’s worth sharing.

Artturi Lehkonen might be one of the quietest players in the Avalanche locker room. Maybe that comes from years of being in Montreal, where I can only assume the media is a little overwhelming, but that’s just how he is. It’s not a big deal, but we know there’s more under the surface. Other Avalanche players have talked about how funny he is away from the rink.

That sense of humor showed up on a Finnish podcast called Kalju Corner. Lehkonen, speaking in Finnish, told a story about how he and Bowen Byram shadowed Connor McDavid around the ice in a game, only for none of that to matter when the game got to overtime. Take a look at both of the clips below. There is a translation in the clips.

UPDATE: It appears the original McDavid story video has been deleted.

The general gist of the story was that Lehkonen and Bowen Byram were tasked with shadowing McDavid during a game, following him everywhere. That made it 3v4 for everyone else on the ice. At one point, the puck went behind McDavid’s net and he asked them if they were going to follow him there. When he went to the bench, he asked Byram and Lehkonen if they were going to come to the bench with him as well.

The game went to overtime. With Lehkonen and Byram on the bench, McDavid scored on the first shift. Both Lehkonen and Byram turned to the coaching staff and wondered why they weren’t on the ice. They spent 60 minutes shutting him down and he gets away from them for one shift and scores.

That’s good stuff.

In addition, Lehkonen told a story of when he was a younger player with the Canadiens and had a run-in with Radko Gudas at a face-off.

Artturi vs his babyface (featuring radko gudas) pic.twitter.com/DorPv2nwZq

— siri 🇫🇮 (@jasubert) May 18, 2023

If you want to listen to the full podcast, you can do so here, but be warned, it is in Finnish.