Kelsey Hammond
The Colorado Avalanche and Ball Arena hosted its first Stanley Cup Final game in 21 years. The back-to-back defending Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning made their way back to Denver for the first time since February 10 of this year.
Andre Burakovsky, who helped beat Tampa Bay in a Game 7 against Tampa Bay for the Washington Capitals in the Eastern Conference final four years ago, scored the game-winner in overtime. The Avs almost blew a 3-1 second-period lead, but held on. Game 2 is Saturday night at the Ball.
Rest didn’t seem like a factor for the Colorado Avalanche early on as they dominated the first 10 minutes of the game with 15 shots and three goals. Both goalies let in a couple of softies but the Avalanche regained the two-goal lead when Artturi Lehkonen tipped it in past Andrei Vasilevskiy while on a 5-3 power play. But then things got tight.
“The concern would be coming into this, how would we handle the first and second period,” Jared Bednar said after the game,” I thought our guys were really good in the first, we let up in the second but give Tampa credit and we knew they weren’t going to go away.”
Nerves were going around today before the game. Burakovsky woke up at 6 a.m. ready to play some hockey. Sitting next to him at the interview table, Captain Gabe Landeskog joked, “Just wait till you have kids, you’ll be up at 6 a.m. every day.”
Burakovsky gave the Avalanche a 1-0 series lead but the overall game was controlled by the Avs for the most part. The Avalanche outshot the Lightning 38 to 23 and special teams ended up being critical.
“I wasn’t thinking too much, it was kind of a crazy feeling,” said Burakovsky, when asked about his goal, a one-timer from the right circle.
The Avalanche special teams went 1-for-3 on the power play and 3-for-3 on the penalty kill. Opportunities included a 5-on-3 power play which ended with an Avalanche goal by Lehkonen. The Avalanche started overtime with 36 seconds of power-play time left and were unable to score. Burakovsky soon changed that.
Val Nichushkin had two points tonight, played over 19 minutes and led the team with six shots on net. He created opportunities by playing physical and keeping his head up to find the open lane.
“I mean, he’s been doing that kind of thing for us a couple of years now,” said Bednar, “Obviously great play at the end to set up Burky.”
Darcy Kuemper’s play? Pretty good really, except for a bad stretch in the second period. He doesn’t have to be Patrick Roy to win for this team. He just has to keep the opponent to four or fewer most nights and he can get the Dub. He got it tonight. It wasn’t pretty, but this is the Stanley Cup Final.
Ugly wins are as pretty as pretty wins.