New Look, Same Clutch Moments

Before the Conference Championship games started, I got into some early hockey on Sunday. The Colorado Avalanche were playing the second half of a back-to-back, and similar to the previous day's game, it was a matinee start. Saturday was the Avs' first game since the Mikko Rantanen trade, and it was a loss to the Boston Bruins. After falling against a struggling Boston team, we headed to Madison Square Garden to face off against the New York Rangers, finishing that season series as well. The Rangers, who had been struggling for most of this season, were now on a ten-game points streak and looked to capitalize further.

Mackenzie Blackwood was in net against Igor Shesterkin, and the first period was an absolute doozy. At 5:43, Jack Drury opened the scoring. Drury scoring for the Avs. Boy, does that take me back. Even crazier: his uncle Chris Drury is NYR's general manager. The assists came from Keaton Middleton and Jonathan Drouin, but it didn't end there. Less than a minute later, Cale Makar made it 2-0, and the assists came from Martin Necas and Nathan MacKinnon. So both new players had points! Less than a minute after that, Sam Carrick got the Rangers on the board, and Vincent Trocheck tied it up at 2, with over half of the first left. Adam Fox ended up in the box (no, that's not a Dr. Seuss line), and Makar scores again on the power play. MacKinnon and Necas assisted again.

So after 20, it was 3-2 in the Avs' favor, but things quieted down, especially on the Avs' side. Avs received another power play, this time, it was killed off. However, Jusso Parssinen scored with under four minutes left, and the Avs' two goal lead returned. Two minutes later, Will Borgen made it 4-3, and that was the score after 40 minutes. The third period was crazy. Rangers received their first PP of the game, but it was killed off. Rangers were really pushing, but Makar completed the Hat Trick... or so he thought. Goalie interference negated the goal, and then later on, Artemi Panarin tied it up.

The goal was scored with under five minutes left, and with 2:24 left, Makar was going in the box. Oh boy. So we needed to kill this thing for any hope of getting to overtime. It was halfway killed off before the Rangers called time out with 80 seconds left in regulation. We actually managed to kill the rest of it, and then Makar gets out of the box and steals the puck, he passes it to Artturi Lehkonen, and...

Yep! That happened!

With 14.7 seconds left, Lehkonen put it in past Shesterkin, and that was that. The Avs won 5-4 in MSG, ending a three-game skid (0-2-1), and snapping the Rangers' points streak. We had 12 shots on goal in the first, but after that, we had only nine shots in the next 40 minutes. The Avs were outshot 15-3 in the third period, but one of our three shots won the game late. This was a much needed victory to keep us in pace with the teams ahead of us in the Central Division.

The Avs' three-game Eastern road trip concludes on Tuesday against the New York Islanders, and after that, it's a pair of home games against the Blues (Friday) and Flyers (Next Sunday).

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