Eurolanche

Fairy-tale: Back to the future

But it is not just another ordinary day; there is a strange buzz through the city since the early morning. Many people are wearing burgundy and blue stuff, and their number is increasing as the day goes by. Once the sun is just above the western horizon, they are gathering in sports bars and most of them around Pepsi Center – home of local NHL team Colorado Avalanche. 5th game of the Stanley Cup finals will be played here tonight, and since the Avs lead the series against Chicago Blackhawks 3-1, this will be their first “matchball“ to clinch the title. Stanley Cup is already in the building and all truthful fans hope that it will leave it only above the heads of their celebrating heroes. It has been fourteen long years minus two days since Denver experienced such celebrations for the last time. Will the team around young captain Ryan O´Reilly manage to repeat the achievement of legendary team led by Joe Sakic, Patrick Roy and Ray Bourque?

Two of these three hockey legends will have the opportunity to witness and help with this task. Joe Sakic, current general manager of the Avs, decided to leave the comfort of his skybox and join the team on the bench where he will watch how players follow tactical orders prepared by head coach Patrick Roy. It is Roy´s third year as a head coach of the Avalanche team, and after first and second round exits in previous years, he has now taken his team all the way to the top. All they need is the one last step – the hardest one.

On their way to the finals, Colorado beat Vancouver in the first round. Canucks managed to score only 9 goals in 6 games and Avs clinch the series with the epic 1-0 win in the fourth overtime of game 6 thriller. It was whole different story in the conference finals against President Trophy winners Edmonton Oilers. In game 7 of entertaining series full of high-scoring games, Matt Duchene scored a hattrick and the Avs won 6-4 to advance to the Stanley Cup semifinals. There, in the battle of two Russian goalies, they clinched the series on the road for the third time, when they came back from the 3-2 deficit and beat Ilia Bryzgalov and his Philadelphia Flyers 3-1 in the final game.

Chicago needed three less games to get to the finals. In the first round, they dominated the series against Winnipeg team that advanced to the postseason for the first time since relocating from Atlanta 4 years ago. Hawks won the series 4-1. They won the conference title after the 4-2 triumph over the St. Louis Blues and then in the Cup semifinals, they repeated the same result against Boston Bruins too.

Colorado dominates the finals so far. They won both home games to begin the series, 4-2 and 2-1. Hawks managed to won the third game 3-1, but three days ago, Avs scored in the overtime of the fourth game, and along the 4-3 victory, they returned home for the fifth game with the 3-1 series lead, just one win away from the title. They are aiming for that last needed win today.

But winning plans take a serious blow during the pre-game warm-up. Team #1 goaltender Semyon Varlamov, who was the important piece of team´s so-far success, pulled his groin and won´t be available for the game. The weight of responsibility falls on the shoulders of young backup Calvin Pickard. After just 37 games played over the two years and grand total of 46 minutes of playoff experience, he is now supposed to face one of the league´s best offensive stars like Toews, Kane or Hossa and help his team win the Stanley Cup. It will be interesting to see how he handles such pressure.

And the game began. Both teams are aware what they are playing for, so they start a bit cautious. Couple of easy shots on both sides only helped goalies to gain some confidence. Halfway through the period, both teams got the man advantage opportunities, but failed to capitalize. Pickard made a great save on Kane wrist shot from between the circles and also covered some dangerous rebounds. Avs finally managed to get on the scoresheet in their second powerplay of the game – just before the first intermission, Duchene feed Johnson on the blue line and his huge slapshot beat Crawford top shelf. Gabriel Landeskog deserves a lot of credit for this goal too, for the perfect screen of frusrated Chicago goalie. 1-0 lead after the first period mean that lot of champagne bottles were moved to the cooling boxes – chances increased that they will be needed after the game.

But the enthusiasm of home fans was cooled sooner than the champagne once the second period started. Hawks players came out of the dressing room in desperate mood, and from the first shift put hard pressure on suddenly helpless home team. As a result they were outscoring the Avs 24-11 in shots and 2-1 in goals after 30 minutes of play. Pickard made some great saves and Hawks players also hit the post twice, but Toews and Hossa managed to find the back of the net and all of the sudden, Hawks were on the lead. Avs were saved by the time-out that Roy decided to call after Hawks second goal. After the time-out, momentum slowly changed and in the 37th minute, Avs managed to tie the game. It began with devastating but clean hit by Duncan Siemens, that stop what would have been the odd men rush for the Hawks otherwise. Stefan Elliott got to the loose puck and immediately sent it to Matt Duchene. Brent Seabrook failed to stop him and suddenly there was a 2 on 1 situation on the other side. Duchene decided to send a cross pass to Thomas Vanek who didn´t have any problems to score in the half-open net. It was his 100th goal in the Avalanche uniform after his trade for Paul Stastny 3 yrs ago, and surely his most important one.  Score was tied 2-2 after two periods of play.

As expected, both coaches ordered defensively minded tactics for the third period. Everyone was aware that whoever scores the next goal will be very close to victory, so nobody wanted to do a fatal mistake. As a result, only 12 shots on goal combined were registered through the whole 3rd period, and since goalies stopped them all, game will go to overtime. Through 60 minutes of play, Pickard stopped 34 of 36 shots he faced; Crawford on the other side produced 25 successful saves. One of them will have to be beaten one more time tonight, and over 18 of thousands fans in the standings hope it will be the one with the indian´s head on his chest. 

But their faith was seriously tested after only 4 minutes of overtime, when Hawks got a powerplay chance after Jan Hejda was sent to the penalty box for hooking. Hawks players already began to celebrate what they believed was a game winning goal, after the puck bounced along the goal line. Telephone call to Toronto followed, where the situation was reviewed by the league officials. After what seemed like an eternity, referee finaly returned the phone, slowly put his helmet back on his head, slowly turn to the center of the ice and with the words “NO GOAL“ spread his arms. Home fans exploded in joy, video showed that Pickard managed to make a phenomenal reflex save that keep the puck from crossing the goal line only by inches. And so the play continued. But not for long. Not 2 minutes later, Ryan O´Reilly beat Crawford, cooled after the long pause, with simple shot to the far post. Fans exploded again, in the same second as whole home bench, gloves and helmets were flying high in the air and all players ended in one big happy mass in the corner where they catch the scorer of the golden goal.

Disappointed Chicago players were replaced by cameramen on the ice. Hats with text “COLORADO AVALANCHE 2015 STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS“ were promoted to the players and coaching staff. Red carpet was laid on the ice and table brought to the end of it. And here goes the first famous trophy – Conn Smythe Trophy for the best player of the playoffs was awarded to (after two today´s assists) the most productive player of the playoffs, Matt Duchene. Well deserved. But now everybody awaits the holy grail of the ice hockey - and here it is, The Stanley Cup. And after the short speech and congratulation from the league commissioner Gary Bettman, Ryan O´Reily becomes after Joe Sakic the second captain in the history of Colorado Avalanche who lifts the most desired trophy above his head. Colorado Avalanche is again the NHL champion.