Colorado’s Cup win was years in the making
Nathan MacKinnon could not find the words. Gabriel Landeskog cracked a smile and a joke.
After years of playoff disappointments, the Colorado Avalanche are back atop hockey’s mountain after dethroning the two-time defending champions.
Behind a goal and an assist from MacKinnon, the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup for the third time in franchise history and first in more than two decades by beating the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 in Game 6 of the final Sunday night in Tampa.
“It’s just been building over time,” playoff MVPwinning defenseman Cale Makar said about the Avalanche’s journey. “I’ve been here only three years. A couple of tough exits in the playoffs. It was just all leading up to this.”
It’s the first title for the Avs’ core group led by MacKinnon, captain Gabriel Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen and Makar, and it follows several early postseason exits — in the second round each of the past three seasons and the first round in 2018. The 2016-17 team was the worst in hockey, finishing with 48 points.
“It’s hard to describe,” said MacKinnon, who led the way in the clincher by blocking shots and taking big hits in addition to his offensive production. “Some tough years mixed in there, but it’s all over now. We never stopped believing.”
With a mix of speed, high-end talent and the experience gained from those disappointments, Colorado enjoyed a breakthrough this time — earning every bit of the championship by knocking off a deep team that hoisted the Cup the past two years.
Like the Avalanche fully expected, it wasn’t easy.
An early turnover by Makar led to an easy goal by Steven Stamkos, putting Colorado in a hole and several more bumps and bruises followed. The Avalanche tied it when MacKinnon beat 2021 playoff MVP Andrei Vasilevskiy with a nearperfect shot and went ahead on another goal by trade-deadline acquisition Artturi Lehkonen.
Colorado then controlled the proceedings by holding on to the puck and held Tampa Bay without a shot on Darcy Kuemper until midway through the third period.
When the Lightning finally did take a few shots, Kuemper was there. Acquired from Arizona in a trade last summer to shore up the sport’s most important position, Kuemper was solid again and made his most important save with less than seven minutes left when he slid over to deny Nikita Kucherov.
Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic, who captained Colorado’s first two title-winning teams in 1996 and 2001, was not afraid to ante up in March to acquire Lehkonen, defenseman Josh Manson and forward Andrew Cogliano. They became the perfect complement to Colorado’s core that had showed plenty of playoff promise but hadn’t produced a championship.
Tampa Bay ended up two victories short of becoming the NHL’s first three-peat champion since the New York Islanders’ dynasty in the early 1980s.
“It stings just as much as the first time,” Stamkos said, referring to the Lightning’s loss to Chicago in the 2015 Finals. Hall of Fame: Twins Henrik and Daniel Sedin and Daniel Alfredsson have been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, a big day for Swedish hockey as they made up half of the class of 2022.
Goaltender Roberto Luongo, Finnish women’s forward Riikka Sallinen and builder Herb Carnegie, a Black player in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s before Willie O’Ree broke the NHL’s color barrier, also were selected Monday for induction in November.
The Sedins and Luongo are being inducted in their first year of eligibility. Each of the Sedins won the Art Ross Trophy for leading the NHL in scoring, and Henrik won the Hart Trophy as MVP in 2010. The Vancouver Canucks made a move in the 1999 draft to make sure they could get Henrik and Daniel with the second and third picks, and their chemistry was well known throughout careers that ended in 2018.
Luongo is fourth in league history in victories and was part of the Canucks’ team that reached the Finals in 2011 before losing to the Boston Bruins.
Alfredsson made it in his sixth year, ending the wait for the Senators’ longtime captain who helped them reach the Stanley Cup Finals in 2007 and spent 17 seasons of his 18-year career in Ottawa.
Briefly: Luke Richardson is a head coach for the first time, hired in Chicago to replace Derek King, who finished the season as the interim head coach after Jeremy Colliton was fired Nov. 6. ... As expected, Boston signed general manager Don Sweeney to a “multiyear” contract extension. ... Toronto signed defenseman Timothy Liljegren to a two-year contract extension with an average annual value of $1.4 million.