Since the championship in 2001, the Colorado Avalanche has not reached the Stanley Cup final, but in 2022 it became a reality again. The Edmonton Oilers were defeated 0-4 in the Western Conference Finals.
Superback Cale Makar was of course the man of the match with his five exchange points (1 + 4), but Colorado’s Finns did not come far behind. Artturi Lehkonen was good for 1 + 2 and Mikko Rantanen for 1 + 0 when the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Edmonton Oilers 6-5 after extra time and marched to their first Stanley Cup final since the championship year 2001.
Rantanen put Colorado in the lead 5-4 in a time of 54.47, and in just under two minutes, his fifth hit of the playoffs looked to be the game’s winning goal.
Or yes; rather, it may not have looked exactly like that, so much of the game waved from time to time with a focus on sharp attacking play rather than on the defensive. And if you have players such as McDavid, Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins in one camp and MacKinnon, Landeskog and Makar in others, then maybe it will easily be like this: more attacks, less defense.
Lehkonen’s match – yes
Barely two minutes after Rantanen’s lead goal, Zack Kassian equalized to 5-5, and shortly afterwards it was extra time where Artturi Lehkonen stepped forward, just as he did last year in exactly the same situation.
– Cale shot and I got the club blade on the puck and then it was more or less empty goal, says a relaxed Lehkonen about the winning goal.
Nice control by the 26-year-old Finn who then poked in the return and pushed Colorado to a much-anticipated Stanley Cup final – for the first time in 21 long years. At the same time, this means that the Lehkonen-born Lehkonen will play in the Stanley Cup finals for the second year in a row.
Last year he played for the Montreal Canadiens, but in the spring he left the Canadian multimillion-dollar city and moved to the Rocky Mountains, Denver and Colorado Avalanche. To say the least, a successful trio for Avalanche: in the basic series, Lehkonen accounted for 6 + 3 = 9 points in 16 matches, and in the playoffs’ 14 matches, the balance shows 6 + 5 = 11 points.
A fun detail is that Lehkonen last year decided the semifinal series against Vegas. Then Montreal won 3-2 after extra time and 4-2 in matches.
The big stars in the lead roles
In this match series in general and in this fourth match in particular, it was the stars who delivered forward – despite Colorado scoring six goals, only seven players got points: Cale Makar 1 + 4, Artturi Lehkonen 1 + 2, Gabriel Landeskog 1 + 2, Nathan MacKinnon 1 + 0, Mikko Rantanen 1 + 0, Devon Toews 1 + 0, and the hard worker Darren Helm 0 + 1. The thing is that Makar, despite five stock market points, was in the red in the minutes, and Rantanen was in that respect the worst in all of Colorado with -2.
Same show in Edmonton’s camp: Leon Draisaitl 0 + 4, Connor MacDavid 1 + 2, Zach Hyman 2 + 0, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 1 + 0, Zack Kassian 1 + 0, Darnell Nurse 0 + 1 and Tyson Barrie 0 + 1.
Others, including Jesse Puljujärvi with just under 12 minutes of playing time, were at zero.
This also meant that goalkeepers Mike Smith and Pavel Francouz – both save percentage was 85.7 – had to play second fiddle, and for example at Lehkonen’s winning goal there was not a single Oilers player nearby – despite playing the most crucial minutes of the season for Edmonton.
In the traditional handshake after the match, an interesting thing was seen when father and son hugged each other. Dave Manson, formerly a tough back with over 1100 NHL regular season games on his resume and current assistant coach for the Edmonton Oilers, was beaten in the family duel by his son Josh Manson, who as a fullback in the Colorado Avalanche may continue the hunt for the Stanley Cup.
NHL, 6.6.2022, semifinal match 4 in the western conference:
Edmonton Oilers – Colorado Avalanche 5-6 after extra time (0-4 in games)
Jesse Puljujärvi EDM: 0 + 0, 0, 11.51
Artturi Lehkonen COL: 1 + 2, 1, 15.58
Mikko Rantanen COL: 1 + 0, -2, 15.49
Video material by Viaplay.
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