2024-04-25 11:10:24
Winnipeg and Colorado staged a scoring shootout that had not been seen in the Stanley Cup for 39 years.
As İdman.biz reports with reference to the “Championship”, after the Eastern Conference, the NHL playoffs started in the West, and immediately with a match that went down in the history of the league. Winnipeg and Colorado went on a scoring frenzy and, as a result, set a record for the century.
NHL – playoffs. 1/4 finals – West. 1st match
April 22, 2024, Monday.
Winnipeg Jets (Winnipeg) – Colorado Avalanche (Denver) – 7:6
0:1 Nichushkin (Manson) – 06:10 (5×5) 1:1 Morrissey (Connor, Dillon) – 08:02 (5×5) 2:1 Namestnikov (Iafallo) – 11:57 (5×5) 2:2 Wood (Kiviranta , Colton) – 14:47 (5×5) 2:3 MacKinnon (Rantanen, Makar) – 15:05 (5×5) 3:3 Scheifele (Vilardi) – 15:53 (5×5) 4:3 Lauri (Dillon, Niederreiter) – 28:57 (5×5) 5:3 Lauri (Appleton, Niederreiter) – 43:31 (5×5) 6:3 Connor (Morrissey, Scheifele) – 45:51 (5×4) 6:4 Lehkonen (Makar, MacKinnon) – 46: 29 (5×4) 7:4 Connor (Vilardi, Scheifele) – 48:54 (5×5) 7:5 Makar – 52:24 (5×4) 7:6 Mittelstadt (Lehkonen, Rantanen) – 59:30 (6×5).
The start was made in the seventh minute, when Colorado forward Valery Nichushkin entered the hosts’ zone from the right flank and made a jewel shot that the best goalkeeper of the regular season, Connor Hellebuyck, could not cope with.
The second Russian goal in the match was also not long in coming. In the 12th minute, Vladislav Namestnikov punished the Avalanche for a mistake in his zone and plunged thousands of Winnipeg fans both in the stands and outside the arena into ecstasy.
This puck put the Jets ahead, as Nichushkin’s goal was quickly answered by Morrissey. But the scoring madness was just beginning. A little over three minutes after Namestnikov’s goal, Winnipeg lost again! Moreover, the goals of Wood and MacKinnon were separated by only 18 seconds.
However, not even a minute passed before the hosts got even: the Avalanche defense forgot Scheifely in the area, and he upset Alexander Georgiev for the third time. 3:3, six goals in less than 16 minutes – how do you like this playoff?
After such a shootout, Winnipeg managed to take control of the game, stopped conceding goals, and made a key breakthrough in the second and early third periods. Jets captain Lauri scored two great goals, and the second goal was especially impressive: the Winnipeg forward stripped MacKinnon in the area and then scored with a rebound from Georgiev.
In the 46th minute, Connor sent off Nichushkin, seemingly ending the match, but Colorado refused to give up and, as a result, created a hassle for Winnipeg fans. The Avalanche themselves converted twice, and half a minute before the siren, Mittelstadt, in a six-on-five formation, pushed the puck into Hellebuyck’s goal, reducing the score gap to a minimum.
But Colorado conceded too much in this game to count on a comeback. The winner was this puck by Connor, which, like in miniature, reflects the game of the Avalanche defense and goalkeeper Georgiev in this meeting.
7:6 in the match, 1-0 in the series, Winnipeg took the first step towards the conference semi-finals. Well, 13 goals scored by the joint efforts of the teams became a record in the 21st century. In general, in the entire history of the opening matches of the Stanley Cup series, only two times have opponents scored 13+ goals between them, and the last time this happened was in 1985.
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