The Avalanches have entered the new season as champions. The regular season has not been as successful for them as the Avalanche fans would like. From the very beginning of the regular season, the 2022 Stanley Cup winners were overtaken by an epidemic of injuries. But the leaders gradually returned to the clip of Jared Bednar's team and made up for lost time without any problems. In the playoffs, “Colorado” expected the debutant of the tournament. The Seattle Kraken are in their second season in the NHL and their first time in the Stanley Cup. Among the 16 reviewers of the NHL website, absolutely everyone voted for the victory of the Avalanche — none of the experts believed that the Krakens would be able to drag the champions to the bottom. But in vain.
“Seattle” won the first match of the series, and the confrontation itself resembled a swing. After winning the first meeting, «Kraken» lost twice in a row, and then caught up and took the lead again, and only in the sixth game, «Colorado» turned the duel into a decisive, seventh battle. And in it the champions were defeated. And no one will say that the “Seattle” won without exaggeration a sensational victory by accident or unfairly. Yes, the “Avelanche” in the game corresponded to their capacities, but in the implementation of moments they noticeably sank. Philipp Grubauer played a significant role in this. The German goaltender said goodbye to Colorado in 2021 and signed as a free agent with Seattle, and today kicked his former club out of the playoffs, making a total of 214 saves from 231 shots in seven games.
Grubauer's vis-a-vis Alexander Georgiev also showed himself well. Russian goalkeeper «Avelanche» made a number of powerful rescues in the seventh match of the series, including «catching» the puck with his face…
…but instead of Georgiev's spectacular saves, many will remember the curious goal that the Russian conceded in the first half of the meeting. Brandon Tanev scared the entire defense of Colorado with one look and allowed Oliver Bjorkstrand. Later, all the same Bjorkstrand scored a winning double.
Colorado responded to this with only one goal. More precisely, two, but the referees canceled the second puck after an exact challenge from the Kraken coaching staff — one offside became fatal for the Avalanches in terms of potential salvation.
Now the NHL will have a new champion. “Colorado” not only failed to defend his title, but also resigned at the very first stage of the tournament. And for the new champion, the victory will be long-awaited: the Stanley Cup winners of the last 17 years have not made the playoffs or dropped out of the tournament, and now the Carolina Hurricanes, who won the trophy back in 2006, are the last of the “live” victors.
Is the absence of Valery Nichushkin, who left the club «for personal reasons» in the midst of a series with Seattle, influenced the high-profile failure of the Avalanche? Undoubtedly. “Avalanches” have lost an important player who can, if not create a scoring chance, then organize powerful traffic in front of other people's goal and play successfully in the end. Valery's teammates and the coach of Colorado admitted that they were very upset due to the absence of the Russian striker, and the final result showed that it was not just that. Instead of help from Nichushkin, Avalanche received only an extra negative background and a lot of rumors related to the reasons for the Russian's departure. But now the club will have enough time to answer all the questions.