Colorado Avalanche collapse, blow MacKinnon’s moment
May 25, 2022, 9:57 PM
The Colorado Avalanche had their signature moment authored by their star player on Wednesday night as Nathan MacKinnon scored an incredible go-ahead hat-trick-completing goal with two minutes and change left to put the team on the brink of their first Conference Finals appearance in 20 years.
With less than a minute left, Robert Thomas netted one for the Blues to tie the game at 4. Less than four minutes into overtime, Tyler Bozak scored to take Game 5 at 5-4 and send the series back to St. Louis.
What are another 48 hours when you wait 20 years? A painful 56 seconds that Avs fans hope won’t be remembered as the pinpoint of heartbreak for decades.
“You have to stay aggressive. You got to continue to play your game and believe in what you’re doing,” Jared Bednar said. “For the most part, we’ve been doing that, but again, you’re either the hammer the nail in the series, we have to keep moving forward and pressing, and forcing them into mistakes.”
The Avs went up 3-0 four minutes into the second period, getting two from MacKinnon. Colorado was dominant in the first and most of the second but had a slight hiccup at the end, letting Vladimir Tarasenko get on the board. The Avs completely let off the gas in the third, and the Blues eventually tied it at 3-3 with 4:46 to play.
Two minutes later, MacKinnon completed his hat trick in electric fashion, taking the game over and seemingly sealing the series.
But Thomas scored less than two minutes later to send it into OT at 4-4.
“We definitely need a better effort for a full 60,” MacKinnon said. “We got on our heels a little bit. We wanted it so bad; we just gotta keep focusing on our process.”
When the Avs scored their third, they had 13 more shot attempts than the Blues; at the game’s end, the teams were tied in attempts.
The Blues final shot of the night was Bozak’s, just moments into overtime and right after Colorado blew an opportunity at a wide-open net.
“It’s playoff hockey,” Gabriel Landeskog said. “It’s not supposed to be easy.”
Wednesday will go down as a legendary moment by MacKinnon dashed; even if the Avs still win the series—if the Avs don’t pull this out in the next two games— the pain of this should-be-crowing goal will be tormenting.
