Timeline 25: The player who scored the first goal in Avalanche history

It wasn't Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Adam Deadmarsh or any of the other usual suspects who found the net the first time for Colorado

BY JAMES MERILATT

May 6, 2020, 6:20 AM Updated: 7:08 am

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On March 6, 1995, The Fan was born. In the 25 years since, a lot has transpired on the fields, courts and ice in Colorado, giving the hosts and listeners who’ve been part of the station during that time plenty to talk about and debate.

During the course of the next few weeks, we’ll take a look back at that history, remembering the good times and the bad, the winners and the losers, the successes and the failures. It’s a series we’re calling “Timeline 25” and it continues today with a look one of the biggest highlights from 1995 – the first goal in Avalanche history.

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Here’s a bit of trivia for Avalanche fans: Who scored the first goal in Avalanche history?

The answer isn’t Joe Sakic or Peter Forsberg. It’s not Claude Lemieux or even Adam Deadmarsh. The first player to find the back of the net for Colorado was none other than Valeri Kamensky.

For those who remember that first season, the 1995-96 campaign after the franchise relocated from Quebec and the Nordiques became the Avs, that shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. After all, the left winger was third on the team in points that season, notching 85 to finish just behind Sakic (120) and Forsberg (116).

But it’s still a bit odd that none of the franchise’s all-time greats shined during their first-ever game. Instead, the Russian-born Kamensky was the star that night.

He found the net midway through the first period, tying the game at 1-1. And then with less than four minutes to play in the third, he snuck another shot past Mike Vernon to give Colorado a 3-2 victory over Detroit.

Lemieux score the team’s other goal, while Uwe Krupp posted a pair of assists. Sakic and Forsberg, meanwhile, were blanked on the stat sheet, something that wouldn’t happen often that season or in any other.

Kamensky went on to play for the Avs through the end of the 1998-99 season. He’s perhaps best remembered for a highlight-reel goal during the 1997-98 campaign, a shot that gained a lot of notoriety when it was included in the intro for the “NHL 98” video game (see the 1:03 mark of the YouTube video below).

For one night, however, Kamensky was Colorado’s biggest hockey hero. In the franchise’s first game since moving to Denver, at McNichols Arena against the team that would become their biggest rival, he was the first star to shine.

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First Goal in Avalanche History