The Colorado Avalanche!

A wild six game series came to a close last night in Tampa Bay. Tampa gave it their all, rallying twice after losing the first two games in a row. Each team won a blowout game, and the rest were 1 goal victories, two of them OT winners for Colorado. The two best teams in the sport met in the finals and the best team won.

Colorado was able to do just enough to keep Tampa at bay in this series. The back-to-back wins in games 1 and 2 were crucial and their defense came through to seal the deal after letting it slip away in game 5. Keeping Tampa Bay to 4 shots on goal in the 3rd period of an elimination game in Tampa is a heroic level of achievement.

There were a ton of missed penalties in the series due to the officiating getting self-conscious about not calling some worthwhile, although questionably impactful plays, like too many men on the ice. So they largely opted to “let them play”, especially in last night’s game. Which of course, led to some serious goon moves which were nothing short of dangerous. Tampa Bay’s Patrick Maroon took a full-on golf swing to Josh Manson’s leg right after Colorado took the lead. If Manson didn’t see it coming to block the hit with his stick (which broke) there is no telling what kind of damage he would have done.

In the end, Tampa Bay was denied a third championship in a row, cutting them short of an official dynasty. They are now salty as hell. Maybe to the level of when St. Louis swept them in the first round in 2019. To their benefit, most of the roster is signed through next season so they should be able to get to the playoffs again with no problems. They’ll certainly have the motivation (and the goalie) to get back up right away.

Colorado is more up in the air with more pending contracts but it’s not out of the question that they’ll be fantastic again. The mind-boggling part is that Colorado came in last place in the league five seasons ago. That is an insane turnaround. It took the Rangers that long just to get back into the playoffs.