Only a frontal Gabeotomy can get the Stars out of the Avalanche’s heads now.
“I think a lot of it comes down to execution,” Avs captain Gabriel Landeskog said after Colorado dropped a second straight overtime playoff heartbreaker to the Dallas Stars, falling 2-1 in Game 3. “Yeah, (the power play was) a little bit slow, a little bit having some issues, execution-wise. And we’ll clean that up.”
They’re running out of time. Dallas went into Wednesday without its best defender, Miro Heiskanen, and its top-scorer, Jason Robertson. Mikko Rantanen has been invisible for days. The Avs opened overtime gifted with nearly three-and-a-half minutes of having an extra man. It was Landeskog’s first NHL appearance in 1,032 days, a literal miracle on ice, before a loud, proud and loving Ball Arena.
All the stars were aligned to give the Avs a 2-1 series lead. All of them except the Dallas ones. Avs fans did their part, screaming like banshees to the bitter end. Dallas coach Peter DeBoer still laughed last. And Jared Bednar somehow managed to ruin Gabe Night.
“Dallas has led for 62 seconds in regulation over three games …,” the Avs’ coach was asked after another postseason shocker.
“Yeahhh,” Bednar whispered through gritted his teeth. The gravity sunk in.
The reporter continued: “How do you process that, and what’s your messaging to your guys?”
More gritted teeth.
“Well, the message is simple. I mean, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” Bednar replied. “We’re playing one of the top teams in the league, right? So you have to keep studying the game, trying to pick up any little tidbits that can help us moving forward, things that we’ve got to do better, things that we like that we’re doing.”
Here’s what he needs to do next: Put the Captain on the top power play unit.
Desperate times. Desperate measures. In Avs-Stars postseason history, the team with a 2-1 series lead has gone on to win 67% of the time.
The worst part? The Avs could be up three games to none right now. Easily.
Twice, they’ve taken a one-goal lead into the midway point of the third period. Twice, they’ve choked it away. Twice, they’ve had a chance to put Dallas away via special teams. Twice, the Stars have hung around and crushed their souls.
Meanwhile, the extra man has suddenly become an extra-large problem. Colorado is zero for its last eight attempts with a man advantage, thanks to a massive goose egg in Game 3 (0-6). The Avs’ PP is just 2 for 13 in this series.
Bringing it up along the left side? The short drop pass?
They’ve sniffed that out, Bedsy.
Listening to DeBoer talk is like watching paint dry. But the man’s no dummy. He’s schemed circles around Bednar and his staff. Again.
The Avs’ special teams need new ideas, new wrinkles and new personnel.
They need to sub in Landy — who didn’t show much rust — for Jonathan Drouin on PP1 in a massive, must-win Game 4 on Saturday night.
Get No. 92 back in front of the crease where he belongs. Let one of the league’s better puck-tippers try to make something — anything — happen in front of Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger. Get greasy. Change the bodies. Change the vibe.
The Avs couldn’t catch a break right now if you lobbed one in underhand. It was as if the hockey gods gave Bednar the first eight minutes of the game, that glorious Landy reception, then flipped the channel over to Oilers-Kings.
Even the usually clutch Artturi Lehkonen whiffed on a wide-open net early in overtime. The winger lasered a potential game-winner that somehow ricocheted off of Dallas’ Esa Lindell, who’d thrown himself in front of Oettinger’s left post while his netminder was sprawled along the right one.
Now Avalanche fans have two long days to contemplate the unthinkable: If you couldn’t get this thing over the line on Landy Night, for pity’s sake … when will you?
Because at 7:49 p.m., Ball shook. Literally.
LAN-DY!
LAN-DY!
LAN-DY!
For a few seconds, the building rumbled the way the football stadiums at Madison, Wis., or College Station, Texas, do during an autumn Saturday under the lights. Reporters in the nosebleeds felt their seats move.
At 8:08 p.m., Ball rattled again. Val Nichushkin emerged from a two-game slumber and skated the Stars’ Thomas Harley into a hoops pick-and-roll with center Brock Nelson. The Chu Chu Train suddenly found himself all alone in front of Oettinger’s crease. The big Russian deked left, then right, then slotted the puck past the netminder stick-side for a 1-0 Colorado lead.
The Avs seemed to pucker up after that, though, with only five shots during the first period and eight over the course of the second. The hosts didn’t just let down their captain. They let down a sold-out house in burgundy and blue whose voices rose to meet the occasion.
Karen Jara, a season-ticket holder from Parker, turned up outside Ball Arena on Wednesday with a white Landeskog sweater and a white Landy sign. In blue felt-tip marker she’d written:
OH CAPTAIN
#92
MY CAPTAIN
Good to “C” You
“I stole that from Connor (McGahey),” Jara laughed.
“Which he stole from Walt Whitman,” I said.
That last line hit her Tuesday night like a forecheck in the corner.
“But while I was writing, ‘Captain,’ the second time,” she continued, “it came to me. ‘Good to “C” you.'”
Karen’s walked that mile. She had a partial replacement of her right knee in 2010 and a full one in 2021.
“Old housewife injury,” she explained, nodding to the leg in question. “Tore a meniscus. Scoped a meniscus. A few years later, the meniscus was bone on bone.”
“How’s the left one holding up?” I asked.
“The left’s OK,” she replied. “It’s a little achy, but not to the point that I have to see anybody about it.”
Once a gamer, always a gamer.
“My heart goes out to (Landeskog),” Jara said, “because I have an inkling of what he’s going through, compared to what I went through.
“And for so many people to give him so much (stuff) and not understand the struggle and how it’s in his blood — he’s not a complete person if he’s not playing hockey. So I hope he goes out there (Wednesday) and does even better than what he did with the (Colorado) Eagles.”
He certainly didn’t waste any time getting loose. About 26 seconds into the opening period, Landy zipped across the red line, lowered his shoulder, and promptly knocked Rantanen on his belly.
LAN-DY!
LAN-DY!
LAN-DY!
The locals had gathered with signs pushed up against the glass before Game 3, filling the aisles to get a better look at history. To beg for a puck. To just say thanks.
Most paid through the nose. The cheapest ticket a half hour before puck drop on VividSeats.com checked in at $103, including fees.
For Karen, though, just seeing her Captain back was priceless enough.
“People say he’s an old soul,” Jara said. “He just has a way to connect with people. And you feel like you know him, even though all you do is watch him. Not everybody would be comfortable with thousands of people watching you at your daily grind … having a (camera) crew follow you around. But he’s willing.
“You just can’t mess with knees.”
Can’t mess with the Stars in a series this close, either.
The Avs won the night, thanks to Landy. But they didn’t win the game. And if they don’t tweak their special teams, they sure as heck won’t win this series.
“What would you improve on the power play?” Bednar was asked.
Cue the gritted teeth again.
“Everything,” the coach replied.
Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. We’ve seen this movie already. Nobody on Chopper Circle asked for a sequel.
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