Colorado Avalanche Defeated The Seattle Kraken 4-1 To Force Game 7

(CTN News) – For the Colorado Avalanche to win the Stanley Cup, it took six games in these playoffs.

Are Colorado’s rewards worth it? It’s time to return home for Game 7 and take care of that pesky Seattle Kraken.

The Avalanche defeated the Kraken 4-1 on Friday night in their first round playoff series, with Mikko Rantanen scoring his seventh goal of the playoffs and Artturi Lehkonen scoring twice.

In the first period, Rantanen tied the game at one with a goal in the final seconds. A second goal had been scored by Seattle. Last year’s Stanley Cup champions displayed some of their best play in the final two periods.

We played according to our identity, even though they scored the first goal again,” Rantanen said. “We played three good periods, even though they scored the first goal again.”

The first playoff goal for Erik Johnson came at 7:21 of the second period on a deflected shot. A slap pass from Devon Toews was redirected by Lehkonen at 16:57 to give Colorado a 3-1 lead. In addition to Toews’ two assists, Cale Makar’s two assists were also impressive.

“Anytime we’ve faced adversity, we’ve said we’ll take it one step at a time and go forward,” Makar said after the game. “A great character win for us tonight, hopefully gave a lot of guys confidence in what we can accomplish.”

The seventh and final game will take place on Sunday in Denver. There hasn’t been a Game 7 since the Avalanche lost to Dallas in the second round of the 2020 playoffs.

This is a new opportunity for this team. We’ve been good on the road all year.”

After slipping a slap shot past Colorado goalie Alexandar Georgiev at 15:48 of the first period, Vince Dunn became the 14th different player to score a goal for Seattle this postseason. In the regular season, Dunn led Seattle in points, but had not scored until his third playoff goal.

Georgiev’s night was mostly quiet, though he made some big saves against Oliver Bjorkstrand and Jaden Schwartz in the final minutes. Georgiev made 22 saves in the game.

Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said, “They deserved the win. They played well, and we didn’t have the energy to rally back.”

Only some spectacular saves kept Seattle goalie Philipp Grubauer from getting destroyed all night. In total, Grubauer made 35 saves.

The Avs played their first elimination game since Game 6 of the conference semifinals in 2021. Colorado’s ability to control every series during its run to the Stanley Cup last year was one of its most impressive traits.

The Avs responded with one of their most complete performances of the series after Seattle’s win in Game 5.

“We just wanted to play our game and that’s what we did,” Johnson said. We got pushed around a bit by them, but it felt great to play our game and be rewarded for it.”

Seattle became the first franchise to lead in each of its first six playoff games. It took the 1918 Toronto Arenas five games to take the lead in the playoffs. Game 5 was matched by Seattle, and Game 6 exceeded it.

A shot from Bowen Byrum appeared to have given Colorado the opening goal, but the goal was overturned after Seattle successfully challenged the offside rule.

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