Blues 5 — Avalanche 4 | More complicated than expected for the Avalanche

And now, how will the Avalanche players react over the next few days?

Richard Labbe
The Press

That’s the only valid question, really, after what happened in Denver Wednesday night in Game 5 of the series against the St. Louis Blues.

The Colorado players had a very comfortable 3-0 lead in the game, and no doubt they already saw themselves further, at least in the conference final, if not in the Stanley Cup final. But the Blues fought back to save themselves with a 5-4 overtime win.

As Céline used to sing, it was just a dream, and instead, the Avalanche guys will have to go to St. Louis, a nice city by the way, to play Game 6 of the series on Friday. evening.

For them, until then, it may be long. They will be asked at least 200 times if they are not disappointed to be there, if they did not let go of a golden chance on this Wednesday evening in their own arena. They will be wondering if it will be different this time, because this talented club has not reached the grand final for a very long time, since the heyday of Patrick Roy, more precisely.

So here it is, the Avalanche players will have a little less than 48 hours to doubt and think about all this and be asked flat questions.

In the other camp, of course, it may be a little less tense.

The Blues have no business there, their Stanley Cup-winning goaltender is gone, and this team is going home light-skating, comfortable in the underdog role.

Besides, Wednesday’s game illustrated what we’re dealing with: while Nathan MacKinnon and the talent of the locals wowed the gallery – MacKinnon scored three goals, and the last is an anthology piece that we will see again for at least the next 30 years – it was Tyler Bozak, a late-career 36-year-old forward, who scored the game-winning goal in overtime. That’s not really what we had planned.

Just before, the Avalanche still had a 4-3 lead… screwed up 56 seconds from the end, by a goal from Robert Thomas.

That’s what happens when you face a seasoned club like the Blues, which won a Stanley Cup just three years ago: nothing is taken for granted and nothing is easy. The Blues are not the most talented in this series, but they push the opposition to their limits every time. Sometimes it’s not the talent that wins, as we saw on Wednesday night.

It remains to be seen what remains in the Avalanche reservoir.

The Denver club, we remind you, finished the season second overall in the NHL, 10 points ahead of the Blues. We tended to believe that this season was going to be that of the Avalanche, and that if someone, somewhere, was going to be able to end the domination of the Tampa Bay Lightning in this league, it was going to be the old Nordiques .

This is where we are. Of course, the Colorado team remains ahead in this series, three wins against two, and there is only one victory left to go. It’s playable. But it’s also more complicated than expected.