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Avalanche Force Game 7, Cogliano Fractures Neck |
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The Colorado Avalanche showed the resilience they've shown all year and have forced game 7.
The Avs came out strong in game 6, and showed a fire they've not shown much this series against the Kraken. This is the Avalanche team we've come to know and love. They played with pace, crisp passes, creative offensive talent, aggressive defense, and dashed with a little puck luck has them coming home to play a decisive game 7 versus the upstart Seattle Kraken.
Bowen Byram started things off, or so it seemed, with a bullet of a wrister that went straight to the top shelf. Unfortunately, the Kraken coach Dave Hakstol made a smart challenge, and the play was deemed to be offside. The Kraken came back hard, and after an unfortunate miscue by Erik Johnson, Vince Dunn slapped the puck through Alexandar Georgiev on a goal that probably should have been stopped.
The Av's shook this off, and didn't seem to get flustered at all. Mikko Rantanen came back and scored the tying goal in the dying seconds of the 1st to make it 1-1.
Erik Johnson would make up for his previous miscue, and score the eventual game winning goal on a Plinko type shot that bounced off the ice and fooled the Kraken goalie Grubauer. Lehkonen would then find himself the recipient of a beautiful slap pass from Devon Toews, and the Avalanche would find themselves up 3-1.
Lehkonen later would beat out a Kraken player in a race to the puck, and swept the puck into the vacated Seattle net. Av's win, 4-1.
It seemed like the Avalanche were feeling like themselves again. Once they scored, they never seemed to look back.
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A terrible understory to this game was the hit from behind on Andrew Cogliano from Jordan Eberle. People of course compared this hit to the hit Cale Makar threw on Jared McCann earlier in this series which cost him a 1 game suspension.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I believed they got the call right. Makar should not have thrown this hit. The hit itself wasn't bad, but it was the situation and the result that created the need for a suspension. It was late, the puck was out of the playing area, and it was unnecessary.
The Eberle hit was none of these things. It was a bad hit. It was all numbers in the sights of Eberle, and he followed through after having plenty of time to turn off or at least tie up Cogliano along the boards. Instead, he folded Cogliano head first into the boards. We found out today that the seemingly indestructible Cogliano actually fractured a vertebrae in his neck, and is out indefinitely. We wish the best for Andrew and his family, and hope he recovers well.
The baffling part of this is that Jordan Eberle didn't even get a hearing. Not a call from the DoPS. No suspension. Not even a fine.
The intent on the hit seemed clear. Cogliano did not turn himself into the boards, but Eberle ran through him from behind. It was dirty. It caused a serious injury. It was a hit the NHL has said it wants out of the game. Based on the previous Makar suspension, this deserved at least 1 game, but the NHL has misunderstood the assignment once again. Consistency is not a strong suit, apparently.
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Tune in tomorrow on Sunday for game 7, 10:30 EST. The Avalanche need everyone's support, and lets hope we see another inspired effort from this team. I for one am not ready for hockey to be done for the team this year.
GO AVS!
Colorado Avalanche Blogger • 
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