DENVER – The Stanley Cup Final see-saw lifted Colorado’s way in the first period Wednesday night and it swung back hard in favor of Tampa Bay in the second.
Then, for more than a period and into overtime of Game 1, the board leveled out, a heavyweight leaning on each end.
In the end, though, it was precision more than brute force that determined the winner: A flick of the wrist from Avalanche winger Andre Burakovsky, off a one-touch pass from Valeri Nichushkin in transition after a neutral zone turnover, that sent the puck past Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy and the game into franchise lore.
The opening salvo in this championship quest: Colorado 4, Tampa Bay 3 in overtime.
“I saw (Colorado forward J.T.) Compher got the puck in the neutral zone and I was just trying to get out as quick as possible,” Burakovsky said of the final sequence. “I got back in and they made a great play to me. It was just for me to shoot it and lucky it went in.”
This city waited 21 years for the Stanley Cup Final to return and when the moment finally arrived, it did so in classic fashion. Burakovsky’s game-winner capped what was the 20th finals-opening game to require extra time, and the 95th finals overtime game overall.
On this night, an even first 60 minutes was the result of each team having a dominant stretch.
The Western Conference champion Avalanche, playing for the first time in nine days since capping a sweep of Edmonton in the Western Conference final on June 6, jumped out to an early 3-1 lead in front of a raucous home crowd.
The Tampa Bay Lighting, winners of not only the Eastern Conference but also the past two Stanley Cups, leveled the game in the second period with back-to-back goals in 48 seconds, including one at the end of a dazzling sequence from wingers Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat.
“Going into the third period even, I think any guy on our team would have taken that going into Game 1,” Avalanche defenseman Bowen Byram said. “We’ve got a chance to win and I thought we played a really good third, created some chances, and then we got it done in overtime.”
Overtime came after the teams played even for the final 26:21 of regulation. Burakovsky finally broke the stalemate 1:23 into overtime.
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Colorado, wary of accumulating rust during its long wait in recent days, blasted out of the gate, riding a surge of energy from the 19,092 at Ball Arena to an early penalty kill, even strength goals from captain Gabriel Landeskog, Nichushkin and a five-on-three conversion by Artturi Lehkonen, which came at the end of a stretch of more than 70 consecutive seconds of offensive zone possession.
The power-play goal came shortly after Tampa Bay had pulled within 2-1 and reestablished Colorado’s control of the game through the opening 20 minutes.
“I was pretty nervous all day and, coming out for warmups, the fans were amazing,” said Landeskog, who has been with the franchise since it drafted him No. 2 overall in 2011. “You’re trying to enjoy the moment as much as you can, but you’re human and the nerves are there. That’s OK, you’ve just got to deal with it and I thought, as a team, we did a good job of that tonight.”
Nobody makes it this far into the season without being capable of winning in multiple ways, but broadly speaking, the most tantalizing element of this matchup is Colorado’s high-flying offense against Vasilevskiy’s world-class work in net.
Entering Game 1, Colorado had scored 65 goals in 14 postseason games, pacing the postseason field. The Lightning, behind Vasilevskiy, lost the first two games in the Eastern Conference final to the New York Rangers and then reeled off four straight wins while allowing just five goals total.
Colorado showed the speed and skill that has propelled its 13-2 postseason record so far, putting three pucks past Vasilevskiy on 15 first-period shots while largely keeping the pressure off of its own goalie, Darcy Kuemper, who returned to the lineup for the first time since Game 1 of the Western Conference final.
Past the midpoint of the second period, though, the Lightning tied the game in a blink.
Vasilevskiy stopped a clean Nichushkin blast from the right circle and veteran defenseman Ryan McDonagh pushed the puck to the middle of the ice where Palat and Kucherov took over. Palat left the puck for Kucherov near the blue line and the forward put a sublime combination of moves on Colorado defenseman Devon Toews, working to his backhand and then flipping the puck back across Kuemper’s face, where Palat buried it to draw the Lightning within 3-2 with 7:09 remaining in the period.
Kucherov’s line has been formidable all year and all postseason. Palat’s goal was his ninth of these playoffs, while Kucherov added a 17th assist to his seven conversions.
Just 48 seconds later, Tampa Bay defenseman Mikhail Sergachev snapped a wrist shot past Kuemper.
“The goals we gave up and the chances we gave up, we made some big mistakes on,” Colorado head coach Jared Bednar said.
By that time, Vasilevskiy had settled in. He stopped Compher on a clean look in behind the defense. He moved laterally and handled traffic. After allowing the trio of early goals, he stopped the next 22 shots over the final 42:21 to close regulation.
Both goaltenders made plays down the stretch. Kuemper helped the Avalanche kill off a key penalty in the third period and all three short-handed sequences on the night.
“Darcy’s been a rock on the PK all playoffs,” Byram said. “He made a couple of huge saves, which we need sometimes. Your goalie has to be your best penalty killer. He came up huge.”
Vasilevskiy helped the Lightning stave off a frantic final 1:24 of regulation down a man and then the opening 36 seconds of overtime, as well, before Burakovsky finally put the first game in the books for Colorado seconds later.
“The right team won the game,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “Give them credit for pulling it out. We’ve got better in us, though. I don’t think by a country mile we played our best game.”
The Lightning have been here before. They lost their first-round opener to Toronto and the first two to the Rangers in the East finals. The two-time defending champs will have to play from behind again this year if they are to become the first team to win three straight titles since the New York Islanders won four in a row from 1980-83.
“We’ve not made it this far over the past couple of years because we can’t execute,” Cooper said. “It just didn’t happen for us tonight, but we’re still right there. … We’ll be back here in a couple of days.”
