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Inside the Avalanche’s Cup celebration: ‘All these champions skating around’
From The Athletic
TAMPA, Fla. — Standing on the ice at Amalie Arena, soaking in sweat and tears and the emotions that come with reaching hockey’s peak, Gabriel Landeskog harkened back to his draft day, back to when he was a clean-shaven kid with a full NHL career ahead of him. He told reporters at the time that he had a photo of Peter Forsberg and the 2001 Avalanche Stanley Cup team hanging from his bedroom wall in Stockholm. His goal — his dream — was to be in a picture like that one day.
On Sunday night, he got his wish.
After Colorado’s 2-1 victory in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, Landeskog looked around him, surveying his jubilant teammates.
“I’m just so happy to see all these champions skating around,” he said.
As captain, Landeskog was the first to hoist the Stanley Cup. And as much as he’d longed to touch the trophy, he couldn’t wait to give it away. He’d made a promise during harder times — before Cale Makar and Presidents’ Trophy contention — to teammate Erik Johnson, his close friend and the longest-tenured Avalanche player. Be ready, he had said. Because whatever day the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup, he’d hand Johnson the trophy first.
“If that doesn’t give you motivation, I don’t know what does,” Johnson said. “Who would’ve thought? Five years ago, dead last in the NHL. Now we’re Stanley Cup champions.”
As the final horn sounded, Johnson and Nathan MacKinnon met, tackling each other away from the rest of the main group. They rolled around, embracing one another. Both were on the 2016-17 team that had one of the worst seasons of the NHL’s salary-cap era, logging only 48 points in the standings — more than 20 worse than the next-closest team. And in the post-win celebration, the remaining players from that roster — Landeskog, Johnson, MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and J.T. Compher — gathered for a picture near center ice, finally as victorious as could be.
“It’s special no matter how you win this thing,” Compher said. “But in the few years since that season, seeing all the work that’s gone in…”
MacKinnon, who scored the game-tying goal in the second period Sunday, found his parents, Graham and Kathy, as soon as they walked onto the ice. He cried in his dad’s arms. “I kind of get flashbacks to my whole childhood, my whole life,” said the center, who finished second to Makar in Conn Smythe Trophy voting. “It feels amazing.”
Nathan MacKinnon lifts the Stanley Cup. (Geoff Burke / USA Today)
Makar, the defenseman who moves the puck like a yo-yo and skates like a gazelle, completed a rare combo with the Norris Trophy and Conn Smythe this season. And he had help: His mom, Laura, had ditched her lucky outfit after the Avalanche’s Game 5 loss, and she ate kale salads ahead of games 4 and 6, both Colorado victories. A mother’s touch works wonders.
Laura wasn’t alone in attendance. Cale’s dad, Gary, was there, too, as well as Taylor, Cale’s younger brother and a 2021 Avalanche seventh-round draft pick.
“Growing up, playing mini-sticks when we were little kids, getting in fights, stuff like that,” Taylor said. “It’s everything he’s always wanted, what our family has wanted.”
Around the ice, players FaceTimed with loved ones who couldn’t make the trip. Andre Burakovsky shared a moment on the phone with his dad, Robert, and Bowen Byram grinned into a screen at his sister, Jamie. “I’ll drink your share of the beer,” their dad, Shawn, joked.
Johnson accidentally knocked Sportsnet contributor Ken Wiebe’s recorder out of his hands while reaching for a family member’s phone. He apologized as Wiebe jokingly called for a two-minute roughing penalty.
Darren Helm cried while holding his daughter. Makar stood arm-in-arm with Devon Toews, his defensive partner. Andrew Cogliano’s mom pulled Jack Johnson in for a hug. Erik Johnson said he needed a beer. (And there was plenty to come later in the evening.)
There was Nazem Kadri, his thumb still bandaged. He broke it in multiple places but found a way to turn a six-week recovery into two. Burakovsky battled through a broken ankle to play the first two Stanley Cup Final games but was finally kept out by a thumb injury. Cogliano, who has played 1,140 regular-season games, waiting and hoping for this moment, played with pins in his broken middle finger. Worth it?
“Fuckin’ right,” he said.
To reach their goal, the Avalanche had to knock off the two-time-defending Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning. And after taking the lead in the second period, Colorado executed a clinical third, limiting Tampa Bay to only two shots on goal and generating a plethora of scoring chances the other way. With a clear at the final horn, the game ended. The Avalanche had won.
“We went out there and probably played one of the most perfect clinching third periods in the history of hockey,” Byram said.
Added goalie Darcy Kuemper, who finished the night with 22 saves: “That was some of the best hockey I’ve ever watched. To have the Cup on the line and come out like we did and not give up everything, it was a special effort.”
General manager Joe Sakic, the team’s architect, posed for pictures with his family, and he said hello to Toews’ parents, Werner and Tammy, who thanked him for taking on a chance on their son in a 2020 trade from the New York Islanders. It’s a deal Sakic would do a million times over: He paid only two second-round picks for Toews, and the defenseman has finished 11th and eighth in Norris Trophy voting the past two years, respectively.
“I don’t know if it’s really soaked in yet,” Werner said. “It’s incredible. It’s a hard road.”
A little before 2 a.m. Eastern, the Cup left the building in the hands of a jubilant Landeskog, whose mood was perhaps buoyed by a couple of drinks. A procession of teammates walked with him, including Josh Manson, carrying an NHL championship belt over his shoulder, and Makar with Oakley goggles — champagne protection — on his forehead. “Post that on Twitter!” Byram yelled, wearing an unbuttoned shirt and suit jacket while double-fisting champagne bottles. Landeskog showed off the trophy to the media members still at the rink working, with one message to share.
“We’re taking it back to Denver!”
Valeri Nichushkin and MacKinnon were among the last to leave. Nichushkin, dealing with a suspected foot injury, got a ride from a stadium worker on a flatbed dolly usually used for transporting crates, a bottle in his left hand. MacKinnon walked behind him, laughing at his teammate, victorious at last.
