“They just killed a man”: a Canadian knocked Kucherov out of the game with a blow from the back

Tampa Bay Lightning 6-2 Colorado Avalanche

After the first two games of the final series of the Stanley Cup, where Colorado won in the first overtime (4:3) followed by a smashing score of 7:0, it looked like Tampa were knocked out and Avalanche hockey players. Winning a trophy is as easy as knocking down the Edmonton Oilers in the NHL Western Conference Finals (4-0 series score).

As part of Colorado, Russian Valery Nichushkin was fascinating, scoring in both games and the game was pretty simple for the team. But everything turned upside down in the third game.

Colorado opened the goal in the middle of the first half, but four minutes later Tampa came back (1: 1), followed by a serious jump and scored two more (3: 1). The avalanche responded with its own goal of minimizing the difference (2:3), but then Tampa’s Russian leader Nikita Kucherov stepped in.

The forward was assisted twice in four minutes and assisted Steven Stamkos and Patrick Maroon, who eased the score for Tampa – 5:2.

Three minutes later, Tampa scored the sixth goal and set the final score of the match – 6:2.

And here it is worth remembering that in the last series of the Eastern Conference of the NHL against the New York Rangers, Tampa lost both the first two fights, but later on they gave a streak of four consecutive victories and reached the Stanley Cup. final.

The former general manager of the Russian national team and Dinamo Andrei Safronov, in a comment to socialbites.ca, summarized the results of the third game of the final series, noting that Tampa will not only give up the two championships won (Lightning won the Stanley Cup the last two seasons) and why so much. explained that major outcomes (7:0, 6:2) can be correlated.

Colorado plays very well on the court, it’s a good team. But even after a devastating 0-7 defeat, I told everyone that Tampa is a cupfighter with vast experience playing in the finals. It’s not that easy, they won two Trophies in a row. And they burned 0-2 in the semifinals against Rangers. I think the whole game is still ahead. It’s too early to say who will win. You know hockey is a game until the last siren and the final consists of seven games. I think we expect interesting fights.

Just like that, “Tampa” will not give up the two Cups they have won and will fight for the third of the last powers. There are all possibilities for this.

7:0 is the same as 6:2. Someone is the first to stop playing. Presumably, with Tampa, Colorado, with a 0:3 score in the first period, they realized it was tough for them at the time and the game was abandoned. Sorry Vasilevsky. And today we won 6:2. Even though Colorado was leading 1-0, then Tampa made a huge leap forward,” he said.

Injury and achievements of Nikita Kucherov

Kucherov has reached 25+ points for the third consecutive year in a single National Hockey League playoff round. He now has 26 (7+19) points in his account. The Russian hockey player becomes the fourth player in NHL history to score 25 or more points in the playoffs for three consecutive seasons. Thus, Kucherov repeated the recording of Wayne Gretzky (1983-1985), Mike Bossy (1981-1983) and Brian Trottier (1980-1982).

For Kucherov, this match was the seventh in his career in the final series with 2+ points. He surpassed Sidney Crosby and Patrick Kane (6) in this indicator and set a new record for existing players.

However, in the third period, where the puck did not score, there was a very unpleasant incident involving a Russian athlete. Kucherov met with Canadian “Colorado” defender Devon Toews, who on the boards attacked the Russians harshly and hit him in the back with a stick. The assailant fell onto the ice and slammed into the side, then Teyvs leaned back with his knee. Kucherov left the site, and his criminal retired for two minutes.

The Russian hit the ice once again – when Tampa played the majority – and took a bad hit, then immediately went to the locker room and never came back. The loss of the leader in this match did not affect in any way, Yıldırım could no longer miss his victories, but in future meetings Kucherov’s injury could create serious problems for Tampa on the offensive.

Lightning head coach John Cooper, when answering a question about what happened to Kucherov, hinted that it might have been malicious intent, not an accident.

“When you are asked these kinds of questions, you try to find an answer that everyone knows. The players know what they’re doing. Smart, knowledgeable hockey players understand what they’re doing with their sticks. We all saw what happened. I do not yet know about Kucherov’s condition,” Sportsnet journalist Luke Fox quotes Cooper.

Speaking about Kucherov’s injury, Safronov noted that neither team had anything to lose in the last match and that this was the reason for such a game where the rules were violated.

“It’s a game, you know. Everyone’s playing with knives, these are the last games. Colorado or Tampa have nowhere to back off and Nikita Kucherov is putting on great hockey.

It’s not easy to get 25 points in the playoffs like Kucherov did. Few people in NHL history have been able to do that. We wish Nikita good health, everything is still ahead.

What will happen to Tampa if Kucherov doesn’t pack for the next game? I won’t say it’s hard, but it’s hard. Kucherov is an iconic, key player in Tampa. The icing on the team’s cake is no coincidence, scoring points in almost every playoff game,” he said.

But two-time Olympic champion Alexander Kozhevnikov spoke quite sharply about the event. It is noteworthy that before the collision with Teyvs, Kucherov himself appeared in another episode – the Russian strongly applied Colorado player Josh Manson to the board. However, no penalty was given.

“And with whom did Nikita play vile? Where did he play dirty? What’s dirty? Stamped on board – so what? This is a game state. But they played dirty against him: you can’t beat him on the hips. They just killed a man. Very dirty power. I don’t know how the hip joint held up. If Nikita’s injury turns out to be serious, it’s a loss, of course. Such a master will be missed, “Championship” quotes Kozhevnikov.

Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals series will be played on Thursday, June 23 at Tampa arena. The starting siren will sound at 3:00 Moscow time.