The Avalanche finally met the moment

This has been a long, weird year for the Colorado Avalanche.

It feels like another lifetime ago but we’ve watched this club put out a top line that at one point had three players on pace for 100-point seasons. We saw a power play so prolific at the start of the season, Lauren Gardner caught Mikko Rantanen off-guard during a mid-game interview when she mentioned the power play was at an all-time high clip. We saw goaltending so terrible it brought legitimate memories back of the 60-loss season two years ago. They won games in Nashville AND Winnipeg, two places they hadn’t won regular season games in years. They got blown out by the Ottawa Senators two days after stomping the Toronto Maple Leafs.

In short, this team has made no sense.

Just days ago I had looked at a team that looked defeated following a crushing home loss to the Anaheim Ducks. Players looked resigned to the fate of “close but no cigar.” Heads hung and thousand-yard stares took hold. I couldn’t help but survey the scene and think “They know”.

And then they completely forgot they knew.

With them in Minneapolis tonight take on the hated Wild, they were facing a de facto elimination game. Lose and they were six points out of the playoffs with nine games remaining. Win and be just two behind the Arizona Coyotes.

They walked into a hostile Xcel Energy Center that was fresh off celebrating the state’s real passion, high school hockey and questionable hair choices. The crowd was ready to whip themselves into an anti-Avalanche fervor.

Instead, Colorado took control and paced play in the first period, getting the game’s first goal and setting the tone for the rest of the game: These boys from the thin air weren’t kidding around tonight. They played a mostly disciplined game, answered the bell physically when Minnesota tried to bully them, and didn’t back down in the third period despite leading.

Every punch Minnesota threw was met with a counterpunch from Colorado. These guys decided they were done letting the older, increasingly irrelevant Wild push them around. This was a game with a razor-thin margin of error and these are exactly the kinds of games the Avs have found ways to lose in recent years. Tonight, they combined good fortunes with great execution.

The kind of adversity that would normally stop the Avalanche in their tracks and send them scrambling back to their losing ways were simply put in the rearview mirror. Take the early lead and then give it up on the PK? No problem. Have a goal disallowed despite plenty of evidence the interference that took place was a result of a Minnesota player shoving Carl Soderberg into Devan Dubnyk? Big deal.

If there was ever a game that was the reflection of their head coach, tonight was it. Colorado played a game short on memories and long on focus. Every shift mattered. Every decision had consequences. Every mistake was met with a grinder’s mentality. Just keep working. The results will be there.

They sure were.

This wasn’t a dominant defensive effort. The Wild had more scoring chances and high-danger chances in the game. They missed an open net. They had a man alone in front of the goal get stuffed on a feed from the corner in the third period. They had all the right ingredients for beating Colorado and essentially ending the season of their hated rival.

What they didn’t have was Philipp Grubauer.

Fresh off his third shutout in five starts, Grubauer actually got beaten for one whole goal against tonight on 37 shots. One whole entire goal. The game-winning goal was a combination of Colin Wilson and Tyson Jost, two players who have largely underperformed this year.

This is what redemption looks like. How can you not enjoy this bit of success for players who have had so many struggles this year?

I can’t tell you how the final nine games of the season are going to play out. Colorado still has an uphill battle to make the postseason. I just know that on this night, in this game, in this situation, the Avalanche defied their own putrid history of the last decade and rose to the occasion in a big moment.

They have nine more “biggest game of the year” nights to get through and need a little help along the way. That’s a lot more occasions they need to rise to. But you can’t get to nine without starting at one.

It’s already been a season that has made no sense. Let’s get wild. Your move, Avalanche.