Avalanche win in controversial finish but suffer another key injury

Sports justice is one of those things that sometimes you have to wait years for.

As a Kansas basketball fan, nothing was more cathartic than watching the Jayhawks blow out their former head coach who had stabbed them in the back and left them in the lurch after the 2003 season. It was perfect sports karma but we had to wait five years for it.

Tonight, the Avalanche only had to wait a matter of minutes to get theirs.

The Vancouver Canucks closed a 4-2 deficit in the final three minutes of regulation and the first goal was classic NHL officiating incompetent. Matt Calvert took a puck off the side of his head and laid on the ice in obvious pain, bleeding and unable to get back into the action.

Because the goaltender was pulled, this effectively gave the Canucks a two-man advantage and they capitalized on the opportunity as Calvert laid on the ice for 17 seconds bleeding and writhing in pain.

Because the Canucks had the puck entire 14 seconds (remember, two-man advantage here), the officials decided they would allow play to carry on because the puck off Calvert’s actively bleeding face wasn’t deemed serious enough to disrupt play.

Vancouver made it 4-3, then added a second goal shortly after to push the game into overtime.

Nathan MacKinnon, who had two points already on the night, took a pass from Cale Makar and erased all of the Canucks on the ice before beating Thatcher Demko for his second goal of the night and the game-winning goal.

The sports justice was served with MacKinnon scoring and the Avs getting the second point they were well on their way to earning already but the Canucks were able to steal one out from under them. Who knows if it will become important down the road but tonight the focus is on Calvert’s status and a rule that has impacted the Avs twice in the last week.

Last week when the Avs were busy blowing out Nashville 9-4, Nikita Zadorov also took a puck off the face and laid there in clear and obvious pain. Because Nashville controlled the puck, the whistle once again wasn’t blown. Zadorov eventually got up, cleared the puck, and left the game.

He had suffered a broken jaw and would require surgery to repair it and rearrange some of his teeth.

While there’s plenty to talk about with regards to MacKinnon’s brilliance and Makar’s four-point night, it’s fair to take moment to wonder about the way a rule is being interpreted in a league that has increasingly talked about protecting its players, especially with regards to injuries involving the head.

Twice in a week span, however, Avs players have taken pucks to the head area and play been allowed to continue. I understand the threat of players faking it in order to stop an offensive zone advantage but when a player is laying on the ice bleeding and multiple other players are more interested in his health than the ongoing play (as was the case tonight with Donskoi from the Avs and Pettersson from the Canucks), why aren’t the officials?

Why aren’t the people hired to keep the game as fair and balanced as possible not caring about the safety of its players? Why is a player allowed to openly bleed from his head on the ice for 14 seconds and the determining factor of the player being allowed to seek medical attention be which team has the puck?

For reference, the rule states:

“When a player is injured so that he cannot continue play or go to his bench, the play shall not be stopped until the injured player’s team has secured control of the puck. If the player’s team is in control of the puck at the time of injury, play shall be stopped immediately unless his is in a scoring position.

In the case where it is obvious that a player has sustained a serious injury, the Referee and/or Linesman may stop the play immediately.”

Where is the wisdom and humanity in these decisions? Whatever the penalty might be for a trainer jumping on the ice in the middle of play the next time this happens, that team should be willing to suffer it. How can a league puff out its chest and declare it cares about the safety of the players when the men they’ve hired to make these decisions in live action continue to care more about puck possession?

It’s nice the Avs ultimately pulled the two points from tonight. They move to 2-1 on this road trip and they did it with their fourth-string goaltender starting (or third, depending on how you want to rank them).

What’s not great was the look of a league that has talked an awful lot about caring about player safety and the second example in a week (and that’s just from one team) of them not caring enough to stop play.

Tweak the rule book, have whatever conversations need to be had. This is a league that has long prided itself on the warriors who play the game. Just because they put out legendary efforts to play through injuries doesn’t mean they aren’t still human. The warriors all go home eventually.

If anything is to come from tonight’s game, let it be the NHL getting back in touch with its humanity.

Before it’s too late.

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• MacKinnon and Makar were brilliant again as they are the engines driving this ship right now. They have two games remaining on this road trip to prove to management they don’t need reinforcements from outside the organization to stay in the race.
• One of the outside reinforcements brought in over the summer to help get Colorado through these kinds of situations was Andre Burakovsky. He had another two-point night and is now Colorado’s third-leading scorer.
• In fact, Colorado’s top five scorers right now are MacKinnon (of course) and four players who didn’t play for the Avs in the regular season last year (Makar, Burakovsky, Donskoi, Kadri).
• I don’t want to overlook Kadri’s performance tonight, either. As one person noted to me on twitter (shoutout Dan!), this was the full Nazem Kadri Experience. He scored a goal, drew penalties, and took one penalty out of frustration that ended a Colorado power play prematurely. Overall, a net positive and he’s been a major reason why the Avs have been able to stabilize during the rash of injuries.
• If Calvert is out for any length of time, Colorado is going to be tested even more. Because of the injury issues, Donskoi (an opening night middle six player) and Calvert (opening night fourth line player) have been moonlighting next to MacKinnon and they’ve been finding some success. But Colorado only has one Calvert and Matt Nieto isn’t a viable solution. The band-aids on bullet holes approach might have to stop.
• What definitely has to stop is a defense full of players taking too many penalties. Ian Cole and Nikita Zadorov were both in the lineup and they each were good for one tonight. Ryan Graves, fresh off a three-penalty game, had two more tonight to put him in the kind of company you don’t want to be in.
• Based purely on play, the next Avs call-up should be Conor Timmins. He’s outplaying all of his fellow prospects and this is a defense badly struggling right now. It might be time to bring him back.
• Shoutout to Antoine Bibeau for getting the win tonight. It wasn’t pretty and he was hung out to dry on a few of the goals but he got it done. It’s a tough gig for these guys playing a touch about their head but to get a win from both Werner and Bibeau this week speaks volumes to Colorado’s ability to just scrape wins out right now.