Timo Kunnari
Standing behind the goal is not ironed out in NHL stands, writes Timo Kunnari from Denver.
The Colorado Avalanche faced the Toronto Maple Leafs in their home hall on Saturday evening.
The home team led the game for a long time, but in the end the score was 3–4.
There were a few interesting points in the match from a Finnish perspective. Artturi Lehkonen completed 500 NHL regular season games and scored one goal.
Mikko Rantanen was the star of the home team and marked 1+1 points in the statistics – and broke the 30 regular season goal mark for the fifth time in his career. Nousiainte’s man is a factory warranty product in terms of power and otherwise.
“Moses” is the home crowd’s favorite boy.
Rantanen also bears great responsibility towards the media. After the losing game, the majority of the Avalanche players ran to the side of the shower and away from the media, the Nousiainen man sat still in the locker room and patiently answered the questions of the swarm of reporters.
Artturi Lehkonen has played 500 NHL regular season games. The TPS breeder’s clubs have been Montreal Canadiens and Colorado Avalanche. ZUMAWIRE / MVPHOTOS
The thing that sticks in my mind about Denver’s Saturday evening was also the behavior of the home crowd. When the Maple Leafs stayed behind the goal with black on a few occasions, i.e. slowed down the game, the Avalanche Home Audience whistled immediately and loudly.
Many thought it was to psych up the visiting team.
But when Avalanche’s Josh Manson was left wondering behind the goal with the puck in the final set, the whistling concert started again. Despite the fact that the puck player of the second generation signaled to his teammates that it was time for a change, and standing behind the goal was momentarily necessary.
Accustomed Avalanche fans, accustomed to the skills and speed of Rantanen, Cale Makari and Nathan MacKinnon, apparently can’t stand slow puck. Standing is hardly more popular in other NHL arenas.
That is, from the so-called “Suomi-kieko”.
When Manson whistled behind the goal and 18,100 people from Colorado whistled, a familiar Canadian journalist who travels around a lot of national team tournaments whispered in my ear: “apparently they don’t like Finnish hockey here”.
Could it be expressed better?
NHL fans want genuine speed hockey, which includes the right amount of physicality, struggle and the individual skills of the world’s best players.