Amid the tumult that prevailed in Ball Arena Saturday night, Avalanche defenseman Josh Manson jumped up into the play and found himself speeding in on a 2-on-1 with veteran center Andrew Cogliano (whose broken finger, by the way, seemed fine).<\/p>\n
Cogliano carried the puck on the left side, then fed Manson breaking down the right side, and Manson\u2019s shot beat Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy clean to the stick side.<\/p>\n
The goal gave the Avalanche a 2-0 lead at 7:55 of the first period in what turned out to be their 7-0 rout of the two-time defending champion Lightning in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n
And to think that Josh Manson \u2014 the son of former NHL defenseman Dave Manson, now an assistant coach at Edmonton \u2014 in his mellow mid-teen years came close to quitting hockey to focus on snowboarding.<\/p>\n
It was the 15th goal by a defenseman in the Avalanche\u2019s 16 playoff games, and not for one second did anyone wonder out loud: What was an Avalanche defenseman doing that far up in the play?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
That\u2019s what they do.<\/p>\n
And not just wunderkind Cale Makar, who had 28 goals in the regular season and in the third period got his sixth and seventh in the playoffs as the Saturday rout played out. One was on the power play, one was short-handed. (That pushed the total from the Avalanche D in the playoffs to 17.)<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the game, albeit with its offshoots, that has the Avalanche with a 2-0 lead in the series, with Game 3 coming up Monday night at Tampa. And it\u2019s happening without Nathan MacKinnon ringing up the points, since he has two assists in the two games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe speed is what we like to stick to and we think that\u2019s how we have to beat them,\u201d Manson said. \u201cThey\u2019re a patient team. They have good structure below the top of the circles, so we just have to keep playing like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Avalanche come at everyone \u2014 from everywhere, including from the D.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we played to our identity to a \u2018T\u2019 tonight,\u201d said Makar. \u201cWe had some good goals and stuff like that. \u2026 It was a little bit of a weird one tonight. Obviously, we\u2019re getting opportunities but guys were able to able to capitalize, so that\u2019s good part.\u201d<\/p>\n
Offensive aggressiveness doesn\u2019t have to mean defensive irresponsibility.<\/p>\n
Given this is a copycat league \u2014 as are all leagues \u2014 it might become a trend, at least for the teams with the requisite talent.<\/p>\n
In fact, we probably haven\u2019t given the Avalanche, plus Jared Bednar and Nolan Pratt, enough credit for boldness. Pratt, who has his name on the Stanley Cup as a player with the Avalanche (2001) and Lightning (2004), is in charge of the Colorado D.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s even a bit revolutionary.<\/p>\n
When the Avalanche had been in Denver less than a year and were about to face the Florida Panthers in the 1996 Stanley Cup Final, I was enlisted to write a long narrative introducing the team to the many \u201cnew\u201d hockey fans in the market climbing aboard the bandwagon.<\/p>\n
I went over the handful of major trades GM Pierre Lacroix had made either as the season approached or during it, acquiring, among others, Claude Lemieux and disaffected Canadiens goalie Patrick Roy. But the deal I said was somewhat underplayed was Lacroix\u2019s trade of standout power forward Owen Nolan to the Sharks for defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh.<\/p>\n
In fact, when the trade was made, I was in Columbus, doing a story on Orlando Pace, Eddie George and the Ohio State Buckeyes as I finished up my commitment to The Sporting News. An Avalanche team official, knowing of my imminent return to the NHL beat in Denver a decade after covering the Colorado Rockies for five seasons, called me and briefed me on the deal. Before long, I realized that the Avalanche\u2019s assessment of Ozolinsh as one of the final pieces was astute.<\/p>\n
Soon, to me, he was The Wandering Latvian.<\/p>\n
In that pre-Finals narrative, I described him as \u201cone of the handful of defensemen in the NHL who is a major puck-rushing, free-skating, from-the-blue-line or break-to-the-net offensive threats.\u201d<\/p>\n
I also noted: \u201cThe period of adjustment was painful to watch at times, but Ozolinsh eventually figured out his role and settled in to provide the Avalanche with what they needed \u2013 an attacking defenseman, but in the right spots.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final words \u2014 \u201cthe right spots\u201d \u2014 probably were charitable.<\/p>\n
All spots were the right spots for \u201cOzo,\u201d who held the franchise record for goals by a defenseman, at 23, until Makar passed it this season.<\/p>\n
Ozolinsh\u2019s defensive partner, most often the soft-spoken Jon Klemm, was charged with staying back, playing conservatively and compensating. (Those were Klemm\u2019s instincts, anyway.)<\/p>\n
The relevance here?<\/p>\n
Among the ways the game has changed since the 1995-96 Avalanche delivered Colorado\u2019s first major league championship is that Bednar \u2014 himself a rugged journeyman defenseman in pro minor leagues \u2014 and Pratt haven\u2019t just given all their D-men carte blanche to jump into the play.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s their duty.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a mandate.<\/p>\n
The closest to a classic pairing of an offensive-minded D and a cover-for-him partner was when the undersized and mobile Samuel Girard was with Manson before Girard was sidelined for the rest of the playoffs after suffering a broken sternum in the second round against St. Louis. But even then, Manson jumped up when he had the opportunity. Now Manson is paired with Jack Johnson.<\/p>\n
And they could be hoisting the Stanley Cup as soon as Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Terry Frei ([email\u00a0protected]<\/a>, @tfrei) is a Denver-based author and journalist. He has been named a state\u2019s sportswriter of the year seven times in peer voting \u2014 four times in Colorado and three times in Oregon. His seven books include the novels \u201cOlympic Affair\u201d and \u201cThe Witch\u2019s Season.\u201d Among his five non-fiction works are \u201cHorns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming,\u201d \u201cThird Down and a War to Go,\u201d \u201cMarch 1939: Before the Madness,\u201d and \u201c\u201977: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age.\u201d He also collaborated with Adrian Dater on\u00a0\u201cSave By Roy,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0was a long-time vice president of the Professional Hockey Writers Association and has covered the hockey Rockies, Avalanche and the NHL at-large. His website is\u00a0www.terryfrei.com<\/a>\u00a0and his bio is available at\u00a0www.terryfrei.com\/bio.html<\/a><\/p>\n