Top Ten of '09-'10: Cumisky Thrashes ATL in OT
| 15 Jun 2010
So I said I'd get around to doing a Top 10 of '09-10 and here it is, more than a month after the season ended for the Avs. I'll be countingdown all 10 of the top 10 Avs moments of the season. I thought aboutbreaking this into 2 posts, but then realized I could easily milk it for10. Without further adieu, here we go:
(FYI: I will try to start doing 2-3 of these a week so that I actually make it through this before next season. Oh and I am going to throw recaps in for other, lesser-known (but still quality) Avs blogs. I should have been doing this the whole time. )
Original recaps: Mile High Hockey, Anyone but Detroit, Avslova Factor, The Burgundy Blog
Sometimes games are memorable because the team plays a solid team game and walks away looking like world beaters. Some games are remembered more for individual moments. The Atlanta-Colorado tilt on February 10th will be remembered for the latter, as Kyle Cumiskey will put his game winning goal on his personal highlight film to show his grandchildren a million times. Oh, yeah Chris Durno will probably have a clip from this game on his personal highlight film as well.
Thanks to Mile High Hockey for the picture
Colorado came into this game relatively hot, winning three of their previous four contests (one of them being the previously discussed 5-1 win over the Blue Jackets on Feb 2nd. Atlanta was a polar opposite, losing 3 of their previous four, mostly to SE division opponents. It was also the Thrashers second game without Ilya Kovalchuk. Hopefully Kovalchuk will be in the building when the Avs play the Thrashers next season. For two periods Atlanta looked like the better team, and it showed on the score board as Nik Antropov (who pretty much had his way in the Avs zone the entire night) put the Thrashers up 3-1.
But then the Avs did what good teams do, and came back from a seemingly hopeless defeat.
more after the jump
Chris Stewart added a goal to mke the game 3-2, and then Chris Durno scored what was the best goal of his career to tie the game with just over 5:00 left in the game.
The Avs were able to hang on and get a point, which was nice. Then Kyle Cumiskey scored what is probably the best highlight reel goal of the season, capping the comeback just nine seconds into the extra frame.
A personal bonus for this game was that I was behind the goal the Avs attacked and scored all four goals, only 15 rows up from the glass. Seats I got at a discount. Cheap good seats, the best kinds of seats. This was a great game to be at, and a ton of fun (especially the last period or so) but there was a bittersweet part to the game as well. Watching Nik Antropov have his way with the avs defense, and Pavel Kubina abuse Avs forwards was enough to convince me that the Avs didn't really have the physicality they needed to go deep into the playoffs. Sure, those two guys are huge (and even bigger from row 15) and not everyone has someone that big on their roster. But they were able to do whatever they wanted all night.
But that was all in the future. The Avs had a wonderful game, capped by Cumiskeys brilliant goal.