During Thursday’s game against the Ottawa Senators, Colorado Avalanche center Lars Eller came down the ice in the final minutes of the second period for a fairly normal play.
Eller followed teammate Logan O’Connor and Senses blueliner Jake Sanderson as they ran to take possession of a puck thrown down the length of the ice.
O’Connor and Sanderson both believed it was icing and stopped skating after the puck landed on the pads of Ottawa netminder Mads Sogard. But the officials never blew their seats for the icing, and with Sogard leaving the puck wide open with the play dead, Eller went in and jammed the puck at the line to give Colorado a 5–2 lead.
After the game, the 33-year-old forward explained it as a very simple opportunity.
“Everybody was looking around. They were waiting for the whistle, but the whistle never came. So you don’t give up the game and then you see what happens,” Eller said.
To make matters worse, the goal didn’t matter much with Colorado leading the contest with just over 20 minutes remaining, but the Senators came back in the third period.
Sen. defenseman Travis Hamonic scored a goal within the first three minutes of the final frame, and captain Brady Tkachuk continued his timely scoring with a goal on the power play with 6:42 left on the clock.
Unfortunately for everyone in Ottawa, that would be as close as they would come and Eller’s freakish goal – his first in a Colorado sweater – stood as the game-winner.
Tkachuk defended Sogard for the misplay after the game.
“I mean, it’s probably one of the strangest goals this year, and we all believe (Søgaard) is not at fault. I feel terrible for him,” he said. “He’s so important — it* **** like situation in which both goals are going down and are being pushed for. He’s a young goalie but he’s our goalie of the future and he’s going to lead us to the Stanley Cup and take us to the next level that we want to go to.
“We have full faith in him, full confidence. It’s unbelievable how good a player he is already.”
Veteran goalkeeper Cam Talbot has struggled with injuries over the past few months and is currently out for two more weeks with a lower-body injury, while Anton Forsberg could be out for the season after tearing his MCL in a grueling February injury. Are.
That has forced the 22-year-old Sogaard to take the reins during Ottawa’s late-season push for their first playoff berth since 2017. Sogard is 5-4-1 with a 3.46 goals-against average and .883 save percentage in 11 games. Season.
Now eight points behind the New York Islanders for the second wild-card spot, with only 14 games remaining, Ottawa’s chances of making it into the postseason are down by 1.1 per cent, per moneypack,
