Kadri Scores Historic Last-Second Goal

Philipp Grubauer summed up the first game of the Colorado Avalanche's Stanley Cup Qualifier perfectly in his postgame news conference.

"I don't think it gets any closer than that," said the Colorado goaltender.

In fact, you can't.

Not only did the Avalanche and St. Louis Blues play a tight, physical affair that can be expected in a matchup of division rivals, but Colorado picked up the win while holding its only lead for less than a second on Sunday afternoon at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta. Nazem Kadri scored in the final second of the third period to give the Avs the 2-1 victory in round-robin play and take the early advantage in their quest for the top seed in the conference.

With the clock approaching all zeros, Kadri tallied a power-play goal by knocking the puck into a wide-open net after Gabriel Landeskog's outside shot caromed off the iron and landed in front of him in the crease. With the horn yet to sound, Kadri continued playing while knowing full well that the stanza was on the brink of being over.

"I was aware," Kadri said of the amount of time remaining in regulation. "Not quite down to the decimal point, but I knew there wasn't much time left. I just saw an opportunity. I think it was Gabe or Mikko (Rantanen) with the one-time shot, I felt like that might have been an opportunity. I didn't hear the buzzer, so I just tried to stay on the puck and luckily it worked out."

Kadri's goal at 19:59 of the third period marked only the second time in NHL postseason history that a go-ahead goal was scored in the last second of regulation. Jussi Jokinen of the Carolina Hurricanes was the first player to score in the final second after doing so in Game 4 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the New Jersey Devils.

Officially, Kadri and Jokinen will share the record. Unofficially, Kadri's goal came a hair later. Jokinen's tally occurred with two-tenths of a second remaining (0:00.2), while Kadri's puck crossed the goal line with just one-tenth left on the clock (0:00.1)--and maybe even less.

"I think it was pretty close," said the center. "I knew it hit the back of the net before the buzzer went off, but I wasn't quite sure if the buzzer was late or what was going on there. Obviously, it was pretty tight."

While the Avalanche players celebrated and were fairly sure that the goal would count, the NHL Situation Room in Toronto, Ontario, took a long, long look to confirm the result. The implication of the call was huge: if the puck didn't cross the line before time expired, each team would have received at least a point and the game would be decided by regular-season overtime rules.

With the Avalanche, Blues, Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights playing in a round-robin format to decide the top four seeds in the Western Conference playoffs and tiebreakers being based on regular-season points percentage, getting the call right was vital.

"I could see on the monitor what they were seeing on the jumbotron, not sure what people were seeing at home, but we could see the puck across the line at 0.1, so we were pretty confident that it was in," said defenseman Ryan Graves, who scored the game-tying goal to help stage Colorado's comeback win. "A little bit worrisome when they took a while with it, but we were confident it was in. Just trying to stay mentally ready in case it wasn't, but we had a good feeling it was."

The tally might appear as a bit fortunate along with Kadri being in the right place at the right time, but the Avs worked for the chance to be in that situation.

With the Blues' Alexander Steen in the penalty box for hooking, Colorado controlled possession in the offensive end for much of the final minute and got several quality shots on goal that were denied by goalie Jordan Binnington.

After being held scoreless on its first four man-advantage opportunities of the game, the Avalanche finally connected on one of the team's best sequences of the afternoon.

"The power play at the end of the game was excellent," said head coach Jared Bednar. "I loved our mentality--it was move it, move it, shoot it, retrieve it, move it again, shoot it, dangerous looks. I think all those guys had a shot… Excellent power play. I wish our power play looked like that every single opportunity. We caught them tired in there a little bit and took advantage of it."

The desperation for the Avalanche and Blues in the round-robin games isn't the same do-or-die attitude as the team's playing in best-of-five series of the qualifying round. But for Colorado to play and beat other top teams now can help the squad prepare for its own playoff series in a little more than one week's time.

And defeating a divisional foe--no matter the setting--still has a sweet feeling to it.

"I think we were a pretty confident group coming into this game," Kadri said. "These are the type of teams that we have to beat. That being said, it is just one game and we're not going to get too high on it, but it's certainly nice to start off with the win."