Final Buzzer: Mile-High Five

DENVER -When this series was determined on April 14, the last day of the regular season, the overwhelming assumption was Colorado's last-game clinching of first place in the Central Division was a good thing. Facing the second-year Kraken seemed like the preferred opponent instead of division rival Minnesota. Considering Seattle's Game 5 win here Wednesday, um, maybe not.
The series is far from over as any sports fan familiar with best-of-seven series lore knows. But when a local Denver columnist picked the Avalanche to win the series in a sarcastic, we-got-this three games (apparently with a fourth-game forfeit), local fans likely smiled a bit and started wondering who the defending champs might see in the second round.

No one seems to be laughing or looking ahead now. The Kraken went up three games to two in their first-ever postseason, getting goals from Morgan Geekie, first-game rookie Tye Kartye, and man-does-he-deserve-it Yanni Gourde and then holding off the dynamic duo of Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen from tying this game in late stages.
And, yes, Cale Makar could not play, so his one-game suspension brought some (not enough) justice for the late hit on Jared McCann (about which Makar dared to contend any Kraken player would have done the same...not). Fittingly, AHL call-up and McCann replacement Kartye became the eighth player in NHL history to score his first NHL goal in a playoff game. The last player to do it? That villain Makar.
Gourde's goal proved the game-winner and provided an important two-goal margin in the final period. Defenseman Carson Soucy received a pass from Oliver Bjorkstrand and quickly shot the puck. From there, Gourde worked magic with his stick, a skill he practices every workout on the ice.

"I tried to get to the net," said Gourde. "I tried to box my guy out with my left hand and [get to the puck] with my right wrist. I was able to tip the puck ... a great shot by our defenseman. Every time you shoot on-and-off the stick it allows our guys to go to the net and get those looks."
Gourde, the two-time Cup winner, was impressed with his squad: "We defended very well, block shots. Guys are laying their bodies on the line and it showed that's how you win in the playoffs."

Late Worrying

Down 3-1 with some four minutes remaining, Colorado coach Jared Bednar decided to pull his goalie, Alexandar Georgiev. It worked when Avs forward Evan Rodrigues shot from the inside the blue line at the right point. The shot went off the body of Kraken defenseman Jamie Oleksiak, redirecting past Philipp Grubauer. But it wasn't enough. The Kraken held on to take a 3-2 lead in the series to go along with a 3-2 final for Game 5.

Breaking Through

This prototypical tightly-played NHL playoff split open six-and-a-half minutes into the second period when Morgan Geekie provided yet another reason why he playing right wing on a top-six line with center Alex Wennberg and left wing Jaden Schwartz.
After Wennberg won a puck battle against Avs young defenseman Bynam Bowen along the left sidewall, then moved the puck to Schwartz. The veteran forward and 2019 Cup winner fired his third shot of this game (to go with 11 in Game 4). Colorado goalie Alexander Georgiev made the save but couldn't rebound. Geekie stayed upright net front, tracked the puck, and used his long reach to swat the puck into the net for his second goal in four games (he missed Game 3 due to the birth of his new daughter, Gabby, born 12 minutes before game time).

Geekie was a good soldier during the regular season playing fourth-line center and thinking defense-first in that role. He scored eight goals in 69 games and earned the trust of Dave Hakstol and the coaching staff. His offensive skill set has always been on Hakstol's radar and with Andre Burakovsky ruled out for the first round, he made the move to try Geekie with the potent pairing of Wennberg and Schwartz. So far, so smart.

Colorado Answers

A minute and 20 seconds after Geekie cracked the 0-0 deadlock, the Avalanche notched a response goal (scoring within two minutes of another goal). Philipp Grubauer, solid again facing his former teammates, would likely play this sequence differently if he could: He went behind to rim the puck around the boards to his right but the puck went to Avs' top goal scorer Mikko Rantanen, who quick shot on goal. Grubauer scrambled back but couldn't quite smother it with the loose puck flipping upward, where star center Nathan MacKinnon batted the puck mid-air to tie the game.

Kartye Debuts - and Scores

On Sunday, Kraken forward Tye Kartye was suited up for American Hockey League affiliate Coachella Valley, helping and scoring a goal in the Firebirds 5-1 clinching win in their first-round series in the Calder Cup Playoffs. By Tuesday, he and his CVF teammates were heading to the Denver area for the next AHL round against the Colorado Eagles in Loveland, about an hour north of downtown Denver. As it turns out, Kartye had other plans.
The Kraken recalled him for the second time in this series (he skated with team practices/skates before Games 1 and 2. But Wednesday, coach Dave Hakstol put the 21-year-old on the Matty Beniers line for Wednesday's Game 5 as the replacement for Jared McCann. Big stuff, the undrafted 2022 AHL Rookie of the Year playing his first NHL game deep in a playoff series with the defending Stanley Cup champions.
Wednesday, he scored his first NHL goal on his first NHL shot in his first-ever NHL game. It pushed Seattle to a 2-1 lead that held up for the second intermission. Kartye's score was four seconds outside the official designation of a response goal, but it said plenty about the Kraken's depth scoring and Ron Francis and his hockey operations signing the undrafted Kartye last March and developing him into a postseason hero just more than a year later.
"A year ago, a year and a half ago, this night] was my wildest dream," said Kartye. "This day has been pretty special."
[Watch: Youtube Video
Kartye's dreamy 24 hours was heightened by his parents being on hand. They drove "too fast" from their Kingston, ON, home to the Toronto airport to catch the first flight to Denver, arriving about two minutes into the game.
"We were able to get his parents in here," said Dave Hakstol when asked about Kartye's overall performance. "Quite a way to start your NHL career, jumping into a game five of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. He doesn't seem to be wowed by the situation at the moment, pretty calm, pretty composed. He's ready to be here, right? That's why we felt comfortable putting him in."
"It's not about the goal he scored tonight ... he also has pretty good instincts in other areas, the hard areas of the game on the wall, getting out of the zone."
On the goal sequence, Will Borgen quickly moved the puck from deep in the Kraken zone to Eberle. While Kartye sped ahead of the veteran forward, he appeared to be motioning that would skate the right lane or Kartye's opposite side. Eberle moved through the zone, behind the goal line, and circled to find Kartye at the right face-off circle for a snapshot that looked like the rookie had played with Eberle for months.

Kraken vs. Avalanche Times Two

As the NHL squads squared off for a pivotal Game 5 here at Ball Arena, the team's American Hockey League affiliates started a second-round Western Conference postseason series up the road 50 miles north of Denver. After the Colorado Eagles started the scoring for a 1-0 lead, the Coachella Valley Firebirds notched the next four scores, including the first two postseason goals of AHL veteran defenseman Eddie Wittchow's six seasons. Joey Daccord made 25 saves in the win. Coachella Valley, up 1-0 in the best-of-five series, will play once more at Loveland, then return to the desert for Game 3 plus Games 4 and 5 as necessary.