"I might have known a little bit longer than everyone else]," Kuemper said. "It's not easy watching some of those games, but the team has been so great that I've just been worried about getting myself back sharp and getting healthy.
"I tried to stay as sharp as I could in practices and treat those like games. Obviously, a long time off for everybody, but even longer for me. So [you've | Stanley Cup Final schedule]*
But when it came to Game 1 of the Final, Bednar said going with Kuemper was an easy decision.
"Darcy's been our starter, and he's played some real good hockey for us this year," Bednar said. "The injury kind of set him back a little bit. But Darcy is the guy that we've leaned on heavily all year long. It's why we brought him in, to do this job, and I thought he was pretty good tonight."
Kuemper was 37-12-4 during the regular season with a 2.54 goals-against average, .921 save percentage and five shutouts (tied for fourth in the NHL). In the Stanley Cup Playoffs he's 7-2 with a 2.68 GAA and .895 save percentage.
Forward Ondrej Palat and defenseman Mikhail Sergachev scored 48 seconds apart for Tampa Bay to tie the game 3-3 in the second period, but the Avalanche held on and won on forward Andre Burakovsky's goal 1:23 into overtime.
"The goals that we gave up and the chances that we gave up we made some big mistakes on," Bednar said. "Guy (forward Nicholas Paul) gets in behind us on the first one, we let a guy (Palat) get a backdoor tap-in on the second one, and the third one's through traffic -- he (Sergachev) gets the puck in close to the net. [Kuemper] made some big saves for us. He got us a win, so I was pretty happy with his performance."
Colorado went 3-for-3 on the penalty kill, and Kuemper was a key part of that success as well.
"Darcy has been a rock on the PK all playoffs," Avalanche defenseman Bowen Byram said. "He made a couple of huge saves, which we need sometimes. Your goalie has to be your best penalty killer. He came up huge."
It helps that Kuemper gets to practice against teammates like center Nathan MacKinnon, forwards Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen and defenseman Cale Makar.
"Our power play is really good, so they're good competition in practice," Kuemper said. "We tried to play them as hard as we could and be ready to go."
The Avalanche limited the Lightning to five shots in the third period and one in overtime before Burakovsky scored the game-winner with a one-timer off a pass from forward Valeri Nichushkin.
"Obviously, I'm focused on not letting one in and trusting the guys that they're going to get the job done down there," Kuemper said. "They went down, made a beautiful play, and put it in. I was as excited as everybody."
