Colorado Avalanche

DENVER (AP) — The Stanley Cup was in the building and just waiting to be paraded around the ice. Pack it up. It's heading back to Florida.

“But we’ve been in these situations where we know the feeling of being in an elimination game." Soon after Nichushkin tied it at 1-apiece in the second, Kucherov knocked in a goal off the post. The Avalanche are trying to capture their first title since 2001. This is a gritty Lightning squad that's showing no signs of slowing down against a speedy Avalanche team and even after all the contests they've logged. It was his first goal of these playoffs. It’s a tough one.” Just the Lightning showing their championship mettle. A similar too-many-players-on-the-ice scenario unfolded Friday — and this time it was called. It's back on the road for the Avalanche, where they're 8-1 so far in their playoff run. "It just found a little hole.” “We feel like we had a decent game tonight, pretty good game. You’ve got to be excited for this challenge and embrace it.”

The Stanley Cup has left the building. The Colorado Avalanche looked to close it out against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 5 but faced a difficult ...

Colorado has been excellent while shorthanded all series and that continued as the Lightning dropped to 1-for-17 with the extra man in this Cup Final. The pace already picked up significantly in the final two minutes. The bad news is that they spent 40% of those minutes on the power play and came away with nothing to show for it, getting just two shots on goal. Which conspiracy theory wins out: that the NHL "wants" a Game 6 or that Jon Cooper's protest over that missed too many men on the ice penalty at the end of Game 4 influenced the officiating in Game 5? The Lightning got burned by the latter in the second period, as it certainly appeared that Nick Paul had position to touch the puck but the linesman whistled icing. It was one of a couple no-calls that did not favor Colorado in the second. With the teams playing 4-on-4 after matching holding penalties, Cale Makar was called for a rather specious tripping penalty to set up a 4-on-3 power play. A horrible break for the Lightning, as one sneaks by Vasilevskiy to tie the game 2-2. Not when Vasilevskiy is playing so well and the Lightning's pedigree is starting to show in a big way. Valeri Nichushkin managed to do just that in the second period, but Nikita Kucherov pulled the Lightning ahead once more with a power play goal. But the Avalanche didn't seem to fully come alive until the third period, just like in Game 4. The Colorado Avalanche looked to close it out against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 5 but faced a difficult challenge all night.

Down 3-1 in the Stanley Cup Final, the Tampa Bay Lightning won Game 5 on the road over the Colorado Avalanche to force a Game 6.

It's the hardest thing, to close a team out. There's going to be discrepancies game to game with different people and it is what it is.” “Unfortunately that one's on me for losing that one and not at least getting to OT. So, onward, upward.” But it is what it is, you've got to roll with the punches.” Tampa Bay went with four forwards when Avalanche star Cale Makar was whistled for tripping on a disputed call in the second period during a 4-on-4 skate. The breaks just didn’t go Colorado’s way in Game 5.