Valeri Nichushkin broke through in the third period of Game 1 against Vegas, scoring on a between-the-legs redirect through traffic that gave Colorado a needed lift at the start of its series with the Golden Knights.
The goal came in the third period. Between the legs. Right through traffic. Through the wickets. Past the goalie. For Nichushkin, it was the kind of finish Colorado had been waiting for from a player who entered the matchup with questions about his offensive output.
Through nine playoff games, Nichushkin had one goal and three points, a modest return for a forward making $6.125 million. But Jared Bednar kept feeding him power-play time, heavy matchups and top-six deployment anyway, a sign of how much Colorado still trusts what he can do when the games tighten.
The Avalanche walked into this series as the West's top seed after finishing the regular season 55-16-11 with 121 points and a league-best 302 goals. They also went 2-0-1 against Vegas during the regular season, and Nichushkin finished the year with 17 goals and 32 assists in 72 games.
That bigger body of work is why the third-period strike mattered. Colorado still needed to win four games to reach the Cup Final after Game 1, and it could not afford to wait for its scoring depth to arrive later. Nichushkin's finish offered one answer, if only a temporary one, to a playoff question that had followed him into the series.
Game 2 was scheduled for Friday, and Bednar's choice remained the same: keep Nichushkin in the spots where his size and skill can tilt a game, even if the scoring has not always matched the usage. For Colorado, that is both the hope and the problem. The Avalanche need the version of Nichushkin who can change a game with one touch, not the one who has spent much of the playoffs searching for it.
