The Colorado Avalanche is once again the favorite to win the NHL. Artturi Lehkonen and Mikko Rantanen play a big role as the team tries to return the Stanley Cup to Denver.
DENVER. Artturi Lehkonen28, has been a big part of the Colorado Avalanche’s top players together for a couple of months by Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen27, with.
Around the middle of November, everything was different, when Lehkonen fell in a duel with the Seattle Kraken James Oleksia too with. The Finnish striker crashed headfirst into the wing. The situation looked very bad.
The resulting neck injury kept the Finnish striker on the sidelines for 35 matches. Now, according to Lehkonen, everything is fine.
– No trouble in any way. It’s already history. There is no need to stress about it at all anymore, says Lehkonen.
– There is hardly any troll left from it, even though it was a harsh-looking situation. In ice hockey, you go hard and sometimes accidents can happen.
You get points when you get to play alongside good players.
Lehkonen, Rantanen and Mackinnon form one of the league’s most feared offensive chains. For the second season in a row, Rantanen has already broken the 100 power point mark (42+62) and MacKinnon (51+89) finished second in the NHL’s points market.
Due to injury, Lehkonen has played barely less than half of Avalanche’s matches and has scored 16+18.
The effective trio is naturally also the Avalanche’s spearhead in terms of results. In Denver’s press, ineffectiveness is immediately criticized if the trio plays a couple of games without goals.
Performance should be in every match and Rantanen is also aware of this.
– Yes, you feel pressure, because I play a lot and get superior time. Of course, the first and second courts bear the greatest responsibility for producing results, and at the same time the pressure also piles up on me, reflects Rantanen.
– I try to think about my own points as little as possible and just play hard and as smart as possible. You get points when you get to play alongside good players.
Lehkonen, known as the man in the roughing department, is on slightly different lines with Rantanen, although he admits that the Avalanche go into almost every game as early favorites.
– I don’t know if there is a bigger result pressure on just one player. If I get a lot of responsibility, of course I will try to cheer the team up by making a result.
If Rantanen has been churning out power at a ferocious pace – the playing time has also been in the clouds throughout the regular season.
Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar has put a huge load on his number one fist. The TPS player has spent an average of 22 minutes and 57 seconds on the ice. With that reading, he was at the top of the league’s offensive statistics, five seconds ahead of his chain mate MacKinnon.
The difference to Tampa Bay, who is third on the list to Nikita Kucherov is mighty. The American forward has worked on the ice for more than a minute less per game compared to Rantase.
– Playing time has been quite big since last year, says Rantanen.
“There’s no room for late nights in the playoffs”
In sports-crazy Denver, a lot is expected of Rantase once again when the spring real games start. Colorado will face the Winnipeg Jets in the opening round of the playoffs. The teams will meet for the first time in Winnipeg the night before Monday Finnish time.
In March, the Avalanche was the hottest team in the entire league. The team from The Mile High City won no less than 14 matches and lost only three times.
In addition to Rantanen and Lehkonen, the goalkeeper also played a big role during March Justus Annunen, 24, who held off the Avalanche with a goal in seven games. Annunen, who learned hockey in Oulu’s Kiekko-Laser, prevented the Denver club to six wins.
A glance at the standings shows that the Avalanche’s championship train is headed in the right direction. In the Western Conference, only the Dallas Stars and Vancouver Canucks have collected more points.
Even though the Avalanche are in the playoffs again, Rantanen still finds room to improve in his play – especially on the defensive end.
– It needs to be more even, so that it is at the same level in every game. In the playoffs, there is no room for late nights, because otherwise the season will end quickly, concludes Rantanen.