Avalanche’s Darren Helm, J.T. Compher lead Colorado to conference finals

ST. LOUIS — Darren Helm. Career grinder. Longtime Red Wing. Veteran penalty killer. And now, certifiably and undeniably, a scorer of big goals.

Detroit fans know it well. In 2009, Helm potted an overtime winner to beat an emerging Chicago club and send the Red Wings to the Stanley Cup. He was only 22 back then, a late-round draft pick making an impact on the tail end of a Detroit dynasty.

More than a decade and one uniform change later, Helm tallied a series-winning goal once again, this time sending the Avalanche to the Western Conference finals with a 3-2 win against the Blues. The goal came on May 27, 2022: 13 years to the day after his overtime winner with the Red Wings.

“What a day for you,” teammate Josh Manson said sitting next to him in their postgame news conference.

“My mom’s birthday is tomorrow, too,” Helm responded. “Happy birthday, Mom!”

He gave her quite a present.

With seven seconds left and the score tied 2-2, Logan O’Connor fired the puck across ice in the Avalanche offensive zone. It bounced off the boards and right to Helm. He saw the pass coming, and his thoughts echoed those of his coach on the Avalanche bench.

“I was saying to myself, ‘Shoot it,’” Jared Bednar said. “‘Just shoot it.’”

And Helm did. He wound up for a slap shot from the faceoff circle and propelled the puck forward. It zinged over Blues defenseman Colton Parayko’s leg. It sailed past Gabriel Landeskog’s outstretched stick. It continued to the left of goalie Ville Husso’s glove. And finally, with 5.6 seconds left on the clock, it struck the mesh netting. The Avalanche had the lead.

Helm circled toward the glass, crouching in elation and letting out a scream. O’Connor reached him first and jumped into his arms. Nathan MacKinnon leaped up and down on the bench. Manson had his head down, praying. He missed seeing the goal go in, but it was impossible not to notice his elated teammates celebrating all around him. He instantly joined in.

“Just the best feeling,” Manson said. “Almost relief. You’re so excited, but it’s like, ‘Thank goodness, it’s over, we did it. We got the job done.’ That was one of the highs in my hockey career.”

Goalie Darcy Kuemper had to make one final save on a long-distance shot from Justin Faulk, and he shoveled the puck to the side of the net so time could expire. And with that, the Avalanche were off to the Western Conference finals for the first time in a decade. They’ll host the Edmonton Oilers for Game 1 on Tuesday.

“From the drop of the puck tonight, you could tell that we were ready to go,” Bednar said. “You could tell the belief was there.”

And Helm, one of only two players in the Avalanche lineup Friday who has a Stanley Cup ring, was the one to make it happen. General manager Joe Sakic signed him last offseason to a one-year deal — an unheralded transaction at the time — and the forward had an up-and-down season, dealing with injuries and producing only 15 points in 68 games. He had the second-lowest plus-minus rating on the team (minus-5) and at points late in the season was a healthy scratch.

But he’s found his groove in the playoffs, helping create an effective fourth line with O’Connor, Andrew Cogliano and, at points, Nico Sturm.

“They’re maybe not going to be as pretty or fancy to watch as say MacKinnon’s line, but they had an impact on the game,” Bednar said of the fourth line’s play in Game 6. “And then Helm ends up getting a really huge goal for our organization.”

“There’s no other guy who deserves it more than he does,” said Landeskog, the team captain.

The former Red Wing is the type of player needed to win a championship, Detroit legend Pavel Datsyuk said in a statement to The Athletic earlier this year. Helm is a hard worker, said legendary defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom, Helm’s first captain with the Red Wings, who noted his relentlessness on the puck.

“Just a hard guy to play against,” Lidstrom said during the regular season.

Added Darren McCarty, another former Detroit teammate, “Helmer’s a great example (of) being a veteran guy that you can get at a good price that has everything you need to go in that locker room because of not only his experience but of who he is and the role that he plays.”

Players like Helm were the ones Colorado needed against a tenacious Blues team in Game 6. The team’s stars generated chances — MacKinnon, Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar all had an Expected Goals For percentage above 70, per Natural Stat Trick — but the bottom-six forward group, which had combined for only one goal in the first five games of the series, provided all the team’s scoring.

“If we’re going to win, we need everybody,” MacKinnon said. “I know it’s a cliché, but you look at any team that wins, everybody’s chipping in, and that’s kind of been our team this year in the playoffs.”

First came J.T. Compher. With the Avalanche down a goal in the second period, he snatched a rebound off a Manson shot and batted it past Husso. Andre Burakovsky, a healthy scratch the previous two games, logged a secondary assist on the play – his 13th point in his past nine potential close-out playoff games. The tie was short-lived, though, as Blues forward Brayden Schenn capitalized on a Jack Johnson fumble at the blue line and led a two-on-one break. He passed to Jordan Kyrou, who beat Kuemper to make it 2-1.

“There was no frustration on the bench,” Compher said. “We kept rolling them over, keeping the pressure on. The main thing was the belief. We kept believing we’d get the job done.”

And Manson stepped up with a big defensive play to make sure that had a chance of happening. During a Blues power play in the second period, Kyrou got the puck in front of the Avalanche net and deked out Kuemper with a delayed shot. The netminder found himself sprawling out of his crease, so Kyrou kept moving toward the front of the net, looking for an angle to shoot. He found a lane to whip in a backhander, but as he let the puck go, Manson planted himself in the crease. The puck hit his chest and trickled to Kuemper, who covered it.

“There was a bit of a panic, to be honest with you,” Manson said. “Once it went to Kyrou, I knew he was really a patient player, and I had a feeling he was gonna hold on to that thing. Once I saw him take the step, I just was hoping that it (would) hit me.”

That kept the Avalanche within a goal of St. Louis, and Compher put on his superhero cape once again in the second, wristing a shot past Husso as the Avalanche power play expired. As Bednar said postgame, Compher had himself a night.

“I wanted him to be more assertive and not so safe,” the coach said, and he got what he wanted.

According to Natural Stat Trick, Colorado led the Blues in scoring chances (35-17), high-danger chances (15-5) and expected goals (3.21-1.49). And finally, that culminated in a lead with Helm’s goal just ahead of the buzzer.

After the game, Blues players walked toward the Avalanche dressing room to congratulate their adversaries. Schenn chatted with MacKinnon, and Nick Leddy and Brandon Saad said hello to Devon Toews and Johnson. All three of those St. Louis players have their names on the Stanley Cup.

“They’re a good team, no doubt about it,” Schenn said in his postgame news conference.

Bednar said earlier in the series that the Avalanche weren’t focused on beating Round 2. They were focused on beating St. Louis. But getting over the second-round hump is enormous for the organization, regardless of if it has bigger goals or not. Colorado hasn’t been in the conference finals since the 2001-02 season. Bowen Byram, the youngest player on the Avalanche roster, was less than a year old at the time. Bednar was still playing pro hockey, and the Colorado roster featured five of the organization’s six players with retired numbers.

“Obviously, the job’s not finished,” MacKinnon said. “But that’s a great accomplishment for us.”

But recent history, not events of 20 years ago, is what makes the achievement sweet. The Avalanche have been building to this point, but the second round has marked a stumbling block, like a glitch that doesn’t let you go past a certain point in a video game. In 2019, they lost by a goal to San Jose in Game 7 in which the game-tying Colin Wilson goal was overturned in a controversial offside decision. The next year, an injury-riddled team on its third-string goaltender couldn’t hold on to a one-goal lead late in Game 7, losing to the Stars in overtime.

And then came last summer’s Vegas series, which saw Colorado hop out to a 2-0 lead and implode. That’s the series Bednar said hurt most. It wasn’t inexperience or injuries that cost the Avalanche. It was their own play.

“Those are lessons,” the coach said. “You have to go through them and you have to go through the heartbreak. I feel we’re better off for it.”

Against the Golden Knights, Colorado crumbled after blowing a late lead in Game 3. When the Avs got their game back, it was too late to salvage the series.

Players on this year’s team stressed their increased maturity, their growth. But those words could only mean so much until the Avalanche backed them up. And after a draining overtime loss in Game 5 in which they blew a three-goal lead, that’s exactly what they did, thanks to a third-period comeback and a last-second shot from a veteran who’d been in big moments before.

(Photo: Jeff Curry / USA Today)