Colorado Can Keep Blaming It on Pond

Once might have been a fluke. Twice a curiosity. Thrice represented a frustrating trend for the Colorado Avalanche last season at the Pond.

And then there was Sunday.

How to make sense of it all?

Avalanche Coach Marc Crawford couldn’t.

Colorado has won a Stanley Cup, but remained winless in four tries at the Pond.

“A lot of mysterious things happened here tonight,” Crawford said of Sunday’s 1-1 tie with the Mighty Ducks in front of 17,025.

Trying to protect a 1-0 lead, Colorado’s Keith Jones tripped Duck winger Jari Kurri at the 18:15 mark of the third period.

OK, so Kurri made like Greg Louganis along the boards. But, hey, Kurri is a future Hall of Famer and Hall of Famers tend to get those sorts of calls late in close games.

“The guy lifted my leg up,” Kurri said. “The ref was right there. We should get that call no matter what period in the game it is. We know sometimes at the end of the game making that call isn’t too easy.”

Even Crawford was willing to acknowledge that referee Paul Devorski called it as he saw it. But what sent Crawford into a fit was what happened next.

As Crawford told it later, the clock was inadvertently stopped when Devorski’s arm went up signaling the penalty to Jones. Roughly four seconds passed before the Avalanche touched up and play was halted, according to Crawford.

Without those four seconds, the Ducks couldn’t have, wouldn’t have tied the Avalanche in the last, frantic seconds of regulation.

With the Ducks holding a six-on-four advantage after goalie Guy Hebert went to the bench in favor of an extra attacker, Roman Oksiuta slammed home a rebound for the game-tying goal with 1.4 seconds left in the third period.

“The refs are human, but that’s inexcusable,” Crawford said of the apparent timing mistake. “We can go on a while about the clock. Sure we’ll send the tape to the league. The off-ice staff here should be talked to by the league office. Heads should roll.”

A videotape of the game, complete with the clock in the upper corner, was not immediately available to reporters to verify Crawford’s story.

“The penalty call was marginal at best,” Crawford said, picking up steam during his postgame tirade. “But they stopped the clock when [Devorski’s] arm went up. I don’t know how the minor officials, who have the luxury of video replay, can miss something like that.

“As bad as the call was, and we thought it was a bad call [on Jones’ penalty], you can’t make inexcusable mistakes [with the clock]. We timed it and it was four seconds. That’s the difference in the game. Four seconds and we win the game.

“It’s inexcusable.”

Had the Ducks failed to score at the end, Crawford would have dismissed the whole affair as just one of those things.

Certainly, he had no problem with the off-ice officials who reviewed Joe Sakic’s second-period slap shot and ruled it a goal.

Sakic thought he had scored, raised his stick to celebrate, but didn’t see the red light go on or see Devorski point to the net signifying a goal.

When play stopped after a minute or so, the play was reviewed and video goal judge Tom Wardell ruled the puck had blasted through a hole in the back of the net.

“I saw it go in,” Sakic said, unfazed. “I just waited for the whistle and the replay.”