Colorado Avalanche Should Abolish Blake Comeau Breakaways

Colorado Avalanche winger Blake Comeau needs to be discouraged in actually going for a breakaway since he’s pretty bad at them.

The Colorado Avalanche beat the Vegas Golden Knights in a game that carried a playoff atmosphere. The game went through three full periods, a whole overtime, and three rounds of the shootout. Avs fans at Pepsi Center certainly got their money’s worth today.

Anyone watching the game also got a dose of hilarity in the form of another Blake Comeau breakaway disaster.

Just over five minutes into the third period, with the score tied at one apiece, the Avalanche caught all the Knights flat-footed in their offensive zone. A Knight tried to shoot the puck, but it bounced off of Matthew Nieto and straight in front of Blake Comeau.

He had a clear path to the goal. And, as we know now, with Blake that can spell disaster.

In a bold move rather characteristic of the man (he’s known for going walkabout), Vegas goalie Marc-Andre Fleury came all the way out of the crease and to the top of the circles to challenge the puck. He dove for the puck just as Comeau took possession of it.

Blake Comeau had a clear path to a completely untended net.

Unfortunately, as Fleury dove for the puck, he swung his paddle out to play it. Comeau jumped over the paddle, but he somehow didn’t land on his skates. So this happened:

That’s right. With an untended net just feet away, Blake Comeau fell and lost control of the puck. He tried to sweep it over, but his fall gave two Knights enough time to get back and protect the net. Indeed, they caused enough disruption with the puck that even Matt Nieto, who was also flying back, couldn’t corral it and get it to the front of the net.

That could have been the game-winning goal. If the Avs lose that game, you shake your fist at Comeau. However, Colorado was the only team to score in the shootout, a beauty by captain Gabriel Landeskog:

To be honest, considering the hilarity of Blake Comeau’s missed goal, it would have been funnier if Landeskog had scored his goal this way:

Anyway, the point isn’t whether Landeskog should be barred from shootouts — frankly, I was a little surprised he got tapped after Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, but it worked out. No, we need to ban Blake Comeau from going on the breakaway. Because, prior to today, Blake’s most famous breakaway gaffe was this one:

I mean, it’s hard to say which one was worse. In last year’s shootout gaffe, Comeau deliberately passes the puck on the breakaway. So you’ve got to fault him for making a poor decision.

But today’s gaffe… He had a wide-open, untended net!

Yes, I think today’s breakaway fall transcends the breakaway pass.

Next: Strange Coincidence in Wings Game

And since the Colorado Avalanche won, and they’re back in the first wild card berth (for now), we can laugh at/with Blake Comeau rather than shake our collective fists at him.