Colorado Avalanche: 4 Forgotten Facts about Uwe Krupp
Krupp Scored the Cup-Winning Goal in 1996
The Colorado Avalanche brought the first-ever professional sports trophy to the state when they won the Stanley Cup at the conclusion of their inaugural season in Denver. Joe Sakic won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
But it was Uwe Krupp who scored the game-winning goal in Game 4, thus bringing sport’s most celebrated trophy to Colorado.
The Avalanche were in Miami playing the Florida Panthers. Florida was down 3-0 in the series. In Game 3, goalie Patrick Roy made his famous declaration of “No more rats” after the rain of plastic rodents annoyed him. He backed up his words with eight periods of shutout.
Florida goalie John Vanbiesbrouck was almost equally impressive. I say almost because his shutout total was around one period fewer than Roy’s, and that makes all the difference.
Game 4 in Florida ended in a regulation tie. As is the custom in the NHL, the game went into a full period of sudden-death overtime. Then it went into a second full period of sudden-death overtime. In the wee hours of the morning, the two teams entered their third period of sudden-death overtime still tied at 0.
At 4:31 of the third overtime period, this happened:
Uwer Krupp finally snuck one past John Vanbiesbrouck to win the game, and the series… and the Stanley Cup!
So, like I said, you’ll have to agree Krupp made one of the most important plays in Avalanche history.