Darcy Kuemper of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan notched his second National Hockey League career playoff shutout on Saturday. Kuemper made 16 saves as the Colorado Avalanche beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 7-0 to take a two games to none lead in the best out of seven series in the 2022 Stanley Cup Finals.
Kuemper made five saves in the first period, seven saves in the second period, and four saves the third period. Kuemper was significantly better than his Lightning counterpart Andrei Vasilevskiy, who gave up seven goals on 30 shots.
In the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Kuemper has a record of eight wins and two losses, with a goals against average of 2.44, and a save percentage of .901. He has not played the entire Stanley Cup Playoffs for the Avalanche because of two injuries.
Kuemper’s first Stanley Cup playoff shutout came as a member of the Minnesota Wild. He made 22 saves for Minnesota in a 1-0 Wild win over the Avalanche in game three of the Western Conference quarterfinals. At the time, Minnesota won their first game of the series, and ended up winning the series four games to three.
Offensively for Colorado on Saturday, three Canadians had multi-point games. Cale Makar of Calgary, Alberta scored twice. Meanwhile, Andrew Cogliano of Toronto, Ontario, and Alex Newhook of St. John’s, Newfoundland each had two assists.
Darren Helm of St. Andrews, Manitoba also scored for Colorado. Helm, who won the Stanley Cup in his rookie season with the Detroit Red Wings in 2008, scored Colorado’s fifth goal of the game at 16:26 of the second period.
