NEW YORK — Erik Johnson took a pretty good baseball swing, and it almost cost his team a hockey game Thursday night.
But fortunately for him, his third-period slashing penalty on the New York Rangers’ Martin St. Louis, with 3 minutes, 11 seconds left, did not do in the Avalanche in what proved to be a 4-3 shootout win for Colorado.
Johnson admittedly made a mental blunder by chopping down at the puck as he and St. Louis met in the corner of a tie game and time running out. Instead of getting the puck away from St. Louis, as he intended, he got one of his hands and was sent to the penalty box for what he said was a long two minutes.
“I was actually concerned they were going to call me for a high stick, because my stick slid up his shaft and hit him in the visor,” said Johnson, who had an assist earlier in the game on Alex Tanguay’s goal. “I was not very happy about that, sitting in the box, but I can’t really fault the referee there. But our special teams bailed us out there and we got the win.”
Vigneault’s assessment. Here is how Rangers coach Alain Vigneault summarized the game from his perspective: “We knew they were going to come out hard. They were a team that finished first in their division last year, over 100 points. They just got beat pretty badly in their last game.
“I thought after the first period, in our second and third, we got the better scoring opportunities.”
