Colorado Avalanche forward Valery Nichushkin became one of the leaders of the NHL club

Valery Nichushkin turned into one of the most notable Russian hockey players in the NHL championship in November. The Colorado Avalanche forward, who disappeared from the team in the spring during the opening round of the playoffs after a mysterious incident, has returned to his former tone and, playing in the club’s strike line, is showing extremely high performance.

As part of the next day of the NHL regular championship, a match took place in which the Colorado Avalanche, one of the undisputed favorites of the season, defeated the Anaheim Ducks with a score of 8:2. One of its main characters turned out to be Colorado forward Valery Nichushkin, who scored two goals. There is a mysterious story connected with this hockey player that happened last spring.

The season before last, Nichushkin, a hockey player with a complex biography full of ups and downs, made a breakthrough. He developed into the powerhouse’s leading forward and won the Stanley Cup with him, earning rave reviews from pundits. Nichushkin showed himself to be an extremely versatile hockey player who is good in many aspects of the game: he fights in the corners of the ice and in the backfield, plays defense and is quite effective at the same time. The Russian finished the playoffs triumphant for Colorado with 15 points in 20 matches.

In the next season, he found himself in the spotlight for a completely different reason. Valery Nichushkin played great again in the regular season, and the same productivity was expected from him in the playoffs. In the opening round, Colorado took on the Seattle Kraken, which was considered a clear outsider of the pair. And before the third match of the series, Nichushkin’s name suddenly disappeared from the club’s application.

Then, including from police reports, it became clear that the disappearance of the Russian forward was the result of a strange incident at the hotel where the Colorado hockey players were staying before an away match. The police were called to her. She found a woman in Nichushkin’s room who was heavily intoxicated. What exactly happened that evening is still unknown. Nichushkin himself, who was not charged with anything, refused to answer questions about that incident. “Colorado”, having lost its forward, eventually lost the series sensationally.

Valery Nichushkin returned to the squad before the new championship. True, for some time it seemed as if the incident in Seattle did affect his status in the team. At the beginning of the championship, he spent a little less time on the ice than he was used to, often spending it on the third or fourth lines, and his performance dropped.

But it seems that the version about something like a punishment for Nichushkin turned out to be false. At least in November he appeared as a hockey player in excellent shape. In the past five matches, including the match against Anaheim, Nichushkin scored five points and scored four goals. Of the Russian NHL forwards, perhaps only Artemy Panarin from the New York Rangers and Nikita Kucherov from the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are located close to the top of the scoring race, are equally hot at the end of the fall. At the same time, Nichushkin no longer plays in the lower lines, but mainly in the shock line – with superstars Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, and his playing time has increased sharply. In the last two meetings – with Seattle and Anaheim – it went off scale in 21 minutes. Moreover, it seems, largely thanks to his transformation, Colorado, which ranks second in the Central Division after the Dallas Stars, again looked like an undisputed contender for the Stanley Cup.

Alexey Dospehov