Along the south shore of picturesque Lake Tahoe, the Colorado Avalanche was set to play an outdoor afternoon affair at the foot of snow-capped mountains and beside North America s largest alpine lake.The beautiful, bluebird day turned out to be to much for the manmade rink too handle, and the contest against the Vegas Golden Knights was interrupted due to challenging ice conditions resulting from extreme sun.Colorado rolled with the punches though and earned a 3-2 victory against Vegas on Saturday evening when the final whistle blew more than 10 hours after the initial puck drop.
GOALTENDING BATTLE
Colorado: Philipp Grubauer started an outdoor game for the second consecutive season and stopped 27 shots.
Vegas: Marc-Andre Fleury played in his third outdoor game and allowed three goals on 39 shots.
STAT OF THE NIGHT
Defensemen Bowen Byram, Devon Toews and Conor Timmins all made their NHL outdoor debuts in the contest. Prior to the game, 18 Avalanche players had participated in an NHL outdoor game, led by Brandon Saad and Nazem Kadri who both played in their fourth NHL contests in the open air on Saturday.
It was the third regular-season outdoor game for the Avalanche, with its previous such games being the 2016 Stadium Series at Coors Field in Denver against the Detroit Red Wings and the 2020 Stadium Series at the U.S. Air Force Academy versus the Los Angeles Kings. Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon are the only players to participate in all three of Colorado s outdoor games.