MONTREAL — Artturi Lehkonen was standing at the same end of the rink where he scored the Canadiens’ most important goal of this century. That goal, the Game 6 overtime winner that sent Montreal to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, replayed above him on the Bell Centre jumbotron.
Lehkonen is a vicious forechecker who keeps to himself and rarely allows his focus to stray from the ice. But he craned his neck for this. Nathan MacKinnon playfully slapped Lehkonen with his stick as the crowd went wild. Lehkonen tapped his heart, saluting his old home.
“Doesn’t surprise me that the fans here liked him a lot,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said.