Stanley Cup Heroes, Part 6: Of all People to Finally End it

Who scored the Stanley Cup winning goal in [insert year here]? It’s a fun trivia question for fans and a point of pride for players. Sometimes it’s a superstar, like Patrick Kane in 2010. Other times it’s a lesser known but still valuable role player, like Alec Martinez. Then there are times when it is a player nobody could’ve guessed. 1996 falls into the last category. In 1995, the Quebec Nordiques were bought by the COMSAT Entertainment Group, a consortium based in Denver, Colorado. The Nordiques were having financial troubles thanks to the weakened Canadian dollar. The original owners tried to build up public funds for a new stadium and find a Canadian buyer, but to no avail. They cut their losses and sold the team, which then moved to Denver. Quebec City was obviously devastated by the news for many reasons. However, there’s 1 reason that went under the radar as it was happening. The Nordiques were a really good team. Quebec had won their division in the previous season. They had a 25-year-old Joe Sakic, a class act that would go down as one of the 20 best players ever. They witnessed a 21-year-old named Peter Forsberg (another future Hall of Famer) win the Calder as rookie of the year and they watched former 1st overall pick Owen Nolan score 30 goals in 46 games (50-goal pace). All this was happening on a team that was the 3rd youngest in the NHL. Imagine if the OKC Thunder moved back to Seattle after 2023-24, that’s what happened here. Anyone paying attention to hockey knew Colorado had just been handed an amazing hockey. The new Colorado Avalanche immediately proved that last season was no fluke. They finished with the 2nd most points in the NHL, only behind the record breaking 62-win Red Wings. As if that wasn’t good enough, the Avalanche covered up their only flaws by trading for the greatest playoff performer in NHL history in Patrick Roy. Roy had won 2 Cups with the Habs and provided the Avs with the brick wall and experience they lacked. Now they felt virtually unstoppable. The only teams that had a chance were the 62-win Red Wings and the Lemieux-Penguins. The Avs continued their rampage in the playoffs, winning each of their first 3 rounds in 6 games, including an upset of those Red Wings in the conference finals. Patrick Roy actually looked human, but it didn’t matter when no goalie could stop the Avs’ insane amount of talent. It set up a Cup Final against the Rat-throwing Florida Panthers. The Panthers had shockingly upset Lemieux’s Penguins thanks to a debilitating defensive system and an elite goaltender named John Vanbiesbrouck. So naturally the Avalanche scored 14 goals in 3 games to take a 3-0 series lead, making game 4 the potential clincher. Game 4 would go down as one of the longest Stanley Cup Final games in NHL history. At the time, it was the 3rd longest and it ranks 8th all time today. Both teams entered the 3rd overtime without a goal. Both goalies had been basically perfect. It would only take 1 mistake to end it. A little over 4-minutes into OT, the Panthers tried to clear the puck from their D-zone. That attempt was stopped by veteran defense man Uwe Krupp. Krupp stood at the far right corner of the blueline, right next to the Avs’ bench. He winded up and fired a slap shot. That shot beat Vanbiesbrouck. In a single moment, Krupp had scored a Stanley Cup clinching goal and put himself into NHL lore. (See photo above of the celebration after, Krupp is wearing #4 on the right) I would be shocked if anybody on this app could’ve told me who Uwe Krupp was before reading this, but calling him a nobody would be unfair. Krupp is not an NHL legend, but he is a German hockey legend. At the time of this goal, Krupp became the first German-born player to win the Stanley Cup. At the time of his retirement in 2003, Krupp had the most points and games played of any German-born player. Today, he is 6th in both categories. However, he is probably the most random player possible to score the Stanley Cup winning goal for the 1996 Avalanche. Krupp only played 6 games in the regular season and didn’t score once. In the playoffs, he only had 3 goals going into this game. In fact, he played triple the playoff games (22) as he did regular season games. Yet, he was the one that officially won the Cup for Colorado. The OT winner became the final playoff goal of Krupp’s career. Krupp will forever be a beloved hockey figure for Germany, but for Colorado, he became a Stanley Cup Hero.