Colorado Avalanche secures match point against Tampa Bay Lightning: Storm ahead of Stanley Cup win

On the verge of winning the Stanley Cup, German ice hockey player Nico Storm. The 27-year-old won with the Colorado Avalanche in Game 4 of the Finals Series over defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 after overtime and now has three game points. In the best of seven series, Sturm’s team leads 3-1, with one win still missing to win the title.

Storm has played a huge role in Colorado’s success. A skewed shot from Augsburg made it 2-2 in the latter period and introduced the avalanche in overtime. Initially, Sturm was given the goal even before it was attributed to Andrew Cogliano.

Nazem Qadri scored the decisive goal in the 13th minute of extra time. “It was a great victory,” Qadri said. “It’s a great feeling. I’ve been waiting for it all my life.”

The storm had been on the ice for just over eight minutes in total. With the latest victory, he could already be the fifth German to win the world’s most sought-after ice hockey trophy on Saturday night (2:00 AM CEST). The game then goes up in front of the home crowd at Denver’s ballpark.

Avalanche, who defeated the Nashville Predators (4-0), St. Louis Blues (4-2) and Edmonton Oilers along with Leon Drystle (4-0) in the playoffs, are competing for their third time in the NHL Finals. They won the title in 1996 and 2001 respectively.

Sturm, who was transferred to Denver from the Minnesota Wild three months ago, is now the eighth German player to seek a Stanley Cup win. 26 years after Uwe Krupp won the title with Colorado in 1996, he could have followed in his footsteps. Following Krupp, he succeeded Dennis Seidenberg with the Boston Bruins in 2011, Tom Kunkel in 2016 and 2017 with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philip Grobauer in 2018 with Washington Capitals.