DENVER – D.J. Smith felt the pushing from behind and then the glass raining down on him. He didn't have time to duck out of the way.
The Los Angeles interim coach had shattered glass fall on him after a pane broke behind the Kings bench Tuesday night in Game 2 against Colorado.
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It happened right after Quinton Byfield was stopped on a penalty shot by Avalanche goaltender Scott Wedgewood with 16:48 remaining in the second period. The glass began to sway as fans pounded on it in excitement and then gave way, with pieces raining on Smith. He covered his head and then brushed the glass off his suit before heading down the tunnel to the locker room. He returned a few minutes later.
“Whoever the guy (was) just kept pushing and pushing and pushing,” Smith recounted. “I looked back because it hit me a bunch of times, then it broke.”
The Avalanche cleanup crew brought out shovels and buckets to clean up the fragments from the LA bench. The Kings players mingled on the ice as they waited for a new pane to be brought in and installed.
Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog told ESPN hockey analyst Erik Johnson he's never seen something like that happen before. Landeskog added: "It was loud there when ‘Wedgy' made that save and fans got a little too excited."
The delay took more than 15 minutes. The score was 0-0 when play was halted. Colorado won 2-1 in overtime on Nicolas Roy's winner to take a 2-0 lead in the first-round series heading into Game 3 on Thursday night in Los Angeles.
“There's nothing you can do to control it. There's nothing you can do about it, so you just deal with it," Landeskog said of the delay. “I think maybe the only thing was that there were so many bodies on the ice that it (wore) the ice out a little bit for the rest (of the period).
“I thought the ice crew did a good job and they did their best to fix it as fast as possible. Doesn't happen every day.”
It was a first for Avalanche coach Jared Bednar.
“That’s a different one," Bednar said. "But, I mean, stuff happens. Fans get excited. Our guys were excited, competing hard. There was a bunch of melees on the ice today. It felt like playoff hockey.”
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl