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Grading The Week: Don’t poke The Moose! Do Avs fans have Artturi Lehkonen’s dad to thank for Mikko Rantanen’s scoring surge?

So, um, do we give Ismo Lehkonen … an assist? No?

Lordy, you should’ve seen the cringes and awkward glances traded around the Grading The Week offices after we saw what Lehkonen, father of Avalanche forward Artturi Lehkonen, told the Yle media outlet in Finland about Mikko Rantanen, his son’s very large and very good teammate, this past Monday.

With the Avs having dropped five of six, the elder Lehknonen, an analyst in Finland, his homeland as well as Rantanen’s, said the Colorado forward “didn’t have a very good summer” and had basically hit a wall in December, and that “frustration and pain have started to show in Rantanen’s game.