For all the nitpicking done on how the Avalanche qualified for the playoffs, not much was really made along the way how Colorado lost two of their top three forwards to injury along the way.

Even when they got Gabe Landeskog back, Mikko Rantanen went down and missed the final couple of weeks due to an undisclosed injury.

Well, now that’s over. Mikko Rantanen is back.

“I feel good,” Rantanen said. “I’m excited. I guess good timing to get back straight into the playoffs.”

Rantanen last played on in a March 21 road game at Dallas where he took a hard hit along the boards and missed the rest of the regular season. The time off was obviously difficult as he was unable to help his teammates secure their second consecutive playoff berth.

“Obviously, when you get hurt and start thinking too much…” Rantanen said. “But the medical team did a good job and got me back in shape. I’m ready to go.”

His presence in the lineup will have a transformative effect as Calgary won’t be able to use the matchup x-factor Mikael Backlund to completely wipe out Colorado’s best players. Combine that with the experience of last year and this Avalanche team has a chance to push Calgary in ways they haven’t been pushed this season.

“We have a lot of guys from last year’s team,” Rantanen said. “We know where we’re going now. It was mostly guys playing their first games last year so it’s an advantage for us. I think our roster has more playoff experience total than they have but they’re still the favorite so we’re just going to play now and we believe in this team and we’re going to do it.”

The Flames are short on playoff experience but are long on wins in the regular season. Now that they’re the top seed in the conference, however, the pressure shifts to them.

“It’s a really good team,” Rantanen said. “It’s a first seed so we don’t have any pressure kind of. If you’re the conference champion, you have the pressure. They’re first seed, like I said, so we’re just going to go out and play our game.”

If there’s a reason to believe Colorado can pull the upset over the Flames, it’s the addition of a player who scored 87 points in just 74 games but didn’t participate in the majority of Colorado’s final push to the playoffs.

Lineup Notes for Game 1

Barring any last-minute changes, the lines for the Avalanche for Game 1 will be:

Landeskog MacKinnon Kerfoot
Wilson Soderberg Rantanen
Nieto Brassard Compher
Calvert Jost Andrighetto Bourque (scratch to be determined)

Girard Johnson
Zadorov Barrie
Cole Nemeth

Grubauer
Varlamov