The Colorado Avalanche are ready for playoff hockey

Coming into today’s afternoon matchup between the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars, we all knew this was very likely a Round 1 preview next month when the Stanley Cup Playoffs open. Earlier this week, there was a small chance you could talk yourself into the Stars catching the Winnipeg Jets, but then the Stars went into Winnipeg and got waxed, so that more or less ended those talks.

Following today’s 4-3 Avalanche overtime win over the Stars, the excitement about Colorado possibly chasing down Dallas for the second seed in the Central Division, and with it the home-ice advantage in Round 1, is going to get louder until the Stars do something about it. They certainly tried as they erased a 3-1 deficit in the third period with two goals in 20 seconds that eventually forced the game into overtime, salvaging a point in the process, but Cale Makar’s game-winning goal sent the Stars packing with a loss all the same. The difference for the Avs is they only gained one point in the standings today, so they sit two behind Dallas with the Stars having two games in hand still.

Today’s game finished a four-game road trip for the Stars that saw them play Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Colorado. That’s a tough stretch of games against three of the teams looked at as their primary competition for the supreme power in the west this year and another in Vancouver that currently sits in the final playoff spot but isn’t a team that is going to inspire much fear.

For the Stars to lose all three of the games against the Oilers, Jets, and Avs has to be a little concerning. Managing to steal the point in Denver today despite getting dominated for much of the afternoon is great for them, but this is something to really build from for the Avs. Let’s talk about why.

The Avalanche were built to beat the Stars. They did.

The end result here is that Colorado beat Dallas today and finished the season series with a 2-1 advantage. I’ve long said that season series records are overrated when trying to project to a playoff series because those games can be played in wildly different circumstances. You don’t know what the rest/travel situations are, what the lineups look like, or if those games during the season come when one team is going through a peak or valley of their play.

What made today’s matchup so enticing was that it’s inside the final 20 games of the season, is by far the likeliest Round 1 matchup for both teams and gave us a sneak preview of what a best-of-seven series between these clubs could look like. Health still played a role as each team was missing key players who could be in the lineup come the playoffs (Miro Heiskanen and Tyler Seguin for Dallas and Mackenzie Blackwood and Josh Manson and maybe Gabe Landeskog for Colorado). The game also was decided in 3v3 in overtime, which isn’t relevant to postseason hockey unless something really wild happens.

That said, the Avalanche continued trying to build out their depth with players who fit their identity but also could inflict a little physical punishment while withstanding some of it as well. Ryan Lindgren, Charlie Coyle, and Brock Nelson were all added because of the way they could change Colorado’s mixture.

If today was the best test of that in the five games since they all landed in Avalanche sweaters, you have to feel great about the returns. Yes, the Avs had about a two-minute meltdown in the third period that erased all of the great work to build their 3-1 lead, but those other 58 minutes still happened. If this game played out exactly the same way but the results were flipped, I’d be nervous as hell about Colorado’s ability to handle Dallas in a best-of-seven series, but Colorado was the aggressor today.

The third period wasn’t good enough, especially from the Avalanche power play which is slowly starting to show signs of the inevitable slowdown after they ripped off a heater for the last month, but this Avs team played a hard-nosed game that attacked in waves. The low-man in ice time was Parker Kelly, who played 11:01 and was part of a fourth line the Avs utilized to neutralize Dallas’s top line for much of the game.

The secret sauce to Dallas has always been their depth, though, and we saw some of that today, too. Only four of their forwards failed to record a point and three of them play on their fourth line. The last one, Mikael Granlund, rang a shot off the post after beating Wedgewood so he came close. That depth is great, obviously, but Colorado’s had a little something to say about this outcome.

The vaunted top line of the Avs scored the only power-play goal of the game, but failed to score on four other tries. Nathan MacKinnon snagged an assist on Makar’s game-winning goal and Martin Necas had the aforementioned power-play goal, but recorded zero points at 5v5.

That ended up being just fine because the Brock Nelson-led second line scored two goals, one from Val Nichushkin and one from Jonathan Drouin. Nelson himself picked up an assist on Makar’s goal after winning the faceoff. Both Drouin and Nichushkin finished with a goal and an assist.

I wrote incessantly during the earlier portion of the season that the Avalanche were built to be a MacKinnon-or-bust type of team. His line had to give them one, probably two goals, during a game to give the Avs a chance to win. If that didn’t happen, Colorado was hard-pressed to find wins.

MacKinnon has one point in his last three games and it was the assist in overtime today. The Avs are 2-0-1 in that time with a shootout loss to Minnesota, a regulation win over Calgary, and today’s overtime win over Dallas. So, it’s not like the Avs are just fine while MacKinnon goes through one of those rare scoring lulls, but they’re still winning games because they built a team that can elevate when he isn’t completely dominant.

On the back end, Ryan Lindgren’s nastiness has helped balance that group out a bit, but he had some tough moments today. I’ll get more into those tomorrow in Studs & Duds, but the Avs are significantly harder to deal with and are starting to string together entire sections of games, even against playoff teams, where they are simply not allowing much to happen. All of Toronto, Minnesota, Calgary, and Dallas had extended stretches of time where they weren’t creating shots on goal, scoring chances, or high-danger chances.

That defensive excellence is another testament to the team’s improved depth. Defense isn’t solely up to the defensemen, after all, as there are more forwards than defensemen on the ice at 5v5. The solid two-way contributions they’re getting are making life easier for their goaltenders.

Of course, it helps when your goalie played as Scott Wedgewood did today, who filled in against for Blackwood as he continues battling illness. Wedgewood’s final numbers end up ugly because of the two goals in 20 seconds, but one of those is another wild bounce that hurts him but he was otherwise excellent.

Colorado has allowed 15 goals in seven games in the month of March so far while scoring 30. That’s the kind of ratio you want to see as you’re heading into the final weeks of the regular season and tightening the screws for the playoffs.

All of this talk about lineup balance and improved defense and goaltending is great. Those are all great to have. As we saw once again today, however, sometimes it’s just better to have Cale Makar on your team.