At a past job, we would have two-day quarterly meetings that would serve as a reflection on how things are going, and what the game plan is going forward. One of the topics that would take up the majority of the first day was “what is the smell in your office?” That didn’t mean, are your employees clean and do you have candles lit, it meant, when you walk in, what does it feel like? Or for all of you Gen Z-ers, how are the vibes?

Obviously, this isn’t applicable only to business settings, sports absolutely have a feel, or “smell”, to them, hockey in particular, in my opinion.

When I walked into Ball Arena today for the Colorado Avalanche’s morning skate ahead of the Seattle Kraken making their first-ever visit to Denver, the place smelled terrible.

During this franchise-record-setting 11-game home winning streak the Avs have been on coming into this game, dating back to November 3rd, the Avs have just radiated confidence. Confidence in their ability, confidence in their play, and confidence in their skill. Everybody is usually in really good spirits around the rink.

In short, for more than two months now, when you see the Avalanche preparing for a game, they just look like they’re gonna win, before the other has even shown up to the building.

This morning, however, the Avs looked like they were fighting the puck, and themselves. 

Every snappy pass they tried to make missed, guys were losing their spacing, shots were missing the net, and the power play units couldn’t connect on the most basic of set plays during special teams work.

Not a ton of guys looked very happy. They looked frustrated. Frustrated at how they were practicing. Now, you could look at that one of a few different ways.. one is, why are they even allowing themselves to be frustrated? They’re playing some the best hockey we’ve seen them play in years, decades even!

Another is, wow.. these guys hold themselves to a high standard, and they even demand perfection in practice.

However you choose to look at it, it’s never good for a team to play tight.

I tweeted out that I thought they looked a bit out of sorts and worried that there was going to be a letdown against what would be considered a weaker opponent, after such an emotional win against the Toronto Maple Leafs two nights ago.

I won’t lie, the Avs look a bit disjointed this morning. Passing isn’t crisp, and the energy just doesn’t seem to be the same as it has been recently. You’ve got a “weaker” opponent coming in to town tonight, gonna be a great test in bringing your best every night for this team.

— Jesse Montano (@jessemontano_) January 10, 2022

When the puck dropped, all of that second-guessing we saw in the morning was still very prevalent. Early on, the Avs had plenty of chances to test old friend and Seattle goaltender Phillip Grubauer with high-danger, high-percentage shots from the home plate area, but not a single player looked like they wanted to be the one to shoot.

Every player was looking for one more pass, one more dangle, one more cross-and-drop, and when it wasn’t working, the frustration was building for the home team. The two teams swapped goals in the first, so you didn’t play your best period and you’re still tied. You’ll take it. Every time.

If you’ve read this far (and didn’t watch the game), you probably are thinking that things continued to snowball. 

Well, what is so fun about teams that are used to playing with such a high level of confidence is that it only takes one play, one moment for them to get their swag back, and start feeling like they’re going to win again.

Most of the second period felt very similar to the first. Colorado was forcing plays, and they were really struggling to create.

Seattle would get the next goal, and then add one more, and given the way the Avs were playing, that felt like it just may have put the game to bed.

Then, with exactly three minutes to go in that middle frame, Nicolas Aubé-Kubel scored his second goal of the night, and you could just feel a shift in the attitude of the Avalanche. They suddenly found themselves in a one-goal game, even though they hadn’t brought anywhere close to their best effort.

The Avalanche really ramped it up in the final frame. They knew they had a chance to steal one, and they were pushing.

As the game approached the halfway point, Grubauer was doing his absolute best to make it difficult on his old teammates, making a number of high-quality saves to preserve the slim lead.

The mood had completely shifted from what it had been since 10:00 AM this morning, you knew the Avs were gonna tie it, the Kraken were now the ones who looked like they were playing not to lose, like they were afraid of making a mistake, and when you play like that, bad things usually happen.

With just under nine minutes left to play, Cale Makar zipped a puck on net from the blue line, and the rebound bounced, almost, perfectly to Devon Toews who, legally, deflected the puck with his foot back on net and evened the score.

It took a very quick video review to make sure the goal would stand, but we had a tie game.

After that, it was obvious which team was going to win. The only thing still in question was, who was going to be the hero?

Nazem Kadri hadn’t put his stamp on this game yet, which has become a rarity this season. Well that all changed less than three minutes after the Toews goal.

Andre Burakovsky sprung Tyson Jost in the neutral zone, who then was able to set Kadri up to lead an odd-man rush, and the Avs’ leading scorer wasn’t going to miss. Naz went full-on Thanos and said “Fine, I’ll do it myself”, beating Grubauer with a beautiful short-side laser of a shot.

Seattle made a small push to get the game back to even, but nothing that ever felt very threatening.

This Avalanche team never feels out of it. They believe in themselves as a group and trust their process. 

Taking this all the way back to how I started it, the place isn’t always going to smell great, but your ability to find success in any environment is what matters. Some people pack up and leave when it gets stinky, others simply find a way to remove the odor. This team is learning new ways to freshen things up no matter what, and I think the man who capped off the comeback put it best.

“Our team is showing a lot of maturity and a lot of character, coming back in this type of fashion,” Kadri said postgame. “Maybe I don’t think we would’ve handled it the same way a year or two ago”.

This is no longer just a very good team that can out-duel most opponents, they’re learning *how* to win, and how to not be prisoners of the moment. 

12 consecutive wins on home ice, and five straight wins overall. The Avs will look to extend the latter streak when they’re right back at it tomorrow in Nashville against the last team to get the better of them. Let’s see if they can find yet another new way to win a hockey game.

TAKEAWAYS

I’ve only got one takeaway for you tonight, and it’s mostly because it didn’t really have anything to do with what transpired on the ice, so I didn’t want to cram it into the story.

Jared Bednar was asked after the game if he was frustrated about being without Captain Gabe Landeskog for the game, as he is out on COVID Protocol, despite being asymptomatic. I thought he had an interesting answer.

“Yeah. Yeah,” he said. “I’d like to see us not be testing asymptomatic individuals… I read the stats on how many people are confirmed positive, or just had omicron… Everyone else is going to work, and likely has it, or has just had it, and we’re testing our guys so they’re missing time. I get we don’t want to spread it to everybody… but we’re running around in our own little bubble. That’s it. Everyone here is vaccinated, most are boosted, so I’d like to see us stop doing it. The NFL has done that, and I don’t get why we can’t follow suit.”

This is easily the most outspoken we’ve heard anyone from the Avalanche organization be on the topic of testing and protocols.

I’m not saying he’s right, I’m not saying he’s wrong, but I’m huge on perspective and seeing things from other people’s point of view who have a different day-to-day experience than you do, and I think he makes some interesting points that force you to think a bit, especially that the team is relatively limited in what they do away from the rink.

Here’s the only thing I know relative to where we’re at with this pandemic and relative to the NHL season. The League is closing in on not being able to re-schedule games, they’ve eaten into the safety net that was the Olympic break.

With fewer and fewer dates available to make up games, I do believe that we will see the NHL make some sort of shift in its testing process to ensure that not only the playoffs can start on time, but so they can get through those playoffs without any major hiccups or delays.

It’s unfortunate that we’re still talking about this now two years later. I wish we weren’t, but it is a harsh reality right now, and I think the one thing we can all agree on is how much we look forward to the day, whenever that is, that we talk about these “COVID seasons” in hindsight.