Clean Sweep! Resilient Avs come from behind to move on to Round 2

They say that the fourth and final win you need to close out a Stanley Cup Playoff series is the hardest one to get, and the Colorado Avalanche got a good reminder of that as they were looking to put the Nashville Predators in the rearview mirror and move on to Round 2.

It was a tentative crowd inside Bridgestone Arena as the game started, the fans seemed they were going through the same feeling-out process we hear teams talk about. In short, everyone was trying to figure out what type of game this would be. 

Games 1-3 had been statistical and analytical blowouts by the Avs, but you got the sense after just a few minutes into tonight’s game that this was finally going to Nashville’s push back. This would be the game where they would empty the tank and leave it all out there to try and send the series back to Denver. 

The first minute-ish, I don’t know if I’d quite say were “controlled” by the Predators, but they definitely got their looks. They seemed like they had good energy, and were trying their hardest to get the crowd revved up and into the game. 

Try as they might to get things started off in their favor, the Avs depth up front took center stage less than two minutes in, and it was quite the spectacle. 

Just seconds before the clock hit 18:00, Avalanche forward Ancre Burakovsky walked off the wall and absolutely ripped a shot high on the short side past Connor Ingram. Only thing, initially it was waived off by the official, and play continued on. 

How is this possible you ask? How could such mistake be made? Well, Burakovsky wired his shot with so much velocity, that it actually ripped a hole in the netting, causing the puck to come through the back of the goal. Add in the fact that the shot was taken from such a sharp angle, and the ref had reason to believe that the puck actually just skipped off the outside of the net. 

When Burakovsky shot it initially, out loud I said “woah!”. The shot was that impressive, but when the ref waved his arms to signal no-goal, I thought that it was me who had seen wrong.

What made it so weird though, was the fact that Burakovsky started to celebrate himself, and so did the Avalanche bench. The play continued on for almost a full minute without interruption from the war-room in Toronto, and pretty much everyone in the building thought nothing more of it, except for the Avs bench. 

At the next whistle, Nathan MacKinnon made a bee-line towards Lead Referee Wes McCauley to plead his case. At the same time, the off-ice officials seated in-between the penalty boxes began to call for the game’s two referees to come over and have another look at the play in question.

After a longer-than-expected review, and an inspection of the Nashville net, it was ruled a goal, and the Avs were off and running again. 

You felt the air leave the building almost completely. So much so, that I actually wondered… “are they going to pack it in right here and now? Is this series done on this one goal?”. The Avalanche turned the pressure up, and really started to take the game over. The Predators were hanging on by a thread. 

Give them credit though, because they certainly did hang on long enough to be able to claw their way back into the game, and that’s exactly what they did as time wound down in the opening frame. 

With one second to spare before the one-minute warning, Yakov Trenin picked up a loose puck and whipped a great shot on net and it seemed to catch Avalanche goaltender Pavel Francouz off guard. Just like that, things went from feeling like the Preds were on life-support, to a newfound life in the building right as the teams were heading to the dressing room. 

We had a game on our hands. 

The second period featured an intensity that we had yet to see from Nashville. They looked like they were going to give every last thing that had to try and extend this series. The problem for them was the same problem they’ve had for the entire series. The Avs were just a better team, flat out. 

As inspired as they played, the Avalanche were only allowing the Predators to get one-and-done chances. Any time Nashville carried the puck into the offensive zone, it felt like the Avalanche defensemen were stripping pucks off sticks cleanly and breaking them back out almost instantly. 

On the flip side, for the first half of the second period, every time the Avs got a look in the offensive zone, it seemed like they were getting two or three good chances at the net. You could feel the next one coming. 

Who else but Cale Makar. On the day that it was officially announced he was a Norris Trophy finalist for the second consecutive season, Makar stole the show. And this goal was just the beginning of that. 

It was one of his signature wrist shots from the point. Ingram had no chance, this shot was labeled for the back of the net. 

You felt the immediate sag in the arena again. You could feel the collective “here it comes” from the crowd. Again though, give credit to the Preds, they hung on. 

For the second time of the night, I bumped my nearest press-box colleague and said something to the effect of, if Nashville doesn’t get one before the period is done, I think they’re finished. 

Again, as the clock was winding down, Yakov Trenin gave his team a jolt one more time. After Francouz made an excellent save on a partial breakaway, a bouncing puck couldn’t be corralled by Avalanche back checkers, and Trenin got a clean look at the net from about 15’ out.

Tied once again at the break. 

These types of situations typically favor the “underdog”. They keep themselves in the game just long enough, and needed just a little more luck to do the improbable. 

It looked like they got it less than five minutes into the final frame when Filip Forsberg tapped in a great backdoor feed for not only his first goal of the series but his first point! Up until this point, the Avalanche had completely erased the 40-goal scorer from this series. 

For the first time since we arrived in Nashville four nights ago, it felt like a playoff atmosphere. 

The Predators had their first lead of the entire series, the crowd was alive, and the heartbeat of their offense showed a sign of life for the first time in four games. 

It would have made total sense to see the Preds take over and get the game across the finish line, but the Avalanche showed one more time what has made them so special all season. 

There was no panic in their game, and they didn’t try to force anything. They stuck to their playstyle and trusted that if they executed, things would work out in the end. 

Nashville’s only lead of the series lasted just four minutes and fifty-seven seconds. 

Erik Johnson carried the puck into to Nashville zone, and drove into the corner before escaping to the wall and spotting Devon Toews joining the rush late, completely uncovered. 

Johnson made a beautiful read, and a tape-to-tape pass to set up Toews, who made no mistake. All tied again, but this one felt different. It made the game 3-3, but it felt like a game-winner. 

The sense of belief seemed to evaporate from Bridgestone Arena, the spirit of the Predator players seemed to break, all while the Avalanche began to ramp things up. 

The ice tilted heavily in Colorado’s favor, we were right back to Nashville just barely hanging on, but they couldn’t hang on any longer. The Avalanche were about to deliver the final blow. 

So much talk in this series about Makar vs. Josi, and while Cale continues to downplay it, it was obvious to anyone watching who the better player was, that it really wasn’t particularly close, and Makar showed why on the eventual game-winning goal. 

After absolutely burning his man at the blue line, and shrugging off a check, Makar darted down the wall and zinged a pass right across the middle of the ice to hit Val Nichushkin for a one-timer from the low circle. Who had another front-row seat to Makar’s brilliance? Roman Josi.

Val punched it home, and that was all she wrote. 

Nathan MacKinnon would add an empty-netter to seal things up, and the Avs are on to the second round. 

I do want to pause here for just a second to talk about a not-so-small detail that I noticed tonight. Well, I noticed it again tonight. It has become something of a trend this season. 

At the final TV timeout of the game, with the Avs defending a one-goal lead in the fourth game of a series they had dominated every aspect of, every single guy was huddled around the whiteboard, fully engaged in what was being said. 

And on the adjacent bench, was a team with just minutes remaining in their season if they didn’t score a goal, who needed desperately to leave everything they had on the ice, and there was almost no communication going on… between anyone. 

Again, this is not just something that I saw tonight, this has been a theme. I don’t know if there is any team in the league right now more bought-in than the Colorado Avalanche. Every guy knows their job, and they will give everything they have to do it well.

When I saw that, I knew the Avs were going to hold on. They are just too cohesive of a unit. 

It’s been so interesting to watch the growth of this team over the last two-three years. There were so many points in this series that would have crushed past Avalanche teams. Jared Bednar said he thought the word that best described them in the first round was “consistent”, and I couldn’t agree more. 

No matter what was thrown their way, the Avs would not be deterred. They outplayed the Preds at every turn. They outworked, out-skilled, out-smarted, and out-coached Nashville. It didn’t matter what the score was, how many shots had been blocked, or where the games were being played. The Avalanche were just better. 

Like I said earlier though, Makar stole the show. His series-leading 10 points are the most points by a defenseman through the first four games of the playoffs in NHL history. Just unbelievable stuff. 

The team will now have roughly a week off as we wait for Round 2 to begin. This time of year, you can never get too much rest, so long as you don’t lose your focus. Given the way the Avs performed in this series after a so-so finish to the regular season, I don’t think that’ll be much of a problem. 

The Avalanche are just shifting gears.