From brilliant to resilient, the Avs battled their own history and finally won one

Now that. That was a playoff series worth remembering.

While it has been eye-rollingly stupid to watch Colorado’s detractors the last few years pretend like getting out of the first round is some given (“But they only beat the x-ranked team! How hard is that?” they asked while ignoring the Avs were the only team in the NHL to accomplish the feat), it was always true that Colorado’s opening series lacked a certain…competitiveness.

Even when Colorado was the eighth seed and beat top-seed Calgary back in 2019, the series was 4-1 in games and despite two overtime games, it felt like it was entirely in Colorado’s control from the moment Nathan MacKinnon scored the game-winning goal in overtime in Game 2 in Calgary. Then Cale Makar got off the plane and joined the team and, well, the Avs weren’t seriously pressed again in the first round.

What followed was a string of disappointments. We’re going to re-live them one last time just to bury them, to build the story of how last night happened and what it means for this Avalanche core.

That 2019 playoff run was still the Avalanche in the infancy of their competitive window, very much still just happy to be there but then a hard-fought series against the significantly battle-tested San Jose Sharks sent the Avs packing in a thrilling seven-game series. Everyone felt pretty good about it overall and the front office aggressively upgraded in response.

The Edmonton bubble during the pandemic was some of the weirdest hockey we’ll ever see, from getting used to games being played without crowds to the complete lack of home-ice advantage and all that comes with it.

Colorado’s seven-game defeat, in which they were missing seven regulars from the Game 7 lineup, was frustrating because they had a one-goal lead in the final five minutes and couldn’t even hang on to it for a single shift. That team had erased a 3-1 series deficit with Michael Hutchinson, their third goaltender, in net and you can absolutely argue should have won despite the injury issues. They simply succumbed to the moment.

Then came last year. President’s Trophy winners, division title, historic on-ice results that we knew were distorted by the limited schedule and the poor division they took advantage of, but a very good team nonetheless. They won their first six playoff games. Life was good.

The Avs weren’t playing well in Vegas in Game 3 but had a one-goal lead in the third period. They were mere minutes from building a 3-0 series lead and pushing the Golden Knights to the brink.

We all know what happened. They folded in Sin City and “Colorado can’t get over the hump” went from an annoying subplot to a full-blown team-defining narrative. Colorado’s most familiar faces were at the heart of the conversations about their inability to close.

Nathan MacKinnon, for all his brilliance, is scoreless in his career in three Game 7s, two of which went to overtime. Gabe Landeskog, hailed his entire professional career as the model captain, watched up close as his teams emotionally crumbled in the most meaningful moments. Erik Johnson hadn’t even been healthy for the Dallas or Vegas series losses, so the longest-tenured Av couldn’t even be considered a factor in any of this.

Colorado’s heart and soul just hadn’t been good enough in the big moments, with the chips down. They carried that with them this season. They admitted it, talked openly about their failures, and owned them not as a badge of honor but as a sign of accountability. They understood.

They got into the playoffs and took advantage of a wounded animal in the Nashville Predators. Missing one of the main reasons they even made the playoffs, goaltender Juuse Saros, the Avs took advantage of David Rittich and Connor Ingram despite Ingram putting in a totally respectable performance given he hadn’t even played five NHL games before the series.

The Avs swept the Preds, moving their four-year record in the first round to a ridiculous 16-2 with sweeps the last two years.

Waiting for them was the St. Louis Blues, a quality goal-scoring machine whose impressive depth and championship experience were its greatest selling points. They could score with the Avs and after benching Ville Husso in their six-game series win over Minnesota, Jordan Binnington was back in net and sporting the kind of form he had in 2019’s unexpected run to the Stanley Cup.

While most statistical models rightly saw the Avalanche as the superior team at 5v5 with just as impressive an offensive arsenal but also very good defense and quality goaltending, there were some plucky hockey analysts out there who saw Colorado’s demons coming out to play with the experience of a level-headed Blues group.

Then Binnington got hurt early in Game 3 with the series tied 1-1. It was a terrible result on a play that certainly would not have kicked up much dust had it not involved Nazem Kadri, a notorious flashpoint of controversy, especially in the playoffs, throughout his career.

Husso, who played 40 games for the Blues this year and was their starting goaltender for large stretches of the season after Binnington played so poorly at points, came back into the net and was uneven early but got better the more he played.

The Avs swept the Blues in St. Louis and carried a 3-1 series lead back to Denver following Kadri’s legendary Game 4 takedown of an entire city and the cretins who inundated his social media accounts with despicable invective.

Game 5 got off to an incredible start with the Avs dominating play once again (same as they had done in Game 4 after a pretty even Game 3), even scoring the first goal of the game for the first time all series. They got up 3-0 in the second period. They were so close to exorcising the demons that haunted them all year.

You know what came next.

An impossibly bad third period, combined with incredibly fortunate bounces for the Blues and unimaginably bad play from the Avalanche, who completely gave up on the concept of offense and tried to spend half of a playoff game protecting its own goal and not even trying to score anymore.

The Avs wasted a 3-0 lead and, even worse, what should have been Nathan MacKinnon’s signature moment in his career. A one-man show for the ages, he went coast-to-coast to score one of the most singularly brilliant goals we’ve seen all postseason. Colorado’s lead was restored at 4-3 with just over two minutes remaining. It was a hat trick for MacKinnon.

This was the moment. The moment the worst of the Avs’ demons had come to play and MacKinnon, the mightiest of all the Avalanche, had stepped up and refused to let this happen to this team again.

And then it did happen again. Another game-tying goal and then a shockingly soft overtime winner sent the series back to St. Louis. The moment once again was too big for the Avalanche.

Instead of Colorado getting handshakes and a few days of rest, they had to fly back to a city rejuvenated to resume booing them against a team with a recent championship run to lean on and a renewed hunger to steal the series.

The makings of a truly epic collapse were there. Everyone could feel it. It wasn’t hard to picture a scenario where the Blues play with a newfound vigor and take Game 6, getting to the coin flip that is Game 7.

It was Colorado’s most brutal failing to date and it hadn’t even happened yet. What had this team even learned from the last three years of painful playoff losses if it allowed that Game 5 debacle to happen and fester into a full-blown series meltdown? How could we be here…again?

A funny thing happened amid all that angst.

Game 6 started.

Colorado played well. Really well, in fact. They were once again pouring on shots and racking up scoring chances. Multiple lines were contributing, notably a fourth line that had really found its legs in this series, especially after Craig Berube ditched his 11 forward/7 defensemen alignment and gone to a traditional 12/6 setup.

That put Colorado’s fourth line against St. Louis’s true fourth line. The Avs won that matchup all night, giving that group confidence and Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar another chess piece to use as the game wore on.

The Blues scored first once again, the fifth time in six games they had done so. The Avs tied it up, something they also regularly did throughout the series. The Avs also shot themselves in the foot, handing a two-on-one back to the Blues, who capitalized and made it 2-1.

Colorado then survived a Jordan Kyrou breakaway and then a Jordan Kyrou scoring chance on the power play late in the second period where Kyrou outwaited Darcy Kuemper, who wildly overcommitted to Kyrou’s shot and took himself out of the net entirely. Kyrou’s patience was brilliant until it wasn’t anymore, and he backhanded the puck into Josh Manson’s chest after Manson slid down in the crease to take Kuemper’s place in goal.

It was a game-changing moment that kept the Blues from going up 3-1 heading into the third period. That bolt of lightning the Avs were looking for? That was it.

The third period began and the Blues had learned absolutely nothing from Colorado’s Game 5 failures as they, too, decided to just sit back and protect the cage best they could for an entire period. It didn’t work.

J.T. Compher’s second goal of the game tied it up and suddenly this really was the Vegas series all over again, except they were on the Vegas side of the equation this time.

It was Compher’s goal that gave Colorado the lead in Game 3 against VGK last year that might have allowed the Avs to steal that game and, with it, the series. The outplayed Avalanche folded in the game to the relentless pressure of the Golden Knights and the Blues followed suit tonight.

While tied 2-2 wasn’t the world’s most comfortable position, the Avs were still dominating the shot metrics and the Blues weren’t generating any offense. Despite it being late in the third period, they never even really tried. They just kept hoping for something good to happen while the Avalanche, the team everyone had decided was full of choke artists who couldn’t get it done in big moments, continued attacking and trying to make something happen.

30 seconds left.

Over the boards came two-thirds of Colorado’s fourth line that had been so effective all night, but with Landeskog still out there instead of Andrew Cogliano.

Feeling content with the Schenn/Kyrou line on the ice, the Blues punted on any attempt at offense. They dumped the puck, retreated to the neutral zone and dared the Avalanche to make a play.

15 seconds left.

Cale Makar aggressively moved the puck up the ice to Erik Johnson, the former Blues number 1 overall pick who had been unceremoniously dumped back in the 2011 blockbuster trade that brought EJ to Denver and with it a lot of negativity about his time in St. Louis.

Johnson darted up the ice, past Kyrou, who lazily tried to stick check Johnson to no avail.

10 seconds left.

Johnson hits center ice, leaves Kyrou in the dust, crosses the blue line, drops the puck to Logan O’Connor, who immediately threw the puck across the ice where, for the moment, nobody on either team was stationed.

Darren Helm was the trailer and stepped into the puck and scored the second series-clinching goal of his career.

Inexplicably, Blues top defenseman Colton Parayko flinches on the shot and appears to move out of the way of the puck as it beats Husso.

Five seconds left, but it might as well have been zero.

Two teams, two different directions.

The Blues would’ve loved a series win, but a funny thing happens when teams win a championship. That hunger never burns quite as brightly ever again, and the holdovers from their incredible 2019 run didn’t do nearly enough to hold up their end of the bargain this time around. They would’ve loved it, but they didn’t yearn for it.

On the other side, you finally saw that desperation from the Avalanche. You saw it all game, honestly, but seeing it manifest into success is something entirely different. That burning for the win, that driving desire to even try to make a play in the final 15 seconds instead of just sitting back and accepting overtime as an inevitability, that was the difference.

St. Louis hoped, Colorado attacked.

This is a case where the Avalanche took all the previous lessons, including their most recent (and arguably most painful) failure in Game 5, and applied them on the ice. They played with poise, heart, determination, guts.

On one bench, the remnants of championship mettle from the past. On the other, a team trying to prove it’s made of the right stuff to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup.

On paper, Colorado’s accomplishment here is relatively benign. They have beaten two teams whose starting goaltenders were injured and made their first conference finals since 2002, which was tied for the fourth-longest drought in the NHL.

In the moment, it was the ultimate joy, but in the bigger picture, they’re only halfway to the real goal. Only halfway.

Nobody was more aware of this fact after the game than the Avalanche themselves. If you had just taken screenshots of their faces following both Game 5 and 6, you may not be able to tell which one was the face of a team that just suffered a brutal loss and which one had just won the series.

That’s really the point here, I think.

The Avalanche getting out of Round 2 was our goal for them. It was the media’s narrative, the fan’s narrative, the ultimate fallback for anyone who wanted to hurl an insult Colorado’s way.

In their eyes, however, they weren’t focused on getting out of Round 2 in particular, it was simply a byproduct of their actual goal, just another step along the path.

All year, it’s been easy to say this team gets it, that this group is different. Their ability to win games in a lot of different ways, to not let losses stack up, to keep their mindset focused on the work ahead, all were necessary to the chemistry of creating a champion.

Until they took a punch on the chin in the playoffs, however, it was all for naught. Now, there is some proof in the pudding. They aren’t there yet, obviously, but they had to get here in order to get there, you know?

In some ways, that felt like the first playoff series the Avs have won in a long time. No sweep, no opposing team getting slammed into a suitcase and sent packing. This required significantly more grit, more heart, more everything.

At times they thrived, in the end, they survived. That’s all postseason hockey really even is, anyway.

Bring on the Oilers.