If someone asked me at the beginning of the season, which teams I’d least like to play in the playoffs, I’d have answered: Minnesota Wild, Vegas Golden knight, St. Louis Blues, or the San Jose Sharks. As the playoffs are already underway, we face off against the Blues in Round 1 and will have to play either the Wild or the Knights if we want to make it to the Western Conference Finals. Despite having to match up against these teams, the Avs’ final win of the regular season vs. the Los Angeles Kings ended the shortened 56 game season 39-13-4 and clinched the President’s Trophy for the best record in the league. This secures the Avs with home-ice advantage through the entirety of the playoffs. During the regular season, the Avs won 22/39 of their wins at home and only suffered four regulation losses. The Avs play well with thin air. With the last two playoff runs coming to tragic ends in Game 7 loses on their opponent’s ice, and with capacity seating restrictions loosened to allow 7,750 spectators, we can only hope that there will be no tragedies this year.
The Avs were the only team to suffer two Covid protocol sessions this season, and despite having minor slumps after their postponements, the Avs finished the season on top with 82 points. This is the third time in Avalanche history that they have won the President’s Trophy. The last time was in 2001, and for anyone with a foggy memory, that is the last year they won the Stanley Cup. Twenty years ago, the Avs also last met the St. Louis Blues in the playoffs. This year, Joe Sakic won’t be scoring the game-winning OT goal to send the team to the Stanley Cup Finals, but he will be watching from his seat above, where he has been lording over the club since 2013.
This year will make the fourth straight playoff berth for the Avs, and after the two previous devastating losses to the Sharks in 2019 and the Stars in the bubble last year, the Avs have been the favored team from the start of the season. In 2017, Jared Bednar's first year as head coach, the Avs finished last in the league with 48 points. That year the Avs only won 22 home games. Total. Out of 82 games. This year, the Avs won that many games at home during a shortened season. Making it to the playoffs in 2018 and pushing it to 6 games vs. Nashville, the team who made it to the finals the year before felt like enough of a victory. Losing to San Jose in 7 in Round 2 was infuriating, but still, a commendable effort to make it that far. Last year’s loss to the Stars in 7 was heartbreaking. The Avs have come a long way since Bednar’s first season. Entering this year, the Avs have only had one goal: to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup. Anything else will be a failure. Championship teams are a rarity (just ask Minnesota), but the team that Sakic has built over his tenure as GM feels like a team with the caliber to go all the way. The star-studded team of 2001 is no longer possible in today’s salary-caped league, but the Avs of 2021 have the chemistry reminiscent of that former team.
If all it took were speed, finesse, and chemistry to win the Cup, the Avs wouldn’t have anything to worry about. However, the playoffs are different. It takes strength and physicality to preserver to the final round. St. Louis knows what it takes. They were the last team in the league in 2019 and came back to win the Stanley Cup in June of the same year. However, St. Louis will not outskate the Avs, who are a far better club as the 19 points we have on them suggest. In Game 1, the Blues attempted to use their strength to intimate the Avs. They looked like a group of bullies on the playground trying to push around the scrawny kids. But in reality, this tactic stems from their insecurities. Someone needed to remind the Blues that bullying isn’t tolerated, and it came from none other than 92. Gabriel Landeskog quite literally stepped in to show his strength in the smash-up with Brayden Schenn, and earned a Gordie Howe hat trick with a goal and (two) assists.
Since the Avs showed their physicality early on, the only hope the Blues’ have is from one man. Jordan Binnington. On Monday night, he stopped 46 shots, but with 50 shots, the Avs were the victors. If they want to win, he will have to be perfect in net. It’s a lot to put on a goaltender but a netminder can steal the game. The key for the Avs will come from maintaining their game, as long as they don’t succumb to their level of play and take pointless mentalities as Kadri did in Game 2, resulting in a 5 minute major and a goal to allow St. Louis back in the game. Despite weak performance in the second half of the game, the Avs still reigned victorious in a 6-3 victory, and a hat trick (a regular one) for Nathan MacKinnon. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but hopefully, the last three years have taught the Avs some restraint so that in the eloquent words of Jake Taylor, we can “win the whole f’in thing.”
I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the 2001 Cup than with another. Two wins down, fourteen more to go.