This Colorado Avalanche team looks good. Really good.
If you have plans for late May or early June, you might want to delay them a little longer, because this team might still be going at that point.
I took some video of the Avalanche coming off the ice after dispatching the Winnipeg Jets in five games on Tuesday night. For a team that hasn’t won before, you might expect celebrating, with a lot of hooting and hollering.
Not this team. This is a team that’s won before, and wants to win again. The job isn’t done, and they look laser focused.
No big celebration from these guys. Just a group of players that know what it takes to win, and aren’t satisfied by just getting past round one.
It wasn’t easy, and no one expected it to be. This Jets squad made the Avalanche look silly a few times during the regular season, and embarrassed them on home ice a week before the playoffs began.
This team didn’t throw the tape out and forget about that game. Nope, they owned up to it, and were better off for it.
“I think over the years, you just learn that there’s going to be highs and lows and it’s how you react to it along the way, Nathan MacKinnon said after Game Five. “Super, super happy with everyone. How hard we worked and how hard we battled this series was amazing. Before the series, I think we came in really humble. We weren’t playing well. These guys just beat us 7-0, so it was a big wake up call to how hard it takes to even win a series in this league. Super proud of the guys and a lot of work to have to do here.”
Just think about that for a second. An Avalanche team who won the Stanley Cup just two years ago has the ability to take a look at themselves in the mirror and realize that they just haven’t been good enough. There aren’t a lot of teams that can do that, but we’ve learned that this Avalanche team can. That’s not good news for the rest of the NHL.
This is a team that looks deep. Really deep. According to Jared Bednar, Jonathan Drouin might return late in round two, and the break might give Joel Kiviranta enough time to heal up. Nikolai Kovalenko now gets a few days to breathe and get some real practice time in with the team.
And who knows, maybe Gabriel Landeskog makes an appearance at some point. We’re rapidly approaching the one year mark since his surgery, and he’s been around the team. I still have my doubts that happens, but I would never count Gabe out.
This is a really good, and really deep team. There’s still a ways to go before they can lift the Stanley Cup once again, but they look like they’re very capable of doing it. Two weeks ago, we might have questioned that.
Not anymore.
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