Mile High Sticking
Fansided

Colorado Avalanche Want Home Ice Advantage In the Playoffs

By Karen Cherrett

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY - JANUARY 04: Jared Bednar, head coach of the Colorado Avalanche works the game against the New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center on January 04, 2020 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY - JANUARY 04: Jared Bednar, head coach of the Colorado Avalanche works the game against the New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center on January 04, 2020 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

Jared Bednar, the Coach of the Colorado Avalanche wants the team to win ‘home-ice’ advantage in the Round Robin. How can they do that?

Sounded a bit strange hearing Colorado Avalanche Coach, Jared Bednar, at a press conference late this week say that these early round-robin games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs weren’t just for fun. He says that the team wants ‘home-ice advantage.’

Bit strange when you aren’t playing on your own home ice.

The team is thousands of miles away in Edmonton, Canada, not at Pepsi Center here in Colorado, so what would it mean for the team to have ‘home ice’?

I honestly don’t know.  It baffles me.

Yes, I see the categorized home team would have the advantage of the twice attack end and when you are in an unfamiliar stadium, what benefit would that give the team?

Home ice advantage usually means you play more of your games in front of your home crowd. Well, that’s not going to happen, given none of us, Avalanche fans can go to Rogers Arena to watch the games live.

So no chanting and cheering for the Avalanche more than their opponent.

They may get to wear their preferred jerseys?  Could have a mental impact I suppose, but I doubt it’s going to make the final difference between winning a Stanley Cup and not.

So other than the wins impacting where the Avalanche sit on the overall Western Conference ladder heading into the real Stanley Cup Playoff games I’m not certain there is any difference whether they have home-ice advantage or not.

Am I missing something?

The 12 teams from the Western Conference are all living in the bubble in Edmonton. They all have the same facilities, the same choices to make about what they do each and every day from now until the Stanley Cup is awarded.

What ‘advantage’ can a team have?

Some of the Avalanche Players and their Coach, Jared Bednar commented prior to the team entering the Edmonton bubble that the players travel well and enjoy each others company when they have been on road trips this year.

Interestingly that non-home-ice advantage saw the Avalanche produce a number of wins. Perhaps I should say ‘unexpected’ wins. On a number of the road trips, they came away with more wins than loses, something not that familiar, even over the past couple of seasons.

Yet this year things have been different. Even in the darkness of having a lot of their key players out with injuries, the other players stepped up and proved that even on the road they could win tough games.

So, I get that being on the road might be the driver for the Avs to perform at their best to bring home the Cup. I don’t’ see any advantage for them though.

Maybe it’s more of a ‘mental’ thing for the team. Knowing they took down their opponents and finished on top in the Round Robin.  Knowing that in the normal context of the Playoffs they would have been the team with that ‘home-ice’ advantage.

Could be that Coach Bednar is psyching the team into that space to realise what we the fans added to the mix of their playoff run last year.  Loud roof lifting support that showed the team we were with them 110% of the way.

Maybe that’s what Coach Bednar wants the team to remember. Maybe that is what will help them bring Lord Stanley home to Colorado!

Well, if that’s the case, we’re ready. Bring on the Round Robin and home-ice advantage.

Home/Analysis