3 Keys for the Colorado Avalanche’s Nashville Series
The Colorado Avalanche need to watch a few points to take the first-round series against the Nashville Predators.
The Colorado Avalanche are facing the Nashville Predators for the first round of the playoffs. The series started Tuesday, May 3, resulting in a victory for Colorado.
The Avalanche have faced the Predators one other time in the playoffs. In 2018, Colorado squeaked in as a Wild Card team. They were eliminated in six games, but now without giving the Predators one heck of an unexpected and entertaining fight. That was the epic year that backup goalie Andrew Hammond was a playoff star for a night.
Well, the situation is vastly different this season. Colorado will be enjoying home ice for the entirety of the first three rounds they may play by virtue of winning the Western Conference. They are no longer in any way the underdogs they were in 2018. Indeed, they’re the team to beat in the west.
Well, that’s not what we want to see in this series, is it? So, let’s see some keys for Colorado in the first series of what well all hope is a deep, deep playoff run.
Curse of the Former Avs
Oh, boy, what is it about former Colorado Avalanche players being able to score so easily on the team? It really does seem like a curse.
Well, it happened again last night — twice. The hotly debated Matt Duchene, once the Avs’ golden child and now their favorite demon, scored two goals against his former team. Yes, they were the only two goals standing up to Colorado’s seven, but they were both scored by a former Av.
Matt Duchene served his time in Colorado, and then he moved on. The Avalanche were well compensated for him. So, let’s move on. Because it does seem that players like Duchene take inspiration from being booed by their former home crowd. And we don’t want him getting hot — he apparently still has the soft hands that made him our darling.
Momentum
The Colorado Avalanche are not going into the playoffs with any sort of momentum. They went 4-5-1 in their last 10 games. Let’s be honest — it was an awful way to finish the season.
You want to go into the playoffs healthy, of course. And, for the first time in a long time, the Avs will be doing just that. Even captain Gabriel Landeskog, who’s been out after knee surgery, is expected to be in the lineup. So, there’s some credit to the idea that Colorado was playing just to stay healthy the last handful of games since they had no real motivation otherwise.
However, players will always say you can’t turn motivation off and on. We saw some sloppy habits creep into their play in those last games. Those are not default settings you want the players to revert to in a playoff series.
Luckily, as we know, they came out dominant in the first period of Game 1, scoring five goals. But let’s also be honest — after that period, their momentum seemed to fade. Take away the first period, and you’re looking at a closely contested 2-2 game.
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History Repeating Itself
Ok, nonetheless, 7-2 is a pretty decisive victory no matter when the majority of the goals came. That kind of score bodes well for the Colorado Avalanche, right?
You can never let up on the gas, and I mean never. Remember, just last year the Colorado Avalanche won a decisive victory against the Vegas Golden Knights. They take Game 1 of the second round with an impressive 7-1 score.
Now, I’m not saying they took the foot off the gas per se, since they won the second game. However, the Stanley Cup is the hardest trophy to win in sports. You’ve got to be sharp the whole way through, not rest on your laurels.
Colorado went on to lose that series in six games. That is not history we want repeating itself. Here in Avs Nation we tend to prefer history from the years 1996 and 2001, right?