After two rounds, the Colorado Avalanche have played just nine playoff games. The best team in the regular season has continued to impress on their way to an 8-1 record. After dispatching the Los Angeles Kings via a sweep, the Avalanche broke Minnesota hearts with an OT comeback for the ages over the Wild.
This sets the stage for a Western Conference Final against the always-dangerous Vegas Golden Knights. Cocky fans might boast about making relatively quick work of a very talented Wild club in just 5 games. But I'm not here to do that. After all, over in the East, the Carolina Hurricanes have swept both opponents they faced thus far.
That's some serious momentum and just one of the many reminders for the Avalanche to remain humble and focused if they want to win it all. Yes, this Avalanche team is stacked with supremely talented players at every level. But so far, it's been overall depth that has pushed Colorado that last inch.
Just prior to the postseason, I wrote about the bottom-six forwards being a major advantage against other rosters. That has proven true in more ways than one already. Indeed, the grit and determination of the fourth line shined on Wednesday night. My colleague Katie Bartlett has gone as far as calling them the foundation of Colorado's identity.
With world-class talents Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar present and accounted for, that is a monumental statement. Yet, it's hardly coming from left field, because depth makes the difference often.
Give Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland credit
I want to take a moment to highlight Colorado's late-season acquisitions, and especially a couple of pickups that didn't garner massive headlines at the time. I'm talking about a pair of unlikely overtime heroes, Brett Kulak, and Nicolas Roy.
Everyone in Avalanche fandom is still buzzing from Kulak's OT winner to eliminate the Wild. Kulak capitalized on an elite setup from Martin Necas and blew the roof off Ball Arena in the process. To say Kulak is exceeding expectations is putting it lightly. This is a guy who posts a few goals a year, and hadn't found the back of the net in 27 games with Colorado.
I'm not bringing this up to dump on a player in his brightest moment of glory. No, this is the playoffs baby! Every goal is as precious as pearls from an oyster or pilfered from grandma's jewelry box. The fact that Colorado's other OT winner this postseason came from the stick of Nicolas Roy only illustrates the point further.
For those who might have forgotten, Roy played the hero in Game 2 against the Kings. Roy has quickly proven to be the best kind of sneaky clutch performer that contenders need. The fact that Roy came to the Avalanche just before the deadline, in a move that first looked like a pivot away from the big splash of bringing back Nazem Kadri is almost comedic now. If I were Avalanche GM Chris MacFarland, I'd likely be measuring space for a Jim Gregory Award in-between bouts of maniacal laughter.
How these moves remind me of 2022
There are some beautiful parallels to these acqusitions in Colorado Avalanche history. In the run-up to the Avalanche hoisting the Stanley Cup in 2022, the club made some under-the-radar moves that shored up the overall roster.
The two I am recalling specifically were trades for Josh Manson and Artturi Lehkonen. In the case of Manson, the Avalanche knew they needed both size and toughness for the postseason stretch, and they parted with a fan-favorite Tyson Jost to get it done.
This isn't a one-for-one comparison with the Kulak trade. Obviously saying goodbye to another defenseman in Samuel Girard makes the deal different. But it was a move that initally made me sad in a similar way. The thing is, it was necessary for Colorado. Girard is a great puck-mover, and a guy I loved to root for. But Brett Kulak is the kind of body the Avalanche needed in that spot. Almost nothing about him is flashy, he's just solid and reliable.
Oh, and of course when he does score, it's a major plus. Immediately upon Colorado forcing overtime on Wednesday, I started asking myself who on the team might have that magic moment on their stick. My first thought was not Kulak, but Manson.
You see, I still remember 'The Manimal's overtime blast to the top-corner to beat Jordan Binnington in Game 1 of that second-round series against St. Louis. At the time of that goal, I didn't know Manson had that in him. Part of that is unfamiliarity with a new player, but it's also a case of playoff pressure revealing who a guy can be.
Everyone knows that Kulak is hungry after getting so close with Edmonton but finding out just how hungry has already been a joy to watch. Nic Roy might be a different story because he knows what it is to win a Cup. Roy won with Vegas in 2023, but that doesn't mean we should expect any less drive from him going forward.
Roy's acquisition is like the move to grab Artturi Lehkonen from Montreal in 2022. Okay, so the Roy deal might not be a generational fleece by CMac, but at the time, it was viewed similarly by outsiders. The Avalanche parted ways with a high-end prospect and a second-round pick in exchange for a depth forward. This year, Colorado gave up a 1st and a 5th rounder to Toronto for what some thought was minor improvement.
Lehkonen has since become a quintessential guts and glue player for Colorado. I've said before that he's everything you want in a hockey player. He might not grade out as the most skilled, but he does all the little things well and plays with elite hockey IQ. So often, teams forget about him because they are trying to track MacKinnon or Necas only to get beat by a perfect Lehkonen deflection.
Thinking back to 2022, it's impossible to forget Lehkonen's Stanley Cup-sealing goal against Tampa Bay. The player who is constantly in the right spot to capitalize should never be overlooked. And yet, that's just what happens when the lights are brightest. The fact that Colorado has been without Lehkonen these past two games is tough, but it's also why the contributions of Roy have been so important to helping Colorado's offense remain potent.
I'm not ready to predict who might have the next series-clinching goal on their stick just yet. But with a team as deep as the Colorado Avalanche, it's just comforting to have faith that it could come from anywhere.
Every player who gets traded dreams of redemption. They might frame it differently based on how they arrived with a new organization. But make no mistake about the drive that it plants in the heart of an athlete. It just might be the missing piece to a championship puzzle.
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