Dallas – A few days ago, if someone had said the Avalanche would be leading the first-round series against the Stars 3-1, Colorado hockey fans would have said: Good deal.
Actually, the Avs would have, too.
“Who said at the beginning of the series that we would win four in a row?” asked Avalanche winger Pierre Turgeon, a significant voice despite his fourth-line status because he played for the Stars for three seasons and knows most of the players in the other dressing room. “We’re going to have a little bit of adversity here, and we have to step up the next game and do it.”
The Avs are in solid shape heading into Game 5 of the series this afternoon at the American Airlines Center.
They will not collapse completely, which is what it would take to blow the series.
Playoff hockey is a different animal because of the relentless physical and mental pressures, so comparisons to other sports’ postseasons are irrelevant. The Avs are not the 1975 Penguins or the 1942 Red Wings waiting to happen. Those are the only NHL teams to lose a series after taking a 3-0 lead, and the Avs will not join them on that page of the annals of NHL postseason embarrassment.
Unless…
The only way this could happen is if the Avs’ collective psyche took a slap shot to the face in the 4-1 loss Friday night that won’t go away, and if Jose Theodore goes from mediocre-at-best to terrible, making the March 8 trade and the Avalanche’s commitment to him for the next two seasons seem even more risky.
I suppose that’s all possible, but how can a team that has gotten so much credit for character and relative overachievement suddenly crumble? If it happens, all that praise – mostly deserved, at times overblown by those obligated to advance the organization’s cause – will be rendered retroactively hollow.
Game 4 was more about the Stars finally playing up to their capability than it was an Avalanche flameout. The Stars got the puck to the net more than occasionally on the shaky Theodore. Even the previously missing-in-action Bill Guerin contributed a fluky goal. They didn’t go into brain-lock mode when trying to hold a third-period lead. They got a solid game from goalie Marty Turco. They held the Avalanche scoreless on six Colorado power plays. They played as if they hadn’t bagged it.
“They’re a good team and we respect them, so it’s going to be up to us to match their work ethic in their building,” Theodore said.
This Colorado-Dallas situation shapes up as the most possible way a comeback from 0-3, or a collapse after a 3-0 lead, can happen: The “better” team, at least in terms of regular-season record, has the home-ice advantage. It loses the first two at home, drops Game 3 as well, but still has two of the final four at home – including Game 7. And when the series is over, the first three games seem flukish, aberrational, especially because the better team snapped out of it.
It’s not as outlandish as the precedents seem to indicate. But it’s too much of a hill to climb, even for the Stars in this series. The Avalanche – scrappy and resilient – drew good fortune its way in two of the three victories. That’s not luck. That’s coaxing the breaks your way, and that’s one of the tricks in any playoff run for all but the most dominant teams in any sport.
The improbable comeback victories in Games 2 and 3 will turn out to have tipped the series to Colorado, because the Avs are good enough and have enough character to avoid dropping four straight – even to a “better” team that at the end of the series might be regretting not getting a wake-up call in time as much as conceding defeat.
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
