The rest of the way is bonus hockey for the Avalanche and its fans. Colorado’s 14th trip to the Stanley Cup playoffs isn’t about winning the Western Conference finals and playing for the Cup — at least not for now.
For now, it’s about celebrating the Avs even making the playoffs in Year 1 of their rebuild and doing their best against the President Trophy-winning Nashville Predators in a first-round series that begins Thursday at Bridgestone Arena in Music City.
Sunday, less than 24 hours after Colorado defeated St. Louis 5-2 in the unique do-or-die regular-season finale for both teams, the NHL announced the seven-game series schedule with the Preds.
Game 2 is Saturday at Nashville and playoff hockey returns to Denver with Games 3 and 4 at the Pepsi Center on April 16 and April 18, respectively. Few select tickets remain available at altitudetickets.com.
Make no mistake, the NHL’s worst team in 2016-17 doesn’t expect to win the club’s third Stanley Cup. But the Avs do expect to play well and relish the opportunity to bring playoff hockey back to the Pepsi Center for at least two games.
Game 6, if necessary, is April 22 at the Pepsi Center.
“We worked really hard all year as a team to get where we are. We deserve to be in the playoffs,” said Avs goalie Jonathan Bernier, who figures to start every game in the series because of the knee and groin injuries to opening-night starter Semyon Varlamov. “We went through a lot of adversity this year with injuries and things like that. I really believe we deserve to be where we’re at, and now we have to show what we can do in the playoffs.”
Colorado will be without Varlamov and top defenseman Erik Johnson (fractured knee cap) throughout the series.
“I was really proud of this team before tonight, and then to see them step up the way they did and finish the job of phase one of our season, I don’t even know what to say,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said after Saturday’s big win.
The Avs, the NHL’s youngest team with an average age of 25.8, made a 47-point improvement from last season, going from 48 to 95 — tied for the fourth-best year-to-year gain in NHL history.
“I’m real proud of the guys who went through what we went through last year. That was a tough year,” said Bednar, who is in his second year as an NHL coach. “At times you go your separate ways, but it takes a lot of commitment to those guys to have the desire to work through a new season with new players and the excitement, I think, of the new players coming in did our team a lot of good.”
The Avs feature 14 new players, albeit a handful who finished with the team last season after playing most of the year in the minors or college.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a group with such team chemistry, and whether we made it or not, I’d still be really proud of this group,” Colorado left wing and team captain Gabe Landeskog said. “This is a big accomplishment to obviously make it after such a tough season last year. But we’re not done.”
Said Nathan MacKinnon, the Avs’ star center: “Itap great. We’re all so young — youngest team in the NHL. We definitely have a closeness that I’ve never experienced before on a team. Everybody is rooting for each other, everybody is pulling in the same direction.”
Nashville advanced to the Stanley Cup Final last season as the Western Conference’s No. 8 seed, so there’s no chance the Preds will look past the No. 8 Avalanche. Colorado was 0-3-1 against Nashville this season, losing 4-1 and 5-2 in Music City and 3-2 in overtime and 4-2 in Denver.
“It’s a completely new season now,” Avs defenseman Mark Barberio said. “It was a hard grind to get into the playoffs — it took a Game 82 win to get in — but now we’re in and Nashville was the eighth seed last year and did a great job to the Final. Anything can happen once the playoffs start.”
“We’re going to embrace the underdog role,” Colorado defenseman Tyson Barrie said. “We got an excited group here so we’ll try to give them everything they can handle.”
No. 1 Nashville Predators vs. No. 8 Colorado Avalanche
All times Mountain
* If necessary
Game 1: Thursday, 7:30 p.m. @ Predators
Game 2: Saturday, 1 p.m. @ Predators
Game 3: April 16, 8 p.m. @ Avalanche
Game 4: April 18, 8 p.m. @ Avalanche
*Game 5: April 20, TBD @ Predators
*Game 6: April 22, TBD @ Avalanche
*Game 7: April 24, TBD @ Predators
