Ben Meyers made his playoff debut 24 hours after his close college friend became a playoff hero.
Meyers, who played NCAA hockey for the Golden Gophers last season, watched some of the Wild-Stars game Monday night, not knowing yet that he would play for the Avalanche in Game 1 the next day. His old Minnesota teammate Brock Faber signed recently with the Wild. Faber — after playing two regular-season games — was in the playoff lineup and made a game-saving block in overtime.
“I saw the block. Pretty cool for him,” Meyers said. “Obviously it’s great that he got in the lineup for a playoff game.”
Then Meyers ended up in one by necessity. Avalanche forward Andrew Cogliano (upper body) remains day-to-day going into Game 2 vs. the Seattle Kraken on Thursday (7:30 p.m. MT). He briefly skated Wednesday before an optional practice for the Avs.
Cogliano, Darren Helm and Jack Johnson are all day-to-day, coach Jared Bednar said. Johnson was set to play Game 1 before a pregame lower-body injury. Bednar doesn’t think it’s serious, but he doesn’t know if Johnson will play in Game 2.
Cogliano missed the last game of the regular season as well.
“He’s a warrior. So we know he wants to be out there with us,” Logan O’Connor said. “I think from talking to him, he doesn’t want to put the team in jeopardy just for his selfish reasons to play another game. So he’s being very diligent with that as a leader. I think it’s obviously killing him not to be out there, but he’s doing everything in his power to get right, to get back in.”
Meyers played a sheltered five minutes at third-line left wing.
Troubles with ice
Alexandar Georgiev took a stride to his left, across the top of his crease. Seattle was buzzing into the Avalanche zone on a rush.
“I was making a movement to the trailing guy,” Georgiev said afterward, “and my skate caught on the ice.”
It was the Kraken’s second goal in the 3-1 win, sniped by Alex Wennberg. Georgiev, making his first career playoff start, tumbled to his left as the puck passed him.
It’s commonplace for NHL players to be a tad picky about ice quality. The Avs noticed a few abnormalities in their home rink during Game 1 at Ball Arena, but all of them agreed with Bednar’s reasoning that “the ice is the same for both teams. They didn’t seem to have a problem with the speed of it or the execution of it.”
“Just kind of pucks bouncing and pucks not staying flat,” forward Matt Nieto said.
Alex Newhook said players could feel it was different at morning skate, but it’s something both teams have to adjust to.
“Thatap not a reasonable excuse,” O’Connor said.
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