Avs Have Learned From Previous Second Round Exits

The Colorado Avalanche has a date and time for the start of its second-round series. However, the opponent is still unknown.
The NHL announced on Thursday that Colorado will host Game 1 of a Round 2 set at Ball Arena on Sunday at 6 p.m. MT, facing the winner of the Minnesota Wild-Vegas Golden Knights series that is now heading to a Game 7.
Minnesota forced a decisive contest of that series set for Friday night in Las Vegas after winning 3-0 in Game 6 on Wednesday, evening the set at 3-3. The Golden Knights had previously led 3-1.

The Avalanche will have a week between outings after wrapping up its first-round series against the St. Louis Blues in a four-game sweep last Sunday.
"You have a couple days off to rest, so that could be a disadvantage, it also could also be an advantage to let some guys rest and have that one extra day that you usually wouldn't have to get your mind cleared and get away from hockey a little bit," said goaltender Philipp Grubauer. "For them, they're in the flow, they're playing, but also they might be tired because they're playing a couple extra games than us. I think from our perspective, we had a couple COVID breaks during the season, so it just feels like another COVID break. A couple days off and then right back to it."

The Avs have used their time this week to rest up and stay sharp mentally and physically as they wait for the next team they'll face. Colorado had a 50-minute full-team practice on Wednesday at Ball Arena and will likely hold another session in the coming days before Game 1 versus the Golden Knights or Wild.
"I think for us, it's maintaining a focus, it's an intensity at practice," said head coach Jared Bednar. "I really liked our practice yesterday. We made sure that there was a physical component to our practice, not just getting up and down the ice. It's trickling that information [about the opponents]--even though we've been putting it together, we haven't been able to give them so much at this point, but we have things ready to keep their minds engaged, reviewing the previous series and some things we've done well."
The Avalanche is in the second round of the postseason for a third-straight season and is taking what it learned in the previous two years in Round 2 against the San Jose Sharks in 2019 and Dallas Stars in 2020 into this situation. In both cases, Colorado dropped Game 1 after waiting for its opponent to finish its previous series.
Bednar and the coaches are doing everything they can to make sure the club doesn't do that again and is engaged for when the puck next drops.
"Dallas, they brought with it the intensity they had from their previous series into our series with them, they carried it over into Game 1," Bednar recalled. "They were a physical group right away. They were engaged right away and it took us some time and it ended up costing us the game, which isn't exactly what you want. Then we bounced back."

Goaltender Devan Dubnyk said there could possibly be some rust early in that initial contest, but the rest the Avs have gained this week should be a benefit to them later on in the game, series and playoffs.
"Especially with the condensed schedule this year, you talk about rust, it might be for the first five, six, seven minutes of the first period. You get back going sometimes, sometimes not, but I don't think it's going to extend onto that," Dubnyk said. "I think anytime you can have an opportunity to take a break and rest guys' bodies with the way this season went and how tight it was, and same thing with playoffs going forward, how condensed it is going to be, I think it is a real advantage for us to have the rest that we have. We showed it during the season when we had multiple shutdowns that we were able to come back and put forth some good efforts."

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

The Avalanche held an optional practice on Thursday at Ball Arena, with players taking the ice to run drills with skills coach Shawn Allard and goaltending coach Jussi Parkkila.
Forwards J.T. Compher, Tyson Jost, Sampo Ranta, Valeri Nichushkin, Kiefer Sherwood and Carl Soderberg, defensemen Bowen Byram, Ryan Graves, Jacob MacDonald and Conor Timmins and goaltenders Devan Dubnyk and Jonas Johansson were among the Avs that took the ice.
The Avs are expected to hold a full-team practice on Friday.

MORE NOTES & INFO

• Bowen Byram hasn't played since March 25 versus the Vegas Golden Knight due to an upper-body injury, and the rookie defenseman said on Wednesday that he feels now "100 percent." Bednar noted on Thursday it is a possibility that Byram could suit up in this upcoming series, but that it will likely depend on the play of the team's current defensive group moving forward.
• Erik Johnson has been out with an upper-body injury since Jan. 30, and there is a possibility that he could return later in the postseason. The veteran defenseman has been around the team more recently, as Bednar said "he wasn't around for a long time. He's been around for the last week and it's not every day, but he has had a presence around the room a little bit."
• Goaltender Devan Dubnyk talked about being in COVID protocol and getting back in game shape after the optional skate: "I didn't really have any symptoms at all. So other than the time off, it felt like a really long time, I was itching to get back. The six, seven days of practice was good and just getting timing back and stuff too. I was excited to get back in there and excited to be a part of that last game."
• Forward Jayson Megna was added to the NHL's COVID-19 protocol list on Wednesday, and Bednar confirmed that it was due to a positive test. Bednar did say that "yesterday's tests came back clear this morning" for the rest of the team.
• Nazem Kadri appealed his eight-game suspension from the NHL Department of Player Safety on Thursday.
• The Avs announced on Thursday that Wade Klippenstein has named the team's new Director of Amateur Scouting.

ONE TIMERS

Jared Bednar on preparing for two teams for the next round: "There will be a cram session for our players, depending on when the start of the series is and hopefully they retain a lot of information. We knew our opponent going into Round 1 so that was great, relatively easy prep, we had a significant amount of time. But this one, I think our window of opportunity to give our players the information is going to close, but our coaches have been working hard and getting prepared, along with our analytics team. They've given us some good information to look at and we go back to the video and study it, just trying to pick up everything we possibly can on both these teams. There's some similarities and there's some significant differences as well."
Philipp Grubauer on paying attention to the Minnesota-Vegas series: "I think yesterday was a big game for both teams, so I tuned in for a little bit. But honestly, once I'm away from the rink, I kind of stay away from hockey. We do all the video and we watch them enough when we're here at the rink. So I watched a little bit this morning, but they still got to play Game 7. But we've also seen them enough over the last couple months, we've played them enough. It's not like one team is doing something we've never seen. It's all basically the same. Obviously the intensity, it's fun to watch. Guys compete and teams compete, and it makes it fun to watch, for sure."
Devan Dubnyk on Gabriel Landeskog's leadership: "I think the one thing that impresses me is he is vocal but not too vocal, he just seems to know the right things to say at the right times and again he goes out there and does it. I don't think I've seen him take a shift off or have a bad shift, and when you got a guy like him that's doing that, it just translates through the entire room. That's the most important thing when you got your leader is he's not only your leader, but he's also one of your best players and he plays as hard as he does, you can see. We've had so much success here, you know the accountability is there because if a guy like that is going to go out there and walk the walk, then everyone else has to do the same thing."