2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Avalanche vs. Kraken 1st-round preview

The first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs features 16 teams in eight best-of-7 series, which start Monday.
Today, NHL.com previews the Western Conference First Round between the Colorado Avalanche and the Seattle Kraken.

(1C) Colorado Avalanche vs. (WC1) Seattle Kraken

Avalanche: 51-24-7, 109 points
Kraken:46-28-8, 100 points
Season series:COL 1-1-1; SEA 2-0-1
Game 1:Tuesday at Colorado (10 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN360, TVAS)
The Colorado Avalanche will begin their Stanley Cup title defense against the Seattle Kraken, who will appear in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since joining the NHL as an expansion team last season.
The Avalanche have lost pieces from their championship team. That includes forward Andre Burakovsky, who signed with the Kraken as an unrestricted free agent July 13, and captain Gabriel Landeskog, who missed the regular season and will not play in the playoffs due to a knee injury.
Still, they have gone 31-7-4 since Jan. 14, the third-best points percentage (.786) in that span behind the Boston Bruins (.817) and Edmonton Oilers (.789). They finished the regular season on a 7-0-1 run to win the Central Division.
"I'm excited," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "I'm just like the players. We're looking forward to this time of the year, and also there's a sense of pride for this group. I mean, to be able to go through some of the adversity we've gone through, especially with the injuries, a lot of new players into the group, and to be able to finish at the top of the division is something outstanding for this team. We're proud of that, and now the hard part comes."
Seattle hasn't had a team face an NHL team in the playoffs since 1920, when the Seattle Metropolitans of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association lost to the original Ottawa Senators in the forerunner of the Stanley Cup Final. The first three games of the best-of-5 series were in Ottawa, the last two in Toronto.
The city hasn't hosted a playoff game involving an NHL team since 1919, when the Metropolitans played the Montreal Canadiens for the Cup. The series, played in Seattle, ended in a 2-2-1 tie because of the Spanish flu.
Seattle became the first city in the United States to win the Cup when the Metropolitans defeated the Canadiens in 1917, months before the NHL was founded.
After finishing last in the Pacific Division in their inaugural season, the Kraken improved by 40 points this season -- the largest jump between a first and second season in NHL history -- finishing fourth in the Pacific and earning the first wild card into the playoffs from the Western Conference.
"The last few weeks we've been ramping up and getting a good taste for it, and now the real fun starts," Kraken forward Jaden Schwartz said. "We're excited."

Game breakers

Avalanche: Nathan MacKinnon has produced 1.33 points per game in the playoffs, third in NHL history behind Wayne Gretzky (1.84) and Mario Lemieux (1.61) among players who have appeared in more than 37 games. The center set NHL career highs in goals (42), assists (69) and points (111) in the regular season, finishing fifth in the League in scoring. When the Avalanche needed a victory to clinch the Central on Friday, he had four points (three goals, one assist) in a 4-3 win at the Nashville Predators, scoring the winner with 1:42 left in the third period.
Kraken: Jared McCann set NHL career highs in goals (40), assists (30) and points (70) in the regular season, leading the Kraken in goals and points. The forward has only three assists in 12 playoff games, which he played over three seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins from 2019-21, but he has seized a larger role in Seattle.

Goaltending

Avalanche: This was one of the biggest questions for the Avalanche, who acquired Alexandar Georgiev in a trade with the New York Rangers on July 7 and lost Darcy Kuemper to the Washington Capitals in free agency July 13. Starting 62 games, 30 more than ever before in an NHL season, Georgiev went 40-16-6 with a 2.53 goals-against average, a .919 save percentage and five shutouts, tying for the NHL lead in wins with Linus Ullmark of the Bruins. He has appeared in only two playoff games, each in relief for the Rangers last season. Backup Pavel Francouz, who was limited by injuries this season, was 8-7-1 with a 2.61 GAA, .915 save percentage and one shutout in 16 games.
Kraken:Philipp Grubauer was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the goalie voted the best in the NHL, when he went 30-9-1 with a 1.95 GAA, .922 save percentage and seven shutouts with the Avalanche in 2020-21. But he hasn't been close to that level since signing with the Kraken as an unrestricted free agent July 28, 2021. He went 17-14-4 with a 2.85 GAA and an .895 save percentage in 39 games (36 starts) this season. In 33 playoff games, 29 of them with Colorado, he has gone 19-11 with a 2.50 GAA, a .913 save percentage and two shutouts. Martin Jones, who split time with Grubauer, and is day to day with an upper-body injury, was 27-13-3 with a 2.99 GAA, .887 save percentage and three shutouts in 48 games (42 starts) this season. He won the Stanley Cup as the backup to Jonathan Quick with the Los Angeles Kings in 2014.

Numbers to know

Avalanche:Mikko Rantanen finished third in the NHL goals (55) and eighth in the League in points (105) in the regular season, setting an NHL career high in each category. He has produced 1.22 points per game in the playoffs, seventh in NHL history among players who have appeared in more than 37 games behind Gretzky, Lemieux, MacKinnon, Mark Messier (1.25), Bobby Orr (1.24) and Mike Bossy (1.24).
Kraken: Seattle scored 3.52 goals per game in the regular season, tied with the New Jersey Devils for fourth in the NHL. The Avalanche averaged 3.34, tied with the Los Angeles Kings for 10th. Seattle had six players score at least 20 goals and 13 score at least 13. Colorado, in comparison, had three players score at least 20 goals and eight score at least 13. The Kraken won't have Burakovsky, however. He hasn't played since Feb. 7, when he was the Kraken's leading scorer with 39 points (13 goals, 26 assists), and will miss the series to recover from surgery to repair a lower-body injury.

X-factors

Avalanche:Cale Makar missed the last seven games of the regular season with a lower-body injury, after missing nine games in a 10-game stretch from Feb. 9-March 1 with a concussion and four games from Jan. 18-24 with an upper-body injury. Will he be ready for Game 1, and if so, how effective will he be? The defenseman led the Avalanche with 29 points (eight goals, 21 assists) in 20 playoff games last season, winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs.
Kraken: It looks like a mismatch on paper. Colorado ranked sixth on the power play (24.5 percent) in the regular season; Seattle ranked 21st on the penalty kill (76.7 percent). But the Kraken have improved their PK over the second half of the season. After Jan. 1, they tied for fourth (84.3) with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Calgary Flames.

They said it

"It's a completely different team than it was last year. Obviously, same core players but just the makeup of our group is so different that we had to figure out what it takes for this team to have success. We've done that through the regular season. Things are obviously going to get tougher now for the playoffs, but we're pretty happy with what we've accomplished and the way our guys are playing and the habits they're playing with at this time of year." -- Avalanche coach Jared Bednar
"I like our team. I think we match up well with anyone. I know what we can do in this room, and guys are fully capable of competing night in and night out, so it's going to be lots of fun. We're ready for the opportunity, and we're going to be ready for it."-- Kraken forward Morgan Geekie

Will win if…

Avalanche: MacKinnon and Rantanen continue their playoff production, Georgiev continues to play in the playoffs the way he did in the regular season, and the rest of the roster keeps playing the way it did down the stretch. If Makar returns and looks anything like himself, that would be huge.
Kraken:They use their depth to their advantage, limiting the Avalanche's top players and winning the other matchups, and Grubauer plays against his old team the way he did with it.

How they look

Avalanche projected lineup
Artturi Lehkonen -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Evan Rodrigues -- J.T. Compher -- Valeri Nichushkin
Alex Newhook -- Lars Eller -- Logan O'Connor
Alex Galchenyuk
-- Ben Meyers -- Matt Nieto
Devon Toews -- Samuel Girard
Jack Johnson -- Bowen Byram
Brad Hunt -- Erik Johnson
Alexandar Georgiev
Pavel Francouz
Scratched: Kurtis MacDermid
Injured: Gabriel Landeskog (knee), Josh Manson (lower body), Cale Makar (lower body), Darren Helm (lower body), Andrew Cogliano (upper body), Denis Malgin (undisclosed)
Kraken projected lineup
Jared McCann -- Matty Beniers -- Jordan Eberle
Jaden Schwartz --
Alexander Wennberg
-- Morgan Geekie
Eeli Tolvanen -- Yanni Gourde -- Oliver Bjorkstrand
Brandon Tanev -- Ryan Donato -- Daniel Sprong
Vince Dunn -- Adam Larsson
Jamie Oleksiak --
William Borgen
Carson Soucy -- Justin Schultz
Philipp Grubauer
Joey Daccord
Scratched: Cale Fleury, Jesper Froden, Jaycob Megna
Injured:Andre Burakovsky (lower body), Chris Driedger (knee), Joonas Donskoi (upper body), John Hayden (lower body), Martin Jones (upper body)