Predators will play Avalanche in first-round Western series

The Nashville Predators will play the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference First Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Nashville (53-18-11) finished first in the Central Division and has home-ice advantage. Colorado (43-30-9) clinched the second wild card with a 5-2 win against the St. Louis Blues on Saturday.

"Well, you know what? It's the playoffs. Anything can happen," Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog said. "For us to come out and carry the momentum of what we did here tonight, to carry that into next week on the road, it's going to be a lot of fun. What a great challenge. We're the underdogs. I don't think you can get more underdog than we are right now. We're just going to go out and play and work as hard as we can."
The Predators won each of the four games against the Avalanche this season, outscoring them 17-8 with at least four goals in each.
"I think everybody is really excited for the playoffs, but we know how hard of a road it is in the playoffs," Nashville captain Roman Josi said. "But the excitement is definitely here. It's always a long season toward the end. You're really excited for the playoffs, and we can't wait for the first game."

Filip Forsberg led Nashville with six points (three goals, three assists). Four other players (Colton Sissons, Roman Josi, Craig Smith, Viktor Arvidsson) each had five points. Pekka Rinne was 3-0-0 with a 2.00 goals-against average and a .922 save percentage.
"It's been fun to be part of this group," Predators forward Mike Fisher said. "We've worked hard to get where we're at to get home-ice advantage, and that's big, but we also know we're going to be facing a great opponent here in the first round. We've got to just prepare and get ready and not rest on anything that we've done but just build on that confidence of a great year."
Tyson Barrie, Nathan MacKinnon (two goals) and Mikko Rantanen (one goal) each had three points for Colorado. Semyon Varlamov, who was 0-3-1 with a 4.01 GAA and .862 save percentage, is out for the season with a knee injury. Backup Jonathan Bernier has not faced Nashville this season.

The Avalanche had an NHL-worst 48 points last season.
"It's got to be one of the best accomplishments in modern sports history," Colorado forward Nathan MacKinnon said. "We came in last by 20 points, we were the worst team in 25 years. We did the unthinkable. It's obviously a huge deal."
The Predators and Avalanche have never faced each other in the playoffs.
Nashville has qualified for the playoffs four straight seasons, and made the Stanley Cup Final last season, when it lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games.
"It's definitely a lot of motivation," Josi said. "I think most guys you talked through throughout the summer, obviously there was a huge disappointment, but after a couple weeks everybody just wanted to get back to Nashville and get back going. Right from the beginning we were a motivated team. We definitely do not want to be in a position again like we were last year."
This is the first playoffs for Colorado since 2013-14.
"They've been a great team all season, but they went in as the eighth [seed] last year, and it just goes to show that once you get in it's a completely new season," Avalanche defenseman Mark Barberio said. "Again, it's going to be a lot of hard work but this group is definitely up for it."
NHL.com staff writer Tracey Myers and correspondents Robby Stanley and Rick Sadowski contributed to this report.