The Colorado Avalanche clinched the Central Division with a 4-3 win over the Nashville Predators Friday night and know they have a tough opponent ahead in the first round against the Seattle Kraken.
NASHVILLE – The Colorado Avalanche ended the regular season with 107 points and clinched the Central Division with a 4-3 win over the Nashville Predators Friday night at Bridgestone Arena.
Nathan MacKinnon scored his first hat trick of the season and didn’t know who they were playing in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“Yeah, we’ll probably just move on in five to 10 minutes here and get ready for whoever we’re playing, I don’t even know, but we’ll be ready to go,” MacKinnon said after the win.
Someone in the background told MacKinnon they will play the Seattle Kraken and he continued, “Ok, Seattle then … yeah it’ll be tough, very tough. Those guys work hard. They’ve given us trouble this season, so we gotta be at our best to beat them.”
Happy to win, getting ready to face Seattle
After the win, the team was just glad to have taken the division and gear up for the upcoming first round beginning at Ball Arena on Tuesday night.
“Hopefully we can keep this up. Just find a way to get wins, you know?” Mikko Rantanen said. “It’s not going to be easy against Seattle, but they’re a good team, but we just got to find a way.”
Rantanen, who had two points in the division-clinching win, said he’s proud of his team for making the playoffs through the adversity of all the injuries and still finding a way to win. Rantanen was one of only four players on the team to play all 82 games.
Coach Jared Bednar had the same sentiments on how his team persevered through a season plagued with injuries to come out on top of the division despite the adversity.
“We’ve had different guys step up at different times and our leaders have been outstanding. To be able to sort of accomplish our regular season goal of, you know, winning the division and securing home ice,” Bednar said after the game. “If we’re fortunate enough to make it into the second round I think it’s a feather in their cap, no question that we should feel good about our game going into the playoffs.”
Bednar talked about how it’s a completely different team than last year’s Stanley Cup champs but even with the same core group, they’ve had to figure out ways to succeed with the players they have. And with the playoffs being a different beast, he’s happy with the production his team has shown and feels confident in their play going into the postseason.
Bednar leads team to win games
The Avalanche organization clearly has the confidence in Bednar to lead his team to wins and championships after signing him to a three-year extension to remain head coach through 2026-27.
“We’ve gone through some tough times over the last few years. We were able to have success last year,” Bednar said. “We figured making adjustments and trying to find ways for me, like it’s a different team, right? So there has to be a different approach to your team, but you still want to stay true to what you believe in and we’ve done that this year again and our leadership helps with that, no question.”
Georgiev has stellar 1st regular season start
Alexandar Georgiev earned his 40th win of the season, tying the most in the NHL (Boston Bruins goaltender Linus Ullmark). This was Georgiev's first starting job after the Avalanche acquired him from the New York Rangers in a trade for a 3rd-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, 5th-round pick in 2022 and 3rd-round pick in 2023. He also tied Patrick Roy for the second-most wins in a season in franchise history.
The Central Division title was the team’s third consecutive division championship and the second-longest streak of division championships in franchise history.