There were a few things Colorado Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said his team didn't do well in Tuesday night's 3-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken, and those points were addressed before heading into Game 2 Thursday night.
DENVER – Colorado Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar had the same sentiments the team, writers and fans had, as a whole, about Tuesday night’s game – the team didn’t play their best game.
“Execution is not just this pass or that pass, it’s open and you don’t see it. That could be a focus thing. Even though there were some areas, in that regard, that were not good,” Bednar said after an optional practice Wednesday afternoon.
Bednar acknowledged the facts of the game. The team came out lackadaisical and the Seattle Kraken took advantage of that. He said the energy in the building was super high but quickly deflated by the team’s play, which can and possibly did, affect the game. Although the Avs regrouped and found some life, they couldn’t hold on to that discipline to keep control of the puck and create scoring chances.
“I thought we shot ourselves in the foot a lot of times, but I just think that was just the night. So, now our focus is to move on and try to get a win Thursday,” Nathan MacKinnon said after the 3-1 loss Tuesday night.
How to move on from Game 1 loss
The Avalanche have dealt with physical setbacks the entire season so the optional practice on Wednesday was thin. If the players needed to rest to regroup, the best thing to see was just a few guys on the ice at Family Sports Center.
“Like we had some open looks and some passes to be made that we just outright missed. I mean we probably passed it out of the offensive zone a handful of times when we should’ve had good looks at the net and probably created some quality scoring chances,” Bednar said. “But usually there’s more to do with it than that. Puck support, being predictable to ourselves so we can play fast and we were not very good in that area last night.”
The underlying question is what changed? Was it the pressure of being back in the playoffs and defending the Stanley Cup they worked so hard to get last season? Was it the realization of a different team starting in Game 1 than last year?
“You’ve played 82 games at this point, you obviously know what works and what doesn’t,” Andrew Cogliano said before Game 1. “You find a good thing that gets going in the playoffs, and you keep it going and you have success. That’s everyone in the room and, as a team, we’ll definitely try to do that.”
Cogliano, who didn’t play in Game 1 and is out with a day-to-day upper-body injury, is a veteran voice in the locker room. Whether he’s suited up and ready to hit the ice or sidelined with the other veterans – Gabriel Landeskog and Darren Helm – he’s doing what he can to help his team in any way he can.
Defense healthy, needs to find rhythm
The team didn’t fail in one area more than another, there was an overall breakdown. Josh Manson returned to the lineup after missing the last 23 games due to a lower-body injury, and Cale Makar was back after being out the last seven regular-season games with a lower-body injury.
“We have a lot of confidence in our D group as it is, to have everybody back and get rolling as a unit again, I think that’s exciting for us,” Manson said prior to Tuesday night’s game.
Was it the reconnection of players that had been out that caused the disconnect or something else? Thursday night’s matchup will attest to this group’s chemistry and what needs to meld together, on and off the ice, in order to win this series and go deep in the playoffs.
The question now is, how does Bednar get his squad on the same page and ready to write a new story with a new look in this season’s playoff run? And find an answer to Grubauer’s ability to keep the puck out of the net.
“It still looked to me like we’re, that we didn’t have the jump that we normally have. We didn’t’ get to the areas of the ice that we want to get to quick enough,” Bednar said. “Part of that’s focus, part of that’s legs. I thought we had a couple of guys that were a little bit shy on legs last night. The determination in your game, whatever it is, we have to be harder, quicker, better, in a lot of areas than we were last night.”