Oddsmakers like Avalanche, but Colorado players taking underdog ...
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Published Apr 21, 2024 • 3 minute read
The oddmakers consider the Avalanche to be favourites in a best-of-seven NHL playoff series against the Winnipeg Jets, but don’t try to tell that to the Colorado players.
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“You do have to embrace the underdog mentality,” Avs’ defenceman Josh Manson Sunday ahead of Game 1 at Canada Life Centre (6 p.m.).
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“They finished higher in the standings, they won the season series, handily. You’ve got to come in with that underdog mentality and I think that’s a good thing to have.”
Although the Jets finished second in the Central Division with 110 points, three better than the third-place Avalanche, won all three games played between the teams by a combined score of 17-4, and have home-ice advantage, Colorado was listed as a slight favourite on most betting sites.
It would seem this is what happens when one team has Nathan MacKinnon (140 points), Mikko Rantanen (104 points) and Cale Makar (90 points), and the other does not. It’s what happens when one team won the Stanley Cup two years ago and the other has never captured hockey’s holy grail.
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Of course, none of those things change the fact that the Jets were the more well-rounded team this year, had the best defensive numbers in the NHL and have the best goaltending in the league.
The Avalanche players certainly don’t see themselves having an advantage simply because they have a few high-scoring, dominant players.
“The Jets are stingy,” Manson said. “They’re a good enough offensive team but they’re an even better defensive team where they keep pucks out of the net. For us, we need to match that. We have offence in this group but it’s one of those back-and-forth battles where we’ve got to deny their offence more than they’re going to deny ours.”
The Avalanche have plenty of belief that they can do just that. Having won the Cup recently, they understand the importance of team defence. They haven’t practised it particularly well this season, but they know what they have to do.
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“The biggest thing is if they’re a stingy team and don’t give up a lot of goals, we also have to play the same way,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said.
“We have to be a good defensive club against them. It’s an area of our game where we’ve been really good at times and struggled at other times, and our results are directly correlated with our defending details. Our guys understand it. We’re ready to play a 200-foot game and are prepared for a tough series and that basically kind of sums up our messaging to our team.”
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MacKinnon had almost twice as many points as any member of the Winnipeg Jets — he had 140 and Mark Scheifele led Winnipeg with 72 — but the Jets are much more balanced throughout their four lines than Colorado.
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And Winnipeg’s third line, featuring centre Adam Lowry along with wingers Nino Niederreiter and Mason Appleton, has been shutting down top players all season long.
MacKinnon may be a favourite for the Hart Trophy as NHL most valuable player, but he’s going to have his work cut out for him against Lowry.
“It’s strictly the discipline they play with,” Bednar said of the Lowry line. “They all have the ability to check, skate, play physical, but it’s more of a buy-in and a commitment to do that over and over and over again, regardless of who they’re playing against. That’s what makes Lowry’s line so good.”
Finally, Bednar echoed comments by Jets head coach Rick Bowness, warning that no one should read too much into the season series between the two teams, one that was so heavily dominated by Winnipeg.
“I don’t think the Jets have seen how we play yet because we’ve basically laid two eggs against them,” Bednar said.
“We played poor games against other teams throughout the course of the year as well and then bounced back.”
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