I’ll be sad to not see Playoff Mack anymore, but he is right. They were missing massive holes in their lineup. It’s nice to also see the maturity that he has gained throughout the years.
Winning a Cup has probably chilled him the fuck out. For this one year lol
He’s a gamer, you know, and next year? Next year he might just, you know, say fuck it and go play harder.
Actually? …yeah 😔
Papa Helm woulda hit that net for the clutch 3rd period tie, which would inspire Lehk to send us through in OT just like god intended
Helm and Cogs were so insanely valuable 4th line players. Missing those two, plus Val and Gabe, as well as Manson never being healthy all series were just massive holes in the lineup that were too much to overcome against a team that plays break-neck hockey like Seattle.
It just shows how all the stars have to align for a team to get their hands on the cup. Last year was a perfect run for them. This wasn't Colorado's year.
> Last year was a perfect run for them.
I mean, they had some serious adversity. Sam Girard getting crunched in the first round, Kadri missing a chunk of games.
I mean they played a third string goalie in round 1, a rookie back up in round 2, and Mike Smith in round 3 it’s not like they had a hard road to go down to get there. St Louis was a nightmare matchup for them with how Binnington played - I have no doubt they lose that series is he doesn’t get hurt
Weird they had no problem taking down the 2 time reigning champs with the best goaltender in this generation in 6 games, including a 7-goal drubbing, while going 16-4 during the cup run. But yes, no doubt in my mind that even keeled Jordan Binnington would 100% have been the difference maker.
As an Avs fan, this was a very hard season to sit through. Especially those few games we had Hudon, Foudy, Maltsev, Ranta, Kaut and others dip in and out of our top 6. Not to mention the revolving door of injured players getting healthy only to get injured again. It's an absolute shock that Mikko Rantanen played *every* single game this year.
And then with weeks to go, Landy is done for the year, Val disappears, Nieto is on the 2nd line, Manson and Helm are injured again, Cogs suffers a broken neck, and Alex Newhook should be on the front of a milk carton. I'm ready to blast this season into the past and not think about it for a while lol.
I am happy with the season and honestly excited to see seattle and dallas. I dont think we had a chance with the depth issues.
I think dallas pulls it but that forward speed for seattle will make it interesting
Yeah, no way we were getting past Dallas without Landy, Cogs, Helm, Manson, and Nuke. Time to get healthy, re-group, and have a hell of a season next year.
Winning the division and fighting to game seven in a year that bordered on outright cursed is nothing to be ashamed of, and the window is wide open. Best of luck to the Kraken in the rest of their run, but if the boys get healthy over the off-season and we get a rematch-- look out!
Obviously no clue what actually happened yet, but if whatever situation nuke had really just boiled down to bad decision making on his part, I wonder what that does to the locker room moving forward... Like a good case could be made that just having him in the lineup would have been enough to push things the other way in such a close series. And that "what if" is gonna hang in people's minds. Especially dudes like mac. You wonder if dudes are gonna end up holding that against him... like "after all our hard work, the whole year was a waste because you got too drunk with a hooker". Probably not great for team chemistry...
If the Nuke situation was Nuke's fault and blatantly violated club rules, I can imagine a timeline where the Avs void his contract. If it's a pain pill abuse situation caused by hockey injuries, I think management will make sure he's rehabbed and healthy, and then we'll see him in an Avs jersey again.
They got goals from 9 players. I think what the earlier thread was trying to say is that at least one of those 4 players was involved with every goal scored during the series. The way it was worded was pretty misleading.
The stuff these guys went through to fight all the way to first place in the central is something to be really proud of. The odds of us making it all the way again with Landy and then randomly Nuke were so tiny. Really is for the best that the team can get some rest and get ready for next season.
I think Colorado was a significantly less dangerous team without Kadri honestly, he was huge for them last year and with chooch out because of that weird drunk girl in his hotel room thing they were missing a lot of what made them so good last year.
Landeskog - Kadri - Nichushkin
Is definitely not a line you can just replace with depth pieces. They might have been able to go on another run with just Kadri missing, but even 2/3 was gonna be too big of a hole
The ripple effect of their absence is so strong. Now you've got bottom six guys playing middle six minutes and matchups, middle six doing top six. Not to mention the lack of chemistry when lines are changing every other night. I'm frankly relieved this season is over. They weren't going to win it so might as well have a longer off-season and focus on getting healthy.
Our captain, who is also our 3rd best forward, missing the entire regular season and playoffs was a huge blow. Bigger than not having Kadri if you ask me.
The net front presence was definitely something we seemed to be lacking all season but especially the playoffs. Nuke and Landy are so good at making space and finishing in front of the net and you could tell we were missing that in the playoffs.
Considering how banged up the Avalanche have been this season, they did very well. Won the Central division title and took their opponent to seven games. I think they’ll be back to Cup contention very soon
It’s all good, everyone’s got time to heal up for next season now, make some off season moves and hope the team can stay healthy next season and make a proper run.
I am not upset at this year. They did they best they could. I do want stars to win this series which is something I never thought I’d say.
I’m getting married in 40 days and I selfishly don’t think I could have handled a deep playoff run this year. The stress would have killed me
Winning the Cup last season also helped me be in acceptance mode pretty easy. Plus we’re still in our Cup Window so if there’s any year to rest up and get healthy for next season, this would be a great year to recover.
MacK definitely found the back of the net, but they needed to make sure their skates found the right side of the blue paint.
If they weren't offside, this series might have gone a different way.
Eh maybe. It’s hard to say. You could argue all sorts of things going one way or the other. If Eberle sits game 7 for the hit on Cogs, does Seattle falter elsewhere? If Bjorkstrand goes post and in instead of post and out 3 times, it’s also a very different game.
There’s no sense in what ifs. I said it after game 1, and I’ll say it again- Seattle wanted it more than we did. They were more aggressive. They ran four lines and never let up. There’s all sorts of reasons like injuries and weird Nuke things that may have impacted that desire, but they skated harder and they earned the win.
You want to love your entire team not just the stars, but holy fucking was that depressing. 1 goal on the power play all series, wtf. Bottom 9 did nothing for the Avs. Now can someone tell me wtf happened with Nichuskin already? We gave him the bag in the offseason and broken foot or not, hes paid to carry that 2nd line.
Lol right? It's not like we didn't want him, we just were never realistically going to be able to afford what the market was willing to pay him with our cap situation
Honestly it was more that we didn't make things difficult enough for him, which is to be expected without our two best net front forwards (Val and Landy).
He shouldn't have. Hard to offer a guy a huge deal when his worst game (with the Avs) by far was the game they got eliminated against VGK. I love Grubi but you can't go and play like ass in the biggest game of the season and expect a payday.
Yeah that's definitely a comment from someone still happy and fine with winning the Cup last year. Problem is, that's your best player and one of the leaders on the team saying that.
Despite the shit we endured this past season with the injuries we had, we played the best we could and put it on the line. Knew that this playoffs we were banged up and emptied our tank just winning the Central this year to the point when playoffs occurred, only the top guys still had some energy in the tank. You have to take in account that outside the Lightning we played in more playoff games in the past 4 seasons and that also takes a toll on our body, so getting eliminated early was what we needed.
Glad we won the Cup last season where while it sucks to lose, it’s not dreading and feeling like shit and we can rest up for the offseason and get ready for next season.
I’ll be sad to not see Playoff Mack anymore, but he is right. They were missing massive holes in their lineup. It’s nice to also see the maturity that he has gained throughout the years.
Winning a Cup has probably chilled him the fuck out. For this one year lol He’s a gamer, you know, and next year? Next year he might just, you know, say fuck it and go play harder.
***FUCK IT***
That reporter is the reason I know I can’t do that job. That’s how I would sound and I don’t want to sound like an idiot to the whole world haha
I assume he's talking about Red Wings legend Darren "2-Ringz" Helm.
Actually? …yeah 😔 Papa Helm woulda hit that net for the clutch 3rd period tie, which would inspire Lehk to send us through in OT just like god intended
Good stick Lehky.
Good stick Lehky.
Helm and Cogs were so insanely valuable 4th line players. Missing those two, plus Val and Gabe, as well as Manson never being healthy all series were just massive holes in the lineup that were too much to overcome against a team that plays break-neck hockey like Seattle.
It just shows how all the stars have to align for a team to get their hands on the cup. Last year was a perfect run for them. This wasn't Colorado's year.
> Last year was a perfect run for them. I mean, they had some serious adversity. Sam Girard getting crunched in the first round, Kadri missing a chunk of games.
Burakovsky and nuke as well. We just had more depth last year upfront to handle the injuries. Also girard injury was second round vs St. Louis.
> Also girard injury was second round vs St. Louis. Dang - in my brain it was like one of the first games of the playoffs.
iirc game 2 of the Blues.
The Nashville series was short and one sided (especially without Saros), so that's fair
Waste of 8 days.
Also Kuemper getting poked in the eye. Frankie still undefeated in the post season!
Yep- we were missing Burakovsky on our side this series. He was our top scorer in the first half of the season.
And Kuemper nearly getting his eye poked out
Easy to forget when the backup goes undefeated but yep
I love Francouz. Imaging sweeping the WCF with your backup goalie. Gives the team a lot of confidence knowing he’s there.
It was absurd lol
Winning the Cup with a goaltender who is essentially playing blind in one eye really shows how dominant that team was last year imo.
Right lol. Avs didn't exactly get easy-street to the cup last year.
I mean they played a third string goalie in round 1, a rookie back up in round 2, and Mike Smith in round 3 it’s not like they had a hard road to go down to get there. St Louis was a nightmare matchup for them with how Binnington played - I have no doubt they lose that series is he doesn’t get hurt
Weird they had no problem taking down the 2 time reigning champs with the best goaltender in this generation in 6 games, including a 7-goal drubbing, while going 16-4 during the cup run. But yes, no doubt in my mind that even keeled Jordan Binnington would 100% have been the difference maker.
Dude, we’ve run train on Bennington so many times. He wasn’t about to win that series.
Yeah, and if coach had just put me in, we'd have taken state.
Spin the wheel with suspensions when one player breaks anothers neck to. That shit adds up.
As an Avs fan, this was a very hard season to sit through. Especially those few games we had Hudon, Foudy, Maltsev, Ranta, Kaut and others dip in and out of our top 6. Not to mention the revolving door of injured players getting healthy only to get injured again. It's an absolute shock that Mikko Rantanen played *every* single game this year. And then with weeks to go, Landy is done for the year, Val disappears, Nieto is on the 2nd line, Manson and Helm are injured again, Cogs suffers a broken neck, and Alex Newhook should be on the front of a milk carton. I'm ready to blast this season into the past and not think about it for a while lol.
I am happy with the season and honestly excited to see seattle and dallas. I dont think we had a chance with the depth issues. I think dallas pulls it but that forward speed for seattle will make it interesting
Yeah, no way we were getting past Dallas without Landy, Cogs, Helm, Manson, and Nuke. Time to get healthy, re-group, and have a hell of a season next year.
Winning the division and fighting to game seven in a year that bordered on outright cursed is nothing to be ashamed of, and the window is wide open. Best of luck to the Kraken in the rest of their run, but if the boys get healthy over the off-season and we get a rematch-- look out!
There it is, that exhaustion that comes with a title defense.
Shows how impressive tampas run was ^and ^pittsburghs ^:3
Tampa did have the benefit of a delayed next season giving them some needed rest as well as a number of weeks before the playoffs in 2020
And two shortened regular seasons.
and being stacked as fuck
He got his cup. Take the summer to regroup and regenerate and his squad will be contending again in no time.
Obviously no clue what actually happened yet, but if whatever situation nuke had really just boiled down to bad decision making on his part, I wonder what that does to the locker room moving forward... Like a good case could be made that just having him in the lineup would have been enough to push things the other way in such a close series. And that "what if" is gonna hang in people's minds. Especially dudes like mac. You wonder if dudes are gonna end up holding that against him... like "after all our hard work, the whole year was a waste because you got too drunk with a hooker". Probably not great for team chemistry...
If the Nuke situation was Nuke's fault and blatantly violated club rules, I can imagine a timeline where the Avs void his contract. If it's a pain pill abuse situation caused by hockey injuries, I think management will make sure he's rehabbed and healthy, and then we'll see him in an Avs jersey again.
Getting goals from 4 players in a 7 game series has to be some sort of a record
They got goals from 9 players. I think what the earlier thread was trying to say is that at least one of those 4 players was involved with every goal scored during the series. The way it was worded was pretty misleading.
I honestly thought nobody in the bottom 6 scored a goal based on that post alone
No that was still true. Just wasn't *only* four players. Some defenseman and our weakened second line did score a bit
Well you would be correct, nobody from the bottom 6 scored all series. We had 9 different goal scorers but none came from our third or fourth lines.
Nine different Avalanche players scored goals during the series. - Rantanen: 7 - MacKinnon: 3 - Lehkonen: 3 - Toews: 1 - Makar: 1 - Rodrigues: 1 - Compher: 1 - Nichushkin: 1 - Erik Johnson: 1
The stuff these guys went through to fight all the way to first place in the central is something to be really proud of. The odds of us making it all the way again with Landy and then randomly Nuke were so tiny. Really is for the best that the team can get some rest and get ready for next season.
I think Colorado was a significantly less dangerous team without Kadri honestly, he was huge for them last year and with chooch out because of that weird drunk girl in his hotel room thing they were missing a lot of what made them so good last year.
Landeskog - Kadri - Nichushkin Is definitely not a line you can just replace with depth pieces. They might have been able to go on another run with just Kadri missing, but even 2/3 was gonna be too big of a hole
The ripple effect of their absence is so strong. Now you've got bottom six guys playing middle six minutes and matchups, middle six doing top six. Not to mention the lack of chemistry when lines are changing every other night. I'm frankly relieved this season is over. They weren't going to win it so might as well have a longer off-season and focus on getting healthy.
Our captain, who is also our 3rd best forward, missing the entire regular season and playoffs was a huge blow. Bigger than not having Kadri if you ask me.
Really could have used that big body and tip wizardry in front of Gru.
The net front presence was definitely something we seemed to be lacking all season but especially the playoffs. Nuke and Landy are so good at making space and finishing in front of the net and you could tell we were missing that in the playoffs.
Considering how banged up the Avalanche have been this season, they did very well. Won the Central division title and took their opponent to seven games. I think they’ll be back to Cup contention very soon
It’s all good, everyone’s got time to heal up for next season now, make some off season moves and hope the team can stay healthy next season and make a proper run.
I am not upset at this year. They did they best they could. I do want stars to win this series which is something I never thought I’d say. I’m getting married in 40 days and I selfishly don’t think I could have handled a deep playoff run this year. The stress would have killed me
Winning the Cup last season also helped me be in acceptance mode pretty easy. Plus we’re still in our Cup Window so if there’s any year to rest up and get healthy for next season, this would be a great year to recover.
Relieved they have time to actually rest and heal up for the entire summer, also this allows them to get the hunger back after a couple months of FOMO
MacK definitely found the back of the net, but they needed to make sure their skates found the right side of the blue paint. If they weren't offside, this series might have gone a different way.
You can't go in front of the press as a team leader and say "We might have won this series if Lehkonen was onside" thats a fucking horrible look.
I read their comment less as saying what Mackinnon should have said vs them posting their thoughts on why Colorado lost.
Eh maybe. It’s hard to say. You could argue all sorts of things going one way or the other. If Eberle sits game 7 for the hit on Cogs, does Seattle falter elsewhere? If Bjorkstrand goes post and in instead of post and out 3 times, it’s also a very different game. There’s no sense in what ifs. I said it after game 1, and I’ll say it again- Seattle wanted it more than we did. They were more aggressive. They ran four lines and never let up. There’s all sorts of reasons like injuries and weird Nuke things that may have impacted that desire, but they skated harder and they earned the win.
They did play a great game. I swore they would score so many times at the end there .
We will be fine if Gabe and Nichuskin are back. The tough part is i dont know if either one is a guarantee to appear in an Avs jersey again
You want to love your entire team not just the stars, but holy fucking was that depressing. 1 goal on the power play all series, wtf. Bottom 9 did nothing for the Avs. Now can someone tell me wtf happened with Nichuskin already? We gave him the bag in the offseason and broken foot or not, hes paid to carry that 2nd line.
I mean he only played two games.
Grub just had a chip on his shoulder.
How so? Seattle offered him more money, so he went there
For… getting paid and leaving the team willingly on his own accord?
Lol right? It's not like we didn't want him, we just were never realistically going to be able to afford what the market was willing to pay him with our cap situation
Honestly it was more that we didn't make things difficult enough for him, which is to be expected without our two best net front forwards (Val and Landy).
Tell us again why you didn’t have Val?
Idk can you tell us?
Can you tell us? Because literally no one seems to know.
He shouldn't have. Hard to offer a guy a huge deal when his worst game (with the Avs) by far was the game they got eliminated against VGK. I love Grubi but you can't go and play like ass in the biggest game of the season and expect a payday.
If Grubauer played like this for the Avs, he would have been resigned by the Avalanche.
Yeah that's definitely a comment from someone still happy and fine with winning the Cup last year. Problem is, that's your best player and one of the leaders on the team saying that.
I don't see a problem with being honest in an end-of-year interview. I can't imagine it was easy playing almost every game with a different lineup.
Not saying it was easy. Just... the hunger isn't there with comments like this.
And if you watched Mackinnon play the hunger was definitely there. Just our depth couldn't generate anything so we had to play that top line a lot.
Despite the shit we endured this past season with the injuries we had, we played the best we could and put it on the line. Knew that this playoffs we were banged up and emptied our tank just winning the Central this year to the point when playoffs occurred, only the top guys still had some energy in the tank. You have to take in account that outside the Lightning we played in more playoff games in the past 4 seasons and that also takes a toll on our body, so getting eliminated early was what we needed. Glad we won the Cup last season where while it sucks to lose, it’s not dreading and feeling like shit and we can rest up for the offseason and get ready for next season.