Avalanche different from last season's early playoff exit team
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The Colorado Avalanche are beyond where they were last season when they lost to the Seattle Kraken in seven games and exited the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“It’s an experience, you know. You definitely think about it during the season. You want to push and get a lot more than first round exit last year,” Alexandar Georgiev said. “That was a great experience, though. I feel for me, just trying to bring that experience that big Game 6, Game 7, and know that I can play great in those big moments.”
The Avalanche won the Central Division in the 2022-23 season but dealt with injuries all season long. It was a battle to win every night with players regularly going out of the lineup and coming back in. The early departure from the playoffs served as motivation for some players going into this postseason.
“Yeah, I think it did. I think last year was obviously good regular season, but I think we were banged up too much. I don’t know if it was the year we won and then following up that season — I feel like we had a lot of injuries last year,” Mikko Rantanen said. “I feel like management this year even, like the moves they made and got four really good players for us. I think it tells that they’re all in as well. So yeah, it feels good and it’s good to get, you know last year we lost first round and now we’ve past it so it feels good.”
While the Avs are glad to move on to the second round, head coach Jared Bednar does not believe the early exit last season was motivation going into this postseason. The significant differences in personnel and status of the teams are incomparable.
“I think every year you’re trying to play your best come playoff time. The additions at the deadline rejuvenated our team because we filled some needs that we had and made our team stronger depth wise,” Bednar said. “The defensive aspect of the game, some size and strength things so I think once that happened at the deadline that our team was really focused on opportunity ahead of us and they did a nice job getting ready to play for round one. I’m not so sure it was last year’s playoffs though.”
The Avs will find out who their opponent will be in the second round either Friday night or Sunday night.
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