Chambers: Jared Bednar sounded an alarm the Avalanche needed to hear - The Denver Post

sulionjaka.blogspot.com

LAS VEGAS — Avalanche left wing and team captain Gabe Landeskog can handle the now-public criticism from his coach. Ditto for star center and alternate captain Nathan MacKinnon and other key players and leaders of this team.

What Jared Bednar said about his players — particularly his top guys — after Friday’s sloppy Game 3 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights was right on. The Avs stunk.

It’s just not the tone any media member or fan has ever heard from Bednar in his five years behind Colorado’s bench.

Bednar is a classy coach. He’s never previously called anybody out publicly. But the time was right and media and fans must appreciate his honest analysis of how Vegas dominated the Avs for the last five periods of a series Colorado still controls heading into Sunday’s Game 4.

Or was it?

Maybe Bednar feels like that control is slipping away after the Avs’ first loss of the postseason. Following Game 1’s 7-1 rout over the Knights and a good first period in Game 2, Vegas has been the far better team. Colorado has been outshot 73-30 at even-strength over the last two games.

The Avs, the NHL’s No. 1 overall playoff seed as the Presidents’ Trophy winners, have played with no flow and seemingly little confidence for five periods. That’s worrisome.

If it weren’t for the overtime slashing minor from Knights forward Reilly Smith on Rantanen and Rantanen’s ensuing power-play goal in Game 2 at Ball Arena, Vegas would probably have the 2-1 lead in this series.

“For five periods straight now they’ve been far more competitive than we have and to dissect the game any further than that is a waste of time,” Bednar said after Game 3 at T-Mobile Arena.

Bednar was talking about his entire team, save for goalie Philipp Grubauer and winger Valeri Nichushkin, he said Saturday morning.

“That’s just showing his passion and urgency (over) the last four or five years that we’ve had him. That’s nothing new for us,” Landeskog said Saturday during an optional practice. “He’s always honest and tells us how he sees things and that’s what you appreciate in a coach. I don’t know how much he shows that to (the media) but to us he’s always honest and tells us what he thinks.”

An alarm has sounded within the Avalanche, despite its league-leading .857 winning percentage (6-1) in the postseason. For a skilled-and-fast team that has found winning relatively easy outside two COVID shutdowns, suddenly the Avs can’t find the flow that made them the league’s highest-scoring team in the regular season (3.52 goals-per-game) and third stingiest (2.36). Tape-to-tape passes have turned into turnovers, the forecheck has been weak and Vegas is winning most of the races for loose pucks.

“We all know we need to be better,” Landeskog said Saturday. “We’re still up 2-1 in the series and it was our first loss in 2 1/2 weeks. Having said that, we need to learn from it and be better and make sure we bounce back (Sunday). It’s as simple as that. It’s the playoffs. We all need to step up and leadership definitely needs to step up and that’s the way it is following a loss.”

Landeskog, MacKinnon and Rantanen must step up Sunday and Grubauer needs to continue his stellar play. If those guys have great games, the Avs will have a chance to go up 3-1 and close out the series Tuesday at home.

“We definitely need to be better in all areas of the game,” Landeskog said. “That’s the way we felt after Game 2. We got away with Game 2 with a win but we need to be a lot better, and then last night obviously they played a lot better than us. We need to be harder to play against. We need to be more competitive.”

Adblock test (Why?)

"hear" - Google News
June 06, 2021 at 06:09AM
https://ift.tt/2SZ3WpW

Chambers: Jared Bednar sounded an alarm the Avalanche needed to hear - The Denver Post
"hear" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2KTiH6k
https://ift.tt/2Wh3f9n

Bagikan Berita Ini