DENVER – The Colorado Avalanche couldn’t ask for a better opponent than the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Stanley Cup final, in a sense.
“To be the best, you have to beat the best, and these guys are defending the consecutive Stanley Cup champions, so we’re excited,” captain Gabriel Landeskog said on Sunday. “It will be a good match.”
The Avalanche reached the Cup final by sweeping the Edmonton Oilers to the Western Conference Finals with a 6-5 victory in overtime in Game 4 at Rogers Place in Edmonton on June 6.
They did not meet their opponent until five days later, when the Lightning eliminated the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Finals with a 2-1 victory in the sixth game at the Amalie Arena in Tampa on Saturday.
Game 1 of the best 7 series will be on Wednesday at the Denver Ball Arena (8pm ET; ESPN +, ABC, CBC, SN, TVAS).
“Obviously they are a very good team,” Avalanche defender Bowen Byram said. “They have won the Stanley Cup in a row. But we also have confidence in ourselves. We have a very good team. It is not easy to reach the Cup final.
“As Gabe said, we are excited about the game. They are a very good team and we will have to do our best to win them. But we are excited about this challenge.”
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The Avalanche is 12-2 in the Stanley Cup playoffs and they have not lost a series. They swept the Nashville Predators in the First Round of the Western Conference and defeated the St. Louis Blues in six games in the second round before sweeping the Oilers.
But they haven’t faced a team like the Lightning, who defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs in seven games in the First Round of the Eastern Conference and swept the Florida Panthers in the second round before eliminating the Rangers.
“The experience they have is invaluable at this time of year, and I think they are finding ways to step up at this time of the season,” Landeskog said. “And as the playoffs unfold, they’ve been able to activate it. In the regular season, there have been times when they’ve struggled and all that, but this time around, everyone is just one step ahead.
“They are a deep team. They are good from the back up. Obviously a good goalkeeper and strong in special teams, all these things. No team gets to this point without having all that. So they have a lot of things for them. , but so do we, so it will be a fun series. “
Avalanche coach Jared Bednar made a similar exploration report.
“A real deep team,” Bednar said. “A very committed team on the defensive side. Dangerous offensively. Great goalkeeper. I mean, they’ve returned to where they are for a reason, right? So it’s a very difficult team to win, and we have to be prepared for the challenge. “.
Bednar said Avalanche should play with his identity and start with his skating. They will have to put the record on the offensive end, then pass it through the Tampa Bay blockers and then overtake goalkeeper Andrei Vasilevskiy.
“It’s great,” Landeskog said. “He’s mobile. He reads well. He looks like a quiet goalkeeper who makes the stops he has to make. Obviously, being in the west, they in the east, you don’t see him much during the year. he sees so much. But yes, the best goalkeeper in the league. “
The Avalanche has had time to rest, restart and build towards the Cup final. They traveled home Tuesday, took free Wednesday, and skated Thursday and Friday at their practice track in Centennial, Colorado. After taking a break on Saturday, they skated hard at Ball Arena on Sunday.
Bednar said it was a locker room business.
“Everyone already wants information and absorbs information,” Bednar said. “We are having conversations in our room about beating the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“So we had a day or two to relax, and then we went back to work and gradually got a little more intense in each practice. We talked to our guys to make sure we were competing a lot between us., so we’re ready to go, just like we were in the last series.
“I liked the work we did, so we just have to keep up the process of what we have to do to be successful against anyone.”
Bednar said the Lightning are the team after which all other teams try to model themselves, winning the Cup, staying among the best teams in the NHL and proving themselves over and over again. This confrontation gives the Avalanche a chance to prove itself.
“My way of looking at it is that if you want to be the best, you have to hope to be able to beat the best, so it’s them, and we’re ready for the challenge,” Bednar said. “We’re getting ready for the challenge. You know it’s going to be a long, hard-fought series and two great teams will be involved, and we’re confident in what we’re doing, and I’m sure they are, too. To be here again.”