A season-long bumpy ride for the Avs is getting smooth at the right time
Mar 22, 2023, 6:41 AM
Far be it for me to tell you, “I told you so.” However, let me take this moment to remind you I’ve told you repeatedly throughout this up-and-down Avalanche season that they would be just fine.
Here we are with the Avs in the midst of a current league-best, six-game winning streak. They’re a heat-seeking missile climbing the Western Conference standings with what could end up being a No. 2 or even No. 1 overall seed come playoff time.
This is a good time to ask how did we get here and where is this journey going?
First of all, this season is a testament to how the Avs best players refuse to settle for anything less than the standard. Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar have been amazing. Their stats don’t begin to tell the story.
Much has been made about the team meeting following the bottoming-out loss to Chicago back during the middle of January. Words are hollow unless they’re backed up by action. Nothing galvanizes a team more than the best players performing and leading at a level that forces everyone to jump aboard.
Rantanen has been the Avs wire to wire season MVP. MacKinnon has been a cantankerous, snarling, sprung from cages on Highway 9 force of nature for the last few months. Makar continues to remind us all that he may just be the best 200-foot player on the planet.
Plenty of defending champs come up short the year after because they just can’t seem to recapture the same joie de vivre. The unique teams, the ones that go down in the history books, are the ones where the best players just refuse to accept anything but their best and their teammates’ best.
I would be remiss to not salute Jared Bednar’s role in all of this. At no point did he panic. He never overtly ripped his team even after apathetic performances. He knew his team and trusted them to handle this the right way. There are many ways to lead. Bednar showed his strengths as a coach which is why his new contract extension is an absolute no-brainer.
So here we are. The Avs look like they’ve come through the worst of it and are now officially listed as dangerous. The rest of the Western Conference has got to feel sick to their stomachs. All year, Dallas, Minnesota, Vegas, Los Angeles and Seattle thought this just might be their year. They gleefully accumulated points while the Avs slumbered.
But now, the mighty beast has awoken and woe is the Western Conference opponent who crosses their path.
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