Scott MacDonald
Well, it happened again. These days, us sportswriters are at the mercy of Zoom, and unfortunately, well, the video conference technology took a day off today. The Avalanche, however, did not take the day off. They resumed practice this afternoon after earning a full day off yesterday, which they used to take a team outing to Blackhawk Golf Club in the outskirts of Edmonton.
For whatever reason, only a handful (like two?) media members were able to actually log onto the Zoom call and ask questions. Neither myself nor Dater were one of them. That said, here’s the information we were able to gather from the Avs practice today. And a quick shoutout to our media colleague Nick Cotsonika for sending me the transcription from today’s Zoom..
Here’s what we know:
Head coach Jared Bednar said he and the Avalanche were maybe expecting another couple days off, but found out early this morning that their Game 1 matchup against the Dallas Stars would actually begin tomorrow. How does Bednar feel about starting back up so soon?
“I like starting as soon as possible, to be honest with you,” he said. “I think time generally seems to move pretty slowly here in the bubble, which we found out for the first couple weeks when we were playing every third day and had some time before our first game…We’re liking the fact we don’t have too much time off in between games. I’m sure Dallas is kind of the same way. Just keep playing. It’s what we’re all here to do, is play hockey games and not necessarily practice and have days off. So we’re looking forward to the start tomorrow.”
While many expected the NHL to wait until Monday to start the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the league shocked us all and announced the Stars and Avs would begin play tomorrow night, despite Dallas just wrapping up their series with Calgary late last night, and still with two first-round series yet to close out.
That matters very little to the Avalanche, of course, since they earned an extra day off between rounds, having sent Arizona packing back on Wednesday.
Bednar admitted he didn’t watch much of the Stars-Flames first-round series, but he and his staff are “picking through video now of some of their recent games.” He adds, Dallas got off to a slow start but they’re “firing on all cylinders now, starting to look like the team we expect them to be.”
Nazem Kadri, Andre Burakovsky and Erik Johnson were also made available to the media. However, since only a couple of media members got in to the chat, those three were on the podium for all of roughly 90 seconds, the duration of the two questions that were asked of them.
Both Kadri and Johnson did mention how deep Dallas is as a team, though. EJ said he expects it to be a much “heavier” series with more physicality, which he says they’re “looking forward to.”
Other news and notes:
Game 1 between the Avalanche and Stars is set for 6 p.m. MT tomorrow night.