Avalanche Locker Room: Makar No Longer Bad Luck, Bednar on Lehkonen’s Work Effort

After the loss on Sunday, Cale Makar said that every time he comes back into the lineup, the team loses games.

He addressed that after his big four point effort on Tuesday night against the San Jose Sharks. The star defensemen also talked about the big win, and how the forwards made life easy on the defense.

Avalanche head coach Bednar liked what he saw on Tuesday night, and who could blame him. I also asked him about Artturi Lehkonen and what he brings to the top line, and coach had a lot to say about the work effort of the Finnish winger.

Take a look at the video from Makar in the locker room, and read what Bednar had to say after the big 6-0 win.

Bednar on the complete game from the Avalanche:

It was pretty good with our game tonight, start to finish. Let’s be fair, it’s a tough schedule (for San Jose), the back to back, travel across border, get in late. Playing some teams, playing a lot of hockey and we finally catch a team that’s a little bit tired. We were rested, and after the weekend, I expected us to be a hungry team and doing things the right way and playing the right way, and I thought we did from start to finish. There’s a lot to like on both sides of the puck.

Bednar on the importance of the win:

We presented it as a challenge to our team, to get back on track. It’s not the end of the world when you get off the rails for a couple games, and you don’t play the way you can. So you want to address the issues and bring them to light and have everyone understand them. You also want to continue doing some of the things that we’ve been doing well here recently. And not let those previous three games pile up and come into tonight’s game thinking about that. I thought the guys did a nice job clearing their minds and going about their business in a real professional manner.

Bednar on Avalanche star Rantanen restraining himself before his goal:

Proud of him. Well, I thought it was a penalty. And I think after, they’ll look at it and agree. To not get the call early in the game, and you could see him starting to kind of boil over, but he did a nice job. You could tell he was frustrated, and then he gets rewarded. It doesn’t feel as bad going head first into the boards after you score, you know? I was happy for him.

Bednar on Makar getting more comfortable:

I expect it from him. I think all of you guys do as well. He holds himself to a high standard, you know he’s going to get there. He missed a significant amount of time. He’ll get there, and tonight was a huge step in the right direction

Bednar on Artturi Lehkonen’s work ethic and why he works with MacKinnon:

He works. He’s an extremely hard worker. Extremely hard worker. He’s in on the forecheck all the time. He’s a puck hound. He has the ability to play in traffic and check pucks back, a lot like Val, which just allows Nate to spend more time in the offensive zone. When you got guys pushing and reloading hard and pressuring the puck all over the place, often times Nate will come on to the puck in space, and then we know what he can do when he gets that kind of time. I like those workers and checkers, but guys that can still make plays and play with top players, because they do some heavy lifting.