Avalanche Locker Room: Makar Talks McCann Hit, Calls Situation ‘Unfortunate’

Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar had dreamed that he was getting booed just the night before. He turned those dreams into reality with his hit on Jared McCann in game four.

After the game, Makar answered with his opinion on what happened with the hit. Andrew Cogliano discussed the tough back-and-forth series with Seattle, and Avalanche coach Jared Bednar talked about what he saw on the Makar hit.

Bednar on his takeaways from the game:

We didn’t get to our game early enough, so that’s the big major takeaway for me. We knew it was going to get tougher and tougher as the series goes on. Space is going to be less available to you, so you have to go earn every inch of ice, and we didn’t do a good enough job early on in the hockey game taking care of that scenario.

Bednar on responding to the physical play:

Well, I thought we pushed back and played physical within the time of the game. I don’t know that we need to get engaged in everything after the whistle. Hasn’t really been part of our style. But I thought we competed hard in a lot of the different areas, especially as the game went on. It kind of goes back to the early part of the game for me. Too many races lost, too many battles lost, they were amped up ready to go. We didn’t handle their pressure very well, then as the game goes on, you know, we started handling it better and becomes a much more even hockey game.

Bednar on the Makar Hit and if he fears a suspension:

I haven’t even looked at it again. I saw him hit him, I think obviously it was a little late. I don’t know. I have no idea. I haven’t really looked at it. I know they called a five, they went back to it, called a two, so I would say no.

Bednar on dropping down to three lines in the third period:

Just the way the game was going and how our guys were playing. I mixed and matched some guys in there for a little while, but most of the third period, I was down to three lines.

Bednar on the difficulty of getting their chances against the Kraken:

I felt we did a good job for a portion of the game of winning some entry battles and spreading them out, and getting pucks low to high and having some space out there. I thought we generated quite a few good looks, but they blocked a lot of them. When we got it past their first guy, then their next guy blocked it in the layer to the net. Kind of reminds me a little bit of Tampa last year. They’re committed to that. They’re going to get in shooting lanes. So there’s some things we can do tactically that we talked about and handled pretty well at times, but tonight, not long enough, didn’t get enough shots through to the net.

Bednar on the Avalanche not getting secondary scoring:

I have a level of concern but we’ve kind of been going this way the whole year and if those guys can find a way to chip in, we’re obviously going to be better off. But we’re playing our game to the best of our ability, and sometimes those guys are going to chip in, and sometimes they’re not. If they can, it will obviously help. There’s a level of concern, but I can’t say I haven’t had it all year, to some extent.

Bednar on Avalanche goaltender Georgiev:

I thought Georgie was fantastic again tonight. Gave us a chance to hang around in a game that probably could have been a lot worse early. And as we started to suppress scoring chances, he was solid.