Over the years, several players on the Colorado Avalanche and around the league have been pretty open about shutting off from the game of hockey after their team gets eliminated. For some, it’s an opportunity to get a mental reset for the offseason ahead. For others, it’s simply because the loss was so recent that it stings to watch games you’re not involved in.
But this year’s Avalanche are a little bit different. They haven’t been eliminated. They swept the Los Angeles Kings in the first round and became the first and (so far) only team in the Western Conference to advance to the second round. At the very least, it’ll be a week between games, if not more, from Game 4 against Los Angeles to Game 1 at Ball Arena against either Dallas or Minnesota.
Does a team in this position watch other games while awaiting the next round?
“Quite a bit,” Avalanche center Nazem Kadri said. “Although, I think I’m kind of starting to get a little sick of it now.”
Kadri isn’t the only one with this opinion. It appears that most of the players are tuning in to some extent. When the hockey gets repetitive, Kadri defers to basketball. He was often at Denver Nuggets games on off days during his first stint in Colorado. He also attended every single Toronto Raptors home game leading up to their 2019 championship.
But there is a purpose behind watching other games. Even if, as he said, it’s starting to be a little bit too much given the length of the Avalanche’s break.
“I want to take things away from these games I watch, for sure. I think just trying to put yourself in some of those positions, and what you would do,” Kadri said. “Studying the game and watching the game is a big component of things happening second nature out there. So I always try to watch the game and whoever has the puck, I put myself in that situation and see what plays could be a good option.”
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The Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild are facing each other in a crucial Game 6 on Thursday night. If the Wild win, they’ll eliminate Dallas and set up a second-round matchup against Colorado. If the Stars win, Game 7 will take place in Dallas on Saturday.
Either way, the Avs’ next opponent will be a challenge. But the longer that series goes, the more likely the well-rested Avs are going to be facing a team battling a lot more than just fatigue.
“I think we’re rooting for a Game 8, maybe a Game 9,” Kadri joked. He later added: “If it’s teams that you could possibly match it up against, you tune in a little bit closer.”
For others, watching the playoffs isn’t just about preparing for the second round. It could simply be catching a former team — former teammates and friends — where you once played.
“I watch their games, obviously still friends with those guys, so I’m watching them,” star forward Martin Necas said, referring to the Carolina Hurricanes, where he played for almost eight years before getting traded to Colorado.
Artturi Lehkonen also tunes in to his former team. It’s been four years since he was sent to the Avalanche in a trade deadline deal with the Montreal Canadiens. Nine months before that, he was playing for the Stanley Cup with the Habs — a series they would go on to lose in five games against the very same Tampa Bay Lightning squad he scored the Stanley Cup-clinching goal against in 2022.
“I watch some, usually it’s the earlier games, and I usually try to watch Montreal,” he said. “The other [Central] division games start late, so I might catch a little bit.”
Montreal is in the middle of a heated battle against the Lightning in the first round. If they advance, they’ll join the Hurricanes and Philadelphia Flyers as three of the four second-round teams representing the Eastern Conference.
It also puts those clubs as potential Stanley Cup Final opponents for the Avalanche, if they get there.
It might be a little bit too early to think that far ahead, but it’s definitely top of mind for some of the guys who played elsewhere before joining the Avs.
“It’s a long way to go, but as you know, [the Hurricanes] are in a different conference, so we won’t play them right now, but we’re just working on that to get to the final step, and so are they,” Necas said, contemplating a potential matchup against his former team. “So I’m definitely watching them, just like all the other games. Playoff hockey is the best to watch.”
Teams don’t always get a chance to watch other games. Last year, the Avalanche were eliminated in Game 7 by the Dallas Stars. The other series in the Central between the Winnipeg Jets and St. Louis Blues also went the distance. When the Stars and Jets met for Game 1 in the second round, they had just a few days off to prepare. The Jets also had to travel to Dallas.
There weren’t many games scheduled in between for them to catch. Nor did they really have the time to do so.
But as a coach of a team with this luxury, is there a preference on whether players should watch other games?
“No, I think it’s a personal preference,” Avs head coach Jared Bednar said. “We have guys that can tell you every play that happened in last night’s game, and then other guys probably didn’t watch at all, you know? So for some guys, it helps, and for some guys, it’s not important to them. And some guys maybe don’t even want to know. Those opinions vary on everything we do. Some guys are big in analytics. They want to know everything. Some guys don’t need a lot. Some guys couldn’t care less. I’m not going to tell them what to do.”
Bednar added: “As long as they know what they’re doing when it comes to game time and they’re playing at their best. However they get to that outcome is all I care about.”
