Done In Denver And How The Kraken Did It

05/01/2023 at 5:29am EDT

from Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post,

Where did the good times go? A scant 305 days after parading the Stanley Cup through the streets of Denver, the Avalanche dynasty crumbled.
With a 2-1 home loss on a sad Sunday night to an upstart Seattle team that had no business beating the defending NHL champs, the Avs unlaced their skates and headed home early from the playoffs, carrying with them hard questions that go far beyond woulda, shoulda, coulda.
Is this Colorado team, despite the star power of Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen, a one-hit wonder?
Can Valeri Nichushkin, who mysteriously disappeared from this first-round series, be trusted as a key member of this squad going forward?
And if injured captain Gabe Landeskog, whose troubling knee injury cost him the entire season, can’t return to full health, might the roster need a major renovation instead of minor retooling?
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

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from Eric Duhatschek of The Athletic,

There were always going to be several ways of assessing the Kraken-Avalanche series.

The lightly regarded second-year NHL expansion team versus the defending Stanley Cup champions.
Seattle’s strength-in-numbers approach compared to Colorado’s top-heavy talent.
David versus Goliath, on some levels.
But it really came down to two overriding factors: Seattle’s scoring depth and the goaltending of ex-Colorado netminder Philipp Grubauer. When Bjorkstrand scored his first goal of the night, he became the 15th different Seattle player with at least one goal. Colorado got virtually nothing from the bottom half of its roster. The MacKinnons, Rantanens and Makars were only able to carry them so far offensively.
Then there was the goaltending matchup. Intriguing. Fascinating, considering the back story. Grubauer played three years for Colorado between 2018 and 2021. He was offered a contract extension to continue playing for the Avalanche, ahead of the 2021 expansion draft. Instead, he opted to join — and sign long-term — with Seattle.
Grubauer’s decision forced the Avalanche into doing some scrambling in goal, and ultimately settled on a trade to acquire Darcy Kuemper, which had a happy outcome. Kuemper was good enough to get the Avalanche to the winners’ circle last year, before leaving as a free agent himself.

more ($)

from Nicholas J. Cotsonika of NHL.com,

When the Seattle Kraken upset the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference First Round, defeating the defending Stanley Cup champions 2-1 in Game 7 at Ball Arena on Sunday, they proved something to everyone sleeping on Seattle.

"Incredible," goalie Philipp Grubauer said after making 33 saves. "It means a lot to the organization and this team. And obviously for the people that have written us off early in the season or since the start, yeah, here we are."

Here they are in the second round, playing the Dallas Stars in Game 1 at American Airlines Center in Dallas on Tuesday (9:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, CBC, SN, TVAS).

On the surface, this was stunning.

After finishing 30th in the NHL in their inaugural season, the Kraken made the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time, earning the first wild card in the West. Never had a team earned its first playoff series win by defeating a defending champion. Well, Seattle became the first.

The Kraken scored first in each of the seven games, won three of the four games in Denver and never panicked in a seesaw series, taking a 1-0 lead, falling behind 2-1, taking a 3-2 lead, and coming back from a 4-1 loss in Game 6 to win Game 7.

They had 15 players score without getting a goal from forward Jared McCann, who led them with 40 goals in the regular season, or forward Andre Burakovsky, who scored 13 goals in the regular season. McCann (upper body) didn't play after Game 4. Burakovsky (lower body) hasn't played since Feb. 7.

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Done In Denver And How The Kraken Did It

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