Speculation: Playoff matchup discussion

[letsgoavs1921]

I don't give a **** who we play if we're healthy, I pick us in a 7-game series over every single team in our division.

Health is the only thing that matters to me.

Agree, but we not only need to be healthy we need to have everyone get a couple games in to get their legs back. And would sure be nice to win a few going into the playoffs for confidence sake.

 

[The Shermanator]

Beating the Wild and exorcizing those demons might be good for the Avs too. Not that there's many players left from that.

 

[the_fan]

Like others said, healthy Avs, bring on anybody, injured Avs can lose to anybody.

 

[Northern Avs Fan]

From the round one opponents, O’Reilly is the best player and the player most capable of altering a series. I just think Minni is better than St. Louis as a whole.

 

[missionAvs]

My heart cannot take another playoff series loss to the Wild. I will chop my balls off if that happens again. I still have nightmares of the Nino goal in that Game 7 in 2014.

 

[Avs_19]

Avs in 5.

 

[Balthazar]

Kaprizov is absolutely a gamebreaker.

He's a notch below Rantanen/Marner type of winger and they don't have anything else.

The Wild have nothing on us...they don't scare me.

Every year there's a team that has an unexpectedly good season and then crumbles in round 1 (it was Calgary the year that we faced them). I'll be very surprised if that team isn't the Wild this year.

 

[Vk1ing]

Kaprizov is absolutely a gamebreaker.

He hasn't been in the league one year. I think he going to be one in the future. Once teams have footage and can game plan for him then we will see. Hype is nice but consistency is better. If he can play like this next season and into the playoffs then he is a gamebreaker.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

It isn't impossible, but damn will it be tough. If Vegas even goes .500 in pts, that puts them at 80. Given how good they are, I think that is their baseline. To match that the Avs have to go 7-2. Vegas currently owns the tiebreaker, so in that 7-2 the Avs would have to win in regulation. Not impossible, but just a really tough task and requires Vegas to stumble and the Avs can't slip up at all.

Vegas does not own the tiebreaker.

 

[henchman21]

He's a notch below Rantanen/Marner type of winger and they don't have anything else.

The Wild have nothing on us...they don't scare me.

Every year there's a team that has an unexpectedly good season and then crumbles in round 1 (it was Calgary the year that we faced them). I'll be very surprised if that team isn't the Wild this year.

He's a notch below, but I don't think it is a huge notch (Marner is a notch above Rants though). He's becoming a real force as he is getting more and more comfortable. Wouldn't shock me at all to see him really take over a series and be on that or close to that level real soon. When you dive in, I think you'd be surprised how close Kap and Rants are at ES (the Wild's PP was so bad for the first half it skewed some numbers down).

I think the Wild's biggest strength is their depth. They have a lot of good players. Maybe not high end guys, but Fiala and Zuc are better than any Avs forward not on the top line. They don't have a 1st line center, but they got a good 1-4 and their bottom 9 is very good. Their defense has a top 6 that are all high quality guys for their roles and the top 4 is excellent.

 

[henchman21]

He hasn't been in the league one year. I think he going to be one in the future. Once teams have footage and can game plan for him then we will see. Hype is nice but consistency is better. If he can play like this next season and into the playoffs then he is a gamebreaker.

Players can be rookies and gamebreakers. He is one and he's getting better by the game.

Vegas does not own the tiebreaker.

The Avs and Vegas are tied in RW, so it goes to ROW which Vegas has a 3 game lead. Then it goes to wins where Vegas is 4 ahead. Then it goes to head to head... where Vegas has a 1 point lead currently. Vegas also has a higher goal differential and a higher goals scored. Vegas has pretty much every tiebreaker right now.

 

[dahrougem2]

He's a notch below Rantanen/Marner type of winger and they don't have anything else.

The Wild have nothing on us...they don't scare me.

Every year there's a team that has an unexpectedly good season and then crumbles in round 1 (it was Calgary the year that we faced them). I'll be very surprised if that team isn't the Wild this year.

They don't scare me either but they scare me more than the trash Blues.

 

[missionAvs]

They don't scare me either but they scare me more than the trash Blues.

Those trash Blues guys beat us 2 games in a row. Any matchup is going to be a tough out IMO.

 

[The Moops]

My heart cannot take another playoff series loss to the Wild. I will chop my balls off if that happens again. I still have nightmares of the Nino goal in that Game 7 in 2014.

That game broke my heart. I still think they could have bounced Chicago in round 2 as well. Varly had their number like nobody else. Who knows after that. Was a great Cinderella season until OT hit.

 

[dahrougem2]

Those trash Blues guys beat us 2 games in a row. Any matchup is going to be a tough out IMO.

With Devan Dubnyk and Jonas Johansson in net and us missing like 25% of our regular rostered skaters.

The Blues are not good.

 

[missionAvs]

With Devan Dubnyk and Jonas Johansson in net and us missing like 25% of our regular rostered skaters.

The Blues are not good.

The Blues lost Parayko who I'd argue is just as important as any Avs player missing. They might not have the roster they had 2 years ago but they are still a good team. Binnington isn't exactly a world beater either but they still beat us those 2 games. Any team we faceoff against will be a tough out. The only team that we would have cruised against would have been the Yotes and they're currently doing their best doormat of the division act.

 

[filip85]

My heart cannot take another playoff series loss to the Wild. I will chop my balls off if that happens again. I still have nightmares of the Nino goal in that Game 7 in 2014.

I regret more of 2003. loss than 2014. one.

 

[missionAvs]

I regret more of 2003. loss than 2014. one.

Man I was 13 at the time and remember going down to the basement and breaking one of my PS2 controllers. Stupid series pissed me off so much that I broke a controller with the console off.

 

[McJedi]

Ambivalent on facing Wild or Blues. Just want home ice and the last change.

don’t want to face Vegas in round 1.

 

[letsgoavs1921]

Beating the Wild and exorcizing those demons might be good for the Avs too. Not that there's many players left from that.

We've only played them twice in the playoffs in the last 16 years and we've each won once. What deamons? And the loss was a fluky series that we had until they cheap shotted Barrie and we lost in game 7 OT...another fluky game

 

[dahrougem2]

The Blues lost Parayko who I'd argue is just as important as any Avs player missing. They might not have the roster they had 2 years ago but they are still a good team. Binnington isn't exactly a world beater either but they still beat us those 2 games. Any team we faceoff against will be a tough out. The only team that we would have cruised against would have been the Yotes and they're currently doing their best doormat of the division act.

The Blues are 24th in the league in CF%, 23rd in xGF%, 20th in SCF%, 29th in HDCF%, 16th in SH%. They are a team that generates nothing while still somehow being middle of the pack in shooting percentage. Their play this year is extremely uninspired and I would LOVE to play them in the 1st round.

 

[letsgoavs1921]

Man I was 13 at the time and remember going down to the basement and breaking one of my PS2 controllers. Stupid series pissed me off so much that I broke a controller with the console off.

Was a brutal loss

Both series we have lost to them have been identical. Lead the series 3-2, lose game 6 at Minnesota. Lead game 7, they tie it in the last 5 minutes and beat us in OT

 

[CoachBadkitten]

I was such a ROR stan back in the day that it still hurts every time we play him. Give me the Wild, please.

 

[McMetal]

With the Blues, it would all depend on which Binnington shows up for our series against them. If he shows his 2019 playoff form, it would be a razor thin series. But if he starts leaking the way he has in the last couple regular seasons, the Avs would handily take the series. He's such a hot and cold goaltender that nobody can know which version of him will be in net on any given night. He's been great lately, but it could evaporate at any moment.

 

[missionAvs]

The Blues are 24th in the league in CF%, 23rd in xGF%, 20th in SCF%, 29th in HDCF%, 16th in SH%. They are a team that generates nothing while still somehow being middle of the pack in shooting percentage. Their play this year is extremely uninspired and I would LOVE to play them in the 1st round.

Advanced stats aren't everything. If they were so bad, the Avs being the advanced stats juggernauts that they are should have beat them easily despite playing their backup and missing Rantanen. We instead lost to them 2 games in a row. The Blues are heating up right now. They can beat anyone. Tough draw.