Avalanche players and coaches have not shied away from the expectations and standard they’ve set for this season.
It’s very much a Stanley Cup-or-bust year in Denver. And for the first time in 2023-24, the Avs will meet one of the other teams with similar expectations Saturday night when the Carolina Hurricanes come to Ball Arena.
“We’ve played some solid teams, some really good teams, but (Saturday) is huge,” Avs star Nathan MacKinnon said. “We’re going to get their best, but it’s always fun. They’re a tough team to play against. They play hard. They’re fast. They play stingy. Hopefully, we can get a lead and make them come out of their structure a little bit.”
The Hurricanes have reached the conference finals twice in the past five seasons, but have been swept both times. Carolina has won its division three years in a row, and collected 309 points in that span. That’s third in the NHL behind Boston (315) and Colorado (310).
Carolina has one of the deepest teams in the league, including a defense corps that might have the strongest argument for being the best outside of Colorado. The Hurricanes added Brent Burns before last season, and he responded with a turn-back-the-clock campaign that put him in consideration for the Norris Trophy. They added Dmitri Orlov, the top defenseman available in free agency this past summer, on a short-term, high-dollar deal (two years at $7.75 million per).
The Hurricanes do not have quite the same star power at the top of their lineup as the Avalanche, and they’re missing one of their two most dynamic forwards, Andrei Svechnikov, while he recovers from a major knee injury. The other, Sebastian Aho, hasn’t played in the past two contests because of an upper-body injury. What they do have is a deep group with a relentless playing style, and one of the distinct team identities in the league with coach Rod Brind’Amour at the helm.
“It’s a tough challenge,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “The guys know that. They know what challenges Carolina brings to the table. It’s up to us to be able to execute under those tough checking circumstances. They have some firepower up front that we’ll have to shut down. We have to be able to create against tough checking teams.”
The Avs have defeated two teams, Los Angeles and Seattle, that made the 2023 playoffs and expect to be there again. Colorado has yet to face one of the other consensus preseason Stanley Cup contenders, a group that includes Carolina, Toronto, Vegas and Dallas. An extended list of contenders could also include Edmonton and New Jersey. Local sportsbook PointsBet has the Avs and Hurricanes tied for the second-best odds to win the Cup behind the Maple Leafs.
Colorado has rolled to a 4-0 start. It leads the NHL in fewest goals allowed per game and shots on goal per contest. The penalty kill has been a perfect 17-for-17 with two shorthanded goals scored, while Alexandar Georgiev has the best save percentage (.965) of any goalie with more than two games played.
Carolina is 3-2 to start the season. The Hurricanes are fourth in goals per game (4.6) but they’ve allowed the most (4.8). The goaltending, which has been an on-again, off-again concern for much of the past five years, is off to a bad start both in performance (league-worst .825 save percentage) and availability, because Frederik Andersen left the game Tuesday night after taking a shot off his mask and did not dress Thursday in a loss to Seattle.
They’ve allowed at least three goals in every game this season, including seven in a loss to the Kraken.
“Last night, we got Chicago at the end of a road trip. They didn’t look like they had their legs and we looked great,” Bednar said. “Now, can we go repeat that sort of performance against a team that is going to come in here hungry?”
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