In the aftermath of a lifeless playoff opener, Bo Byram was careful to differentiate this Avalanche team from last year’s squad.

The Stanley Cup champions? They responded to postseason losses with remarkable poise.

“We’re not the same team as last year,” though, Byram pointed out to The Post as a quiet locker room emptied out after a Game 1 loss to the Kraken. He and his teammates have grown tired of the constant comparisons to that title run. This team hadn’t proven anything yet in the face of playoff adversity. It still hadn’t at first intermission of Game 2.

“We tried to relax a little bit,” Devon Toews said.

The 2022-23 Avalanche unlocked confidence in their ability to respond with a comeback 3-2 win over Seattle on Thursday night at Ball Arena. Down 2-0 in the second period and staring at a potential 2-0 series deficit, the Avs found new energy. Their three consecutive goals were capped by Toews’ game-winning rebound with 7:01 remaining in the third. Toews was separated from Cale Makar’s defensive pairing before Game 2, one of several lineup adjustments Jared Bednar made between games to remedy Colorado’s poor play.

Toews was central to the struggles, making key mistakes in Game 1 and 2 as the Avs fell behind. He found redemption in perseverance of a bouncing puck.

“I think you could say that for every player on our team,” Bednar said.

As if the game needed any more drama, Colorado killed a penalty in the final three minutes as the Kraken emptied the net for a man advantage. They couldn’t claim the two-game advantage, so now a tied series moves to the Emerald City for Game 3 — the Kraken’s first home playoff game in franchise history — on Saturday.

“Confidence is a strange thing,” Bednar said. “Ebbs and flows to a series … it’s not as magnified in the regular season.”

After a scoreless drought lasting 69:17 since early in Game 1, Artturi Lehkonen and Valeri Nichushkin finally made Ball Arena erupt 48 seconds apart in the second period. Lehkonen deflected a Cale Makar shot off a faceoff, and Nichushkin buried a transition backhander stemming from Toews’ and Evan Rodrigues’ outstanding passes.

For five minutes after tying it, the Avalanche skated as if they might suddenly run away with a blowout. Nathan MacKinnon found room in the slot for a scoring chance but was denied. Rodrigues upended Vince Dunn with a hit worthy of being replayed on the jumbotron from every conceivable angle. Alexandar Georgiev made two brilliant penalty kill saves and slid across his crease to deny Jordan Eberle on a 3-on-1 before intermission. Skirmishes broke out at every dead puck. Even Cale Makar ended up with his helmet off while skating to the box for a matching minor.

In other words, the series finally felt like playoff hockey.

“Physicality ramps up,” Rodrigues said. “I think we lacked that in the first game a little bit. It’s playoff hockey. You do what you need to do.”

It took more than four periods for the Avalanche to find that intensity level. The fourth was a nadir. Bednar called it the team’s worst period of the series. Hockey deities showed early mercy toward Colorado by allowing an early Seattle shot to clip the post, but the Avs didn’t heed that warning. Toews and Makar were caught on their heels as Seattle’s third line facilitated a 2-on-1. Depth defenseman Justin Schultz’s easy finish gave the Kraken a 1-0 lead and a goal in the first five minutes of every period in the series up until that point.

The Avalanche struggled to get out of their own zone early on. When they pushed ahead, they didn’t get bodies in front of the net. No screens. No dangerous chances. A power play ended in catastrophe when Yanni Gourde bested Makar and J.T. Compher in a puck battle in the corner. Brandon Tanev hammered in a short-handed goal for a 2-0 lead.

By the end of the first period, it was hard to tell whether Ball Arena’s scattered background tenor of “oooh” was a Kraken chorus of appreciation for goalie Phillip Grubauer or a premature shower of boos from the home fans.

Bednar didn’t like his lines in Game 1, so he played chess. MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen were separated. So were Makar and Toews, although they ended up playing together. Lehkonen joined MacKinnon and Rodrigues. Darren Helm rejoined the lineup, and Alex Newhook moved back to the wing. But depth ceased to be the issue in that first period — everyone top to bottom played poorly before flipping the switch.

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