Hours after saying the right things following Monday’s morning skate in Nashville, demoted Avalanche winger Andre Burakovsky had a stellar performance in Game 4 to help Colorado sweep the Predators and advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“There’s no time for emotions right now and being mad or anything,” Burakovsky said pregame of his new third-line role. “You just got to help the team to where you can and that’s what I’m doing.”
Because of the Avs’ trade-deadline additions and good health, Burakovsky, who was in a top-six scoring role most of the regular season, is now on the third line with J.T. Compher and Nicolas Aube-Kubel. His focus is to be sound defensively but chip in at the other end if he can.
Burakovsky was pointless in the first three games of the postseason. But he came through with a goal and two assists in Game 4’s 5-3 triumph. It wasn’t just any goal, either. It actually burst through the top of the net.
“You’re hoping it’s going to carry over,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said of Burakovsky’s big game. “I just think for him, there was a heightened determination. … Loved his Game 1. Game 2 was probably a little dip from Game 1, but in Game 3 and Game 4, he was excellent — a huge difference-maker in our lineup.
“So hopefully, he can get some confidence out of that and keep it going for Round 2.”
The Avs, now 8-0 in the first round over the last two postseasons, will take on the Minnesota Wild or St. Louis Blues in the Western Conference semifinals. The Wild and Blues were tied 2-2 in their first-round series heading into Game 5 at Minnesota on Tuesday night.
Colorado will take Wednesday off. It has scheduled practices on Thursday and Friday at Family Sports Center.
No gloating. Avalanche fans like to boo Matt Duchene when he touches the puck at Ball Arena. Others like to thank him for his indirect assist in making the Avalanche the Western Conference power it is.
Duchene, the Avs’ former franchise forward, didn’t want to continue on with the club in the fall of 2017. The third overall pick of the 2009 draft requested a trade and ultimately Colorado general manager Joe Sakic made it happen.
Nearly five years later, the Avs swept Duchene and the Predators out of the playoffs. Three players acquired from the Duchene trade — defensemen Sam Girard and Bo Byram and goalie Justus Annunun — were in the Game 4 lineup for the Avs.
But there was no gloating from Bednar — the coach Duchene no longer wanted to play for.
“Players want to move on for different reasons. I don’t ever take it personally and I don’t think it should be,” Bednar said after Game 4. “(Duchene) needed a change of scenery, and he’s had a couple now. He’s found a home here in Nashville and he had a great season. There’s personal decisions to be made, even though it’s within a team game. So we moved on and so has he.”
The Avs had an NHL-low 22 wins and 48 points in Bednar’s first season of 2016-17. Duchene didn’t want to go through with the rebuild — or perhaps play second-fiddle to the Avs’ current core.
“He had a history with the club before I got here and there was a major changing of the guard when I came in. After my (first) year there, I think we had 12 players on expiring contracts. Older group, the direction was going to be young and the leadership was going to get turned over to guys like Mac (Nathan MacKinnon), Mikko (Rantanen), Landy (Gabe Landeskog) and they were going to have a bigger voice and a bigger role on our team.
“That was the focus, that was a directive I got from Joe at the time.”
