Among other things, the Avalanche needs to generate a lot more offense on power plays against the Minnesota Wild in Game 2 Saturday night than it did Thursday.
The Avalanche was outshot 2-1 on four power plays in Game 1 and, counting five regular-season meetings, has gone 0-for-15 with the man advantage against the Wild this year.
"You have to give them credit, they played well," coach
Patrick Roy said Saturday morning. "They did a really good job, they play a little box. We might have to take more shots from the top. That's something we'll consider. But this is a team that blocks a lot of shots as well and they had great sticks. They're well coached and their positioning is really good.
"We're going to have to do it a little more the hard way, be better at jumping on those rebounds. You're looking at a lot of goals that have been scored on the power play, a lot of them are point shots with a screen in front of the net and the rebound is there and you put it in. Playoffs, it's getting tougher and tougher to score on the power play. Teams study and they read and adjust. We're going to have to be a little bit better on our power play."
A lot better, actually.
"Especially at key times," captain
Gabriel Landeskog said. "Our power plays needs to create momentum. That's one of our key points going into tonight, but also our neutral-zone play has to be better and manage our game better."
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No real surprise, but Roy said he doesn't expect center
Matt Duchene to play at any point in this series. Duchene hurt his left knee March 29 against San Jose and hasn't done any skating since.
"I don't think we will see Matt in this series," he said. "I'll be very, very surprised. He hasn't started skating yet. I don't think we will see him."
Roy said center
John Mitchell is day-to-day, yet said he's "not even close" to playing since sustaining a concussion April 10 against Vancouver.
"He hasn't even started riding the bike. He's not ready to play," he said.
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Eleven Avalanche players made postseason debuts Thursday: Landeskog,
Tyson Barrie, Patrick Bordeleau, Paul Carey, Marc-Andre Cliche, Nate Guenin, Nick Holden, Erik Johnson, Nathan MacKinnon, Brad Malone and
PA Parenteau.
"Nerves are out of the way, all the guys have played their first playoff game and now it's up to us to step on the gas," Landeskog said. "We know they're going to come out hard because they probably feel (Game 1) got away from them a little bit. We have to be ready right from the get-go, feed off the crowd and stick to our game and not let up."
Parenteau had three shots on goal and was a plus-1 in 18:04 of ice time, but the game was just his third after missing 15 with a right-knee injury. He earlier missed 10 games with a left-knee injury.
"I had a little bit of rust," he said. "It's not easy to jump into that kind of pace. I have to try and make some plays and try and find my confidence. It's the playoffs and everyone is fighting for their lives. I never made it before and that first game was awesome. I didn't play as well as I wanted to. The first game was something special and now we know what to expect so we can prepare a little better maybe.
"I think we have to skate more and move our feet. We were standing still too much, and we have too much skill and too much speed to play like that. That's something we want to fix tonight. We want them to chase us all night."
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Defenseman
Jan Hejda, who struggled at times Thursday, said he and his teammates have to be better at limiting scoring chances.
"We have to defend better," he said. "That's why they scored four (goals). Especially in the second period we kind of slowed down and we cannot do that again. We have to be better in the neutral zone and better in the D-zone. They are also very good around the net and we have to cover their players better than we did. "
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Wild coach
Mike Yeo said he believes the Avalanche wants to create as many four-on-four skating situations as possible to help their speed game.
"I think it's a tactic that they're trying to employ," he said. "No question when they're down, of course they want to play four-on-four and open up a little more ice. That's something we're always talking about to our guys, trying to get out of those battles, trying to get out of those scrums. We want to play harder between the whistles, but hopefully the people that are calling the game are aware of that and judging it the right way."
Roy said he "certainly doesn't mind" playing four-on-four but suggested it isn't part of the game plan.
"We like our speed and it certainly opens up the ice a bit more for us, which is great," he said. "At the same time, we try to get away from the scrums. It's not a good thing for the game of hockey. I know it's good for the players to show that they're in the game, but we'd rather focus on playing a hard game and finish our checks when we have a chance."
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Here's my NHL.com feature story on rookie
Nathan MacKinnon, who had three assists in Game 1.
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Here are the projected lineups:
WILD
Zach Parise - Mikko Koivu - Charlie Coyle
Matt Moulson - Mikael Granlund - Jason Pominville
Matt Cooke - Erik Haula - Nino Niederreiter
Cody McCormick-Kyle Brodziak- Stephane Veilleux
Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin-Marco Scandella
Nate Prosser-Clayton Stoner
Ilya Bryzgalov
Darcy Kuemper
AVALANCHE
Gabriel Landeskog - Paul Stastny - Jamie McGinn
Ryan O’Reilly - Nathan MacKinnon - PA Parenteau
Cody McLeod - Marc-Andre Cliche - Max Talbot
Patrick Bordeleau - Brad Malone - Paul Carey
Jan Hejda-Erik Johnson
Nate Guenin-Tyson Barrie
Andre Benoit-Nick Holden
Semyon Varlamov
Jean-Sebastien Giguere
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