Avalanche coach Jared Bednar had simple message for final regular-season game

ANAHEIM, Calif. — There is plenty of potential drama in the coming days for the Colorado Avalanche, but the message for Game No. 82 was pretty simple.

When the Avs hit the ice Sunday night at Honda Center to face the Anaheim Ducks, they already knew what lay ahead — a first-round blockbuster Stanley Cup Playoffs series with the Dallas Stars, which will likely begin next Saturday or Sunday deep in the heart of Texas.

Their coach just wanted them to play hard. Bednar hasn’t loved his team’s emotional engagement at times recently, but has also been sympathetic most nights, given the circumstances.

Mission accomplished.

Not only the did Avs play hard, they roared back for a 4-2 comeback victory despite having as many as 10 players in the lineup who might not be for Game 1.

“They had their legs and that’s a good young team, but we said we are here, so we’re going to try and win,” Avs defenseman Erik Johnson said. “I know we didn’t have a bunch of guys, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to give our best effort.”

Colorado scored four times in the third period, including Johnson’s first goal since returning to the franchise before the trade deadline. The highlight though was Wyatt Aamodt, a 27-year-old defenseman who made his NHL debut Saturday night, scoring his first NHL goal.

It ended up being the game winner, and he had a lot of family members in the stand to see it.

“It’s been very emotional for myself and my family,” Aamodt said. “When you’re 27 years old, you start wondering if it’s going to happen. … These last two games weren’t just for me. It’s for my family as well.”

After bulldozing its way through the schedule for a month after the 4 Nations break, Colorado has cooled off with little left to play for and a mounting injury list. The Avalanche now sit at 102 points and are locked into a third-place finish in the Central Division. Because of a scheduling quirk, there will be more regular-season games around the league through Thursday night.

The Avs began Sunday in seventh place in the overall NHL standings. Defeating the Ducks gives them a better chance of staying ahead of a few teams behind them, but Colorado could still drop behind four teams — Carolina, Tampa Bay, Florida and Edmonton — as well.

In the short term, that is meaningless. But, as Bednar put it recently, if this team goes where it wants to — on a deep playoff run — finishing ahead of any of those teams could be the difference between having home-ice advantage in the Western Conference Final or Stanley Cup Final or not. The Avs will definitely begin the first round in Dallas and would likely begin the second round in Winnipeg, unless the conference-winning Jets get upset by either St. Louis or Minnesota.

While the Avs will have a long wait, it could be beneficial. Nathan MacKinnon skipped the final three games of the regular season because of a minor injury and should be fine for next weekend, but the status of Colorado’s other injured players — forwards Jonathan Drouin and Ross Colton, defensemen Josh Manson and Ryan Lindgren — is unclear.

“I hope so,” Bednar said when asked if expects them all back for Game 1. “I don’t know for certain though.”

A break could also be beneficial for goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood, who made his final start of the regular season Saturday night and will make his first career Stanley Cup Playoffs start in Dallas. Blackwood has often been brilliant for the Avalanche after an early December trade.

But his past four outings, all during this stretch where the team has little to play for, have not been at the same level. He went 1-3 in those starts with an .866 save percentage.

“I think he hasn’t played as good as he did when he first got here,” Bednar said Saturday night. “So he’s got to hone in on his game here quickly. I still have a lot of confidence in him. I don’t know that you can blame him for some of the goals we gave up (Saturday night).”

Potentially the biggest development for the Avalanche during the final weekend of the regular season did not come in Southern California, but about 1,100 miles away in Loveland. Captain Gabe Landeskog played not just his first game in nearly three years, suiting up for the Colorado Eagles in his first career AHL game, but he played in back-to-back games and collected a goal and an assist Saturday night.

If his repaired right knee reacts favorably to the stress he put it through this past weekend, it is fair to expect he’ll be at Avalanche practice on Tuesday. The team will likely have an update on his status Monday.

“It’s been good. Honestly, it’s been really good,” Landeskog told reporters Saturday night in Loveland. “Obviously, I’ve been skating for a long time now, and I’ve been working on all nuances of skating. Like it’s one thing to be on the ice and skate and do certain drills, but it’s another one to do it in a game, (at) game speed and game intensity.

“I know I put the work in. I know I’ve put my time in and now this weekend, I’ve gotten a chance to just not put it to the test but take the next step and just trust my training, trust where my knee’s at, and it’s been feeling really good.”