Following a lightly attended optional practice on Thursday, the message remained the same among the Colorado Avalanche.<\/p>\n
Game 2 will be different.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know there\u2019s going to be a response. There\u2019s no question about it,\u201d center Nazem Kadri said. \u201cI think even in the last series, when we lost Game 3, we responded in Game 4.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kadri did not record a point, but his linemates on the third line did, before things were shuffled around. Valeri Nichushkin and Ross Colton combined to score on a sweet give-and-go play early in the third period. Those are two guys who have been streaky at times. But they came up big on Colorado\u2019s opening goal.<\/p>\n
There were struggles in the top six \u2014 things that the team could clean up for Game 2 to have a better performance. They know they have more to give.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a good team. I think we have full confidence in our capabilities, and I don\u2019t think that really wavers depending on whether you win or lose, especially early in the series,\u201d Kadri said. \u201cSo, I felt like we did a lot of great things last game, a little bit sloppy at times, but felt like we did enough to win the game. But credit to them, they stole one. Now we\u2019ve got to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kadri also added: \u201cI think some people thought the sky was falling [after Game 3 in Minnesota], and we certainly believe we have a process that we stick to, and we\u2019re not going to waver from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lineup Changes<\/p>\n
Head coach Jared Bednar shuffled the lines in the third period. He had Artturi Lehkonen and Gabe Landeskog playing with Nathan MacKinnon, while Martin Necas joined the Brock Nelson line with Nichushkin. Kadri was also getting spotted into the top six in the third period to increase the offense.<\/p>\n
Bednar said on Thursday that he liked those lines, but he wouldn\u2019t commit to starting Game 2 with them. However, he did say that changes will come sooner than they did in Game 1, if adjustments are needed.<\/p>\n
Makar Update<\/p>\n
Cale Makar was on the ice and looked to be moving well. He was doing drills on his own, so it\u2019ll be interesting to see if he can ramp up and take contact. Full-team practices and morning skates are very much limited with an every-other-day schedule, so if Makar plays Game 2, it\u2019ll probably be something that isn\u2019t necessarily predictable by assessing his reps at practice.<\/p>\n
When asked about Makar playing Game 2, Bednar said, \u201cI don\u2019t have an update. We\u2019ll see what tomorrow brings.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following a lightly attended optional practice on Thursday, the message remained the same among the Colorado Avalanche. Game…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":814434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[42],"tags":[97351,2995,64269,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-814433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-cale-makar","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-nazem-kadri","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116617902166055238","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}