Nine is fine for newbies with Avs in playoffs
Alexander Kerfoot didn’t know exactly what to expect.
The 23-year-old Avalanche center from Vancouver played in highstakes games throughout his time as an amateur, including at Harvard, but never on the grand stage of the Stanley Cup playoffs. And, entering the Nashville series, he wasn’t alone.
“Not a lot of us have played much in the playoffs before,” Kerfoot said.
In all, nine Avalanche players made their NHL postseason debut through two losses at Nashville. The forwards are Sven Andrighetto, J.T. Compher, Tyson Jost, Mikko Rantanen and Kerfoot. The defensemen are Samuel Girard, David Warsofsky, Nikita Zadorov and Duncan Siemens.
Zadorov leads the group with a goal and an assist. Three more added a point: Rantanen (assist), Compher (assist) and Kerfoot (goal).
“I thought they’ve been good,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “It didn’t look to me like we were scared in the moment at all. We were there to compete and play hard. We made, I don’t know if you’d call them young mistakes, but we made some mistakes there that I think we can prevent. We most certainly have to going forward in the series, but for the most part I like the way our team is playing.”
With first-time postseason jitters out of the way, Kerfoot believes the Avs youth has grown up quickly.
“I think we’ve got that under our belts now and we’re excited with
how we played and coming back home in front of the fans,” Kerfoot said. “It’s been great playing here all season long.”
Health check. Girard, a rookie defenseman, did not skate during the team’s optional practice Sunday at the Pepsi Center after missing Game 2 in Nashville with an upper-body injury.
Bednar was unable to provide a timetable for Girard’s return.
“I don’t have an update on him yet this morning,” Bednar said. “He seems to be doing a little bit better today, so I’ll talk with the trainers when I get back there. Dayby-day for him.”
Girard was replaced on the second pairing by Siemens, also a rookie.
Home-ice advantage. The Avalanche is 28-11-2 at home this season as the Pepsi Center welcomes Stanley Cup Playoff hockey back to Denver for the first time since 2014. The arena saw an overall increase in fan attendance this season of more than 28,000.
“When we’ve played in this building in front of big crowds we’ve been energized and we’ve been on our toes of being the aggressors and we certainly need to continue to do that,” Bednar said. “I think our guys are hungry to get back here. We’ll have some matchup advantages that we want to play with as much as we possibly can just like they did in their building.”
Added Avs center Nathan MacKinnon: “We have lots of confidence here and we’ve shown that with a good record. And guys have played really well here individually. The building has been a lot of fun this year.”