Colorado Favorite – Tampa is aiming for an amazing flair

The Stanley Cup final match is the dream of top hockey fans, with the Colorado Avalanche in the playoffs and Tampa Bay Lightning winning the previous two championships facing each other.

In the regular season, Avs was number one in the Western Conference and Bolts in the East was only Fifth, but as the playoffs progressed, the double champion has warmed up again. This was illustrated by the final series of the conference against the New York Rangers. Lightning lost the first two matches but won the next four.

Colorado has won the championship twice, in 1996 and 2001. Tampa has one more title when it first came in 2004.

Three consecutive Stanley Cups would be an incredible accomplishment in a time-balancing pay cap.

The last time the New York Islanders stood in the pipeline, 40 years ago – before the pay cap – was to build as many as four consecutive championship dynasties (1980-83).

Avs favorite

Tampa has experience and knows what it takes to win a championship. As a pre-favorite for the finals, dynamic and ultra-fast Colorado will still start.

American The Athletic asked reviews from their journalists writing about the NHL, and those who trusted the Colorado championship accounted for 74.4 percent.

So is Avalanche a tough opponent of Tampa’s three playoff spring? Probably is.

In the finals of the last two seasons Jon Cooperin the crew defeated the Dallas Stars 4–2 first and then the Montreal Canadiens 4–1.

Now in the first round, the Toronto Maple Leafs took Tampa to the seventh match, but Colorado’s explosive offensive force poses an even tougher challenge to its tough defense.

Head coach Jared Bednarin the way of playing based on the whole five offensive game is aptly described by the fact that the defender Cale Makar is the Avs score in the playoffs. Of course, Makari’s terrible powers (14 matches, 5 + 17 = 22) also tell of the man’s phenomenal skills: he is the biggest favorite to win the Conn Smythe Award for the Most Valuable Player in the playoffs.

Finnish strikers Mikko Rantanen (5 + 12 = 17) and Artturi Lehkonen (6 + 5 = 11) are Colorado’s key and core players, but the extent of the front is indicated by the fact that on the team’s internal stock exchange, they are “only” ranked four and seven.

After Makari, the following are Nathan MacKinnon and the captain Gabriel Landeskogand fit between Finns Nazem Kadri as well as a defender Devon Toews.

Goalkeeper game

However, the Colorado championship dream is overshadowed by a few question marks.

The first is a goalkeeper game. First guard Darcy Kuemper returns from a break of more than two weeks between poles, but he or a second guard Pavel Francouz neither do the Tampa Conn Smythe winner in the comparison Andrei Vasilevsky.

The team flips the game lightning fast after their puck, but the defensive game is not on the same level. Puck losses pose a big risk when attack-oriented five get a delay when the game turns in the defensive direction.

In its own territory, Avs has spent relatively little time that it is not there at its best. This also applies to the underpower game, where its 75.7 percent of all playoff teams are below average.

In addition, the injury of Kadri, who played a great season, will inevitably leave a gap in the chains. According to unconfirmed data, his hand has been operated on and the season is already in the package.

Bednar has moved Rantanen from the top of the chain to become the center forward to second, with Lehkonen and André Burakovsky. Rantanen’s place in number one alongside Landeskog and MacKinnon has been inherited Valeri Nitshushkin.

Point returns

Changes in the sick list, in turn, will raise Tampa shares, as one of the team’s brightest star players Brayden Point is returning to real action after a month’s break.

The small-scale savvy, who has won the playoffs in the playoffs in two championship springs, may not have time for the first match yet, but he is likely to play in the final series.

There are other great types of winners in the double champion ranks, such as winning the playoffs two times in a row. Nikita KucherovIn the Rangers series the powers 5 + 4 = 9 rotten Ondrej Palatthe first time more than a hundred points in the regular season burst captain Steven Stamkos as well as the defender who made his point record (20 + 65 = 85) Victor Hedman.

Experienced striker Pat Maroon is already aiming for the fourth championship in the tube after winning the pitcher before his Bolts years in the ranks of St. Louis Blues in 2019. Even more experienced Corey Perry reaches a rare achievement by playing in the finals in a different club for three years in a row (2020 Dallas, 2021 Montreal).

Tampa’s physicality is a tough challenge for Colorado. The chances are still that Tampa’s victory would require Vasilevsky to have another Conn Smythe spring in the pipe – that is possible, of course.