The Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning meet Wednesday night at Amalie Arena for Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final. Colorado leads the best-of-seven series 2-1. Here’s five things to watch for Game 4.
TAMPA, Fla. — The Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning meet Wednesday night at Amalie Arena for Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final. Colorado leads the best-of-seven series 2-1.The Avalanche’s top defensive pairing of Devon Toews and Cale Makar have been difference-makers in all three games. They helped Colorado sweep Games 1 and 2 in Denver and struggled in Game 3’s 6-2 loss in Tampa. Toews and Makar were each minus-3 on Monday, falling to minus-3 and minus-1 in the series, respectively.
Their plus-minus rating is important because they log the most minutes for Colorado every game. Coach Jared Bednar believe his top pairing and his entire team will play better in Game 4. “I don’t like to separate individuals out of it,” Bednar said when asked about Toews and Makar. “We talked about that with Darcy yesterday. Our whole team has got to bounce back and be better than we were.”Bednar wants to coach a desperate team on Wednesday.
“Last night they had the competitive advantage,” Bednar said. “Games 1 and 2, I think we had it. So that will get ramped up a little bit for us here tomorrow and there will be some desperation in our game. We will clean up some of the mistakes we had and I think all of our guys will respond after losing last night.”The Avalanche aims to take a 3-1 series back to Denver for Game 5 on Friday at Ball Arena. The club remains confident after losing for the first time on the road in the postseason .
“We are still in the driver’s seat. It’s 2-1 for us. We knew coming in here that it would be tough to win both games,” Avs defenseman Erik Johnson said. “We knew that they were going to come with their best game. And listen, it could have been 2-0, 3-0 for us . That little offside , just a couple inches, and then J.T. Compher missed the open net, and we had the power-play goal.
“We could have come out of that period sitting pretty good. Sometimes things go the other way and credit to them, they took advantage of all their opportunities. For us to get the split, we’d be sitting pretty good.”The Avalanche has been extraordinary in special teams in this series. Colorado is 5-for-11 on the power play and has killed off 12 of 13 penalties.
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