The Avalanche brought their brooms with them to St. Louis as they won Game 4 of their Opening Round Best-of-7 Series to sweep The Blues. Colorado's top line continued their post-season dominance, as Captain Gabe Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen each had a goal and an assist in Game 4. Rantanen extended his point streak to 15 games dating back to the regular season.
Landeskog echoed his line-mates sentiment about closing out The Blues “anytime you have a chance to finish off a team you want to finish off that team! Momentum is a funny thing. We wanted to take our opportunity to finish this off tonight. Very proud of our effort.”
Head Coach Jared Bednar was right there with his Captain in stressing the importance to get the series over with in their first elimination game, "You don’t want to give a good team a lot of chances," he said. "You just don’t want to give a team life…when you have a chance to eliminate teams you have to be able to capitalize and get the job done, and our guys did that…that’s focus and determination.”
Goalie Phillip Grubauer stopped 18 of the 20 shots he stopped on Sunday and continued his hot play that carried over from his outstanding regular season. Although his team's offense has been so potent, Bednar was adamant that Gruby's contributions are extremely important to his team. "I think we’ve done a nice job making sure other teams don’t get enough scoring chances," Bednar said. When we need a save…he’s there to make those saves for us…everyone in our room values Gruby and what he’s done for us…I think it gets overshadowed…but it doesn’t diminish what he brings to our team, when you need the save he’s there
The Avalanche acquired Brandon Saad because of his playoff experience. The 2-time Stanley Cup winner with Chicago has shown his ability to make plays in the playoffs, which is something Bednar acknowledged Sunday as Saad found the back of the net for the 3rd straight game. The 5th goal was scored by Valeri Nichuskin.
Colorado now gets a few days off as they await the winner of the Las Vegas, Minnesota series. The Golden Knights lead 3-1 and can close it out tomorrow night in Sin City. In addition to the welcomed time off, Bednar is clearly pleased is playing better in Game 4 than it had in it's previous 3 victories.