5 reasons why Colorado won’t win the Stanley Cup

5 reasons why Colorado will win the Stanley Cup

**1) Depth Contributions:** Colorado’s bottom six depth was arguably a big reason why they were able to sweep the LA Kings. In the first two games of that series, especially, your top players were struggling to get going a bit, and it was players like Logan O’Connor and Nic Roy who stepped up and scored some big-time goals to help the Avs take a 2-0 series lead into LA. You don’t expect your third and fourth-line players to score a goal every single night, of course, but if they can continue to step up in moments when your top guys might be struggling for whatever reason, Colorado will be in good shape as they continue in these playoffs. **2) The Power Play:** Is it cheating to put this reason in both categories? Maybe, but I’m going to do it anyway. At the end of the first round series, Colorado was finally able to break through and score on the power play in game four. The power play actually looked pretty good and like it was trending in the right direction before that game as well. But as we’ve talked about at length, Kings’ netminder Anton Forsberg was playing extremely well and was a massive reason why Colorado didn’t convert before game four, or score a lot across the series on the whole, for that matter. If the Avs can build on those positive power play results at the end of the series and convert more, it’s going to be tough for other teams to keep up with them on the scoring front throughout these playoffs. **3) 5v5 Production:** Colorado has shown that it can certainly produce effectively at 5v5, and having that capability is extremely valuable, and we just saw in another series how valuable it was. In the Dallas vs. Minnesota series, Dallas could not score a 5v5 goal for the life of them for the vast majority of that series, and while their power play was red hot and essentially guaranteed them a goal every time they had the man-advantage, it didn’t matter because the Wild could score 5v5, and Dallas couldn’t match them in that play, and it became such a problem that you could argue that lack of 5v5 scoring cost them the series, in a way. Again, Colorado has shown they can score at 5v5 effectively with the best forward and defenseman left in the tournament at their disposal is one reason why they’re going to be in good shape going into these later rounds. **4) Goaltending:** Scott Wedgewood deserves his flowers for only letting in five goals during the entire four-game Kings series along with sparkling .950 save percentage. He will certainly get tested a lot more moving forward but one of the pillars of a Stanley Cup champion is strength in net and Wedgewood is proving the organization right for putting faith in him to finally become the starter for this Avalanche squad. Mackenzie Blackwood also will likely have a chance to factor in and help this team go far in his own right. That one-two punch is an advantage Colorado has especially with some of the questions around the league in net among some teams still remaining. **5) Luck of the Draw:** Make no mistake, each round will become more difficult just based on the rising stakes and success of each subsequent opponent but we can’t ignore the fact that the playoff bracket is starting to shake out in Colorado’s favor. It’s been a down year for previous powerhouses, Dallas bowed out early, the Pacific division can’t stop a puck and the Eastern conference has been mediocre all year. Defeating Minnesota will be a tough task but there might never be a clearer path for the Avs to the Stanley Cup than in this year’s tournament.