Snowed Over

Roman Josi had an incredible season for the Nashville Predators. After scoring 96 points this season, the highest total in 29 years for a defenceman, he was nominated for the Norris Trophy as the league's best defenceman. It's hard to argue his inclusion in the field of nominees, but Josi and the Nashville Predators ran into another guy who is competing for that same trophy in Cale Makar as he and his Avalanche teammates blew everyone else away in the Western Conference standings this season. I'll never be the guy who points to one player as the sole reason for a team's successes or failures, but we have seen the passing of the torch from the 2020 Norris Trophy winner to a player who looks like he and his teammates are destined for greatness not only in this season, but in many future seasons as well.

Arguably, the Predators falling in four games to the Avalanche shouldn't surprise anyone considering how the seasons went for both teams. At no point in this season did the Avalanche look like they may stumble as they captured home-ice advantage up to the Stanley Cup Final depending on how the Florida Panthers fare. The Avalanche entered the series as heavy favorites thanks to their 22-point advantage on the Predators in the standings, but also due to the fact that they had better performances from players individually throughout the season.

While Josi was a very bright spot for Nashville, one could argue that goaltender Juuse Saros literally dragged the Predators into the playoffs with a Vezina-finalist nomination for his season's efforts. The only problem? Saros was injured prior to the series starting after injuring his left leg in a game against Calgary. That left Nashville with David Rittich and Connor Ingram as their netminders, and one had to worry about the Predators throwing those two netminders out to face the onslaught of snipers boasted by the Avalanche.

That worry was realized quickly in Game One when the Avalanche scored five times in the opening twenty minutes of the series, and it was clear that David Rittich wasn't going to be the saviour that Nashville needed in the crease. Head coach John Hynes turned to Connor Ingram, playing in just his fourth appearance of the season, to weather the remaining storm. The final score read 7-2 when the dust settled on this one, and it would seem the Predators needed to find a few snipers of their own if they wanted this series to last longer than the eight days that Calgary head coach Darryl Sutter predicted.

"I think we hurt ourselves in certain areas that are easily correctable," Hynes told reporters after the game, "and I think we have a better game on the ice. We will be better in Game 2 than we were in Game 1."

The Predators lived up to their coach's promise in Game Two, but the better performance was still overshadowed by a Cale Makar overtime goal in a 2-1 Avalanche victory. Makar, who was excellent in Game One, followed up his performance by launching twelve shots on Connor Ingram of the 51 total that he saw, and Nathan MacKinnon scored his third goal of the series in a game that had to have Nashville thinking this series was going to be closer than most thought. Josi did have an assist in the Yakov Trenin goal in this one, but Ingram's 49 saves had caught the attention of Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar.

"He was good. He was really good," Bednar told Mike Chambers of The Denver Post of Ingram. "Yeah, I mean, he was really good."

Ingram's perfomance wasn't lost on the other side of the coin either.

"Connor played great," Predators coach John Hynes said. "He had a great goaltending performance tonight. He made lots of saves at key times, and it was nice to see him be able to play to his ability. I think against a high-powered offensive team, you're going to need excellent goaltending to win games, and he certainly provided that tonight."

The Predators would take their new-found confidence in their goaltender back to Nashville for Game Three where Colorado showed up and crushed it with a 7-3 win in Game Three. Cale Makar had another three assists as the Norris Trophy nominee grabbed the lead in defenceman playoff points on this night while defensive partner Devon Toews quietly had another goal and a helper. Roman Josi had tied the game at 3-3 midway through the second period before the Avalanche buried the Predators with four consecutive goals, and it was once again apparent that the Avalanche simply have too many weapons for Nashville to contain. Could Colorado close out the series in four games?

"There's no easy games in the playoffs," Avalanche forward Gabriel Landeskog told John Glennon of NHL.com. "They've got their backs against the wall at home. They definitely don't want to get swept at home. We want to try to end this thing and don't give them any life, so it's going to be a big game on Monday."

Perhaps it seemed like the tide was turning in Game Four when Nashville scored their third goal of the game to put them up 3-2, giving them their first lead of the series off the stick of Filip Forsberg at 3:58 of the third period. Perhaps they had finally figured out how to neutralize MacKinnon, Landeskog, Kadri, and all the other weapons to gain a lead and possibly hold off the Avalanche for sixteen minutes for victory. Perhaps this was only wishful thinking because Devon Toews scored 4:57 later, Valeri Nichushkin scored at the 12:02 mark, and Nathan MacKinnon iced the game and the series with his fifth goal of the four-game sweep. When the horn sounded, it was handshake time as the Predators' season was over.

"This was our toughest game for sure," Bednar stated matter-of-factly to Glennon. "We made a few mistakes that they capitalized on, but again good resilience from our team to stick with it."

It should be stated that no one voting on any of the NHL awards can vote during the playoffs. Everything is tallied already, so there will still be a Josi-vs-Makar debate that will happen up until the Norris Trophy is awarded to one of them (or possibly Victor Hedman, but that seems unlikely). What we may have witnessed in this first round, though, was a changing of the guard, so to speak, as Makar's ten points leads all players in scoring while Josi, who led all defenders in scoring through the regular season, had just two points. We already knew Makar was good, but he may have just let the NHL know after this series that he's the new face of offensive defenders in the league.

Even if he's still got room to grow, Makar sounds like a future NHL captain.

"You enjoy it quickly," Makar said to Glennon. "This is just step one. You enjoy it for a little bit but then you move on. Obviously, we don't know who our opponent is yet, but it's going to be a familiar team.

That opponent will be one of Minnesota or St. Louis, and you really wonder how either of those teams are going to strategize against Makar considering how he was often skating alongside Colorado's forwards in leading the rush before getting back to his own zone to thwart any chances Nashville had. Makar is playing at a different level right now, and it caught the eye of one of his teammates.

"He might be the best player in the league right now," Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon said. "The way he dominates from the back end is amazing. All season, but this playoff season, he's taken another step with his leadership in the room, being more vocal. And obviously on the ice, he's so dominant. He might be one of the best [defensemen] to ever play by the end of his career at this rate."

I'm not here to forecast anything for Makar at this point as there are about a million variables that could change that would affect his career. What I am here for is to state unequivocally that Cale Makar is the best defender in the NHL right now as Nathan MacKinnon said, and his series against the Nashville Predators should make everyone sit up and take notice that he's going to be a force to be reckoned with as the Avalanche move deeper into these playoffs. Roman Josi may win the Norris Trophy for his regular season, but I think Makar will be fine with trading a Norris Trophy for a Stanley Cup and, possibly, a Conn Smythe Trophy if Colorado continues its assault on playoff teams.

The Colorado Avalanche are here for business in these playoffs, and Cale Makar might be the most dangerous weapon in their arsenal of incredible players.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!