The Colorado Avalanche are back home after a three-game road trip and return to Ball Arena at .500. The team started the season 0-4-0 with three losses at home and its first win needed to go to overtime. It was not a good start, to say the least.
“I think it’s important for us to play well at home and play well in front of our home fans. We should be ready to go tonight,” Casey Mittelstadt said ahead of the 5-4 win over the Ottawa Senators.
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Ross Colton scored his eighth goal of the season against the Sens and has six points at home — nine total in nine games. Mikko Rantanen and he said the team wanted to continue the momentum it gained on the road with three straight wins.
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“Jared (Bednar) mentioned that before the game — we know that we can take advantage of playing at home. We saw that all last year where we could take it to teams in the first five, 10 minutes of the game and then kind of control it from there,” Colton said after the win. “It was nice to get on the road, spend some time with just the boys, bond a little bit then come home, use that momentum and get a nice win here.”
What Avs Coach Jared Bednar Uses As Motivation
The Avs have three games in four days with a back-to-back against the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday night and the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday. As Colton mentioned, Bednar stressed the importance of winning at home to his team ahead of Sunday night’s victory.
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“As a coaching staff, you’re always trying to get the urgency out of the players. And so whatever storyline you choose — for us, it’s we’ve battled all the way back to 500,” Bednar said. “Now we have an opportunity to start building games above 500 with a win tonight. If you lose, you don’t get that opportunity again til at least two games. I think it’s important that you’re finding motivation to keep you playing.”
Ball Arena is not an easy building for opposing teams to play in. For one, the altitude change is always an issue for visiting teams and two, the energy of the sold-out crowds creates a hostile environment for the other teams. The Avs used that to their advantage for a win Sunday night and will look to continue building over .500 Monday and Wednesday nights at home.
