(Photo Credit: @Avalanche on twitter)
The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Colorado Avalanche are your last two remaining teams battling for the best trophy in all of sports, the Stanley Cup. As game one approaches, the Avalanche are going to be fresh, having not played since June 6th when they swept the Edmonton Oilers. It certainly doesn't look good for the Lightning as they will be working with just 3 days off before this game, while one of the NHL's most potent offenses now has had a chance to recharge.
The Colorado Avalanche coming into this game have four players in the top 10 in playoff points. They have an explosive team with some very talented players. Everybody knows how dangerous Nathan MacKinnon is, but they have some other players that have shown to be just as dangerous. One of these players is defenseman Cale Makar. The 2020 Calder trophy winner has proven he can be a star in this league the last couple of years, and playoffs have been no different. Cale has 5 goals and 17 assists in this year's playoffs and 5 multipoint games. He has no doubt shown he's one of the top defensemen in the league at only 23 years of age.
This won't be so easy for the Lightning this time around, as the Avalanche are probably the best team they have faced in these playoffs in the last 3 years. But the Lightning have winning experience, whereas the Avs are an up-and-coming team considering all the down years they had a few years back. The Lightning's offense is just as dominate as the Avs, so scoring won't be an issue. The key to this entire series is Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Lightning goaltender. The Lightning will go as far as he takes them. The Avs won't be able to stop the Lightning from scoring, so they will need to be able to keep up with them, but that means getting pucks past Vasilevskiy, which is hard to do.
What you can expect in this Game 1 is very fast play, and a lot of scoring, The Avs will be well rested and will come out hot, so if you are if you're an avid sports gambler, maybe putting a couple dollars on the over for this game is a good idea. The Avalanche are the favorites to win Wednesday night's game, the odds being -162 on FanDuel Sportsbook. I can understand why because they are going to be the quicker team on Wednesday.
It should be a fun game and fun series, let's all sit back, crack open a cold one, and watch some fantastic hockey.