WINNIPEG — Rick Bowness invoked the wisdom from one of hockey’s most famous playoff tales Tuesday night.
His Winnipeg Jets had just finished a season with 110 points — fourth-most in the NHL — but only one postseason victory after the Colorado Avalanche rolled past his club in five games during an opening-round series in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“You get to this stage, at the end of a playoff series, if you’re not putting an ice bag on, you’re not playing hard enough,” Bowness said. “Simple as that.”
As the story goes, the young, up-and-coming Edmonton Oilers had just lost the 1983 Stanley Cup Final to the dynastic New York Islanders. When some of the Oilers went past the Islanders’ dressing room, they saw a subdued celebration with players placing bags of ice on their bodies. Those images drove home a lesson for the Oilers about what it really takes to win the playoffs, and their own dynasty followed.
As the Jets’ offseason began Tuesday night, Bowness reflected on a great regular season for his club but also what he hopes are some lessons to be learned from how the Avalanche controlled this series from the start, save for a shaky defense-and-goaltending performance in Game 1.
“They’ve won a Stanley Cup and it showed itself this series,” Bowness said. “It did. They raised their battle-level more than anything.
“In the playoffs, that’s what it’s going to come down to. Who’s willing to go to the net harder? Who’s willing to take a hit to make a play? Who’s willing to win battles in the corners on the boards? That’s what it comes down to. And then the other things … [fall] into place. That’s the best they’ve played and give them credit for that.”
It’s an interesting juxtaposition from where Colorado was just two weeks prior. In a span of eight days, the Avs were outmatched at home by the Dallas Stars in a game with Central Division title implications, were run out of Ball Arena by this same Winnipeg team with home-ice advantage on the line and the collapsed in Las Vegas after taking a three-goal lead into the third period against the Golden Knights.
Avs coach Jared Bednar said the media and fans panicked, but his team did not. He’s not wrong about the view from the outside — there were plenty of questions about where this Avalanche group was mentally after a string of potentially damaging losses.
Then the Avs answered all of them, and left little doubt about the championship DNA that’s baked into this core of world-class stars with a battle-tested supporting cast.
“There was no panic in our room. It just wasn’t there,” Bednar said. “They understood that they didn’t play well. They identified that. We went through things we knew we had to do better. They were bought into it and they were committed to it. It’s kind of where our team is at. It’s a veteran group, a really good team. They know when we play really well what it looks like.
“I’ve learned this about our room — they’re going to put pressure on themselves when it matters most to play well.”
The Avs were the better team overall in this series in Game 1, but some of the defensive miscues and Alexandar Georgiev’s shaky play did bleed into the playoffs from the end of the regular season. Bednar noted that his team got a wake-up call after that.
The forechecking intensity continued. The effort to defend continued. The mistakes were cleaned up. And Georgiev’s turnaround became a symbol of the mental toughness it takes at times to win in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Colorado scored 24 goals in five games against the best goalie in the league during the regular season, and it was at times as much about the way the Avs played without the puck as the brilliance they displayed with it.
In the process, the Avs proved to people outside the organization that they can win the Stanley Cup for a second time in three years, while also giving the Jets a glimpse at another level still needed to compete with teams like this at this time of year.
“Everyone’s on the same page,” Nathan MacKinnon said. “A lot of similarities to the year we won. I think we just know everyone in that room is going to give everything they have and that’s the standard. Whether you score or don’t, some of that stuff is out of your control, but you can control your effort and how hard you work and we’ve got everyone on the same page right now battling.
“We had a great series in that sense.”
