After Late-Season Magic, Avalanche's Gabriel Landeskog Has High Hopes For Future

DENVER (CBS4) - The Colorado Avalanche ended 2018 on the wrong foot, losing the last five games of the calendar year. The club would start 2019 on that same wrong foot, collecting six lowly wins through the first two months of the new year.

"We didn't play well for a large portion of the season, mid-season. We just didn't find ways to win hockey games," head coach Jared Bednar said.

The skid put the Avs playoffs hopes in jeopardy. And then something clicked. Despite injuries to key top line players, the Avs made an unexpected run that landed them in the playoffs for the second straight season

"You get guys like Landeskog out the lineup, and that looks bad. Then we continue to win, and different guys step up. And then you lose Rantanen -- and then more guys continue to step up and elevate their game," Bednar said

The Avs started the postseason with a bang, taking down the best team in the west, the Calgary Flames, in five games. Then, in Round 2, Colorado took the West's second-best club to a decisive Game Seven. But losing Game Seven by one goal was not how the Avs intended for this season to end

"Our season's over, so it's tough. We set high expectations for ourselves, but we came up short," Nathan MacKinnon said.

Game 7 in San Jose will be remembered for the MacKinnon injury in the first,

"I knew what happened. It sucks, I haven't got hurt in a long time, and it happened in the second round of game 7, so I was pretty pissed." MacKinnon said.

And, of course, the offsides call that disallowed a goal in the second

"It's just a clumsy mistake, just get off the ice," Landeskog said.

"I don't even want to talk about the offside call, to be honest with you. It is what it is," Bednar said.

The Avs know there are exciting times ahead, but that doesn't make losing now any easier. Because while exceeding expectations is fun, the Avs have much loftier goals.

"It's a real bright future for this hockey team, but we're not going to say that every year either. We want to win and we want to be the last team standing, winning that last game of the season," Landeskog said.

"It's very positive, but we felt, especially the way the East was shaking out and the West as well, we felt we could have won the Cup this year. It's so disappointing. We truly felt we could have won. Everything was up for grabs. It was the year of the upsets, so it sucks," Mackinnon said.