{"id":563854,"date":"2026-05-01T02:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T02:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/563854\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T02:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T02:18:18","slug":"what-the-avalanche-are-up-to-while-they-await-the-second-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/563854\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Avalanche are up to while they await the second round"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scarlett Wedgewood isn\u2019t quite ready to help her dad break down the Dallas Stars\u2019 power play, but she chips in where she can.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Avalanche swept the Los Angeles Kings<\/a> in the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs<\/a>, earning some time off<\/a> before the next round begins.<\/p>\n

As of Thursday afternoon, the Avs still didn\u2019t know who they will play next or when. They had Monday and Tuesday off, then practices on Wednesday and Thursday before another rest day on Friday. It will either be the Minnesota Wild or the Stars, with the former leading the best-of-seven series 3-2 with Game 6 happening Thursday night in the Twin Cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s weird not knowing the next game,\u201d Avs center Brock Nelson said. \u201cI mean, you\u2019re programmed to kind of have the next one for what has it been, 86 games? To have a little break is nice at the same time, just given the nature of our last couple months and how tight it was post-Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado played 27 games after the 2026 Winter Olympics concluded \u2014 only San Jose and Tampa Bay also played that many. The Avs are one of the older teams in the tournament, so this little respite could be quite helpful if the club can make a deep run.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s rare to get this much time off \u2014 it could end up being eight or nine days between games, but the 2022 team had two similar breaks after rolling through Nashville in the opening round and Edmonton in the Western Conference Final.<\/p>\n

\"CenterCenter Brock Nelson (11) of the Colorado Avalanche waits for a face-off during Game 3 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday, April 23, 2026, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, Calif. (Photo by Timothy Hurst\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n

What are the players up to this week? For the guys with kids, it\u2019s a chance to lock in on \u2018Dad Mode\u2019 for a few extra days than normal.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust integrate with the home life. The wife\u2019s usually running operations so try to help,\u201d Wedgewood said. \u201cWoke up with the kids, had breakfast, went on a walk with the dogs, did a bike ride, did a little routine at home and then played with my kids more. Always gonna take advantage of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Youth hockey games and practices, swim lessons, gymnastics classes, even just picking up and dropping off the kids at school can be an added bonus.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet to a couple of the kids\u2019 activities, a nice date night with my wife,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cJust doing a couple things that we\u2019ve haven\u2019t been able to do the past couple of weeks. It\u2019s nice to get away and recharge. I think everyone is still in a good mindset and we\u2019ll try to prepare and be feeling as good as you can for Game 1, whenever that may be.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few players went to the Nuggets game on Monday night. There was some golfing earlier in the week as well.<\/p>\n

Nazem Kadri saw the Nuggets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 5<\/a>, but otherwise just enjoyed his first extended downtime in Denver for a while after returning to the Avs before the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

\"DefensemanDefenseman Mikey Anderson (44) of the Los Angeles Kings protects the net as center Nazem Kadri (91) of the Colorado Avalanche tries to score on goaltender Anton Forsberg (31) of the Los Angeles Kings during the first period of Game 4 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Sunday, April 26, 2026, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, Calif. (Photo by Timothy Hurst\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the first couple days, you just try to enjoy the work you put in and reflect on the series a little bit, rest your body up and kind of detach your mind away from the bubble that you\u2019re in during the playoffs,\u201d Kadri said. \u201cI think the closer we get to Game 1, you start to lock in and refocus. But first couple days, a whole lot of nothing \u2013 just enjoy some time with the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kadri said he\u2019s been watching as much of the Minnesota-Dallas series as he can to do his own pre-series scouting. Jack Drury said he was watching Game 5 at dinner, but may watch more intently Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Avs coach Jared Bednar is certainly watching, but is agnostic about how much his players are keeping up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have guys that can tell you every play that happened in last night\u2019s games and then other guys probably didn\u2019t watch at all,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cFor some guys, it helps. For other guys, it\u2019s not important to them \u2026 I\u2019m not going to tell them what to do, as long as they know what they\u2019re doing when it comes to game time and they\u2019re playing at their best.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Wedgewood, the window for watching other NHL playoff games has at times conflicted with bedtime for his two young daughters.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter will let me know there is a goalie on the TV every two seconds,\u201d Wedgewood said. \u201cIt\u2019s \u2018daddy, daddy, daddy.\u2019 No matter what goalie it is, that\u2019s daddy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to maybe watch a little more of it, but at the same time, when I have time off, I don\u2019t want to be to sitting on my couch doing nothing when I\u2019ve got time that I don\u2019t normally get with my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more Avalanche news? Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scarlett Wedgewood isn\u2019t quite ready to help her dad break down the Dallas Stars\u2019 power play, but she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5126],"tags":[3189,193,1034,144,5,515,1117,186,1760,240,5303,1180,793,145,5304,5302,1262,2054,4,557,43,14,104,2071],"class_list":["post-563854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-kings","tag-2026-winter-olympics","tag-avalanche","tag-brock-nelson","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-hockey","tag-jack-drury","tag-jared-bednar","tag-kings","tag-la","tag-la-kings","tag-lakings","tag-latest-headlines","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-kings","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleskings","tag-more-avalanche-news","tag-nazem-kadri","tag-nhl","tag-nuggets","tag-sports","tag-stanley-cup","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-western-conference"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116496925943653453","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}