'Intensity had to come up': Avalanche get ready for regular season

The Colorado Avalanche ramped up their game against the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday, which earned them a 3-1 win. The team had a physical practice on Wednesday before leaving for Las Vegas — a necessity to get regular-season-game-ready.

"We needed it, especially after watching the last couple games, intensity had to come up. And that's what we talked about beforehand, because now it's six days and only a couple practices and a couple games to get ready ..." head coach Jared Bednar said. "We stressed a couple things that we wanted to get to work on and compete against each other to help make each other better today. And I thought we did that."

With several preseason-game injuries around the league, there is a fine line not to go too hard while getting prepared for the regular season.

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"I think it's all about just feeling good, getting the time aspects of the game back. That's the things that take a little bit of time. That's what's important for playing the preseason games ...," Cale Makar said after the high-energy practice. "I still think you got to push full steam ahead. I think it's to a certain extent, though. I think it's on you as well, to not put yourself in positions where something like that can happen. I'm not saying that any of these injuries are like that. I mean the one, you look at (Los Angeles Kings defenseman Drew) Doughty, it's just absolutely unfortunate ... I still think you want to press and you want to find your legs, but at the same time, I think there is that mutual respect in the game, and I mean guys are still trying to make the team."

Fortunately, no Avalanche players have been injured during the preseason but that is not because they are playing safe hockey.

"You're more than likely to get hurt when you're out there tiptoeing around and playing it safe. If you're playing aggressive style, physical style, it's what you play all year long in 82 games," Bednar said. "Sure, there's some risk to playing exhibition games, but ultimately, you need to practice. You need the live fire reps, and you need to be ready to go for opening night. And there's no way really to do that if you're just practicing."

As a highly physical player, Mikko Rantanen plays his style before season starts but is a bit more cautious not to put himself in harm's way.

"When you play a game, you don't really think about, you know, maybe I would say for me, maybe somebody's teeing up a slapshot, I don't know if I'm gonna eat it with my face — that's maybe one thing that I think about," Rantanen said. "But otherwise, I don't think about —I try to battle and go to net and go to the corners as hard as if was the regular season, obviously, probably not there yet, but hopefully now, with one one game, and get a second game and then be ready for first game. But I think you try to be as physical and as into it as you can."

Colorado will play its final preseason game against the Utah Hockey Club Saturday night and should have a lineup that will be exact or similar to opening night.

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