{"id":622808,"date":"2026-05-04T11:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T11:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/622808\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T11:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T11:50:16","slug":"avalanche-doesnt-need-martin-necas-to-be-mikko-rantanen-to-beat-minnesota-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/622808\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche doesn’t need Martin Necas to be Mikko Rantanen to beat Minnesota Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t think Martin Necas is tough enough?<\/a> Brother, you try dressing next to Brent Burns for seven months straight.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you respond to playoff pressure?\u201d I asked Necas, the Avalanche\u2019s swift winger, after practice at Family Sports Center, as Colorado prepped for Game 1 of its\u00a0Stanley Cup Playoffs showdown with Minnesota.<\/a> \u201cYou looked a lot more relaxed later in the Kings series \u2026<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I think \u2026\u201d Necas started.<\/p>\n

Beard break. Burns, unwrapping his gear to Marty\u2019s left, leaned in, mighty whiskers first, from the locker next door.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanna hear this dumb answer from this guy,\u201d the 41-year-old Avs defenseman chuckled, beaming like a wicked uncle.<\/p>\n

To this, Necas just grinned.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I think it\u2019s good,\u201d Necas continued. \u201cPressure is a privilege, right? So it\u2019s nice to be in this spot. And obviously, we \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Burns rose, stretched to his full 6-foot-5, and headed for the nearest exit.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou said\u00a0 (if) you wear those loose pants, you get better blood flow, you\u2019re feeling good,\u201d the big man cracked as he left.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get to 40,\u201d Necas countered, \u201cyou get nervous, but \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Another grin.<\/p>\n

Where were we?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I think it\u2019s great,\u201d Necas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, it\u2019s great to be in the spotlight, to be honest. We\u2019re all enjoying it.\u201d<\/p>\n

You could see it in 88\u2019s eyes. You could see it in the way they lit up after Nathan MacKinnon\u2019s power play goal last Sunday against the Kings \u2014 the Avs\u2019 first in 10 postseason attempts with the extra man.<\/p>\n

Necas didn\u2019t get an assist on the scoresheet, but Nate Dogg\u2019s look on the one-timer couldn\u2019t have happened without him. Marty crashed the crease as captain Gabriel Landeskog set up below the net, occupying a Los Angeles defender and opening up a shooting lane for MacKinnon to tickle the twine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like, as the (Kings) series went on, we had a lot of chances,\u201d said Necas, who put up two points for the series but was scoreless on 12 shots. \u201cObviously, we didn\u2019t score as much as maybe we wanted to (on the first line), but just like (coach Jared Bednar) says, defense first. That\u2019s what we did. The chances were there, and we\u2019re going to keep scoring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Necas has played in 11 Stanley Cup games with the Avs since coming over in that tectonic trade with Carolina 17 months ago.<\/a> They\u2019re 7-4 in those tilts. Colorado\u2019s 4-1 whenever 88 records at least a point in the postseason.<\/p>\n

\"DefensemanDefenseman Brent Burns (84) and center Martin Necas (88) of the Colorado Avalanche talks between drill during a practice on Saturday, April 25, 2026, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, Calif. (Photo by Timothy Hurst\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n

Necas doesn\u2019t have to be Marty Supreme<\/a> for a roster this deep to snatch Lord Stanley again.<\/p>\n

He just can\u2019t be Marty Supine.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought his series was OK,\u201d Avs coach Jared Bednar said of Necas\u2019 performance versus the Kings. \u201cYou know, I thought he was committed on the defensive side. He didn\u2019t make any glaring mistakes (that) led to goals against or high-danger scoring chances against.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo he was a committed guy, and he worked hard. He\u2019s got to get a little harder, I think, as the playoffs go on. I think there\u2019s a group of guys in our room that have to do more and can get a little harder to play against in different areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I will say that, No. 1, commitment, work ethic \u2014 that stuff was there. I think they can impact the power play a little bit more by some better decisions and whatnot.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the luxuries of playing the Kings first was that everything felt like a tune-up. A wade into Cup waters to get used to postseason physicality, postseason grit, postseason checking, postseason calls (or lack thereof), postseason pace, postseason adjustments, and postseason special teams.<\/p>\n

The Avs could play with their food on the power play until 2036 and still beat Los Angeles nine out of 10 times. The Wild, though, are a different beast.<\/p>\n

Dallas scored 10 of its 15 goals with the extra man, landing six more power-play scores than Minnesota while going down in six games in the first round. One PP goal won\u2019t win this series when the margins are this narrow just about everywhere else on the ice.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we saw (Necas) kind of break out in Game 4 a little bit offensively,\u201d Bednar added. \u201cSo it took a couple games to figure that out. That timeline\u2019s got to get shorter \u2014 learning more about your opponent \u2026 game by game, period by period, to try and break through.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Avs rested and Minnesota surging, the second round also offers Necas a chance to either slay several dragons at once \u2014 if his blade\u2019s sharp.<\/p>\n

The first is the whisper that Marty\u2019s game, with its speed and grace in open space, doesn\u2019t translate to the playoffs the way, say, Logan O\u2019Connor, Artturi Lehkonen, Nicolas Roy and (a healthy) Nazem Kadri do<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Few skaters in the Avs locker room can be as pretty with the stick as Necas at full tilt. But this is a time of year when the ability to stab, chop, push, and shovel your way to ugly goals means even more. Since April 2024, Marty\u2019s logged just two power-play points in the postseason.<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the man he replaced, Mikko Rantanen, has put up 15 points with the extra skater in the playoffs during that same span. Not that anyone\u2019s counting, mind you.<\/p>\n

Of course, a decent showing against Minnesota in the biggest series of the Cup\u2019s second round would only toss more dirt on a grave that Mikko has been digging these last few days in Dallas.<\/p>\n

\"DallasDallas Stars right wing Mikko Rantanen (96) sends the puck down ice against Colorado Avalanche center Martin Necas (88) in the second period at Ball Arena in Denver on Sunday, March 16, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n

The Wild cooked Moose\u2019s goose before the Avs could get the chance. Rantanen\u2019s contract<\/a> (eight years at $12 million per season) is now being weighed in Big D the way Jamal Murray\u2019s and Christian Braun\u2019s deals are being scrutinized here \u2014 and for the same reason.<\/p>\n

In the first round, Mikko scored once, logged six helpers and put up seven points in six games with a negative-8 plus\/minus. The cherry on top: The NHL fined Moose $5,000 Friday morning for a cross-check on Minnesota\u2019s Kirill Kaprizov to take with him to Cancun.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I don\u2019t really pay attention to those (comparisons to Rantanen),\u201d Necas told me. \u201cBut obviously, people are going to make those. I\u2019m just here to do my best. And to help this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

No time like the present. If pressure\u2019s a privilege, so is a parade.<\/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":"Don\u2019t think Martin Necas is tough enough? Brother, you try dressing next to Brent Burns for seven months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[109666,1222,151099,17718,7817,1751,1223,9045,4825,12640,6755,1754,47314,2558,64730,3031,45507,67453,6429,4828,65879,39780,12642,3,385,8223,99,362,118362,5265],"class_list":["post-622808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-artturi-lehkonen","tag-avalanche","tag-avalanche-takes","tag-ball-arena","tag-brent-burns","tag-christian-braun","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-colorado-news","tag-dallas-stars","tag-gabriel-landeskog","tag-hockey","tag-jamal-murray","tag-jared-bednar","tag-latest-headlines","tag-logan-oconnor","tag-los-angeles","tag-martin-necas","tag-mikko-rantanen","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-more-avalanche-news","tag-nathan-mackinnon","tag-nazem-kadri","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-sean-keeler","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-stanley-cup","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}