This is the Jeff Merrick Show on the Sportsnet Radio Network.

They come up and play their best game in the series, you know,

and they get rewarded on skill plays that start with hard work from the group,

and then their skills allowed to shine, and then they were fantastic. So what did we talk about two days ago? And thanks to the Toronto Blue Jays and the Baltimore Orioles for filling in for us yesterday. What did we talk about two days ago? It's going to go one of two ways for the Colorado Avalanche with the Valerian-Nachushcheon news. It's going to go one of two ways. One, the avalanche we're going to either play with the excuse, the built-in, this is the reason why we're going to wilt or they're going to rally. And clearly the Colorado avalanche, and it was the big dogs. First dog at the dish yesterday, Kail McCar, then Ethan McKinn, et cetera, et cetera. We're going to get to Jonathan Drouin. Dined out yesterday against the Dallas Stars. Dallas was already to advance to the conference final. The fans were expecting it. The players were expecting it, but not so fast. Now, here's the question. Welcome to the program, by the way. Here's the question. Did any of that surprise you? Did any of that from Colorado yesterday surprise you? Or do you look back on it now and say, of course Colorado's not going to go gentle. Of course they're not going to go down easy like that. Of course there's going to be some pushback. Of course there's going to be some fight from this team.

Now it gets really interesting.

Well, one thing that I want to point out here, too.

And the headline is though Kael McCar.

He was excellent.

Nathan McKinnon, he was excellence.

But Jonathan Druand,

bumped up to the top line,

Jonathan drew at 24 minutes of ice.

You know, it wasn't that long ago on this program that we talked about comeback hockey players and we talked about players that have taken the next step in their career, you know,

the most improved player.

There's a distinction here. There's the most improved player. There's a distinction here.

There's the most improved player and then there is the comeback player.

Jonathan Druant is right up around the top of that list as far as comeback players go this

year.

And you saw it yesterday.

24 minutes of ice.

I think we tend to forget.

I know that I do.

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