After the Avalanche evened their first-round series with the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night, Colorado's Alexandar Georgiev praised his teammates for the support they've shown him, with coach Jared Bednar also defending his goaltender.
Georgiev, who gave up seven goals on 16 shots in the Avs' Game 1 loss on Sunday, responded by stopping 28 of the 30 shots he faced in his team's 5-2 win at Canada Life Centre.
"They've shown so much support to me over the last couple days," Georgiev said. "Very rough first game, obviously. I just felt so much trust in the room from everybody. I appreciate it so much. It helped me reset and I know that they got my back. I know I'll help them out as well during these playoffs. It was huge from them. I appreciate it."
Entering Game 1, the Avalanche were already facing questions about how they would fare against the Jets. They were 0-3 in the regular season against Winnipeg, with their most recent meeting on April 13 a 7-0 loss in which Georgiev allowed four goals on 15 shots. Watching Georgiev surrender seven goals on Sunday only led to more questions for Bednar and the Avalanche about their plans in net going forward.
Bednar elected to stick with Georgiev, and the decision paid off, with the coach describing his 38-win goaltender's effort as "fantastic."
"You can imagine coming in here not having a good night as a team, not having a good night on the defensive side, and if you give up seven as a goalie what type of things you're reading online," Bednar said. "What you're hearing from everyone. Everyone goes immediately to doubt and criticism. To be able to put that aside and focus on his process ... and go out and prove people wrong in Game 2?
"That's a tough job to do because you are the last line for defense."
Jets forward David Gustafsson gave his team a 1-0 lead in the first period before the Avs scored four of the game's five second-period goals for a 4-2 advantage.
Some of Georgiev's most important saves came in a third period that saw the Jets finish with a shot share of 73.1% possession. There was one save in which Jets forward Nino Niederreiter was trying to corral a bouncing puck while fending off defenseman Sean Walker before Georgiev was able to stop the puck.
His strongest save of the third came when the Jets were on a power play and a cross-ice pass found its way to an open Nikolaj Ehlers, who fired a point blank shot from the right faceoff circle that Georgiev stopped with 12:44 left in the period.
Valeri Nichushkin scored on an empty net late in the third for a 5-2 lead.
"I tried to imagine that feeling of winning the first game of the series for us and trust the game, enjoy the atmosphere and try to approach it as a new game, definitely after the last one," Georgiev said.
Bednar said in his postgame comments that Georgiev "deserves all the credit" for reasons that he would go on to outline.
It began with Bednar saying that 50% of the questions he faced from reporters between Games 1 and 2 were about Georgiev. He said even with that attention, Georgiev ignored the discourse and didn't let it serve as a distraction.
Bednar said while the Avs were better in Game 1, he felt they were not "that much better" in Game 2.
"But he was much better, and he gave us a chance to win, and we did win," Bednar said. "Now, we gotta go repeat it. We still feel like whether it's Georgie or our team, whatever, we're going to push to try to be as close to perfect as possible without being uptight about it. ... Our team is in full support of what he's capable of doing and what we think he can do."
The series, now tied at 1-1, heads to Denver where Game 3 will be played Friday at 8 p.m. local time.