Evan Rodrigues’ Game 2 hit on Kraken’s Vince Dunn sends message

Evan Rodrigues is flying around the ice and sending opponents flying.

The Avalanche winger is known more for his elusive puck play than packing a punch, but he brought a showmanship to Game 2 of the playoffs that Ball Arena desperately needed.

“Everything ramps up a little bit in the playoffs,” said Rodrigues, who had postseason experience with Pittsburgh but has never made it past the first round. “You try to do whatever you can to get the team going. And I tried my best to just get the crowd into it a little bit, too.”

Rodrigues thought the Avs were gripping their sticks too tight in a dreadful first period of Game 2 against the Seattle Kraken. By the halfway point of the second period, they finally had the crowd in the palm of their sweaty hands. Goals 48 seconds apart were to thank, but Rodrigues did his part in a 3-2 series-knotting win by supplying the highlight of the first-round series so far.

And the moment this became a legit playoff series.

“I think we lacked (physicality) in the first game a little bit,” he said.

Rodrigues was hungry to change that when he leveled Vince Dunn in Colorado’s offensive zone. The Kraken’s top defenseman floated gloriously in mid-air as Rodrigues buzzed onward. It was as visually satisfying as it was emotionally stirring. Every replay angle was accounted for on the Ball Arena big screen. Dunn’s hang time was worthy of an All-Pro NFL punter.

Starting when the Avalanche trailed 2-0, “we were grasping at any little positive thing on the bench as a group that would help get us going,” coach Jared Bednar said. So when the Avs saw Rodrigues land the clean check, “everyone kind of feeds off it. Our bench got super engaged.”

It was just one hit, but Rodrigues’ role as an out-of-nowhere wrecking ball felt emblematic of the sudden, intensified attitude Colorado brought to the second stanza. The first four periods of the series bordered on lethargic.

“We don’t want to be the team on our heels every single game,” Cale Makar said. The Kraken were the instigators in Game 1, winning every battle along the wall and forechecking the Avs to oblivion.

This wasn’t a chippy series yet only because the aggression was so one-sided.

Seattle registered 40 hits to Colorado’s 29 in Game 1.

Seattle added 40 more hits in Game 2. The Avs finished with 50.

“I think we just proved that when we’re going and when we’re playing our game, we can make it a real tough series on them,” Bo Byram said. “They can make it tough on you at times. … It felt like they were cramming it down our throat. But in the second (period), we kind of turned the tables and showed we can do the same the other way.

“We got our swagger back a bit.”

Colorado isn’t a team known for imposing its physical will, so unlikely candidates needed to step up. Rodrigues was the most eager volunteer. Makar chipped in, too. The all-world, but undersized defenseman got into it with Brandon Tanev late in the second period and went to the box helmet-less with a sellout crowd egging him on. In another scrum, Dunn and Rodrigues got tangled again. The 5-foot-11 Avalanche forward had a knack for getting under that scaly Kraken skin.

“Generally not that physical a player in his checking game, but he was on it tonight,” Bednar said. “He didn’t stop the whole night. He was one guy that was helping drive the bus early on in the game.”

Rodrigues never had more than two hits in a game this regular season. He had five in Game 2, including the open-ice blow to Dunn.

To limit his performance to that play would be reductive. As easy as it is to remember who was in his role this time last year, Rodrigues has been arguably the Avalanche’s best skater in the first two games of the series. Bednar fiddled with his top six between games but kept Rodrigues on Nathan MacKinnon’s line. Artturi Lehkonen joined them while Mikko Rantanen slid down to provide the second line with more firepower. In Game 1, Rodrigues was second on the team in shots on goal (six), individual scoring chances (three) and individual expected goals (0.4), according to Natural Stat Trick.

In Game 2, he was on the ice for all three Avalanche goals. Net front presence on the first. Needle-threading assist on the second. And an underrated contribution on Devon Toews’ game-winner — Rodrigues mucked it up in the faceoff circle to neutralize a matchup and help the Avs emerge with a messy draw. Toews was all clear on the other side of the ice for a rebound.

“We weren’t doing the things that made us successful in the back half of the season (in Game 1),” Rodrigues said. “And I think once we started doing that, we just started to pour it on.”

Seattle still hasn’t seen what it really looks like when the defending champs “pour it on.”

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