Bill Clement

The top four seeds in the West are gone, all ousted in the first round.

That leaves the conference up for grabs, and if any of the four semifinalists has an edge, it's the Avalanche because of the dominant play of star center Joe Sakic.

Leading the Avs' charge
The conference semifinals pit fifth-seeded San Jose against eighth-seeded Edmonton and sixth-seeded Anaheim against the No. 7 seed Colorado.

The Mighty Ducks, Oilers, Sharks or Avalanche — any one could emerge from the West and go on to the Stanley Cup finals. But only one of these teams — Colorado — has Sakic on its side.

In Colorado's opening-round, five-game upset of second-seeded Dallas, Sakic looked just about the same he has looked in almost every game of every playoff series in his 17-year NHL career — and that is complete.

Sakic averaged about 22 minutes a game against the Stars, and he tied with Milan Hejduk and Andrew Brunette for the team lead in playoff scoring through the first round. After the opening round, Sakic had 81 career playoff goals, good enough for eighth place on the all-time list.

With 176 career points in the playoffs, Sakic far outdistances the next-highest active player that still has a shot at this year's Cup, Carolina's Mark Recchi (100).

Sakic's effort is always supreme, and he leads by example in that department. He is Colorado's best offensive and defensive forward, and in the last couple of years, I have realized that Sakic is one of the five best two-way centers of all-time.

Even at age 36 Sakic never seems to get tired. He has developed great chemistry with Brunette, who is the most underrated player in the Colorado lineup. A lot of people make the mistake of evaluating Brunette based on his style of play.

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He is not a graceful or fast skater, but he is not a liability in his own end, and in the offensive zone from the hash marks in he is an excellent puck handler. When he's within 10 to 12 feet of the net — where most goals are scored — he's one of the best in the game.

Brunette's not going to help Sakic burn an opponent on the rush, but once the puck gets down low where like Brunette Sakic excels, the Avalanche have two top scoring threats that other teams find very tough to stop. They also boast bonafide big-game scorers in Hejduk and Alex Tanguay.

Theodore comes around
If Colorado is to make a deep playoff run, it will need the kind of stellar goaltending it got from Jose Theodore in the first round against Dallas. Theodore is a former NHL MVP, who was dealt by Montreal to the Avs on March 8 for David Aebischer.

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But when Theodore arrived in Denver, he was still recovering from a fractured right heel, and once healthy, he didn't show much in the games he played to close out the regular season, going 1-3-1 down the stretch.

That all changed when the playoffs started. Theodore didn't have to be a huge factor in Colorado's matchup with Dallas, but he was, and that turned out to be a tremendous plus for the Avalanche.

In the regular season, Theodore did not perform like he did when he won the Vezina Trophy in 2001-02. So his return to that high level of play against Dallas brought a best-case scenario to reality for Colorado. Theodore got the feel of the playoffs and the feel of his old game, and the Avalanche quickly got out of the first round.

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Theodore's performance in the series against Dallas was a big step forward confidence-wise for him. His superb play against the Stars confirmed to the Avalanche something they were hoping to get confirmed — that they have star-caliber stability in goal.

Colorado was wonderful defensively against Dallas, and the Avalanche did a fantastic job of protecting Theodore. The Stars never were really able to wage an all-out assault to severely test Theodore and see if he would weaken. So there still may be some question about if Theodore's top game is back to stay, but in the playoffs a team answers one question at a time.

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