They were 35-0-3 this season when taking

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Patrick Roys fiery personality was on full display in the opening game when the Colorado coach got into a heated exchange with Anaheim, banging his hands again and again on the glass partition until it tilted. That eruption set a tone for the season: The Avalanche werent going to be pushovers. Not with the combustible Hall of Fame goaltender taking over behind the bench. Roy guided this franchise -- the one he led to two Stanley Cup titles as a player -- back into the playoffs by tying a team record with 52 wins. They play Minnesota in a first-round series that begins Thursday. "Patrick is the ultimate winner. He doesnt accept anything less than winning," backup goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere said. "He did that as a player and hes doing that as a coach. "He does that when he plays golf, he does that when he plays cards, he does everything to win. And that has really translated to our team. He changed the whole mentality in this room, and it shows every time we go out on the ice. We play to win, so its fun to see that." As for that volatile temper, the players insist they rarely see it inside the locker room -- not after a bad period or a tough loss. This is their team, Roy said from the day he was brought on board, and he was there more for support than to scold. He was partnering with them, not ruling them with an iron fist. The breathing room allowed the youthful Avalanche to make some mistakes and learn from them. "They need to have someone who they can come up to and talk," said Roy, whos the fifth coach in NHL history to win 50 or more games in his first season. "Its their system." Roys only previous experience on the bench was serving as coach and general manager of the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. So he leaned on his assistants, as well as former teammate turned executive Joe Sakic. Roy has been a little unorthodox in running the team: From pulling his goalie with two, three, sometimes four minutes remaining if theyre down a goal to assembling them at centre ice after a practice and having them all yell "team" at the same time. "If we want to be different than weve been in past years, then we have to do things differently," captain Gabriel Landeskog said. "Its been great to see his point of view on things. You see the team that we are. You see the team that weve become. "At first, you might wonder, Whats going on here? But its certainly working for us." No arguing that. They were 35-0-3 this season when taking a lead into the third period and had the best winning percentage in one-goal games simply because they played loose and with confidence. "Patrick empowers us," Matt Duchene said two weeks ago, before suffering a knee injury that will keep him out for the start of the playoffs. "Sure, he gives us a kick when we need it. But when he knows we need to be treated with a little bit softer (touch) and brought up instead of put down, thats what he does. "Hes very good at sensing the feeling in the room. Hes helped us all achieve what were capable of achieving." Perhaps no one more than Semyon Varlamov, who turned in a career season under the watchful eyes of Roy and goalie coach Francois Allaire, the man responsible for helping turn Roy into one of the best goalies in hockey history. Varlamov won a league-high 41 games this season, breaking the team record held by Roy. "Of course its a big deal to beat Patricks records," Varlamov said. "Hes one of the best goalies in the world." All this from a team that won just 16 games in a lockout-shortened season. "What a season theyve had," Wild forward Jason Pominville said. "Theyve completely turned it around." Really, the only big additions are rookie Nathan MacKinnon and the presence of Roy. "They must have done something right and Patrick must do something right to make that happen," said Pominville, the teams leading scorer. Indeed. The foundation for that transformation was built in Roys very first game in charge when he lost his cool and yelled at Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau, pounding on the glass. That was after a 6-1 win, too. Roy was fined $10,000 and reprimanded by the league. Wild coach Mike Yeo jokingly said he plans to "check the partition" between the benches before the playoff series. "This is a team that we have to have a lot of respect for," Yeo said. "Theyre an in-your-face team." Just like their coach. Stephon Gilmore Jersey .ca has you covered for whos in, whos out and what to expect from all 30 teams. New England Patriots Jerseys . The team let Keaton Ellerby, James Wright and Matt Halischuk become unrestricted free agents after declining to make them qualifying offers. Ellerby, 25, appeared in 51 games for the Jets last season and had two goals and four assists. http://www.patriotsjerseysauthentic.com/Andre-Tippett-Super-Bowl-Jersey/ .C. Now hes squarely in the U.S. capital and helping the Washington Wizards playoff drive. John Wall scored 33 points, Gooden got 11 of his 21 in the final quarter and the Wizards overcame a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit for a 101-94 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday night. John Hannah Jersey . "Opinion: Womens World Cup is the best Soccer of the year," Hanks tweeted to his 8.73 million followers on Friday. "Hey FIFA, they deserve real grass. Put in sod. Tedy Bruschi Patriots Jersey . Those cheers seemed more special this time because the captains run on Broadway could soon be over. The adoration surely sounded much nicer to Callahan than all the recent trade talk. PORTLAND, Ore. -- It took one more day than they wouldve liked, but the Edmonton Oil Kings are Western Hockey League champions for the second time in three seasons. Four different Oil Kings scored in a decisive second period as Edmonton won Game 7 of the WHL final 4-2 over the Portland Winterhawks. In Sundays Game 6 in Edmonton, the Oil Kings watched a three-goal lead evaporate in the third period before losing 6-5 in overtime. Edmonton again built a three-goal lead through two periods on Monday, and didnt let this one get away. Mitch Moroz, Curtis Lazar, Reid Petryk and Mads Eller all scored in a four-goal second period for the Oil Kings and Goaltender Tristan Jarry stopped 32 shots in victory. Oliver Bjorkstrand and Brendan Leipsic scored for Portland, which got 29 saves from goalie Brendan Burke. As the Oil Kings celebrated on the ice after the game at Veterans Memorial Coliseum, they held the No. 26 jersey of Kristians Pelss, a former teammate who drowned last summer at age 20. "Hes been with us through this whole thing," said Lazar. "He motivates us to make ourselves better. We know hes looking over us, we played for him and it showed." Bjorkstrand scored his league-leading 16th goal of the playoffs- but his first of the final series- at 4:42 of the first to give the Winterhawks a 1-0 lead. "They came at us hard for 10 minutes but we weathered the storm," said Edmonton coach Derek Laxdal, who won a Memorial Cup championship as a player with the Winterhawks in the same building in 1983. "I told the guys I won a championship here and I wanted them to do it,, too.dddddddddddd" The Oil Kings busted out in the second period, scoring three times in less than six minutes to take command. Moroz scored at the 3:50 mark of the period to tie the game, then Lazar and Petryk scored 40 seconds apart near the midway point of the period to make it 3-1. "We actually got kick-started with us taking a penalty," said Lazar. "We wanted to kill it off, and it actually led to some offence and we just kept rolling." Ellers goal with 2:43 left in the period gave the Oil Kings their second consecutive three-goal lead through two periods. Leipsic scored with 3:22 left in regulation, but the Winterhawks couldnt pull off a second unlikely comeback in two days. "We talked that the sun was going to come up today and our energy would come up, too," said Laxdal. "We tried to motivate our guys all day. Our guys were gutsy." The Oil Kings are off to the Memorial Cup, which begins Friday in London, Ont. This was the third straight year Edmonton and Portland have met in the WHL final series. The Oil Kings prevailed in seven games in 2012, while the Winterhawks won in six games last season. Portland appeared in the WHL finals for the fourth straight season, but dropped to 1-3 in those series. "Itll always hang there, that disappointment," said Portland coach Mike Johnston. "Eventually well look back at our records and conference and division championships, but we were so close to tasting victory. "We know how hard it is to move on, were fortunate to have had some cracks at it the last few years." ' ' '