Wolves lean on regular-season edge against Colorado in conference finals

Chicago walked into the Western Conference finals with a number it likes to trust: 3-1-0-0 against Colorado in the regular season. That record is not a trophy, but it is the kind of evidence a playoff team leans on when the ice shrinks, the checking gets heavier and one mistake can flip a series.

Spiros Anastas had been mapping out this path for months. He used Texas as the early-round benchmark, then Grand Rapids as the division-final hurdle, and Colorado as the matchup he expected to see if the Wolves kept advancing. Chicago handled Texas, then eliminated Grand Rapids to reach the conference finals, while the Eagles survived San Diego, Henderson and Coachella Valley to get here from the other side of the bracket. The playoff route matters, but so does the memory bank Chicago built against Colorado over four meetings that gave the Wolves a clearer read on what is coming.

The Wolves are not pretending Colorado is a comfortable draw. Anastas described the Eagles as fast, skilled and full of playmakers, the kind of team that can strike in ways opponents do not always see until it is too late. That is the problem Chicago has to solve now: how to keep Colorado from turning the series into a track meet, and how to make the Eagles work in the half-ice grind where mistakes become magnified. If Chicago’s regular-season edge is real, it will show up there, in the moments when speed gives way to structure and familiarity turns into anticipation.

Goaltender Cayden Primeau pointed in the same direction, saying the Wolves expect tight games and will lean on what they learned early in the season against Colorado. That is the testable claim in this series. Chicago’s confidence is not built on rhetoric; it is built on four games, one of them a clear reminder that the Wolves have already solved parts of this puzzle once. Whether that translates when the stakes rise is a different question. Colorado’s pace can erase a lot of confidence fast, but Chicago’s structure, experience and scouting base give it a credible case.

Yanick Turcotte’s return to skating and practice work after a leg injury in late March only added to that sense of resilience. Even with his season initially looking over, he stayed around the group, a small but telling sign of the depth Chicago has leaned on throughout its playoff run. The Wolves reached this stage believing their notes on Colorado still matter. Now they get to find out if those notes were a blueprint or just regular-season self-belief.