Even though he’s going to spend the next 12 days or so trying to stomp their hearts into tiny little pieces, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare still has a soft spot for Avalanche fans.
Especially given the way Front Range faithful reached out with mighty arms last month to give his old teammate Nazem Kadri a big hug after Jordan Binnington tossed a water bottle at the guy. And after St. Louis fans tossed a heck of a lot worse.
“I think that was cool for him that everybody here (in Denver) embraced him,” Bellemare, the Lightning winger who played with Kadri and the Avs from 2019-21, told me during Stanley Cup Media Day on Tuesday at Ball Arena.