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. Nike Shoes From China . -- Detroit shortstop Jose Iglesias says he has stress fractures in both legs and isnt sure when hell be able to play again, leaving the Tigers two weeks to fill his spot for opening day and perhaps a lot longer. Cheap Nike Shoes From China . 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Richard Childress Racing drivers and their affiliates swept the first three rows on the starting grid for Sundays race, with the pole going to Brian Scott, who will lead the field to the green flag in just his fifth career Sprint Cup Series start. "Who would have thought that, huh?" Scott asked after Saturdays qualifying session. Cars with ECR engines took six of the 12 spots in the third and final round of knockout qualifying, and they all waited patiently on pit road for someone to make a move. It came with roughly 2 minutes, 20 seconds remaining in the 5-minute session, when all 12 drivers made their way onto the track. Tony Stewart posted the fastest lap as he worked with the other three Stewart-Haas Racing drivers, and as the clock neared the final buzzer, it appeared the three-time NASCAR champion had the pole locked up. Then came the ECR pack of cars, with Ryan Newman leading, Scott somewhere in the middle and Paul Menard bringing up the rear. Team owner Childress had designated Newman as the driver to decide when the pack should go, and Menard was charged with pushing them along. Just as time expired, the entire group shot past Stewarts speed and moved to the top of the leaderboard. It was Scott on the pole, followed by Menard and then AJ Allmendinger, an RCR-affiliated driver. Casey Mears, also an affiliated driver, qualified fourth and was followed by Daytona 500 pole-sitter Austin Dillon and Newman. "It was just a great plan by RCR, getting all the RCR alliance cars working together," Allmendinger said. "We worked on that (in practice) and felt like we all had great speed.ddddddddddddRyan was the guinea pig for all of us and timed it right, and that last session, it was just basically who was going to wait the longest to go out there." It was the first time NASCAR has used its new knockout format on a restrictor-plate track in the Sprint Cup Series. Daytona 500 qualifying in February was done with traditional single-car runs. "The qualifying format, I think there are good tracks for it and bad tracks for it, and this is definitely a great track for it," Menard said. "We had a plan and we tried to stick to the plan as best we could. Ryan, we put the burden on him to decide when to go and where to go, and the rest of us held it in line. ECR top-six and RCR cars all up there is pretty exciting." Now Scott gets to show what hes made of on one of NASCARs fastest tracks. A Nationwide Series regular, hes got three previous starts this season and finished 25th in the Daytona 500. "Ive got that dreaded yellow (rookie) stripe on the bumper, and thats going to make people run away from me like the plague," Scott said of finding drafting partners on Sunday. Stewart wound up 12th in the final session after it appeared he had the pole locked up. SHR put all four of its cars in the final round, and Danica Patrick earned the highest starting spot at seventh. Joey Logano, meanwhile, failed to advance into the final round of qualifying for the first time this season. Hed made it through all three rounds in eight previous sessions. He qualified 16th. "Its not by a good car or not, its just by strategy," Logano said. "We put a lot of work and effort into keeping that streak alive. Its unfortunate." ' ' '