SEATTLE >> On the drive to Game 1, Bo Byram found himself auto-piloting into his old ways.

At some point early in the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs — he doesn’t exactly recall when or how — the young defenseman developed a habit during his drive to the rink. Approaching Ball Arena from the south on Speer Blvd., Byram convinced himself he needed to stay in the second lane from the left for the entire drive. “A bit ridiculous,” he called it.

But the Avs were winning, so he couldn’t abandon the plan. He would wait until almost the last second to get over two lanes, into the left-turn lane off Speer to Ball Arena.

Superstitions run rampant in the NHL, but they tend to become amplified during the playoffs when the stakes are higher and the attention to daily life details is too. “It gets a little haywire,” Byram said. “Just a lot of stuff that you do one night, and you think it works, so you keep doing it.” He and several Avalanche teammates had elaborate routines by the time Colorado won the Stanley Cup a year ago, but as Byram recalled his lucky lane on Speer and other superstitions, he pledged that “we’ll start with a clean slate (this year) and see how it goes.”

When The Post checked with Byram after Game 1 vs. the Kraken to see how that was going, Byram conceded to staying in his lane. “Subconsciously,” he said, “yesterday I did it again.”

The lengths to which players take their shenanigans vary. The degree of secrecy is also a personal preference.

“I have a lot of superstitions,” defenseman Josh Manson said, “but if I told you, then they wouldn’t be superstitions.”

Even ones from last year that have been retired?

“I cannot tell you any of my superstitions,” he solemnly reiterated. “But as you go, you build superstitions. I’ll say that. Things are working through the playoffs, and you start paying attention to more and more and more things. And by the Finals last year, my entire day was just a routine.”

That seems to be the one consensus among the more obsessive-compulsively minded.

“In general, I try not to have them. But unfortunately, as the season progresses, they sort of build on top of each other,” Logan O’Connor said. “Some random thing happens one game, and it’s like, ‘That guy scored.’ And then it’s like next thing you know we’re doing it every game.”

He and new teammate Evan Rodrigues both found themselves second in line during 2-on-1 warm-up reps earlier this season, so they made a mini ritual of always partnering in the exercise. How the passing play ends isn’t a coincidence, though.

“When we lose, we usually switch up who shoots,” Rodrigues said. That person continues taking the shot until the next time the Avs lose.

Erik Johnson, a player who claims to avoid superstitions, remembers some of his teammates establishing new driving routes to Ball Arena every day during the 2022 playoffs. Backup goalie Pavel Francouz believes the most prevalent ritual is the age-old tradition of playoff beards. (“I actually think you guys should start it, too,” he told Avalanche beat writers before the playoffs started.)

New starting goalie Alexandar Georgiev is another superstition-averse player. He confirmed that he will in fact shave this spring.

“I don’t feel like that’s the thing that makes you play good,” he said. “If guys want to look more masculine, that’s fine.”

Some championship teams really ramp it up to another level. Lars Eller, acquired by the Avalanche at the trade deadline, played for the Capitals during their 2018 Stanley Cup run. He has zero superstitions — maybe because of what he witnessed in Washington.

In the locker room before playoff games, teammates would bite each other in the arm for good luck.

“Like, leaving teeth marks and (crap),” Eller said. “I just laugh at it, you know? Like, I have routines. I have things I like to do. But I don’t know what (bleeping) skate I put on first.”

Cale Makar considers himself less superstitious, not adding anything in the playoffs. Mikko Rantanen, like Manson, has “a lot” that he declines to divulge. Jared Bednar gets his only superstition out of the way during the regular season, not watching shootouts.

Denis Malgin was taken aback by the question, not even knowing whether or not he’s superstitious. “Not that I know of,” he said, trailing off. “Maybe. Maybe I’m doing it not thinking?”

Alex Newhook was a scratch early in the playoffs last season. When he got in the lineup for the first time, he noticed a trend. The team provides players with a selection of electrolyte flavors that they can use. “We have, like, four or five,” Newhook said. The least popular was mixed berry, but Newhook tried it. Then the team won twice with him in the lineup.

“Well I’ve just gotta keep going with this one,” he decided. “No one liked it. So they had to only have them stocked for me. … It wasn’t a great flavor. We were just winning on it, so I kept doing it.”

The Avalanche’s strength-and-conditioning staff knew how necessary it was for Newhook to have his mixed berry electrolytes, so the Avs always had some ready. “I ended up switching it up when we lost,” Newhook said, and the pattern from that point on was to use the same flavor after wins; change after losses.

“If it works for them, it works for them,” O’Connor said.

Byram might end up sticking to his second-from-left lane tradition at this point. It takes skill to make the double lane change, but Byram said he always drives slowly to the rink.

He uses the drive as an opportunity to relax before games. So, he insisted, “I never got into any fender benders.”