The Avalanche should not be doing what they’re currently doing
Mar 3, 2020, 7:25 AM
The Colorado Avalanche should not be doing what they’ve been doing.
OK, so maybe half the teams the Avs have foiled during its current seven-game winning streak are sub-.500 clubs — including the once prideful Detroit Red Wings, who appear on track for a historically poor season.
But Colorado is also winning with basically two spare tires, a missing bumper and no windshield wiper fluid.
And that’s not to underappreciate the talented depth on the Avalanche roster. In fact, over the past seven games, 11 Avs players have contributed a puck to the back of the net.
Heck, Nathan MacKinnon, one of (if not the) top hockey player on the planet, has no goals during this stretch.
But, similar to long stretches of winning earlier in the season, Colorado’s longest streak of the 2019-’20 campaign has been truly a team effort amid a roster beleaguered by injury.
Nazem Kadri has been out for nearly a month with a lower-body injury while Philipp Grubauer, Mikko Rantanen and Matt Calvert have been sidelined nearly as long.
On Monday, rookie sensation Cale Makar did not play due to an upper-body injury.
Despite the growing injury report, though, the Avalanche have played lights out with their backs proverbially against the wall — a mindset this team needs to carry into the next few weeks and, hopefully, months.
Colorado’s within spitting distance of the St. Louis Blues atop the Western Conference and not too far off the Boston Bruins in the chase for the Presidents’ Trophy.
But, if everything comes together down the stretch and the Avs, finally, get healthy, that particular trophy isn’t the one they’ll be primed to earn come early summer.
