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Colorado Avalanche 3 Stars of the Week, March 1

By Nadia Archuleta

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The Colorado Avalanche just finished a rough week, and that’s reflected in the stars of the week. The Avalanche won two of their games but also lost two.

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The Avalanche squeaked a 5 to 4 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday but lost 5 to 2 to the divisional rival Nashville Predators.  They came from behind dramatically to beat the Dallas Stars 5 to 4, thus sweeping their five-game series. And then they dropped yet another game to the divisional foe Minnesota Wild – four in a row now.

So, yes, it was a challenging week for the Avs.

#3: Gabriel Landeskog

Avalanche captain Gabe Landeskog has been doing whatever it takes for his team. He’s been scoring goals (Dallas), earning assists (Dallas,  Tampa Bay) and getting chippy (all four games. ) He participated in another captain fight, this one against Nashville’s Shea Weber.

At the end of the Wild match, after leading the team in hits, he smacked Minnesota captain Miku Koivu in the face. Say what you will of the correctness of the action, he was sticking up for his young charge,  Nathan MacKinnon:

"“You see one of their fourth line centers take a run at MacKinnon -it’s an elbow. It doesn’t matter what league this is,  it’s an elbow straight to the nose and breaks his nose. And the referees, I don’t know where they’re looking.”"

Sometimes the captain has a tough job.

#2: Nathan MacKinnon

While center Nathan McKinnon carried the Avs through a 5 to 4 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning by virtue of his hat trick,  he also spent a large part of the third period of the Dallas Stars game on the bench. In fact, after the second intermission, he only played about 70 more seconds of hockey, despite the Avs going into overtime and the shootout.

Roy started him on the fourth line for the Minnesota Wild game. He did eventually get promoted to the third line, and even recorded four shots on goal.

And then Minnesota winger Sean Bergenheim broke his nose with an elbow to the face. Poor MacK really took it for the team this week.

#1: Patrick Roy

Ok, a lot of Avalanche fans question why head coach Patrick Roy benched MacKinnon. He’s 19, and he wasn’t the only player making mistakes in the Dallas game. Of course, forwards Marc-Andre Cliche and Daniel Briere saw their ice time severely reduced in the Dallas game — just 5 1/2 minutes each. Briere went back to being a healthy scratch in favor of forward Paul Carery. Carey only saw 5:15 of ice time in the Minnesota game.

And then Carey got put on waivers, so MacKinnon didn’t do so badly. (Coach Roy also pulled Semyon Varlamov in the Nashville game after the goalie let four goals in on just 24 shots.)

That said, coach Roy has been nothing but upbeat. He surely realizes the game against the Wild means the Avalanche season has officially gone up in flames. He said of the game:

"“We played our heart out, out there. We played a solid game. We just felt that we deserved a better result than what we had.”"

And added philosophically that it seemed that was just the kind of year the team was having. You have to remember this is a man who wants to win so badly he once played through appendicitis. His continued support of everyone on the team — when other coaches yell and point fingers — is part of what makes him such a class act.

Next: The Cult of Patrick Roy

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