Colorado Avalanche 3 Stars of the Week, March 15

The Colorado Avalanche had a pretty successful week. Unfortunately, they were unable to beat the reigning Stanley Cup champion LA Kings, but they beat the New Jersey Devils two nights later. And they won an important game against the conference rival Calgary Flames.

#3: Brad Stuart

Early on in his career, people may have expected defenseman Brad Stuart to be a flashy player. However, Stuart has since settled into a more shut-down role, the kind that doesn’t always get credit. However, head coach Patrick Roy points out how important Stuart’s role has been especially since cornerstone defenseman Erik Johnson has been out seven weeks after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery:

"“He’s been outstanding. He’s been a warrior for us on the ice. He’s been finishing checks, he’s been a really good addition to this team. He’s playing against top lines every night. I feel like he’s bringing some consistency in our game that helps our team.”"

In fact, this week Stuart has not recorded any points, but he’s blocked 10 shots and hit opponents a bone-jarring 16 times.

#2: John Mitchell

Forward John Mitchell has spent most of the season as a third-line center, and that’s been a good spot for him. In fact, off and on, he’s been the Avalanche’s top faceoff guy. However, sometime in the LA game coach Roy replaced Jordan Caron with John Mitchell on Matt Duchene‘s line.

It has worked.

Mitchell, along with Duchene, got an assist on the only goal the Avs scored against the New Jersey Devils, Jarome Iginla’s. Mitchell joked afterwards:

"“It was a perfect play. I kicked it to Dutchy, he kicked it to Iggy, and Jarome scored.”"

And Mitchell came up big with a goal that, at the time, put the Avs up two over the Calgary Flames but ended up being the game winner. And Mitchell accessed his inner Matt Duchene (who was on the ice at the time) to do it. He pulled one of those puck-possessing, spin-o-rama, dart into the center moves for which Duchene is famous.

#1: Alex Tanguay

Veteran winger Alex Tanguay is playing some great hockey. You’ve got to be when you’re capitalizing on scoring chances that, strictly speaking, don’t exist. How else to explain his scoring from below the goal line?

By the way, that was a power play goal. And while all goals feel good, you know how especially good power play goals feel this season since they’ve been so hard to come by. He also assisted on Ryan O’Reilly‘s second period goal

Tanguay also had one of the two goals the Avs managed against the Kings, scoring in the third period.

The Avalanche have four days off until they start a five-game, eight-day road trip of all Western Conference opponents.

Next: Avs 3 Stars, March 9

Next: Condor Watch: Erik Johnson Injury Update

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