Colorado Avalanche Finishing up IIHF Worlds 1st Round
Most of the Colorado Avalanche players at the 2017 IIHF World Tournament are doing well, with one notable exception.
Some Colorado Avalanche players are continuing to do well at the IIHF World Championship while others are… struggling.
Center Nathan MacKinnon is leading the pack with Team Canada. In his six tournament games he has five goals and six assists for 11 points. (He also has six penalty minutes.) He’s tied with Nikita Kucherov (Tampa Bay Lightning) for second place in scoring tournament-wide.
Goalie Calvin Pickard was in net for three of those games, even recording a shutout. He has an impressive 1.31 goals against average and .941 save percentage.
It should come as no surprise that the Canadian team, which is undefeated, has clinched first place for Group B.
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Forward Mikko Rantenen, playing for Team Finland. is also doing very well. He now has two goals and five assists for seven points. He’s now tied with defenseman Tyson Barrie, though Mikko should surpass him considering Barrie’s tournament is done.
Finland is #4 in group B. They should advance as long as they don’t drop any lower.
Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog, playing for Team Sweden, has two goals and three assists for five points. One of the goals is a game-winner. Landeskog, who’s wearing the A as alternate captain, is also skating on the top line.
Sweden is the #3 seed in Group A, so they should advance to the next round.
J.T. Compher, who’s playing for Team USA, is doing all right. He’s got two goals, and one of them was a game winner. No assists, though. However, Compher is skating on the fourth line, so his minutes are limited.
Team USA is the #2 seed in Group A, meaning they should advance to the next round.
The Colorado Avalanche had nine players at the IIHF World Championships. Barrie got a leg laceration while wrestling with a teammate, so his tournament play is done. Then-prospect — and new-signee — Alexei Mironov is also finished with his tournament play. He’s expected to move to Colorado this summer.
And that leaves center Matt Duchene. I purposely left him for last because he’s the one who seems to be struggling. In six games with the high scoring Team Canada, Duchene doesn’t have a single point. Not even one assist.
Duchene is no stranger to international play. He’s represented Canada 11 times dating back to 2008, even winning a gold medal at the 2014 Olympic Games. In total he’s played in 73 games (prior to this tournament) and has recorded 31 goals and 34 assists for 65 points.
This is a head scratcher — a lot like the Colorado Avalanche’s 2016-17 season. There is simply no rationale why Duchene should have been held pointless to this time. He’s even been demoted to the third line.
The last matches of the preliminary rounds are today. All Colorado Avalanche players still in the tournament will be playing. The quarterfinals start May 18, and it looks pretty good that all the Avalanche will still be playing.