The Colorado Avalanche are suddenly reminding us of how good they can be with the dominance that characterized the first part of the season.
At the beginning of the season, the Colorado Avalanche were scary good. Later, it was just scary to be an Avs fan.
In the first two months of the season, they marched through opponents. Sure, there were a couple losses here and there — 6-1 to the Buffalo Sabres, 1-0 to the Tampa Bay Lightning — but they always bounced back.
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The players at that time were playing crisp, precision hockey, what Altitude announcers started calling “tidy.” Even during a game, they didn’t let things get to them.
Meanwhile, the top line of Mikko Rantanen, Nathan MacKinnon, and Gabriel Landeskog seemed unstoppable. MacKinnon seemed to be scoring goals at will. And Rantanen drew ahead as points leader in the entire NHL. For a while, Landeskog even led the entire NHL in goals.
Then, in December, the Colorado Avalanche ran into a St. Louis Blues team that was willing to play a heavy, sticky brand of hockey. It slowed the Avalanche’s speed game down. Suddenly, they couldn’t wheel around.
The impact of that style was emphasized when Barry Trotz’s New York Islanders also shut down the Avs’ high-octane offense. And so began two months of spiraling. Colorado, who once looked ready to challenge for the Central Division title, free fell straight out of the playoffs.
The top line went ice cold, and the secondary scoring disappeared. The defense collapsed, and suddenly goal tending was letting the team down left and right. They’d no sooner fix one aspect of the game then three more parts would go wrong.
We all lamented. Many Avs fans started agitating for a tank so we’d have two top-five draft picks — Ottawa’s and our own. We started snipping at each within our own ranks. Turns out the pain of the 48-point season was still too fresh.
Well, something strange happened on the way to the tank. The Colorado Avalanche got good again. All the bad bounces, the bad goal tending, the bad decision-making on the ice seemed to start fading.
They shut out the Vegas Golden Knights. What? A shutout? We thought our goalie was bad.
Then they beat the Winnipeg Jets 7-1. What? Goals got scored? Even on the power play? We thought we couldn’t score.
Then they swept the back-to-back road series. What? The Avalanche corrected mistakes in-game and even dominated the Predators game?
Because, yes, the Colorado Avalanche started to look dominant again. They were beating good teams. They were starting to bob in and out of the final wild card spot.
Are the Avs scary good again? Or are they just going to disappoint us again?
The truth is, maybe a little of both. I never felt comfortable in those first two months of the year. The Avs were getting so much media attention, and it didn’t feel natural. This wasn’t the Avalanche of the early years — this was supposed to be a rebuilding team.
A rebuilding team that was overreaching. So, I think we’re seeing flashes of what’s to come. MacKinnon’s line just got hot a year too soon — next year is for us. Next year we’ll have a more solid foundation.
And we may be disappointed come playoffs time. Somehow, I think we’ll just miss them.
But the future is bright, Avs Nation. The Avalanche have it in them to be scary good — and it’s only going to be enhanced with experience and the addition of more of our young talent.