Colorado Avalanche Must Show their Mettle Against Hurricanes

The Colorado Avalanche must show how badly they want to win with tonight’s home game against the Carolina Hurricanes. They need a victory to keep in the playoff hunt.

The Colorado Avalanche won their home game against the Buffalo Sabres, and that was a good thing. Never mind that the Sabres themselves are not a good thing — the Avs have lost games to bad teams before. But this was also Colorado’s first game without their captain.

And they won.

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And I could have foretold that they would have won even against the Tampa Bay Lightning or LA Kings (see above about playing down to bad teams). Because they had lost their captain.

Because you can always count on two things with the Colorado Avalanche. They will always play down to bad opponents, and they will always put forth superhuman effort in the game following the loss of a key player.

It’s the game after that when the team shows its true mettle. That’s this game, against a Carolina team that’s also chasing a playoff berth.

The Avs have already faced the Hurricanes once this season, in Carolina. They skated to a 3-1 victory, so, alas, we didn’t get to see the Storm Surge. I don’t think the ‘Canes do it on the road, but let’s not tempt them tonight.

How to Enjoy the Game

Game time: Mar 11, 7:00 pm MT
TV Networks: ALT,  FS-CR (Canes’ Feed)
Radio: Altitude Radio (FM 92.5)

Keep it Clean

The game against the Buffalo Sabres got really chippy. It all started when Nikita Zadorov stole Jack Eichel’s lunch money — and exposed his clown hair in the process:

I love curly hair, red hair, faux hawks. But Eichel’s red, curly faux hawk is an abomination.

Anyway, I don’t know why the Avs go so hard against Eastern Conference teams then let Central Division rivals like the Dallas Stars push them around. I also don’t know why Ian Cole chose the Dallas game to become a choir boy.

In any case, the Colorado Avalanche need to keep their noses clean and avoid taking too many penalties against the Hurricanes.

Keep Playing for the Captain

As you know, captain Gabriel Landeskog will be out for the remainder of the regular season — 4 to 6 weeks. As I noted above, that’s likely why the Avs played their hearts out against Buffalo.

Well, they need to keep digging deep to play for their missing captain. He’s the heart and soul of the team. With him gone, they’ll just have to all step up.

Mikko Rantanen is trying to keep Gabe’s memory alive and well:

Sigh. Win one for the Gipper, boys.

Keep on Keeping On

At the time of writing, the Colorado Avalanche were two points out of the playoffs with the same number of games played as the second wild card team, Minnesota. Arizona, with a game in hand, has one more point.

Well, you can’t focus on what the Coyotes or Wild are doing. You can only focus on yourselves. Colorado is at home. They’re playing a team they’ve matched up well to in the past. They really should be able to pull out a win and keep on keeping on toward the playoffs.

After tonight the Colorado Avalanche have two more home games, against the Ducks on Friday and the Devils on Sunday. After that they head out onto the road for a couple important Central Division games.