Colorado Avalanche: What a Road Trip!

Eight points from four wins on this five game away trip, the Colorado Avalanche are playing great team hockey. Comebacks and holding on to leads is working.

Yes! What a road trip for the Colorado Avalanche.

Five games. Four against Eastern Division teams and the last against a Division Rival.

Anyone who is anyone would have said that there is no way the Colorado Avalanche would beat the Columbus Blue Jackets. And yet, they did.

In one of the best games of the season, the Avalanche waited till there were only nine minutes to go in the game to unleash their best. I for one had faith. I’m sure a lot of other fans didn’t.

The Avalanche played strong hockey all night, it was only the strength of the Columbus defence constantly holding them out that had the team not score earlier.  Mind you with four posters, it’s a wonder it hadn’t happened sooner.

That game was only night before last.

Tonight the Avalanche played one of our arch rivals – the Minnesota Wild. We know that they are a team that we don’t like, or don’t like playing more to the point.

This team, the Colorado Avalanche, and at the moment they are really playing as a team, did it again.  They stood up strong and played solid hockey. And, it paid off. Another win.  Holding out the Wild.

Tonight it was one of those nail-biting finishes where I was wanting the clock to count down quickly.  When you have a 3-2 lead with four minutes to go, anything can happen. It usually means that your opposition puts on more and more pressure. They bench their goalie for the extra on-ice player and you get hammered.

Well, all of that happened, and yet the Avalanche stood the test.  They defended as if their lives depended on it. Pavel Francouz was amazing in the net.

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He hasn’t played for 20 days and tonight he comes out and pulls some amazing saves.  He was very solid in net. I have far more confidence in him, funnily enough, than with Philipp Grubauer. Am I crazy, probably?  Grubauer has had some great games on this road trip. His save percentage is strong.

Right now, BOTH of our goalies are doing their jobs.

But, it’s the combined team effort that’s winning these hockey games. TEAM, Together, Everyone, Achieves, More. And we certainly are. We’ve achieving comeback wins in the third period.  Something we haven’t done in.. who knows how long.

We’re beating teams that haven’t been beaten in 30+ games.

The only blip in this five-game stand was the loss against the Flyers. Should we have beaten them? I think so.  They aren’t a great team. We had just returned to the ice after ten days off over the All-Star break.

Apparently, because the players hadn’t been playing, there were cobwebs to shake off. I don’t buy that completely.  These men are professional athletes. Maybe it was as much mental as physical.

As road trips go, given the first loss, it was the best possible outcome. We came home with eight points.

Tonight looking at the standings after the win, the Colorado Avalanche are only 3 points behind their Division rivals the St Louis Blues, with two games in hand.

Don’t count the Avalanche out of taking the top spot yet. They are playing good strong team hockey. With the upcoming five-game homestand beginning on Tuesday, there could be a lot more points on the board by mid-February.

There is still lots of regular season hockey to play yet. And I for one am looking forward to each and every game. Nothing like watching your team play some great hockey to make you smile.

Right Avalanche fans?