Colorado Avalanche: Observations from Detroit Red Wings Win

The Colorado Avalanche recorded another victory to keep climbing in the standings. The win is part of a streak the injured team is enjoying.

The Colorado Avalanche have kept their win streak alive. With their victory over the Detroit Red Wings, they now have seven straight wins.

The win came on the road. Now, they have nine straight road wins. Eight was a franchise record — now they’re just piling on. What’s more, they’re just three road wins shy of tying the NHL record for consecutive road wins.

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The victory was a low-scoring affair. They beat the Red Wings 2-1. That may seem a little anti-climactic considering the Wings are in an historically bad season. They’re on pace to earn even fewer points than the 48-point disaster the Avs suffered through a few years ago.

However, the Colorado Avalanche are absolutely wiped out by injuries right now. The following players are still out from injuries suffered in February:

• Pavel Francouz
• Nazem Kadri
• Mikko Rantanen
• Matt Calvert

Meanwhile, Andre Burakovsky has been in and out with an upper body injury suffered on February 21. He returned for the February 28 game, but he was out again tonight. Meanwhile, the shocker was that Cale Makar participated in morning skate but is now “day-to-day” with an upper-body injury.

That last one stings.

Anyway, the Avalanche limped their way to a 2-1 victory. Here are some of my observations.

Observations from Red Wings Win

• Michael Hutchinson recorded his first win with the Avs. He let in a greasy goal in the beginning, but he’s not bad. He got a bad rap in Toronto.
• Today was Hutchinson’s 30th birthday.

• The other new guy, Vladislav Namestnikov, also had an Avs first tonight. He scored his first goal with the team:

That’s a nice, hard-working goal. He took some punishment to remain in the crease.

• An old new guy, Logan O’Connor, recorded his first game-winning goal. It came about because of a sacrifice first from defenseman forward defenseman Mark Barberio followed by a sacrifice by captain Gabriel Landeskog.

• That tagging is because Barberio played forward last game but was back to being a defenseman for this game.
• Frans Nielsen ran into Tyson Jost, who was stationary on the Avs blueline during their power play. And somehow Jost got the penalty. What a stupid application of the interference penalty.
• Nathan MacKinnon hasn’t scored a goal in the last six games, since the team hosted the Tampa Bay Lightning on February 17. He has three assists in that time. I’m not worried, but I think we’d all like to see MacKinnon get back up on the scoresheet.
• This isn’t a hockey observation, but Logan O’Connor is a well-spoken young man.

Side not about Mark Barberio. He hasn’t had the season he’d want with the team. He’s played just 15 games this season, being a healthy scratch most nights. He even did a “conditioning stint” with the Colorado Eagles. It’s got to be a tough situation for him, but he’s handling it with grace. It’s gotten to be a role model situation for the young guys.

Also, he looks like a model without the mustache.

Anyway, the Colorado Avalanche return to the Pepsi Center for a single home game before hitting the road for three games, including the final back-to-back of the season.