This is not the season fans or the Colorado Avalanche themselves had anticipated following a tremendous Stanley Cup-winning season last year. It seems as though everything is spiralling out of control on the ice the Avalanche play on. Case in point, Thursday night’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Chicago is absolutely a team the Avalanche should have beat. Heading into the game, the Blackhawks were 10-25-4, good for last place in the league. There’s no excuse for losing. It’s not like the team was without Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar. No. All three of those players were in the game. You could argue that Valeri Nichushkin’s absence is the answer but the game is not carried on one player’s shoulders.
Despite that, the team now sits at 20-17-3, and now in sixth place in the division. It really makes you wonder what on earth is going on. Well, the All-Star break cannot come fast enough. This team is just burned out it seems.
They’ve looked sluggish in many games this season and add all the injuries they have had to overcome, here we are.
Against literally the team with the worst record in all of the NHL, everybody would expect the reigning Stanley Cup champs to come out victorious. Not only that—we should expect them to win single-handedly. It should not have been a struggle against the Blackhawks. This is just such a low point for the Colorado Avalanche.
There really aren’t excuses anymore. I’m usually not a fan of long breaks in between games but at this point, the All-Star break cannot come fast enough for the Avalanche. They need a break in the worst way. Is it accurate to say the late-season playoff push from last year is still in their veins?
If that’s the case then it would make sense to have some better conditioning.
Let’s forget about all that right now. The Avalanche have just one win in their last eight. You read that correctly. Forgetting the losses to the Arizona Coyotes and Toronto Maple Leafs (losses by 6-3 and 6-2), the Avalanche’s losses were close games on the scoreboard. But you know what they say: “Close” only counts in horseshoes.
Against the Florida Panthers, the Avalanche almost overcame a 3-1 deficit after the first period but ended up losing 5-4. They surrendered four goals in the second period in the game against the Vancouver Canucks.
I personally thought that the switch from Alexandar Georgiev to Pavel Francouz after a long stretch of Georgiev in net would make a difference. Nothing against Georgiev but it’s just important to rest your goaltenders. It was difficult to do so with Francouz out, though.
The idea of the Colorado Avalanche trading for a guy such as Bo Horvat doesn’t even matter at this point. This team should be winning with the guys they have.
I wish I knew what the answer was. But what I do know is that this team is not making the playoffs if they continue to play as horribly as they have recently. We know they’re capable of performing well, as they had previously been on some nice win streaks. But now? The sky appears to be falling.