The Colorado Avalanche have to make some changes. I’m writing this during the second intermission of the Avalanche-Sabres matchup which began at 1 PM ET. Colorado has looked very sloppy. The Sabres have looked much better. That shouldn’t happen. Colorado started the season off hot, but they have since looked uninspired.
In the second period against the Sabres, Cale Makar went down against the boards after a shove. He exited the game because of the hit, which looked to have caused a leg injury. As a result of Makar’s injury, Nathan MacKinnon had some words to say to the referees for not calling the hit on Makar as a penalty.
Now, down Makar and MacKinnon—who was given a 10-minute penalty for getting angry with the referees—Colorado is down huge without their top-2 best players.
Head coach Jared Bednar has changed up the lines of the Colorado Avalanche this season to see what has worked and what doesn’t work. There has to be something more they can do to get things rolling again. The Sabres completely have the Avalanche’s number. They’re right on top of them every chance they get. Despite having similar shot totals on net, it just does not feel like that is the case right now.
The injury to Pavel Francouz is also something to think about here. The Avalanche don’t have much in terms of backups to Alexandar Georgiev, which has pretty much forced their hand, starting Georgiev in every game so far this year.
Also, something to keep in mind—and not to make excuses—but the Avalanche are not used to playing early games like this. It will be good for them to get back to playing home games at Ball Arena again.
It is very early in the season and plenty of time to get things back on track, but the Colorado Avalanche are not playing consistently well.
Colorado has now been shutout 4-0 in back-to-back games.