The Colorado Avalanche took on their divisional rival the Nashville Predators last Thursday, despite being short-handed due to players quickly going into covid protocol. Players were Andre Burakovsky, Devon Toews, and J.T. Compher. Additionally, just hours before the game, more players had been added including goalie Darcy Kuemper and talented defenseman Cale Makar. On top of this, they had other players on the IR such as Bo Byram, Ryan Murray, Jacob MacDonald, and Gabriel Landeskog. This put the Avs in a tough position for the game only having 11 forwards, 5 defenseman, and 1 goalie. This gave backup goalie Pavel Francouz an opportunity to start his first game of the season after missing the entirety of 2020 due to having double-hip surgery. He also was absent the whole beginning of this year too, because of an ankle injury.
Pavel Francouz and the Avs had a tough game against the Predators losing 5-2. The game was close for the majority of it but the Avs never held a lead. Mikko Rantanen had two points, providing the Avs with a powerplay goal and an assist on a goal scored by Val Nichushkin. Despite these efforts, they fell short of a victory. Francouz put up a save percentage (SV%) of .882 allowing 4 goals on 35 shots. Depth was limited due to the covid issues prior to puck drop, resulting in lines and d-pairings to be juggled. The loss of talent and unfamiliarity of different line combinations is potentially to be blamed for the loss. Avs were given the option to postpone the game before it started, but the team voted to let it continue.
Rising numbers of covid cases in the locker room has caused for the Avs to postpone games all the way up to the 27th, where they will clash against the Golden Knights in Vegas. However, not only has covid affected the Avalanche, but it has affected the entire league. Multiple teams were forced to shut down and postpone games as well. The league has seen an insane outbreak which is a cause for concern about the season as a whole. Luckily most players who have tested positive had little to no symptoms. The NHL Monday stopped cross national games for a little bit, but after careful consideration, they decided to pause the season until after Christmas break. With this surge of cases, the Beijing Olympics has been jeopardized in which no NHL players will be attending the games this year, after high anticipation from fans who have waited for the NHL to return since 2014 in Sochi. The NHL set aside 2 weeks in February for players to attend the Olympics, but now the plan is to use that time to make up most of the postponed matchups.
Lots of uncertainty around the league and their next steps. The band-aid solution to this issue has been to pause until after Christmas, but how effective will that be in reducing the outbreak? Truly is a scary and confusing time.
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