The Colorado Avalanche Looking Forward to A 3-Game Road Trip

The Colorado Avalanche remain the best team in the entire NHL with 85 points. This is such a resilient team that continues to find different ways to win it seems every game. Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, Andre Burakovsky, and Nazem Kadri have all been on fire recently, each contributing heavily to the offensive output of the team. Nathan MacKinnon’s been finding the back of the net on a constant basis now that he’s consistently playing games. It’s been a tough year for the superstar with injuries, but has overcome this adversity by being a key component to the offense with 17 goals and 37 assists in 41 games. Gabriel Landeskog now leads the team in goals with 30 after having countless monstrous games during the season. Nazem Kadri continues to lead the team in points with 70 in 53 games. Nathan MacKinnon and Nazem Kadri both are tied for 5th in points per game with 1.32. On the defensive front, Devon Toews leads the entire league in the plus/minus category with a +45, while Cale Makar continues to lead all defensmen in points with 60 and in goals with 18. Makar is currently on a 11 game point streak. Keep in mind these are only a handful of many phenomenal players on this team. 

Last week the Avs took on a familiar divisional foe, the Winnipeg Jets. Pavel Francouz who’s played well all season got the start in net for the club. The first period couldn’t have gone worse for the Avs falling early to a 3-0 deficit. However, they were able to chip away in the 2nd period to eventually tie the game at 3 a piece heading into the final frame. At the beginning of the final period of play, Andre Burakovsky scored his 15th of the year to take the lead. From there, the Avs stars took over to secure the 6-3 comeback win. 6 unanswered goals were scored by the squad. Gabriel Landeskog recorded his 2nd hat-trick of the year, both which were against the Jets this season. Nathan MacKinnon also scored 2 goals to add to the total. It was once again another incredible victory, after digging themselves into a steep hole early in the game. A lead is never safe against this team. 

The next game was against the Vegas Golden Knights again at the Fortress in Vegas. It was a back-to-back game for the Avs so the Knights had the fresh legs coming in. Vegas came out ready to play as Chandler Stevenson broke the ice in the first 4 minutes of the game to give his team the early lead. But, Andre Burakovsy answered with a goal to tie the game. Jonathan Marchessault would then make it 2-1 for Vegas heading into the period break. No goals were scored in the 2nd frame, but the action picked up quickly in the 3rd. If you blinked, you’d miss 2 quick tallies by the Avs, both less than a minute a part of each other. J.T. Compher scored the equalizer for his 10th of the year. Nathan MacKinnon then buried the tiebreaker for the win after a great set up by Cale Makar. The Avs would prevail 3-2.  

The Avalanche headed back home to face the struggling New York Islanders. Nathan MacKinnon opened the scoring with an insane dangle against the Islanders defender to make it 1-0 early. The 1st period concluded in a tie thanks to a goal by Ryan Pulock, who grabbed his first goal of the entire year. Devon Toews snatched his 10th goal of the year against his former team to make it 2-1 Avs. From there, the Islanders took over to make the contest 3-2 heading into the final period. The Avs responded quickly in the 3rd with the Captain Gabriel Landeskog continuing his goal scoring ability to tie the game. Andre Burakovsky also continued his exceptional play and ended up with the game-winner. Erik Johnson then hit the Islanders with the empty net dagger to finish it 5-3. Once again a rocky game for the team, but their offense always seems to explode at the right time.

Once again, Colorado heads back on the road for their final game against the Arizona Coyotes. The scoring wouldn’t get started until the 2nd period when Devon Toew ripped a wrist shot from the point for the lead. However, it was short lived since Loui Eriksson went on to tie the game in the 2nd period. Nick Schmaltz winds up with the tie-breaking goal to complete the comeback win. Once again the Avs out shot the Coyotes heavily with 43 shots on goal, but Karel Vejmelka was up to the task to stop 42 of them. A tough game for the Avs as they outplayed the Coyotes, but ran into a hot goalie once again.

The Avs went back home to host the Calgary Flames, who’ve been on a tear lately, leading the Pacific by a wide margin with 73 points. Colorado looked to extinguish the Flames, but would ultimately fall short in overtime by a score of 4-3. The 1st period was an eventful one since the Flames kept responding to whatever the Avs were doing. Gabriel Landeskog scored first, but Elias Lindholm countered with a goal right after. Late in the frame, Andre Burakovsky scored on the powerplay for the potential lead heading into the intermission, but once again Elias Lindholm picked up his 2nd of the game to tie it with less than a minute in the period, killing any momentum the Avs had. Early into the 2nd period the Flames defense got into the action by scoring to break the tie. The Avs decided to pull Darcy Kuemper who allowed 3 goals on 15 shots (.800 SV%) and replace him with Pavel Francouz. Despite this, Cale Makar made an extraordinary effort on the backcheck to shut down a Flames 2 on 1 attack, then creating a 3 on 2 opportunity for the Avs which was converted by none other than Nathan MacKinnon to tie it 3-3. No scoring in the 3rd period but both clubs had great chances to break through, but both goalies stood strong. This playoff-like matchup went into extra time, where Johnny Gaudreau put it away on a breakaway for the Flames to take down the best team in the league. Once again another fantastic matchup that we’ll look forward to seeing next Sunday once again at Ball Arena.

Looking towards the Avalanche’s future, they’ll go on the road for 3 games to take on some exciting opponents in the east. Colorado will head to Long Island on Monday to play the New York Islanders, then will head over the next day to compete against the New Jersey Devils. Thursday’s going to be a thriller for sure since it’ll be the 2nd best team in the league, the Carolina Hurricanes. It’ll be the first meeting between these two and it’ll be an entertaining one as it could be a preview to a potential cup match-up. Then it’s back home for the Avalanche to get a rebuttal against the Flames. It’s going to be a fun week of hockey ahead.           

For more NHL coverage, click here.