10 Takeaways: Do These Recent Avalanche Losses Matter?
· Yahoo Sports
We’re at a weird point of the season where the Avalanche are losing a lot of games that they probably should win pretty easily. Not all of them need to look like the one they had against Calgary, but there have been far too many losses to teams outside of the playoff picture.
But given how they looked against the Dallas Stars — a game they played nearly perfectly and did so without Cale Makar — do these losses even matter?
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I’ve been a firm believer that they should at least clean up some of the bad habits that have hurt them in these games. But they did. They did it against the Stars in a game that you know each one of them wanted to play their best.
Ultimately, if the Avalanche lose more of these late-season games and then go on to win the Stanley Cup, nobody will remember how the regular season ended. But I’m still conflicted on how much, if at all, we should take from these losses.
“It’s strictly commitment. It’s all it is. Nothing else,” head coach Jared Bednar said. “Commitment to play the right way.”
10 Takeaways
1. I will say, I don’t like them going 1-5-1 in their last seven games at home. But then again, if the game against Dallas was at Ball Arena, I still think it would’ve gone the same way.
2. Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas were both -3 in this game. Devon Toews was a -2. Those were the guys who, in Dallas, led the team to a huge win.
3. Nick Blankenburg recorded his first point with the Avs. But defensively, I still don’t see how he fits. I also don’t think it helps that he’s either had to be a No. 7 defenseman without a consistent partner in his first set of games, and now he’s playing on the left since the Makar injury. I’d like to see him get a look with Brett Kulak or Josh Manson as a righty.
4. Valeri Nichushkin didn’t play because of an upper-body injury, but it sounds like he’s going to be fine. Bednar said after the game that he’s day-to-day and could play on Tuesday. It sounds like another case of the coaching staff not taking any chances with any of their guys playing hurt before the playoffs.
5. The Blues suddenly have a lot to play for. Their recent stretch of wins has put them within reach of that second wildcard spot. If they manage to defeat the Avs again on Tuesday, their chances of making it would probably double. And funny enough, landing that playoff spot means they’d play the Avalanche in Round 1.
Right now, they’re three points back of both L.A. and Nashville after 76 games. But the Blues have the most regulation wins, meaning they hold the tiebreaker if it comes down to that. The Sharks are a point ahead of them, too, but they have a game in hand. If San Jose wins that extra game, they’d also be at 81 points, just like the Kings and Predators.
6. Here’s a fun little thought I had about that game on Tuesday: How are the Blues fans going to react to No. 91 in an Avalanche uniform again?
7. Mackenzie Blackwood didn’t have a bad game. It would’ve been nice for Colorado to be the team to get a late goal and win 3-2 just to help him through this rough patch.
8. Parker Kelly got his fifth goal in seven games to hit 20 on the season. He also has three assists in that stretch. What an incredible season he’s having.
9. Not that long ago, Martin Necas had 32 goals, and Kelly was at 16. I wrote about how it would see them hit 40 and 20, respectively. I thought for sure Necas would be first to his milestone, but we are. Kelly has four goals since, as does Necas. Now the start winger needs four more to get to 40. Will he do it?
10. The pre-game video celebrating Brent Burns’ 1,000th consecutive game was very well done. I liked hearing from his former teammates Erik Karlsson and Patrick Marleau as much as we did. I also loved the cameos from Joe Thornton and Phil Kessel. Those two guys are larger than life and it was nice to see the Avs get a video from each one.
Kessel ended his message to Burns with “go get a Cup.” That was cool.
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