Open Thread: Avalanche vs. Canucks (8:00 p.m.)
Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images
It’s a Colorado Avalanche gameday! Just as it looked like the Colorado Avalanche had righted the ship after a disastrous stretch of games, they flat out blew a winnable contest in Nashville, giving up two goals in sixteen seconds in the waning seconds of the game, and now they find themselves scrambling again to find some level of consistency. Tonight’s matchup should be an intriguing one, as the Vancouver Canucks have surprised practically everyone while being one of the top teams in the NHL to date, and this will no doubt be a measuring-stick game for both teams.
Colorado Avalanche
The Avs didn’t play that poorly against Nashville, they just had stretches where they stopped playing their game and the Predators took advantage of it. One thing that the Avalanche have clearly struggled with since their Stanley Cup title is not being able to pull games out when they’re not playing their best. That Cup team was deep enough that the Avalanche could afford to coast through stretches of games, knowing that the secondary and tertiary scoring could carry them on most nights where they didn’t bring their best. These Avs don’t have that luxury anymore, and it seems like every time they take their foot off the gas, the other team takes advantage of it.
THE PREDS SCORED 2 GOALS IN 16 SECONDS IN THE FINAL MINUTE OF PLAY FOR AN INCREDIBLE COMEBACK WIN pic.twitter.com/sn5K5SgyBs— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 21, 2023
The Avalanche still seem to be searching for an identity in this post-Cup world, as it has been made incredibly difficult to find any measure of consistency through what seemingly has been a non-stop deluge of injuries since they won the title. Last year was a mess, and this year is already starting to go off the rails a bit with injuries sidelining Gabriel Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen and Pavel Francouz, in addition to players like Mikko Raantanen and Josh Manson being beat up as of late, as well as Samuel Girard missing some time for personal reasons (he will miss tonight’s game as well). It’s difficult for any team to find consistency with this many players moving around the lineup, let alone one who relies on a fast-paced skill game like the Avs do.
Projected Lineup
Valeri Nichushkin — Nathan MacKinnon — Mikko Rantanen
Jonathan Drouin — Ryan Johansen — Tomas Tatar
Miles Wood — Ross Colton — Logan O’Connor
Andrew Cogliano — Fredrik Olofsson — Joel Kiviranta
Devon Toews — Cale Makar
Bo Byram — Josh Manson
Jack Johnson — Caleb Jones
Let us know what you think of the matchup in the comments!
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