You know, sometimes it’s easy to predict.
Hockey is the ultimate random game, but there are a few games each year where you can always tell a team is going to have a difficult evening. This game wasn’t a back-to-back, but it was clear that Colorado would face a formidable opponent in Boston, where the Bruins had started the season undefeated at 13-0, after yet another player was forced out of the lineup due to injury.
Josh Manson, who is regarded as week-to-week, played just over 10 minutes against the Buffalo Sabres two nights ago before suffering an unspecified injury and returning to Denver. The Avs were missing eight players for tonight’s game as a result of his injury. It was actually nine if you include Martin Kaut’s illness.
For those keeping track at home, that equates to three of the guys used as replacements (MacDermid, Kaut, Bowers) in addition to six regular skaters (Manson, Landeskog, Nichushkin, Helm, Byram, and Rodrigues) who have been injured.
Everyone was a little tense after Artturi Lehkonen was duped by Charlie McAvoy early in the opening frame of tonight’s disappointing 5-1 loss to the Bruins. When Lehkonen took one or two more shifts and then vanished for the remainder of the evening due to an injury, that edge transformed into frustration.
Colorado’s winning formula—depending on their best line, best defensive duo, and best power play—just wasn’t able to compete with the Bruins, who improved to 20-3 overall.
On the one hand, it was good to see the Avs dominate the game and fly around the rink again. The bad news was that the Bruins were dressed as the lightning-fast Avalanche team from the previous season, reminding everyone what a unique team Colorado had.
Hell, they might have a special team this year as well, but we haven’t watched a single game in which they’ve all played together, so we can’t be sure. The Avs put the adage “put anyone next to those guys and they’ll produce” to the test by rotating pretty much everyone next to Mikko Rantanen and Nathan MacKinnon after Lehkonen was taken out.
They failed to produce on this road trip for the second time. But it was a far more vigorous effort than in Winnipeg. Sometimes, anyhow. Although MacKinnon had several scoring opportunities that narrowly missed Linus Ullmark, the Avs’ stars seemed to be moving upstream the entire evening.
Conversely, though, McAvoy and David Pastrnak served as shining examples of how quickly the game can catch up to its finest players when they are clicking. They combined for four points, with Pastrnak scoring twice, through plays made both in tandem and individually. Boston tried his hardest to score the hat trick in the last minutes, but he was unsuccessful.
Trent Frederic added two goals of his own to highlight the severity of Colorado’s depth issue. That player has 17 goals in 139 NHL games, and he has two goals against you.
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