Avalanche injury issues go from bad to potentially catastrophic with MacKinnon injury

There was a game tonight, yes. The Avalanche had a chance to tie the St. Louis Blues for first in the Central Division for the second time this road trip but once again came up short.

This loss was completely unlike the one against Vancouver over the weekend as that was a high-scoring affair with lots of scoring chances. This was a low-event disaster marked by weird bounces as the Avs fell 3-1 to the Los Angeles Kings.

But none of that really matters. After the Kings took a 2-0 lead and Nathan MacKinnon took an exit in the second period following a relatively innocuous shift. There wasn’t much contact but there was enough discomfort for MacKinnon to miss the remainder of the game.

Let’s look at where the injury might have occurred:

Y'all be the judge. I don't see anything but he does seem to labor a bit. pic.twitter.com/UvflrgkFw9

— Nathan Rudolph (@DNVR_Rudo) March 10, 2020

Knowing that MacKinnon leaves the game with a lower-body injury, it does look like he experiences enough discomfort to leave the ice.

It could just be precautionary where the Avs were losing by two goals already and getting significantly outplayed in a game they were unlikely to come back and win given all their other injury issues and tired legs.

It could be something more serious.

And that’s where this takes a much darker turn. Losing the game tonight won’t be particularly impactful on the standings either way. Colorado is still two back of the Blues and eight ahead of the Dallas Stars for second place. They’re in a cozy spot.

But if this MacKinnon injury is anything meaningful, that cozy spot could change in a hurry. You’re talking about this team now missing:

• MacKinnon
• Mikko Rantanen
• Andre Burakovsky
• Nazem Kadri
• Matt Calvert
• Colin Wilson
• Cale Makar
• Philipp Grubauer

Just for the sake of understanding all of that, it’s Colorado’s starting goaltender (though Pavel Francouz has been excellent in his absence), 4/6 of their top-six forwards, and important depth guys in Calvert and Wilson (though Wilson has been out almost all year so they’ve learned how to live without him), and arguably their best defenseman.

It’s an absurd list and Colorado’s success with these mounting injury problems has been very impressive. But adding MacKinnon is simply a bridge too far. He’s the engine of this entire offense and the epicenter of their swagger and success.

The lasting impact of this game should have been minimal. As we wait for word on Nathan MacKinnon’s status, it still might be. But the other side of the coin is a lot darker. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.

Per Jared Bednar after the game, there is still no update on MacKinnon’s status and he doesn’t know the extent of whatever is wrong with him. With likely no practice tomorrow, this mystery could linger into Wednesday morning.

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• Honestly, not much matters from this game outside of the MacKinnon injury. The Avs lost the season series to Los Angeles but the circumstances were kind of odd. Their game in Colorado was Stadium Series, which was the perfect condition for what happened (a sloppy game that went the way of a coin flip), and the two games in LA were SEGABABAs for the Avs and the Kings did not play the night before. There are always schedule inequalities like that across the season but it just seemed set up very nicely for the Kings to be particularly competitive against the Avs. Also, Quick absolutely owns the Avs in his career so there’s always that.
• In a night where I didn’t think many Avs played very well, I loved Pavel Francouz’s game. There’s something I love about a goaltender who gets down early and just hunkers down mentally. Two bad bounces created the 2-0 lead for the Kings and while I’d like to see Francouz track the puck a little better on the first goal, there isn’t realistically much more he can do in that situation. After that, though, he slammed the door shut until late in the third when Iafallo picked Ryan Graves’ pocket and beat him on a breakaway. He made a handful of spectacular saves and practically begged the team in front of him to put a couple in behind Quick on the other end. There was just something particularly gritty about it that really resonated with me. Down two goals with an obliterated roster, losing your best player halfway through, and rising to that occasion to get stubborn about letting more goals in? I love it. It’s just so defiant and that’s the kind of moxie you see from championship goaltenders. I don’t know if Francouz is that kind of guy but I loved his game overall.
• A night after I singled Nichushkin out for his consistency, he plays the worst game he’s played in months. He had a chance to get them to 2-1 in the second period with a penalty shot but Quick closed the five hole on him and that was that. He was uncharacteristically poor with the puck tonight, making a ton of turnovers as it looked like he was feeling it a little bit and forcing it way too much. Hopefully he got the bad game out of his system and returns to normal against the Rangers on Wednesday. He’s an increasingly important player given the injury problems.
• Two more posts for Colorado tonight that I remember. Gabe Landeskog ripped one off the post on their first power play of the game and Tyson Jost smoked one past Quick that drew iron in the final 30 seconds. Game of inches.
• The Avs were so beat up that with Francouz pulled, they had Graves/Connauton/Bellemare/Kamenev/Jost on the ice in an extra attacker situation. I didn’t catch the sixth skater but looking at that lineup, does it really matter? Hard to come back when the highest scoring player on the ice is Jost with 22 points.
• Avs fell to 1-13-3 when entering the third period trailing. They’ve now been in that situation three of their last four games. They are 1-2-1 in those four games.