Injuries overshadow Avalanche ending their losing streak

The Colorado Avalanche won tonight. It was a 3-0 victory over the San Jose Sharks. By virtue of Vegas losing to Arizona tonight and Minnesota losing to St. Louis the last two nights (one in overtime), much of the frustration from the now-dead three-game losing has been soothed as the Avalanche firmed up their position in second place while staying within striking distance of the division title.

Philipp Grubauer got his sixth shutout of the season, tied with old friend Semyon Varlamov for most in the NHL this season, in his first game back from the COVID Protocol List. Also returning were Mikko Rantanen (1G, 2A) and Joonas Donskoi (1A).

Zero goals were scored at five-on-five tonight as every goal came with the Avs on the power play (the first two goals, scored by Gabe Landeskog and Cale Makar) or defending the lead in a five-on-six situation (Rantanen scored on the empty net).

The Avs played a stout defensive game, giving just 21 shots on goal and zero high-danger chances at even strength. If you tilt your head, you can kind of see a smiley face from Colorado’s net.

That’s hilarious.

That’s all of the good stuff from this one. The Avs ended their losing streak, solidified their position in the division race, and had a special teams-led victory.

What we might remember this game for, however, is none of that as the Avs finished with four defensemen after in-game injuries from Ryan Graves and Sam Girard prevented them from finishing.

Graves took an elbow to the face from Evander Kane in the first period and left upon the puck clearing the defensive zone and disappeared down the tunnel. The team ruled him out for the rest of the game during the first intermission.

Girard’s injury came when he went legs-first into the boards with the aid of Kevin Labanc’s stick. While down and clearly in pain, Girard watched as Nathan MacKinnon jumped into the fray and had an aggressive hugging session with Labanc that put MacKinnon into the penalty box for seven minutes in the second half of the third period.

Stuck in the box until the waning minutes of the game, MacKinnon was finally freed from the box but with the game already decided after Rantanen’s empty-net goal make it 3-0, he did not have a chance late in the game to continue both his 15-game scoring streak or his 263-game streak of having at least one shot on goal.

The second streak was the longest in franchise history. This is the first game MacKinnon didn’t have a shot on goal since October 13, 2017 when he played just 4:29 and left due to injury (if I recall correctly, this was the game where MacKinnon took a stick to the eye and could be heard in the arena screaming in pain).

The streaks were inevitably going to end. As long as they came in an Avalanche win, I doubt MacKinnon cares at all about them. That Colorado won in relative ease despite him not scoring is genuinely a positive sign despite it being more fun when he does score.

No, it’s the injuries we are all focused on after this one. Jared Bednar’s terse “No” when asked postgame if there were any updates on either player’s status is likely all we’re going to get from him on the topic but the Avs are in a bad way if either player misses meaningful time.

Keep in mind this is already a defense dealing with long-term injuries to Erik Johnson and Bowen Byram. While they had stabilized with the addition of Patrik Nemeth (more on him below) and the revelation of Jacob MacDonald (now also hurt after a mystery injury suffered during the COVID shutdown), the team is now looking at being down to just Devon Toews and Cale Makar from the expected regulars at the start of the year. With Nemeth added and Conor Timmins having the best game of his career tonight, the team might have to turn back to the carousel of AHLers behind them.

That means two of Keaton Middleton, Kyle Burroughs, Dennis Gilbert and Dan Renouf are bound for meaningful NHL minutes. While there have been ups and downs from Graves this year, they haven’t been so bad that Colorado won’t feel his absence in this situation.

Any long-term injury to Girard, however, could prove devastating. The Avalanche has developed into a defensive juggernaut this season largely behind the three-headed monster at forward and on defense (Girard, Toews, Makar). Dinging either one of those groups is a significant hindrance to Colorado’s Stanley Cup dreams.

We don’t know anything tonight but that’s where the thoughts are right now. With good fortune, both players will be okay and the Avs will get a mostly full cupboard of players on hand for the start of their postseason run in a couple of weeks.

Here’s to hoping.

TAKEAWAYS

• His puck management remains a point of real frustration but I really liked Patrik Nemeth’s defensive game tonight. I tweeted out that he can’t help the PK when he’s in the box and I’d prefer for the penalties to chill out but that’s also a team-wide desire, not specific to him. When he was on the ice on the PK, I thought he was really good. I thought he was really good in his own zone regardless of the situation, to be honest. He was physical at the right times and effective with it, not just hitting someone for the sake of doing it. He hit with purpose and was good at popping some pucks loose and that’s his game. Again, the play with the puck needs to get better but that’s always going to be a struggle with him and is one of his limitations as a player.
• On the other side of the ice from him, this was a statement game from Conor Timmins. Easily his best game in the NHL, both offensively and defensively. Our guy and friend of the program Dario Ronzone had an astute observation that Timmins has figured out he can’t win footraces in the NHL on pucks being chipped around him so he’s just hitting that guy instead and he’s finding success with it. That was a big part of his game tonight when he was defending but his play with the puck might have been the most promising part of all because he was aggressive and confident with the puck. He was putting dangerous shots towards the net and was crashing in on offense when he saw opportunities. This was the high-IQ game that has defined his junior career and he was all over the place tonight. If Graves and Girard miss meaningful time, how Timmins handles an increased role is going to be a major part of Colorado’s success or failure during that timeframe. The player we saw tonight was potential realized. He obviously won’t be at his best every night but if he can get closer to that player than the timid and shaky version we’ve seen a lot of this year, the Avalanche will have yet another young player coming into his own just in time. Even if it’s just a one-off this year, it’s at least one game where you see what kind of player he can be in the NHL and it’s easy to see why the Avs have loved him so much the last few years.
• The MacKinnon fight. I know I’m part of the generation that is ruining everything in the world because we eat too much avocado toast and stuff but I’m really okay with what MacKinnon did here. He sees his teammate hurt and reacts like a teammate normally would. Given his natural state is anger anyway, this wasn’t a huge surprise. Given like half his fights in his career have come against Arizona, the only surprise was that it was the Sharks he got feisty against. The only concern is getting hurt, which is why I was happy MacKinnon limited the punching attempts and was involved in more of a really low-level “MMA On Ice” kind of showing. A little grappling and some tackling is fine. Situationally, I don’t love MacKinnon taking himself off the ice for what turned out to be more than seven minutes but you mind it a whole lot less when leading by two goals than trailing by two goals, you know? It’s a guy defending his dude and that’s just part of the job of being a team leader. JUST DONT GET HURT, MAN.
• Philipp Grubauer back in net and dominates again. Nothing sexy about his game. Not many rebounds and nothing scrambly. Reading the play doesn’t make the highlight reel but leading the league in shutouts is a damn good way to set yourself up for a payday. He is Colorado’s rock.
• A special performance from Cale Makar tonight. His mediocre nights can be frustrating because you witness some truly special stuff with him on some nights and you get greedy thinking you’re going to see that regularly. Tonight was a reminder that he has a level very, very few defensemen in the last 30 years have even been capable of. What a talent.
• It felt good seeing an offside review go against the Sharks. Still a scar there that could use some more cosmic healing but that was nice.
• Tonight was Colorado’s 1,000th win since moving to Denver.