Bad Day in Beantown

So this was it, Avs faithful. The day after.

Many Avalanche fans had thoughts about the big shocking trade, sending Mikko Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes, and receiving Martin Necas, Jack Drury, and a pair of draft picks. A lot of fans felt this was a bad deal for us, but some of the ones with that sentiment felt that there was no other choice. Rantanen wanted to be paid very handsomely. He wanted Leon Draisaitl money. He wanted to be paid more than MacKinnon. If we had done that, we could kiss our depth goodbye. It sucks, but it had to be done.

And remember, the deadline is on March 7. Barely over a month away. Trust me when I tell you: we are not done. The brain trust in the Avs front office learned from Joe Sakic. Sakic learned from the master himself, Pierre LaCroix. Yeah, we have something cooking.

Right now, the Avs are beginning a three game Eastern swing, and it starts off with a trip to Boston. Necas and Drury (the latter being the nephew, not son--as I erroneously thought, of Avs legend Chris Drury) were in uniform for the very first time. Scott Wedgewood was in net against Jeremy Swayman, and I spent the first period mostly focused on Necas. I had seen enough Hurricanes games to know how valuable Necas is. I had been told by a few Canes fans that he had been streaky, but I saw some good stuff from Necas in the first.

Opening frame saw no goals and no penalties, and in the second period, Artturi Lehkonen scores 90 seconds into the frame. The assists came from Juuso Parssinen and Casey Mittelstadt. For the most part, that was all of the noise in the period. Avs still led in shots, and with less than two minutes left, the first power play was awarded to the Avs. David Pastrnak went in the box, but the Avs PP ended up killed off as it spread out into the third period.

25 seconds into the third period, Morgan Geekie (another ex-Hurricane) ties it up. Avs received another power play later, but that was killed off. It looked like we would take the lead back, but in the heart of the period, it was Geekie again. Now Boston was leading. We pulled the goalie for the extra attacker, and we put pressure on Swayman, but no dice. Pastrnak ended up getting the puck in the waning seconds, and ended up with a goal to go with the two helpers he already had.

Already, some Avs fans are blaming the trade for this loss. It's been said that a few players were gutted by this trade, but the main people blaming the trade are simply bashing Necas. It didn't help Necas' case that he was a -3 in this game; he was on the ice for all three Bruins goals in the period. Our main problem has been our power play; it can't do anything right. Despite this, the Avs lead the league in 6-on-5 "pull the goalie" goals with nine. The bottom line is this: we've lost three straight now. Whatever the issue is, it needs to be fixed soon.

The Avs will be off to Madison Square Garden, and then off to Long Island. Here's hoping we get off this current mini-slide we are on!

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