Buyck'ed Again

The latter two-thirds of the Colorado Avalanche's three-game Central Division road trip included very important "four-point games." For those who don't know the concept of a four-point game, I'll explain. Of course, in the NHL standings, two points are awarded for a win, one point is awarded for losing in overtime or a shootout, and of course, regulation losses are worth nothing. If a team wins in regulation, the winning team picks up two points, while the losing team's maximum possible point total decreases by two, making it a four point turnaround. Pretty much every game is a four-point game, but the most important ones are the divisional games. It is really best to gain as much ground on divisional foes.

The Avalanche did just that on Thursday in Minnesota, a 6-1 win against the team who is in second place in the Central. The last leg of the road trip is a return to Winnipeg against the Jets. This is the third meeting of the season between these clubs, and the last trip to Winnipeg saw us blanked 1-0 by Connor Hellebuyck. In this meeting, we faced Hellebuyck again, and I figured, "Well, Hellebuyck got his payback already. Now we're ready for him."

Yeah, about that.

It was a bad start from the get-go, as Nikolaj Ehlers struck just 68 seconds into the first period. That's pretty much how the last game in Winnipeg went--an early goal that held up. We did get a power play in the middle of the frame, but we could not even it up. Though at least Mackenzie Blackwood shut the door for the rest of the period. Down 1-0 after 20. Second period was a bit of a snooze; the only noise came from Mark Schiefele, as he made it 2-0 at 15:53. So we were down two after 40 minutes. The third saw us get some urgency, we also had a power play; it looked good, but no go. Blackwood was pulled for the extra attacker, but that allowed Ehlers to get his second goal of the game. I was really hoping we'd at least get one to avoid the blanking, but nope.

You know, I think Hellebuyck made some sort of vow to never give up a goal against the Avs. He's been a brick wall against us ever since last year's playoffs, which saw him shelled and destroyed. So while we won one important four-point game, we lost another one. Overall, it's a 1-2 record in the three game road swing. At the moment, the Avs are in fourth place in the Central, tied with Dallas in points, but Dallas has games in hand, which places us in the #1 Wild Card position in the West. We still have some time to rectify that; there's just under a month left until the Four Nations Face Off. We have a chance to make it to the Central Top 3 by then.

Up next for the Avalanche is a huge five game homestand, which will start on Tuesday against the New York Rangers. After that, we will host the Edmonton Oilers (Thursday on ESPN), the Dallas Stars (Saturday), the Minnesota Wild (next Monday), and the Winnipeg Jets (next Wednesday). A big homestand for the Avs, with some opportunities to make dents in the Central Division in the last three games.

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