Avs hope to stay hot while they hit road
The Avalanche has won three of its last five.
Colorado beat Carolina and New Jersey, then lost to Ottawa and Arizona before getting goals from Matt Duchene, J.T. Compher and Carl Soderberg in a 3-1 victory over Detroit at the Pepsi Center on Wednesday night.
In this horrible season, that qualifies as a hot streak.
“I like some of the things we’re doing,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “Some old problems keep popping up for us here and there. I don’t like our starts right now, to be honest, but we’re playing with a little more energy and passion, I feel like lately. … (Goalie Calvin Pickard) has been real good here as of late. We have to find a way to get more dangerous offensively, and some nights we have it and others we don’t.”
The Avalanche is 20-46-3 with 13 games remaining. Applying common-sense projections to the NHL era of an 80-game schedule and ties, the old and infamous Colorado Rockies’ worst season — 15-53-12 in 1978-79 — would be the equivalent of about 49 points today. So the Avalanche has seven points to go to get to 50 and beat that low point in Denver’s NHL history.
Duchene’s first-period goal against the Red Wings was his first score in 12 games.
“The game’s not all about points, it’s about winning, first and foremost,” Duchene said. “But at the same time, that’s part of my role on this team, to help the team win. So when you go 0-for-11, that’s an insane stretch and I hope I never go through that again.”
Said Bednar: “Any kind of goals right now, we know they’re hard to come by for our team. They give us a spark. For a guy like Matt, we know his history, he scores in bunches. He scores, he gets confidence, he wants the puck, he wants to be on the ice. He wants to continue to make plays and he becomes more dangerous after he scores and he’s involved in our offense. So that’s a good sign for him, and I think our team knows that too.”
Colorado faces the Red Wings in a rematch Saturday that will be the Avalanche’s final game ever at Joe Louis Arena, the site of so many notorious games in the rivalry’s heyday. Then the Avs play Sunday at Chicago.
The brief trip has significance for two of the Avalanche’s American-born players, Compher and backup goaltender Jeremy Smith, who potentially would be playing in their hometowns for the first time as NHL players. Smith is from Dearborn in the Detroit area, Compher from Northbrook in the Chicago suburbs.
Footnotes.
Recent roster moves have left the Avalanche with 12 Canadians, four Americans, four Russians, three Swedes, one Swiss and one Finn. … In the wake of the near sellout (16,764) for the Red Wings game Wednesday, with about half the crowd wearing Detroit red, the Avalanche’s home attendance average of 14,916 per game remains 25th in the 30-team NHL, better than Florida, New Jersey, the New York Islanders, Arizona and Carolina. The Nuggets are averaging 14,236. … The victory over Detroit lifted the Avs into double figures for wins at home, where they are 10-24-1. … Matt Nieto missed Wednesday’s game because of a minor knee injury. The healthy scratches were Patrick Wiercioch and Cody Goloubef. … The Avalanche will practice Friday morning before traveling to Detroit.