At the start of the season, no one, including the Colorado Avalanche expected them to play so terrible. Many expected regression, and the loss of Paul Stastny was not suppose to be such a big deal. Yet the Avalanche find themselves fighting to stay out of the bottom five spots of the NHL in a year that they should just stop fighting and let #30 sink in.

The troubles first began when injuries were over and over an issue. At one point the Avalanche had ten players injured including their number one and back up goaltenders. Rookies Calvin Pickard and Sami Aittokallio were in net and on the bench against the Montreal Canadians just six games into the season. The best news to those injuries was that none of Colorado's top notch players were on that injured list. In the likes of Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon, Gabe Landeskog, Erik Johnson and so on.

On top of injuries, players that had a spectacular season for the Avalanche last year hit a solid, one hundred percent in-movable brick wall. Nathan MacKinnon could not and still cannot score to save his life. Matt Duchene is playing pretty typical of himself, being a number three pick that these days would slip to a top ten not top five. Landeskog took penalty after penalty to start the season. Jarome Iginla was never on the ice, or so it felt. Worst of all, Nick Holden just simply forgot how to play hockey and his -16 eventually benched him.

As the Avalanche began to get healthy near the end of December things started to look up. Players were coming back and goaltending between Calvin Pickard and Semyon Varlamov was solid. Up until the Holiday break, Colorado had gone 4-0-2 in the six games leading up, including out scoring their opponents 11-2 in their three consecutive wins, their first three game win streak of the season. But then it happened, break on a hot streak and Colorado failed to gain points against division opponents, Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues. Where they were out scored 8-2 in those games before winning an overtime thriller against the Flyers.

Opening the New Year was decent with a win, however, they could not score against the NHL's last place Edmonton Oilers. Colorado had to win in a shootout against the Oilers 2-1. Two wins in a row and here comes the bad mojo hockey gods got Colorado again. The Avs would lose in regulation when David Savard and the Columbus Blue Jackets would stun them with a goal late in the third period at the 18:59 mark. This loss would drop Colorado back under .500 once again, proving that the Avalanche cannot get above the .500 mark.

Tonight Colorado will play their 40th game of the season. A win will tie them with the Minnesota Wild for 11th in the Western Conference, though the Wild will have two more games to play before reaching 40 after they take on the San Jose Sharks tonight. With a win tonight the Wild would remain two points above the Avalanche if they too win.

Gabe Landeskog broke is scoring droubt againt the Columbis Blue Jackets, Nathan MacKinnon is looking for his 7th goal of the season while Jarome Iginla looks to stay hot as he had 5 goals and 4 assists in 13 games during December. Tyson Barrie is on a three game assist streak while Matt Duchene has back to back assist games after having no points in the prior three, Duchene has not scored since December 11th against the Winnipeg Jets.

Colorado coach Patrick Roy said that Calvin Pickard would likely be called back to Denver during the Avs upcoming 5 game road trip. Varlamov is expected to play in at least 5 of the next 8 games. Basically saying that, Reto Berra will only be playing in the case that Varlamov is pulled from a game, while Pickard sees action in Lake Erie and then flies out to play some games for Denver to fly back to Lake Erie? I suppose that is exactly whats up, though Colorado will need to make a choice sooner or later on Reto Berra since there seems to be no confidence. "I'm not going to use Varly all the time," Roy said. "We're going to use Varly for this period of time. When we're going to hit the road our plan is to (give) about three games of five to Varly and give two other games to someone else."

If Colorado can beat the Chicago Blackhawks they will again be at .500. The upcoming road trip is Colorado's best chance to get above .500 as they are playing a few teams in the same boat, low in the standing and struggling. At the same time, these teams are fighting for their life to make a run also. If Varlamov can stay healthy and continue to put up solid numbers and Colorado's scorers can get going, the Avalanche could be in a good place heading into February.

Trade rumor surrounding Colorado right now: Ryan O'Reilly (who is getting hot with production) is being rumored by Buffalo and Toronto

The biggest rumor header via hockey writers has been. Ryan O'Reilly, a D prospect and a 1st rounder to Buffalo for Tyler Myers and Mikhail Grigorenko - which thank goodness this is a rumor, because Colorado would LOSE this trade huge. O'Reilly and Myers fair trade, a d prospect and Grig is fair only if it is not, Geertsen, Bigras or Siemens. Therefore Buffalo gets a free 1st rounder? Naw bro....