Avs look to break .500 jinx

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The Colorado Avalanche will once again have a shot to climb over .500 for the first time this season. A huge thanks goes out to their goaltender Semyon Varlamov who was sensational when he was most needed. The Avalanche went into Chicago and stole a win on Varlamov's historic night. The goaltender stopped 54 saves for his 16th career shutout and his third of the season. Varly's 54 saves were the most in a road game since shots on goal became a stat in the mid 1950's. It is also the second most saves in a shutout behind Ben Scrivens, who stopped 59 shots in his shutout against the San Jose Sharks January of 2014. Mike Smith is the other 54 save shutout goaltender, he accomplished this against the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2011-12 season. Semyon Varlamov is the only one who did this on the road against one of the NHL's power house, elite team at home. If you count shots that missed or were blocked, Colorado had 44 attempts on Crawford, while Chicago managed a huge 92 shots towards the net, thats 38 missed chances that Varlamov may have also stopped the way he played. 

 

 

Varlamov was certainly the story of the game, but the first minute and a half belonged to Nathan MacKinnon and John Mitchell. Mitchell would break into the slot and take a shot on Chicago's goaltender Corey Crawford. Crawford would direct a nice big rebound to the stick of MacKinnon, who would hesitate for a split second, but make a very narrow shot to score the first goal of the game not even one minute in. Just moments late, MacKinnon would break down the near board squeezing past a hawk defender. As he drove to the net, MacKinnon would slip a slick pass to Max Talbot, who then buried it under the sprawling leg of Crawford. This play began on a John Mitchell face-off win and pass to the 19 year old. The goals were scorer 1:17 into the game, the fastest two goals for Colorado since a 1995 game against the San Jose Sharks. For offense though, that was where the Avalanche hit a flat tire, and were unable to put another puck in the net. Varlamov held onto that lead for what was basically the entire game.

 

Now that Landeskog scored a classic Landeskog goal against the Columbus Blue Jackets and now MacKinnon against the Chicago Blackhawks, the Avalanche look for Matt Duchene to find the back of the net. Hopefully the three can get hot and stay hot, with them going, the Avalanche team will produce. The Avalanche will need production if they plan to make the playoffs. As of now, the number of points to make the Western Conference playoffs is at minimum 94 points, Colorado sits at 40. They are one point behind and two games ahead of the Minnesota Wild who sit in 11th and 2 points behind Dallas who have a game at hand. Two teams within the division. With the current number three seed in the division, St. Louis Blues 11 points ahead, Colorado is looking at the wild card spot. Which belongs to division rival Winnipeg Jets at the moment with 47 points, the Los Angeles Kings at #7 also have 47 points and #6 San Jose and #5 Vancouver sit with 49 points. 

 

Colorado now has 42 games left in the season, their game tonight puts them at the half way point where they need to win a minimum of 27 games just to put them at the 94 point mark. That leaves the Avs room to only lose 15 games, or they can go like 30-5-7 and just make all of our fan lives easier. Their focus is still one game at a time, one period at a time where it should be. However, the Avs cannot afford to give up 54 shots every night, even 35 is a little much. With the chance that rookie goalie Calvin Pickard is called up again, the Avs defense needs to tighten up. That could happen if the Avs were to pull the trigger on Ryan O'Reilly with Toronto or Buffalo. All the rumors point to the Avs wanting either Morgan Reilly or Tyler Myers from either team. If that does not happen, Ryan O'Reilly will need to fix whatever he has going on. He has been just as streaky as the rest of the team and it may cost him any future contract with the Avalanche, where he has stated he would like to stay. 

 

The Avalanche have had two other chances to move above .500 - the first time the club was 13-13-8, their first chance came after the holiday break where they team played poorly but rookie goalie Calvin Pickard played pretty sharp. The team would lose 5-2 and go on to lose the next game against St. Louis. The second chance came a little over a week later after beating Philadelphia and Edmonton both in extra time. Colorado would play a tied Columbus Blue Jackets team that played the night before. They would score just :34 seconds into the game when Jarome Iginla would steal a cross ice pass and buried the first shot of the game. David Savard would score with 1:01 left in the game and destroy Colorado's shot to get above .500.

 

Tonight, Colorado will try to beat former Avalanche goaltender Craig Anderson and the Ottawa Senators. In their last meeting, Semyon Varlamov would injure himself for the first of three times in the Avs morning practice. Reto Berra would get the start, while Calvin Pickard would travel at least 4 hour hours to backup Berra arriving just one hour prior. Just under three minutes into the game, Berra would be run down by John Mitchell and Kyle Turris, injuring his neck. The rookie would play his first career game, Pickard stopped 23 of 27 shots and allowed 4 goals. The Avalanche would lose 5-3 after leading the game 3-1 after the first and 3-2 after the second period. 

 

Patrick Roy has not said 100% since sending Calvin Pickard back to the minors if he would 100% be called up again on Colorado's upcoming road trip. When he initially sent Pickard down he said he could be back during this stretch of games. Varlamov will play at least five of the next seven/eight games, while "someone else" will start the others. The Avs will play eight games in the next 14 days including one back-to-back set against the Carolina Hurricanes and Florida Panthers. 

 

Craig Anderson was sharp in his last game against the Philadelphia Flyers, he stopped 33 of 34 shots in the game, before being scored on 2 of 5 times in the shootout to lose 2-1. Anderson is 10-9-6 for the Senators this season, and was the goaltender to beat the Avalanche earlier this season where he had stopped 28 of 31 shots in Ottawa. Other than playing in an Avalanche uniform Anderson has not played well against them. Against the Avs his career goals against sits about 4.00 while his save percentage under .900. I do not have exact stats at the moment, but I will find some shortly. 

This is Colorado's best chance to break .500 for the first time this season. It will take a full team effort from Semyon Varlamov in goal, to the defense up to the goal scorers that need to score. The Avalanche are running out of time, and it will take key leaders to help drive this team into the playoffs. Last season, Colorado ended the second half with 52 points when nearly everything seemed to go right, they will need to re-find that within them if the Playoffs are even a chance. This east coast swing of games coming up are vital, who cares if it is an overtime win, Colorado needs to find at least 1 point in every game, two points would be more beneficial obviously, but we do not have to worry about three point games. The Avs will also play two games against Dallas and St. Louis, division rivals, four HUGE points they must grab and run with. In the next eight games, the worst the Avalanche will want to do is around 5-2-1 (two losses and OTL to east coast teams) those 11 points could jump Colorado to a wild card spot in a hurry. Likely hood? Well, thats a team choice on how well they will play. They got HUGE breaks against Chicago from the Hockey God's, maybe there is some luck building for the Avalanche. But lets NOT jinx them, they need to break .500 before we think about ANY of this....

 

Avs chance tonight at Pepsi Center - puck drop 7:00pm MNT - Craig Anderson in goal for Ottawa, Semyon Varlamov for Colorado. 

 

 

 

(Photos by: avalanche.nhl.com photographers)