Last night seemed like one of those games that was too good to be true. The Vancouver Cancucks had repeatedly stomped our Colorado Avalanche and it was time for some payback. Despite what people seem to think, this team is fighting for a playoff spot, and the window for making the post season is rapidly diminishing with each loss. Yet what happened last night was nothing short of soul crushing for this team.
This just doesn’t seem to be the season for Ruslan Salei. He played a single game to start the season and injured his back, missing the majority of the the games and only managing to play in one before the Olympics. While in Vancouver Salei captained Team Belarus, who unfortunately drop all four of their games before returning home. He then returned to the Avalanche to play in 4 more games, and that may be it for the season.
Tonight the Colorado Avalanche will see the triumphant return of veteran superstar Milan “the Duke” Hejduk, who has been sidelined with knee surgery and more recently back pain. To be honest, his talent and vision on ice have been missed of late, with the Avs dropping 2 of their last 3 games.
The Colorado Avalanche are in Anaheim tonight, taking on the (formerly Mighty) Ducks in what seems to be a must win situation to maintain the race with the Vancouver Canucks for first place in the Northwest Division. There will a bit of a different roster tonight.
The International Ice Hockey Federation has half of this year’s Olympic Hockey team rosters available to peruse online today, with another five being announced tomorrow. The Team USA roster won’t be released until January 1st, during the Winter Classic game. Things aren’t looking good for team USA at this point but hey, we had the Miracle on Ice remember?
According to Colorado Avalanche Coach Joe Sacco’s pregame, Ryan O’Reilly will not play tonight against the St. Louis Blues. O’Reilly is suffering from a bruised foot, which was injured Saturday night against the Edmonton Oilers. Good news here is that testing came back negative on breaks and further damage, so hopefully he’ll be back soon.
The Nashville Predators managed to shut down the youthful Colorado Avalanche, netting their 3rd win against the Avs this season and drawing ever closer to Colorado in the Western Conference points race. With every game being immensely important at this point in the season, last night’s loss was devastating to the team.
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