The Colorado Avalanche are still getting used to their new-look roster after a really busy trade deadline, and naturally that can include some growing pains.
The Avalanche got the trade season began early once they trades star winger Mikko Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes back win January. By the point they were done making trades, Rantanen had been moved again to the Dallas Stars.
By the top of the trade deadline, the Avs had acquired Martin Necas, Jack Drury, Charlie Coyle and Brock Nelson. With all of those recent pieces playing an enormous role on the team, it isn’t any surprise that the 2022 Stanley Cup champions are a little bit rusty, and that showed up in Tuesday night’s 2-1 shootout loss to the Minnesota Wild.
After the sport, star center Nathan MacKinnon was disillusioned with the result but additionally knows that it would take time, and is pleased that the Avs got one point in the method.
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“Really excited to maintain gelling, obviously won the primary two or three together,” MacKinnon said. “It’s a troublesome back-to-back, we got in around 4. So it is a grind nevertheless it’s great to get some extent, get a late goal there truthfully.”
For many of Tuesday’s game, it looked just like the Avalanche were going to come back away with zero points. The Wild led 1-0 for the back half of the second period and many of the third before Joel Kiviranta evened the rating with a 3rd period goal to send the sport to additional time.
The Avalanche didn’t get a ton of probabilities in the additional period because the Wild were content to mostly sit on the puck and keep it away from the high-powered Colorado attack. Within the shootout, the Avs swiftly lost 2-0 after just two rounds.
Even within the loss, that time was very essential for the Avalanche to get in a good playoff race. Because it stands, Colorado is at 81 points while the Wild jump as much as 78 points. The Avalanche are in the ultimate qualifying spot from the Central Division in the mean time, so that they might be grinding hard to secure that spot heading into the postseason.
