Avalanche shouldn’t blow up team because of injury-riddled west final
The Colorado Avalanche are in the surprising position of facing elimination on Tuesday night in Game 4 of the Western Conference Final against the Vegas Golden Knights.
If the season ends for the Avalanche like it appears it might, in an ugly series loss at the hands of a team the team finished far ahead of in the regular season standings, will there be an appetite at the top of the organization to make sweeping changes?
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by host of The Sheet Jeff Marek to discuss why Colorado can not overreact this off-season after what seems to be heading toward a disastrous exit from the postseason.
Carter Hutton: And then on the other side of it, what they’re doing to the Colorado Avalanche is insane. I don’t think anyone handicapped that going in… If we sat here now saying it’s 3-0 in the series, I think everybody and their dog would have said Colorado’s up 3-0. But are we worried about what Colorado does if they get sweet? Like is that toast for Jared Bednar? Because this is a big window of, we talk about the Edmonton Oilers a lot with McDavid, but like the MacKinnon era, it’s a tough look here if they get swept here, Jeff.
Jeff Marek: think rightfully you can look, like just like I think right now, one of the things I think coming out of everything that we’re seeing right now with the Colorado Avalanche and even what we saw with the Oilers last season, I think it’s time we have a look back at last year’s Stanley Cup Final and say like, you know, at the end of all of this, you’ve got to be a good team to win the Stanley Cup, obviously, but you gotta have luck with health. You really, really do. And last year, the Oilers had Ryan Nugent-Hopkins with one hand and no Zach Hyman. And right now, I don’t know, we’re gonna get like the ghost of Nathan MacKinnon tonight if we get Nathan MacKinnon. Cale Makiar, I’m still shocked that he took that one-timer in the third period and who knows, you know, jury’s out on what’s up with Valeri Nichushkin. I think at the end of this, it’s whoever’s good and can stay healthy and has health luck along the way. And I think that there’s enough there, Carter, that you would look at this and say, I know we got swept, but there’s a lot of mitigating circumstances here, and the last thing you wanna do when you have a team is blow it up because you got unlucky with the hospital bracelet. Don’t do it. Just ’cause a couple of guys are in gowns, don’t do it. Don’t do it, man. You have the built-in reason right there. So don’t overreact. Now, having said that, I still might wanna do something with the goaltending, like I mentioned earlier. I don’t know how comfortable I am there. If I can do something, I’m doing it there.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…