avalanche news
Avalanche Gameday: Drouin Joins Team, Dominant Powerplay
Things are progressing quite quickly for Colorado Avalanche winger Jonathan Drouin.
The 29 year old joined morning skate with his Avalanche teammates prior to Game Two on Thursday. He won’t be in the lineup, but considering he only started skating 24 hours ago, it was a pretty quick turnaround. He looked pretty good, if I do say so myself, although the light blue jersey was a little confusing.
Drouin moving pretty well, if you ask me. pic.twitter.com/p8qL9oCZ06
— Evan Rawal (@evanrawal) May 9, 2024
I asked Bednar yesterday if this would be a relatively quick return to the lineup for Drouin, given that he’s not recovering from a ligament injury or anything like that, but he couldn’t say with any certainty because they just have to see how his body responds. So far, so good.
“He’s made some really good progress here over the last few days,” Bednar said. “Getting stronger in the gym, feeling good with his rehab and what he’s sort of been able to ramp up and do off the ice, and then yesterday skating for the first time. Joining the group today, that’s a quick second step, so things moving in the right direction with him, but still no timeline.”
Obviously we’ll have to see how he responds the next few days, but it wouldn’t surprise me, given how quickly he joined the team for a full skate, if he made an appearance back in Denver. The original timeline was “four weeks or less.” Today marks three weeks exactly from the injury.
The Avalanche might be getting Joel Kiviranta back in their lineup for Game Two. He ditched the non-contact jersey on Thursday and Bednar said that he’s an option to play.
“We’ll see when we get back here this evening,” Bednar said.
Both Kiviranta and Chris Wagner got off the ice at the exact same time, so they’re keeping everyone guessing.
In Game One, the Dallas Stars didn’t exactly give Colorado’s powerplay a lot of opportunities to go to work, but that powerplay made sure to make the Stars pay for their mistakes. That’s been a strong theme through six playoff games for the Avalanche, though. Colorado has been deadly on the man advantage through six postseason games, scoring on eight of their 18 chances. That comes out to a 44.4% success rate.
A powerplay that is making the opposition pay that much should feel confident, and I’m sure they do, but they’re looking to stay grounded.
“We don’t want to get too high that we’re doing so well,” Mikko Rantanen said on Thursday. “We reset after every game. Try to play basic, work hard on the powerplay. There’s a lot of hard work that goes into it to keep pucks alive, get possession, and at the end of the day, try to make plays to score goals, and that’s what we’ve been able to do.”
Other News And Notes
- Jared Bednar was asked about all the recent coaching changes in the NHL. Since the end of last season, there have been 19 coaching changes. It’s pretty easy to read Bednar’s response and see that he’s talking about how successful his team and Tampa Bay have been with some stability behind the bench.
- “It’s crazy to me that there’s that many in one calendar year. I don’t know what it is, I think it’s the parity in the league, expectations of every team seem to be really high. Pressure gets put on the coaches to be able to get their teams to perform at the highest level. It’s tough to see when you see guys get let go and have to move and start job hunting. When you’re talking about 18-19 guys, it’s like pushing 60 percent of the league let go in one year. We’ve been fortunate with our ownership group and our management team to be really patient with our group. So obviously, I’m appreciative of that. You see certain teams around the league that have been able to keep their staff and coaches in place having success. Hopefully more teams do that here moving forward.’’
- It looks like the Stars are adding towels to the seats for fans tonight. I’m happy to report that they are not green.
- It will be another late puck drop at 7:52 PM MST. That’s 8:52 local here in Dallas, which is kind of brutal on a weekday. The NHL doesn’t care about local fans all that much, they’re just worried about TV.
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Evan, can you talk a little bit about Rantanen? Lots of theories out there that he hasn’t been the same since he was concussed, but I’m not sure I buy that. We all know he “cares” and wants to win. What explains his play when he is way off? He’s had one solid game in 6 playoff games, despite accumulating points as he often does. Not only is he a superstar, he wears the A, so he has extra responsibility to play responsibly every night, even if he doesn’t score. Can you help us understand the Moose a bit?
Rantanen is an interesting guy. He’s probably my favorite in the locker room to talk to because he’s personable and speaks his mind, but it’s been a very up and down year for him, which is bizarre to say for someone who scored 100 points. I legit think he’s the one guy who is a little exhausted from the last few years and the amount of hockey they’ve played, both mentally and physically. If I remember correctly, he had a really poor start to the playoffs during the 2022 Cup run. It wasn’t until the Conference Finals where he hit… Read more »
Awesome reply. Thank you. If teams are getting more physical with him and he’s worn down, what we are seeing makes sense. Hopefully, he can play bigger and deter some of the physicality. That and avoid putting the team on the PK.
The book on Rantanen is to play him physical. Way more than other players as he easily gets frustrated. Then he takes stupid penalties. He’s Bedard in Rantanen’s body. He’ll never play to his size because that’s not the player he is. There is no question, at all, about his offensive ability. None. There are very few snipers with his accuracy and goal scoring ability. Is it too much to ask of Mikko to put more effort on the defensive side especially when the puck isn’t going in? And to stay out of the penalty box during the playoffs?
Daniel, you are right to point out he wears an “A” and has leadership responsibilities he clearly isn’t meeting. This is especially true of his many foolish penalties.
When Landy comes back, I’d like it to be MacK and Makar with the A even though Rantanen had it before Makar.
Brutal start times on a weekday for sure, even for me in California. I go to bed at 7:30-8:00pm because I get up at 3:30am for my workshift. I can only watch the 1st period. I expect in the conference finals (Assuming we get there), West and East will not play on the same day & hopefully Game Time is no later than 5pm Pacific time. Go Avs!
I’m wondering if anybody else is having problems with the poor picture quality on the games that are showed on TBS and TNT. I stream those games on Max. The ice almost looks a dull gray instead of the bright white ice on the ESPN games I get through FUBO. It almost looks like the games streamed from Max are not in HD. Anybody else see it similar?
It would be fantastic if Drouin is ready to go game 3, or 4! Thanks for video clip Evan! He looks like he’s skating better than I expected after 3 weeks off. I guess that goes with the territory of being a professional NHL athlete.