Adrian Dater
EDMONTON, ALBERTA – Too many injuries. Just too many injuries. For the Avs of 2019-20, that should be the unfortunate title to their season highlight film. Either that, or “The Valiant Bunch.”
What the Avs did in this second-round series with the Dallas Stars was pretty damn remarkable. They lost SEVEN regular players from the start of Game 1 to today’s Game 7. And yet they just kept battling, kept extending the series, kept outplaying the Stars for significant portions of games.
But seven players, which included the top two goalies? That’s just too much. Just too much. And it finally caught up to the Avs in Game 7. It’s a 60-minute game, and it just seemed like all that adversity was just a bit too much at the very end of an exhausting game. It went beyond 60 minutes, of course, and by then the Avs just seemed outmanned and out of gas.
Heartbreaker.
This game was so much like Game 7 of Avs-Wild, 2014, it’s not even funny (and it isn’t). The Avs that year blew four one-goal leads in that Game 7 loss at home. This Game 7, they blew three one-goal leads, the final time after taking a 4-3 lead with 3:40 left in regulation.
There were just too many obstacles to overcome, especially injuries. The last, final piece of cruel medical news came before Game 7. Captain Gabe Landeskog, unfit to play. That errant skate blade from teammate Cale Makar in Game 6 obviously sliced enough of right leg to make his availability a no-go. Not only that, but one day after posting pictures of Matt Calvert in a regular practice jersey, the veteran, scrappy depth forward was not out there for warmup and didn’t play either.
In the biggest game of the season, the Avs had to go with a third-string goalie (Michael Hutchinson) and guys from the Colorado Eagles, such as Sheldon Dries and Kevin Connauton and Logan O’Connor. All of them played valiantly and did some great things (we all know Hutchinson’s story by now), but seven regulars out of the lineup, including two goalies and the team captain?
That’s just too much.
Throughout the regular season, injuries were probably the No. 1 problem for the Avs. And in the playoffs, they were again. The Avs essentially lost one-third of their team in one playoff round. Hey, the Stars had some injuries too. Andrew Cogliano and Taylor Fedun were deemed unfit to play Game 7, and the Stars have been without No. 1 goalie Ben Bishop for most of the playoffs.
So, the injury excuse only goes so far. But it’s not just that the Avs kept getting some injuries. They kept getting, as it turned out, season-ending injuries. It seems like whenever an Avs player gets hurt, it means they’re gonna be out a good long while.
Which brings up a delicate question: Do the Avs just need to go out and find some bigger, “tougher” guys? Of course, I’m not saying the current crop of Avs players aren’t tough guys. Every hockey player is a tough guy. But when so many multiple injuries just keep happening over and over and over, you have to examine the issue.
Why does this always seem to happen? Why does Matt Calvert take the ice for warmup in Game 1, and do chest-bumps with teammates, then never be seen or heard from the rest of the series? What happened to Joonas Donskoi suddenly, or Pavel Francouz? Why does Erik Johnson get hurt so often late in seasons?
Frustrating questions all. Very, very frustrating.
The Avs almost overcame all those injuries. The depth of the team shone through, as did the remaining players’ character level. This loss was a real gut punch. They had a 3-2 lead after the second period. They were real close to going to their first conference final since 2002. Nazem Kadri hit the post when it was 3-2. Kadri was robbed before that by Anton Khudobin. The Avs went on the power play with 12:44 left, up 3-2. And they failed yet again on it. The other thing that killed this team in the second round, other than injuries, was that power play. Special teams, in general, just killed the Avs in the end.
They had a 4-3 lead with 3:40 left, after Vladislav Namestnikov’s second goal of the game. But on the very next shift, the Stars tied it. Kadri, who had the puck with time by his own blue line, just flat-out lost control of it, leading to a Stars break-in and rebound goal. Then came the awful overtime session. What a gut punch.
The Avs are now 0-3 in overtime Game 7s.
The Avs were close. Real close.
But close only counts in horseshoes. This, unfortunately, was playoff hockey.