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The success of the Avalanche defense this season starts with the Colorado Eagles

In the National Hockey League, maybe more so than most sports, a team’s depth, at every level, is of the utmost importance. Injuries, COVID protocol, the impact of a condensed schedule and the rest required because of it—it all puts pressure on a roster, challenging the team’s depth and requiring the need for someone else to be able to step up to the plate from time to time.
For the Avalanche, their depth has been challenged at various points throughout the season. In fact, the Avs have already lost nearly 250 man games to illness or injury—only a handful of teams have lost more—yet, Colorado still stands atop the NHL standings.
A healthy portion of those man-games lost to injury have come from the team’s defense. So far, the Avs have had 14 different defensemen dress in an NHL game this year, with a large percentage of those coming from their AHL affiliate, the Colorado Eagles.
“It’s been huge,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said of the D call-ups. “We’ve tried different guys in different spots, and they’ve done an admirable job.
“When you’re talking about trying to make a deep playoff run, you’re gonna have players get banged up and not be healthy all the way through and you’ve gotta have the depth…the playoffs is a totally different animal.”
“You can never have too much depth,” echoed GM Joe Sakic recently.
The Avalanche GM has done a superb job in building up the team’s depth over the years. Because of this, his team has thrived this season, as a result of the well-stocked pipeline that’s running from Denver to Loveland.
“We’ve really liked what we’ve seen from some of those young guys coming up in their first NHL opportunities, some guys in their second, a lot of guys that haven’t played in a lot of games,” Bednar added. “We have guys coming into the lineup with zero, three, five NHL games and they’re doing a nice job.”