Evan's Daily

Evan’s NHL Daily: EJ Returns, Berube Gets Dismissed

Published

5 months ago

December 13, 2023

Evan Rawal

Prepare for an emotional night at Ball Arena, as Erik Johnson, who played the majority of his NHL career with the Colorado Avalanche, will return to Denver for the first time since signing in Buffalo over the summer. He will almost certainly get a long ovation from the fans when the team plays whatever video they have planned for him during the first commercial break of the night. I’ll make sure to get video from inside the arena on that for everyone to see.

Another one of EJ’s old teams, the St. Louis Blues, dismissed their coach late Tuesday night, sending Craig Berube packing after the they lost their fourth straight game.

All that and more in this Wednesday edition of Evan’s Daily.

Colorado Hockey Now

In the first 15 seconds of the game on Monday, Ross Colton set the tone for the Avalanche, which is exactly what the coaching staff wanted.

A trio that included Colton, Miles Wood, and Logan O’Connor started the comeback in the third period. (+)

One day after calling out Artturi Lehkonen’s father, Mikko Rantanen was ready to move on, and discussed his friendship with his fellow Finn.

You can get a subscription to CHN+ for $29.99 a year with the code “evan10” and get access to the + content on every site in the network. In addition to the + content, everything will be ad-free, which is the biggest perk. This code will go away at the end of the year.

EJ Returns

Wednesday night will be Erik Johnson’s 949th career regular season NHL game, and it will almost certainly be his most emotional. The fans love him, and he’ll definitely be feeling that love, at least to start the game. If the game goes downhill for the Avalanche, who knows?

I’ll be headed to both locker rooms before the game to get a feel on where everyone is at.

Around The NHL

After a 6-4 loss to the Detroit Red Wings, the St. Louis Blues decided that it was time for a change.

BREAKING NEWS: Craig Berube has been relieved of his coaching duties and a new interim coach has been named. #stlblues

DETAILS ➡️ https://t.co/NHh9g2JTnt https://t.co/NHh9g2JTnt

— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) December 13, 2023

I’m not sure what the Blues really expect as far as their season goes, but after a decent start, the wheels have started to fall off. Goaltending was keeping them above water to start the year, but Jordan Binnington has fallen off of late, and the defense just isn’t very good. They’ll likely get that new coach bump to start, but I don’t think this is a playoff team.

In other news, the NHL is making some changes to the Skills Competition this year, and Connor McDavid helped them come up with a new plan. It sounds interesting, and anything is better than what happened last year. I personally don’t care for the NHL All-Star game or Skills Competition anymore, but it’s not catered towards me. Hopefully it’s far more entertaining this year.