10 Observations: Make That 10 Straight Wins At Home For the Avalanche

Nothing is stopping the Avalanche at home this season. Aside from a couple of shootout losses, they’ve won everything. And on most nights, like Thursday night, they do it with ease.

Teams don’t always have great games in the first one back from a long road trip. That didn’t matter against the Florida Panthers.

They don’t practice much, they play a lot of back-to-backs, and yet, still, every time they play at home, they win.

“I feel like we just have good mojo here,” Blackwood said. “Maybe it’s we get our matchups on the line changes, I don’t know, but it’s fun. We buzz here.”

READ MORE: Avalanche Dominate Panthers In Front of 1996 Championship Team

10 Observations

1. The two shootout losses were against Dallas and Carolina. As you know, the NHL doesn’t award goals on shootouts, nor do they award game-winning goals for the player who scores the deciding tally. Basically, in 14 games in Denver, no road team has had a player score a GWG.

It’s just one of those fascinating stats that show how great Colorado has been in the Mile High City.

2. That’s 10 straight wins on home ice. This is just the sixth time they’ve accomplished that type of run in franchise history (10 or more). The record is 18 during the Stanley Cup year in 2022.

3. How exciting is Gavin Brindley? Jared Bednar always uses the word “motor” when describing the way he plays and it couldn’t be more accurate. Even the way he skates — his stride — is exciting.

He celebrates each goal with sheer excitement, he’s always moving, always battling, and he’s unafraid to get into the dirty areas.

Brindley has nine points in 19 games, but he’s got four goals, and four assists in his last nine.

4. It spoke volumes about what Bednar thinks of Brindley that instead of plugging him on the fourth line, he moved Ross Colton to center to allow Brindley to join that new third line with Victor Olofsson.

5. Brock Nelson went from playing arguably the worst hockey of his career to perhaps the best hockey of his career. At least in terms of offensive production. The way he’s creating, the chances and looks he’s getting. They’re top notch. It seems like he’s scoring every night.

Nelson has 17 points in his last 15 games. Nine of them are goals. Those are excellent numbers for a No. 2 center.

6. Sam Malinski has 17 points and a +16 rating in 31 games. He’s earning himself more and more money with each passing game, whether in Colorado or elsewhere.

7. Claude Lemieux is keeping track of the Avs. This quote confirms that.

Claude Lemieux met with the media during the second intermission. Wonderful interview, very well spoken. He said the Avs have the pieces to win the Stanley Cup this year, but:

"They need to figure out their power play. The power plays gotta be clicking in order to win."

— Aarif Deen (@runwriteAarif) December 12, 2025

8. Florida’s entire top line and top defense pair was a -3 in this game. That’s Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen, Sam Reinhart, Aaron Ekblad, and Gustav Forsling.

9. Nathan MacKinnon scored his 392nd career goal, which passes Joe Sakic for the most goals since the team relocated to Colorado in 1995.

10. For those who read these 10 Observations pieces after every game, you know I’ve been following one particular MacKinnon statistic for a couple of weeks now. Here’s the update.

MacKinnon had 32 G in 79 GP in 2024-25

Since then, 7 in 7 GP in playoffs and now 25 in 31 GP.
That's 32 goals in his last 38 GP.

— Aarif Deen (@runwriteAarif) December 12, 2025