If the Avs are going to make the playoffs, they're going to need some help. Right now, no one seems to want to help the Avalanche out.
After a 4-1 loss to the defending Stanley Cup champions on Wednesday and a Sharks win Thursday night, the Avs now sit nine points out of the playoffs. Patrick Roy's team could care less about the standings right now though. Their focus is on a race to 95 points. The threshold is widely considered to be an adequate amount of points to make the playoffs. 95 points is also the number of points the Avs got back in 2006-2007 when they set the record for most points by a non-playoff team and missed the playoffs for the first time since moving to Denver. The Avs will need to get 75% of a possible 48 points in their last 24 games to hit 95 points. If that wasn't bad enough, the Avs are going to need the teams ahead of them to play around .500 or worse.
The Avs have five more games before the trade deadline on March 2nd. The first three of those will be against top teams in the NHL, starting tonight against number seven, the Chicago Blackhawks. The Hawks are coming off a 3-2 shootout loss to the Red Wings on NBCSN that bled into the Avs' late game Wednesday. Though the Blackhawks currently sit in the Central division's third spot (the same place they held come playoff time last season), they are still quite possibly the league's most complete team and look to be destined to make another run at the cup behind the league's leading scorer, Patrick Kane. Semyon Varlamov stopped 54 and shutout the Hawks last time the two teams met. We'll see what happens this time.
LINES
Talbot-Duchene-Iginla
Landeskog-O'Reilly-MacKinnon
Tanguay-Mitchell-Everberg
McLeod-Cliche-Carey
Hejda-Redmond
Barrie-Guenin
Stuart-Holden
Varlamov
Berra
NOTES
- The Avalanche have suddenly become a puck possession team that shoots. The Avs have out-shot their opponents 107-68 over the last three games.
- After only having three goals since November entering last week's game against the Rangers, Gabriel Landeskog has now scored in four straight games.
- Found an interesting chart that shows the Avs/Nordiques franchise winning percentages since 1990. Suppose you can say that the Avs' rebuild has been a bit of a bumpy ride.
GAME INFO
Game time: 6:30pm, MT
TV: ALT
"Life's like a barrel of monkeys...so much screaming."