Morning Flurries: Jonathan Quicker-Than-Varlamov

The Avalanche were so close!

Against a powerful team like the Los Angeles Kings, it stands to reason that the Avs were possibly primed to walk away from the game after taking an absolute beating.

Instead, they managed to take away a point, robbing the Kings of a regulation win and slowly - but surely - moving farther and farther away from last season.

The bad news, of course, is that the Avalanche almost won the game. They spent most of it, in fact, trying to protect a narrow 1-0 lead.

The good news, though, is that even blowing a one-goal lead against one of the most powerful teams in the West isn’t bad, especially without your top defenseman. [Mile High Hockey]

The season is rolling on, by the way, and the Christmas trade freeze is just days away. When it lifts, could the Avalanche look to make some deals in the short months before the trade deadline? [MHH]

We also need to take a quick look at the college hockey in the area. We’re halfway through the NCAA season - so how are the defending champs in Denver looking? [MHH]

For our goalie fun of the day:

From our friends over at Raw Charge, here’s a look at whether or not the Tampa Bay Lightning are getting enough from their fourth line. [Raw Charge]

Now, for some incredibly exciting women’s hockey news:

First, the Pegula family made history on Friday when they purchased the Buffalo Beauts of the NWHL, adding to their Buffalo pro sports empire and giving another women’s pro hockey team some extra financial injection.

The Metropolitan Riveters have already seen a big partnership formed with the New Jersey Devils, who have done a ton to promote them and help the women’s team gain some exposure, but this is another level entirely. It’s not an NHL-owned women’s pro hockey franchise, but a pro franchised owned by the same family that invests hundreds of millions in the Buffalo Sabres and Bills.

The Beauts are coming off of a heroic, championship-winning season from the spring of 2017, so the Pegulas now finally own a franchise that can actually hold its own in a pro sports league. Joking aside, though, this is a huge step for women’s hockey. [The Ice Garden]

They weren’t the only women’s hockey program making waves this week, either.

Hockey Canada and the US Women’s National Team have been playing a series of exhibition games over the last few weeks, preparing for their trips to Pyeongchang in February for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

With the NHL holding firm to a player ban from the winter games, women’s hockey is the best shot North American fans have of cheering on a legitimately competitive product on the ice in South Korea this year - and they’ve been showing their support in spades.

First, over 6,000 people showed up - to a FRIENDLIES game - at the SAP Center in San Jose, California. (That’s right: over 6,000 west coast, Cali-living fans showed up to pay for and watch women’s hockey in a friendlies game. The future is female, friends.)

Then, this happened in Edmonton:

I don’t share many personal anecdotes with you lovely people here at Mile High Hockey, but this week has been huge for me. I’m from a big hockey family in Toronto - and when my mom was a kid, she had to pretend to be a boy to play hockey, hiding her hair in her helmet any time she was with her team. Seeing this kind of growth of the women’s game in my lifetime is so, so incredibly awesome.

(On that note, we’ll have a story up for you guys later today about Women’s Hockey Night in Arizona on Saturday. Hope you enjoy!)

Finally, Pitch Perfect 3 came out tonight. If you didn’t see it, it fell short of the other two, but DJ Khaled was absolutely gold (and apparently made up all of his lines on the spot).