Cale Makar left the game near the end of the second period Sunday after crashing awkwardly into the end boards, but he was able to return and play in the third, and said he should be fine moving forward following a 4-0 defeat against the Buffalo Sabres.
“I don’t really remember (what happened), to be honest with you,” Makar said of the incident. “I think a lot of it’s on me, going back slow, no effort. I don’t know if it was my right leg, I think I tried to take a stride and I don’t know if I caught myself or what happened. The next thing I knew, I was sliding into the boards....
While Makar attempted to take some responsibility for the play after the game, his teammates and his coach did not like how the play unfolded.
“It’s a penalty in my books,” defenseman Devon Toews told Altitude TV. “You learn that play in Bantam (hockey), how to get on the hips of a guy to get him off balance. You’re taught to do that when a guy is up against the boards to get him off balance and pin him.
“When you do it six feet away from the boards at speed, it gets dangerous. That’s a dangerous play. This league is trying to protect starts, trying to protect the players. That’s a play that is dangerous, in my opinion, and something that needs to be addressed.”
DENVER – The Colorado Avalanche Hockey Club announced today that the team has signed defenseman Devon Toews to a seven-year contract extension that runs from the 2024-25 season to 2030-31.
Colorado acquired Toews from the New York Islanders on Oct. 12, 2020 in exchange for a second-round selection in the 2021 NHL Draft and a second-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft. Toews is a league-best +122 since joining the Avalanche prior to the 2020-21 campaign, far ahead of the next closest player (Matthew Tkachuk, +92). In three seasons with Colorado, Toews has recorded 139 points (29g/110a) in 200 regular-season games and added 30 points (7g/23a) in 37 playoff contests. His 169 combined points during this stretch ranks sixth among NHL defensemen. The Avs are 139-45-16 (.735) in the regular season with Toews in the lineup since he joined the club.
Coming here was not the only option. It was just the best one for Jonathan Drouin.
Every choice has its consequences. Other NHL teams reached out to Drouin and his representatives about joining their club. Those clubs had more salary cap space and offered more money than what the Colorado Avalanche presented to Drouin, which was a one-year contract worth $825,000 -- a substantial dip from the $5.5 million annual salary he earned over the past six seasons.
Every choice also has its advantages. Drouin makes this clear while sitting in his stall at the Avs' rustic practice facility just south of downtown Denver. One of them has to do with the stall just to the right of Drouin. Or rather, who occupies that space. It's Avs superstar center and perennial Hart Trophy candidate Nathan MacKinnon. They're best friends and have known each other for more than a decade, dating to when they were teammates with the Halifax Mooseheads in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
Another advantage is what playing for the Avs represents. It was just this time last year that the Avs were seeking to win a consecutive Stanley Cup. They navigated a series of challenges to win the Central Division and finish with the best regular-season record in the Western Conference, only to then have their title aspirations cut short with a first-round exit by the upstart Seattle Kraken.
Valeri Nichushkin’s absence from the final five games of last season became a dominant storyline as the Avalanche’s title defense fizzled with a first-round loss to the Seattle Kraken.
There are other key players who won’t be on the ice Thursday when Colorado officially opens training camp to start the 2023-24 season, but Nichushkin is expected to participate. His coach and teammates expressed support at Wednesday’s media day for a player who had been a key component of the club’s Stanley Cup run two years prior.
“(We welcomed him back) with open arms,” Avs center Nathan MacKinnon said. “We love Val. I think we just know he’s going to be here for us. He’s such an amazing player. He’s a good person at the end of the day and a great guy. We all love him.”
Nichushkin left Avs the day of Game 3 during their opening-round series with the Seattle Kraken, for what the team termed “personal reasons.” An intoxicated woman was found in Nichushkin’s hotel room that same day, and a team doctor called for an ambulance to take her to the hospital, according to a Seattle police report.
The team never acknowledged the report, nor did the Avs ever say Nichushkin was punished for what transpired. NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said during the 2023 Stanley Cup Final that the league was satisfied with how the situation was handled and Nichushkin was not under investigation.
"I'm going to continue supporting my teammates and being their biggest cheerleader. The only reason I'll be not here every single day of the season is because I need to focus on what I need to do and that's to get myself better, and put myself in the best spot to continue to progress physically. I'll be supporting my teammates from a distance at times and then, at some point or another, I'll be back here rocking and rolling with the guys."
-Gabriel Landeskog of the Colorado Avalanche. Landeskog will miss the entire season after having cartilage replacement surgery on his knee. The AP at ESPN has more.
Hearing that J.T. Compher will go to market July 1. The #Avs are almost certainly moving on from the center, who has been with the team since the 2016-17 season.
NASHVILLE - Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes announced on Tuesday that the team has acquired the rights to forward Alex Newhook in exchange for Montreal's 31st (previously acquired from Florida) and 37th overall picks in 2023 and defenseman Gianni Fairbrother.
Newhook, 22, scored 14 goals and added 16 assists in 82 games with the Avalanche in 2022-23 before adding one assist in seven playoff games.
Nashville, Tenn. (June 24, 2023) - Incoming Nashville Predators General Manager Barry Trotz announced today that the team has acquired forward Alex Galchenyuk from the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for forward Ryan Johansen. The Predators will retain 50 percent of Johansen's contract, which has two years ($8 million annual average value) remaining.
Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog will undergo a cartilage transplant in his right knee on May 10. The surgery will be performed by Dr. Brian Cole at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The 30-year-old forward is expected to miss the entire 2023-24 season. pic.twitter.com/bM466EpL3G
Where did the good times go? A scant 305 days after parading the Stanley Cup through the streets of Denver, the Avalanche dynasty crumbled.
With a 2-1 home loss on a sad Sunday night to an upstart Seattle team that had no business beating the defending NHL champs, the Avs unlaced their skates and headed home early from the playoffs, carrying with them hard questions that go far beyond woulda, shoulda, coulda.
Is this Colorado team, despite the star power of Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen, a one-hit wonder?
Can Valeri Nichushkin, who mysteriously disappeared from this first-round series, be trusted as a key member of this squad going forward?
And if injured captain Gabe Landeskog, whose troubling knee injury cost him the entire season, can’t return to full health, might the roster need a major renovation instead of minor retooling?
There’s more to being a champion than hoisting the Stanley Cup. The Avs might be good at hockey, but as an organization, they’re failing at life.
With the NHL world buzzing about the disappearance of forward Valeri Nichushkin and a Seattle police report indicating an intoxicated woman found in his hotel room on the afternoon of a playoff game had to be transported to a hospital, the right thing for president of hockey operations Joe Sakic to do was obvious. Sakic needed to stand up with clear-eyed accountability to loyal fans and a sense of compassion for Nichushkin, a Colorado player in trouble.
Instead, the Avs ducked and ran, insisting there is nothing to see here, despite the release of the report that links Nichushkin to a 9-1-1 call made by a team doctor on behalf of a 28-year-old Ukrainian woman who reportedly told police she regretted traveling to the United States and her passport had been confiscated by a “bad man.”
The Avs’ response to this mess and Nichushkin’s absence since last weekend?
See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.
“I’ve already told you,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said Friday, “he’s gone because of personal reasons.”
It’s embarrassing. The Avs are killing themselves with silence.
Call it the arrogance of a hockey club that operates by its own rules.
A Colorado Avalanche team physician located a woman who was heavily intoxicated when checking on Valeri Nichushkin prior to Game 3 of Colorado’s first-round series with Seattle, according to a Seattle Police Department Behavioral Crisis Report obtained by The Athletic.
Nichushkin’s agent, Mark Gandler, denied his client’s involvement in a text message to The Athletic.
“No one was found in Val’s room,” he said. “These events have nothing to do with Val.”
Nichushkin has been away from the Avalanche since Saturday for what the team has called “personal reasons.” Gandler echoed that statement and declined to answer if it was Nichushkin or the Avalanche’s decision for him to be away from the team.
Nichushkin is the only Avalanche player mentioned by name in the report. The officer wrote he did not know of any family connections between Nichushkin and the woman. He listed their relationship status as unknown.
It’s bad hockey, not wretched officiating, that will send the Avs home from the playoffs early, possibly as early as Friday, when Colorado plays Game 6 in Seattle.
For five straight games, the Avs have surrendered the first goal and committed the first penalty. That’s playing hockey like chumps, not champs.
“We seem to be getting frustrated,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said.
What has been Bednar’s only response from the bench? Ordering MacKinnon to jump off the bench and over the boards more often. The Avalanche’s superstar center logged 27 minutes and one second of ice time, more than any defenseman on either team in Game 5.
“We classified this as a must-win game at home,” said Bednar, explaining why he was committed to doing whatever it took, even if it meant working MacKinnon until his skates fell off.
“Is there a point where he runs out of gas? Maybe. But we’re facing elimination. So if we’ve got to play him 30 (minutes), we’ll do it.”
It’s time for me to sit back a little and pontificate from the clouds, and let the kids do all the heavy lifting. I still want to know what’s going on, but I’m not killing myself anymore, physically and mentally, to do that.
I will sit back and watch with great interest who among the Avs “beat media” can crack this Nichushkin story first. Are they up to the task? So far, all I’ve read are team PR-supplied updates, all accentuating the positive from an Avalanche team standpoint. Are they real reporters, or just stenographers? There is a massive difference. For me anyway, I could never sleep at night if I didn’t break the news first. That doesn’t make me a hero. It doesn’t mean I am better than anyone else. But it means that I would never rest until I got the full story, and, hopefully, the first to get it.
...When I did post what I knew today, on Twitter, it didn’t take long for the “It’s none of your/our business Dater, stop prying” blowback to begin. I have a strong hunch the silent majority wants the story and will reward the reporter that breaks the full details first. But maybe that’s a quaint notion today, I’m not totally sure.
I think I already know many of the details. Something clearly happened at that hotel yesterday. But I can’t just report on what I have “heard” and what I know as an absolute fact.
What I know is an absolute fact is the Seattle Fire Department and EMTs were at the Avs team hotel yesterday afternoon, and Nichushkin was whisked out of town right afterward. Are they connected? I don’t know that for a fact. Maybe not. I’m not saying there is a connection. Just saying what I know to this point.
It was a party two years or a century-plus in the making, depending on how much of an homage one chooses to pay the Seattle Metropolitans. Suffice it to say the fans at Climate Pledge Arena arrived Saturday ready to bellow, and the Kraken provided them the requisite break-loose moment a mere six minutes into the game.
The roar was primal, the jubilation genuine, when Jaden Schwartz tipped home a shot from the point by Justin Schultz to become an instant trivia answer: First home playoff goal in Seattle Kraken history.
“We were loose, we were prepared, we were ready for this one, no question,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “I love their start tonight. Love the atmosphere. Love the feel of the building. That’s a playoff feel. That’s what it is. That part of it was awesome. We didn’t complete the first period. … Our start was tremendous. It has a real different look if we complete the first period in a different way.”
Before the game, Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke had taken the mike and exhorted the crowd to “blow the roof off this joint.” As the press-box shook in the euphoric aftermath of Schwartz’s goal, it seemed for a flash they might be taking him literally. Thinking back to the Mariners’ drought-breaking home playoff game in October, when fans came with the same thirst but waited in vain for 18 innings and nearly five hours for a cathartic yell that never came, it was a made-for-memories moment.
But then reality hit, and the memories of this game for posterity seemed headed for bittersweet, bordering on sour.
One lousy game into the NHL playoffs, being the defending champion means zilch, and Avalanche coach Jared Bednar has a tough decision to make.
Does Bednar break up his top line, splitting Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen before frustration has a chance to set in against a Seattle team that didn’t give a Kraken about the Avs’ championship pedigree during a 3-1 victory in Game 1 of this best-of-seven-series?
Or would asking Rantanen to invigorate a No. 2 line that has been suspect since the Avs let Nazem Kadri walk as a free agent be pushing the panic button?
Your move, Mr. Bednar.
Proactive or patient? How should the leader of a champ that looks very vulnerable react?
Will Bednar consider breaking up the MacK and Mikko show?
“Yes, for sure,” Bednar said Tuesday, after the home-ice advantage his Avs worked diligently for all the way through the final minutes on the final night of the regular season was effectively erased by the Kraken.
The Avalanche had scored a power play goal in a dozen consecutive games. In the unlucky 13th, they got played by their own power play.
Nathan MacKinnon’s shot was blocked, Cale Makar’s recovery of a bouncing puck was squandered at the blue line, and Frederick Gaudreau converted the ensuing short-handed breakaway for the back-breaking goal in Colorado’s 4-2 loss to the Wild on Wednesday.
“I was going backward for the first little bit, and then just couldn’t get back,” Makar said. “I took the first swipe at (the puck), and it bounced over my stick. Just one of those nights.”
In the most important game of the season at Ball Arena, with a chance to leapfrog Minnesota for first place in the Central, the Avs (44-24-6) conceded what was just their third short-handed goal of the season at the worst possible time. Halfway through the second period, the Avs trailed 2-1 when Valeri Nichushkin drew a boarding penalty behind the net. Gaudreau’s goal came just 14 seconds into the power play, and the Avs suddenly looked lifeless for the last 1:46.
Instead of overtaking Minnesota atop the division, Colorado trails by three points with eight games remaining, including Saturday (7 p.m. MT) against the tied-for-second-place Dallas Stars.
“It’s a game of mistakes, and we made some big ones,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “Didn’t make a lot of them, but we made some big ones.”
#Avs Cale Makar opened up about his second time through concussion protocol. He said his symptoms were "very, very mild" and that sitting out was more precautionary than anything.
The Avs won’t hoist the Stanley Cup in June if they wave the white flag at the trade deadline in March.
There is too much fight in this team for general manager Chris MacFarland not to make a major move that gives Colorado more than a puncher’s chance to retain its title as NHL champ. While many of the big-name trade targets have been removed from the market, would Arizona’s Nick Schmaltz or Philadelphia’s Kevin Hayes make sense in an Avalanche sweater?
With the mystery of captain Gabe Landeskog’s knee injury entering its 20th week and New Jersey telling Colorado to fuhgetabout its six-game winning streak, you must be looking at these Avs through burgundy-and-blue tinted glasses to believe they have what it takes to have a truly legit shot at winning back-to-back championships.
Colorado died hard Wednesday during a 7-5 loss to the Devils, falling behind by four goals early in the second period before mounting a comeback that blew the roof off Ball Arena but fell just short on the scoreboard.
Maybe write off this loss to a very dangerous team, as 22-year-old Justus Annunen made only his third NHL start between the pipes for the Avalanche and had a devil of a time stopping New Jersey from lighting the lamp. After falling behind 5-1 to a Jersey team demonstrating what Colorado coach Jared Bednar called a “pack mentality,” the Avs came roaring back because center Nathan MacKinnon refused to let his teammates fold.
ARLINGTON, Va. - The Washington Capitals have acquired a second-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft from the Colorado Avalanche for forward Lars Eller, senior vice president and general manager Brian MacLellan announced today. The Capitals will retain 31 percent of Eller's salary as part of the trade.
The Capitals own 22 total picks in the next three drafts. Washington currently has five picks in the 2023 NHL Draft, eight picks in the 2024 NHL Draft and nine picks in the 2025 NHL Draft. Washington owns their first, second, fourth, fifth and seventh-round picks in 2023; their first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh-round picks in 2024, as well as Boston's third-round pick and Minnesota's third-round pick in 2024; and their first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh-round picks in 2025, as well as Colorado's second-round pick and Boston's second-round pick in 2025.
Eller, 33, has recorded 16 points (7g, 9a) in 60 games with the Capitals this season. Eller, who won the Stanley Cup with the Capitals in 2018, has registered 364 points (160g, 204a) in 930 career games with Washington, Montreal and St. Louis.
