Another injury, another win.
Cale Makar joined the Avalanche’s ridiculously long injury list, sitting out Monday in Detroit with an upper-body injury, but the team played well enough to pull out a 2-1 win.
The Avalanche didn’t practice Tuesday after sweeping the three-game road trip, so a Makar update will have to wait until the morning skate Wednesday before playing Anaheim at the Pepsi Center.
Michael Hutchinson, making his first appearance for Colorado, made 17 saves on his 30th birthday and the Avalanche got goals from newcomer Vladislav Namestnikov and recent callup Logan O’Connor (Gabriel Landeskog took a big hit to set up O'Connor) to secure their seventh consecutive win and franchise-record ninth in a row on the road.
"Guys are stepping in and they are playing hard," coach Jared Bednar told reporters after the game. "They are playing hard for one another, and they want to keep this thing going. It's the next man up attitude and mentality that our team has. The points are valuable and we want them, and we're finding a way."
The Avalanche have outscored opponents 17-9 in the winning streak.
They have moved within one point of St. Louis for the Central Division and Western Conference lead with a game in hand. It’ll be two games in hand after the Blues play the Rangers in New York on Tuesday.
The Avalanche aren’t scoring a lot without four of their top five scorers -- the injured Mikko Rantanen, Nazem Kadri, Andre Burakovsky and Makar -- but they aren’t giving up much.
Improved play by the penalty-killing units has been a huge factor. They’ve killed 22 penalties in a row over the past nine games.