It's almost the beginning of December, a little over a quarter of the way through the NHL season. The Avalanche are still the best team in the National Hockey League-- and it's not much of a discussion outside of how much better they are than the next team in the standings. Colorado still has only one regulation loss on their record, and over the last week and a half have had shutouts from both their netminders. For that matter, Scott Wedgewood was tapped for Canada's Olympic list, proving that the veteran netminder isn't just benefiting from a solid team in front of him. Nathan Mackinnon leads the league in points with 44 points and was the first to hit the 20 goal mark this season. With all that said, let's get into everything the Avs have had going on at home and abroad over the past month.
Strait Across:
Ilya Nabokov, the Avalanche's top goaltending prospect has managed to bring his sv% back over .900 for the season with Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the KHL. Nabokov signed his ELC with the Avalanche this offseason and has been having a somewhat bumpy start with his team in Russia. The young netminder is still below his career averages in the KHL and above in goals against. However, some speculate this is due to a change in playing style and stance in preparation for moving to North America (presumably) after this season comes to an end. With his numbers coming back up and a new KHL goalie scoring record under his belt, the Avs may have little to worry about for his development.
Fellow Russian Mikhail Gulyayev is also having a somewhat strange season in the KHL. The blueliner Gulyayev took some shifts with his team Avangard Omsk at forward, which included two preseason goals. The move wasn't supposed to be a positional change, but a way to add tools to the defenseman's belt and increase his playing time. However, he has seen his time on ice drop this year to averaging just over ten minutes a game and has 3 points in 30 games so far. Gulyayev is a smaller offensive defenseman, much in the same vein as Detroit Axel Sandin-Pellikka. The young defenseman has expressed that he wishes to skip any time in the AHL and skip straight to the NHL, but a decrease in playing time abroad might give the Avalanche some pause on putting the 5'10" blueliner in when Brent Burns is still performing well for them, albeit on a one year contract.
Streaks:
While the Avalanche's 10 game winning streak was brought to an end by the Minnesota Wild on Nov. 28 in the shootout, the team continued its point streak to 15 in a row, and then 16 after a win over the Montreal Canadiens the next night. In that span the Avs are 13-0-3. Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood both had back to back shutouts this past week as well. Blackwood has seemed to regain his footing after a couple of rough outings after his return from injury, which includes back to back shutouts. Wedgewood has been having a career season and had a shutout of his own on Nov. 23rd. Although the shootout loss brought his win streak to a technical end, he's 13-4-1 on the season and has been showing that Colorado's so called "Lumberyard" pair in net is one of the strongest in the league.
Landeskog:
The Avalanche also ended a three year streak when Gabriel Landeskog was credited with the secondary assist on a power play goal against the San Jose Sharks. The streak?
There hadn't been a goal from an on-ice lineup comprised of Cale Makar, Mackinnon, and Landeskog in the regular season in almost that span. The Avs' captain has had a slow start to his season, and was taken out of the top 6 of the lineup for a period, but has been seeing his time increase to about 13 minutes a game in the last 10, as compared to when when was averaging around 10 minutes a game on the fourth line earlier this season. Landeskog has even spent some time on the top line with Mackinnon and Arturri Lehkohnen in recent games.