The Colorado Avalanche need a big win against the Arizona Coyotes to reach 500 hockey — and win more than lose in front of the home crowd.
The Colorado Avalanche are playing the Arizona Coyotes for the second time in just two weeks. They’ll meet only one more time after this, in Arizona.
That’s a pity because the Colorado Avalanche historically do well against the Desert Dogs. All-time the Avs have gone 63-52-12 against Arizona, good for a 54.3 win percentage.
Colorado is struggling right now. Their record in 5-6-0, having dropped five of their last seven games. Four of those losses came at the hands of Central Division rivals, though one of the wins came against the ‘Yotes.
It’s time for the Colorado Avalanche to let loose with a big can of whoop-ass on the Arizona Coyotes — the Avs need it.
Score Some Goals
More from Mile High Sticking
In the last seven games, the Colorado Avalanche have been outscored 22-8. That’s bad. You’re not going to win hockey games that way.
Colorado has been shut out twice and held to a single goal three other times. Granted, one of those times was a 1-0 win against the hated Minnesota Wild. However, they were outscored by 3+ goals four other times.
Never mind stats. As we saw against the Dallas Stars, it doesn’t matter if you let the opponent score five goals — as long as you score six or more. Hopefully the Colorado Avalanche don’t need to score six though…
Stop Some Goals
There’s one goalie who’s unbeaten and one who has a 6-2 record. In order, those men are Calvin Pickard and Semyon Varlamov.
At the time of writing, there hadn’t been an announcement as to who would start against the Arizona Coyotes. Last time it was Picks, and he back-stopped the Avs to a 3-2 win with 24 saves. In his last start, he stopped 32 shots to earn his third NHL shutout.
Regardless of who’s in net, the Colorado Avalanche also need to tighten up the defense. As of right now the Avs are #17 in the NHL with a -9 shot differential. Luckily, Arizona is dead last in the NHL with -69. Yass!
It would help if Colorado could stay out of the penalty box since their power play is #22 in the NHL with a 79.6% pk percentage. Luckily, Arizona has scored just three power play goals, good for #27 in the NHL.
Win at Home
Remember when the Colorado Avalanche couldn’t win at home last season? Yeah, me, too — I was at a lot of those games.
Until the contentious game against the Minnesota Wild, the Avs had only won once at home. Now, to be fair, Colorado has only played at the Pepsi Center four times in 11 games.
Nonetheless, the Avalanche need to be a dominant team at home. Avs fans deserve to see some wins in their home barn.
The Colorado Avalanche host the Arizona Coyotes at 7:00 pm tonight. The game is also being broadcast on Altitude 2.
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