Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on Tuesday’s The Jeff Marek Show: Third Frame Frenzy episode on the Colorado Avalanche.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “Colorado drops one to Philadelphia 5-3. Good on the Philadelphia Flyers for this one. The Colorado Avalanche in the process lose Nathan MacKinnon. He gets rubbed into the boards by Scott Laughton. Came out and tried to give it a twirl. You could tell on that wrist shot that his, something to do with his ribs or something in that area was really bugging him. He leaves the game. Jared Bednar saying he’s going to be out for a bit.
So now between Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, Valeri Nichushkin, Artturi Lehkonen and Evan Rodrigues, the Avalanche have five of their top six forwards out of the lineup. And the last time I checked Elliotte, Dallas was really good. Winnipeg was really good, and don’t look now. Minnesota has just won four games in a row. This ain’t going to help the Avs Elliotte.”
Friedman: “So Colorado now has used 22 forwards this year. Which seems like an absurdly high number.
Marek: “How many did you say?”
Friedman: “22. 22 forwards already this year. The great people at Sportsnet Stats, I sent them a note this morning, what’s the record?
And they found a team, a Bruins team, from the early 90’s I think it was, that used 38 forwards.
So, think about this. They’ve used 22 forwards. We’re at like 30 games. Not even. They’re just past halfway to the record. It’s incredible.
Now, I think the Avalanche, and you’re right, that division looks really tough, no surprise. I think the Avalanche will try to hold with what they have as much as they can.
They were already looking for a center Jeff. They’re looking for one but I think the thing with them was, we can wait. We can plug the holes. We can give other people like Newhook opportunities, but we can wait.
Now I wonder if that’s going to accelerate things. Like the Avalanche say, ‘okay, maybe we can’t wait as long anymore. We have to go out and get either, someone who can just play, play the position.’ You could probably go out and get a Chris Tierney or something like that.
Tierney’s a guy who’s been in the NHL a long time. He’s been in the AHL a chunk this year, but that’s like kind of the guy you can get in there. I actually, that was one I kind of wondered if Columbus might go out and get when they were down centers. You could do something like that or you could go out and take your big swing.
I think at some point they are going to take a big swing, whether it’s Jonathan Toews or Bo Horvat or something like that. I think they are going to do that at some point.
But I wonder, do they still wait on that or do they start to look now a bit more.
Marek: “I just wonder how much of it depends on production of everybody around them. Like Dallas is playing Toronto night, Vegas playing Florida tonight, and what’s happening with Minnesota as well.
This is territory right now we’re not used to seeing the Avalanche in. When you look at the standings and you don’t see them in the top three. Now, they’re still in a wild-card position, them and the Oilers, but this isn’t territory we are used to seeing the Avalanche in.
So I’m with you. I wonder if this pushes things forward. Those were the two I was going to circle to, Chicago and Vancouver, whether we start to wonder more or speculate more or report on more, that the Avalanche may just need to go big-game hunting here. I don’t know if this is the time frame for bandaids or is it time for some bigger surgery. I’m with you on that one.