What an Eastern Conference roadtrip!

The Avalanche played strong, and in many different ways to take a 5 game winning streak coming back home to play the Chicago Blackhawks tonight.

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Avalanche Overwhelm Canadiens, 8-4.

The Avs bowled over the floundering Canadiens, with a beautiful offensive outpouring led by 3 point nights from Artturi Lehkonen, Val Nichushkin and Cale Makar. The Avs came out strong, ending the 1st up 4-1, and never looked back. Unfortunately, the team announced that Lehkonen broke his finger, and will miss the next 4-6 weeks.

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Tight Defensive Game ends in Shootout with Avs winning 2-1

Alexsander Georgiev stopped 18 out of 19 shots, and Nathan MacKinnon scored the game winner in the shootout to take a tightly contested game, 2-1. There was not much space on the ice, and unlike the previous games' offensive outpouring, was a tight checking, defensive game on both sides.

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Ottawa falls to the Avalanche, 5-4, on controversial goal by Lars Eller

Lars Eller scored one of the strangest goals I've seen in awhile, and the big guns in Rantanen and MacKinnon put up 3 points, with Cale Makar bringing 2 more points. Should the Eller goal have been whistled down for icing? ... Maybe. Should they have blown the whistle for the puck seeming to be covered? They could have, but kudos to Eller for playing right to the whistle and getting a timely goal for his new team. Jonas Johansson came up with a MASSIVE save in the remaining seconds of the game to lock down the win.

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Avalanche bury the Wings (and oh, ain't it sweet), winning 5-1

Colorado started this game out seemingly disinterested in playing hockey, but Georgiev came up big and stopped 33 of 34. The Avalanche woke up in the 2nd and 3rd periods, and on the backs of strong performances from Makar (3 points) and MacKinnon (3 points) the Avs took the win. Terrible news: Makar missed a big chunk of the 3rd period, and while fans were debating whether it was Jared Bednar resting his star defenseman in a blowout win, or an injury, it was confirmed today that Makar would miss tonight's matchup against the Chicago Blackhawks. Kurtis MacDermid will line up in Makar's place.

Makar practiced today with the team, but pulled himself off the ice after a conversation with coaches; Bowan Byram took over running PP1 in practice.

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Tonight, the Avs take on the Blackhawks, who currently has Taylor Raddysh leading the team in goals and points. The Hawks seem to be fully committing to the rebuild, after moving Patrick Kane to the Rangers. Toews is on injured reserve, and is unsure if he'll play again, and other former stars have moved on (Debrincat to Ottawa). Colorado needs to take them seriously, with all this in mind. In recent games, the Hawks have beaten Boston, Nashville, and Dallas. The Avs will look to lean on Byram to fill the gap left by Makar, and hope Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen can continue their strong play.

Puck drops at 9 PM EST.

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Notes: Thank you for your patience, hopefully the computer issues I've had lately are behind me!

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