The next hockey game at Ball Arena will have much bigger stakes, thankfully.
Short five regulars due to injury, including the reigning MVP, the Colorado Avalanche dropped a 4-1 decision to the Vancouver Canucks in the final home game of its regular season Thursday night.
The Nathan MacKinnon-less Avs looked like a team that didn’t have a lot to play for. The Canucks were missing four regulars, including center Elias Pettersson, and were eliminated from playoff contention Wednesday night.
Colorado has known for weeks that the Dallas Stars likely await in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. With the Stars losing Thursday night to Winnipeg, it is all but assured that the Avs will be traveling to Texas next weekend for the start of a best-of-7 series. Dallas knocked Colorado out of the 2024 playoffs in six games.
Vancouver built a two-goal lead in the second period with a pair of tallies three minutes apart. Jake DeBrusk scored off a centering pass from Kiefer Sherwood at 4:50. Sherwood doubled the advantage at 7:51 with a shot from the right faceoff circle that beat Avs goalie Mackenzie Blackwood over his left shoulder.
Sherwood had never scored more than 10 goals in the NHL before this season, but he’s up to 19 this year — including four against the Avalanche.
Devon Toews got one back for Colorado late in the second. Toews tipped a shot from the top of the zone by Charlie Coyle for his 10th goal of the season. It was also his second tip goal of the year — he did not have one in the NHL before this season.
Cale Makar, who became the only Avs player to appear in all 80 games this season, had an assist on the play. Makar now has 92 points this season, which extends his franchise record for a defenseman.
Makar is the fourth defenseman to score at least 92 points in a season since 1993, joining Quinn Hughes (92 last year), Roman Josi (96 in 2021-22) and Erik Karlsson (101 in 2022-23). An NHL defenseman has scored 92-plus points 26 times in league history, but only 10 players have done it.
Dakota Joshua restored Vancouver’s two-goal advantage at 6:14 of the third period, and then Nils Hoglander tucked one into the empty net.
MacKinnon did not play in this game because of a minor injury. Avs coach Jared Bednar said he may not play this weekend either in games at Los Angeles and Anaheim.
It was the first game MacKinnon has missed since Dec. 29, 2022. He had played in 209 regular-season consecutive contests.
MacKinnon is currently tied with Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov for the NHL scoring lead, but this likely ends his bid to win the Art Ross Trophy for the first time. If he doesn’t play this weekend, MacKinnon will finish with 32 goals and 116 points. That ties Peter Forsberg for the ninth-most points in a season in team history, and the third most since the franchise moved to Denver.
Defenseman Ryan Lindgren also joined the walking wounded after being injured Tuesday night against Vegas. The Avs are also still without forwards Ross Colton and Jonathan Drouin and defenseman Josh Manson.
There were positive developments on the injury front. Forward Martin Necas and defenseman Samuel Girard returned to the lineup. Necas started this game at center, the first time he’s played there since arriving in the blockbuster late January trade from Carolina.
There could be more good news Friday. Captain Gabe Landeskog is expected to participate in the Eagles’ morning skate Friday in Loveland, and the plan is for him to play that night. It would be his first hockey game since the 2022 Stanley Cup Final.
Landeskog is trying to come back from knee cartilage replacement surgery. No player has had the procedure and returned to NHL action before. If Landeskog does play Friday, it will be 1,021 days since he last played in a game.
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