Connor Ingram to the rescue
2022-11-10After winning the Stanley Cup in the 2021-2022 season, the Colorado Avalanche have been struggling to re-find their winning ways in this 2022-2023 season. Goaltender Connor Ingram has been recalled from the minors in the hopes of pushing Jack Campbell and Alexandar Georgiev to stop pucks. After a bad first 9 games played, Colorado had 3 wins and 6 losses and were 2nd last in the league behind the abysmal Chicago (plagiarizers) Black Hawks. Ingram has helped Colorado stop this losing trend with 2 straight wins against powerhouses Nashville and Columbus. "It feels amazing being able to help out my team to stop this losing trend. I hope we can continue on this stretch and prove to our fans that we can win a 2nd cup in a row" said Ingram after the game. Colorado has been having a hard time finding secondary scoring other than Boone Jenner. Their first line of Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog has been holding down the main scoring. Coach Jared Bednar has been playing his first line 48% of the time at even strength which can't be done for a full season otherwise injuries will start accumulating. During their last game, Nathan MacKinnon played over 25 minutes. "I have to admit, I love playing this much but I'm not sure I can do this for another 70 games" said MacKinnon when interviewed after their 4-3 victory in shootouts versus Columbus. Connor Ingram held down the fort and stopped 26 out of 29 shots for the victory (also 2 shots stopped in the shootout). Superstar Nathan MacKinnon had a strong game with 1 goal, 1 assist and the winning goal in the shootout. Mikko Rantanen followed with 1 goal and 1 goal in the shootout as well. Coach Jared Bednar has been in the hot seat after 10 games played and he's been having difficulties finding ways to stimulate his team to perform better. "My team has come down from cloud nine after our cup win and it's harder getting back into it. It's not an excuse and we hope our goaltending will stabilize a bit very soon. We paid major dollars in the offseason to sign Jack Campbell replacing Darcy Kuemper who left for free agency. Our goaltending duo of Campbell + Georgiev is supposed to hold the fort and stop pucks. If Ingram can push them a bit to get back in shape, it's all good" said Bednar. Colorado is currently at a combined -49 +/- with Ben Chiarot and Zach Parise has the only 2 players with a +1 rating. Having scored only 30 goals in 12 games, for an average of 2.5 goals per game, Colorado is in dire need of more scoring. After 12 games, Colorado have 11 players total with 2 points or less. Secondary scoring has been hard to find with Nick Paul and Rickard Rakell combining for only 1 goal. Hopefully, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen have combined for 6 goals and 21 assists = 27 points total in 12 games. On defence, Cale Makar and Devon Toews are leading the way with over 27 minutes played per game while combining for a -8 +/- and 4 goals 12 assists for 16 points. Justin Braun, David Savard and Ryan Suter have been having a hard time combining for -10 +/-, 0 points. In nets, Jack Campbell has been struggling with only 3 wins in 7GP while having a 3.23 goals against average and a .894 save percentage. Alexandar Georgiev has 2 losses so far with a 2.86 GAA and 0.903 Sv%. Connor Ingram is doing a little better with 2 wins, 1 loss, a 2.61 GAA and 0.914 Sv%. Colorado's next 3 games will be against the Carolina Hurricanes (2 times) and St. Louis Blues once. Let's hope the winning ways will continue...