OffThePost.org

that lines up perfectly....let me pass this on to the wife!

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Jared Bednar gets a three-year extension that starts in 2024, and will reportedly pay him around $4.5 million per season. He's making about half that right now.

Well-deserved for the winningest (and best) head coach in organization history.

A letdown was inevitable, and the Avs sure had one against the very, very desperate Pittsburgh Penguins last night.

Alexandar Georgiev let in four goals but he played stellar and it would've been 10 goals against if not for him. Avs were just asleep at the wheel defensively. It happens.

Onto the next one.

Well...there ya have it, not only did Darren Helm return last game, Erik Johnson will be making his triumphant return tonight against the Coyotes.

Oh and uh, Cale Makar will play tonight as well.

I'm not sure at this point they can even bring back Landeskog during the regular season since they dipped into LTIR money to get Eller. But this does to an extent justify them not going full bore to get a 2nd line center, that would have prevented them from bringing back EJ in any capacity until the playoffs.

Now if they can just get effin' Manson back...they'll be cookin'.

Avs have been feasting on a soft schedule for the most part, but now begins a bit of a tough stretch as they head home to take on the red-hot Minnesota Wylde, who have not missed a step since Kirill Kaprizov went down with injury.

Not terribly surprising, unfortunately, the Avs lay a bit of an egg at home ice against the insanely hot Minnesota Wylde and miss a huge opportunity to take first in the Central. Avs just came out dead flat in the first period and part of the second, it wasn't until a SHG was scored that they finally started pouring it on for the remainder of the 2nd and all of the 3rd, but by then it was way too little, too late.

Bednar called out a few players for being "passengers" to start out the game. He noted that others were trying hard, but were fighting the puck all night.

Avs just cannot survive the rare bad game from Cale Makar, it didn't help that the puck was a jumping bean on Val Nichushkin's stick that night. He COULD NOT hold onto it for some weird reason.

Anyway, the schedule gets no easier with a matchup against the Dallas Stars tomorrow night.

Avs heed the public callout by Bednar, take on a tired Stars team and win definitively 5-3. They win the season series 3-1 (a shame that one loss was an embarrassing blowout).

Landeskog, Francouz, and Manson continue to skate and make progress but I'd be shocked if any of them made a regular season game appearance before playoffs start.

They just HAD to make it difficult on themselves, but I guess a win is a win.

Avs blow a 3-1 lead but win it in OT on Nathan MacKinnon's first ever 100th-point.

The team was very clearly trying to get Nate to 100 and Mikko to 50 goals, going out of their way to feed the latter the puck and it was kinda ridiculous. Rantanen also apparently hurt his hand trying to block a shot/pass and stayed in, but it didn't look good.

Nate becomes the first 100 point producer in franchise history since Joe Sakic did so in 2007. Sakic BTW remains the oldest player in league history to post a single season century mark. IF Mikko makes it to 50, he'll be the first Av to do so since Milan Hejduk did way back in 2003 . That was enough back then to secure the Rocket Richard for #23, how times have changed.

It should have been a blowout but Kaapo Kahkonen had other plans. Georgiev was good but KK was insane.

I'm beginning to think young NCAA FA signing Ben Meyers doesn't have what it takes to be an NHLer. He's not big enough for strong enough to be a real scrapper on the bottom six, but he's not skilled enough to be in the top six either. Unless something very dramatic happens in his development, he'll forever be a tweener. Even in just under seven minutes of ice time he got completely caved in on the shot attempt clock.

Also, I have fucking HAD IT with Kurtis MacDermid. My God he is the worst hockey player I have ever seen at the professional level. He can't do anything right, even the most routine of hockey plays. Tried charging down the middle to create a scoring chance and instead took an insanely stupid tripping penalty. The Sharks capitalized on the ensuing power play and got back in the game, not long after they tied it. Cannot wait for the playoffs to start so I don't have to see this clown, and hope to God he's gone this summer. Why Bednar insists on playing him as a defenseman and not a forward (if at all) is beyond me.

Oh yeah, Avs clinch a playoff spot and at present lead the Central. Tied in points with the Wylde and Stars but leap ahead temporarily simply because they have one game in hand, thanks to the Nashville Predators' basement getting flooded earlier this season.

There's this guy on HF whose first language is obviously not English and it sure seems like he's running everything through a translation program. His rants are epic and a favorite of everyone on the boards there. Here's an unhinged rant following the last game:



Best part is he signs off with every single post.

Mikko gets his 50th! And 51st! And 52nd!

The bad news, the Avs disclosed both Helm and Makar are hurt (again) but they’re new injuries. No timetable on either player’s return.

Yikes. Hope they're back soon.

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Eghad......the freebie against the Ducks last night was way harder than it needed to be. Regardless, the result was a pickup of 2 points in OT which is what they needed to keep the Kraken matchup alive.

Of note....Mikko Rantanen eclipses the 100 point marker. My sister just got a rescue puppy this weekend and named it Mikko...so looks like he will be around for a good long while if we are lucky!

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Unless the Avs blow it up in the next couple years I think they will keep Rantanen as a lifer or as close to lifer as they can.

I had a feeling they'd have a bit of a letdown after that huge win against the Kings (in which their top players also weren't great). Avs were pretty shorthanded in this one but that's no excuse, they fucked around and nearly found out, thankfully Anaheim went out of their way to hand the game back to them, and the Avs at least capitalized.

I don't know why Frank Vatrano turns into Brett fucking Hull whenever he faces the Avs but he's a middle-tier scorer who turns into a top line guy against Colorado. Just...weird.

On that note though, Vatrano took one of the dumbest penalties I've ever seen. It's standard practice to set "picks" when entering the zone to hold up backchecking forwards, but you can't make it *look* like you're setting the pick. Vatrano not only did that, he leapt backward just a little to throw a reverse hit on Rodrigues, it was too obvious not to call.

Avs drop one in OT after an absolutely atrocious shift by one Bowen Byram. Apparently he felt pretty bad about it afterward, but in truth it's a miracle the Avs got a point at all. A depleted lineup going up against an almost-fully healthy Oilers squad, I'm more than fine with the OTL.

They're now guaranteed no lower than 2nd in the Central after Minnesota effectively pulled the regular season ripcord, if they win out they'll get the division crown. If they retain that top spot, they'll face the Seattle Kraken in the first round. If they don't and Dallas wins it, they'll face the Wylde. I'd rather not go up against them--they've made it quite clear they're going to goon and bully their way as far as they can in the postseason.

We knew it was likely coming but the news does not sting any less.

Gabriel Landeskog will miss the entire regular season AND playoffs for 2022-2023.

The Avs are set to do a presser later today, hopefully they will shed a bit more light on what the living hell happened.

This is eerily similar to Peter Forsberg following his splenectomy saying he had to step away from the game for a bit, and then when he tried to get back into training mid-season found out he had an ankle issue that required surgery so he missed the whole season anyway...but at least back then, Forsberg was good to go in the postseason.

Hats off to the AVs for enduring a horribly handicapped season but still managing to finish 1st on the back of the Moose and most recently MacKinnon.

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Would never have guessed it—certainly not around January when the Jets and Stars were so far ahead—but they pulled it off. It helps that the Stars were buoyed by an insane amount of loser points and the Jets just plain imploded halfway through the season.

Now we wait and see. They’ve already said Manson will be back for game 1 but they’re keeping quiet about Makar.