At the beginning of the season, the Colorado Avalanche were scary good. Later, it was just scary to be an Avs fan.
In the first two months of the season, they marched through opponents. Sure, there were a couple losses here and there — 6-1 to the Buffalo Sabres, 1-0 to the Tampa Bay Lightning — but they always bounced back.
The players at that time were playing crisp, precision hockey, what Altitude announcers started calling “tidy.” Even during a game, they didn’t let things get to them.
Meanwhile, the top line of Mikko Rantanen, Nathan MacKinnon, and Gabriel Landeskog seemed unstoppable.