There has been some panic percolating amongst Colorado Avalanche fans lately. The team hasn’t been bad, but they certainly have not played up to the lofty standard set by the stars in this locker room. Concern was mounting that the dominant Avalanche that has captured the hearts of Avs fans across the world was fading into the parity the NHL was designed to create.
Perhaps that kind of talk is premature because at least for one night, the Avs were back.
Avs lines tonight:
Nichushkin -- MacKinnon -- Rantanen
Wood -- Colton -- Drouin
Cogliano -- Johansen -- O’Connor
MacDermid -- Olofsson -- Kiviranta
Toews -- Cale Makar
Byram -- Josh Manson
Johnson -- Malinksi
Georgiev— Ryan Boulding (@rboulding) December 24, 2023First Period
The Avs and Coyotes were pretty even during the opening stretch of the game, and not much of note happened—outside of Miles Wood and Lawson Crouse throwing all caution to the wind and throwing haymaker after haymaker at each other—then Bowen Byram fired the first shot of the night that put Arizona on its heels.