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The Colorado Avalanche was the big pick at the start of the NHL to win the Stanley Cup. Now Colorado has looked like a Stanley Cup contender as they are 7-3-1 and are tied for the top spot in this years Honda division with the St. Louis Blues. Each team has 15 points so far this season.

Now if Colorado is going to fulfill those predictions and win that Stanley Cup there going to have to win some game with their best player sidelined with an injury.

In Sunday’s loss to the Minnesota Wild the Avalanche’s best player Nathan MacKinnon suffered a lower body injury. Being that this is the NHL we’re not going to get the specifics of his injury, but Colorado’s coach Jared Bednar described it as a “week to week” situation.

It’s no surprise that Mackinnon is Colorado’s points leader with 14. He has just 2 goals, but he’s assisted on 12 goals and he is tied for the team lead in power play pints with 6 and he has also taken the most shots on net with 41. Mackinnon is also second on the team in plus/minus as he’s a +6 this season.

The Avalanche did bounce back and beat the Wild last night 2-1 without Mackinnon and they’ll see if they can get a win against Minnesota tomorrow night as those two teams will face off again in Colorado. After this series the Avalanche will head to St. Louis to face the team their tied with at the top of the division in back to back games this Saturday and Sunday.

Now Bednar didn’t say when there would be an update on Mackinnon condition; so will have to kind of wait and see when Colorado makes a statement concerning his injury. It’s unclear how many weeks; week to week means.

Now Mackinnon isn’t the first Colorado player to miss games due to injury this season as it seems like the Avalanche just can’t see to avoid the injury bug.

Besides Mackinnon there are six other Avalanche players out with injuries. Left wing Matt Calvert has and upper body injury and Goaltender Pavel Francouz has a lower body injury and have both been placed on injured reserve. Defenseman Erik Johnson and Devon Toews are also currently out with injuries. Johnson has an upper body injury while Toews is out with a foot injury. You can also add center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare is also out with a lower left leg injury.

That’s a lot of injuries to deal with over just 11 games. Now remember the NHL is only playing a 56 game regular season; so not only does the Avalanche nee to get all their players healthy they have to get them up to game speed by playoff time if they’re going to make a run at the Stanley Cup.

Now the NHL season is kind of in flux with games being postponed due to Covid-19. There are teams that have played 13 games and there are teams that have played just 7 games. Now it’s unclear if or when the NHL would make up these games; so will just have to wait and see if every team gets a chance to play all 56 scheduled regular season games.

Last week we had a big trade in baseball. Well heading into last weekend there was a big trade in football and I have to say I was surprised by what was involved in that deal.

The Los Angeles Rams Acquired quarterback Matthew Stafford from the Detroit Lions. Now in return for Stafford the Lions received quarterback Jarod Goff and three draft picks. Detroit gets the Rams 1st round pick in 2022 and 2023 as well as a 3rd round pick in this coming draft.

Now this sounded like a lot to give up for Stafford and it made me wonder what the Houston Texans could get for Deshaun Watson. While Stafford is a proven veteran quarterback Watson is coming off his best season and is quite a bit younger than Stafford. Help me out here; what do you think a team will have to give up to acquire Watson? It also makes you wonder what the Philadelphia Eagles could get for Carson Wentz if they decided to deal him.

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