Avalanche reveal SHOCKING updates... This is BRUTAL

Welp, the hits just keep on coming, with some brutal news being announced early today that McKinnon and McCarr both are out for multiple weeks apiece, and the Avalanche will have to contend going through a hard part of their schedule without their two best players. This Colorado Avalanche team continues to just test everyone's patience, and this season is definitely not going the way many people had hoped. Today, we are going to get into just what injuries have occurred to both McKinnon and McCarr, and when they're actually expected to be back, and what the Avalanche are going to have to do in order to stay calm, tighten the screws, and win some games here until reinforcements arrive. Welcome into Avalanche Digest, everybody. Happy to have you here, as always, on this beautiful, foggy day. Now, I would like to welcome you with some better news here, but unfortunately, this is what we have to contend with. So, according to Corey Mossiak, Avs coach Jared Bednar confirms that Nathan McKinnon is out at least a month. Kel McCarr will be out approximately two weeks. So, we do get our injury timelines here. Thankfully, the Avalanche are always cagey with their injury details, but they actually threw us a bone and actually gave us the exact timelines of when at least we can expect the players back. He followed up a little bit more on this Kael McCarr injury in particular, saying that Avs coach Eric... Jared Bednar said that Kael McCarr has a soft tissue injury that he's been playing through, but it got worse in Ottawa. He's not concerned about it lingering beyond this recovery period. And that was that no contact play with Kael McCarr was skating, tried to make a cut and just immediately looked like he hurt himself and had to limp off the eyes. It looked bad. It was not great. And my question is, if he had a soft tissue injury, why was he playing? And we've heard this so many. Times often, oh, we're not worried about it lingering. We heard this in the offseason. We're not worried about Kel McCarr's injury versus the Vegas Golden Knights cropping up again. And I'm not going to say this is the exact same one. I can't tell you that. But I'm a little tired and I'm a little distrustful of these reports coming out of, oh yeah, we can play him after. I'm not worried about it lingering. Really? Are you sure? I don't know. I don't think Kael McCarr should have been playing at all if this was the case, and now they're going to miss him for two weeks during a part of the season where they're really, really going to miss him. So overall, it is a little bit sad boy times over here in Colorado. Definitely not the news many people were hoping for. Some shorter-term injuries are what people were thinking of in the first place, but... Jared Benard did have this to say about the upcoming schedule. I did want to highlight this tweet. He said that he mentioned a favorable upcoming schedule, particularly for the Kale McCarr injury. Avs play three games between tomorrow, the 15th, and November 27th and the 28th at Minnesota and San Jose. So they do get quite a lot of time off. There would be two extra games in there in the typical rhythm of an NHL schedule. So the Avs did hit a bit of a fortuitous bounce right here. I can show you right here with this schedule. We can see that, yes, they play the Montreal Canadiens on the 14th, and then they kind of have the second part of this road trip, although it's not really because they get to go home and then take the bus to Utah because there is a three-day break in here. So they play the Utah Mammoth on the 18th, and then the 19th back-to-back against the Anaheim Ducks, and then they have a massive break until they play the Montreal Canadiens again. Again, ever since November 19th, the next time they play, play is on the 25th. Now, just what might the Colorado Avalanche and its fans do during that break? I don't know. I have no idea. I think we'll be all right. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. But because of this, because you have a bit of a hard schedule, I mean, just looking at these opponents, this was the concern about the Colorado Avalanche. I mean, the concern was... They had a very easy schedule, and they were still losing games. They were still just breaking even. And everyone knew, it's good to bank points now. What happens when the schedule gets harder? What happens when you aren't as healthy? And we're seeing right now, this was the worst time and the biggest example of why people were worried in the first place. You've got a bit of some harder schedules coming up, and that just means that players like Marty Neches are going to have to step up. The one remaining superstar that the Colorado Avalanche has, Neches is going to need to be even better than him. He's been playing a bit of a Robin to McKinnon's Batman here, but he's going to need to step up even further. He's got 24 points, and altogether, he's absolutely going to need to be the engine of this team, especially when you look at what this projected Colorado Avalanche lineup has to be here. We can look at kind of what it's projected overall. Keep in mind, this isn't a complete release thing, but this is something that we can imagine here. We've got Nazem Khadri, I think being the first line center makes the most sense. He's probably the most offensively driven guy, while you consider Brock Nelson to be your more well-balanced guy. That's who you put Landis Cog potentially next to, TJ Hughes, Jaden Schwartz. This middle six can basically fluctuate at will. But for the first-line center, wouldn't it be fun if Nazem Khadri starts producing like a first-line center like he was in Calgary and like he was in Colorado the year the Avs won the Cup? I don't think that will happen, but we can only dream at this point in time because right now, dreams are all that we have. I think Nick Wall will absolutely move to third-line center, and you can keep this fourth line together with Svechkov and LOC and Parker Kelly together. And Gavin Brinley has also been called up from the Eagles here, so that is important to realize he's going to factor into this lineup. I am really happy that Gavin Brinley is back here in this forward core. Altogether, it speaks to the depth the Avs have forward core-wise, where this is the lineup they get to ice. I don't think it's anything too shabby here. I think the Avs should still be competitive night in and night out. They're just going to have to do it without their two best players. For the defense, I fully foresee this top pairing being Malinsky and Tate. They've gone to that pairing multiple times. It works. As a top pairing, it's not my favorite, but as a second pairing, it's great. So I think that that's how they'll manage this in the meantime. And the bottom four of your defense is a disaster. I don't even want to look at it. I barely even want to talk about it, but I have to for this video. Brett Kulak is going to be on your second pairing with most likely Noah Yulson, just because they did confirm earlier as well. That Alex Gagney will be playing with Brent Burns on the third pair. They did announce that that was the plan. That's what they were doing at Morning Skate practice today. So I would assume that Noah Yulson would be on your second pairing. Hooray. Also, Mackenzie Blackwood is starting tonight. And that is your current lineup for what the Avs are looking for right now. And it's quite interesting. In terms of the power play, we also have a bit of an update as well. So with no Kale McCarr and... Nathan McKinnon on the ice. We saw these mix-ups for the Colorado Avalanches power play. Power play one. We're looking at Devon Taves running the point. Nazem Khadri, TJ Hughes. Thank Archery Lekanen and Marty Netschus. I almost said Marty Lekanen there. Combined them two in my head. But Marty Netschus, I would like to see go back you to his spot on McKinnon's typical one-timer spot. for I would like Marty Netschus to take that spot away from McKinnon in general when everyone's healthy. watching. And hopefully this is actually the roadway for them to prove it. I think it was really funny against the Ottawa Senators that the very second that McKinnon and McCarr go down with injury, The power play starts scoring again without those two on it. I think I even said this a little while back. I would like to see Taves replace Cale McCarr on power play one, not because I think that's a long-term solution, not because I don't think Cale McCarr is good, but just Taves is playing amazing offensively. He's back to his old self, which is great for a Cale McCarr injury. At least you have that backup. But with... Devon Taves, he's playing simple. He's playing the game he needs to. I would really like to see him on power play one. I think he'll actually walk in and can threaten a shot. And because he's actually left-handed instead of right-handed. Um, it actually opens up a lot of possibility for instead a better pass to the one-timer spot in terms of Marty Necha. So I would like to see that. I think that's actually going to flow a lot better, but it was the plan all along. And it was something I suggested for a reason is because Taves is just not going to make the bad plays. Kale McCarr for quite a while now has looked like a shell of himself on the power play. 5v5, he's great, but just on the power play, you're wondering what he's doing on there. And I would like to say, see what Taves can do on it. Frankly, I think there's quite a lot of potential for this power play one to be even better than it was before with McKinnon and McCarr on it. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that realization, but I'm not even exaggerating that we very well could see this. Nazem Khadri, I do like on that power play. I like his passing option and his shooting threat. TJ Hughes, as long as he's on the goal line and playing behind the net, I like that for him. If you're going to put him in any type of shooting position, get him off the power play. Why isn't Brock Nelson there? I've been saying this forever. Neches, of course, taking over McKinnon's one-timer spot. And Arturi Lekkonen is on a hot streak. This guy cannot stop scoring, so why not put him on there? Power play two is the rest of your forward core. There's really nothing else to talk about with power play two. I'm not going to get super serious into it. They're not going to use it. We all know that. So that is going to be it. But with the injuries to Kael McCarr and Nathan McKinnon, it is definitely not a fun wake-up call for this Avalanche team. But if they can buckle in, they can get together, they can start throwing up wins, and at least stay 500 until reinforcements arrive, that is the recipe for success for this Avalanche team. The Central Division, I don't think anybody is really running away with it right now. Minnesota's on the hot streak right now. I do not trust that to really continue. They are getting a little bit healthier. I just still don't like that roster. The center depth is just not great, but this isn't a Minnesota video. I think that pretty much everyone else in the Central Division really isn't running away with it right now. So the Avalanche, if they can manage these injuries, they'll be fine. They'll be in a fine spot for the rest of the season. They've got plenty of breaks here as we've looked at the schedule before. So I like it for this Colorado Avalanche team. And then... With especially Kael McCarr, the next two weeks you actually play a whole lot less games than the Avs normally would. So it opens up a ton of potential for Kael McCarr to come back and the Avs get that reinforcement a lot quicker and then they'll just have to deal with no Nathan McKinnon until then. But that is going to do it for this video. Thank you all so much for watching. Hopefully we can talk a lot about more wins soon and more about how great this team is doing despite their injuries. I'm excited for those to start, fingers crossed, but that is going to do I'm going to do it for this one. Thanks for watching. And go Avs. And I'll see you next time. Bye.