Before getting to Sidney Crosby’s mumps diagnosis and Chris Bigras being cut from Canada’s WJC team, here’s some links for Avalanche stories published Sunday:
Teenager , including 9-month-old Jaxson.
My who competed in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
In this blog late Saturday night, I could have written a better headline, other than “Blues-clad fans disrupt Avalanche power play.” I was playing off Patrick Roy’s acknowledgement that he saw the fight in the stands, and that is was ugly and unfortunate. But Roy was not making excuses why the Avs’ power play didn’t capitalize at that point. Roy simply said: “Kind of took the focus off our power play. I saw a few punches.” Let’s leave it at that.
Avs defenseman Erik Johnson and others on the ice also witnessed the fight — which began while the teams were skating in their end to warm-up for the third period — and I told EJ that one of the morons was donning one of his old No. 6 Blues sweaters. He laughed. EJ, like the rest of us, thought he saw one of the guys spit in the other guy’s face before the big retaliation punch put that guy down. Fact is, the fight captured the attention of virtually everyone within eyesight. Human nature. I thought Roy’s quote about it was right on.
Meanwhile:
Pittsburgh superstar and might miss Thursday’s game against the visiting Avalanche. Looks like they have it under control, but Crosby missed two weekend games while being tested and will not play Monday at home against Tampa Bay. The Penguins game after that is Thursday against the Avs, who don’t play until then.
Avalanche draftee Chris Bigras, the Canadian defenseman who had a great NHL training camp after he was selected 32nd overall in 2013, has been It’s surprising, almost shocking, because Bigras is healthy and played on the team last year. According to Yahoo, and from the above linked story, Bigras said Sunday: “The message I got was, ‘Keep my head up, use it as motivation. Obviously, it’s not the outcome I was looking for, but you can’t dwell on it.”
The Avs’ second-line center, Nathan MacKinnon, is eligible to play for Canada but will not. It’s hard to feel bad for MacKinnon, a multi-millionaire at age 19, but not getting a chance to represent his country at the WJC this year and last is unfortunate. He did, however, play at the WJC — barely, as the 12th or 13th forward — two years ago as a 17-year-old.
In another example of the Avs’ lack of impact draft picks outside the first round recently: The at the upcoming WJC in Montreal and Toronto, which begins Dec. 26. Butcher, a defenseman who also played in the WJC last year, is off to Boston for the USA training camp Tuesday through Thursday at Walter Brown Arena on the Boston University campus. The camp will culminate with a pre-tournament game against the BU Terriers on Friday.
The Americans in the upcoming WJC should be strong, with two guys on the team that are projected to be among the top two players picked in the 2015 and 2016 NHL drafts, in forwards Jack Eichel (BU freshman) and Auston Matthews (U.S. 18-under team), respectively. Matthews, as I wrote in the NHL report, is looking at the DU Pioneers, plus fellow perennial NCAA powers North Dakota, Michigan, Boston College and BU. At this rate, however, he might go straight to the NHL out of high school, like MacKinnon in 2013. Matthews, 17, who is a couple weeks young to be ineligible for the 2015 draft, is from Scottsdale, Ariz., and buddies with fellow Scottsdale product Zac Larraza, a DU senior wing who also went through the U.S. National Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich.
