The Fifth Liners

Last night after suffering a 6-0 to the New York Islanders at the Nassau Coliseum, it appears that the Colorado Avalanche 's season is already turning into the thing of nightmares. There were signs of life last season as Patrick Roy 's Jack Adams winning debut season propelled them to new heights not seen since the days of Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and Roy himself keeping net. Currently the Avalanche lies stranded in 13th place in the Western Conference with a record of 3–5–5 and the problem seems to be that no one really understands what is causing this slide? Calder Trophy Winner Nathan MacKinnon 's slow sophomore season has been making headlines for the wrong reasons but currently he is still joint top offensively with Matt Duchene on 9 points. But Jarome Iginla has so far received the most flack as his age has appeared to have crept up with him. 2 goals and 8 points are not reflecting the $16 million that Colorado were willing to invest in the 37 year old! The p...

The Colorado Avalanche have been on fire recently. So far this season Patrick Roy's men have won all six of their games. Mostly down to Semyon Varlamov's heroics between the posts. The Detroit Red Wings are also in a good place. Having got over their slightly shaky start, the team is settling in to life with Daniel Alfredsson and life without Valtteri Filppula. Expectations for the Red Wings' visit to the Pepsi Center were high for both teams. Mike Babcock's men are desperate not to repeat last season's chase for a playoff spot while the Avs need to prove that they're serious contenders. The Avalanche got off to a bad start when Cody McLeod was assessed a game misconduct and a boarding major penalty after his push on Niklas Kronwall left the big Swede with concussion and cuts. Kronwall was stretchered off the ice but not taken to hospital. The resulting powerplay allowed Henrik Zetterberg to set up Johan Franzen who then put the first goal on th...