With apologies to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Denver Broncos, New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks, Detroit Pistons or whomever else is dominating their respective league right now, the Colorado Avalanche are the very best professional sports team in America today.
They aren’t showing any signs of allowing that to change, either. Even a couple of key injuries haven’t slowed them down yet. The Avs lead the NHL in points (74) by a wide margin, and unless they crater, they’re on track to win the President’s Cup (is that a good thing?) and have home ice throughout the postseason.
Which is nice.
But something else is on the horizon that could be a potential speed bump for a team that’s on a roll at the moment: The Winter Olympics.
The NHL is sending players to the Olympics for the first time since 2014. There will be a three-week break in the NHL regular season in February to accommodate more than 100 players who will represent the 12 nations competing in the tournament. All 32 NHL clubs are sending at least one player to Milan, Italy for the games. Tampa Bay is sending a mind-boggling 11 players to the games, while the Florida Panthers and the Avalanche are sending eight each.
The obvious elephant in the room is the potential for injury. No one wants to see NHL stars injured in non-NHL competition. And there are guys who could certainly use the rest who may be tempted to try to play for their country even if they’re not 100%. That group could potentially include a couple of Avalanche standouts.
Colorado’s Gabe Landeskog and Devon Toews are both questionable for the games after suffering (insert “upper” or “lower” body here) injuries within the last week. If they aren’t able to play for Sweden and Canada respectively, you probably won’t see Avalanche president Joe Sakic or general manager Chris McFarland shedding any tears. Three extra weeks to rest and heal up? Works for us!
Still, playing for your country is one of the greatest honors an athlete can receive – Sakic played for Team Canada three times, and took home the gold in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games – and you can bet the likes of 2026 Team Canada teammates Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon will move the Rocky Mountains to get to Italy on time to rep the Maple Leaf. Same goes for Brock Nelson (Team USA), Martin Nečas (Czechia) and Artturi Lehknnen and Joel Kiviranta for Team Finland.
But what happens to the Avs who aren’t going to Milan?
Surely there will be team workouts and the like here at home, but without actual games to play in, the potential for losing an edge, figuratively and literally, is out there… and it looms large for a decent number of team members.
The Avs wouldn’t be the first team to lose momentum during a long break in the action.
What Sakic and McFarland and the rest of the organization can bank on is this: The guys participating in the Winter Olympics will come back ready to go. Those whose teams are eliminated early will still be able to rest and stay sharp. And those on teams that advance, likely Team Canada, Finland and USA (if last year’s Four Nations event was a precursor) will be energized by the experience.
So we’ll enjoy the show, cross our fingers and hope for nothing serious to happen, injury-wise. Root for our guys to bring back the gold (and silver and bronze). When the season resumes in Salt Lake City on February 25th, we’ll find out if three weeks away was a good thing or a bad thing for the best team in pro sports.
