In sports, momentum can play a huge factor in the outcome of contests. Winning is infections, and often begets more winning. Losing is the exact opposite. The more you lose, the more you struggle. The more you struggle, the further you sink.
Such is the case for the Colorado Avalanche this season. At the halfway point of the season, they are on pace for 53 points, which would be the worst mark in team history.
“When you’re winning games, you know you’re going to win,” defenseman Tyson Barrie explained on Mile High Sports Radio with Ryan Edwards and Danny Williams on Wednesday. “You go into the third period in a tight game, and you know you’re going to get the goal or you’re going to hold the lead.”
“Right now, that’s obviously not the case. It feels like we’re kind of doing everything we can to give up the lead in the third period and kind of finding ways to lose. That’s obviously not indicative to a winning team. We’ve got to find a way to change that.”
Barrie, who leads the Avalanche with 20 assists on the season, signed a lucrative extension over the summer, which will carry a cap hit of $5.5 million for its four-year duration. With a big deal however, come big expectations
“It’s like any sport, the more you make, the more fans, management and your teammates are going to rely on you,” he said. “I would like to do more to help this team win. It will come.”
A great player is only made so by the work of the players around him. For Barrie, he realizes the talent he has around him in the likes of Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog. Now they just need to find a way to translate that into wins.
“That’s a real bright spot for our team, the talent we have,” said Barrie. “Obviously, it’s not getting it done right now.”
Listen to the full interview with Tyson Barrie, including the impact of Erik Johnson’s injury and when things went wrong for the Avalanche, in the podcast below.
https://soundcloud.com/milehighsports/1-18-17-tyson-barrie-joins-the-show-hard-to-point-fingers-fun-to-play-with-all-that-talent
Catch Ryan Edwards and Danny Williams every weekday from 9a-11a on Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7 or stream live any time for the best local coverage of Colorado sports from Denver’s biggest sports talk lineup.