The Colorado Avalanche aren’t panicking about their goaltending after one poor performance, but they’re not waiting to fix a potential problem ahead of Saturday night’s home opener against the Columbus Blue Jackets in Denver.
Colorado lost its season opener at the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday night, 8-4, in a game where both of its netminders struggled.
So, ahead of their clash with Columbus, the Avalanche claimed goalie Kaapo Kahkonen off waivers from the Winnipeg Jets on Friday.
Kahkonen won’t be available Saturday night; he must work through the immigration process that coach Jared Bednar said will take about a week.
But Bednar did acknowledge that bringing in another goaltender might push Alexandar Georgiev and his backup, Justus Annunen, both of whom struggled against the Golden Knights.
“It’s a player with experience. He’s played well in places before, and he’s free and we’ve got room,” Bednar said of Kahkonen.
“We’ve seen better from our goalies than we’ve seen here recently, and if they can elevate their game, great. And if Kahkonen can come in and play well, great. It’s about winning hockey games, and if we can get incrementally better in any position, we’ll try and do it, especially when there’s low risk involved.”
Colorado didn’t have three important pieces to start the season — Valeri Nichushkin (suspension), Gabriel Landeskog (knee) and Artturi Lehkonen (shoulder surgery) — and lost another top-line forward for the near future. Jonathan Drouin suffered an upper-body injury in the loss to Vegas and will miss a few games, Bednar said.
While Bednar didn’t say who would take Drouin’s place on the top line, Nikolai Kovalenko skated with Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen during Friday’s practice, per Colorado Hockey Now.
The Blue Jackets are also facing adversity after captain Boone Jenner was lost for most of the season with a shoulder injury that required surgery. Columbus was already dealing with Dmitri Voronkov’s injury and the passing of Johnny Gaudreau.
Voronkov’s upper-body injury, which he suffered during a preseason game on Oct. 3, isn’t as serious as first thought. He was expected to miss months, but because he won’t require surgery, he could return in late November.
The Blue Jackets will have to find answers until they get healthy, but they left their 3-2 loss at the Minnesota Wild in Thursday night’s season opener with some positive takeaways.
“If we play like that, we’re going to win a lot of games,” said forward Zach Werenski, who scored once for Columbus.
“And that’s what winning hockey looks like and that’s fun hockey, so we’re going to build on it. We’re going to learn from some things we did wrong, but I think at the end of the day we have to play like that every night and it’s a good recipe for success.”
The Blue Jackets enter Saturday night after an emotional opener. Thursday marked the team’s first regular-season game since the tragic death of Gaudreau on Aug. 29.
It was also coach Dean Evason’s first game behind the bench for Columbus, which came against a Minnesota team he coached for parts of five seasons.
–Field Level Media
