The news isn’t the worst possible and the injury could have been much worse but the outcome is bad for the Avs nonetheless, following the Colorado Avalanche’s head coach’s announcement Sunday morning.
“[Mikko Rantanen] is in concussion protocol, so he’s day-to-day, I would say,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar told reporters on Sunday, April 7, ahead of his team’s game against Dallas. “He’s already been on the ice, so, yeah.”
Mikko Ratanen is in concussion protocol, but instead of week-to-week, the top-line forward of Colorado is already “day-to-day,” according to his coach.
Rantanen suffered his injury on a blind-side hit by Oilers’ Mattias Ekholm with around 16 minutes left in the second period of a game played on Friday, April 5.
Rantanen was shaky leaving the ice helped by an official going straight to the locker room. The forward has 40 goals and 102 points through this season.
Rantanen’s Absence Has Stopped Colorado But Not Nathan MacKinnon
The early reports on Rantanen’s progress are positive and Nathan MacKinnon would be happy to have his top-line partner as soon as possible.
After missing Sunday’s outing, a 7-4 loss to the Stars, Rantanen will have his next opportunity to return to the ice on Wednesday when Colorado hosts the Minnesota Wild.
Rantanen suffered his injury in the second period of the game against the Edmonton Oilers played on April 5, and the Avs ended up losing that contest 6-2 before dropping another game two days later against the Stars, 7-4 this time.
Those two back-to-back losses mean that Colorado (48-24-6, 102 points) is second in the Central Division and only has four games left to make up the distance to first-place Dallas (49-20-9, 107 points) in the leading position of the Central Division.
Coincidentally, MacKinnon has failed to find the net in the two losses in which Rantanen was not fully available. MacKinnon, however, logged 1 and 2 assists in those two matchups chronologically, adding to his season-long tally of 133 points, the second-most in the NHL entering Monday, April 8.
As things stand with less than two weeks left in the regular season, MacKinnon is sandwiched between Tampa Bay Lightning’s forward Nikita Kucherov (136 points) and Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid (130) in the race for the Art Ross Trophy award.
Avalanche Struggling to Climb Up the Central Division
The Avalanche arrived at their Sunday matchup against Dallas looking to bounce back from defeat and knowing the Stars had dropped their prior game just one day earlier against the lowly Chicago Blackhawks.
That alone should have been enough for the team to feel confident in at least putting up a fight against the No. 1 team in the Western Conference and the Central Division.
Turns out it didn’t happen, as Colorado lost 7-4 and didn’t stand a chance against the Stars.
“That’s a different animal than some of the teams we’ve been playing, so is Edmonton,” head coach Bednar told reporters in his postgame press conference on April 7. “Dallas is tied for second overall in the whole league.
“They’re a wagon. They’re deep.”
MacKinnon’s 2 assists put him at 133 points (48 goals, 85 assists) for the season, just 6 points shy of matching Peter Stastny (139) for the most points in a single season in Colorado’s history.
“The defending breakdowns we had, we did some dumb stuff today,” Bednar added. “They all lead to really good scoring chances against.”
The Avalanche have a horrid 2-4-1 in their last seven games and are trying to finish the season on top of Winnipeg (100 points), their most immediate pursuer in the Western Conference standings.
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