One Month Down...

The first month of the NHL season is officially in the books, it's now November and 11 games are done for the Avs. They have a 6-4-1 record, nowhere near as impressive as this time last year, but a respectable record nonetheless. It's good for first place in the division and third place in the Western Conference. A lot happened during the first month of the NHL season for the Avs.

Chris Stewart had a fantastic October, landing himself the third star of the month for October. Stewart is tied for second in the league with Steven Stamkos, having scored 9 goals (one behind Chicago's Patrick Sharp). He's also tied for second in the league with Patrick Sharp at 16 points (three behind Tampa Bay's Stamkos). Stewart also scored a hat trick to help lift the Avs 6-5 over the Calgary Flames. He carries an 8 game point streak into November, the longest active streak in the league with 8 goals and 6 assists since the Avs beat New Jersey on October 15th. It looks like a trip to the minor leagues will not be necessary this year as Stewart seems to be developing nicely into an NHL power forward.

John-Michael Liles set a new league record in October. He had assists in 9 consecutive games to start the season, the most ever by a defenseman (the previous record was 8 by Philip Kuba in 2008). The streak is also the longest point streak ever recorded in franchise history for a defenseman. Liles finished the month of October with 11 total points, all of them assists.

On October 26th, Peter Budaj was scheduled to start the game, his second of the season. During the pre-game skate, Craig Anderson was in net, doing a drill that the backup goaltender always does when he hurt his knee. As a result, the Avs had no backup goaltender for this game. The league rule in the event of an injury to Budaj would have meant another one of the Avs players on the bench would have had to step in to the net. Fortunately, Budaj was not hurt during the game (what bad luck would that have been!), but that didn't stop the fans from wondering who would have stepped in to the net. After the game, Joe Sacco admitted he had no idea who would have done it, as in the past it would have been Brett Clark.

Anderson flew back to Colorado the next day to have further assessment done on his knee. Anyone who saw the video of Anderson's injury was concerned as he left the ice immediately and didn't put any weight on his knee. The Avs were forced to call up a goaltender from Lake Erie and they went with John Grahame as the coaching staff there felt he was deserving of the call-up. The news on Anderson's knee was that it was not a serious injury and he wouldn't need surgery to fix it, but gave no specific time table as to when he might be ready to return. Peter Budaj is supposed to get the bulk of the games while Anderson is out and had his best showing of the season against Columbus on Saturday. Anderson was able to briefly skate sans equipment prior to the Avs practice session on Monday, a good sign.

The other bad news for the Avs was a series of head injuries to players. With Peter Mueller already out indefinitely with a concussion suffered during the preseason, the team also lost Captain Adam Foote to a concussion. Scott Hannan also suffered a head injury, but quickly was able to return. As if that was not enough, on October 30th defenseman Kyle Cumiskey also suffered a concussion. The Avs say Cumiskey's concussion is not too serious and that he is feeling better than he was on Saturday. The Avs have 6 healthy defensemen with Foote and Cumiskey out and may have to call someone else up from Lake Erie in the meantime.

There were definitely some concerns about the Avs special teams as the power play has allowed 4 shorthanded goals against in 11 games. It seemed for a while that they were incapable of scoring on the power play, but eventually they seem to have started putting pucks in the net. The penalty kill however, is one of the worst in the league at only 73.9%. The good news is it's still early in the season, so there's time to fix things and no need to panic yet. The defense has also been quite shaky at times, but consistency can be difficult with injuries. The Avs might have to think about making a trade to get a more solid, larger defenseman down the line though as they have three small defenseman in Liles, Cumiskey and Jonas Holos.

Only one month into the NHL season the Avs have had a lot of things happening and there's still a long way to go. The series of concussions is concerning and there's no certainty as to when Mueller, Foote or Cumiskey will return. Perhaps something will need to change, whether it's switching the whole team to the special helmets that Peter Mueller was supposed to get that helps protect against concussions or something else, it's hard to say. Hopefully the positive things that started the season for the Avs will continue as well. It would be great to see Chris Stewart remain among the league leaders in points throughout the season. The good news is despite everything that has happened, the Avs are on top of their division early in the season and they're not having trouble with scoring as they are second in the league with goals scored behind Chicago.