More bad news for the Colorado Avalanche. Youngster Paul Stastny was growing into a leader for this banged-up hockey team. Now, he's on the sidelines. Stastny suffered a broken arm during Tuesday's overtime win over Phoenix, and he will be sidelined indefinitely.
Avalanche beat writer Adrian Dater notes that broken forearms usually take between four and six weeks to come back from. The Avalanche are dreadfully thin at center, thanks to an earlier injury to Joe Sakic, who is out until February at the earliest thanks to an evil snowblower.
Dater points out that Tyler Arnason is now Colorado's top center, and says that once the NHL's holiday roster freeze ends Sunday morning, the Avalanche are likely to be movers.
Now the Avs are a team entering Christmas without its top two centers. Arnason was your second-line center tonight, and he came in with two goals in 30 games. One of the goals came in Dallas after Marty Turco muffed a play behind his net and watched Arnie take a feed from Ryan Smyth and shoot into a totally vacated net. The other goal came in garbage time of a home loss to Columbus.There isn't an easy answer to any of this, and therefore it's starting to look like it could be a lost season in Denver.
What are the Avs going to do? There will almost certainly be a trade of some kind, but how big remains to be seen.
