To say the Colorado Avalanche are struggling would be an understatement. The team has been dead-last in the NHL for about a month now. They are far more likely to win the Nolan Patrick sweepstakes than a playoff spot.
The old cliche is that there’s still plenty of hockey ahead of the team — they’re just nearing the middle of their season. However, conventional wisdom states that standings don’t radically change after Thanksgiving — or maybe Christmas this year because of the delayed start. After that it’s just jockeying for position.
Now, as we saw last year, teams can drop out of the final Wild Card spot — Colorado did it.