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As the Colorado Avalanche continue to battle the injury bug early on in the 2024-25 NHL season, the team is making a couple of changes ahead of a 2022 Stanley Cup Final rematch with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Kaapo Kahkonen will make his first start as a member of the Avalanche; the 28-year-old was re-called from a conditioning stint in the American Hockey League and will play his first regular-season game since April 13.
As well, offseason addition Oliver Kylington — a natural defenseman — will play forward on Wednesday night. Miles Wood will miss the contest after being added to the injury list, head coach Jared Bednar confirmed on Altitude Radio. Daily Faceoff projects Kylington playing on the fourth line along with Chris Wager and Matthew Stienburg.
The Avs came into the season riddled with injuries, and things have only gotten worse. Artturi Lehkonen, Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin were all unavailable when the campaign started, and they've been joined on the injured list during the season by Jonathan Drouin, Ross Colton and now Wood.
Drouin was placed on injured reserve with an upper-body injury earlier in the week, while Colton blocked a shot and is expected to miss an extended period of time with a foot injury.
Despite the ailments, the Avalanche have been surging over the last week and a half after a difficult start to the campaign.
Avalanche are back to relevance in the Central Division
Colorado began the season with four consecutive losses, allowing a stunning 25 goals in that span. But the squad has started to come around as of late; the Avalanche went on a five-game heater between October 18-27 that got them back above .500.
But a discouraging 5-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday night knocked the Avs back to 5-5.
Although Justus Annunen has been great between the pipes as of late — winning each of his last four starts — Bednar will turn to Kahkonen for the first time this year. The Finnish netminder was claimed off waivers from the Winnipeg Jets earlier this season.
Kahkonen made two conditioning stint appearances with the AHL's Colorado Eagles, posting a 2.57 goals-against average and .919 save percentage but suffering back-to-back losses. He'll look for better fortune in his first NHL start of 2024-25.
Kylington has appeared in two games for Colorado this season, playing to a -2 rating while seeing just over 17 minutes of time on ice. He likely won't play nearly that much as a forward on Wednesday night. The Swede signed a one-year contract with the Avalanche at a cap hit of $1.05 million after nine years within the Calgary Flames organization.
With five wins in six tries, the Avalanche are back to relevance in the Central Division, currently sitting fourth place and six points back of the first-place Jets.
They'll look to make up some of that ground against Nikita Kucherov and the Lightning at Ball Arena; puck drops just past 9:00 p.m. ET in Denver.
