Wednesday: The Avalanche announced that Ahcan has been sent back to the Eagles. He played in two games while on recall, playing just shy of 24 minutes between the two games.
Sunday: The Colorado Avalanche announced today that defenseman Jack Ahcan has been recalled from the team’s AHL affiliate, the Colorado Eagles.
Veteran defenseman Josh Manson left last night’s game against the Vegas Golden Knights with an upper-body injury. His injury left the Avalanche with just five healthy defensemen on their NHL roster, as Cale Makar has been sidelined with an injury of his own. This recall brings the number of healthy blueliners the Avalanche have at their disposal to six.
Ahcan, 28, has already played in nine NHL games this season. He’s been one of the top offensive defensemen in the AHL this season. His 50 points in 60 games for the Eagles places him second in scoring by defensemen in the AHL, behind only Rochester Americans blueliner Zac Jones.
As a 5’8″ left-shot defenseman, he’s far from a one-to-one replacement for Manson, a 6’4″ right-shot blueliner. If they wanted to recall someone more stylistically similar to Manson, they could have recalled 6’3″ right-shot defenseman Ronnie Attard, who has played in 29 career NHL games.
Attard hasn’t played in the NHL since 2023-24 though. More importantly, the Avalanche don’t actually have a pressing need to recall someone that is a direct stylistic comparable to Manson. The Avalanche acquired blueliner Nick Blankenburg from the Nashville Predators at the deadline, a move that was designed to protect the team’s defensive depth in advance of what it hopes will be a long playoff run.
So far, the move has done exactly that: provided the Avalanche with an increased measure of flexibility in the face of injuries on its blueline. Yesterday, they played Blankenburg, who is a right shot, on the left side. Blankenburg has experience playing on both sides, a factor the team no doubt considered when they decided to acquire him.
Even still, the Avalanche have only two healthy lefties in their lineup at this point. By recalling Ahcan, the Avalanche can now shift Blankenburg back to his natural right side, and easily plug Ahcan onto the left side of one of their pairings.
At this stage, there is no word on the extent of Manson’s injury. Colorado has just three games remaining on their regular season schedule, and have already locked up the Presidents’ Trophy. The team has every reason to be patient with Manson’s recovery and has zero reason to rush him back into their lineup. As a result, it appears entirely possible Ahcan could get into these three final games of the season as a result of this recall, which would be a very positive development for him, as he’s just a few months from needing a new contract as an unrestricted free agent.
Avalanche would be wise to do what the Hurricanes are by sitting as many starters as possible.
@Gbear – I agree, but what if they want to set the new team record for points in a season? What does that buy them, other than bragging rights? I can only think of the downsides, like potential injuries. If they hadn’t slacked off on a few very winnable games earlier in the season we could be talking about hitting 136+, but that was frittered away, unfortunately. Many of the guys could definitely use the days off right now, as there have been times in recent days they seem fatigued, especially mentally. At 115 points right now, with six more available, would they want at least five to set the record? Or, just get mentally and physically prepared to (hopefully) kick the snot out of the 8th seed, and give them, as Darryl so aptly put it, “a waste of eight days.” Naturally, they could coast into the playoffs with six of six, and make this moot, as long as they know where the afterburner switch is in the cockpit come playoff time. Oh, and maybe we can pass the hat to find an impact-proof bucket for Coach Bednar to wear. 😀
@Mac – The Cup is the prize, no one will care about their record breaking regular season if they bow out early once again.
@Mac – I totally missed Bednar getting pucked in the head! Maybe Coach Carle can fill in now that Denver U. won the NCAA title again. 😄
@Gbear – I missed that incident too, initially, as I think I was still listening to the National Championship game, but there was a lot of channel bouncing that night. I switched to the Vegas interweb radio side, but I think it was only a quick mention by Dan, and well after the incident. I kind of hope DC stays put, as the teams that need a potential bench boss upgrade would be a downgrade for him in my eyes. The problem is the talking heads on various media outlets keep talking about him leaving as if it’s a fait accompli. By all accounts, he is the opposite of a taskmaster, and works hard to get the players to be the best versions of themselves as they can be. Selfishly, I’d like to see somebody like him stay put and try to get the all-time wins record. It’s a tall ask, to be sure. 👍🏻
As far as the Avs last three, they really need to be on their game to show the rest of the conference playoff teams that they’ll be a handful. Those last games *should* be wins, if they show up. Just don’t go crazy, thinking those games require playoff-level effort.
@Mac – Whatever the Avs do, don’t do what the Ducks are doing. I’ve never seen a Duck waddle backwards before, but they seem to be doing just that! 🦆
Teams do seem to take on the character of their HC, and David Carle teams, whether it be WJC or Denver U, never seem to panic.
@Gbear – I really love to listen to them during intermissions and postgame. Great personalities, that have the competitive drive you love to see and hear about.