Colorado Avalanche Place Star Defenseman On IR

The injury bug is continuing to hit the Colorado Avalanche. The team has now placed star defenseman Cale Makar on IR due to an upper-body injury. With this, he will be out of action for Colorado's next two games at a minimum, as he is unable to play for at least one week.

Cale Makar Placed on Injured Reserve https://t.co/4jumYgaKXJ
— Adrian Dater (@adater) November 3, 2021

This has been such a hard start for the Avalanche. Besides Makar, Mikko Rantanen, Andre Burakovsky, Devon Toews, Valeri Nichushkin and Pavel Francouz are all injured at this time, too. All of this is a huge reason why the Avalanche sport an underwhelming 4-4-0 record. Nathan MacKinnon also missed the first few games of the year as well being in protocol.

Now that the Avalanche are without their best defenseman, they could be in for even more trouble. Although the Columbus Blue Jackets didn't have high expectations heading into the season, they are off to a solid 5-3-0 start. Thus, they shouldn't be viewed as a walk in the park these next two games.

In eight games this season, Makar has two goals and six points. He also has a -8 rating, which is certainly unlike him. However, once he and the rest of the Avalanche return, he should have no trouble getting that stat up. Here's to hoping this turns out to be a short term injury and he doesn't ended up moved to the LTIR.