Devon Toews didn’t get off to the best start this season. While his game has picked up over the past week, the Avalanche’s top-pair blueliner, who scored his first goal of the season on Monday, revealed that he’s been dealing with a nagging lower-body injury since training camp.
“It’s not something that’s going to go away anytime soon,” Toews told Colorado Hockey Now’s Colleen Flynn. “It’s just something I gotta deal with.”
Toews missed four games in October because of the injury but has since returned. His ice time has remained steady in his 12 games, playing more than 20 minutes each time. His average ice time is only 48 seconds lower than in 2023-24.
“It doesn’t come and go, it’s just been there,” he said. “At the end of training camp, something happened and just randomly felt it. Then kind of built up for the first couple games of the season, felt worse, had to back it off, and then just trying to manage it from here on out.”
Toews’ goal was crucial in helping Colorado to a 3-2 overtime victory over the Nashville Predators. The Avs were trailing 1-0 at the time and ended up scoring again to take a 2-1 lead.
The teams later ended up in overtime where fellow defenseman Samuel Girard scored on the breakaway to also get his first goal this year.
“It’s nice to win hockey games. I’m just trying to contribute as best as I can right now,” Toews said. “Days off, when we get them are great, but they’re hard to come by. The schedule gets pretty compacted here with games and trying to take off days in between. But just trying to manage as best we can.”
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Colorado had an optional skate on Tuesday and Toews did not partake. Head coach Jared Bednar often allows his top skaters the ability to stick with off-ice training on practice days. Especially when the Avs play every other day like they do for the rest of the week. Colorado hosts the L.A. Kings on Wednesday and the Washington Capitals on Friday.
Bednar was first to reveal Toews’ injury, referencing it when asked about the 30-year-old’s play following Monday’s triumph.
“In defense of Taser, he hasn’t felt healthy the whole year. He was dealing with something right out of training camp, and then he missed a bunch of time,” Bednar said. “He’s good enough to come back and play, but still not 100% so that has something to do with it for sure.”
So why not give Toews more time to recover?
“Taser at 80% is still better than lots of other players in the league. So you go with it, and you try to give him as much rest as you can,” Bednar said. “Now he’s working through that, through his health, and you can see his game start to come around. Your body has to feel good in order to play your best game and his just hasn’t. But now he’s starting to feel better and it’s showing in his game.”
This isn’t a new revelation for the Avs. Last season Cale Makar, who led all defensemen with 90 points, had to leave a game in November 2023 to get an X-ray. When asked about it after the game, Makar said it was a nagging issue he had been dealing with since the second game of the season. Makar also regularly doesn’t skate on optional practice days.
He found a way to adjust his play to accommodate the ailment and still be a factor. Toews is doing the same thing this year.
“I’m trying to be as sound as I can,” he said. “Sometimes I might not have the jump or the juice or feel the greatest, but I feel like my mind is still there and it should be there. And my IQ can help make plays and win hockey games. So just trying to find any way I can to contribute.”
The Avs have been one of the more injured teams this season. While injuries open opportunities for rookies to get a taste of NHL action, it could also lead to heavy minutes for the top stars.
Toews played 24:44 against Nashville. His usual partner at 5-on-5, Makar, played 27:45. The top line of Artturi Lehkonen, Nathan MacKinnon, and Mikko Rantanen averaged more than 24 minutes among the three of them.
“We’ve got lots of guys in here dealing with little things, nagging things,” Toews said. “So we’re all just trying to do our best to get in there, recover, get better, get stronger, get through it, and help each other out. We’re all out there battling together.”
Slow Starts
The Avs are 3-1-0 in their last four games since Lehkonen returned. Bednar said Monday night that the team is competing harder than they were to start the season. But the pattern of starting slow has reared its ugly head over the past week.
Colorado had bad starts in last Thursday’s 1-0 shutout loss to the Winnipeg Jets, Saturday’s 6-4 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes, and again on Monday.
They haven’t quite yet figured out why it’s happening. In each of the last two games, the Avalanche were able to successfully come from behind and earn two points at home.
“We’re a team that’s really good at making adjustments so we’re trying to find something right now in the first period,” Toews said. “We haven’t been able to find it yet so still searching.”