Colorado Avalanche to play defenseman at forward tonight: injury situation continues to worsen
The Colorado Avalanche are currently missing six of their top nine forwards, and now it's up to defenseman Oliver Kylington to fix their glaring issue.
This past off-season, Oliver Kylington signed a deal with the Colorado Avalanche, but there's absolutely no chance that he expected to be changing roles with the team this quickly. On Monday, the Avs announced that Miles Wood has suffered an injury, worsening their already dreadful injury situation, as he joins a group of Jonathan Drouin, Gabriel Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen, Ross Colton and Valeri Nichushkin on the sidelines, decimating their forward group.
With some depth in the organization, they've managed to stay afloat with a 5-5-0 record through their first 10 games, but now, Head Coach Jared Bednar has announced a shocking move to try and fix their issues up front.
According to reports, defenseman Kylington will now be playing up front against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and while he has the skillset of a forward, this will certainly be unfamiliar territory for the 27-year old. In his NHL career that dates back to 2016, Kylington has passed 30 points on just one occasion, and with no points recorded in two games with the team this season, this may be their way of getting him going as well.
Given the Avalanche's Stanley Cup dreams, this certainly isn't the way that they anticipated their season going, and with no timetable for a return on Landeskog, Drouin, Lehkonen and Nichushkin, it's an uncertain time in Colorado. With the production of Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Casey Mittelstadt, the team have managed to fight back from a poor start to hit .500 on the season, so if they get healthy, this will be a tough team to beat, but at this time, they simply can't catch a break.
