Girard Surpasses 100 Career Points

Samuel Girard has been given more responsibilities this season, and he has displayed why he has the trust of head coach Jared Bednar.
The defenseman logged the second-most minutes in the game and hit a milestone on Saturday. He recorded his 100th NHL point and added point No. 101 later in the outing with assists on both of Mikko Rantanen's goals as the Avs fell 5-4 in overtime to the Anaheim Ducks at Ball Arena.
Girard is the 10th player from the 2016 draft class to reach the century mark and is the third blueliner. Selected by the Nashville Predators with the 47th overall pick, he is in his fourth campaign in the league and has collected 16 goals and 85 assists through 245 games.

Colorado acquired the Roberval, Quebec, native on Nov. 5, 2017 from Nashville, and he had played in every Avalanche regular-season game from there on out until his ironman streak was snapped at 231 contests on Feb. 14 when he missed two outings with a COVID protocol-related absence. His streak was the second longest ever by an Avs defensemen.
Girard leads Colorado rear guards with 17 points (four goals, 13 assists) this season, which ranks tied for third overall among all Colorado skaters. He is also averaging 22:56 of ice time a game, the third-most on the squad.

With injuries to fellow D-men Erik Johnson and Cale Makar, Girard has been relied on heavily in all situations recently and has averaged 25:52 in the past five outings since both have been on the team's injured list.
In his first three years with the Avalanche he spent the majority of his time on a defensive pairing with Johnson, but this year he has skated on many different duos, on both the left and right sides, and has shown his versatility along the blue line.
At just 22 years old, Girard has the most NHL games to his name on Colorado's blue line right now, playing over 100 more than the next closest defender, Devon Toews (135). Along with Girard and Toews, Ryan Graves is the only other D-man on the Avs' current roster who has skated in more than 100 NHL games (116).
Conor Timmins, Jacob MacDonald and Dan Renouf are the other three rear guards that played on Saturday, and that trio has 18, 11 and five games under their belts, respectively.
With usual alternate captains Johnson and Nathan MacKinnon out, Bednar has given a visual representation of Girard's leadership and his experience by putting an 'A' on his sweater as an alternate captain.
"I think all of the returning D with G, Toews and Graves, they've played some big minutes and they are playing great hockey, and I think they have helped me, [MacDonald] and [Timmins] kind of figure it out and kind of give us some confidence," Renouf said recently. "I think they have been amazing, and I think their play has been great and they've also been good leaders to guys like us."

BANGED UP AVS

The Avalanche training room got even busier on Saturday as J.T. Compher missed his first game of the season with an upper-body injury. He joined forwards Matt Calvert and Nathan MacKinnon, defensemen Bowen Byram, Dennis Gilbert, Erik Johnson and Cale Makar, and goaltender Pavel Francouz on Colorado's injured list.
Head coach Jared Bednar noted postgame that when Compher came to the rink on Saturday he wasn't feeling well so he did not dress for the contest, and the bench boss did not have a further update on the center.

Bednar did say that MacKinnon (upper body) seems to be feeling better and is expected to skate on Sunday after taking a high hit on Wednesday at the San Jose Sharks. Rookie defenseman Byram (upper body0 should be on the ice with MacKinnon while Calvert is questionable to practice, but Bednar noted that he believes that Calvert will skate.
Second-year blueliner Cale Makar is not expected to take the ice on Sunday while Bednar did not have updates on Gilbert, Johnson or Francouz.

OTHER AVALANCHE NOTES

The Avs finished 1-for-3 on the power play and have scored a goal with the man advantage in six of their last seven contests, going 6-for-24 (25 percent) in that span.
Colorado wrapped up its fourth back-to-back set of the season and first of three scheduled consecutive-night sets on home ice. Colorado is 2-0-2 in the second contest of such sets.
The Avs scored two goals in a 24-second span of the third period, the fastest two goals the club has tallied this season.
Mikko Rantanen scored two goals, his second multi-goal performance in his last three outings. His first tally came on the power play and was his team-best fifth man-advantage marker. He leads the team with 12 goals and 24 points this season and has six points (four goals, two assists) in his last three contests.
Logan O'Connor scored his third goal of the season, eclipsing his career-best two tallies he produced in 2019-20.
Valeri Nichushkin notched an assist and has points in consecutive games for the first time this season.
Brandon Saad scored his eighth goal of the campaign and has four points (two goals, two assists) in his last two games. His eight goals rank second on the team and have all come at even strength.
Nazem Kadri finished with two assists and has registered five points (five assists) in his last four games and nine points (two goals, seven assists) over his last seven outings.