Avalanche forward knocked out of the entire first round!

The Colorado Avalanche have suffered a big blow on the first day of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

In an official announcement, the Avalanche have announced that forward Jonathan Drouin will miss significant time due to a lower body injury. The Avalanche have not provided a specific timeline for how long Drouin will be out, but they have ruled him out of the entire first round of the playoffs which suggests this is fairly serious.

This will be an especially frustrating situation for the Avalanche when you consider the context of how Drouin was injured. During the final game of the regular season, a game in which the Edmonton Oilers had several of their players resting on the sidelines, Drouin would suffer an injury in the second period and would not return to the game.

This has proved to be a costly decision for the Avalanche, and you have to wonder how it might impact their first round playoff series against a very tough opponent in the Winnipeg Jets.

Although Drouin was much maligned after somewhat of an ugly tenure with the Montreal Canadiens, he had found his game again this season with the Avalanche after posting 19 goals and 37 assists for a total of 56 points over 79 regular season games. Any hope Drouin had of showing that he can replicate that success in the playoffs may have been dashed by this injury however.