All statistics and standings as of Jan. 28.
With All-Star Weekends on the horizon and dozens of regular season games in the rearview, the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets are both well into their 2023-24 campaigns. The Ball Arena tenants, each fresh off of recent league championships, deserve a mid-season evaluation as they look to bring home another title to Denver.
Colorado Avalanche: 31-14-3, 1st in Central Division, 2nd in Western Conference
Nathan MacKinnon has been leading the charge for the Avs this season, totaling 31 goals and 53 assists for 84 points. This is good enough not only for the most points on Colorado, but also second in the entire league, narrowly trailing Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov (85 points).
Superstars Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen and Valeri Nichushkin have been producing as expected, while free agent and reclamation project Jonathan Drouin has begun to realize his potential, recording 20 points in his last 21 games.
Key injuries to Arturri Lehkonen and captain Gabriel Landeskog have made the Avs’ second line their biggest question mark. However, the “Roaring Twenties” line of Miles Wood, Ross Colton and DU alumnus Logan O’Connor, who scored a hat trick in his outing against Philadelphia on Jan. 20, has stepped up, each player on pace for a career year.
Criticism has befallen goaltender Alexandar Georgiev, who despite winning 27 games has a disappointing 0.899 save percentage. Regardless, he will join MacKinnon and Makar in Toronto for his first All-Star weekend, bringing a much-needed break for the rest of the team.
Denver Nuggets: 32-15, 3rd in Northwest Division, 4th in Western Conference
The Nuggets have experienced a season full of ups and downs. After winning eight of their first nine matchups, they dropped five of their next seven. They started out their In-Season Tournament campaign with two wins, before losing their next two and failing to qualify for the elimination rounds.
Despite this, it has been the consistently fantastic play of reigning Finals MVP Nikola Jokic that has kept Denver near the top of the standings. He’s averaging a near-triple double for the second season in a row, recording 26.3 points, 12 rebounds and 8.9 assists per game.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon have been pulling their weight in starting roles. Meanwhile, veteran Reggie Jackson, rookie Julian Strawther and second-year players Peyton Watson and Christian Braun provide consistent support from the bench.
Jamal Murray, despite scoring more points per game than his career average, has recently caught flak for an inexplicable lack of the clutch factor that defined him during the 2020 and 2023 playoffs. He’s averaging almost six fewer points than he was last postseason, by far the largest deficit of any of the starting five. However, Murray’s reputation as a playoff performer has most Nuggets fans confident that he will once again show up when it matters.
Jokic will attend his sixth straight All-Star Game as Denver’s only representative, while the rest of the team will get to resting and preparing for their upcoming title defense.
