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Canada road trip a homecoming for nine Avalanche players

Almost two full lines on the Avs will return to their home country on a five-game, 10-day road trip to the Great White North.
Credit: Kevin Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports
Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon (29) skates with the puck against Buffalo Sabres goaltender Carter Hutton (40) during the third period at KeyBank Center. (Photo: Kevin Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports).

The Colorado Avalanche begin a 10-day, five-game trip tomorrow night which will be a homecoming trip for a lot of them. Nine players, including Nathan MacKinnon are from Canada.

"I'm from Eastern Canada so I grew up watching all of these teams," said MacKinnon. "It's cool for sure, I like going everywhere to play hockey it's a lot of fun there's a lot of great cities and great rinks."

"It's always fun to go to Canada," said Gabriel Bourque who was also born north of the border. "It's a tough trip and there's a lot of good teams we are going to play there so it's going to be fun but it's going to be a serious trip."

Even the players from elsewhere seem to have some kind of connection to Canada.

"My wife is from Toronto so it's always a fun road trip," said captain Gabe Landeskog. "It's a good time for us to get together as a team and start winning some hockey games."

The Avalanche have only won one of their last seven so maybe this road trip will be a good thing, and according to head coach Jared Bednar it's certainly a great opportunity. 

"Lets face it we really didn't answer the bell at home against teams that are below us in the standings so now we're forced to go on the road and win against teams that are above us in the standings."

Perhaps the Avalanche will move above them all again after the road trip is over if they can right what's been wrong.

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