The NHL’s 2020–21 coro­n­avirus-altered, reg­u­lar-sea­son sched­ule is far from ide­al. But it is enticing.

Amer­i­can teams will not face 24 NHL clubs and Cana­di­an fran­chis­es won’t play 25. The Avalanche and the West Division’s sev­en oth­er teams won’t face an Orig­i­nal Six oppo­nent. And make no mis­take, play­ing the Black­hawks, Red Wings, Bru­ins, Rangers, Maple Leafs and Cana­di­ens is always special.

But the NHL’s tem­po­rary move to all inter-divi­sion games in small series for the reg­u­lar sea­son is bound to add some Orig­i­nal Six anger to the mix. The league grew from six teams that hat­ed each oth­er, forg­ing rival­ries that still exist to this day.

The same-oppo­nent rep­e­ti­tion breeds emo­tion, and feed­ing that emo­tion in a small series is what the NHL nor­mal­ly lacks. Yes, the NHL has its sev­en-game play­off series, but only 16 teams get to that point. Reg­u­lar-sea­son series of any length should become a sta­ple of the game.

NCAA hock­ey and many junior leagues play week­end series against the same team. The NHL’s feed­er league, the Amer­i­can Hock­ey League, often does, too. What hap­pens the first night often car­ries over to the next. And the phys­i­cal nature of the game breeds contempt.

I’ve cov­ered enough Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver-Col­orado Col­lege or DU-vs.-North Dako­ta series to become an expert on what guar­an­teed the­atrics look like. In 1997 I cov­ered a DU-CC series that saw the Tigers win the chip­py open­er 9–1 at the Air Force Acad­e­my. The Pio­neers won the finale 6–0 in anoth­er chip­py affair the fol­low­ing night at Den­ver Coliseum.

It was an emo­tion­al week­end. CC couldn’t pre­vent the beat down it had just deliv­ered, even though the Tigers knew exact­ly what to expect from the angry Pios in Denver.

Expect to see that reg­u­lar-sea­son dra­ma fre­quent­ly with the Avs this sea­son, with or with­out fans. Expect it to begin Jan. 13 when Col­orado kicks off against St. Louis at Ball Are­na. The Blues will remain in town and play the Avs on Jan. 15 to com­plete the series.

It should play out in three stretch­es where Col­orado plays the same oppo­nent four straight times: Jan. 30-Feb. 4 vs. Min­neso­ta; Feb. 14–22 vs. Vegas; April 30-May 5 vs. San Jose. The Avs have nev­er played a team four con­sec­u­tive times in a reg­u­lar season.

Their entire sched­ule fea­tures eight games against each of the West Divi­sion oppo­nents: Ana­heim, Ari­zona, Los Ange­les, Min­neso­ta, St. Louis, San Jose and Vegas. All but two games will be part of a two-game series; the Avs’ have a stand-alone game April 3 at St. Louis and April 20 against the Blues at Ball Arena.

The rep­e­ti­tious sched­ule may seem monot­o­nous to some. But this is how good rival­ries begin.

Team Cana­da. The Black­hawks’ Kir­by Dach remains cap­tain for Cana­da at the World Junior Cham­pi­onship in Edmon­ton, but the Avalanche’s Bo Byram wore the “C” in Saturday’s open­er against Ger­many at Rex­all Place. Byram and Buf­fa­lo Sabres prospect Dylan Coz­ens will alter­nate wear­ing the C in replac­ing Dach, who broke his wrist in Canada’s exhi­bi­tion game.

Under Inter­na­tion­al Ice Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion rules, one play­er must wear the “C” at the under-20 tournament.

The Avalanche, which has an NHL-lead­ing three draft picks play­ing for Cana­da, the defend­ing gold-medal win­ner, was well rep­re­sent­ed in Saturday’s start­ing line­up. Boston College’s Alex Newhook (select­ed 16th over­all by Col­orado in the 2019 draft) took the open­ing draw as Canada’s top-line cen­ter. In addi­tion, defense­man Justin Bar­ron (25th over­all in 2020) was a pri­ma­ry penal­ty killer for Canada.