“I couldn’t do things I could usually do.”īut he turned a corner late in the summer and looked like a Calder Trophy contender early in the season, tallying three goals and eight points in the first 11 games of the season. “The way I describe it is I didn’t feel like myself,” he said earlier this year. He battled their lingering effects and vertigo well into the offseason and didn’t feel like himself while with his skating group in Vancouver. Byram knew that from his first NHL season, which saw him suffer two concussions that were likely made worse because of a bout with COVID-19. “Lots of challenges for Bo over the last couple years with his health, mainly, and getting his play to a level where he can be a difference-maker in the NHL,” said coach Jared Bednar earlier these playoffs, emphasizing how proud he is of his young defenseman’s perseverance.Ĭoncussion recovery doesn’t always move in a straight line. He played only seven of Colorado’s next 57 games. As he did, Vancouver captain Bo Horvat’s right elbow clipped him in the head, sending the 20-year-old to the dressing room.īowen Bryam (Isaiah J. The elbow came flying, and just like that, all the progress vanished.īyram was battling for a puck along the boards in November. They are two key cogs for an Avalanche team hoping to win the Stanley Cup, and each is playing their best hockey of the season at the most important time. These playoffs have said a lot about both defensemen, for reasons similar and different. But the rookie also knows what it means to endure tough circumstances, to wonder if his health would ever fully recover.
Bowen Byram is 20 and the youngest player to have appeared in an Avalanche game this season. Johnson’s defensive partner is on the other end of the spectrum. Now 34 and in his 12th season with the Avalanche, Johnson is the longest-tenured Denver athlete on any of the city’s four major sports teams, edging out Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon, who also played his first Colorado games in 2011.
“To be able to be in the Western finals and have a big impact is a pretty good feeling.” “I had doubts about whether I would play again,” said the veteran, who missed all but four games in the 2020-21 season, primarily because of a concussion. Considering where he was at this time last year, he thought, it’s been as drastic a turnaround as he could have hoped for. In the days after Colorado clinched a spot in the Western Conference final, Erik Johnson took moments to look back, to soak in an accomplishment without losing sight of the bigger goal ahead.
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