The way the Avalanche have turned things around this season should be a big encouragement to Canucks fans, as the two teams share a lot of similarities. Most importantly, there are reasons to believe that their turnaround is legitimate, as their underlying numbers have improved as much as their record.
The Avalanche recently rattled off a ten-game winning streak, moving them into playoff contention, largely because Nathan Mackinnon is playing like a Hart-trophy finalist and is second in the NHL in points.
So it was bad news for the Avalanche and their fans when MacKinnon left the game clutching his left shoulder after a collision with Alex Edler. Then they lost to the 28th-place Canucks, giving them three straight losses.
I may have watched Colorado’s playoff dreams die when I watched this game.
- Edler doesn’t throw many huge hits, but he’s become adept at anticipating an oncoming hit and throwing a reverse hit, initiating contact instead of just taking it. MacKinnon came in looking for a body check, and Edler caught him off-guard by driving his shoulder back into him. Because he doesn’t always play that way, it’s easy to forget that Edler is big: he’s 6’3” and 214 lbs. That’s a lot of Swede.
- Bo Horvat has been back for a few games since returning from his fractured foot, but he didn’t really feel back until six-and-a-half minutes into the first period of this game, when he took a puck that Thomas Vanek chipped out into the neutral zone, left rookie defenceman Samuel Girard in his dust (or ice chips? What’s the dust-equivalent for ice?) with a few powerful strides, then fired a snap shot past Jonathan Bernier’s blocker.
- Remember when the big concern with Horvat was his skating? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
- Five minutes later, the much-maligned Michael Del Zotto made it 2-0 with a long wrist shot from the point that Bernier never picked up. Jake Virtanen deserves a lot of credit for his work along the boards to move the puck up to the point; he had a great first period and actually played more than Brock Boeser and the Sedins in the opening frame, which isn’t ideal, but suggests that Travis Green liked what he saw.
- Unfortunately, Green didn’t like what he saw on Colorado’s second goal. There was blame to go around on the goal, but Virtanen ended up lost in the middle of it all, not knowing who to take or where to go. It’s those details that Green emphasizes and Virtanen ended up benched, skating just one more shift in the second period and a handful in the third. With the way Virtanen was playing up until that point, maybe Green, like a guy making cutoff shorts, should have cut him some slack(s).
- Colorado’s first goal was an odd one, as Erik Johnson’s shot changed direction off of Chris Tanev and caught Markstrom leaning the wrong way. He had to lunge back to make the save and ended up down and out as J.T. Compher cleaned up the rebound. Sometimes it looks like Markstrom (and other NHL goaltenders) are too focused on swallowing pucks up in their crest, sliding their whole body across to make saves instead of keeping more central and being content to control the direction of rebounds with a blocker or pad. I see a lot of goaltenders seem to slide their way out of position on deflected shots. Just a thought.
- I’m not sure why, but my belief that “maybe passing to Boeser isn’t always the right play” is somehow controversial. On a 2-on-1 in the first period, Daniel chose to make a drop pass to the trailing Alex Biega instead of passing to Boeser, but mainly because Erik Johnson was playing the pass the whole way, likely because he watched the All-Star Skills Competition and Game. Daniel could have tried to thread the pass through, but it’s pretty understandable that he made a different play.
- Here’s the thing: the players know that Boeser has the best shot on the team and one of the best in the NHL. This is not news to them. Daniel Sedin knows that Boeser has 24 goals this season and Biega has one goal in his entire career. I’m trying to make a concerted effort towards not just saying what I think a player should have done, but also trying to figure out why a player did what he did.
- In that particular instance, Daniel had to weigh two different options — a low-percentage pass to Boeser, who has a high-percentage finish, and a high-percentage pass pass to Biega, who has a low-percentage finish — and choose between them in a matter of seconds. He also had a third option — shoot the puck — but we’re talking about a Sedin. That was never an option.
- When a defenceman plays as much as Alex Edler did in this game, he’s bound to make mistakes. Edler played just over 28 minutes, including 10:37 in the third period, and had a couple bad giveaways to go with his overall strong play. The first led to Colorado’s second goal, while the second led to him taking a hooking penalty on Mikko Rantanen to prevent a great scoring chance. The giveaways were like the cat attack scene in Let the Right One In, puncturing the otherwise excellent with the truly terrible.
- I feel like I’ve said this a few times this season: despite the three goals against, Markstrom played pretty well. He made a fantastic save on Landeskog at the back door on the power play, stretching across with his right pad after the puck hit Landeskog’s skate. Unfortunately, the rebound went right back to Landeskog and he chipped it in.
- I thought Del Zotto had a strong game, but I didn’t like how passive he was on that penalty kill. On the goal, he was mostly static in front of the net, not doing enough to disrupt passing and shooting lanes and, as Landeskog put in the rebound, he let Tyson Jost slip by him to the net. Those are little things, but like U2 say, it’s the little things that give you away.
- Last game, Alex Biega took a delay of game penalty when he cleared the puck over the glass while the Sabres had a delayed penalty. I thought that would be the worst delay of game penalty I’d ever see, but Gabriel Bourque topped him by clearing the puck over the glass as the horn sounded for the end of the second period. If he had second-guessed himself for even a moment, he would have been fine, but he confidently spun and flung the puck over the glass for a penalty.
- Edler made up for his cat-attack giveaways in the third period with a fantastic play on the 3-3 goal. At the end of a 5-on-3 power play, Edler reached out like Jose Fernandez and snagged a Patrik Nemeth clearing attempt, dropped the puck to his stick and gave it to Boeser. Carl Soderberg looked up, saw who had the puck, and panicked, charging out at Boeser to prevent him from sniping top corner, but Boeser calmly fed the puck to Henrik Sedin who set up his brother in front for the finish.
- Sven Baertschi must have watched Boeser on All Star Weekend and been inspired, because his overtime laser into the top corner was positively Boeserian. There was no flutter to the puck at all, as Baertschi put everything he had into the shot, ripping it upstairs like a girl about to go on a date who buys into outdated social mores about not farting in front of guys.
- Baertschi saluted after the goal, which I initially thought might be a nod to the classic Jagr salute, since Jaromir Jagr retired this week, but was actually a (literal) salute to the members of the military in the crowd on Canadian Armed Forces Appreciation Night.
