Francouz, Avalanche shut out Blackhawks for 16th straight home win

This morning, Colorado Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said that he thought the team’s play has dipped a bit lately due to fatigue, which makes sense given the Avalanche are in the middle of an extremely condensed schedule ahead of next week’s All-Star break.

In an attempt to remedy the issue, Bednar and his staff gave the team a day off yesterday ahead of welcoming in Central Division rival, Chicago Blackhawks. The idea was a simple one; get the group some rest and trust that once they have their legs back a lot of those sloppy mistakes we’ve seen them make in the last week or so will clean themselves up, and while it wasn’t totally perfect for 60 minutes for Colorado’s skaters, it was a really solid performance from a systematic standpoint, and then it actually was perfect for the Avs’ in net as they shutout the Chicago Blackhawks 2-0 Monday night at Ball Arena.

As nice as it would have been for the Avs to come out flying, fill the net, and coast to a victory, when Marc-Andre Fleury suits up in net against the Avalanche it’s pretty safe to assume goals will be hard to come by for Nathan MacKinnon and Co.

The reigning Vezina Trophy winner has really set a precedent of playing particularly well against the Avalanche when he moved west as a member of the expansion Vegas Golden Knights in 2017.  Tonight was no different.

The first period was an entertaining back and forth, wide-open 20 minutes that saw both teams trade chances. You got a little nervous because we saw a lot of the same issues that plagued Colorado two nights ago when they hosted the Montreal Canadiens. Generating a lot of quality offensive zone looks, but were just bleeding high-danger chances, and odd-man rushes going the other way.

Luckily for the Avs, Pavel Francouz was sharp early on, and was able to match Fleury save-for-save to keep the game scoreless.

With exactly 20 seconds remaining in the opening frame Blackhawks forward Brandon Hagel tripped up Mikko Rantanen, and the Avalanche were heading to the Power Play. 

Colorado got a quick look right near the buzzer, but ultimately took the man-advantage into there intermission.

So it’s zeros across the board as the first period ended, and similarly to the other night against the Canadiens, you had to give Chicago credit, they were paying really well, and skating hard. The Avalanche needed to find another gear, we have seen them do it numerous times this season. When they decide it’s time to slam the door on a team, they typically have the ability to do so.

While the 1:40 of carry-over power play time didn’t yield any results, you could see that it gave the Avs some energy. They were able to spend some time with the puck on their sticks, and their legs really started moving, and the puck started getting snapped around.

If it wasn’t for Fleury, the Avs really could’ve pulled away in the middle frame. He made several huge saves with shots coming from right in that home plate area we talk about all the time.

It’s wasn’t that Chicago started playing poorly, the Avalanche really just started putting that pressure on that we’ve seen suffocate teams at times this season. You knew if they just kept pushing, something would just HAVE to give.

Then just over half way through the period, it was Chicago defenseman Seth Jones that took an interference penalty and gave the Avs another shot on the power play.

More good looks for the Avs, and Fleury was doing everything he could despite his team clearly being on their heels. This Avs team just comes at you in waves when they’re feeling it, and it was a Nazem Kadri (of course) who finally broke through with a one-timer from the slot and got the game’s first goal.

That goal seemed to wake up the Blackhawks, and they were able to push back a bit for the last few minutes of the middle frame, but the guy I probably haven’t given anywhere near enough love to in this piece so far was there to answer the bell.

Francouz had played exceptional for the Avalanche to this point. He was looking down at the other end seeing what the goaltender down there was doing for his team, and seemed to understand that he needed to be just as good for his team to stay in control of the game.

Let’s pause on Colorado’s goaltending for a second. For so much of this season so far, we’ve seen the Avs get away with goaltending that has more or less ranged from slightly below average to slightly above average and still win games. They’ve gotten away with it because the offense had been on another level, but over the last week to 10 days or so, the script has been flipped. 

Back-to-back road games in California saw the Avalanche need Herculean efforts from both netminders to pull out all four points, and they got it. Even before that, Darcy Kuemper recorded the first shutout of the season for the Avs against his former club in the Arizona Coyotes, and according to Gabe Landeskog, Kuemper stole the game just two nights ago as well.

Kuemper is looking like a goalie that’s worth a first-round pick and a blue-chip prospect and Francouz is reminding folks that he was the Avs’ best goalie statistically just two seasons ago.

Back to tonight, you’ve got the lead heading into the third, your goalie is playing exceptionally, and the Avs looked like they had their legs (unlike their last three outings), but would they be able to close out a hungry-looking Blackhawks team?

This third period was classic Jared-Bednar-led Colorado Avalanche hockey. They didn’t sacrifice offense for defense, nor did they sacrifice defense to attempt to generate offense. 

Chicago had an early third-period push, but nothing that felt threatening, and when it did, Francouz was there to calm things down. 

They were playing well, not giving up much, but you hate to let teams hang around in one-goal games. 

If you listen to the DNVR Avalanche Podcast, you’ve likely heard us argue about “timely goals”, and what exactly makes one goal more important than another, because they all count the same.

In my opinion, this was a perfect example of the Avs needing a timely goal. They had the lead, they were playing well in their own end, and Frankie was locking things down in net, you didn’t need one, but man oh man would that bit of breathing room be nice, and take the wind out of Chicago’s sails.

They got one as Mikko Rantanen delivered with a brilliant play to out-wait Marc-Andre Fleury just over six minutes into the third period, and more or less put this one away as the Avs just continued to ramp up their play in the defensive end and just stifle any opportunities that the Blackhawks tried to create.

Francouz would go on to complete the shutout, making a number of rock-solid saves, and gave up virtually nothing in terms of rebounds. 

Pavel Francouz now has two shutouts in his last two starts, and he gave his team an opportunity to settle into their game tonight when they maybe didn’t have the start they wanted defensively.

I talked recently about how it seems like every single night, the Avs’ opponent is bringing their absolute best. Every team looks like they what to be the ones to knock off the Avs and end what has now been extended to a 16-game home winning streak. They’ve got a target on their back, and so far, they’ve risen to the occasion. Obviously, they will eventually lose again, but not tonight.

Jared Bednar said after the last game how impressed he was with the standard the team had set for itself, that they weren’t happy with how they had played recently, despite continuing to win games. I was anxious to see what type of game we would get from them tonight after hearing that, and I thought they responded with a really solid game where the team looked like they were getting back to the basics of what has made them so successful this season.

They’ll have another team coming in looking to be the ones to end the streak, as the Boston Bruins come to town for a later-than-normal 8 pm start, it’ll be another good test for the Avs, we’ll see if they’re up to it again.