Avs Game 48 Grades: Eichel Shmeichel

Jack Johnson – C+

He’s being asked to do maybe a little more than you’d ideally like him to with Bowen Byram out of the lineup, but I really do think his play has been trending upward lately and I liked his game for the most part tonight.

Erik Johnson – C-

I just want him to settle into his role. He’s still making too many little mistakes when trying to do things he used to do five years ago, and he just can’t make the play. Three times he reversed a breakout into coverage. EJ can be so good when he’s bought in and is making good decisions. He wasn’t bad but needs to clean it up.

Devon Toews – B-

He took the one penalty, but this is the exact type of game where Toews is (hopefully) gonna shine come playoff time. Eating hard minutes, killing penalties, playing on the power, protecting leads late in games, and he jumps up into the play so efficiently. Oh, and he had an assist on the first goal of the game. He and Makar were very good again tonight.

Cale Makar – B+

Everything I just said about Toews, but add one more assist. Makar made an absolutely bananas play at the blue line to keep the puck in before putting a puck right in Landy’s wheelhouse.

Val Nichshukin – C

I didn’t really notice him much tonight, but he had some solid underlying numbers tonight and I think he makes a big difference in this matchup in particular.

Nicolas Aubé-Kubel – C

Somewhat the same as what I just said about Nichushkin. Biggest difference is that his line got worked over pretty good tonight. If these teams meet up in the playoffs, you’re gonna want a little more out of a guy like NAK. The depth is gonna be the difference in this matchup, I’m not saying he needs to fill the net, but gotta give up less.

Tyson Jost – D+

Woooo boy. He got caved in tonight, analytically. A lot of the things I just said about NAK are also true of Jost, you just can’t get beat up like this against Vegas. Not gonna bury the guy for it because Darcy Kumper bailed them out, but can’t have many more like this as the games start to ramp up.

Alex Newhook – C

I don’t think Newhook has been bad recently, but there’s something that he’s either doing, or not doing recently. Didn’t even crack 10 minutes tonight. You want to see him be an x-factor for this team coming down the stretch.

Logan O’Connor – C+

He was a funny one tonight, he was part of the group that got beat up pretty good analytically, but I actually really liked LOC on the PK tonight. The Avs won the special teams battle, and O’Connor had a big role in that.

Nathan MacKinnon – B+

I thought he was absolutely electric tonight. He ended up with just one assist, but he looked dangerous from the opening puck drop. MacKinnon didn’t talk after the game in Denver, but you know he was up for this one. A lot of talk surrounding the return of Jack Eichel, and Nate looked like he was determined to remind everyone that uhhh.. he’s pretty freakin’ good too.

J.T. Compher – D

I said the Jost got caved in tonight, J.T. Compher had an even worse night. Generated very very little, and gave up a lot of chances. I’m gonna write it off to, he was distracted thinking about his sister playing in the gold medal game at the Olympics.

Darren Helm – C-

I gave him a slight bump over his line mates, because I thought he had the effort tonight, he didn’t generate much, but I thought he had good jump in his limited ice time.

Sam Girard – C

Thought he was fine, there were two plays in particular that I can remember that I thought were just phenomenal. Just small plays that probably go unnoticed, but have such huge implications on what make the Avs d-corps so good.

Kurtis MacDermid – C

MacDermid is an interesting one. He has gotten progressively better as the season has gone on, to the point that this coaching staff seems more comfortable playing him over Ryan Murray. He is no longer getting burned wide, and has found ways to be at the very least, completely neutral.

Name Kadri – C

I really didn’t like the second kine overall tonight. Given the year he’s been having, he definitely gets a pass for one off-is night.  One thing I thought he did well tonight was puck retrieval on the PP. He kept several plays alive by purely winning races.

Gabe Landeskog – A

He was so good tonight. Gabe Landeskog is at his best when he’s engaged physically, and is putting pucks to the net. He took a hard hit right at the end of the second, and you could just see it on his face that he was ready to take it to another level. It took all of 40 seconds after the third period started for him to score the eventual game-winner. 

Andre Burakovsky – C-

Like I said I just didn’t really care for this line tonight. Burakovsky has been streaky during his time in Colorado, and he’s currently going through his longest stretch without a goal since arriving in town. He needs to get one and get himself back on track, he’s gonna be huge come playoff time.

Mikko Rantanen – C+

He’s so good, that even on his off nights, you can think of a half dozen individual moments where he did something spectacular. No points tonight, but he had his chances. (Ed’s note: He had a goal)

Darcy Kuemper – A+

He was absolutely fantastic tonight. Kuemper looks sharp right now, he’s tracking pucks well, he’s not giving up rebounds, and he looks calm in net. This is the Darcy Kumeper that showed up in the bubble a couple years ago. When he’s playing like this, you see almost no net behind him when you’re shooting.