Avalanche road trip ends with eighth straight win over forgettable Red Wings

The Avalanche finished up their four-game road trip with a 3-1 record after a tidy 5-2 win tonight over the Detroit Red Wings in Little Caesars Arena. It finished off the Avalanche schedule against the Atlantic Division with a comical 12-3-1 record with only one of those losses coming after the first week of December.

That loss was the 5-1 beatdown in Boston two days ago, a game that had a few jumpy folks worried if the Avs might be on the start of a negative slide. Instead of adding another loss to a column sorely lacking in them (at least from the rest of the western conference’s view), the Avs won their eighth straight game following a loss.

Colorado’s unwillingness to string together losses after the month of November has been pretty impressive and a big reason they are sitting in a dominant position atop the west with 78 points with the next closest team sitting at 66 points (Minnesota and Calgary).

Without Nathan MacKinnon (out with a nagging lower-body injury), the Avs top line continued doing what they do as they scored on their first shift of the game. Darren Helm, who had spent his entire career in Detroit before signing in Colorado last summer, got the ceremonial nod with the top line and made it count as he snagged just his third assist of the season on Gabe Landeskog’s goal to make it 1-0 in favor of the Avs.

A Tyson Jost goal later in the period put Colorado up 2-0 and satiated head coach Jared Bednar’s desire to see his depth forwards produce a little offense and just, in general, play better hockey after the cold snap they’ve been in lately.

The Avs would eventually see their lead cut in half just over the middle mark of the second period, but finished the period strong as Nazem Kadri’s contract year to end all contract years continued as he notched his 22nd goal of the season to make it 3-1 going into the third period.

Instead of turtling and sitting on the lead comfortably, it was all hard work at the start of the third period that pushed Colorado ahead to a comfortable 4-1 lead where they could safely kick the game into cruise control.

Alex Newhook rimmed the puck around the boards and Andre Burakovsky, who entered the game on a 16-game goalless drought, outworked four Red Wings in the vicinity for the puck and flipped a pass into the center of the ice to Val Nichushkin. Nichushkin settled the puck with his foot, kicked it to his blade and deked Detroit goaltender Thomas Greiss back to Germany and finished on the backhand.

It’s the kind of goal that inspires confidence in all three forwards involved. Burakovsky started the breakout in the defensive zone and then won the puck battle. Newhook rimming the puck is basic stuff but he finished with a two-point night despite various linemates and situations. The coaching staff continues to look for ways to enhance what they’re getting from Newhook and you can see him immediately respond when playing next to higher skill guys.

That 4-1 lead eventually was cut to 4-2 but the Red Wings never really made the big endgame push despite winning faceoffs and keep puck possession in Colorado’s zone. Pavel Francouz wasn’t asked to be spectacular but was very good again, stopping 32 of 34 shots on the night.

This was a classic team effort. Everyone chipped in. Your big guns did the job as Landeskog was a beast on the night with two goals (the empty-net goal with less than a minute left was some stat-padding but he was otherwise Colorado’s best forward throughout the game), Kadri added a goal, Newhook had two points and Devon Toews chipped in two points from the defense despite not having his best night either.

It all adds up to another win in which the Avs weren’t spectacular, weren’t dominant, weren’t special, but were just most talented than the other team and that’s what we saw. Boring wins have become routine for this club and that’s a good thing. They understand how to play with leads and beat a decent Detroit club.

Maybe what I find most interesting is the Avs moved to 12-2-1 without MacKinnon in the lineup.

This isn’t to suggest the Avs are better without MacKinnon because they obviously aren’t. That’s dumb. It’s a testament to the character in the locker room that the standard internally doesn’t change just because MacKinnon is not there. They have Avalanche hockey to play, regardless of who is on hand, and they’re doing just that.

Eight straight wins against Detroit. Sucks to suck.

TAKEAWAYS

• The Red Wings have two of the best rookies this year and the obvious choice for the Calder Trophy as the league’s best rookie in defenseman Moritz Seider. He recorded primary assists on both Detroit goals tonight, but he got quite the education in what life is like against the best of the best in the NHL. Even without MacKinnon, Colorado’s top line (with Burakovsky in MacKinnon’s spot for the most part) absolutely tore Seider apart. The big rookie finished a 4/22 Corsi split against Mikko Rantanen and 5/21 against Landeskog. Those two generated 15 scoring chances against Seider in only nine minutes of head-to-head action at 5v5. The points are there for him to win the hardware, but tonight was a good reminder of how far Seider has to go to consistently hold his own against elite competition.
• I mentioned in the pregame show that it could be a nice audition opportunity for Nick Leddy, who is a UFA this summer and could be moved at the trade deadline, to perform live in front of Colorado’s decision-makers. Leddy is a solid stylistic fit for the Avs and is being overexposed on Detroit’s top pairing but could be an interesting guy for the Avs. The money Leddy makes probably makes the math too difficult to work out given what would be a greatly reduced role for Leddy in Colorado, but if this was an audition, it’s an interesting test case. Leddy got rocked by Colorado’s best players but succeeded against the depth forwards of the Avs, which would be more of what a potential role on Colorado’s blueline would be asking of him. I’d mark this down as unlikely, but an interesting name to consider.
• Francouz was quietly very good tonight. The two goals that beat him were tough situations with Detroit scoring their first goal on a 3-on-1 advantage and the second being the universe giving Francouz the finger with the number of good bounces that went Detroit’s way to get that goal. Francouz held it down and didn’t let anything easy in, which could have drastically altered the later stages of the game. Steady as ever.
• Cale Makar with maybe the quietest two-point night of his career. Just hums along and snags points even in a game where he isn’t anywhere close to his best form. What a freak of nature. We are so lucky to witness this kid’s assault on the record books.