Avalanche streak continues as they capitalize on schedule advantage to bury exhausted Ducks

Let’s talk about the schedule.

One of the charms (in my eyes, one of the benefits) of the unique schedule this year is very few of the games have the schedule as a storyline. In the normal times (a year into a global pandemic and we still haven’t come up with a cute nickname for the good ol’ days??), teams have travel schedules advantages and disadvantages baked in.

Eastern teams don’t travel as far as they tend to have more back-to-backs, western teams not particularly close to more than one other city (hi, Winnipeg!) travel more miles but don’t play on consecutive days as often.

One thing data analysis of schedules has taught is that teams have legitimate advantages in specific scenarios, such as a team playing the night before and traveling to a different city for two games in two nights in two different cities (and sometimes different timezones) going against a team already in the city of the game being played but not playing the night before. It’s often referred to as a “scheduled loss” because the winning percentage for the disadvantaged team in this situation is much lower than most other matchups.

In the quirky 56-game schedule laid out this year, almost none of those advantages originally existed. With multiple COVID-related pauses in the West Division early in the season, those schedules changed and forced the league to put some teams in bad spots.

Tonight, there’s almost no worse position a team can be in than the Anaheim Ducks were. Fresh off a game in St. Louis on Sunday, the Ducks flew to Denver to take on the NHL’s hottest team (10-game point streak, second-longest in the NHL this season) who was fresh off a Sunday of doing whatever they wanted because it was a day off.

Rolling out their backup goaltender against a legitimate Vezina candidate on the other end, there may not be a game on Colorado’s schedule the rest of this season that was as free a two points as this one was. All they had to do was take advantage.

Fast forward to the end of a 5-2 bruising where the Avs outshot Anaheim 48-15 and you have yet another beatdown by Colorado and two points secured as they continue trying to track down the Vegas Golden Knights.

It was once again a balanced attack from Colorado as forward lines one, three, and four all scored at even strength and the Avs added a power play goal for good measure. Hell, Colorado’s newly-dominant third line scored twice as goals from Tyson Jost and Val Nichushkin further inspired the Avs to keep those two with Joonas Donskoi, who didn’t score but came very close on his own.

Mikko Rantanen’s pursuit of the goal-scoring title in the regular season continued as he got his 20th of the season and is now third in the NHL behind only Auston Matthews (23) and Connor McDavid (21). Rantanen is also now ninth in the NHL in scoring with 40 points but linemate Nathan MacKinnon added two assists and is now up to 38 points in 30 games played. So much for struggling, eh?

Where we have seen struggles is from Colorado’s depth this season. Now that Nazem Kadri’s line has gone a little cold, instead of it costing the Avs games to be getting production from just the MacKinnon line, the Jost line has found its own rhythm.

How good has that line been together? Uh, incredible, actually. In 105:33 of 5v5 time together, that line has now produced:

• 68.02 CF% (134-63)
• 73.24 FF% (104-38)
• 73.15 SF % (79-29)
• 90.91 GF% (10-1)
• 74.38 xGF% (5.8-2)
• 72.92 SCF% (70-26)
• 72.97 HDCF% (27-10)
• 85.71 HDGF% (6-1)

Seriously. Those are their numbers. If a line kept that up across an entire season, they would be considered one of the very best lines in the entire NHL. It’s an absolutely incredible performance so far from that group.

It’s also been crucial for the Avalanche because coming into this season and through the first 15-20 games or so, the third line was a question mark, especially at the center spot. J.T. Compher started the year there but injuries and ineffectiveness forced the team to give Tyson Jost a look.

Even after the game Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said he historically had preferred Jost as a wing but that he was putting in the work to learn the center position more thoroughly and his play was rewarding the team’s continued faith in him.

As always with Jost, production is key. Even after tonight, Jost still only has seven points (3G, 4A) in 32 games this year. That’s a 12-point pace this season and just a 17-point pace in an 82-game regular season. That’s unacceptable for any forward in a team’s top nine, let alone one on a team that fancies itself an offensive powerhouse.

However, context is always key when delving into The Great Tyson Jost Debate. While those point paces aren’t encouraging, four of Jost’s seven points have come in the last six games, which is right after Bednar put this third line together. In those six games, Nichushkin also has six points and Donskoi has seven points (it should be noted Donskoi has 11 points in his last nine games so he’s just been killing it with everyone).

Even if Jost falls off his recent offensive pace (a fair bet given his career), those incredible on-ice numbers will give him the longest leash he’s ever had in his career to see if he is the answer to Colorado’s 3C problem.

If he is, his arrival is certainly behind schedule but the Avs will take it all the same.

TAKEAWAYS

• I have no idea if Jost is the man at that spot or not. Anytime it feels like he’s getting into a rhythm, he runs into a brick wall again and it seems like he’s further than ever from solidifying a spot on the roster. I just don’t know what to make of his run on this line. Donskoi’s shooting percentage far exceeds reasonable expectation and we’ve seen this routine from Nichushkin not only throughout his Avalanche career but going back to his Stars days, too. He gets hot for a bit and then will disappear for a couple of weeks before roaring back to life and looking awesome all over again. Funnily enough, if Jost settled into a similar rhythm as Nichushkin, it will represent a huge step forward for his career and maybe give the Avalanche a reason to give him more than just a single year when Jost’s contract is up again this summer.
• With Matt Calvert out, J.T. Compher is also finding his game just in the knick of time. Had Calvert stayed healthy, it looked like Compher’s season-long ineffectiveness would haunt him and potentially cost him a job and a future altogether in Colorado (expansion bait and such). Instead, Compher scored again and just like that he has eight points in 26 games played, which is a 25-point pace across an 82-game season. Down from his normal numbers but at least back in the right neighborhood. He’s also looked more and more like the Compher we’ve grown accustomed to seeing, not the complete ghost we’ve largely seen from him so far this year. This was another strong effort from Compher and I liked his overall game. Nothing special, nothing great, just some old-fashioned hard work and a positive can-do attitude. That’s exactly what he needed and his success has been a major boon for Colorado.
• Interesting night for Philipp Grubauer. In terms of shot suppression, Grubauer is backstopping one of the best suppression teams of the last decade (only the Blues and Devils in 2012-13 surpassed Colorado’s current shots-against pace) so his workload his relatively light to everyone else’s. At the same time, he seems to have to stop at least one breakaway every night and tonight he did it again in the first and second periods. I didn’t love the second Ducks goal against him but it was clearly played with a high stick and play should’ve been blown dead before Troy Terry ever even had a chance to slip a rebound into the net off his pad. It would be easy for Grubauer to get a little too comfortable with the play in front of him (facing just two shots in the second period, for example) but he’s keeping himself mentally sharp and focused on the task at hand. More and more I think Grubauer’s calm demeanor has a cooling effect on the Avalanche, especially the youthful defense. I think they see Grubauer not panic so neither do they. If there’s nothing to panic about, there’s nothing to worry about. If there’s nothing to worry about, it’s stress-free living, baby!
• And who better to prove my point living without stress than Jacob MacDonald. I love this guy. I hope he never leaves. He makes pinches that don’t make sense and reads that aren’t there but he’s a wild spirit who just has to roam freely. MacDonald has spent his entire career shackled by the confines of coaching systems, a cocoon of uncreative, easily repeatable processes from boring olds. No, now MacDonald is emerging as a fully-formed butterfly, a unique specimen taking flight and finding its way in the world. I’m just happy to witness it. Nature is amazing.
• Cale Makar three more points tonight. He’s now up to 72 points in 79 games in the regular season. Pretty good start to his career.