Avalanche sweep aside St. Louis Blues with Game 4 win

“This is embarrassing. It’s always hard to lose in the playoffs, especially like this.”

“Listen, they were better than us. They beat us in four straight. They’re a great team. We weren’t good enough, that’s the bottom line.”

“As you can see, we didn’t even give ourselves a chance…Clearly [the Avalanche] the better team.”

Sometimes the story of a playoff series is best told by the losers. The quotes above, from Vladimir Tarasenko, Craig Berube, and Ryan O’Reilly, respectively, all show an acknowledgment that while the St. Louis Blues might have felt good coming into the playoffs, they walk out the recipients of a thorough shellacking that will raise significant questions as they head into the offseason.

That is thanks to the Avalanche dispatching the Blues 5-2 in Game 4 of their first-round series, giving the Avalanche a clean sweep of the Blues and a fourth consecutive lopsided final score, though the game was certainly tighter than that score would indicate.

Right?

It was 3-2 with just about two minutes left when Mike Hoffman carelessly swung his stick and hit Nathan MacKinnon in the face, breaking off a piece of his helmet in the process. Hoffman was given a double-minor for high-sticking and the Avalanche scored on both ends of the power play, each into an empty net, to secure the victory in style.

That it was a one-goal game in that spot means it was a close game, right?

Yes and no. The scoreboard was tight throughout but as has been the case throughout this entire series, Colorado kept finding ways to beat Jordan Binnington as they turned a 2-1 lead into 3-1 early in the third period.

The Blues got a power-play goal to cut it to 3-2 but never got any closer and, to be honest, never really made much of a push. They walked into the final frame trailing and needing to find a way to win to extend their season and they responded by getting outshot 10-9, although it was 8-8 at even strength.

That Binnington was easily their best player in the series is a significant reason they’re going home winless. Outshot 145-110 in the four-game series, Binnington was at times heroic and at other times frustrating and ultimately finished the series with ghastly numbers (0-4, .899 sv%, 3.59 GAA).

Their actual best player, Ryan O’Reilly, was once again forced to eat his own bravado today. A week after declaring the Blues were going to have some fun and beat the Avalanche, he finished the game with two assists (his best offensive output of the series) but was on the ice for four of Colorado’s five goals.

In fact, O’Reilly was actually the only Blues player to finish with a Corsi For percentage over 50 in the entire series, finishing at a sterling 56.90% at 5v5. That probably won’t make him feel much better as the actual goals were 7-1 in favor of Colorado at 5v5 and 13-4 with O’Reilly on the ice in all situations.

13-4.

I wrote in my series preview that the O’Reilly vs. MacKinnon matchup was going to be key and it seems like that number pretty well illustrates how things went. The Avs outscored the Blues 13-4 with O’Reilly on the ice in the series and went 11-1 with MacKinnon on the ice. While that includes power plays and empty nets, so do final scores.

In the four games of this series, the Avalanche outscored St. Louis 20-7.

It might have been close at particular junctures but this series didn’t finish all that close. At even strength, the Avs dominated. Just look at the numbers here:

CF%: 57.25
SF%: 58.33
SCF%: 63.25
HDCF%: 61.29
xGF%: 65.31

The Avs laid a beating on the Blues, plain and simple.

Now, the caveats here aren’t irrelevant. The Blues never had David Perron, their leading scorer from the regular season, and were without Justin Faulk and Robert Bortuzzo after Game 2 injuries. Those are meaningful losses.

Are they the difference between a sweep and the Blues finding one win in this series? It’s certainly possible. Will we ever find out? Nope. Does it matter? Also nope.

I only mention it to keep it in some context here. This was a runaway series win for the Colorado Avalanche and against a team so many thought was Colorado’s stylistic kryptonite.

If those guys were supposedly the kryptonite, the Avs just might be a little more super than even the more optimistic among us expected.

TAKEAWAYS

• There will be more to come from us here in the next few days, including a mega Film Room from me on how the Avs were able to break down the St. Louis game plan. Once we dust off this series, we’ll begin looking ahead at (likely) Vegas and digging into what’s next for the Avalanche. Appreciate all the fun everyone has allowed us to have this year as our coverage has been a little less stuffy and a little more tilted towards enjoying the ride as it unfolds.
• The break may help with some injuries suffered today. Alex Newhook looked really uncomfortable and didn’t return after going hard into the boards early in the game and P.E. Bellemare also looked like he was stung after blocking shot and missing some shifts. The Avs likely don’t play again until Thursday (at the earliest) so this should give those guys a chance to rest up and maybe be okay. Losing two-thirds of an effective fourth line right before a series against (probably) Vegas would be an unfortunate turn of events. We’ll see.
• The difference between Cale Makar last year and this year in the postseason is enormous. Defensively, Makar just dominated that series. In 91:52 of ice time at 5v5, the Avs outshot the Blues 66-32 with Makar on the ice. If we assume his average shift length was about one minute, that’s one shot every third shift throughout the series at 5v5. That’s ass-kicking level. 16-6 in high-danger chances? Just over one high-danger scoring chance per game against Makar across four games. Everyone loves his offense but this series was a showcase of how his defensive game has grown from last year. I can’t wait to see what he has in store for his encore in Round 2.
• The offensive numbers were gaudy (every skater except Patrik Nemeth and Conor Timmins recorded points in the series), but the real gem of this series was Philipp Grubauer’s continued excellence. He’s such a calming presence back there and the only two goals that got by him were perfect shots by Vladimir Tarasenko, one of which came via breakaway. Grubauer finished the series with a .926 sv% and 1.75 GAA and has clearly knocked off any rust he had after his bout with COVID.
• Grubauer’s counterpart, however, is on the kind of slide he won’t love hearing about all offseason. It’s not entirely his fault, of course, but since winning the Stanley Cup, Binnington has lost nine consecutive postseason games. Given his fresh 6×6 contract is set to start next year, have to think Blues management is hoping he finds a way to turn it around sooner than later. The team in front of him was certainly overmatched in this series and he played well enough but that .899 isn’t going to get them very far in the future. At least it’s up from the .851 he posted last year, I guess. They’re going to have a very interesting offseason.
• Colorado’s top line is special. I know you know this. I think there’s another level for them to get to in Round 2. It is an unshakeable feeling that this group is hell-bent on doing something special together.
• I always talk about Brandon Saad in relation to his upcoming free agency and I think my insistence on emotional protection (I have abandonment issues) is keeping me from fully appreciating what a good hockey player he really is. I was always a fan of him during his Chicago tenure (I didn’t see much of his CBJ time) but seeing him up close is really interesting. There is nothing, I mean nothing, spectacular or flashy about what he does. He’s a combination of good size, decent skating, decent hands, and razor-sharp hockey smarts. He makes a few plays every game that really stick out to me in some form or another. He’s mostly been a guy who has banged home pucks close to the net so to see him just snipe one today was pretty cool. I was really on edge about the game, especially after Binnington’s save on Conor Timmins, but the Saad goal seemed to relax both me and, way more importantly, the Avalanche. He’s really good.