The evolution of the Avalanche has been one of the more low-key fascinating storylines to enjoy the last couple of years.

While saddled with a reputation as a high-flying, high-scoring team that loves to run and gun and skate and play an exciting brand of hockey, they’ve very quietly improved their defense to the point where it is one of the league’s very best.

Going into a game against a Minnesota team that got off to a 5-1 start against a softer schedule, the Avs walked in 3-4 and have only felt the pain of adversity from the moment the preseason even began.

While Sam Girard slotted back into the lineup tonight, the Avs were still without Mikko Rantanen, Devon Toews, and Val Nichushkin. They lost Andre Burakovsky after two periods, giving them half of their preferred top-six forwards.

It was Colorado’s defensive effort that really stood out to me tonight. I suppose given the absences in the lineup, that shouldn’t be a major surprise, but it has been an interesting path for that group through this season so far.

That unit was one of the NHL’s best last year but experienced meaningful turnover with several new faces becoming regulars this season and Erik Johnson coming back into the picture.

Let’s start there with Johnson, the Erik version.

Everyone reading this is already familiar with what he’s been through in his career and last year’s frustration. It was a frequent talking point from people like me that he was going to have a real impact on this year’s defense.

Then the season started and Cale Makar was terrible and Bowen Byram was the shiny new dominant defenseman putting up points and shot metrics that made your eyes look like Judge Doom’s right as he’s dying in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” That is to say, eye-popping.

Alongside the new shiny was Johnson, who kept trucking along quietly doing his things as the wonder twins occasionally activated and sometimes Sam Girard has gotten in on the fun for a Voltron-style experience. It’s been a lot is what I’m saying.

Doing his quiet, steady thing has been Johnson. His last goal was March 6, 2020, at Vancouver. His last goal at home was the game-winning goal in overtime against the Winnipeg Jets on April 4, 2019 in a game that clinched Colorado’s playoff berth that year.

Johnson broke all of those streaks tonight, scoring what turned out to be another game-winning goal in Colorado’s 4-1 win over the Wild. The goal was a result of Nathan MacKinnon manhandling Jonas Brodin on the forecheck and finding Johnson open in the slot, but it came after a sequence that was quintessential Johnson.

Before Johnson’s goal made it 2-1, the Wild had just tied the game on their second consecutive power play. They didn’t score on the first one in large part because of Johnson’s one-man show. He started off the memorable sequence with a shot block on the inside of his right ankle, stinging him and making him slow to get back to his feet.

He did, however, get up and despite hobbling around all shift, disrupted two passes with his stick and went down to block both a cross-crease pass (him going down prevented the pass from even being attempted) and then to block another shot. It was all vintage Erik Johnson, the do-it-all defenseman who has given every ounce of his heart and soul to this Avalanche organization since they plucked him out of St. Louis and gave his career a second act.

While Johnson’s moment in the sun was a long time coming and a great reminder of how good he can be, it came in a game where he actually got eaten up a bit in shot metrics. While that happened, however, his teammates were locking it down.

After giving up just 18 shots against St. Louis two nights ago, the Avs played excellent team defense once again. It won’t look like it on the box score with the Wild generation 30 shots on goal but when you dig deeper the difference is obvious.

Holding a 3-1 lead in the third period, the Wild didn’t record their first shot on goal until 13:58 into the period. They finished with just seven in the period and saw their scoring chances go from nine in the first period to seven in both periods two and three despite the Avs consistently leading throughout.

Colorado’s defense gave up just four high-danger chances at even strength. This comes after giving up one at even strength two nights ago in St. Louis. As the Avs injuries at forward have piled up, the screws on the back end are already tightening and Devon Toews isn’t even set to return until next week.

While there’s plenty of work for the Avalanche defense to do moving forward, this was another reminder that Colorado is capable of putting a vice grip on opposing teams and slowly squeezing the offense out of them until the game is over. Sometimes it comes at the expense of their own offense, as the Avs basically stopped playing offense entirely in the third period but it didn’t come at the hands of a Wild shooting gallery.

The Avs proved themselves capable of sitting back and just trading dump-ins while getting fresh bodies onto the ice, the kind of slow and sludgy style we’ve seen them struggle to handle in recent years. If Colorado is going to repeat the regular-season success of last year, it’s a style they’re going to have to get a lot more comfortable with, especially while they continue battling injuries upfront.

It was a throwback game from EJ but it was another gritty win for the Avalanche. It wasn’t a dominant offensive effort where they outscored their problems. They simply scored enough and decided that was it, a plan that works a whole lot better when goaltender Darcy Kuemper plays as well as he did tonight.

TAKEAWAYS

• It’s hard to believe I wrote a whole thousand words about this hockey game and haven’t even mentioned Gabe Landeskog, who scored two goals and added two assists for just the fifth four-point game of his career, but here we are. This was a great all-around night from Landeskog, sans the penalty he took and the needlessly dumb icing in the final minute of the second period. I loved his all-around game and if it means occasionally getting called for something, I can live with it. He’s playing with an extra chip on his large, Adonis-like shoulders and it shows. He’s off to a great statistical start to this season. His empty-net goal is how you know he’s living a charmed life. It’s not the male model good looks or the world-class hockey talent. It was that empty-net goal. Just trust me on this one.
• MacKinnon was on a different plane of existence tonight. Sometimes you see those superstar nights and tonight was definitely one of them for 29. There are no stats that can really convey what he did tonight. This was definitely a game seeing him with your own two eyes was the best measure to appreciate what he did. The manhandling of Jonas Brodin immediately before dishing to Johnson for the second goal was awesome. When he plays with that power and determination, you see the MacKinnon who is neck and neck with Connor McDavid as the best player in the world. It’s too bad he’s not in that zone more often because it’s a true privilege to see him do his thing when he’s at his best.
• Bowen Byram’s toughness is part of the story that I simply cannot emphasize enough. After last postseason, there was a lot of sentiment about the Avs being too soft and while I thought some of it was overblown, there was definitely truth there. The key is threading the needle between tough and effective because too often you’re choosing between them. Byram has been outstanding in terms of effectiveness but his attitude is such an important part of his profile. Girard, Toews, Makar, and Johnson the Erik are all very good but more on the quiet side. Byram doesn’t back down from anything and is pure confidence. Part of that is his toughness, which we saw again tonight. Despite getting boarded illegally by Brandon Duhaime, he finished the game. He was clearly in some kind of pain as he briefly left but came back to finish the game. He was good, too, in the final period after Duhaime tried to maim him. I’ll be curious if the league finally goes after a hit against an Avalanche player this season.
• After a string of good performances, Ryan Murray took a serious step back tonight. Poor reads, poor decisions with the puck, poor execution in just about every facet, it was not a night for Murray to remember. At most, he has one game left to make his case to stay in the lineup over Jack Johnson upon the return of Toews next week. Tonight wasn’t a great argument, though JackJo didn’t exactly light it up himself.
• Kuemper: That’s what’s up.
• It’s been a tough week in the hockey world, but there were some moments tonight that reminded me why I love this game so much. I hope you don’t mind that I’m using this space to share some of the small things that create that connection for me. The first one is definitely the scraping of the blood off the ice. Maybe it’s the casual nature of a member of the ice crew using a shovel to scrape up blood-stained ice and toss it into a trash can, maybe it’s the way nobody in the building thinks twice about it. I always chuckle (assuming the player is okay, which they were in this case). It’s like when a player in football gets a chunk of grass stuck in their helmet and a teammate rips it out. Just one of those unique quirks of the sport that gets me. Another is defensive defensemen scoring. They never know how to celebrate. They always try to play it cool like it’s no big deal but that shtick only works for the Auston Matthews of the world, the guys who score all the time. For a dude like Erik Johnson, go crazy. The look on Jack Johnson’s face after he scored that breakaway goal against Chicago was perfect. He cosplayed Cale Makar for six seconds and lived the dream. Go hard, fellas. I love the relationship between player and linesmen. It’s confusing and weird and makes no sense but it’s always comical. This dude spends all game pump-faking dropping the puck and arbitrarily kicking dudes out of the faceoff circle and occasionally waiving off icings just to be spiteful but players always seem friendly towards them. Not to the officials for obvious reasons, but to linesmen they almost always have this very respectful interaction. From a distance, it’s something that tickles my funnybone.