I’ve covered the NHL since 1995 and tonight I learned something new: a guy can be called for high-sticking even if his stick never was raised higher than the logo on the front of his uniform.
I learned that tonight, when Nikita Zadorov was somehow called for high-sticking against Minnesota Wild smurf forward Jason Zucker midway through the third period, which led to a Wild power-play goal and a highly aggravating 3-2 Avalanche loss to the division foe at Xcel Energy Center.
Does this look like high sticking to you folks?
No, didn’t think so. The brutally bad call against the 6-foot-6 Zadorov against the 5-foot-something Zucker gave the Wild a power play, leading to the game-winning goal against Semyon Varlamov, whose main weakness is shots to his blocker side, as evidenced by the wobbler that beat him. Zucker had just laid a big hit on Marko Dano, and Zadorov just came over to address it, but in a totally calm manner, for him. Nonetheless, the refs only had eyes for a retaliatory move, and so off Z went despite doing absolutely nothing illegal.
As much as I’d love to pin the blame fully on that for the loss, though, I can’t. And neither can any other objective Avs watcher.
The other “I can’t believe that happened!” moment of the game came when the Avs went on the power play with 2:49 left in the third, down by the one goal still. For whatever reason, coach Jared Bednar elected to pull Varlamov for the extra skater, before the faceoff started in the Wild zone. Because the Avs can never win a faceoff in a key situation, of course, the draw was lost. A few seconds later, the puck was in the Avs’ empty net.
It was a horrendous blunder by Bednar. You’re already up a man, you know your team can’t win faceoffs, and yet you elect to take out your goalie in a one-goal game while on the PP? That, folks, proved the ultimate difference in the outcome, as the Avs added a goal with 42 seconds left to make it the 3-2 final.
The other reason why the Avs lost: a terrible power play, which included going nothing of significance on net during a 47-second 5-on-3 advantage in the first period, when they were up 1-0. All night long, the Avs refused to shoot the puck on the PP, preferring to reinvent the wheel rather than making fundamental shots on the cage.
A look at the heat map shows how the Avs were too perimeter in the game:
In the end, despite a gigantic help from a ridiculous call, the truth is: the Avs beat themselves.
0 Comments (14 conversations)
Goblynkyng
Totally agree on the goalie pull decision. WTF was Bednar thinking there? I was talkin’ with a buddy and we were both stunned by it even before the puck dropped. Just plain stupid.
Cerveau
Not only was it predictable the Avs would lose the face off… once Minny had the puck it would have made sense to have a couple Avs rush iin and try to retrieve it rather than wait around and let Minny take their time and shoot for the Av’s net.
Eidolon
Again, nobody waited around, the mild set picks and tied up guys off the drop.
Avs099229
Yes really stupid to had pulled the goalie with almost 3 mins left in a game where you have a pp and are only down 1 goal!! That single handedly lost the game .
I thought Bednar was an analytics guy? Obviously, data would support the odds of the Avs winning the face-off would be low. What a stupid decision. I was watching with three other guys, and we couldn’t believe it. The rest of the game I kept repeating what a stupid, stupid call on Bednar’s part.
rb9cms
From the coach on down, just a bad, off night for oretty much everyone. The bottom 9 is a wreck right now and honesty, not a hell of a lot of hope in the near future.
Hozfu
Kerfoot was Pulled down so they got easy shot. Should have been a penalty
Chris DeMott
I know that the league has been using officiating to amongst other things raise scoring and it does seem to be working to an extent. But the result is that the game is being called more and more inconsistently. It seems that these referees are being asked to call the game the way a basketball ref would be asked to call fouls. This is a problem when about 25% of the scoring league wide is coming from penalties and thus the officials are deciding way too many outcomes. The pick on Kerfoot was really blatant and would be a great clip to compare to any number of calls that have been made in recent games. My favorite would be the Tyson Barrie phantom call against Tampa. How does a coach ask his players to take fewer penalties but still “be hard to play against” when all but perfect contact is subject to a call? The league needs to address this.
Unit5
I agree with everyone about the goalie pull decision, but the puck doesn’t get put in the net from the endline every day, either. I guess the idea was: even if we lose the draw, we have 2 extra guys to go get it back. It’s just that they forgot to go get it back.
Eidolon
Nobody forgot, I’m sure the Kerfoot footage on that faceoff will be used for the definition of interference for next season’s ref training.
Avsfreak18
Kerfoot was flat out tackled on that faceoff leading to the ENG. Had the Refs actually officiated a full 60, we should’ve been going on a 2-3 man advantage.
Bob_W
The game winning goal did not come against Varlamov it was an empty net goal.
Another reason to not pull the goal tender until after possession was that being short handed the Wild did not have to worry about icing.
J. Fritts
I can understand pulling the goalie for the duration of that PP. What I don’t understand is why you wouldn’t have Varly stand at the hash marks until the team gained possession of the puck. What are you saving? 10 seconds of not having an extra attacker with almost 3 minutes to play?
Av65
I still cant get over it!, we need another game. Im back here in st paul waiting on a flight to get outta here. so sick of fighting with these back wood hacks that think they are superior to the world of hockey and their boys never do any wrong crap. I show them pics AD put up of the size differnce with stick height. its like talking to a little boy who stole the blueberry pie, ate it and had a blue stained face but denied the fact he stole and ate it. Mild fans are horrible!!!!!
Chris DeMott
ahh… let them have October, they’ll be gone by June.
gtq
At what point does someone care enough about two years of face off problems to do something about it? It is almost like face offs are dismissed as being important whenever the issue comes off. Is there any excuse for someone as talented as McKinnon to have as poor a percentage as ge does? There has to be some acknowledgement that face offs are important and that the team should either be working harder on them or bring in someone who will.
tele_mon
I remember Coach Q saying “if you don’t score on a 5-on-3, you’re not going to win the game”. 99% of the time it seems like this is TRUE!