Mark Barberio was just plain bad for a while, and the scorn from fans on social media was downright mean. The Colorado Avalanche defenseman knows he was bad for a while, but after a forced night off as a healthy scratch recently, the veteran has played like he never wants to be up in the press box again, where the popcorn is usually stale, the coffee often cold and the style of clothing worn by the sports writers says “early ’90s clearance rack.”
After a minus-2 performance in a home loss against Dallas, Barberio was a scratch against the Buffalo Sabres. In the two games since, he is a plus-1 with one assist. What did the time up in the box teach him?
“I think it was just a good chance to reset and refocus,” he said. “My effort was in the right place previously, but I was just making some tough puck decisions. I had good meetings with the coaching staff, and they just kind of sat me down and that’s it.”
Barberio was doing things like icing the puck too much, either out of desperation to get the puck out or just misfiring passes to intended receiver targets. In the Dallas game, he forced an impossible, hard pass for Sam Girard to handle in his own zone, leading to a keep-in by the Stars at the point and a subsequent goal.
He was also guilty of not skating smartly enough with the puck out of the zone, sometimes just being too immobile in general. Defensemen who don’t move their feet usually get in trouble, fast.
“If you combine good effort with a sound mental game, you’re going to get better performances and that goes for anybody,” said Barberio, who will be one of seven Avs defensemen to skate again tonight, in Pittsburgh. “I’m just trying to keep my feet moving. I think that’s when I’m at my best. If I get stationary out there, that’s where you’re a step behind the play. I think I’m staying engaged more and getting to pucks quicker. Then, you can make better decisions with it.”
NOTEBOOK
- Jonathan Bernier will start in goal for the Avs.
- The team will again go with 11 forwards and seven D-men, with Duncan Siemens the scratch. Nail Yakupov would have been a healthy scratch anyway, but he did not participate in the morning skate because of illness, the team said.
Here is video of my interview with Barberio:
By the way, doesn’t Barberio look like the doppelganger to this other “Mark” in this Taco Bell ad? I mean, seriously. I actually asked Barberio if this was him in the ad and he said no.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvAPBUdrYBI
0 Comments (2 conversations)
Bob_W
It seems to me that in a game like hockey where things happen at a very fast speed and decisions must be made quickly that it is possible for little bad habits to creep into a players game and compound upon other little bad habits until things such as not moving your feet or flinging the puck almost blindly out of the zone start to work their way into a players natural habits and method of play. With an NHL season that lasts 6 months and is 82 games it might be a good thing for every player to step back every week or two and look at video of themselves and ask if there are things happening or habits forming that they do not want in their game. They then might catch and correct things that would otherwise build and lead to them being demoted or scratched.
Av-a-dabba-doo
I don’t claim to be the hockey expert that others no doubt are, but one thing that I don’t think is always given adequate appreciation is what a fluid, fluctuating, and volatile game the sport is. IMHO this leads (regularly) to premature opinions of players, in both directions. I was never as down on Barberio as were others. Conversely, while I am very glad, of course, for his better performances of late (including last night), I recognize that the edge between a good game and a ‘bad’ one is often razor-thin. Sometimes I think what is called for is to back up several steps and take the long view on things. Snap judgments and knee-jerk reactions make for bad evaluations.