You might have heard that the Colorado Avalanche have struggled at the goaltending portion of the game so far this season. Between Alexandar Georgiev, Justus Annunen, and the brief flirtations with Kaapo Kahkonen and Trent Miner, it’s crazy to think that there have already been four goalies to play for the Avs and tonight was their 20th game of the season.

That 20th game went pretty well, however, as the Avs went to Washington and knocked off the Capitals, 2-1, and exacted revenge for their loss to the Caps last week in Denver. Like the game last week, it was a slow start for both teams and there wasn’t a ton happening until there was.

Pierre-Luc Dubois scored at 17:04 of the first period to give Washington a 1-0 lead. This tracks with both teams as the Avs have given up the most goals in the league in the first period while Washington has been the highest-scoring team in the opening frame. The game going into the first intermission with a 1-0 Washington felt appropriate.

From there, Colorado’s strength as a second-period team showed up as the Avs dominated the middle 20 minutes. Shot attempts were 26-10 in the 19:42 of 5v5 time. Amusingly, the Avs scored their only goal of the period on a good-luck goal when a Mikko Rantanen pass hit a Washington defender’s skate and found its way between goaltender Logan Thompson’s legs to tie the game at 1-1.

With a tie game in the third period, it was the Avs who found a way to grind out the win as a Cale Makar shot on goal was redirected in by Miles Wood. The Avs managed to get through the last 16:31 without surrendering another goal as Georgiev stopped all 14 third-period shots by the Caps and locked down two points in the standings.

Here was the game flow in terms of shots:

And here is the heatmap of where shots came from:

Avs Observations

• I’ll get into more of the video stuff tomorrow, but this was, for my money, Georgiev’s best game of the season (the game in Winnipeg was also great). He played big in his net and read the play well. He wasn’t caught out of position or doing anything silly outside of the misplay with the puck in the final two minutes that nearly became a disaster. He was competitive on multiple breakaways, stopping Dubois with an outstretched foot and stopping Connor McMichael twice, though the first one was more of a result of Georgiev not biting on a move and McMichael failing to get a shot off at all (still great goaltending!). The Avs defense wasn’t immaculate tonight and Georgiev erased all but one of the mistakes.
• Colorado’s new line of Miles Wood-Parker Kelly-Nikolai Kovalenko continues to shine as a trio. They scored another goal after scoring two last week (also against Washington) and they have been phenomenal defensively. They are producing scoring chances while not giving them up (5-3 tonight) and generated a 4-1 advantage in high-danger chances at 5v5. Wood has always been a high-event player but five shots on goal on seven shot attempts with a blocked shot, hit, and game-winning goal is a lot for a guy who only played 8:04. Kelly continues to be given a lot of defensive responsibility and is responding well to it. He’s becoming one of Jared Bednar’s go-to guys late in games when protecting a lead.
• The shot metrics look pretty good for him, but I thought Jonathan Drouin looked off most of the night. He controller-disconnected on the lone Caps goal as he failed to make any defensive effort at all and he was caught not skating multiple times when a teammate (usually Nathan MacKinnon) had the puck and was trying to make a play. He just didn’t seem in sync with what his linemates were trying to do. Naturally, he got an assist on the Rantanen goal.
• Speaking of MacKinnon, the Caps held him to zero shots on goal on only two shot attempts last week. This time around, he finished with three shots on goal on seven shot attempts, but also was robbed by Thompson while also creating excellent scoring chances for Artturi Lehkonen, who failed to score on any of the nine scoring chances and six high-danger chances that he had in this game. Back to MacKinnon, though. It was good to see him back to the high-flying offensive ways but his lack of effort on multiple plays defensively really stood out as he got away with it because of someone else making a play, but you never want that from your tone-setter.
• Makar is on some kind of heater right now. He “only” had an assist, but seven more shot attempts and five more scoring chances for him tell the story of a player who was incredibly dangerous throughout the game. Without a great night from Thompson, he would have added to his goal total and continued to push the envelope in how much a defenseman can score in this era of the NHL. He is incredibly locked in offensively.
• I’ll use Studs & Duds to elucidate my in-depth thoughts, but once again the Sam Girard-Josh Manson pairing had me sighing the deep, existential sigh of a man who is already worn down by stubborn coaching.
• The Avs are still chasing the Central Division, but the Avs are putting a little pressure on everyone else.