Memorable Avalanche road trip doesn't include enough winning

A road trip that will reverberate in Colorado Avalanche history finished with flashes of the future but too many shades of recent failures. Playing their third game in four nights, the Avs lost to the New York Islanders in a 5-2 final score that is quite deceptive to how the game actually played out.

We also saw Colorado on the wrong end of another frustratingly predictable goaltender interference call that took away a game-tying goal from the Avs in the third period. World-class goaltending has been an issue for the Avs in recent weeks despite scoring five against Igor Shesterkin two nights ago.

After scoring just one goal on 28 shots in Boston (while only allowing 15 shots against), the Avs could only get two behind Ilya Sorokin on 32 shots. It’s as high-scoring a league as it has been in two decades, you don’t win games scoring only two goals. The finish wasn’t good enough again tonight, but some things were pretty good.

Let’s talk about it.

The Avs defense in front of Mackenzie Blackwood is not great

I can throw all kinds of numbers at you to tell you that the Avs are actually pretty good on the whole in their defensive approach. They are among the league’s best at suppressing scoring chances and have been getting better as the year has progressed as keeping high-danger chances away from their goaltenders, but the overall body of work isn’t the problem.

It’s the quality of the chances that do get through that is frequently the issue here. Tonight’s third period is a great example of this. In 18:27 of 5v5 time of a third period of a game where the score was 1-1, the Avs only allowed six scoring chances and one high-danger chance.

The one high-danger chance? This.

It’s a calamity. Sam Girard gets too much hate for his overall play, but his ability to defend right in front of his goaltender is his biggest weakness and it was exploited again there. His partner, Josh Manson, had issues of his own and that pairing has been a real problem for the Avalanche all season.

In lieu of better options, I’m not sure what Colorado is supposed to do here but that’s a roster construction issue, not an execution one. That was the game-winning goal as the 3-1 lead was too much for the Avs to overcome.

It wasn’t a defenseman, but here’s New York’s first goal. Martin Necas doesn’t even make a move towards Anders Lee. I know he’s worried about the pass across, but he can’t just let Lee walk in like that. It’s too easy. On a night where the Avs outplayed the Isles for long stretches, giving up easy ones is exactly how a team builds to a moral victory, not an actual one.

Avs third pairing is now a problem

I’ve no clue why the Avalanche were so comfortable playing Keaton Middleton so many games when his on-ice results were never good and Jared Bednar barely played him, but the combination of Calvin de Haan and Sam Malinski had another game where the overall numbers were decent but they made the big mistake.

Malinski’s careless turnover became the go-ahead goal for the Isles early in the third period when de Haan couldn’t track down and get in the way of Simon Holmstrom’s shot. It would’ve been nice to see a save from Blackwood on that play, too, but we can’t get everything in life.

This de Haan-Malinski pairing was one of the league’s most effective third pairings early in the season but Josh Manson’s wrist injury put Malinski up an assignment alongside Girard. That started a carousel that saw the de Haan-Malinski pairing broken up because once Manson returned from injury, Middleton was entrenched in the lineup.

Tonight was one of the first time these two have gotten to play a game together in a while. Were it not for that one play, we wouldn’t be talking about this, but it did happen and has been a continuation of issues. de Haan has shown himself to be reliable but is hard-capped in what he brings. Malinski’s strong first 20 games have been followed by a rough 25 games or so. It’s been a struggle.

There are only 11 Avalanche games remaining before the trade deadline. The Avs don’t have much time left to sort through what they need and the bottom of their defense is now the most glaring position of weakness because these guys just cannot seem to anchor this group.

The Avs aren’t getting many bounces lately

It drives me crazy when I write about this stuff because there are always people who refuse to look at some of the random hockey things and admit that they are just random hockey things that happen to every team. For the Avs, just look at tonight.

Ilya Sorokin stopped a puck that hit off the back of his helmet and the post and bounced out. He got another off the shaft of his stick. A goal he allowed was called back because Jack Drury was in the paint and made the most minor of contact with him. It was minor enough contact that Sorokin didn’t immediately turn to the ref and complain about it.

New York’s fourth goal is a nothing shot from the point that tips off Girard’s stick and then goes post and in. These things happen, but when they all happen in the same game, it can be tough to overcome.

I don’t even have a gripe with the goaltender interference. Drury put himself in the crease and then briefly scraped Sorokin just before the puck arrived. The league has pretty consistently called it interference when the opposing player puts himself in the crease and literally anything else happens. Hell, we just saw another Avs goal taken off the board in the Rangers game because Miles Wood was standing there not making contact with the goaltender but was jostling with a Rangers player and that was deemed interference, too.

All of this is to say that the Avs are playing pretty solid hockey all-around, but their defense has been unreliable at the bottom and the work right around the crease has put Blackwood in some tough spots. It’s all compounded when those random things that happen in hockey, happen to you.

The new guys might rock, though

Martin Necas had a shaky first game in Boston but followed it up by being dynamite against the Rangers. We saw a little step back just because of his abdication of defensive duty on the Lee goal, but the offense was still dynamite.

His speed alongside MacKinnon’s is clearly giving fits. Any line defending MacKinnon is going to respect his speed and have to live with trying to back up to respect the speed or hold the blueline to try to strip the puck. Teams usually back up and hope he defers to a linemate. The idea is that the puck on somebody else’s stick is a good thing.

MacKinnon has been leading the league in scoring for like three months so maybe it isn’t such a great plan, but you can at least understand that a team has to try something. Mikko Rantanen was obviously such a skilled monster in his own right that the two were a huge issue together, but it was a different look than what Necas brings.

The blazing speed of Necas alongside MacKinnon has been almost shocking to watch at times. The combination of two of the fastest skaters in the league alongside each other and both having world-class hands has opened up some opportunities to devastating effect.

This is a bad breakdown inside their own zone, but the Isles had actually bracketed Necas on the zone entry pretty nicely before MacKinnon shook free. This is how goals are scored in transition, though. It’s easy to lose track of everything happening and Necas and MacKinnon happen to do it all faster than everyone not named Connor McDavid.

These two are already showing insane chemistry with their ability to play at a pace that other teams flat-out cannot handle.

Necas also hit Jack Drury for a nice breakaway goal that the Isles allowed to happen because they fell asleep on the line change. What I did like about this, though, is the patience from Necas. Three Isles are surrounding him and instead of worrying about it, he takes his time and sees the chance to make a play. He did and Drury finished.

This scoring touch won’t continue from Drury, of course, but his line showed significantly better results than what we saw against the Rangers. There’s real promise there.

The Avs still have a lot of work to do and losing six of their last 10 games isn’t how you climb the Central Division ladder, but their process has improved significantly over the last two weeks. The two new guys have brought some needed life to the roster, too. They just need to start finishing better. A lot better.

Read through the Rantanen trade

I don’t usually use this space for self-promotion, but I put a lot of life into a piece detailing the inside story of how the Avalanche decided to move on from Rantanen in last week’s blockbuster deal. Check that out here.