Avalanche-Oilers Instant Reaction: Colorado embarrasses Edmonton in blowout

The Colorado Avalanche began the front half of a Western Canada back-to-back with a primetime matchup with the Edmonton Oilers, one of the league’s favorite showcases of the year as it pits superstars Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar against Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.

Makar got the Avs on the board early with two quick goals that gave the Avs a 2-0 lead after the first intermission. While McDavid did eventually score for the Oilers, it was immaterial as the Avalanche destroyed the Oilers in a 9-1 beatdown that qualifies as arguably the Avalanche’s most dominant road win since the team moved to Denver in 1995.

This blowout started with a balanced Avalanche attack.

Balanced attack paces Avs offense

Four players had a two-goal game but a comical eight players had multi-point games, from Makar (2G) and MacKinnon (2G, 2A) to Gavin Brindley (1G, 1A), Devon Toews (3A), Parker Kelly (2G, 1A), Jack Drury (2G), Ross Colton (2A), to Zakhar Bardakov (2A).

The Avs actually scored 10 goals in this game, but Gabe Landeskog watched as his first goal of the season was pulled off the board for the second time this year thanks to an offside challenge. That’s disappointing because Landeskog needs to get one on the board and is playing well enough to have had a few goals, but the NHL is a league built on guys who get breaks and guys who don’t. Right now, Landeskog is one who isn’t getting them.

He was about the only one, however, as Kelly set a new career-high in points for a single game with three and did it in front of his friends and family as he is from the area. His fourth-line mates, Bardakov and Brindley, also enjoyed multi-point nights as the line scored twice at 5v5 and Kelly added a shorthanded goal that stymied whatever comeback the Oilers were dreaming of (it made the game 6-1, so that comeback was still pretty unlikely).

The Avs got four goals from their top line and that’s great, but getting five from their bottom six is also crazy and that’s how you build a truly dominant win against one of the favorites out West.

Goaltending continues to be solid

Because of Colorado‘s territorial dominance this year, the goaltending has not been in the spotlight much but the Avs went with Scott Wedgewood again and he rewarded them with a solid effort. He gets a little wild with it at times, but he stopped 23 of 24 shots.

He wasn’t asked to make many high-leverage saves as the Avs played with the lead nearly the entire game, but Wedgewood’s secret to his success this season has been making the easy saves and not complicating life for himself. He did exactly that again tonight.

Don’t allow easy goals and undo a lot of great play and the Avs are going to be hard to beat. That formula has worked wonders and taken the Avs to the top of the NHL standings through 15 games, so why mess with it?

Wedgewood’s solid play has also allowed a slow return from injury for Mackenzie Blackwood, the presumed starter who played his first game of the year last weekend in San Jose.

I expect Blackwood to get tomorrow’s tilt in Vancouver, but you have to appreciate that Wedgewood isn’t just rolling over and giving the job right back to Blackwood.

This Avalanche defense can score

I didn’t mention it in the balanced scoring part because I wanted to mention it separately, but the Avalanche defense has led the NHL in scoring for a few years now and this group is pacing to do it again. Yes, Makar’s brilliance is a great starting point that no other team has year in, year out, but the rest of the defense is chipping in quite a bit, too.

Toews had a three-assist night but Brent Burns and Sam Malinski each added assists. Burns’s assist came on his patented shot-pass that he almost got a goal from Brock Nelson on during the first period. That was arguably one of the only saves made by Edmonton’s goalies all night.

The power play…sigh

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Avalanche power play was not part of this again. The Avs scored nine goals but went 0/7 with the man advantage, including a brief attempt on a 5v3.

There were some things to like, but 0/7 is still 0/7. The process isn’t consistently good enough to say that they will start scoring again soon. It’s all over the map. On one attempt, they do nothing, stand still, pass the puck around, and watch as time bleeds off the clock. On another, they will whip the puck around and generate real heat and force the goaltender to come up big.

We saw both sides of that coin in this game. Disappointing, frustrating, annoying. Genuinely the only thing about this game to be upset about (other than another stolen Landeskog goal, of course).

Avs Postgame Pod