Avalanche earn a needed point in shootout loss to Rangers

We know about the injuries. We know about the losing streak. We know the Colorado Avalanche are down bad right now.

Valeri Nichushkin returned to the lineup tonight and gave the Avs a whopping two (!) of their top-six forwards going into the game against the New York Rangers. Somehow, it felt like that made all the difference.

No doubt, the results of the last couple of weeks have been tilted a bit because of two uncompetitive losses to the Boston Bruins, who are among the five best teams in the NHL right now, but losing to Philadelphia sucks.

The Rangers are getting by on a lot of reputation so far this season as they are struggling to recreate the magic that led them to the Eastern Conference Final last season. The primary change is that Igor Shesterkin’s follow-up campaign to his historic Vezina Trophy-winning season hasn’t been nearly as special, though certainly not something you would describe as “bad”.

Shesterkin was the key tonight in the Rangers’ 2-1 shootout win over the Avalanche. For the first time in a while and certainly the first time post-Nathan MacKinnon injury, Colorado pretty clearly outplayed a team.

A nice passing play started by Sam Girard and Alex Newhook led to Mikko Rantanen scoring Colorado’s only goal of the game in the first period but all three players were pretty consistent factors throughout the game.

Add in Nichushkin, and Colorado’s top line at least felt competitive again. It was a nice change from last game when the Avs mustered just 10 scoring chances in the entire game, their lowest total since December of 2016.

In fact, the Avs actually flipped that show to the other foot, holding the Rangers to just nine scoring chances across 65 minutes of play. Now, the Rangers only had one power play in that time, but add in the overtime period and Colorado limiting them to only nine scoring chances is the kind of elite defensive effort we expected to see a lot more often from this group coming into the season.

Considering that the defense is missing both Bowen Byram and Josh Manson, it’s a pretty impressive effort from that backend but also from the forward corps, who has been badly missing the elite defensive play from Nichushkin.

Even though Nichushkin failed to register a point in this game, his impact was extremely obvious from the jump. For one, there was a player who could play off of Rantanen’s elite playmaking ability and their connection was obvious. They created a number of quality scoring chances together, but it was also the addition of Nichushkin’s board work and forechecking acumen that really helped the group.

Despite Nichushkin’s return to action, it was once again Colorado’s top line on the ice for a miscue that resulted in a goal against. To be honest, even calling it a miscue doesn’t feel all that accurate as the Rangers drove hard up the ice as some of the Avs went for a change.

Rantanen got back hard on defense, directing Brad Hunt to try to mark Artemi Panarin while Rantanen took away the backdoor pass. Both players did that as Hunt took away the shooting lane well enough to force Panarin to take the puck far deeper into the zone than Panarin would have preferred.

This is where Panarin’s individual brilliance comes into play, as he just outwaited the Avs’ transition defense and found Braden Schneider as the trailing man. Newhook was late getting back, but also started that play in the far side corner behind the goal line. It was a Herculean task for him to stop and get going in that direction.

Schneider beat Alexandar Georgiev on the glove side and tied the game at 1-1. That would be it for the offense in regulation.

The numbers really do tell an accurate story of how this game went.

60:43 of the 65 minutes were played at even strength. Each team had just one power play, neither scored. We’ll just run down the numbers at even strength, all of which were in Colorado’s favor:

• 64-49 Corsi
• 40-20 Shots on goal
• 27-9 scoring chances
• 9-5 high-danger chances
• 2.73-1.36 expected goals

The Avs were the better team, but Shesterkin the better goalie.

Shesterkin stopped J.T. Compher and Rantanen in the shootout while Georgiev stopped Vincent Trocheck but got scored on by Mika Zibanejad and Panarin.

The Avs got a point in the standings and despite all of the doomsday feelings surrounding the club right now, it moved them right back into third place in the Central Division. You don’t love that they are now nine points behind the division-leading Winnipeg Jets, but we’ve said all along that survival is their primary focus right now.

At 4-5-1 in the last 10 games, surviving is exactly what they’re accomplishing. Nichushkin’s return was a godsend and it appears Darren Helm and Artturi Lehkonen could also be back within the next week, which would obviously help quite a bit. The other injured players remain a ways off, but reinforcements are coming and the schedule isn’t lined up with an overly tough slate.

The Avs head next to St. Louis on Sunday for an afternoon tilt against the Blues, who are just four points behind the Avalanche and are starting to feel the desperation that disappointing clubs feel around the 30-game mark.

TAKEAWAYS

• I loved this game from Georgiev. Granted, it’s the Rangers and we saw how he got up for that game in New York earlier this year, but this was more of the guy we’ve seen this season than the one that just had that disaster of a road trip. Granted, the quality against wasn’t very high so it wasn’t nearly as tough a job as some other efforts, but nothing free tonight was great. The Rangers earned the goals they got, and as the starting goalie of an injury-ravaged team, that’s what they need from Georgiev. It was great to see him back having a great game where he looked relaxed.
• I’m not sure who all sticks from this group of call-ups and which of these guys go on to have long-term NHL careers, but Jean-Luc Foudy has really popped to me as a perfect stylistic fit for how the Avs play. I don’t even think Foudy has been all that good, but we’ve seen the flashes of certain skills (skating and playmaking in particular) that are instantly good fits in Colorado. He has a lot of work to do developing the holes in his game (his shot is not very good, nor is his willingness to shoot the damn puck in the first place), but it is not hard to see where he fits the DNA of the Avs. What role that looks like, however, remains a real mystery to me.
• Exactly what I said about Foudy is where I think Martin Kaut is held back the most by the organization. The Avs have plenty to show him on video about consistent effort and execution, but the way the team wants to play just isn’t a style conducive to maximizing Kaut’s skillset. I think he needs a more deliberate style of play that can maximize his hockey IQ and defensive smarts. To be honest, he feels like a Dallas Star to me, especially with Pete DeBoer and his neutral zone system in place there. This obviously isn’t a takeaway for this game, just a general thought on a thing happening in the Avalanche organization.