Avalanche Film Room: The PK that clinched the playoffs

Insistent on taking the easy way out, the Avalanche put their playoff hopes in the hands of their penalty kill in the final 1:26 of regulation last night. Tied 2-2 with the Winnipeg Jets, Colorado inexplicably had six skaters on the ice and were called for having too many men on the ice. In order to get to OT and secure the point necessary to clinch a playoff berth, Colorado would have to do it down a player.

Given how poor the Avs’ PK has been for the majority of this year, I wanted to go back after it was all said and done and take a look at how Colorado’s weakest unit got the job done when they needed it the most. Let’s look at the final 1:26 of regulation and break down how it all happened.

Winning the faceoff

We’ve talked a lot about faceoffs the last few years. The Avs were great at them in the 48-point season, terrible at them last year, and still pretty bad this season. There isn’t any correlation because FO% and winning percentage but faceoffs are obviously very important situationally. This is a great example.

Colorado wins the faceoff, puck goes back to Johnson, moves it to Cole, who pegs the ref with the puck because he had spent most of the game being incompetent anyway and Nieto gathers it in and races up the ice with it before tossing a soft shot on goal. Just from this one basic set play and proper execution (with the added flair of Cole hitting the ref), Colorado killed ten whole seconds before Winnipeg ever even touched the puck.

Winnipeg drop passes its way to a clean zone entry

People hate the drop pass. You know who doesn’t? NHL teams. It’s effective and that’s why almost every NHL team runs a variation of the drop pass to create a clean zone entry. Here, the Jets pull it off to perfection. The puck gets dropped and the skaters all drive the blue line and push Colorado’s defenders back.

Mark Scheifele sees the lane for him to get into the zone cleanly. He drops the puck off to Kyle Connor and drives past him as Connor crosses the blue line. Connor bounces the puck off the wall to Scheifele, who drew the defense with him and created the space necessary to drop the puck back to Connor, who moves it to the blue line. Winnipeg’s power play is now set up and ready to ruin Colorado’s night.

Laine almost wins it

This is where things got hairy in a hurry. Patrik Laine takes the puck from the blue line and drives down low, moving the puck around the boards to Blake Wheeler. One of the keys here happens off-screen. Jacob Trouba is on the right side of the blue line but when Laine drives down low, we see Trouba rotate over to the left on the point.

When the pucks gets moved to Wheeler, we see J.T. Compher attack the passing lane up high between Wheeler and Trouba. This decision forces Wheeler to drop down and look for a secondary passing option. He sees the the cross-ice pass to Laine, one of the league’s most dangerous shooters on the power play. Wheeler gets the pass through the royal road and Laine connects with the one-timer cleanly.

The puck rings off the post, causing absolute mayhem in front of the Avalanche net. The puck caroms to the front of the net and right near Scheifele. Philipp Grubauer is still trying to find the puck in the scramble and Cole and Compher both throw their bodies in the way. Nieto also joins in the pile-on parade by getting in there. All the bodies in front dissuade Connor from shooting when he gathers the puck in and he moves it to Wheeler.

Wheeler being right-handed puts the puck on his forehand and limits the quality of the angle he has to shoot at so he decides against shooting. This hesitation allows Colorado just enough time to reset.

Gap control, lane integrity, and a cleared puck

From here, Wheeler fires across the ice again to Laine but he isn’t ready in a shooting position and the sliding body of Erik Johnson is in the way anyway. Laine moves the puck back to Trouba, who cycles it to Wheeler.

Wheeler tries for a third time to find Laine cross-ice but Colorado had collapsed enough that Johnson was in that passing lane and waiting this time. Johnson gathers the puck and clears it.

What’s key here is while the Avs look like they are in a complete mad-scramble mindset, they are able to maintain the general integrity of their assignments. Compher and Nieto both challenged Trouba up high and clogged the shooting lane, forcing the puck to move back to Wheeler.

Handedness again plays a role here because with Wheeler on the right side, Trouba is moving the puck to his forehand. Had he tried to force it to his left to Laine, who is also right-handed, Laine would have either been receiving the puck on his backhand or one-timing the puck into a clogged shooting lane with Johnson showing on Laine.

When the puck moved to Wheeler, you’ll see Johnson back down again and put himself in position to intercept the pass from Wheeler this time around. It wasn’t particularly pretty but it was effective and quality defending.

Zone entry denials

After the Johnson clear, Winnipeg is down to their final 30 seconds. Colorado was able to get fresh bodies on the ice and they made a significant difference in defending the blue line. In the first clip you see Gabe Bourque break-up the cross-ice pass and clear the zone.

In the second clip, Matt Calvert forces the errant pass on the entry and Bourque again clears the puck. With just eight seconds left when Wheeler gathers the puck at center ice on the final desperate rush into the Colorado zone, there isn’t much he can do. The defense forces him wide and down low and Wheeler skates into it. Calvert rotated over and blocked a shot with his man parts after the buzzer sounded.

Overtime achieved. Playoffs obtained. It was that easy (ha).