Avalanche get first outdoor game win despite nearly nine-hour delay

I guess technically I’ve had all day to start writing this piece because the puck dropped right about 12 and a half hours ago to begin Colorado’s third outdoor game experience, this time a Lake Tahoe “home” game against the Vegas Golden Knights.

Sam Girard scored just minutes into the contest and the television broadcast worked overtime to prevent gratuitous shots of the ice crew trying to repair serious problems with the ice at every single stoppage.

It became extremely obvious to even casual hockey fans that the ice was not playable as players and officials alike spent the first period falling facefirst onto the ice as the surface degraded more with every shift.

Eventually the period finished with Colorado leading 1-0 and the ice looking like it had literal trenches at the bluelines. Mark Stone and Gabe Landeskog immediately converged with officials after the period, presumably to express concerns over what could generously be described as problematic playing conditions.

What followed was nearly nine hours of a delay as the league decided to delay periods two and three until deep into the night.

When play resumed right around midnight eastern (9 pm local time), the Avs maintained their 1-0 in much better playing conditions.

Nathan MacKinnon proceeded to plant his proverbial flag at center ice and nobody from Vegas could do anything about it. A three-point night (1g, 2a) and one extremely memorable highlight (all-world defenseman Alex Pietrangelo being caught on the mic saying “oh boy” as MacKinnon bore down on him right before his goal) later, the Avalanche had their first-ever outdoor game victory, a 3-2 triumph over the Golden Knights.

Devon Toews got the game-winning goal on a clean faceoff win and added an assist on MacKinnon’s goal. It was an impressive team effort as they outshot Vegas 39-29 and took a 2-1 season series lead.

The win pulled the Avalanche within two in the standings and Colorado has a chance to tie Vegas in the standings with a win Monday night in the fourth game of this current series before each team moves on to facing lesser competition in the West Division.

With eight games apiece against each divisional foe, winning the head-to-head battle becomes that much more important this year and Colorado has the lead going into their first game in Denver this year.

After a sluggish .500 start, Colorado is 7-2-1 in its last 10 games and is nearly full health for the first time since the beginning of the season.

TAKEAWAYS

• I’m not going to spend very much time on the delay. The NHL tried to do something awesome and it backfired. Then it led to something even cooler, which was a great hockey game under the lights in an awesome atmosphere. I know how they are about fan revenue and all but this ended up being an awesome visual experience and super cool throughout. I’m not sure what tomorrow’s game looks like but it suddenly has a lot to live up to after a disastrous afternoon for the league.
• What a redemption tour for J.T. Compher and Ryan Graves in a huge moment. Nursing a 2-1 lead, the Avs faced 1:22 of a 5-on-3 penalty kill and those two each made enormous individual plays to get it back to a 5-on-4. Enormous. Graves shut down a cross-crease pass and cleared one puck from the zone while Compher made a nice little pass back to Graves for a clear. They both were in all reasonable shooting/passing lanes and they handled it perfectly. Extra kudos to Tyson Jost and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare for their work on the subsequent 5-on-4 as they removed all opportunity for Vegas to score on that man advantage. Great teamwork and perfect execution. The success on the PK tonight pushed them back to first in the NHL with an 89.6% success rate.
• The Colorado PP went scoreless in this one but you have to admit they were a bit of a victim of circumstance as their two-man advantage came at the very end of the first period when the terrible ice conditions were at their absolute worst and players had no confidence in being able to skate, let alone make any kind of play. They still created some quality chances and Marc-Andre Fleury was excellent. Way better than the terrible showing in Vegas earlier in the week. Need to start putting pucks back in the net, however.
• Colorado’s fourth line played a huge role in this game. We’ve seen the fourth line getting by with AHL call-ups but this game was a stark reminder of the difference between AHL guys trying to make an impression and seasoned NHL veterans who walk the walk of quality role players in the league. Val Nichushkin’s new spot on the fourth line helped that line absolutely destroy its shot share as the Avs outshot Vegas 13-3 with Nichushkin on the ice (12-3 with Bellemare and Calvert). That’s domination. It was key on a night where Colorado’s top two lines were more breaking even than dominating play and the Avs’ third line got annihilated again. In fact, the game-winning goal right off a won faceoff came immediately after a hard-working shift by the fourth line produced a stoppage in the Vegas zone. That’s a picture-perfect example of how you want your lineup operating. The fourth line may not have scored, but their work led to an o-zone faceoff by Colorado’s top line. Toews made a great shot but it may not go in without the excellent screen by Mikko Rantanen in front. Scoring goals in the NHL is oftentimes a result of building blocks. Strong fourth line shift > o-zone faceoff > Avs’ top line takes the ice > wins faceoff > scores the game-winning goal. Not always is it about MacKinnon putting on the cape and doing it all himself.
• Definitely noticed some fatigue from guys who had been on the COVID Protocol List. Girard, Landeskog, and Jost all faded as the game wore on. They each played important roles early on but as the night got long, each struggled to maintain their level of play. It’s a good reminder that while these guys are back in games, to say they’re “healthy” might be a touch premature.
• Some level of consistency from Colorado’s second line would be nice. They’re too frequently ranging from awful to winning the Avs games and there’s a really big middle ground they hopefully start settling into sometime soon. I thought the Saad-Kadri-Donskoi line was really led by Donskoi tonight and that is a problem as he’s clearly the third-best player from that trio. Tough break on Donskoi getting a goal taken away because of a very questionable goaltender interference call when Marc-Andre Fleury was almost entirely outside his crease (Fleury might have had a skate in the blue, otherwise he was totally out). That’s a tough break but it was about the only time you really felt good about them on offense.