Avalanche play the hits in familiar loss to Predators

Stop me if you’ve heard this before but the Colorado Avalanche might have an issue with their goaltending.

It was another solid outing for the team in front of the goaltender but the man tasked with stopping the puck failed in his job as the last line of defense.

Semyon Varlamov, fresh off a perfectly respectable performance against the Los Angeles Kings last week, gave up another three goals on 18 shots at one point today in Colorado’s eventual 4-1 loss to the Nashville Predators.

The Avalanche dominated the pace of play in the first period thanks to two power-play chances in the first five minutes but their woeful special teams play continued in a frustrating display of ineptitude with the man advantage.

The officiating in this one was wild, unpredictable, and downright atrocious. They went from a full-blown “let them play” approach to calling ticky tacky touch fouls like James Harden was trying to jack another three-pointer. The wild fluctuations in officiating led to a game that struggled to find an identity as neither team really settled into a groove.

To further the point about bizarre officiating, Matt Nieto was awarded a penalty shot in the second period on a play that looked like it wasn’t a penalty at all. Nieto was stuffed by Pekka Rinne, whose brilliance kept the Predators from getting run through in the first period, and the game remained scoreless for all of 90 more seconds.

That’s when an atrocious turnover by Nikita Zadorov sparked Nashville for the first goal of the game, one Varlamov probably should have had. That goal would quickly look like a downright All-Star effort from Varlamov after Viktor Arvidsson scored a minute later on a pretty basic wraparound attempt that Varlamov never even came close to getting across the net to stop.

The Avalanche eventually were able to grind out a goal from Alexander Kerfoot on a great individual effort from Sam Girard but none of it really mattered in the end.

Colorado outplayed, outchanced, outskated, outworked Nashville. They simply didn’t outscore them. Rinse and repeat, you’ve seen this story before.

Takeaways from the game

• That Zadorov turnover was just so terrible. It’s a pizza right up the middle of the ice, served fresh for the goal-hungry Predators. A brutal decision that he ultimately should have gotten away with had Varlamov made the stop.
• That’s really the rub with the Avalanche right now. Their shot suppression has gotten a whole lot better in the last few weeks, as well as their ability to limit quality chances against. The chances are just ending up in the back of the net at a significantly higher clip. Pound the table all you want about there being a real defensive issue or whatever but this is a team that has taken a significant step forward in limiting both quantity and quality of chances against and it’s not paying off thanks to shoddy goaltending.
• That said, the third goal against was a nightmare on Chopper Circle from front to back. Mark Barberio randomly losing his guy at the blue line because he was standing still (??????) just watching things happen is one of those plays that I’ll remember all year and never understand what the hell happened.
• I understand the reasoning behind sending down Ryan Graves when they did (having to re-expose him to waivers and all) but Barberio’s consistent, year-long struggles are really making you wonder if there needs to be something done for a little extra depth along the blue line. It’s a real grind for 44 right now.
• The Soderberg line took a bit of a step back today from the level we’ve seen the last week. That’s the downside. The upside is the Kerfoot line had a monster game and there’s very real chemistry between Kerfoot and Matt Calvert. If those two lines continue to find ways to combine for at least one goal per game and one of them is consistently driving play the right direction, combined with the usual effectiveness of the top line the Avalanche are going to take meaningful steps forward on offense.
• Erik Johnson’s injury raised the question of how the defense would respond in his absence. Ian Cole was nothing short of brilliant today. At 5v5, Cole was on the ice for 30 Avalanche shot attempts and just eight Predators shot attempts. That’s downright dominance. He’s a slower skater than Arvidsson so the second goal could look bad on Cole if you wanted to paint it that way but if Varly makes a routine wraparound save we’re not remembering that sequence at all. Cole’s final stat line: 22:50 TOI, 3 SOG, 2 blocked shot attempts, 1 missed shot attempt, 2 hits, 1 giveaway, and 5 blocked shots of his own. That is a stat-stuffing performance.
• Girard had a nice response in a tweaked role as well. I’ve been wondering how much it might help to get Girard away from Johnson to maybe help him reset and find his game a little bit and he’s spent the last two games away from EJ and had two straight very solid performances, especially offensively. What a brilliant play he made on the Kerfoot goal. He has seven shot attempts in his last two games after Jared Bednar said he needed to shoot more.
• Matt Calvert’s willingness to fight and throw the knucks with guys who are much larger than him is downright lovable. He brings everything the Avs had in Blake Comeau but with a little better skating, a couple years younger, and a little worse shooting ability. Overall, though, you can’t convince me the Avalanche made the wrong decision there. He’s had a very strong five-game stretch here so maybe I’m basking in the glow of recency bias (always very possible).

QUOTES
Colorado RW Mikko Rantanen
On Preparing For Nashville G Pekka Rinne: “We do it every game, coach will give some advice where we can shoot and where the goals are being scored, but he’s a good goalie and we couldn’t find a way today.”

On Today’s Game: “I don’t think we had a bad game. I think first two periods, what did they have 12 shots? So I don’t know, I don’t know what else you can do. We worked hard and we created a lot of chances and we should have had five, six goals if we sharpen up in the scoring chances, but it’s tough the way they shot.”

Colorado LW Matt Nieto
On Playing With An Attitude: “I think that’s when we play our best. When we come out right away, kind
of feed off the crowd and can play that physical game. I think that allows us to get our legs under us
and everyone feeling confident, so just have to keep that up.”
On Today’s Game: “I thought we battled hard. It was a playoff atmosphere out there and we have to
find ways to get goals but just a couple of breakdowns here and there cost us and in this league when
you make mistakes, you’ll pay for them.”

Nashville C Nick Bonino
On Tonight’s Game: “We scored first, I think that’s huge for our team. We didn’t let them come down
and dictate play early. We knew how fast they are, I thought from the drop of the puck this was one of
the more complete games our team had. From Peks (Nashville G Pekka Rinne) on out, he was huge
when he had to be in the first—every period—but especially early they had 13 shots and he shut the
door. When he’s on like that, he’s on almost all the time but we just got to get some goals for him, and
tonight we did.”

On Colorado’s Top Line: “Try to keep them out of the O-zone. Especially our line, when we’ve had suc-
cess against them we’ve been able to get on the scoreboard and play some offense. Their numbers

are always going to look good against you, I think. They’re generating shots, they’re one of the best
lines in the league—they’re all All-Stars. You can see they get the puck, they protect it so well down
low, they’re big guys but at the end of the day, just keep them to the outside, limit them to a shot. Try
not to let them sustain that offense and we’ve been able to do that.”

Nashville G Pekka Rinne
On The Team’s Success Against Colorado: “Division game, I think everybody gets pretty fired up for
these games. It’s hard to say, it’s a very good team—like, tonight, they played really well but when we
got that lead I thought we did a really good job managing the puck, playing good defense but still we
didn’t see the puck. Created more offense and it was a solid team effort. I don’t know what it is but we
seem to match up pretty good against them but at the same time I have a ton of respect towards that
team, it’s a very good hockey team.”

On Today’s Game: “I feel like it’s always like a five-man unit job. You know, those guys are so danger-
ous, you know they’re going to have a couple good looks and they did tonight but we did an extremely good job playing against them. It is a line that you have to focus and a lot of times when you play
against a team you look at their whole roster and this team obviously, the top line is something that
you have to circle out and you got to prepare yourself to play against them and the guys did a really
good job again.”