Avalanche sweep California road trip with win over Sharks

What to even say about that game?

Colorado’s 5-3 win over the San Jose Sharks had a little bit of everything in it, from Nathan MacKinnon having the quietest three-point night of his life to Cale Makar taking another star turn and building on his impressive Norris Trophy credentials to Val Nichushkin setting a well-deserved career-high in points.

You also had Colorado watch a 4-0 lead slowly get turned into 4-3 and Pavel Francouz get the kind of goal support every goalie dreams of as his own iffy play helped the Sharks climb back into the game.

Let’s start there.

The Avalanche entered the third period leading 4-1 after a tipped goal with just 41 seconds left in the second period got the Sharks on the board and feeling frisky. Things could have gotten interesting had the Sharks scored early in the third, but they didn’t.

Colorado killed its fifth penalty of the night and seemed to be cruising to a solid victory. The third period was pretty low event to that point and, if we’re being honest, never really got out of that zone. Then a failed Avalanche clear of their zone along the wall left Rudolfs Balcers with a clean look at the Colorado net.

He beat Francouz five-hole on a goal that is, simply put, unacceptable for an NHL goaltender to give up. It was an unscreened weak wrister from an angle (as in not the middle of the ice) and Francouz had done a good job cutting down the options for Balcers to shoot at. He simply didn’t make the play, and the Sharks had life at 4-2 with seven minutes left to play.

The Sharks are the kind of team having the kind of year that tends to ride the wave. When things go well, they push hard and attack. When they’ve been beaten up, they stay down. The Avs had them underfoot for most of the night, but suddenly at 4-2 and feeling good about themselves after Francouz’s freebie, it was a contest again.

The Sharks didn’t really make the kind of high-energy, frenetic end-of-game push we often see as the Avs had two legit chances to put the game away with an empty-net goal and Mikko Rantanen got a little too cute on the first one and then missed the second from 150 feet away and got called for icing.

For my money, I don’t have a problem with Rantanen going for it there. It’s fine with me. If he hits it, the game is absolutely over. If he misses, the Sharks still have to find two goals to climb back in. I know plenty of people will disagree and say it was selfish, but the decision is okay with me. He simply missed.

Stuck on the ice after nearly 1:20 of a shift already, Rantanen and Co. were dog tired. San Jose made them pay when Erik Karlsson reminded you why he was once the best offensive defenseman in the world with a nice shot to make it 4-3 with 1:25 to go.

The Avs watched a 5-1 lead in New York turn into a 5-4 win, then a 3-0 lead turn into a 5-3 loss the next night in New Jersey. Now they had once again watched a big lead get cut to one as they tried to hang on.

Now, if you’re reading this, I assume you didn’t miss the final score I posted at the top, so you know the Avs managed to hang on and eventually get that empty-net goal to make it 5-3, but there’s no way around the reality that the best team in the league simply shouldn’t be battling this hard to hang on to leads.

This isn’t like Colorado is protecting a one-goal lead where any bounce can beat you or even everyone’s favorite “worst lead in hockey”, the two-goal lead. No, we’re talking three and four-goal leads here. Just disappearing.

Some context is important, though. Two of those blown leads have happened with Francouz in net. We all know how things can change, but the plan going into the postseason won’t see Francouz take the net for the Avalanche at all. This isn’t to come down hard on Francouz. I thought he was playing very well until the Balcers goal which tipped the game a bit, but Francouz has a nasty habit of giving up a freebie here and there just often enough.

The blown lead in New Jersey was ugly, but also the Avs on the second night of a back-to-back and Darcy Kuemper legitimately was the victim of three goals off purely bad-luck bounces. That was a different animal entirely.

All of this is to say that the recent blown leads are concerning but in the scope of everything else, not that big of a deal, especially because the games in New York and tonight in San Jose ended in victories anyway.

Colorado has been so far ahead in the west for such a long time this season, we’ve taken to putting the team under the microscope every single night and looking at the faults we find as potential dealbreakers, while most of the other teams are just trying to find ways to win hockey games, faults be damned.

The curse of excellence, I suppose.

Now the Avs are back up to a three-point lead on Florida in the President’s Trophy race and lead Calgary by 11 points for home-ice advantage in the first three rounds of the playoffs. With just 20 games remaining on their schedule, they have a monstrous 16-point lead on St. Louis for the Central Division lead and can legitimately start looking at clinching scenarios in a couple of weeks if this lead holds.

Now, for the trade deadline.

TAKEAWAYS

• Speaking of the deadline, let’s talk new guys. Nico Sturm got a trial-by-fire kind of night as he played 15:07 tonight, 4:07 on the PK. He won six of his eight faceoffs. He was positive in shot metrics.  He finished with two shots on goal and a hit. All of that is good. I didn’t personally notice a whole lot from him individually, but he certainly didn’t look out place in a bad way. Tonight was exactly the type of all-around solid performance the team acquired him for.
• The other new guy, Josh Manson, was in his second game for the Avs. He took the first of what I expect will be a healthy dose of penalties in a Colorado sweater, but otherwise was rock solid. He was fourth on the defense in TOI behind Makar, Toews, and Ryan Murray and didn’t play much as they were trying to protect the lead at the end. I’ll be curious how long it takes the coaching staff to feel comfortable putting him out there, especially after the Johnsons (this time it was Erik) once again botched a zone exit opportunity that led directly to a goal. Despite not having 10 hits like he did against the Kings, I thought his physicality played more effectively in this game as he erased a number of puck carriers, especially along the boards and behind his own net.
• Murray once again with a solid night. He was again very active offensively but maybe a little too deferential tonight. He passed up some good looks trying to make the extra pass and it wasn’t always for a superior scoring chance. He was good everywhere, finishing with one shot, two hits, and three blocked shots. I think he’s in a really healthy groove right now.
• I loved loved loved loved the game we saw tonight from J.T. Compher. I thought he was all over the place in a positive way and played with the kind of energy he too frequently lacks in his game. He was involved in some quality scoring chances, too, and his combo with Alex Newhook dominated shot metrics tonight. They didn’t get on the board but they had better nights than the box score will suggest (even with Newhook’s four shots on goal).
• Makar was special tonight. All over the ice and making plays offensively and defensively. He finished with one goal, two points, one bone-rattling hit, and one blocked shot while leading the Avs with 6:27 in shorthanded ice time. The PK has gotten better since it bottomed out on January 14 when it was in 31st place. It’s now all the way up to 19th in the league and part of that success has come from adding Makar’s skill. There was one PK sequence where Toews got the puck and skated out of the defensive zone and Colorado’s forwards, who were the last two back on the play, skated to the bench for a change and Makar zoomed forward to create a scoring chance. Toews almost looked surprised at the opportunity. How often do two defensemen lead a scoring rush on the penalty kill while the forwards change? Freaks.
• I would not want to fight Kurtis MacDermid. He is very comfortable throwin’ hands.