When you spend a month losing the majority of your games, it’s fair to wonder if a team has entered into a death spiral that defines their season or merely an extended slump that everyone will look back on at the end year and reminisce about how miserable it was.

After losing the first three games of a five-game road trip, the Avalanche entered Monday night’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs with an air of desperation. The slide had to end and it had to end now. After giving up the 3-2 lead they had built entering the third period, the Avalanche just continued to work.

They had been the better team throughout the course of the game but the explosive Toronto offense had capitalized on Colorado’s mistakes to tie the game. Instead of folding up shop and finding a way to lose another game, as they had too frequently in tied games during this miserable stretch, the Avalanche got gritty and created a goal. How did it happen?

Glad you asked!

The Breakout

There’s nothing sexy about this. Colin Wilson gets the puck off a missed shot, corrals it, and heads up ice. Because Erik Johnson had been playing high on the puck carrier, who went from the corner to the blue line, he was a little higher in the zone than he normally would have been. This ended up being a boon for the Avalanche as Johnson was able to take the pass on his forehand, opening up options for him.

Again, nothing sexy here but this is a clean breakout with perfect execution. It doesn’t look like much when done correctly but this is an area Colorado has badly struggled to execute the last few weeks.

Erik Johnson, hello

Erik Johnson’s struggles this year have really been one of the ongoing themes for the team but he’s been a totally different guy the last several games. It’s been said countless times that you know when Johnson is playing well because he’s moving his feet. Just look at this clip above for a perfect example of the kind of difference he makes. The transition game should have been clogged up with one Av versus three Toronto players but Johnson’s skating, skill, and decision making made them irrelevant.

Johnson sees Soderberg on the far side at the blue line and there’s already one Toronto player marking him so he decides to take his chances against the two on his forehand side. One of them is a forward standing still and Johnson’s momentum makes it easy to beat that guy. Johnson splitting Nylander and Dermott is really the key to this entire sequence as it causes a total breakdown in the Toronto defense. Johnson gets the shot off and the rebound ends up behind the net, which is where Wilson, who drove the middle of the ice after igniting the breakout, got to work.

As a smaller note, this is our first real look at Soderberg, who was standing at the Toronto blue line helping spread out the defense. With Wilson driving the net, Soderberg allows himself to get lost in the shuffle of Toronto’s defensive rotations, which we’ll see the result of below.

Colin Wilson goes ham

There’s a ton going on in this gif that makes a difference but the star is Wilson. As mentioned above, Wilson started the breakout and then just drove the middle of the ice with Soderberg still on the left wing and Compher trailing the play. Wilson looks to have the advantage immediately when he arrives as he’s in a single matchup against a guy laying on the ice.

That one on one quickly turns into a one versus two (three if you count the official further complicating things!) but Wilson is able to win the puck battle here. This is a crucial aspect to Wilson’s value to the Avalanche as his ability along the wall is something lacking among Colorado’s forward corps as a whole. Wilson absorbs a shove in the back while still fighting for the puck and maintaining his leverage along the wall.

While that battle is going on, Compher also drives the net. This is where handedness matters quite a bit. You see Auston Matthews is covering the backdoor but when Compher drives the net, Matthews has to rotate over because Compher is on his forehand and they have to respect Wilson potentially getting the pass to Compher right on his blade. Compher makes the perfect read as he goes to help Wilson with the puck battle but Wilson had already won it. Compher is free to gather the puck from here and do work.

Carl Goal-derberg

I liked both camera angles on this one this as you really get a great look at the shot on the second gif. Compher takes the puck from Wilson’s victorious puck battle and is free to make the pass to Soderberg because Matthews didn’t follow Compher behind the net and Zaitsev didn’t rotate quickly enough to clog the passing lane. As Compher makes the easy pass to Soderberg, both Zaitsev and Nylander react to the pass itself, opening the shooting lane for Soderberg.

Despite drifting backwards, Soderberg gets enough on the shot and places it perfectly over the glove of Frederik Andersen. This was a line just recently put together by head coach Jared Bednar and we’ve been saying all year that Soderberg with a little better offensive linemates could help solve the secondary scoring problem that has persisted. This goal here shows that the breathtaking skill of the top line can get it done one way but this trio (with a big hand of Johnson) can grind out an uglier goal.

This ended up being the game-winning goal in a 6-3 victory and the win could be the beginning of the Avalanche pulling themselves out of the depths of their miserable December and early January malaise.