The Colorado Avalanche returned to their winning ways with a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals. These were the Avs studs and duds.

Studs

Nathan MacKinnon

If you’ve been reading this space for a while (thank you!) or just started (hi!), you know I haven’t been in love with MacKinnon‘s game lately despite some of his big nights in the box score. He hasn’t really taken over a game where it felt like every shift he was dictating how the game was being played and the opposing team wasn’t defending so much as merely trying to survive him.

Yesterday was one of those games. Washington tried to slow him down by putting their best defensive pairing of Martin Fehervary and Matt Roy. It didn’t matter. When the Avs got their top line out there against Washington’s third pairing (Rasmus Sandin-Declan Chisholm), it was a downright bloodbath in favor of MacKinnon and the Avalanche. In just 3:25 against Sandin, the Avs outshot the Caps 10-1 (6-0 on goal), created six scoring chances (four high-danger chances), and scored two goals.

That’s a disaster class for the Caps. They couldn’t survive three minutes with MacKinnon out there. It could have been worse, too, because MacKinnon had a fourth point pulled off the board for goaltender interference. His individual shot numbers are staggering, so let’s take those in as a group:

• Shot attempts: 19
• Shots on goal: 10
• Scoring chances: 9
• High-danger chances: 3

19 shot attempts?? These are in all situations, so it includes power play, but that “only” added five shot attempts to his total. Arguably his best play of the game (that actually counted) was his play to create the goal for Artturi Lehkonen that effectively ended the game.

This was a special player having a special game. After his frustrating outing against the Nashville Predators in the previous game, a three-point effort (2G, 1A) was the type of response you wanted to see from your best player.

Martin Necas

Necas was another guy who needed a strong game. Ignoring a silly turnover that turned into a golden scoring chance for Alex Ovechkin (literally the last guy in the world to tee up a free scoring chance for!), Necas had a great game. He finished with two assists, both coming on MacKinnon’s goals, and both were great plays with the puck. I loved the wrinkle on the drop pass on the power-play goal, but the presence of mind on the second goal is crazy stuff.

Sandin makes an awful turnover, but Necas did a great job to not only get a stick on it, but to follow it up because he knew he got a piece of it. You could have understood if Necas tried to jam the puck home from this position:

But he knew MacKinnon was in the middle of the ice and made the pass. Sometimes, Necas trying to make the cute play is maddening, but when it works, it’s great hockey. This wasn’t a prolific shooting game for Necas (those are rarer), but he was good with the puck and created scoring chances for those around him.

Oddly, I don’t have a ton else to add on Necas. He was great; he created offense that MacKinnon cashed in on. That’s how this is supposed to work and, boy, did it.

The second line

The MacKinnon line was fun and had their way with the Caps in process and results, but this line was also pretty awesome. With Val Nichushkin‘s pregame car accident taking him out of the lineup, the Avs walked into the afternoon with an Olofsson-Nelson-Colton second line and…it completely destroyed the Caps. In 9:27 of 5v5 time, here were the numbers:

• Shot attempts: 20-7
• Shots on goal: 15-1
• Scoring chances: 12-4
• High-danger chances: 4-3

Remarkably, the single shot on goal allowed by that line was a goal. My problem is way more with Brent Burns on that play than anyone on the line, so for the purposes of this conversation, I’m largely ignoring it.

Colton was the only member of the line to finish without a point as Nelson and Olofsson picked up assists, but Olofsson also scored the eventual game-winning goal with a nice play in front of the net. It’s his second goal in the last four games that involved him finding a puck in front and putting it home.

If there’s one thing about Olofsson’s game I am worried about come playoff time, it’s that he’s far too soft a player and sticks to the perimeter more than I would like. He has improved his defensive game quite a bit over the last two years (amazing what playing in competent organizations can do for a player), but his physicality is still borderline non-existent. It’s hard to succeed in the postseason when you aren’t comfortable in the rough stuff, but I keep hoping that Olofsson finding a little more success in the middle of the ice will convince him that’s where he should go.

On the Nelson front, he didn’t score a goal yesterday but it wasn’t for lack of opportunity. He finished with four shot attempts (three on goal), four scoring chances (all high danger), but zero goals. He remains one of Colorado‘s most consistently dangerous players. The zone he is in right now is unbelievable.

Duds

Defense around the net

The big difference between this year’s team and last is that the defense had cleaned up its act quite a bit around the crease. Last year’s team had a consistent problem allowing scoring chances from right near the goaltender, so their overall quality suppression didn’t matter as much because the ones they were allowing were the best of the best.

You won’t be surprised to learn that since Devon Toews went down with injury, the Avalanche have started to slip in that area again. Look at the heat map of the shot locations by the Caps and you see a disturbing trend:

The Avs played pretty well yesterday and there weren’t a lot of holes to poke in the game, so it naturally stood out to me as something that I didn’t like. What wasn’t quite as bad as it would appear is how many saves goaltender Scott Wedgewood was actually forced to make. Of the 14 high-danger chances Washington created, only six made it to Wedgewood. He stopped five of them, so he met the moment he was in.

The officiating

The Avs were called for three penalties in the first period. Two of them were real penalties, good calls that you can’t really whine about. The middle of those three, however, was completely made up. Caps forward Anthony Beauvillier knocked Wedgewood’s stick out of his hands and then stepped on it behind the net. Somehow, that was a penalty on Wedgewood…?

Then came the goaltender interference in the third period. Cale Makar had scored a nice goal stemming from a perfect two-man game between him and MacKinnon, but the Caps challenged for interference on the basis that Necas had interfered with goalie Charlie Lindgren and knocked the stick out of his hands.

Necas is doing what he can to avoid getting into the crease, but Roy is pushing him into his own goaltender. What does Necas do wrong here? Well, this is what the NHL said:

Necas is only in the crease because Roy is pushing him there; he makes every effort not to interfere, and it still gets pulled off the board. I’m just confused here what Necas is supposed to do differently other than not even getting close to the crease, which seems like a pretty ridiculous standard to set. It should be noted that challenges aren’t decided by the on-ice officials, but the war room in Toronto. So, the league made the call on that, which honestly makes it even worse.

Avs Unsung Hero

Scott Wedgewood

Wedgewood didn’t have to be great, but the chances he did see were pretty darn good. He finished with 22 saves on 24 shots on goal, but as mentioned above, there was a lot of action in his crease and Wedgewood met that moment. He stopped five of six high-danger chances that actually got to him. Compare that to Lindgren on the other end, who only stopped four of eight high-danger shots on goal.

Of course, not all chances are created equally, but Wedgewood did enough for his team and Lindgren wilted, especially late. The goals given up were trainwrecks by the team in front of Lindgren, but the goals were the goals. Wedgewood didn’t allow the Caps to get beyond two. His best save might have been locking it down when Ovechkin had a clean look at him after a Necas puck fumble. The game was still 3-2 at that point and that’s a game-changing save.

The Avs were rolling on the Caps and that could have flipped the momentum on its ear. Wedgewood made the stop, and Washington never seriously threatened again the rest of the game.