Studs

Nathan MacKinnon

This is the all-world player that we’ve become accustomed to seeing in Denver. I criticized him in this space the other day for some lazy habits that creep into his game when he isn’t playing his best.

Tonight we saw the monster, the dominant player who doesn’t get discouraged when he doesn’t make the play he wants and who isn’t wasting energy fighting refs. His goal and two assists were a reminder that while Cale Makar is certainly in the early stages of a special year, MacKinnon has a fastball that other teams can’t handle when it’s on.

His goal is the result of a great pass from Jonathan Drouin but he snagged two assists on nice plays to Kurtis MacDermid and Logan O’Connor (what a duo of goal scorers). He drove play and elevated his game when away from Mikko Rantanen. That’s a 1C.

Josh Manson

Manson came within an inch or two from having a two-assist night. With no Cale Makar and then losing Bowen Byram during the game, Manson stepping up was a necessity. His physical game has really stepped up lately and tonight he was running around punishing Ducks for daring to bring pucks in his general vicinity all night.

He brought a little offensive flair to the game as well but it was his overall game stepping up in the absence of others (this is true for Jack Johnson, too) that struck me as great. I loved his game overall and it really feels like he’s worked his defensive game into an encouraging shape.

He’s a key part to this defense when healthy and really a key part when it is as banged up as it is at the moment.

Alexandar Georgiev

This guy was lights-out tonight. His only goals allowed are on a breakaway that he nearly stopped anyway and the backdoor play to Leo Carlsson on a two-man advantage. Georgiev’s push was strong enough that he nearly got hold of that puck anyway, which would have been the save of the year.

Other than that, Georgiev was huge throughout. The Avs were never so dominant that he had a light workload, though the quality allowed certainly went down as the game went along.

Maybe most importantly, Georgiev slammed the door shut on Ryan Strome when Strome got free late in the game with a chance to tie it. Georgiev stopped it and didn’t allow a rebound opportunity on net as the play slipped behind the net. He was the man and had enough from the team in front of him to get the win tonight. Mikko Rantanen owes him big time for potentially ruining the shutout with that obscenely lazy play on the PP that created the breakaway (Georgiev was soooo close to stopping it, too).

Logan O’Connor

Lots of guys I can pick here, but I loved LOC’s game. He was hard on pucks and really was the bow on the line alongside MacKinnon and Drouin (who was also really good), but I’ve long said that MacKinnon is at his best when he as a responsible “adult” alongside him.

Look at his connections over the years with Gabe Landeskog and Artturi Lehkonen and you see that he thrives with a 200-foot player and LOC has been an excellent glue guy this season. Tonight, you saw him come up a little short in skill when those moments arose but look how he scored his goal (going hard to the net and mucking it up).

I don’t mean this in any kind of offensive way but if he is MacKinnon’s responsible adult when Val Nichushkin isn’t in the lineup (see: tonight), this is just fine. Juuuust fine.

Duds

Mikko Rantanen

I posited after the Kings game that the Avs might be best to break up MacKinnon and Rantanen because it might force them each to elevate their games a bit when they aren’t playing alongside each other.

Lineup changes almost forced Jared Bednar’s hand but look at what MacKinnon accomplished tonight: A goal with assists from Drouin and Manson and a primary assist on goals by MacDermid and O’Connor.

Rantanen? Had he not made an unbelievably egregious, ghastly, ridiculously lazy turnover on the power play that led to the Ducks getting a shorthanded goal, we might not have even noticed him in the game at all. He had a couple of moments, but otherwise it looks like he’s stuck in neutral.

The power is totally missing from his game, something that happens from time to time and is a telltale sign that Rantanen’s game isn’t where it needs to be. When he starts running people over and forcing defenses to hit him to stop him, you’ll know the moose is back.

Until then, you have this shell of a great player who gives you glimpses but looks disengaged and ineffective. It can’t be much more of this; Rantanen is too great of a player to stay like this for this long.

Oskar Olausson

This was a big opportunity for him to do something in his second NHL game and against an opponent that isn’t among the best in the league. It’s a plum situation for him to do something and I didn’t see much at all to like from the kid.

This isn’t so much that he played poorly as it is that he had a great opportunity to make a mark tonight and didn’t do much of anything with it. The Avs are too focused on winning right now to live with the inconsistencies of unproven guys (otherwise Riley Tufte would still be here getting the look Olausson got) so they need to come in and show up right away.

I was disappointed that Olausson didn’t do more.

Unsung Hero

Kurtis MacDermid

Okay, so the goal is straight-up nasty. Where in the world did that come from? He takes a pass in the skates on the fly and kicks it to his stick and then puts it bar down over John Gibson’s glove. It was an awesome goal if you’re Nathan MacKinnon. For MacDermid, it’s a shocking display of skill from a guy paid to keep it simple. He adds it to his collection of awesome goals this season as both of them have been great displays of skill.

He was also physical and did his job well.

Then comes that moment in the third period. Fredrik Olofsson is already being called for Tripping in a 3-1 game with a chance to make it 3-2. Why does he even go over there to mess with Leo Carlsson? What’s the upside? What’s the point?

I have a problem with the decision there.

I definitely have a problem with the ref calling it roughing on MacDermid and nothing on Carlsson, who responded with a little physicality of his own in the situation. Scrums like that happen all game long and it is very rare to pull one player and give him a penalty. It is even rarer for a ref to do it to give a team a full two-minute 5v3.

It’s a game-changing call, and, well, it changed the game. You can squabble with MacDermid’s decision to go over there (seriously, there’s no upside), but the call is one that just doesn’t get made very often. Apparently, there are a lot of people who disagree with me on that, but I can’t help but wonder how much of that opinion is driven by the strong feelings brought out by MacDermid’s involvement. Anyway, I think it was a bad call and a bad decision to engage.