The Colorado Avalanche lost 6-5 to the Calgary Flames. Below are player grades.
Mark Barberio (D+) – He was having a fine game, not really good or bad, just cruising along, and then a brutal failed clear in his own zone turned into a Calgary goal at the start of the third period and it gave the Flames all kinds of life.
Tyson Barrie (D+) – He snuck in an assist but otherwise Barrie continued the poor play that has been all too common to start this season.
Gabriel Bourque (B-) – He picked up an assist and generally played pretty well after the first period. His work on the PK was solid. Of all Colorado’s problems tonight, he wasn’t one of them.
Matt Calvert (C-) – He got rocked from a totally clean hit that was basically identical to Cole’s hit but no call was made and the ensuing turnover turned into a goal against. Beyond that, Calvert and his linemates actually were solid tonight.
Ian Cole (B) – Dude got kicked out for a clean hit. He was one of the few Avs playing well at the time and the hit served to completely turn the game around. Hard to penalize Cole for negatively impacting his team when all he did was go hit a guy in a way that isn’t illegal. But all the chaos that followed was a mess. This will be one of the losses Avs fans remember from this year.
Marko Dano (C) – I don’t remember seeing him on the ice at all. The box score says just under seven minutes played. I guess I’ll take their word for it.
Sheldon Dries (A+) – A goal and an assist. Hell yeah.
Samuel Girard (C-) – Like Dano, I just didn’t really notice Girard much out there. For a guy playing six minutes, it’s whatever. For one playing 19 minutes, that’s a bigger problem.
Erik Johnson (C-) – I didn’t think Johnson played worth a damn tonight. Just not a good night for Colorado’s top pairing.
Vladislav Kamenev (B+) – A short-handed goal and a night where I thought he played a solid game overall. Made some good plays defensively and was one of the few Avalanche players capable of clearing the puck out of the defensive zone.
Alexander Kerfoot (D-) – Mistakes all over the ice, mishandling pucks and turning them over, icing the puck in the final minute, etc. It was just a fiasco for Kerfoot tonight. He snagged two assists so I won’t give him an F but I thought overall he played an awful game tonight.
Gabriel Landeskog (D-) – He got Colorado’s fifth goal so I’ll keep from giving him an F tonight but beyond that, he was pretty terrible. The puck management and defensive play were atrocious.
Nathan MacKinnon (F) – This was one of the worst games we’ve seen from MacKinnon in the last 12 months. Last year when he wasn’t rolling, you just didn’t notice him very much. Tonight, he was actively detrimental to Colorado’s efforts. It’s so rare to see a game this bad from Colorado’s best player.
Matt Nieto (D) – Dude got devoured in shot attempts and especially in scoring chances. He was terrible tonight.
Mikko Rantanen (D) – I don’t think he was as bad as his linemates tonight but for a guy being hyped as much as he was the last week (deservedly so), he was a total non-factor tonight beyond the first few minutes of the game.
Carl Soderberg (C) – He scored a goal and his line was the only one that really held its own tonight. They were solid.
Semyon Varlamov (D) – It wasn’t all on him, for sure, but you can’t look at a five-goal third period and say the goaltender is completely without blame. A lot of nice passing from the Flames on the goals, no doubt, but the Giordano goal was one where Varly just wasn’t as locked in as we’ve seen him be this year. Colorado is built to win on the back of one great line, solid defense, and good goaltending. None of that was present tonight.
Colin Wilson (B-) – Snagged a goal and an assist and his fancy stats weren’t a complete bloodbath like the majority of his teammates. He was fine tonight. If he’s ever one of your best players, your team has underperformed.
Nikita Zadorov (B-) – I thought Z personally was fine tonight. His numbers weren’t great but they weren’t terrible. I liked that he was moving his feet and trying to create offense when so few of his teammates seemed capable of getting pucks out of the defensive zone. He was just fine.
0 Comments (20 conversations)
Eve
The top line was a disaster tonight. I really haven’t thought Calvert has been good enough to rate being on the top line power play. Speaking of power plays the top line was terrible in all aspects of the game and certainly on the power play..
robfields911
This will be one of the losses that we as fans remember. I can only hope that this is the one loss that the team that I do so love remembers as well.
John Winters
Well, if we are searching for positives….they got scoring from someone other than the top line. So yay!
slappywhite
I’d be ok with a little less Dano and a little more Greer tomorrow.
JDC15
The 2 games against Calgary are going to haunt the Avs come the end of the season. Minimum 3 pts given away. Just awful, you should NEVER lose a game in which you have a 3 goal 3rd period lead.
Rich
Glad this nightmare is over! Curious to see how Mac and the team come out tomorrow against McDavid and the Oilers?
IdAvsFan
LOL – to bad they’re heads west to play Vancouver – you’ll have to wait a week or so for the McDavid match up
bartelreece
Everyone deserves an F for this loss. Up 4-1 and can’t finish or play well at all. Shameful
faydout
Everyone except Cole imo. Dude got kicked out for some BS with a 4-1 lead. Last night’s turd period wasn’t on him at all.
pixelrebirth
This is a go back to basics game if I ever saw one. It was rough. Glad to get some bottom 9 scoring but woof. Let’s hope they are pissed and destroy Vancouver tomorrow.
Jonesyrules15
Feels like the kind of game where a long losing streak can start. Really too bad because it should have been a game where you say hey the top line played poorly but they were picked up by the rest of the team
KCRybek
Mac’s back check on the 5th goal by Giordano was embarrassing
Jose
You get an A on the grades. After the game I thought that it was the worst mess that I had ever seen Mac make. He lead a primer on how not to play NHL hockey. Are there ways that Bednar could have “calmed” things down and reversed the downward spiral? How much is he to blame? Another game like this and I may turn to strong drink.
K.Szela93
What an absolute joke of a 3rd period. I can’t remember the last time I was this pissed off watching an Avs game ? that call on Cole was terrible and should have been a minor for charging at best. Obviously you can’t blame that one play as the deciding factor for the game but that’s just bad officiating.
B
Cole A+. Left the game on a great hit and 4-1 lead. I just read the “full coverage” article on NHL.com and not even a mention of Cole or the hit. They know they (the league and refs) got it wrong. Weak stuff.
RadoYeti
Just another reFup. It makes me sick.
feralamerican
I feel like Nathan MacKinnon played like a guy who thought he was Nathan Mackinnon. He kept trying to go through people and ended up losing the puck.
RadoYeti
That’s funny. A guy trying to play like MacK! HA!
skybo2370
AJ any thoughts on Bednar not calling a time out? Seems like there were plenty of times that a time out, to regroup the boys, would have been positive in the third period.
Avsolutely
Still pissed. Embarrassing. Playoff caliber teams don’t give up 5 in the third.
RadoYeti
All I can say is What the F was that?
Nels
1) Everything went wrong from the moment AJ Greer got called up and not put in the lineup. WTF is that Beds?
1b) also more pulling the goalie before the faceoff, SMH, dear god Bednar seems so effing clueless sometimes.
2) Between the scheduling and the officiating, I’d say it’s pretty obvious the Avs are one of the teams on the NHL’s shit list.
3) Mack could have even just about redeemed himself if he would have just put the puck in the damn net at the end there (and then gone on to win it in overtime), that was a really good look he had with like 30 seconds left and he missed the whole net!
Chris DeMott
I would be interested in seeing a story about rule interpretation this year. In particuliar from the coaches perspective. In this case Rule 42 was applied. A rule which leaves the call entirely up to the interpretation of the official. Outside of leaving the feet or “covering distance to make a violent hit” there is no definition of what charging actually is. Based on last night’s call, it seems guy’s like Scott Stevens and Rob Blake must have made a career of “charging”. How players like Ian Cole, Nikita Zadorov or even a Erik Johnson can be expected to be effective yet stay out of the box is beyond me. What does a coach tell these guys?
gtq
The announcers mentioned a couple of times that the refs could not look at a video of the Cole hit before rendering a decision. If that’s the rule it is an incredibly stupid rule and will lead to a number of mistaken calls like last night. In football they are allowed to review targeting calls before they send someone’s ass to the showers for a game. Why not in hockey? If refs don’t have video to look at, you don’t think they are going to be influenced by whose home ice they are on? NHL has a major league product coupled with a minor league operation.
Bob_W
Right now it takes about 2.5 hours for a regulation NHL game with an additional 10-15 minutes if there is overtime. By comparison an NFL game can last anywhere from 3 to 4 hours depending on how many reviews are made as well as the style of play of the teams involved. I would not want to see NHL games go to 3 or more hours. If referee calls are going to be subject to video review the circumstances under which that is allowed have to be clearly and concisely spelled out. It cannot be any call. I would like to see the coaches challenge for offside infractions eliminated. We have all seen that 99% of these reviews have to be measured with a micrometer and had no effect on the play. I think the linesmen do a very good job on these calls. I would then change the coaches challenge for goalie interference to result in a 2 minute delay of game penalty if the challenge is not upheld. The same should be true for any video review the NHL allows to occur. Let the teams keep their one timeout. I think that the NHL needs to open up a forum of discussion with the fans about this topic.