The Colorado Avalanche dropped their first home game of the postseason in a 4-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. These were the Avs studs and duds.

Studs

The third line

When the Avs rolled out their new-look lines before the game, I found myself loving the idea of both lines two and three, but it was the Ross Colton-Nazem Kadri-Val Nichushkin line that really jumped off the ice to me.

I absolutely loved what they were able to do and it looked like the Avs really found something with that trio. The numbers aren’t overwhelmingly positive, but in 6:48 of 5v5 time, they piled up advantages in shot attempts (14-7), shots on goal (8-5), scoring chances (5-3), and high-danger chances (4-2).

They also scored the first goal of the game for the Avs when Colton made a nice pass to the middle of the ice and Nichushkin contorted his body to deflect the pass with his stick in between his own legs. That’s pretty rad.

If the Avs can get their top line going, keeping this trio together for another game or two might unlock some down-the-lineup dominance that they’re going to need, especially because their primary matchup was against the Howden-Karlsson-Marner line and these guys tore them up. That’s a major positive to take away from this game.

My biggest issue wasn’t with the line, but rather Nichushkin’s decision to change on the first Vegas goal. I’m not sure he would have been able to get back and actually make a difference in breaking up the play, but it was a decision that struck me as iffy.

Brett Kulak

I liked what I saw from Kulak on the live viewing, but rewatching it this morning, I felt even better about Kulak’s game. He had to play way more minutes than the Avalanche would like and he led the Avs in 5v5 TOI, but the results were fantastic.

With Kulak out there, these were the results:

• Shot attempts: 37-16
• Shots on goal: 18-9
• Scoring chances: 21-8
• High-danger chances: 11-1

Goals also finished 1-0, but it was the territorial dominance against the Karlsson line that was notable. Kulak spent 12:09 of his 22:33 5v5 minutes on the ice against Marner and the shot attempts finished 26-6 in favor of the Avs. Given that Marner is the leading scorer in the playoffs, that’s a pretty solid result for a player who needed to be elevated in the absence of Cale Makar. For my money, I felt he was Colorado‘s best player last night.

Duds

The first line

Individually, I didn’t like any of Gabe Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon, or Martin Necas for much of the night. Of them, MacKinnon was my favorite, but it was Colorado’s worst line through the game and the one that Vegas abused at 5v5.

They played 11:18 together at 5v5 and the numbers aren’t good.

• Shot attempts: 13-13
• Shots on goal: 3-9
• Scoring chances: 6-6
• High-danger chances: 1-2

Breaking even in scoring chances and getting caved in with actual shots on goal isn’t what you’re expecting from this line. As mentioned on the postgame podcast last night, the MacKinnon-Necas duo hasn’t scored a 5v5 goal together since the first period of Game 2 of the Minnesota series. That’s far too long to continue letting them flounder.

There was a late-game switch that put Artturi Lehkonen with Landeskog and MacKinnon while dropping Necas down with Nelson and Kadri and each of those combinations looked significantly more dangerous in limited time together.

I think the time has finally come to move off of the MacKinnon-Necas duo and try to let Necas’s playmaking spark Nelson on the second line. They are struggling to get offense from any of them, so break it up and let them see how they do away from each other.

This line sets the tone at the top for the Avalanche offense and they spent their entire time together stuck in the mud. That’s unacceptable. Great play by MacKinnon on the power play goal, though.

Sam Malinski, Brent Burns, and Jack Ahcan

I’m grouping them all together because I don’t have enough different things to say about each of them individually to separate them.

On Burns, the play he made on the Pavel Dorofeyev power-play goal was unacceptable. He isn’t accomplishing anything with his puck-watching as he was aimlessly drifting to the corner. It was awful from him and then he added a penalty on top of it? Even on a night where there was no Makar, Burns was still limited to just 16:55 of ice time and even that might have been too high.

On Malinski, the play overall simply wasn’t good enough. The playoffs have halted a lot of the positive momentum he built in the regular season, as he has struggled quite a bit to achieve the same level of play. He returned from injury last night and again just couldn’t quite elevate his game. He was pressed into more action than the Avs would ideally like, and he wasn’t a trainwreck or anything, but shooting right into the legs of the player in front of you as a power play is expiring is awful recognition of the situation.

He played the 1v2 as well as you could ask and it was a nice bit of luck that propelled Vegas to that third goal, but it was Malinski’s decision to shoot there that caused the entire sequence on what became the game-winning goal.

On Ahcan, I just don’t know what else to say here. He played 7:34, was on the ice for a goal against again, and shot attempts were 9-4 in favor of Vegas. He’s barely playing and getting smoked every game. He has gotten 18:16 of ice time across three appearances and shot attempts are 28-10 and goals are 3-0 for the opposing teams in those minutes.

Whatever is going on with Nick Blankenburg or Makar, the Avs simply cannot go back to Ahcan again this postseason. They just can’t.

Avs Unsung Hero

Special teams

The Avs might have finished 1-1 on the special team battle, but I thought they outplayed those results. They were dangerous across each power play, generating multiple scoring chances on each attempt.

With the extra attacker on the ice at the end, they converted quickly on an elite play from MacKinnon and a lucky finish from Landeskog, whose shot was ticketed for Carter Hart’s leg pad before ramping up off of Rasmus Andersson’s stick and into the net.

Given how great Vegas has been on the PK this postseason, the Avs showed quite well for themselves, even as their best players were struggling and the top unit was missing Makar. There was a lot to like.

The goal they gave up on the PK was frustrating because it was literally the only shot attempt Vegas managed in 2:46 of power play time. If Burns doesn’t go on his little adventure, do the Avs get through the game without giving up a power-play goal?

We’ll not know, obviously, but there was enough there that I came out of Game 1 feeling like the special teams in this series could be pretty competitive and not a clear win for Vegas.