Studs

Colorado’s stars

It feels like every few games this is what I write in this section. Mikko Rantanen had two assists and Cale Makar had three, but tonight was once again primarily about the whirlwind dominance of Nathan MacKinnon.

He was all over the Islanders early on and it never really let up from these guys. MacKinnon made a nice one-touch pass to Val Nichushkin for the game-tying goal and then his one-time bomb in overtime won the game for Colorado.

Ho hum, another three points for MacKinnon as he is now just two back of Nikita Kucherov for the league lead. He is currently on pace for a 131-point season. I venture to say that probably won’t happen, but that we are into January and he’s the kind of rate he’s produced this year is incredible.

Colorado got two power play opportunities between the third period and overtime. They scored on both and it propelled the Avalanche from losing in regulation to winning the game and it was Colorado’s stars at the heart of it.

Val Nichushkin

This guy is quickly turning himself into Colorado’s version of d’Artagnan. This year’s version of Nichushkin stepped wonderfully into that spotlight.

He was all over the ice once again tonight and has been chosen to essentially carry the second line at times and he’s handling that load pretty well. Both of his goals tonight are him parked in front of the net and just banging away at pucks but he’s putting himself there and capitalizing on those chances. It’s hard to believe it’s this repeatable throughout an entire season, but he’s been nothing short of fantastic.

His absolute insanity of a power move to draw the penalty near the end of regulation was a one-man army that Master Chief would have been proud of and it set the Avs up to win the game.

Watching how the Isles defended that awkward 4v3 advantage in overtime, you saw they were not letting Colorado make that seam pass to Nichushkin in front of the net and were okay letting the guys on the outside shoot. MacKinnon burned for them for that strategy but the success of Nichushkin the last several weeks and again tonight (he is tied for second in the NHL in power-play goals) has forced teams to lean hard into picking a poison against the Avalanche PP.

You saw that effect in OT so while Nichushkin didn’t get a point on it, his fingerprints were all over it.

Jonathan Drouin

Putting another multi-point scorer in here because Drouin was great again. His assist is a nice play and all but the goal is what jumped out here. What was that? Where did it come from? Can he do it a handful more times this season, please? That was a rocket of a shot that Ilya Sorokin barely reacted to because it was such an unexpected outcome.

Jared Bednar talked in his postgame presser about Drouin’s increased ice time and trust being a result of him playing the right way and it’s something I’ve written about in this space a few times this season. The points are necessary for a player to continue getting opportunities at the top of the forward corps, but it’s his all-around game that stands out.

As much as I enjoyed Drouin’s game tonight and thought he was a standout, he made a play near the end of regulation that resulted in a turnover that could have been downright disastrous for the Avalanche and it was one of those “this absolutely cannot happen in this situation” types of plays. There’s enough of that still present in his game that I’m uncomfortable, but seeing the enormous strides he has made as a complete player is very encouraging.

Confidence is a hell of a drug and we saw Drouin riding high on that wave in this game.

Duds

Alexandar Georgiev

This was a game the Avalanche completely dominated from start to finish. The Islanders failed to generate a single expected goal at 5v5 tonight. They scored three. In all situations, they created 1.12 goals worth of chances. They scored four times. Even if you’re being extremely generous and waving away goals one and two as breakaways and the fourth goal as extremely unlucky (it was), you’re still looking at the third goal and wondering what’s going on with your goaltender.

It wasn’t even close to good enough for Georgiev. He never seemed to settle into the game, either, as evidenced by a sequence where he left his net to play a puck as an Islander attacked in alone. He whiffed on the puck entirely and got lucky it didn’t become a real disaster for him. Confidence from the team in front of him looked shaky and his own confidence looked, frankly, shattered after that second goal.

He looks like a man searching for his game right now. It nearly cost the Avs two points they should have had well in hand given the quality of the game they played in front of him.

In 60:32 of game time tonight, the Avalanche allowed just 14 scoring chances and 6 high-danger chances. Those are both extremely low numbers. For a goaltender already struggling as much as Georgiev has this season, it is not an encouraging sign that that defensive effort resulted in four goals against.

Unsung Hero

Andrew Cogliano

It has been alleged before that I am a person too obsessed with points and not enough with process, but I want to give props to Cogliano tonight for a couple of plays that stood out to me as playing a meaningful role in the outcome of this game.

The first is the penalty he took when the Islanders had an odd-man rush. When I mentioned above that the confidence of the team in front of Georgiev looked shaky, you can point to this exact play as evidence.

Instead of Cogliano getting back hard and trusting that everyone involved was going to keep the puck out of the net, Cogliano took matters into his own hands by flat-out tackling the guy and going to the penalty box. He trusted the penalty kill as the likeliest way to avoid a goal in that situation. It was visually hilarious but also an interesting strategic decision at the moment.

The other play was the total flop he sold to the officials at the end of the Islanders power play in the third period. Mike Reilly is standing there doing not a whole lot and Cogliano skates into him and sells the call like he was prime James Harden. It worked and the New York PP ended. The Avs eventually went on a power play of their own and tied the game.

Who knows how the rest of the game plays out without those two plays, but credit to a crafty veteran for finding a way to make a creative impact.