The Colorado Avalanche staged another dramatic comeback victory over the Buffalo Sabres in a 6-5 overtime thriller. These are the Avs studs and duds from the game.

Studs

Jared Bednar

I’ve been writing this piece for about two years now and I don’t think I’ve ever so passionately wanted to include Bednar in here. There are only so many mechanisms for a coach to impact a game beyond simple line combinations and usage.

Coach’s challenges are certainly one of them and we’ve seen Bednar willing to roll the dice on them over the years, sometimes to his own detriment (see: getting the NHL’s first double-minor penalty for two failed challenges), and it’s always an interest contrast to his personality.

He’s always been someone to focus on what’s in front, not what’s behind. You can’t change outcomes, so you try to create better ones next time. That’s his MO as a head coach. Last night, we saw all of that melt away as he angrily challenged for goaltender interference when Scott Wedgewood was injured and Zach Benson scored while Wedgewood lie in the goal writhing in pain.

It wasn’t goaltender interference and Bednar knew that. Parker Kelly pushed Benson into Wedgewood, whose right ankle appeared to buckle when Benson fell on it. Bednar knew he was going to lose the challenge, but he just watched his team go down 4-2 on a play that never should have stood. He wanted to make the refs wear it a little extra.

His anger helped energize his team. Mr. Cool and Calm was lit up and his players followed the tone he set with that challenge. When the Avs lost the challenge, they went on the penalty kill. The Avs didn’t seem to care as they created a rush immediately and later cut short the Buffalo power play when Logan O’Connor was hacked on a breakaway.

We can ascribe all kinds of emotional intelligence to this moment, but Bednar boiled it down to brass tacks in his postgame presser.

“I was mad, so I just did it.”

Cale Makar

Makar played a major role in Colorado even being in the game. Buffalo had built a 3-0 lead in part due to some poor defense from Makar in front of his own goal. The beauty of what makes Cale Makar who he is, though, is that if he gives something away on defense, he’s going to be doing his part to get it back offensively.

He did.

His goal to make it 3-1 and give the Avs any life was filthy stuff. The way he dances Jason Zucker and then puts the puck top shelf was hilarious in that “Cale Makar is so good and we are so lucky to watch him play every game” kind of way. Highlight-reel stuff.

His second goal was also great because Makar seems to have taken his victory in last year’s Hardest Shot Competition at the All-Star Game and built confidence that he should be shooting more one-timers from it. He’s started doing it more and getting results.

At the time, it gave the Avs hope with just over two minutes remaining that another multi-goal deficit would not be too much to overcome against a team that has no idea what it is doing late in games.

Makar had some issues in front of his own goalie, particularly on the penalty kill, but he got it all back in the end.

Devon Toews

Much of what I wrote about Makar is also true for Toews. He blew a netfront coverage that led to an easy goal against. He generated some offense. He was in the mix for much of what Colorado did that was good, and he found himself in the mix for some of the worst breakdowns the Avs had.

A lot of good and some bad from Toews is what I’m saying. That’s fine.

Once the game hit overtime, though, the two assists he had already registered took a backseat to what happened next.

Buffalo’s best forward, Tage Thompson, tried playing an east-west game in the offensive zone against Toews. I don’t know why. Thompson is one of the largest, most skilled forwards in the NHL. He had a lane to try to power past Toews and go hard to the net. Instead, he pulled up inside the blueline and waited for help as Toews kept forcing him sideways.

Thompson ultimately doubled back and pulled up along the wall. From there, Toews ate him alive. He outworked and outmuscled a player who is listed as giving up five inches and 30 pounds to spring the puck free and create a breakaway chance from there.

Toews made no mistake from there and picked a corner for the game-winning goal. It was a great finish to a great comeback. Toews had a high-event night, but he had also had the last event of the game.

Productive anger

You know how sometimes things go wrong for a team and they spiral out of control as they get increasingly frustrated and they entirely lose their way? That is not what happened to the Avalanche last night.

They were well on their way to a disappointing letdown at home against a bad team they shouldn’t be losing to and then the Zach Benson-Scott Wedgewood incident happened and it was on. Benson’s over-the-top celebration set the anger into a different place than allowing the goal would have accomplished on its own. Sam Girard lost his mind. Connor Clifton stopped Girard from jumping Benson from behind as he celebrated the goal and the teams had a full-on scrum while Wedgewood was hurting.

It seemed like the game was teetering on getting out of control and for a few minutes Colorado’s anger was right on the edge of veering off course and into the unproductive kind of anger. The Avs fully channeled their fury into the scoreboard and fought their way back into the game.

Even when Jason Zucker’s third goal of the night made it 5-3 and seemed the end the hopes of a comeback, Colorado kept pushing. They didn’t overwhelm Buffalo, but they finished the chances they created. It was a team Bednar said was “pissed off” and it showed.

By the end of the game, they were a lot less pissed off.

Duds

That entire Benson-Wedgewood fiasco

Benson gets pushed into Wedgewood by Parker Kelly, Benson falls on top of Wedgewood, who goes down and is clearly hurt. The puck goes to the corner as Wedgewood continues, you know, BEING HURT, and because the Avs never possessed the puck the officials allowed play to go on. It reminded me of something.

That incident caused the NHL to apologize to the Avalanche and revise how it would handle clear injuries despite puck possession.

We’ve also seen a situation where normally the play would be whistled dead after a goaltender loses his mask but because the puck was in an “imminent scoring position” it was allowed to continue. Remember this?

Combine those two plays and you build a case for why the anger about last night’s call is what it is. It was ridiculous for the officials to lean on puck possession as the reason for not blowing the play dead.

It’s a clear player safety issue, but it’s also an obvious issue of the integrity of the game. That isn’t how anyone should be winning or losing games, and Benson’s celebration of the goal is a major reason why the Avs were as angry as they were. It was bullshit and everyone knew it.

I don’t want to hear any nonsense about goaltenders faking injury to get play stoppages. There is already a mechanism in place to police that with embellishment penalties. If the league’s argument is those rules aren’t good enough because their officials won’t properly use them, that seems a major problem to me.

Overall, you prioritize the safety of the players first. That was thrown in the bin last night because a puck was loose in the corner. That’s outrageously stupid.

As far as Benson’s celebration, I think the Avs were overreacting in the moment. Benson was excited, obviously, and just celebrating a goal that should have majorly changed the moment from Colorado to Buffalo and restored a two-goal lead in the third period. He’s thinking he might have iced the game for his team.

Was it in poor taste? Absolutely. It was also incredibly stupid because the Avs were already furious at the goal even being allowed to happen and he gave them a place to direct that anger. It eventually got channeled into storming back and winning the game, which they did. Meanwhile, Benson’s final shift of the game ended with 9:38 remaining in the third period. Read the room, kid.

Colorado’s netfront defense

There’s this.

And this.

Also this.

The common thread among all of them is horrible play in front of the goal. The last one was so, so awful from Keaton Middleton in every regard. Not for nothing, but why was Middleton on the ice with under five minutes to go with the Avs trailing by one goal? I know Bednar loves the hulking stay-at-home guy but it was curious having him out there and he fumbled the play. Hard.

Mackenzie Blackwood wasn’t amazing there, either, if we’re being fair (I try to be).

Anyway, don’t let the opposing team make a habit of standing that close to your net and pumping pucks in. That’s bad defense.

Avs Unsung Hero

Colorado’s second line

It doesn’t even matter which iteration of the “second line” we’re talking about here because both were exceptional.

Drouin-Mittelstadt-Colton played 5:01 of 5v5 time together and pumped 10 shot attempts at Buffalo while only allowing one. Shots on goal were 6-1 COL while scoring chances were also 2-0. That’s a shelling.

As the lines changed later in the game and Artturi Lehkonen took Drouin’s spot, the line continued dominating Buffalo. That trio played 4:57 together and shot attempts favored Colorado 5-0. Colton got the goal early in the third period that made it 3-2.

Lehkonen was the only member of Colorado’s top six forwards who didn’t register a point. To my eyes, all six were great at times, but especially late as the Avs were really taking it to the Sabres.