Avs-Blues Game 13 Studs & Duds

Studs

Nope.

Duds

The forwards

There were some nice moments early on. I really liked the hard drive to the net by Ross Colton. He should have scored that goal and had the Avs tied it 1-1 at that point, who knows how the rest of the night goes?

Momentum is a huge factor in hockey games and the longer the Avs went without scoring, the more frustrated they got and the more they stopped being committed to playing their game. The final few minutes of the first period that saw the score get stretched to 3-0 was inspiration enough for the Avs to simply give up.

There wasn’t a single standout in this position group the rest of the night. Mikko Rantanen had a neat tip-in goal that made it 4-1. Cool, I guess.

The defensemen

Jack Johnson scoring with under a minute left was the highlight of the night for this group. Other than that, they were bleeding chances. They were awful with the puck, in their own zone, in the neutral zone, defending, playing hard, making life difficult for the Blues. You know, all of the aspects of playing defense. Horrible.

The goalies

I’m giving Ivan Prosvetov a pass here because his coming into a 6-1 game and then giving up two breakaway goals isn’t something I’m pinning on him so he’s really getting caught in the crossfire here. He actually made several nice saves on high-danger chances that the Avs continued handing to the Blues for the entire third period.

Alexandar Georgiev, though, is supposed to be Colorado’s stopper. He had a tough night in Vegas that wasn’t even close to solely his fault and then he was just okay in the win against New Jersey. That’s fine. The night off against Seattle was a weird call from Jared Bednar and staff but tonight was supposed to be the night where Georgiev got his confidence back and his game moving in the right direction.

That plan backfired horribly as Georgiev gave up a hard-luck first goal and then got worse from there. The third goal of the first period was especially egregious because the shot wasn’t from a particularly dangerous spot on the ice and he should have been in position for it. He didn’t track it well and it beat him. That was the end of the game.

He was pretty thoroughly hung out to dry from there as the team in front of him declined into a state of total apathy by the time he was pulled early in the third period.

Special teams

The Avs lost the special teams battle 4-0 tonight as they gave up two power-play goals to a team that had a 2.9% success rate on the man advantage coming into tonight’s game. Not to be outdone, Colorado’s own power play allowed two shorthanded goals as they yet again played lazy hockey and couldn’t finish any of the chances they did manage to create.

These units started the season on fire and drove a healthy portion of Colorado’s 6-0 start. They have since badly struggled and been a key component in Colorado’s failures.

The Avalanche were the “get right game” for the St. Louis Blues. What a joke.

Unsung Hero

The camera work

I ripped the camera crew in my last piece so I’ll say that, unlike the Avs, the improvement from the Seattle game to tonight was very noticeable and very appreciated. If I’m going to be critical, it only seems fair I give credit, too.