Avs-Blues Jackets Grades: Free point

The Colorado Avalanche lost their third straight game in overtime, this time a 5-4 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Sven Andrighetto (C+) – I loved what Andrighetto brought to that fourth line. He brought the same aggressive shooting mentality that has made him effective in his Colorado tenure. He needs to be moved up in the lineup immediately.

Tyson Barrie (F+) – The top pairing got obliterated tonight. A huge shot disparity is largely the fault of the Zadorov-Barrie pairing, which flat out was bad basically all game. Great goal by Barrie, though. That was sweet.

Gabriel Bourque (D) – Another poor game from a guy hanging on to his lineup spot basically because he plays the PK. I would be all for slotting in Yakupov here if Andrighetto remains on the fourth line and giving them a chance to score a few goals.

Blake Comeau (D+) – His line got blown up at even strength and he didn’t have multiple goals to make up for it. He did have a nice assist on Soderberg’s first goal though.

J.T. Compher (D) – Another night, another result of Compher getting crushed at even strength. It’s become far too much of a regular occurrence this last month. He seems to have hit a hard wall.

Samuel Girard (D) – The shot metrics were pretty kind to both Girard and Nemeth but I thought they both played very poorly. Girard was too turnover prone and his late icing in the third period could have been a real problem. He’s now done that multiple teams in recent games and while he’s gotten away with it, he has to try something else. Firing 70 foot passes to a spot clearly isn’t working and it’s going to cost the Avs eventually if he doesn’t knock it off.

Tyson Jost (D) – Did not handle the top line promotion as well as hoped. He put some pucks on net but he looked totally overmatched against that level of competition and it wasn’t a surprise to see Landeskog move in there as the game wore on.

Alexander Kerfoot (D) – Had a pretty easy goal on his stick and he jammed it right into Korpisalo’s pad in front of him. He hasn’t scored in ages and despite the one chance, just was not very good overall tonight.

Gabriel Landeskog (D+) – Sweet goal, cap. Beyond that, he did not have a good night. Generated very little offense. That goal really was sweet, though. No jokes about that. Great finish.

Anton Lindholm (C) – Of all the poor efforts tonight, I thought the Lindholm-Siemens pairing was perfectly passable. They weren’t great shakes but they were low event and in a game where the Avs got crushed all over the ice, that’s a big step up.

Nathan MacKinnon (C+) – The guy is a one-man army at times and tonight was definitely one of them. He snagged an assist and threw seven shots on goal and was frequently the only dangerous offensive presence on the ice.

Patrik Nemeth (D) – As stated above, I thought Nemeth played awful tonight. I don’t know what that shot block attempt was on the Werenski goal but hopefully, they put it on video and his teammates give him a hard time because that was an embarrassment. He ended up positive in shot metrics, which is downright silly, but the eyes told a tale of a man badly struggling.

Matt Nieto (D) – He wasn’t a significant factor in the few successes his line had tonight, which is an unfortunately common occurrence. He’s just not a guy equipped to be used the way he has been.

Mikko Rantanen (C-) – Thumbs up on the assists, especially on the Barrie goal, but my goodness is he bad defensively. Just a trainwreck at times. He has room for significant improvement in that area.

Duncan Siemens (C) – As with Lindholm, I just didn’t mind these guys much. They were fine and I didn’t notice anything significant with them on the ice. Siemens and Lindholm continue to battle it out for the final spot if Barberio or Johnson get back to full health anytime soon.

Carl Soderberg (A-) – Two badly needed goals. I don’t care if the second one was a fluke or not. His goals tonight put him at 14 on the season, matching his POINT total from all of last season. A nice reminder how much better this year has been.

Dominic Toninato (C-) – It was a slow night with him on the ice, which is pretty normal. No points, so that’s also normal. Not much else to say about him tonight really. The minus is simply because the Avs got doubled up in scoring chances (4-2) with him on the ice, so a slight markdown.

Semyon Varlamov (F) – He should never have been in this game to begin with. There was zero good reason to play him with Bernier ready to go. Zero. Varlamov was clearly out of gas before the Chicago game and willed his way through that one and Bednar got a little too greedy in trying to squeeze great performances out of him and tonight it burned him. Varlamov flat has to play better than he did tonight but with the fatigue of nearly playing a month straight, it’s understandable he went to pieces tonight.

Nikita Zadorov (F) – Like with Barrie, he got trampled at even strength. He took a dumb, lazy penalty that some thought was soft but he put himself in position to be at the mercy of the officials when he didn’t move his feet and allowed the puck carrier all the space needed to get around him. Those types of plays are very frustrating for a player with so much ability to deny offense.