Avs-Blues player grades: Back to bad

Sven Andrighetto (C+) – After a very strong showing in Winnipeg, Andrighetto returned to previous levels today. It wasn’t all bad for him but it wasn’t the impressive performance he put up two nights ago.

Tyson Barrie (D) – The power play continues to not only not produce, but it’s also not even coming close to creating chances. As the primary QB of the unit, he’s not the catalyst for anything positive right now. Combine with what was again a weak defensive effort and you have the recipe for a bad overall day from Barrie. I’m not failing him because he was one of the few Avalanche players who were willing to shoot when he had the chance.

Matt Calvert (B+) – He’s still rocking and rolling. He played the role of a one-man army on a PK in the third period when he created a scoring chance by simply outworking a couple of guys. Didn’t ultimately matter, of course, but where was that from everyone else?

J.T. Compher (F) – He was a disaster today. Turnovers, sloppy puck management, poor decision making, the works. This was just not a day to remember for JTC.

Samuel Girard (C+) – His shot metrics were great but he made a couple of mistakes that could have easily ended up in the back of his net. He has to stop helping other teams create breakaways with his poor puck work in the offensive zone. It’s happened twice in the last three games.

Ryan Graves (D) – You knew the strong play wouldn’t last forever but for my money these last two games have been the worst showings we’ve seen from Graves so far. He’s been very pedestrian and while he continues to have confidence in stepping up to make plays with the puck, it’s cost him a couple of times recently because he doesn’t have the footspeed to recover if the opposing team makes a play. That was on display again today as he was forced to scramble a little bit

A.J. Greer (C+) – It certainly wasn’t the game he had in Winnipeg but this was still another step forward for him. He created a little chaos out there with his physicality and we were robbed of what would have been an entertaining tilt between Greer and Robert Bortuzzo when a linesman stepped in and shut it down.

Erik Johnson (B-) – I didn’t hate his play today and I don’t think he’s at fault for the breakdown on the Tarasengoal. I would’ve liked to see him capitalize on his offensive chances but that’s true for every other player there.

Tyson Jost (D) – Total ghost show performance.

Alexander Kerfoot (D) – This line was a total mess today.

Gabriel Landeskog (D) – I thought the top line outside of MacKinnon was a real problem. He ghosted Tarasenko on the game-winning goal like they’d just finished a bad Tinder date. For a normally defensively heady player, Landeskog’s assignment breakdown was startling – and costly.

Nathan MacKinnon (C) – I thought he was a really impactful player in the first period and that deteriorated as the game wore on. I’m not a big reader of body language but he sure doesn’t seem to be comfortable doing what he’s being asked to do on the power play right now. I can’t help but wonder if there might be a disconnect between MacKinnon and the coaching staff on that deployment.

Patrik Nemeth (C-) – I didn’t love what I saw from Nemeth today at even strength. He was slow in coverage and just wasn’t quite as engaged as I’m accustomed to seeing from him. There was a little controller disconnect syndrome with all of Colorado’s defense today, though.

Matt Nieto (B) – He was legit good today. That line can really get moving downhill on teams despite their limited offensive upside. They created what should have been a goal on the shift immediately following the Tarasengoal that should have tied the game but Soderberg (who was hooked, to be fair) missed the net on the shot.

Mikko Rantanen (F) – Rantanen was awful today. Missed the net entirely on a breakaway and that was just the beginning of an afternoon of Mikko Follies. When Colorado’s top PP unit was able to set up shop, Rantanen received the puck from Barrie and never even looked at the net. If he’s not remotely a threat to shoot, teams aren’t going to defend him honestly and passing to him serves no purpose. That’s exactly how the Blues handled themselves today and the Colorado PP was again a total non-factor.

Carl Soderberg (B) – He’s been really good lately. Like…Colorado might be able to seriously get something from him at the deadline kind of really good. I just think he’s been awesome. The Avs could obviously still use his services.

Dominic Toninato (C) – I legitimately didn’t notice him one time today.

Semyon Varlamov (A-) – He was awesome today. Tarasenko had several wide open looks today and it took him until the third period to solve the Varlamov riddle. There isn’t any reasonable expectation for him to stop either of the goals and he made a number of great saves to even get the Avalanche to a zero-zero tie to start the third period. He was Colorado’s best player today.

Nikita Zadorov (D+) – The shot metrics were surprisingly good but he really wasn’t that strong today. He made a lot of mistakes with the puck and without. I’ve been really disappointed in his play lately. The Avs badly need him to find some consistency in his game because riding the roller coaster with him is so unpredictable. This is a harsh grade based on eyes because his stats for the game are actually really quite solid.