Avs-Capitals Game 54 Studs & Duds

Studs

Artturi Lehkonen

This one is obvious, right? I’m not sure I’ve made it a hard and fast rule of this piece but anytime a player has a four-point night, he’s going to be a Stud. Lehkonen actually had a five-point night if we count the goal he scored for the Caps, but since scoring doesn’t work like that, four points it is, matching his season-high.

It was a balanced array of Lehkonen’s skills on display as his first assist was on a breakout pass up the ice and his second was that banana pants between-the-legs pass behind him to Mikko Rantanen. His goals were both scored in yawning cages but finishing is finishing, you know?

He was definitely feeling good about himself tonight and the coaching staff rewarded him by sneaking him onto the ice alongside Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen on a couple of occasions.

Lehkonen’s great night feels reminiscent of when Valeri Nichushkin was killing it and Jonathan Drouin had carved out a home next to Colorado’s two superstar forwards but Nichushkin was succeeding away from them and alongside them on the power play and looked like the fourth musketeer. Lehkonen followed that blueprint to perfection in this game.

Ross Colton

Colton’s success as Colorado’s second-line center has been interesting to follow this year. His chemistry alongside Miles Wood and Logan O’Connor means he is likely ticketed for a third-line role after the trade deadline but Ryan Johansen’s descent to the bottom of Colorado’s center depth has meant more opportunity for Colton to show what he can do.

The time on ice is still lower than it should be for Colton (only 12:30 tonight) but he made the most of it with fantastic on-ice metrics and he opened the scoring with a breakaway goal and found Lehkonen through traffic on the backdoor to break the 2-2 stalemate in the second period.

In another feather in his cap, Colton won 10 of 18 faceoffs, including six of 10 in the defensive zone. That has quietly been another strength of his this season and seeing him find success in that role will build confidence from the coaching staff that he can handle a checking role in the postseason.

Bowen Byram

A guy that finished underwater a little in shot metrics, I thought Byram’s activation in the offensive zone was excellent all game. When a player is struggling, it can be one thing to see them have a strong period (especially the first period) but Byram was strong with the puck throughout the entire contest.

His jumping into the play and using his puck skill is a major factor in his development into a dynamic two-way player and is the area of his game that has been most disappointing to me so far this season. I loved what we saw from him in that part of the game but it wasn’t the only area of excellence.

Byram is at his best defensively when he is reading the play and disrupting the play at the blue line. His in-zone defense is still a work in progress, as is customary for a player so young and with so few NHL games under his belt, but his greatest strength in playing to Colorado’s preferred style is denying zone entries and getting the puck going the other direction.

The Avs want to play with speed and counterattack with fury and denying zone entries at the blue line and in the neutral zone is the best way to kickstart an effective transition game and we saw Byram excel in that area tonight. His two assists were well-earned.

Duds

Josh Manson

This has nothing to do with the completely made-up penalty that resulted in Alex Ovechkin’s power-play goal but more about his abysmal play in his own zone with the puck.

His turnover on Washington’s second goal is baffling decision-making. It should have been a drama-free zone exit either with control or via a backhand pass. The lane was there. He wasn’t under heavy pressure. Why in the world did he decide to spin around and fire a blind pass into the middle of the ice, resulting in the turnover that led directly to Washington’s game-tying goal?

It wasn’t his last horrific decision with the puck. In the third period with the Avalanche protecting a one-goal lead and him stuck on the ice for an extended shift, he turned over another puck that should have been an easy up-and-out and resulted in a second wind for the Caps. There was no goal against this time, but it was a bad play that could have cost the Avs dearly. It wasn’t a good night for Manson.

Fredrik Olofsson

Olofsson is in a tough spot right now because he was elevated to the third-line center tonight as the team continues to make it clear that Ryan Johansen is a major misfit on this club. This is tough because Olofsson has been a passable fourth-line center this season but hasn’t been so good that the team isn’t actively shopping for a guy to replace him for the postseason.

Moving him up the lineup means more ice time and responsibility and he got absolutely obliterated tonight in that role. It was a bloodbath as the Caps mercilessly feasted on any line combination the Avs tried with Olofsson though he was primarily alongside Joel Kiviranta and Zach Parise.

Shot attempts favored Washington 15-2 at 5v5 against Olofsson with scoring chance and high-danger chance advantages of 6-0 and 3-0, respectively. It’s been clear this entire year that Olofsson is a fourth-line player at this stage of his career but tonight’s performance makes you think that he might be hard-capped in that spot.

Unsung Hero

Jonathan Drouin

The guy with tough shot metrics and no points was the guy who I ultimately thought played the best on Colorado’s top line. MacKinnon and Rantanen each finished with two points and were no slouches, but Drouin created several excellent chances for them with his deft passing touch. Their finish came without him involved and that’s a tough result for a guy who played really well.

The vision and playmaking that have been his greatest strength in his NHL career jumped off the ice tonight and it was a shame that he didn’t end up on the scoresheet for his efforts.

I have him down in this section because he flubbed his best individual scoring chance of the night and later literally shot a puck into his own goaltender. There’s trying to push pucks back into your guy to get a stoppage but this was an actual shot on Georgiev. Too bad Georgiev didn’t get credit for the save.