Avs-Coyotes Game 56 Studs & Duds

Studs

Nathan MacKinnon

There were moments of frustration with MacKinnon within this game but overall how do you not love a two-point performance where he scored the game-tying goal and assisted on the game-winning goal?

His goal was him going to the net and receiving an excellent pass across the ice from Bowen Byram but he kept digging away at the puck until he got it in. I’m not sure why Arizona felt compelled to challenge for goaltender interference but not my pig, not my farm.

MacKinnon’s work behind the Arizona net on the game-winning goal is immaculate. He slipped the check of J.J. Moser behind the goal and then found Jonathan Drouin in front of the net. He doesn’t possess the puck for long but he makes it count with an excellent series of plays that showcase why he’s a world-class player even among world-class players.

Beyond the points, he finished with nine (!) shots on goal. For reference, the Coyotes as a team had just 12 shots on goal at 5v5. So, you know, pretty good onslaught from MacKinnon. He truly embodied Stud status.

Bowen Byram

Byram’s meeting with Nolan Pratt recently seems to have really gotten the message across to him about what should be happening in his game that was not happening before. For the third straight game, he recorded two points and is showing off that tantalizing potential that Avalanche observers have waited to see more frequently.

His first assist tonight was just him rimming a puck around the boards and Ross Colton and Miles Wood doing the rest, but that’s how points go in the NHL sometimes.

His second assist, however, is him attacking hard into the offensive zone and firing a puck across the ice to MacKinnon. What I loved about the play from Byram is that he saw the open ice, stepped into it, and when he got the pass from Jack Johnson he made sure he had full control and then whipped it to MacKinnon.

That’s the kind of confident play with the puck that has been sorely lacking from his offensive arsenal this season.

Jack Johnson

Normally I try to use this space for more than just hyping up guys who registered points but this was a case where the standouts separated by making the big game-changing plays…multiple times.

Johnson isn’t a guy who anyone will confuse with an offensive dynamo at this stage of his career but his goal that tied the game at 2-2 was him making an aggressive move down the wall, something the Coyotes surely were keen to give him, but the key was the shot he took was on target.

That sounds simple but we see on a near-nightly basis players miss that exact shot and the puck rims out of the zone and either kills an offensive possession or creates a rush opportunity for the other team. Those are both bad outcomes! Neither happened with Johnson’s shot as he put it on net and Karel Vejmelka misplayed it enough that it went in. Sometimes hockey is that simple.

His assist on MacKinnon’s goal is him walking the blueline and finding Byram attacking up the same side he did when he scored his goal. On this play, you can see Johnson waiting for a Coyotes defender to skate at him and open the passing lane to Byram. That isn’t the type of dynamic offensive play you normally see from a guy who has settled into a healthy habit of firing pucks along the wall and letting everyone else do the fancy stuff.

Great work from Johnson tonight.

Duds

The top pairing

Once again, Colorado’s top pairing badly struggled. Devon Toews got the game-winning goal and that was obviously a great thing that has to be mentioned so it wasn’t a total no-show from the Toews/Cale Makar pairing.

Beyond that, however, you saw Arizona find the majority of their offensive success against these two guys. At 5v5, the Coyotes created just four high-danger chances…all coming against this pairing. Nine of Arizona’s 14 scoring chances were registered against these guys and eight of the 12 shots on goal they had at 5v5 came against Toews and Makar.

Given the relative reputations of the Coyotes and Colorado’s top pairing, that’s nothing short of a bad night. Add in that Arizona scored twice against them at 5v5 and once on the power play and it gets even worse. Things were salvaged ever so slightly when Alex Kerfoot’s goal was taken off the board for offside because it was a play started by Makar and then Toews gave Kerfoot the gap that was exploited on what would have been the go-ahead goal by Arizona.

Then Toews scored the game-winning goal and, hey, that’s how it goes sometimes, right? But once again we are looking at this pairing as the worst one of the night for the Avs and it is very hard to win when these guys don’t play anywhere close to their potential.

The linesmen

I’m not sure how many times it has happened since the NHL instituted offside challenges, but watching each team get a goal pulled off the board in rapid succession in the third period was certainly a sight to behold.

It is very understandable how they got it wrong on Kerfoot’s goal. The puck was in the air and it was a very close play, although the challenge was a good one and the overturned call appeared to be the right one. That’s fine, that happens sometimes.

Not calling offside shortly after when Mikko Rantanen was clearly offside enough that we commented on it on the watchalong as soon as it happened and the review only took a matter of seconds because it was so obvious. How does an offside that blatant not get called?

Tough couple of minutes for the linesmen involved and anecdotally it sure seemed like an endless parade of players thrown out of the faceoff circle before they were finally dropping pucks. These guys aren’t ever supposed to be a story of any game but tonight, boy they sure were.

Special teams

The Avs gave up another power-play goal and failed to score on any of their own chances, including nearly six straight minutes of the man advantage in the second period. There were good moments and all, but zero production meant they had to do it all at 5v5 tonight. They did and that rules, but this has been an ongoing problem in the seven games since returning from the All-Star break. They need to pick it up on both ends.

Unsung Hero

Ross Colton

It wasn’t a perfect night for Colorado’s current second-line center but he scored again and continues producing at an underrated clip. What I don’t understand is the usage from Jared Bednar. Why is he only playing around 14 minutes per night (just 13:35 tonight)?

Colton’s goal was his 12th of the season and it was nice to see him actually finish a scoring chance in front of the net because if he was scoring at a rate more commensurate with the quality of scoring chances he’s produced this year, he’d probably be closer to 15 or 16 goals and the 2C conversation in Colorado might not be quite as loud as it currently is.

As it is, he more looks the part of an excellent 3C come playoff time (especially alongside Miles Wood and Logan O’Connor) as that’s where his usage currently puts him in an ideal lineup. The Avs needed his goal again tonight and it would be great to see this strong run of production (12 points in his last 14 games) sustained.