Avs-Coyotes player grades: J.T. means "just tremendous"

The Avalanche dusted off the Arizona Coyotes in their barn Friday night. Let’s take a look at the game individually:

Gabe Landeskog (A+) – Terrific game for the captain and birthday boy. He scored and added an assist and won eight of his 11 faceoffs. Part of a dominant performance by just about everybody tonight. Of his 14 goals this year, 11 have been on the road.

Nathan MacKinnon (A+) – Two assists tonight and fast all over the ice throughout. Terrific road trip for MacK.

Mikko Rantanen (A+) – Another goal and assist for the NHL’s scoring leader. The awareness he displayed on the goal he scored, on the touchdown pass from Landeskog, to stay onside, to shoot the puck on edge with accuracy – impressive stuff.

Alexander Kerfoot (C+) – A quiet night for the Hah-vahd grad; no points, a losing night in the faceoff dot. But, he wasn’t needed in this one.

Tyson Jost (B-) – Nothing on the score sheet, but I thought he was good defensively. He closes quickly on pucks in the offensive zone, on the forecheck.

Colin Wilson (C+) – Part of a quiet night for the second line generally. But he played a responsible game.

Matt Calvert (B-) – Played a generally solid third-line kind of game. He didn’t do much offensively, but did a good job along with his teammates in limiting Arizona to very good scoring chances.

J.T. Compher (X) – Only my second rated X grade – “so good he was filthy.” Two short-handed goals on one penalty kill, in his first game in more than five weeks? What? Unreal. He could have had the hat trick too. Fourteen Corsi events for, five against. He’s played six games on the season now, and has five goals.

Matt Nieto (B) – Remains probably the quietest player on the team so far, on the ice. But he outskated the competition to set up Compher’s first goal of the night.

Carl Soderberg (C+) – Not the greatest night for Carl. Nothing on the score sheet, negative puck-possession numbers. But this is nitpicking at this stage.

Sheldon Dries (B-) – Nice, pesky presence mostly. Was involved in the play pretty well, though nothing came of it on the sheet.

Vladislav Kamenev (C+) – Not a lot of ice time, but he generally acquitted himself OK. Needs to up his aggression still around the net, but he’s getting better.

Erik Johnson (C+) – Negative puck-possession numbers, but a lot of the game was garbage time with the Avs kind of sitting back, so that explains some of it.

Sam Girard (C) – Had one great spin-o-rama to send a forechecker practically into the glass, but overall played mostly without the puck tonight. Oh well.

Ian Cole (A) – Another solid game. Muscled Coyotes forwards away from the net and had an assist. Great road trip.

Tyson Barrie (A) – I thought he was tremendous. Scored a goal and was fast and dangerous with the puck all night.

Patrik Nemeth (B+) – Quietly effective night for Broadway. Good puck-possession numbers. The less you notice him in the game, the better.

Nikita Zadorov (B+) – Good, strong game for Big Z. Twenty one Corsi events for, eight against. That’s good.

Philipp Grubauer (A-) – Didn’t have to stand on his head, that’s for sure, as the Avs did a fine job containing the Coyotes’ top forwards. But he did make some nice saves to always keep the game lopsided. That’s not always easy. Not many rebounds allowed either.