Avs flip the script in complete domination of Blues

One of the (many) things I love about sports is the obvious opportunity for redemption. Have a bad game where you get embarrassed on home ice against a longtime rival? When you play two days later against the same opponent, you can throw it in the bin and get it back.

Sometimes it works, sometimes the other team is just better than you. Following the completely lifeless 4-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues in their season opener, the Colorado Avalanche responded just like you’d expect a championship contender to respond: with fury.

The two-game set between these two teams is over with them trading ass-kickings, tonight an 8-0 shellacking in favor of the Avalanche.

Special teams were the focus of practice and morning skate and those units produced. The Blues failed to score on their three power plays and the Avs scored five goals with the man advantage.

At one point in the third period, the Avs had seven goals to seven shots on goal by the Blues from the start of the second period. That’s dominance.

To me, that’s where these two teams separate themselves. We saw how the Blues dominate games and it was still 2-1 in the third period before more Colorado laziness led to multiple Blues goals.

Tonight, the Avs dominated the way they like to do things. They pressured the Blues into a lopsided shot differential and their ability to outskate St. Louis led to a lot of penalty calls due to playing catch up.

The power play was historically lethal as they matched a franchise record with the five PP goals. Colorado’s reunited top line tore the Blues apart, combing for 13 SOG (STL as a team had 21) and 7 points (4g, 3a).

It was a showcase of what could be with this year’s Avs. Philipp Grubauer was stout, stopping the few golden looks the Blues generated and the defense in front of him, led by Cale Makar, Sam Girard and newcomer Devon Toews, pushed the pace and quarterbacked the wildly successful power play units.

The three defenders combined for seven points of their own, led by Makar’s three-point night, as they put on a show of what such a fleet-footed and highly-skilled trio could do from the blueline.

It could get even better, too, as Erik Johnson and Bowen Byram are set to skate tomorrow morning for the first time as the team has an off-day. They will join the squad on Sunday’s practice before leaving for California.

The idea this team could get even better just with some internal replacements is downright silly. That’s where the potential of this team is so lethal. The forward corps is deep and even though it hasn’t really come together yet, they had no trouble dominating a Blues team that outworked them 48 hours ago.

Coming into the game, the prevailing story was the Blues had shown the Avs what a real Cup contender looked like, a team with championship mettle reminding the league’s newest darling that they actually walked the walk.

Being on the business end of this level of beatdown had to be a culture shock for the Blues, however, whose captain, Ryan O’Reilly, categorized their performance tonight as “embarrassing.” He’s right, of course, but the gap between these teams certainly can’t be that big.

Can it?

TAKEAWAYS

• Just as the first game of the season was just one game, so was tonight. It was more of what we expected to see but the response is exactly the kind you look for from a team with championship aspirations. Every team has tough stretches throughout the year but in a 56-game season, they cannot afford to let losing linger. The Avs rooted it out immediately and stomped it out. The Blues had chances, of course, as it was just 1-0 halfway through the game, but the first period was still all Avs. The Blues simply never found their footing in this game and the Avs made them pay the price for it.
• This was a total reverse from opening night. I struggled to identify players who played well that night and tonight the players who struggled were a lot harder to pick out because even the guys who had bad moments also had redeeming ones. I’m not bagging on anybody in an 8-0 game. Philipp Grubauer was the quiet star of the game. Despite a dominant first period, the Avs were nearly down 1-0 at intermission on great scoring chances from David Perron and Brayden Schenn. Grubauer doesn’t stop those and the game goes very differently. As it was, he came up big when needed and cruised to a shutout.
• Sam Girard looks awfully good through two games. There was obviously a big mistake in the first game but overall, he’s been aggressive moving the puck via carrying it himself and passing it but he looks on a different level right now. As long as he maintains the solid defensive presence he’s been his entire career, there’s another level for Girard to get to and if he does, the Avs get even tougher to handle. The play of Devon Toews, Girard’s improvement and, you know, the general presence of Cale Makar is a lot for other teams to handle. Conor Timmins has a much stronger night tonight, as did Ryan Graves (he got an assist, too), but Ian Cole has struggled through two games so far. Of course, Cole struggled out of the gate last year, too, before having a very strong regular season. Byram and Johnson are going to play a role on this defense at some point. I don’t even know what to say. Is there another defense in the NHL this deep? My goodness.
• Colorado’s third line is still a work in progress but they looked a lot better, too.
• The PP obviously made some history tonight and that’s all good and well but props to the PK here, too. They tore up the top Blues PP unit, not allowing a single SOG from them until their third PP attempt. There’s a lot of pressure on this unit to be good this year because the Avs are likely to be among the league’s best ES teams. If they manage that and the PK is stout as it has been through two games, hoo boy.
• Some milestones of note: Landeskog scored his 200th career goal in this one while Rantanen got number 100. Landeskog is fourth in Avalanche history and just two goals behind fellow Swede Peter Forsberg for third place. Rantanen is now six goals behind Claude Lemieux and Valeri Kamensky, who are currently tied for 10th in Avs history.
• MacKinnon’s big night puts him two points from 500 in his career, good for fourth in Avs history but he’s still got a long haul to catch Forsberg for third at 705.
• Grubauer is the first goaltender this year to record both a shutout and an assist. Tonight was the second assist in Grubauer’s career. Fun!