Avs Game 28 Grades: Surviving, thriving, winning

Pierre Edouard Bellemare – B

Bellemare is pretty consistent from night to night. He was again a solid cog in the middle of Colorado’s best depth line. He does a ton of little things well, especially offensively, that are easy to overlook but it’s no accident he’s in the middle of a line that cycles well. Tonight, that grit-and-grind mentality was important against a smaller, quicker team like the Habs.

Matt Calvert – A+

A short-handed goal and an assist on the first goal. Calvert just keeps doing his thing in his Quest for 30. I am confident in saying this is the best Calvert has ever played in his NHL career.

Ian Cole – C-

I didn’t have any real issues with Cole except on the PK. There were two occasions, Montreal’s second goal being one of them, where Cole appeared to purposely be covering nobody in particular. Granted, it was the ice right in front of his goalie but there were no Habs players anywhere near. Just kind of odd. I’d be curious to find out what that was about because I don’t think he’d be doing it for no reason at all.

J.T. Compher – C+

A great play on the SHG, which ended up being the game-winner. I dunno about his 5v5 play right now and definitely think when Kadri comes back he can go back to his cozy and proper role beating up third line competition.

Joonas Donskoi – D-

The nights when he’s really playing well and doing his thing, he looks like he can do anything. When he’s not, though, he really struggles to stand out. I thought it was some classic stubbornness to keep him next to MacKinnon tonight when Landeskog was clearly playing so well but there’s always something to be said for spreading out the talent. The Avs were outshot 17-2 with Donskoi on the ice at even strength. Holy smokes.

Samuel Girard – B-

There were long stretches tonight where I thought the Avs were a little too content to breakout and default to dumping the puck. Girard, to his credit, was back to his ways of skating pucks out with control and getting through the neutral zone. Too frequently, though, he would gain the offensive zone and run out of runway. It has to be noted, however, the Avs were outshot 13-1 with Girard on the ice. I don’t think he was anywhere that bad but it’s worth noting.

Ryan Graves – B+

Graves was caught in no-man’s land on the Montreal PPG. Cole didn’t get all of the puck and Graves chose to chase the puck and try to follow it up and clear it out of the zone. He lost the footrace, however, and it pulled him out of position. He had to make a choice though and he went for it. I’ve always said I can get behind aggressive mistakes so I won’t ding him for that. And speaking of aggressive, he went all-in crashing the net to create the first Colorado goal. Excellent form overall from him.

Pavel Francouz – A+

I didn’t love the two goals against. Who cares what I love? His job is to keep the team from scoring as many as the other team and he was spectacular in the third period. Locked it down and the push he made to go across his crease and stop what should have been the tying goal was awesome. Montreal came hard in the final minutes. Frankie was a wall.

Gabe Landeskog – A

Landy looked very much ready to go tonight. His goal he looked like he was shot out of a cannon as he hopped off the bench and flew through the neutral zone and around poor Jeff Petry before scoring. He was up to his typical 200-foot tricks tonight and the only thing that looked a little lacking was conditioning. With him back, the Avs get back a key defensive element to go with another of their offensive studs.

Tyson Jost – D+

I just didn’t really notice Jost a lot. Per usual, there were a few nice little process plays here and there but nothing really was happening. His defenders will blame his ice time and linemates, his detractors will say he’s earned nothing. Just another day in the world of evaluating Tyson Jost. Of note: Avs outshot Montreal 5-0 with Jost on the ice.

Nathan MacKinnon – D

He was just okay in this one. Just the fifth game of the season in which he failed to record a point. He looked to be fighting the puck all night and didn’t look confident shooting the puck on the power play, which was kind of random. Why wouldn’t he be on top of the world? Even superstars are human.

Cale Makar – A-

I loved a lot of Makar’s game. Skating the puck, generating offense, all of that was good. I loved his decision making on the power play, too, even though that unit failed to score. He was physical defensively, too. Keep doing it, kid.

Valeri Nichushkin – B-

He wasn’t the monster he was last night but he was still solid tonight. The only real blemish of the night was how soft he was on the puck on Montreal’s first goal. For a guy his size to get worked by Brendan Gallagher, who could be an afternoon snack for Nichushkin, is not what you want. Other than that, really strong work on the offensive end once again.

Matt Nieto – C

He was fine. I don’t really have much to add on Nieto. He had one nice rush in the third period where he generated a scoring chance when the rest of the Avs seemed like they were halfway to Boston.

Andre Burakovsky – D

Not quite the return performance of Landeskog. He was honestly having an okay game until the extremely lazy, totally unnecessary penalty early in the third period. Naturally, that mistake is exacerbated when the team scores on the PP but it was just one of those mistakes you cannot make in that situation. The rest of his night was fine, some nice puck plays.

Mikko Rantanen – D+

His line got crushed and he totally got away with a high-sticking penalty on his assist to Landeskog. He also got completely robbed by Primeau in the third period that would have made it 4-2 and probably gotten the Avs out of dodge with an easier two points than they did. But that goal didn’t go in, so we’re here instead. Need much better from this line at 5v5 against Boston.

Mark Barberio – C+

I had absolutely no complaints about Barberio’s game. I’m sure someone in the comments will remember something he did that was negative but I do not. He looked just fine to me and I liked his willingness to fire away on offense. That’s how you stay in the lineup. Arguably his best performance of the season.

T.J. Tynan – C

He played 6:29 and it’s obvious he’s the odd-man out when Kadri returns. Nothing bad happened when he was out there so there’s that, I suppose, but that kind of ice time isn’t enough to really do anything. Naturally, Tynan didn’t do anything with it. On to Saturday.

Nikita Zadorov – B

How do you grade this one? Big Z had the huge hit on Kotkaniemi early that took him out of the game and, according to Montreal media, shook the Habs early on. Colorado took advantage of this alleged lull in emotion to build a 2-0 lead. Does Zadorov get credit for what was a clean hit gone wrong? Full marks for the hit, everything after is on them, I think. With no big star to shadow in this one, Zadorov had a bit of a different kind of defensive assignment tonight and he was solid with it. I really don’t have any issues. He was negative on the shot attempts but given he was out there at the end of the game when Montreal was pushing hardest, I wonder how much of those numbers come from that alone. The eyes told the story of another very solid night from Z.