Avs Game 49 Studs & Duds: Blown leads will haunt you

Colorado’s come-from-ahead 2-1 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins is certainly one of their more frustrating losses of the season because they just played such a great game for 50 minutes before iffy play and some bad luck sunk them late.

Studs

Pavel Francouz

I want to start here. I think it really sucks that Pavel Francouz bounced back from a bad start the last time we saw him and put together a really strong performance overall and he lost this hockey game.

He was at his best when the Avs weren’t, which is what you really want from your netminder. He wasn’t asked to do very much heavy lifting for 50 minutes and then suddenly the dial got turned up and he was really good for the most part.

The game-tying goal obviously has one major caveat to it because he takes himself out of the net chasing a poke check that he doesn’t get, but after that it was a comical series of bounces that led to the puck actually going in. If there is making your own bad luck, this was it.

Beyond that one decision, I loved his game and thought he was great in overtime when the team in front of him was garbage. The game-winning goal isn’t one I’ll ever get on him for, especially after a series of great saves immediately before it. I hate that he has to put the L next to his name alone in the record book.

Nathan MacKinnon

Holy smokes was he a man on fire tonight? The numbers are truly pretty incredible, as they so often are with him. 19 shot attempts, 8 on goal, 11 scoring chances, 3 high-danger chances, 1 goal. That was just him.

In a game with a handful of guys who are probably ending up in the Hall of Fame someday (Crosby, Malkin, Letang, MacKinnon, Makar, Rantanen), he was the best one on the ice throughout the course of the game. Letang obviously got the last laugh, but MacKinnon was about six combined inches away from having a monster scoring night as he smoked multiple posts and easily the most dangerous offensive player.

What was a nice added bonus was his work defensively, which too often can leave you badly wanting. It still wasn’t perfect tonight, but it was an honest effort and we saw a lot of good habits from him that you want to see from a team leader (blocking shots late in the third period, for example).

There were things I didn’t love about tonight, but he was a singular force to be reckoned with overall.

Evan Rodrigues

I thought ERod’s return to Pittsburgh was, on an individual level, really good. He was the most dangerous player on Colorado’s second line and helped create a number of quality scoring chances throughout the game.

Beyond MacKinnon, Rodrigues was the only other player in Colorado’s top six who really looked like he was out there feeling pretty good and playing well. Mikko Rantanen had enough downs to go with his ups, but Rodrigues felt like an awful lot of good to me.

Duds

One bad poke check

I mentioned it above, but I’m not sure why Francouz was so desperate to try to poke the puck away from Jason Zucker. The puck was on a trajectory for the corner or, at the very least, not a dangerous scoring position so even though he was alone while chasing, he wouldn’t have been by the time he got there.

The risk-reward math for Francouz was heavily tilted in the wrong direction. I’ve always said I don’t mind aggressive mistakes, but this was an obvious bad decision from the moment it was made. Just a terrible play that led to some bad luck when Francouz tried to scramble back into the net. Ugh.

The theory of Kurtis MacDermid

This isn’t even really about MacDermid himself because he didn’t do anything worthy of consternation in this game and more about the aura that surrounds him. You see, the theory goes that when he is in the lineup, opposing teams don’t take liberties with Colorado’s star players, lest the Mighty MacDermid strap up and chase them down for some Old Testament style of justice.

It’s a fear-based argument, and when nothing happens people can say, “See? It works!” Tonight, however, we saw Cale Makar take an obvious headshot from Jeff Carter and while it went unpunished by the officials (a game-changing decision in my eyes), Carter never got so much as a facewash from an Avalanche player in response.

I can understand MacDermid not being on the ice in the third period of a 1-0 hockey game. I can understand not wanting MacDermid to go out there and chase Carter around and put the Avalanche on a PK. I get this logic, but the concept of MacDermid’s mere presence as a deterrence loses any and all steam when he is stapled to the bench after one of your star players is pulled by the concussion spotter. If the player is so untrusted by the coaching staff to start some static in response, what’s even the point?

Well, MacDermid did get another shift, and with Carter on the ice, just a minute or so after the hit. Nothing happened, not a single move was made toward Carter, even when the puck hit the neutral zone. Nothing. So again, what’s even the point?

The overtime 4v3 power play

The Avs were gifted a power play in overtime after a lazy Malkin trip of Cale Makar. What they did with it was pretty disappointing. Watch it in its entirety before I chime in.

For me, they defended themselves. The Penguins collapsed their three guys down low and the Avs took the extra space, then did nothing with it. They never move the puck around the horn with any crispness so as to cause any of the Pens any stress or to have to chase anything.

My number one gripe here is that Colorado once again makes Nathan MacKinnon the focal point of this attack. Look, nobody needs me to talk about what a special player MacKinnon is. We all know. But there’s a reality here, and there’s a reason that Mikko Rantanen is top five in the NHL in goals this season and MacKinnon isn’t.

MacKinnon is a career 9.8% shooter having an absolutely abysmal season scoring goals with a success rate on shots of just 6.8%. Rantanen, however, is a career 16.1% shooter and might be on his way to a 50-goal season with a success rate of 18.4% so far this year.

Yet, MacKinnon is standing at the top of the zone bombing away one-timers. Just 32 of MacKinnon’s 255 career goals (12%!) are a result of his slapshot. Why is this the plan? Especially with no movement, and everyone just standing around pretending MacKinnon is suddenly Alex Ovechkin? It’s genuinely maddening to me.

This isn’t to say that MacKinnon shouldn’t be part of the mix because that’s downright asinine, but if you’re going to make someone a focal point to shoot one-timers, at least pick the guy who is your best shooter of the bunch.

Unsung Hero

Bowen Byram-Sam Girard pairing

Going into this game, I was very curious how this was going to go with Colorado’s top pairing staying intact (mostly) and Jared Bednar no longer having to lean on Girard-Erik Johnson as the second pairing.

The numbers at the end aren’t overwhelming (15 CF-17 CA), but how they got there was pretty damn interesting to me.

I went ahead and put together just about every shift they had together in which the Penguins came down the ice in transition. Watch this compilation and see how consistently these guys get the puck out of the zone.

It’s not always perfect and, obviously, they need help from the forwards at times, but very little dangerous happened for Pittsburgh with these guys on the ice in transition.

Also snuck in there was the one and only shift this pairing started in the offensive zone. It was Nathan MacKinnon’s goal, assisted by…Bowen Byram and Sam Girard. Granted, it’s a great individual effort from MacKinnon, but still.

Now, watch the difference in this pairing when they start in the defensive zone.

In-zone defending is a completely different beast than defending in transition. The way Colorado’s defense is built, they have four very good transition defenders in Toews, Makar, Byram, and Girard. Toews is also a very good in-zone defender while the other three are all a work in progress with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Erik Johnson and Josh Manson are the guys who are heavily relied upon in the d-zone faceoff situations because their in-zone defending is one of their best assets. Getting the puck out is obviously the goal and having puck skills is hugely important, but as we see here, sometimes there just isn’t a whole lot the defensemen can do to stem the tide once it gets going.

While the Avs wait for Manson to return, this is a pairing to continue keeping eyes on because when in transition, you can see where they are very good, even dominant at times. Once hemmed in, however, it’s obvious this pairing has some work to do to get out of its own zone.

Moving forward, I’d really like to see the coaching staff balance out the zone starts a bit more because the Byram-Girard pairing can and should be helping to create offense. Starting them at a 4:1 ratio of d-zone to o-zone faceoffs feels too heavily skewed for two players who you are expecting to generate points.

Overall, however, you have to love what this pairing was able to put on the ice compared to what the Avs have gotten this season out of their second pairing most of the time. Byram’s insertion back into the lineup had an immediate impact in elevating the two-way play when Devon Toews and Cale Makar were not on the ice.