Avs Game 60 Grades: Frankie says relax

Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – B

This was the type of game Bellemare lives for, and he was good and dependable in this one. That line cruised through this game defensively and didn’t give the Ducks anything.

Andre Burakovsky – B

Burakovsky was definitely the trigger man on that line, and on the power play, and if not for Gibson, would have had a few goals. Gibson got over and robbed him with the glove a few times, but the Avs stayed patient most of the night.

Ian Cole – B

Cole was good in this one, and once again, a lot of his best work was in the offensive zone, including a great keep in in the second period to continue some zone time for the Avs. Most of his shots got blocked, but he also showed well the few times the Avs had to kill a penalty.

J.T. Compher – A

After a couple of rough outings, Compher has now put up back to back games where his second line has controlled the majority of the play and picked up a big goal. This one came on a bit of a line change, but Compher buried the only goal of the night. He took the all-important final face-off of the game for the Avs too. Maybe wouldn’t have been my choice, but Bednar trusts him.

Joonas Donskoi – B

This wasn’t Donskoi’s best game, but he still did a lot right, and one thing I thought he really focused on was getting the puck out of his zone on some extended defensive zone shifts. Small plays like that can get a few guys off the ice that are tired, at the very least.

Sheldon Dries – C-

The one thing I’ve always liked about Dries is that he’s not shy about putting the puck at the net, and did it the first time he got the puck. He disappeared, quite literally, the second half of the game when the staff shortened the bench.

Pavel Francouz – A+

The Ducks are not the highest-scoring team in the league, but you can only stop what comes your way. Frankie was in the zone tonight, and one game after losing his shutout late, he got his first career shutout against Anaheim.

Samuel Girard – A

Girard was on his game in this one. He played 18:15 at even strength and the Ducks only had two (TWO!) shots on net in that span. There’s limiting a team’s chances, and then there’s giving them nothing at all. Seemed like he may have gotten x-rays after the game, so you have to hope he’s okay.

Ryan Graves – D

This felt like Graves’ worst game in a while. His passes were off, he struggled to clear the zone a few times and took a penalty really early after getting caught a bit. Three of his four shot attempts got blocked as well, which has been an issue of late.

Erik Johnson – C-

I felt like EJ was slightly better than Graves, and the metrics show he definitely was, but he had his rough moments as well, including a shift in the second where he waited way too long to clear the puck and instead gave it away, leading to a few chances against. His patented defensive slide was on display tonight.

Vladislav Kamenev – C-

Kamenev had a great start, knocking down a pass on the forecheck and getting a chance early. His first was strong, but he had a really rough second and barely played in the second half of the game after a brutal shift in the second period.

Martin Kaut – A

There was a lot to like about Kaut’s game tonight. Not just the steal, the look off, and feed to Compher for his first NHL point, but the work down low and in the defensive zone. He’s showing NHL qualities. He probably learned pretty quick to not mess around with the puck on Ryan Getzlaf, but everything else was great from him.

Tyson Jost – B+

Sure, he needs to score, but Jost hit the crossbar in this one, worked his butt off, drew yet another penalty, and looked very good in his penalty killing time. I think it’s time to accept the scoring will never come, but that doesn’t mean the Avs shouldn’t try to get some value out of him in other areas (like the PK).

Gabriel Landeskog – B+

The first line obviously didn’t bury anything in this one, but they controlled a lot of the play offensively. Landy seems to be getting more involved physically lately, and I loved his hustle to negate an icing late in the game.

Nathan MacKinnon – B+

Another 10 shot attempts from MacKinnon. No big deal. I do really want to see him move away from spending so much time at the offensive blueline, but it’s something the staff has implemented for him and it has certainly created some goals this year.

Cale Makar – B

The Graves/Makar pair was a bit of a mess tonight, but when Turn and Burn were together, they were dominant, going +12/-1 in shot attempts and keeping the play in the offensive zone. He had some sloppy moments in the first but settled down after.

Valeri Nichushkin – B

Nichushkin is great at getting back and eliminating any chance of an odd-man rush and did that a lot in this one. You can tell the staff loves him because his ice time goes up in tight defensive games.

Matt Nieto – B

Nieto attempted zero shots tonight, but did a lot of heavy lifting defensively and found himself playing the center role a good bit in the defensive zone. Made some nice, clean exists defensively as well.

Nikita Zadorov – B-

I’ve never seen that type of penalty called like late in the third, but Z probably shouldn’t have his legs over the boards there. Other than that, a steady game from Z and he was quite physical, despite no real big hits. That pair of Z and Girard didn’t give up much in terms of shots on net at all.