Avs Game 61 Studs & Duds: Seattle sounds off

Studs

Alexandar Georgiev

I wrote last night that I fully expected Georgiev to not only start against Seattle tonight but put up a strong game in response to his putrid effort in Dallas. For once, I got a prediction right. Georgiev was exceptional tonight.

That his final line ends up just a .914 save percentage and he gets the loss tacked next to HIS name is ridiculous (no players should be awarded wins and losses). When the Avs were stumbling their way through this, Georgiev was the one and only Av that consistently was awesome. He might have made four stops on breakaways alone in this game and if you’re trying to pin any of the three that went in on him, you’re doing an awful lot of heavy lifting to drag down Colorado’s best player today.

I have absolutely no criticisms of Alexandar Georgiev today. He deserved much, much better from the team in front of him.

Colorado’s PK

While Georgiev was a beast in net tonight, the Avalanche’s penalty killers all get gold stars for their work in shutting down the Kraken power play. Seattle finished the game 0-for-5 on the power play, including a full two-minute 5v3 that the Avs killed off to open the third period.

Georgiev made nine saves, an incredible number given the number of power plays, and six of those came in the 5v3. This unit was tremendous in denying zone entries and not allowing the Kraken to get things set up but even on the rare occasions that happened, Colorado allowed very little of quality as the Kraken registered just two high-danger chances.

For comparison sake, the Avs and Kraken had the same number of high-danger and scoring chances on their power plays, but the Avs had just two power plays. A banner night for the penalty kill.

Duds

Nathan MacKinnon’s one awful decision

MacKinnon tracking back and retrieving a puck behind his net in the final three minutes of a one-goal game should be one of the safer situations for the Avalanche. MacKinnon got the puck, had time to make a couple of different choices and oh my god did he choose the worst adventure.

Instead of clearing the puck up the wall to an open teammate waiting, or stopping and eating the oncoming forecheck of Jaden Schwartz, or, hell, using his stick as a javelin and trying out for an Olympic track and field job, literally ANYTHING likely would have been better than a cute little backhand off the wall to himself. Schwartz easily intercepted it, beat MacKinnon around the net with the puck and centered the puck to Brandon Tanev, who was left uncovered by Devon Toews as he watched the puck instead of playing defense.

I’m not crushing MacKinnon’s entire game because it was his solo act of brilliance that got Colorado their first goal of the game and he had moments later on, especially on their power play attempts, but this was absolutely unacceptable mistake from him. He knew it, too, based on his reaction immediately after the game-tying goal went into the net.

The standard in Colorado for what is acceptable and isn’t is far too high for MacKinnon, who helped create that standard, to be letting his team down like that. Brutal.

Overtime line changes

I really thought we were beyond this. The Avs and Seattle played an overtime game in Seattle earlier this year and the Kraken held onto the puck the entire time, reloading and changing and trying to wait for the Avs to beat themselves with something incredibly dumb.

One of the reasons the Avs have been so successful in 3v3 this year is they have avoided the incredibly silly mistakes that have plagued them in overtimes in recent years. They actually respected the format, played it smart, and let their talent do the talking more often than not.

Not the case tonight. They lost the faceoff, never controlled the puck, then lost the game on a god-awful line change that left them completely exposed. There was no reason for it. They tried to cheat the moment and got burned.

Between the MacKinnon turnover and this line change, you have two completely self-inflicted mistakes that decided this game and gave Seattle the additional point in the standings, a point the Avs could really use if they are going to track down Dallas for the Central Division title or even just secure home ice in the first round.

Just a mess. An ugly, frustrating, avoidable mess.

Unsung Hero

Denis Malgin

I didn’t think there was an amazing candidate for this in this game and was tempted to go with Lars Eller just to see how many people would want to internet fight me (I did think Eller was much better tonight overall).

Malgin’s breakaway goal was a great finish. He’s started to really find his game in the last few weeks and despite not playing very much (just 7:29), found a major impact when he leaked out behind Seattle’s defense and scored on his breakaway. It should have been the game-winning goal. It should have been a bigger moment.