Avs' Home Ice Advantage Hangs in the Balance Amid Costly Defensive Lapses

The Colorado Avalanche‘s chance at the Central Division title became pretty improbable with their loss to Dallas on Sunday. Dallas already had the edge in points, so with the game in hand advantage neutralized, the only scenarios that could get the Avs to first place include Dallas losing several games. 

The Stars sit at 107 points and the Avs are in second place with 102. Both teams have four games left in the season, and Colorado’s schedule includes some tough games down the stretch with Vegas, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.

They’ll need to accrue their own wins alongside some Dallas losses to pull it off.

So with that in mind, the Avs face the possibility of a Winnipeg Jets matchup for the first round opponent. Whether the Avs will have home ice advantage or not is still in their hands.

We’ll get to the implications of that in our upcoming series preview, but it’s important to evaluate areas that the Avs need to focus on in preparation for playoff hockey.

Defensive Breakdowns

Turnovers, misguided d-zone coverage, poor lane management – Colorado’s game against Dallas had it all. It wasn’t just ugly for Colorado’s D, it was ugly for their entire team defense.

Colorado was caught leaving the zone too soon without pucks and Dallas played underneath them. They got beat along the walls and the Stars sustained zone pressure.

“The quality and quantity (of) the defending breakdowns that we had, we did some dumb stuff today and they led to really good scoring chances against,” said Jared Bednar.

Let’s break it down goal by goal. The first goal-against contained a rough turnover. Sam Girard sent an outlet pass to center ice and Chris Tanev picked it up and set Matt Duchene up in transition. Duchene skated down the slot past a diving Josh Manson and waited out Alexandar Georgiev to slip it backdoor.

On the second goal, Miro Heiskanen turn-styled Sean Walker in the corner to keep the play alive and Jamie Benn sent the puck to the opposite wall.

Esa Lindell teed up Wyatt Johnston for the slapshot, but his stick broke on execution and Lindell skated in to send the puck to Benn at the corner of the crease for the redirect. Walker committed to coverage out high and Benn was left at the net alone. Jack Johnson was there, but Craig Smith was his assignment.

Similarly, Joel Kiviranta was caught on the play covering no one because too many Avs committed to the right side. Ross Colton was there because he slid to block Johnston’s shot before his stick broke, so I saw the vision behind his decision.

Next, a double-minor allowed Dallas’ powerplay to feast.

“It’s a dangerous powerplay,” Bednar said. “I don’t love the way we’re checking right now. I think it’s certainly curable though… We got beat off the walls. I felt like we were more competitive on the offensive side of things than we were on the defensive side of things. It can’t be that way.”

Dallas reset and re-entered on the man-advantage. Joe Pavelski skated down the right-circle and found a near-impossible lane past Devon Toews to Roope Hintz alone at the low-slot.  Hintz’ stick blade perfectly guided the puck to the far-corner. The Stars’ entry was so quick, so I’m not coming down too hard on the PK for this one, but Brandon Duhaime did get beat by Pavelski on the perimeter.

Then, Dallas moved the puck out high and Duchene sent a cross-slot pass to Johnston at the left-circle and Johnston one-timed it toward the net. It missed and went wide back out high. Duchene moved down to the right-circle and sent the puck through Toews’ Lane to Tyler Seguin in the slot. Seguin wristed it through Georgiev’s five-hole.

I’m not looking too harshly at Toews’ lane management here because he had to treat Duchene as a shooting threat as well. Kiviranta was tasked with covering Seguin and got his stick in the lane, but his effort was lackluster drawing back. If there was a little more urgency he might have been effective.

A Cale Makar slashing call in the second period gave the Stars another powerplay chance. Thomas Harley sent a shot toward the net from the point and Mason Marchment directed the puck to the far-side. 

It hit off the post and Marchment batted the puck in from there. Sam Girard hit Marchment along the boards before the puck was sent high and Lehkohnen and Girard got caught wide and high (along with Manson) on the play to leave the net front open for Marchment to sneak back in.

Because Girard just committed to the check along the boards, it’s not surprising he was on the left-side a bit coming back (and he hustled), it’s Manson who I wanted to see covering the far-post here.

The Avs brought the game within one in the third period, but Dallas delivered the final nail in the coffin.

After a d-zone draw, Logan Stankoven moved the puck along the goal line and found Jamie Benn at the corner of the crease. Benn tried to wrist it on net, Stankoven attempted to grab the rebound and sent it to the right-side of the net for Johnston to poke in.

Girard was at the crease with his stick on the ice in an attempt to clear but he wasn’t quick enough with his release. Johnston’s poke overpowered Girard’s sweep-attempt.

So much of the game happens three feet from the wall. Those first strides in and last strides out from the play have such a huge impact on the hockey game.

Good teams force other good teams to care about every stride. That’s what the Avs can expect with every team down the stretch. There’s no cheating.

I don’t think the Avs have an engagement issue, but it’s time to activate the part of their brains that keeps that effort and intention permanently on.

“The bottom line is: we had to go earn everything we got and there’s too much there that I didn’t feel like they had to earn,” Bednar explained. “Give them credit, they’re a good team… They make you pay for your mistakes and they did. I felt like some of the goals we gave up and chances we gave up were just too easy: like routine plays, routine coverage. I didn’t hate our team game overall. It’s got to be better on the defensive side of it especially.”

These mistakes aren’t limited to just Dallas. I saw them in Edmonton and Columbus too: weak effort behind the net or along the wall coupled with mental lapses (guys missing assignments because they doubled up on the same skater).

Simply put, the Avs are smarter than this. It’s time to put the work boots on.

But Meghan, what about Georgiev?

In a vacuum, this game isn’t Alexandar Georgiev’s problem. He’d probably like to close his five-hole on the Seguin goal, but other than that, three powerplays in the second period against a stacked Dallas team posed a challenge.

Add in the defensive breakdowns outlined above and you hardly zero in on Georgiev for sole fault in this game.

“I thought he had a good night. We just weren’t good enough defensively,” Bednar said.

Did I want to see Georgiev respond to two bad outings against Nashville and Edmonton with a shutdown, lights out game?

Yes. He’s the projected starter. He should issue a strong response and silence critics.

That’s where the bigger picture concerns loom for him. 

It’s hard to think of a game this season that Georgiev stole for the Avs.

Of goaltenders who’ve started at least 50 games, Georgiev has the eighth lowest goals-saved above expected. There’s only 14 goalies who meet that criteria, so it’s pretty middle of the pack and undoubtedly a shared stat (the more high-danger chances allowed, the more that gets inflated.)

Colorado leads the league in Goals-for (289) on the season, so it’s hard to say that he hasn’t received goal support along the way. When you look at their comeback wins too, it points to some necessary, reactive goal scoring to keep the Avs atop the win column.

At five-on-five, the Avs are 14th in high-danger chances allowed and have a sixth-ranked Corsi-for percentage which balances Colorado’s strong possession game alongside that metric more evenly.

It paints a picture that the Avs just need some more saves on the whole.

I hope I’ve fairly criticized their defense as not to pin this squarely on Georgiev’s shoulders, but the plea for more from goaltending isn’t aimed to be malicious.

It’s a necessity.