Avs run over Oilers behind dominant defense

Ain’t nobody out there likes getting embarrassed. It’s a humiliating experience no matter how many people see it. But it’s especially humiliating when you do it on television in front of thousands of viewers.

The last time the Avs and Oilers tangled, that’s exactly what happened to Colorado as they got bombarded in a 6-2 waxing that saw Connor McDavid score points and Leon Draisaitl notch five assists.

Given that line was responsible for all of their scoring in that game, the Avs came in tonight with a clear goal: stop them, see how the rest plays out.

“It’s something we talked about before the game,” Matt Nieto said. “[McDavid and Draisaitl] contribute a lot of their offense so we knew if played a tight-checking game against them we’d have a chance.”

How’d they do?

Edmonton’s two big guns tonight: zero points, four shots on goal.

And the Avs?

An emphatic 4-1 victory that turned into a runaway victory after a three-goal outburst by the Avs early in the third period.

Entering the final frame tied 1-1, an injury to Andre Burakovsky forced Matt Nieto to Colorado’s top line. Once again, the Avs took the lemons they had and made lemonade.

Nieto scored the game-winning goal 3:05 into the third period when Nathan MacKinnon hit him with a perfect pass on an odd-man rush and Nieto buried the one-timer behind Mikko Koskinen for his fifth goal of the season.

The goal started with good defense from Nikita Zadorov on McDavid and Joonas Donskoi won a puck battle to spring the scoring chance.

“Being in good spots in d-zone coverage,” Nieto said of how the play developed.” Slashing onto the puck, good support and [MacKinnon] makes a great pass and I got an empty net. Nice to put that one in.”

It was the first of three goals in the first 5:37 of the period as the Avs built their lead with additional goals from MacKinnon and Logan O’Connor, the latest injury-replacement to contribute to a lineup in desperate need of some consistency.

“Unfortunate when someone goes out,” Nieto added. “That’s kind of been what we’ve been dealing with for the last month or so. We’re just finding ways to win and everyone is finding ways to contribute.”

As their injuries have continued to pile up in November, Nieto said this was a new experience with this many injuries at once.

“I’ve never been on a team where it’s like this. It is what it is. Guys are stepping up.”

While guys certainly did step up, there were plenty of moments where it didn’t look quite so promising. The Oilers grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first period and looked like the more dangerous team heading into the first intermission but Colorado felt good enough about themselves that it was something to build on.

“I thought from the start we were playing a good game,” Nieto said. “They go the lead but we just knew if we stuck with it, we’d get results we wanted. We noticed they were missing a couple D so we just tried to keep pressure on them and we did a good job.”

Those missing D mentioned by Nieto came in a variety of ways. Kris Russell sustained an injury during the game and would eventually return but only after the damage was done.

The other missing Oiler on defense was Adam Larsson, who was assessed a major penalty and game misconduct after elbowing T.J. Tynan in the head. The hit came just moments after Larsson put a suicide pass out in front of teammate Alex Chiasson, who looked down to control the puck as he was nearing Colorado’s blueline.

As Chiasson tried to do that, Ryan Graves stepped up and put a monster hit onto Chiasson, naturally angering the Oilers. Chiasson was hurt and did not return.

Colorado failed to score on the five-minute penalty, which also included a full two minutes of five on three action when Cale Makar was tripped. It was a spectacular failure of the power play but Colorado tilted the ice during the man-advantages and never gave it back.

Nazem Kadri eventually tied the game, putting the Avs in position to run downhill on the depleted Edmonton team in the third period.

“We played tighter,” Nieto said of their post-first period changes. “We did a good job against their top line, staying above pucks, making sure we’re beating guys back into our D zone, and I thought our breakouts were a lot cleaner so we weren’t spending as much time in our D zone.”

When you give up seven shots in two periods, it’s fair to say the breakouts weren’t the only aspect of the game a lot cleaner.

Ultimately, Colorado snagged another win but lost another player to injury. Life is all about the give and take, I suppose.

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• That’s a hell of a defensive from Colorado. Giving up seven shots in the final two periods, and just two in the third period despite entering tied, is how you lock a team down. That they did it against the two highest-scoring players in the league who combined for 11 points in their game just a couple weeks ago is even more impressive. Also, consider the lack of Erik Johnson on Colorado’s defense and this was a yeoman’s effort.
• Look for more on this from Evan Rawal but Nikita Zadorov was challenged by the coaching staff to stay on assignment against McDavid and Draisaitl. The result? Head to head against McDavid, Zadorov was at 64% CF, 64% SCF, and 55% HDCF. That’ll do.
• Zadorov was hardly the only Av defenseman who had a solid night, however. It was a little slow to get going but Ian Cole and Ryan Graves were both very good at times tonight. Graves had a huge (clean) hit on Alex Chiasson that changed the course of the game and added an assist later on. This was the kind of performance we were seeing a lot of from Graves earlier in the year and had disappeared the last couple of weeks. A great game from him.
• Cole also added an assist tonight, making him the second-highest scoring defenseman on the Avalanche with nine points. Sam Girard has eight and Graves now has seven.
• Final shots on goal: Colorado 50, Edmonton 20. I just wanted to see it written out.
• Logan O’Connor got his first career goal tonight late in the game off a great play from Val Nichushkin. A great story for a kid who went undrafted and played at DU and then for the Colorado Eagles last year.
• There have been some outrageous performances in the NHL this year (see: McDavid/Draisaitl, Pastrnak/Marchand) but Nathan MacKinnon’s Hart case is no joke. He has 35 points on the season and has only been held scoreless in four of 24 games despite losing his running mates in the ninth game of the season. Those duos have been tremendous and are a reason why their respective teams lead their divisions but MacKinnon’s performance is notable. Remember two years ago Taylor Hall won the Hart because of his perceived lack of help. MacKinnon doing it without Rantanen and Landeskog is mad impressive.
• Proving that every rose has its thorns, the Avs failed once again to escape this game injury-free. Andre Burakovsky has an upper-body injury and did not play in the third period. He received postgame X-rays but there was no further update. Wait and see, once again.
• If Burakovsky misses the Chicago game on Friday, Colorado’s injury list will be: Johnson, Rantanen, Landeskog, Burakovsky, Calvert, Wilson. Put in financial terms, that would be just a shade under $30M of Colorado’s roster out of the lineup. Just under $30M out of an approximate $76M lineup on the shelf.
• If Burakovsky misses Friday’s game against Chicago and Rantanen returns Saturday, it will mean Colorado was not forced to make injury-related lineup adjustments in just four of their 14 November games.