Avs-Stars Game 1 Studs & Duds

The Colorado Avalanche outlasted the Dallas Stars in Game 1 of their Round 2 series with a 4-3 win in overtime. These are the Avs Studs and Duds from the series-opening game.

Studs

The second period

More than any individual, I wanted to get into Colorado’s second period first. Entering down 3-0, they could have packed it in as a team and accepted a Game 1 defeat but we saw the exact opposite.

After a three-penalty first period, it was no surprise that the officials were looking to call something on the Stars and it took only a few minutes for that to happen. Once done, the Avs power play went to work, scoring twice within the first 10 minutes of the period to turn a 3-0 game into a 3-2 game and make everyone in Dallas awfully tight.

The goals are one thing, but when you look at the overall quality of play, Colorado kicked ass. In 15:14 of 5v5 time, the Avs had a 19-6 advantage in shot attempts, 10-1 in scoring chances, and 4-0 in high-danger chances.

In multi-goal games, there’s usually a conversation about score effects as teams winning by multiple goals tend to sit back more. This doesn’t apply, however, as the final 10:52 was played with a game state of 3-2. This was nothing more than some tilted ice, the rested team finding their legs and the team coming off a grueling seven-game series struggling to handle the three-goal gift given to them.

It set the tone for the remainder of regulation as Colorado tying the game seemed inevitable (it was) and the Avs showed some real defensive chops.

Cale Makar

There were two star defensemen in this game with Miro Heiskanen and Cale Makar, two players inextricably linked as the third and fourth overall picks in the 2017 NHL Draft, respectively.

Makar finished with a goal and two assists and was at the heart of Colorado’s comeback. Heiskanen, on the other hand, was torched by Miles Wood on the game-winning goal in overtime as Wood just…skated right by him. There are levels to this, as they say.

The level Makar was on tonight is the rarified air that you see from a player who has a Conn Smythe in his trophy cabinet. His defensive game still has some shaky moments but most of tonight he had the puck and was dominating. He finished tied with MacKinnon for the lead on the Avs in shot attempts with nine and created three scoring chances on his own.

The goal he scored was vintage Makar. There is no other defenseman in the world who gets pucks through traffic from high in the offensive zone and it was an incredible finish. How is this guy even real? 12 points in six games has him tied with Connor McDavid (5 GP) for the league lead in postseason scoring.

He is showing once again he is That Dude after an “uneven” regular season (that saw him finish with 90 points and a Norris Trophy nomination lol).

Alexandar Georgiev in overtime

Georgiev was fine through regulation. He gave up three goals on nine shots in the first period and a Josh Manson save late in the opening frame kept the Stars from going up 4-0. He was barely tested through regulation as Dallas generated only 16 shots on goal, 12 scoring chances, and five high-danger chances. That…is an extremely easy workload.

Overtime, however, was a different story entirely. Look at the shot graph here and you’ll see the Stars dominated OT. Georgiev was by far Colorado’s best player in sudden death and the save he made on Tyler Seguin on a cross-crease pass from Joe Pavelski saved the game, even if Seguin clearly didn’t get all of it.

Georgiev’s job is to be one save better than the opposition and his save on Seguin gave the Avs continued life and Jake Oettinger didn’t get it done on the other end against Colorado’s best scoring chance. It was a fantastic ending of the game for Georgiev.

Nathan MacKinnon

It wasn’t a wire-to-wire dominant performance and I think we hold that against him sometimes but he scored the game-tying goal on the first shift of the third period and had an assist on Valeri Nichushkin’s goal that made it 3-1.

The shot metrics for MacKinnon were completely one-sided, however, as the Avs had advantages in shots on goal (12-4), scoring chances (11-3), and high-danger chances (3-0) at even strength. That’s an excellent night for a guy who was named a finalist for the Hart Trophy earlier in the day.

His game is easy to nitpick because he has the puck all the time so I think it gets easier to lose appreciation for how special he is and tonight felt like one of those games to me.

Special Teams

The Avs finished 100% on the power play with two goals in two chances and killed three of four Dallas power plays. The only goal allowed came on the extended 5v3 in the first period. Great night overall for these units.

Duds

Mikko Rantanen

Remember what I said above about overlooking some of MacKinnon’s greatness in favor of ripping apart every detail of his game? It’s even easier to do with Rantanen because he can openly drift through games doing frustrating stuff all over the ice.

For my money, Rantanen was actually really good offensively in this game. He is in this section because of the two undisciplined, ridiculously bad penalties he took. The kneeing was bad and the first penalty that led to the 5v3 sequence and the slashing he took at the end of the first period was part of a nightmare opening frame for Rantanen and the Avs.

It got better for Rantanen as the game went on as he finished with two assists (classic Mikko) but he’s part of the leadership group and his lack of discipline was a real problem.

Yakov Trenin

Trenin was awesome in Game 5 against the Winnipeg Jets, but this was not that. Trenin took the second penalty to create the 5v3 with a careless high-sticking of Jason Robertson, which only compounded the problems at that moment.

He has become a trusted part of the penalty kill but that kind of play really hurt the Avs. To make matters worse, Trenin struggled at 5v5 alongside his normal linemates Andrew Cogliano and Brandon Duhaime, finishing with a 13% (!!) expected goals for at 5v5.

When Trenin moved up to play alongside Ross Colton and Miles Wood, it got a lot better for him and I would not be surprised to see Jared Bednar make that switch at the start of Game 2 if Joel Kiviranta remains unavailable to play.

The other aspect of Trenin’s game that was a mess tonight was the faceoff circle. Colorado is not a good faceoff team and Trenin has been a guy Bednar leans on heavily in those situations. We saw that again tonight but Trenin finished with an ugly 36% (4/11) win rate on faceoffs in the defensive zone. The upside is he was 60% (3/5) in defensive zone draws on the penalty kill, but only 17% (1/6) at 5v5 tanked his numbers.

This was a tough night for Trenin as the centerpiece of the fourth line and should Kiviranta remain unavailable, I’d bet Chris Wagner takes that spot and Trenin moves to Colton’s right wing for the next game.

Avs Unsung Hero

Josh Manson’s save

With the Avs having won a Cup as recently as two years ago, it’s impossible for everyone to avoid making comparisons between this year’s team and that one as they try to work their way back to the top of the mountain.

That was again true tonight as Josh Manson’s save in the crease when Georgiev was beaten evoked memories of Manson stopping Jordan Kyrou of the St. Louis Blues in Round 2 in a game the Avs eventually came back to win.

I thought Manson’s game was a bit hit/miss for me, but I liked his physicality at times. The save is the real hero of the game, however, as he not only stopped the puck from going in but then batted it out of the air and away from the crease. An all-around cool and game-changing play from Manson.

This picture

This isn’t related to the playing of the game even in the slightest, but I thought this was a really cool picture of a save by Alexandar Georgiev in overtime.