Our analysts grade each Colorado Avalanche player in every game of the season.
Studs Nathan MacKinnon You can’t say this guy didn’t do everything in his power to make it happen. They ended up taking the first goal away and giving it to Rantanen and then followed it up by taking his second goal away entirely due to offside. The guy left it all out on the ice. He was incredible from start…
Studs Colorado’s top line Nathan MacKinnon rather remarkably recorded zero points tonight but was an incredibly important driving factor in multiple goals. Mikko Rantanen scored a goal and recorded an assist. Artturi Lehkonen was the third guy on the line most of the night and scored two goals. Evan Rodrigues was a part-time participant on the top line and snuck…
Studs Alexandar Georgiev I’ll start this by saying I really don’t like the first goal by Will Borgen. It’s yet another shot from distance that beats Georgiev cleanly. I don’t think Georgiev plays it very well and makes himself really small as the shot is getting released. I don’t like it. I’ve also always said that I can dislike the…
Studs Nathan MacKinnon MacKinnon put the “pow” in “star power” tonight with a performance that showcased his game-breaking speed but the power that makes him truly unstoppable at times. The play where he taps the puck into open space for his own breakaway is great recognition on his part. He knows he’s faster than everyone out there and knows if…
Studs Alexandar Georgiev It didn’t start out great for him. I thought both goals that got by him weren’t overly difficult saves, but Georgiev gets an enormous amount of credit for Seattle not getting more than two goals tonight. He spent the first period under siege, not so much by volume but by quality instead. Once the Avs settled down…
Studs Lars Eller Let’s start this section off by saying I wouldn’t say anyone on the Avalanche side of the ice was a “stud” tonight. That said, I’m not going to leave the section blank or anything, and I really did like what Eller brought to the table tonight. It’s obvious Eller doesn’t play at the breakneck pace the Avalanche…
Studs Nathan Freaking MacKinnon Oh my goodness, what a game. What a game. MacKinnon has had some extremely impressive performances this season (that five-point game in Buffalo has been overlooked all year) and I’ve written numerous times in this exact space about what a dominant player he was from the start of January 1 and it just never stopped. To…
Studs Evan Rodrigues The Avs got Artturi Lehkonen back from the broken finger he suffered while dominating Montreal and it meant dropping Rodrigues from the comfortable job alongside Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen to one flanking J.T. Compher and Lehkonen. It wasn’t a dominant night for Rodrigues but on a night where none of the Avs really looked like they…
Studs Alexandar Georgiev What do you say about a guy who made another 38 saves and was beaten only by two excellent shots? You say, wow, that guy certainly put his team into position to win the game. I’d have loved a save on the first Oilers goal, but I’d also love to win the lottery and be rich and…
Studs Nathan MacKinnon It was a tough night for #29 last night in Los Angeles and it appeared he might be headed for another disappointing night after the first two periods. A couple of posts in the first period were the highlight of MacKinnon’s night until the Avs got down 4-2 and the refs just kept gifting the Avs with…
Studs Alexandar Georgiev What do you say about the only Avs player who even bothered to show up for the first period of the game? He was Colorado’s brightest star tonight and the biggest reason the Avs walked out with two points. I’ve no problems with the first two goals on him and even the third, which I think he…
Studs Mikko Rantanen 50 goals is one of those numbers in hockey that can define a career. Rantanen becoming the first player since Milan Hejduk 20 years ago (to the day, in fact) could be another notch in building an all-time great legacy in Colorado. He’s already won a gold medal at the WJCs, a silver medal in the World…
Studs Nathan MacKinnon Two goals and an assist got him to the 100-point mark for the first time in his career. Seems fitting to happen in San Jose after he tried so hard a few years ago in the final game of the season when he was stuck on 99 points and was doing everything he could to crack 100.…
Studs Nathan MacKinnon This was a game the Avs really needed to have and MacKinnon was the big star from either team to show up and be a consistent force throughout. Eight shots on goal, two of which go in, really highlight the statistical contributions of MacKinnon, but it was more about his presence on the ice. Somehow, Dallas abandons…
Studs Lars Eller I thought tonight was a very good example of where Eller is going to be valuable for Colorado in the postseason, but on the end of the ice where you don’t expect many contributions from him. We have seen plenty of the defensive excellence that has been a staple of Eller’s career but the offense has been,…
Studs Sam Girard & Bowen Byram I’m putting them together in this because I thought they were especially great as a pairing. The shot metrics are awesome, of course, and they combined for three points (Byram two of them) and two of the five goals scored. It was an all-around great night for Colorado’s second pairing and the kind of…
Studs Valeri Nichushkin What do you say about the chu-chu train? His speed still hasn’t fully returned after the myriad of lower-body injuries he’s fought through this year but he’s healthy enough otherwise to help the Avalanche and today we saw a good showcase of his value to the team. He’s not their most skilled forward or their hardest working…
Studs Cale Makar There are some games where Makar can drift through them without doing the stuff that makes you shake your head but he still walks out with a point or two. Tonight was not that. Not even a little bit. This was the kind of game that Makar puts on an absolute show and shows why he’s better…
Studs Alexandar Georgiev I don’t know how many games in a row he’s been here, but it’s quite a few now. I think he’s playing great hockey and tonight was no exception. He gave up four goals and all of them were either great hockey, power play goals, or both. Anybody who watched Georgiev go under siege in the second…
Studs Alexandar Georgiev We’ll just start here. I say this literally every time and will just continue doing so, but if a goaltender gets a shutout in an NHL game, he’s a stud that night, no questions asked. This wasn’t the most impressive of Georgiev’s five shutouts this year, but at 27 saves he was at least seriously tested for…
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