Depth helps Avs pull out hard fought win over San Jose

With the Colorado Avalanche having the type of season that they have had, we talk a lot about looking for certain things in their games. We’re paying more attention to the process, rather than the results. 

Fortunately, the results have been great. The process, while I wouldn’t say that it’s ever been “bad”, has had some ups and downs at times. More ups than downs, but you get the point. Two nights ago against the Calgary Flames, I thought their process was great. They were playing with a seriously depleted lineup and needed everyone to step up to pull a win off of a very good Flames team.

Tonight, however, the lineup saw the return of Nathan MacKinnon, so it would’ve been easy to just defer to him and just say… go out there and just beat a team you’re clearly better than, but that’s not what this team is about. Again, it’s the process, not the result, and tonight the Avs got both by beating the San Jose Sharks 4-2 in a game that saw their depth shine. 

It’s been a while since the Avs have had a game that you would consider “big”. Meaning, they put some serious distance between themselves and the rest of the Western Conference back in January and haven’t really been competing for position standings-wise. So you have to find a way to manufacture urgency and intensity in games like this. 

Every team, especially non-playoff teams, is coming into games against the Avalanche and viewing them as measuring stick games. Thinking, how close are we to this team? So you know you’re always going to get a team that’s fired up to play, and they’re going to bring their best game.

This game was no different. You could tell early on in the first that the Sharks were here to win, here to try and steal a win off the NHL’s top team. In net, San Jose had newly acquired Kakko Kahkonen, who is trying to leave his mark and earn a starting job next season.

The two teams traded chances in the first, multiple times making me think “oh that’s in for sure”, but both goalies played well. Kahkonen and Pavel Francouz did their jobs and kept either team from really building any momentum. There was one power play in particular in the first that I honestly thought the Avs could’ve scored three times on, Kahkonen was spectacular. 

As the period went on, the Avalanche started to tilt the ice ever so slightly in their favor, but couldn’t get anything to go.

The second period got underway, and the Avs started too turn things up a bit. One thing that as made clear in the first, Colorado’s depth was going to have to chip in if they wanted to keep from giving a game away to a team that, on paper, they are clearly better than.

Less than two minutes into the second, Alex Newhook took a pass from Kurtis MacDermid and fired a one-timer that eluded Kahkonen to get the scoring started. Ahhh, finally. Newhook has been excellent recently, but has had some bad luck going and hasn’t been able to find the back of the net. You could tell it was weighing on him. He was doing all the right things, the results just weren’t quite there.

The goal was big for several reasons. The first of which being what I just mentioned about Newhook, the second being that its was a 5-on-5 goal from someone not on the top line, and the third being the obvious one… it gave them the lead.

The Avs continued to pour on the pressure after the goal, but found it equally as difficult to beat Kahkonen after the goal as it was before. I thought the Avalanche were generating good chances and moving the puck really well, just couldn’t finish.

The Sharks would answer with a goal from Timo Meier half way through the period to even things up, and other than the two goals that essentially cancelled each other out, the second period felt similar to the first. Good chances from both teams, with the edge going to Colorado, and two goalies tracking pucks well and not giving shooters much to look at.

The Avs’ depth has been such hot topic this season, they have so much of it on paper, but at times it’s gone cold on the scoresheet. A team with this many quality NHLers shouldn’t have to rely as heavily on its top two units to be generating as we’ve seen at times.

On this night though, it gave them exactly what you want when your goal is to go a the type of run Colorado is hoping to go on.

After Newhook got things going in the second, it was a gorgeous play from Val Nichushkin on the forecheck to steal a puck and turn it into a quick 2-on-1 down low, before finding Darren Helm alone in front who finished the play off with a perfect shot from in tight. The Avs now found themselves with a 2-1 lead, and none of Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, or Cale Makar were on the scoresheet. That’s what you need. 

Now, let me make this clear. You want your depth to step up and produce so that you don’t HAVE to rely on your top guys to do everything, every night. Ideally, your depth helps set you up to be in a winnable position, then you let your top guys take over and get you over the finish line… do you see where I’m going with this?

Brent Burns would tie the game one more time on a weird goal from the point that Pavel Francouz said himself after the game shouldn’t have gone in. 

Once this game was even at two, you just felt a shift in the Avs’ game. Their top two lines dialed it up a level, and the Sharks simply couldn’t match it anymore. Nazem Kadri drove to the net, drawing a penalty in the process, and you got the sense they weren’t going to let this opportunity slip away.

About half way through the man-advantage, Makar found Kadri off to the side of the net, who drew everyone’s focus to him, before wiring a picture-perfect pass across the ice to Rantanen, who was staring at a wide-open net. He made no mistake. 

The lead was restored, and the Avalanche just continued to ramp up their level of play, focused on putting this one away. Just minutes later, Kadri worked the puck from low to high to find Erik Johnson, who hammered the puck on net generating a rebound for Andre Burakovsky right in front of the net. 

Burakovsky slammed it home, and that slammed the door shut on any hope San Jose had of getting back in the game. Aside from a little bit of rough stuff near the end, it was pretty much status quo for the Avs from there to the end of the game. 

It wasn’t a perfect game, there were a few things you’d like to see the Avalanche clean up, but that will always be the case when you’re hunting for perfection. What it was though, was a really solid effort that saw the Avs check a lot of boxes in terms of effort and contributions throughout the lineup. They’ll need more of that come playoffs.

The schedule doesn’t get any easier as Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins roll in to town on Saturday, this will be a great test for the Avs as they’ll get a taste of some of these juggernauts out east.