Devan Dubnyk's unexpected turn as Colorado's starter begins with a hard-fought victory over St. Louis

Every regular season is a story with dramatic twists and turns. It’s never a straight line. For the Avalanche, this season has largely been the story of Philipp Grubauer, whose steady presence and excellence in net has helped shaped them into one of the NHL’s very best teams.

Grubauer’s play has elevated him into the Vezina Trophy conversation for the league’s best goaltender but his real value was the calming presence on a hungry team that was facing some emotional frustration in the first half of the regular season.

Once Grubauer helped guide and shape the Avs into the power they have become, the story has slowly shifted away. After testing positive for COVID-19 this morning, Grubauer’s mandatory 14-day absence means a new main character in this story.

It’s one of the newest characters, too, as veteran goaltender Devan Dubnyk was acquired last week with the idea of playing only a small handful of games as they found ideal spots to let Grubauer rest while Dubnyk and Jonas Johansson duked it out for playing time.

In the blink of an eye, Colorado’s hopes of winning the West Division and chasing down the President’s Trophy now rest on the ability of the 34-year-old Dubnyk, whose recent experiences in San Jose and Minnesota went so poorly that the Wild are paying half of Dubnyk’s salary.

Tonight was Dubnyk’s first look at playing behind the elite defense of the Avalanche probably didn’t feel quite as leisurely as he was expecting. You see, the Avs got their COVID vaccines (the ones who opted for them, anyway) yesterday and head coach Jared Bednar expressed concern about his team coming into this game because he said his players were feeling a variety of lingering effects from the shot.

In fact, Joonas Donskoi felt so ill he missed tonight’s game against the St. Louis Blues entirely. Carl Soderberg, making his second Avalanche debut, took his place in the lineup.

Like this season, this game was the tale of two halves as the Avalanche pounced on the Blues early, getting the first goal of the game from the fourth line to make it 1-0. After a 1-1 first period, the Avs devoured the Blues in a dominant second period as they ran the score to 4-1.

It was all hands on deck as the lineup got contributions up and down to build the three-goal lead going into the third period.

The third is where the Blues eat this year as one of the league’s best comeback teams and the team with a huge lead in 6v5 goals (nine). They’re dangerous in that spot and proved it once again tonight, building momentum off a fluke goal to make it 4-2.

Self-inflicted wounds gave the Blues multiple power play chances and Mike Hoffman finally made them pay, barely beating Dubnyk to make it 4-3.

From there, the Blues kept pushing and pushing and the Avs held the line. Captain Kirrahe would be proud because the line never broke and the Avs held on for the win.

Dubnyk made several huge saves down the stretch, 31 in all, and he survived the goofy goal that energized the entire Blues team in the third period. It’s just the beginning for Dubnyk, however, as the earliest Grubauer is eligible to return is April 30 against the San Jose Sharks.

That means Dubnyk is likely Colorado’s man the rest of the season series against St. Louis (currently 4-1 Colorado) and in the crucial final two games against the Vegas Golden Knights.

How Dubnyk handles the next two weeks will become a huge part of how this story develops.

TAKEAWAYS

• This was honestly a rock-solid outing from Dubnyk. 31 saves and the two legit goals he gave up were nice plays on the power play. Colorado’s PK problems really need to get worked out over the next few weeks because it has become downright porous. Other than that, Dubnyk looked a little scrambly early on but settled in more and more as the game went on. He’s always been a goaltender with a flair for the dramatic so watching him turn some easier, routine saves into adventures is just the story of fireworks you sign up for when you get Devan Dubnyk in net. As long as he’s stopping pucks, nobody is going to care about the aesthetics of it.
• If the Blues really want to go best on best with the line-matching advantage in the next three games, they’re going to need a lot more from Ryan O’Reilly against Nathan MacKinnon than what they got tonight. The Avs are going to be a tough out as it is but if MacKinnon shreds the matchup against O’Reilly as he did tonight, it’s going to be very hard for the Blues to pull points from the Avs. MacKinnon was 18 CF, just 5 CA head-to-head with O’Reilly at 5v5 and had a 12-2 advantage in scoring chances. That’s complete domination from MacKinnon, making it no surprise his scoring streak extended to 11 games while O’Reilly recorded zero points with just one shot on goal. It will be interesting to see if Craig Berube continues going to that in future games if MacKinnon continues to get the best of O’Reilly on that level.
• The rest of Colorado’s lineup had their moments but struggled across the board in shot share. Of course, you don’t really care what the numbers are when your fourth line scores two goals. That’s the difference in winning and losing.
• Colorado’s much-maligned PP? 8th in the NHL. It’s overhyped PK? Now sitting at 9th. Each unit is actually playing to its underlying numbers as the PP has generated a lot of quality but struggled to finish at the expected rate while the PK has gotten a ton of kills despite giving up way too much quality and quantity.
• 13 straight games without a goal for Nazem Kadri. He has 35 shots on goal in that stretch (just under three per game) so it’s not like he’s not involved in the action. He just needs to find that scoring touch. Feels like when he does, it’s going to open the door for a flood of goals. It could really help his game, however, to remember he has linemates and he’s allowed to pass to them. It’s been a lot of selfish play with the puck from him lately. Of course, he got one of the most unselfish players in the league on his line tonight in Soderberg. If they stay together, maybe Soderberg’s natural playmaking will help unlock Kadri’s goal-scoring ability.
• Tonight was Colorado’s 30th game in 54 days, tied for most in the league with New Jersey. That’s a lot of hockey.
• 17-1-2 in their last 20 games. 36 of 40 possible points captured. Tough break for Vegas, who is tied for second in the entire league with 60 points, but still four behind the Avalanche.
• Jared Bednar will become the longest-tenured coach in Avalanche history when the puck drops on Friday. He tied Bob Hartley with his 359th game coached tonight.
• The Avs are inching closer to clinching a postseason berth. The most any team behind the Avs can get, assuming they win every game the rest of the season, is 68 from San Jose. At 64 points already, the Avs could theoretically clinch their postseason berth as soon as this weekend. Assuming my math is correct, of course, which is always a sketchy proposition.
• Get better, Grubi. We’re all rooting for you.