Grading The Road Trip: Bowen Byram on the Rise, Top-Pair Falters

The Tampa Bay Lighting extended their home-streak to eight in their 6-3 win over the Colorado Avalanche. For the Avs, it was their sixth game of a twelve day road trip and it showed.

Justus Annunen appeared in his seventh-ever NHL game and the 23-year old was not set up for success.

Though he made key saves on several odd-man rushes, the Lightning controlled possession for two periods and exposed Colorado’s exhaustion and Annunen’s inexperience.

Colorado finished their road trip 1-4-1 and their road record regressed to 13-13-4.

Bowen Byram‘s Back(ish)

Byram had a complicated game, but the big picture is more good than bad. After a two-point game in Washington, Byram recorded two goals in Tampa to start the beginning of a point-streak. Some of his confidence was renewed and it was evident by his first goal of the night.

Josh Manson and Byram battled along the boards to spring the puck loose for Nathan MacKinnon to take off in transition. 

MacKinnon slipped the puck to Mikko Rantanen on entry and Byram pulled up to the far-post. Rantanen angled the puck to the net for Byram to direct in. 

You might be wondering: how did Byram get inside Brandon Hagel in the neutral zone? After all, Hagel had the step on him exiting the d-zone.

Well, Byram’s process wasn’t exactly above board. He yanked Hagel’s trousers and got the jump on him that way. It was a little bit cheeky, definitely not allowed, and a sign that nature (Bo) was healing.

On his second goal, Ross Colton angled the puck to jumpstart Miles Wood and Artturi Lehkohnen on the rush. Lehkonen passed to Wood streaking down the slot and Wood backhanded the puck into Andrei Vasilevskiy’s chest. Vasilevskiy didn’t have a secure hold of the puck and it dribbled out from underneath him. Byram spotted this and wedged his stick backdoor to tap it in.

Good on Byram for playing to the whistle and catching that loose puck.

Things get complicated for Byram in the third period. Just after the Avs scored a powerplay goal to regain the lead, a mere twenty-two seconds later, Byram’s shot was blocked and Nikita Kucherov picked up the puck.

Steven Stamkos was outside the offensive blueline having previously chased Wood out of the zone and saw the opportunity to spring for the breakaway opportunity. Kucherov sent the stretch pass down ice through Byram and Devon Toews. Stamkos received it and went backhand-forehand and slipped the puck past Annunen’s pad.

Then minutes later, a broken play led to confusion. Kucherov’s pass attempt was stopped by Colton near the half-wall, but the blocked pass slipped through Lehkonen and Byram out high to Stamkos. Byram aggressively left his post to confront Stamkos, Colton exited the zone presumably hoping for a rush chance, and Lehkonen was where he needed to be but couldn’t tie up his lane.

Stamkos quickly fed Brayden Point at the netfront. Point outworked Cale Makar – who originally got his stick on the puck but couldn’t settle it – and sent a backhand, cross-slot pass to Kucherov now at the far-post completely alone. You can imagine what happened next.

The game went from feeling like the Avs could win, to hoping for overtime, to a loss in four minutes.

Byram’s lapses are actually small in comparison to the night Makar and Toews had.

At even-strength, Byram recorded just eight scoring-chances-against and his pairing accounted for the fewest-against for the second game in a row.

Byram played a fair amount with Girard as well and took shifts with Toews and Makar that notably didn’t go so well, but his opportunity was varied as a reward for leaning into the offensive side of his game.

Cale Makar & Devon Toews Are Human

In evaluating the defense from the road trip on the whole, a concerning theme emerged.

At five-on-five, Cale Makar and Devon Toews recorded the most scoring-chances-against of any pairing through the last six games (41) and the second-worst Corsi-for-percentage (42.24%).

Manson and Girard created a similar volume of scoring chances as them (38), but they allowed fewer (29) and possessed the puck more at five-on-five.

Johnson and Byram registered the fewest scoring-chances-against (25), but offense also died on their sticks, so their Corsi-for-percentage was actually the worst of all the d-pairs (31.40%)

Obviously Byram’s individual puck possession did the heavy lifting for the creation of that pairing. Toews and Makar walked away with the most scoring chances created of any pair in all situations, but they recorded just one goal apiece.

Toews had a rough showing on Kucherov’s first goal-against. MacKinnon and Makar tried to retrieve the puck in a battle along the boards, but Tampa escaped with it.

Hagel dropped the puck to the slot, Kucherov got to it first and backhanded it to Hagel now at the goal line.

Toews was just a bit passive with his stick in the first place, and that Kucherov pass probably shouldn’t have made it through. By some luck, Hagel’s one-timer was blocked by Annunen, but Makar and Toews struggled to settle the rebound.

Toews went to backhand it away and sent it straight to Kucherov instead. Kucherov used Hagel to get the puck back to himself so he could go for the one-timer from the side of the net and this one went bar-down.

Makar and Toews also spent nearly twelve minutes – the most of any defensemen – on the penalty kill which resulted in high-usage throughout the trip.

That kind of usage isn’t new to them, but alongside the brutal schedule and games out East, it’s no wonder one of the best pairs in the NHL looked very human on this road trip.

They’re important leaders in the room and vital to the team’s success. 

The Avalanche have recorded 46 goals from defensemen this season, which is the most among all teams, and are now three tallies shy of matching their total in 2023-24.

So much of their offense runs through Makar and Toews, so it’s no coincidence that average-to-poor showings from both have led to five losses in six games.

It’s not to pin the losses squarely on their shoulders either. Instead, I share a sympathetic, broader view.

With Val Nichushkin and Logan O’Connor out of the lineup, their forward group is reduced to basically two lines. With so much of their offense leaning on the backend, it’s hard for the team to win if such important players have a tough night, and that’s a lot of pressure to put on them.

Pouring so much into the cup of others can make yours run dry.

Their cups looked empty. It was time to come home.

The Powerplay Definitely Isn’t Cured

It was wishful thinking. After Rantanen’s powerplay goal in Washington, I thought they had all of the spooks out of their system.

Even on the powerplay that the Avs scored on tonight, they allowed dangerous shorthanded chances out the gate. The Avs allowed more shorthanded chances on net than they created through three man-advantage opportunities.

If you ignore almost everything leading up to, it was a great powerplay goal. Just as it was expiring, MacKinnon dropped the puck along the wall and used Jonathan Drouin inside the left-circle to turnstile Nick Perbix. MacKinnon wristed the puck toward the net and Lehkonen deflected it in at the net front.

It was a great play from MacKinnon to make it all happen, Drouin was quick to follow his vision, and Lehkonen was exactly where he could be most effective.

The top line struggled in their matchups tonight generally speaking. Anthony Cirelli’s line ate them up. The powerplay was just an extension of some dysfunction plaguing the core guys on this road trip.

Colorado has been incredible at home and the whole team is due for a big confidence boost from the top down.

Hopefully they can reset, rest, and get back to feeling like themselves again.