Jonas Johansson records first career shutout as Avs sneak past Ducks

Jonas Johansson has had a hell of a month. He goes from being part of the sewer that is the Buffalo Sabres organization (complete with a beat writer dragging him on social media) to being an emergency backup on the NHL’s best team.

That was one thing, but then Johansson failed to stop the first shot he saw in his first three Avalanche appearances. Now, those appearances all went differently, from starts to his relief appearance two nights ago when he gave up a goal on the only shot he faced in just under 13 minutes of action.

Getting the surprise start tonight, Johansson put a sock in the mouths of people like me as he stopped all 28 shots on goal for the first shutout of his career as the Avs won a sleepy 2-0 contest against the Anaheim Ducks.

When I say sleepy, I mean sleepy. Part of that was the quality goaltending from both Johansson and his counterpart, John Gibson, as they were squaring up to everything and not giving many rebound opportunities.

On the other hand, there weren’t many quality scoring chances being created as neither team played with much energy and it looked like one tired team coming off a blowout loss against a team with nothing to play for.

There were no artificial reasons for these teams to get “up” for this game and it showed. As the late game on a Friday night, both teams played like they wanted to be somewhere else.

That was just fine for Johansson, who was plenty happy sitting back in his crease and gobbling up pucks. His only real moment of concern came late in the first period when Max Jones fired a puck wide of the net that Johansson clearly never picked up and was not in position to stop.

Beyond that, just good, solid goaltending got him to the finish line.

It helped Colorado put their foot on the gas, finally, in the third period as they were protecting a 1-0 lead. That lead came off the stick of Val Nichushkin, who took a great Ryan Graves centering feed and put it home for the only ‘real’ goal of the game.

Mikko Rantanen deposited a comically easy empty-net goal with 34 seconds remaining but even before that, the Ducks never mounted a significant push in the final minutes of the game.

Colorado looked like a confident and comfortable team holding a one-goal late in the third period and one man’s protecting a one-goal lead was another man’s manifesting a two-goal lead. It worked as planned and Rantanen put the game on ice.

Johansson’s smile after the shutout was the brightest light in the Honda Center on Friday and a milestone for a young man who has had a lot of negative stuff said about him recently.

Colorado’s road trip concludes on Sunday with the first leg of a back-to-back as they get the Ducks in the afternoon. Because of the back-to-back, it would not be a surprise to see Johansson get rewarded with his second straight start following tonight’s performance.

Regardless of what happens between now and Monday’s trade deadline, tonight will forever be Jonas Johansson’s night.

TAKEAWAYS

• Couldn’t be happier for Johansson. He played well and got the result he deserved. He even made a couple of great saves on Troy Terry to make the story just that much better. The game itself was a slog to sit through but these are the stories that make the job fun. Celebrating a player’s success when they reach the obvious peak of their career (to this point) is great and seeing his smile after the game during the presser was even better. Just a feel-good moment for the guy.
• While Johansson gets my headline and the game story, my real player of this game was Ryan Graves. I don’t think it’s any accident that Graves shined in an atmosphere that’s much better suited to what he does well. The Avs play with such pace and energy, sometimes it looks like Graves is just trying to keep up with the action. In a slower affair like tonight, he looked very comfortable and as confident as we’ve seen him all season. He was taking away passing lanes in the defensive zone, clogging up shooting lanes, and sniffing pucks out along the wall. He was jumping into the play effectively on offense (six shots on goal) and his rush down the wall created the game-winning goal by Nichushkin. I’m not advocating for the Avs to move Graves, but if a team that prefers to play at a slower pace was paying close attention to this game, I think his play standing out would be very notable. A lot of credit was given to Cale Makar for the success of Graves last year but as I was digging into their season analytics, both Graves and Makar have been better together than apart. I think the staff has probably caught on to this as well and Avs fans should get comfortable with that pairing playing together even with Patrik Nemeth back into the fold.
• I loved that Colorado played a sleepy, lethargic, weak-ass game and still found a way to win. What I really loved was that when the chips were down, when it was winning time, the final minutes of the third period in a one-goal game, we saw the best the Avs had to offer. Look at the shot graph:See what I mean? Colorado made it through an early penalty kill in the third period, then Anaheim’s only real push of the period, and absolutely dropped the hammer on them. Instead of the Ducks getting more and more desperate, Colorado got more and more confident and walked out with two points. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t close to their best effort, but we’ve seen so much overwhelming excellence from them in the last month that seeing them win dirty like this is another encouraging sign that this team is built to win whatever game they find themselves in.
• I would swap Andre Burakovsky and J.T. Compher in the lineup for a game. Burakovsky is too good and has earned his spot in the lineup too many times over to healthy scratch him but a message has to get sent that he needs to find another level. I’m swapping him with Compher because that third line has been too good to mess with and Compher has shown real signs of life in the last two weeks and it can be a reward for picking it up. It doesn’t have to last all game but the verbal messages clearly aren’t doing the trick for Burakovsky right now. He had another turnover-filled mess of a night and took the penalty at the start of the third period that put the Ducks in position to tie it up. That kind of selfish hockey can work against the lowly Ducks in the regular season but it’s not going to fly come postseason. He needs to once again find the level we’ve seen him capable of.
• Not sure when Nemeth will get into the swing of things. Between the hand injury he’s been nursing and whatever quarantine protocols are in place, I wouldn’t expect an immediate debut from him. Tough break for the timing of this for the Avs, who lost MacDonald to suspension and Byram to COVID just as he was about ready to come back. Tonight’s Keaton Middleton and Kyle Burroughs pairing was a trainwreck and playing it again Sunday is asking for trouble but the Avs may not feel they have a better choice. We’ll see how they handle the next 24 hours but the difference we see from Colorado’s defense tonight and in two weeks when Nemeth, MacDonald, and Byram are all theoretically back and ready to go sure will be interesting.