Michael Hutchinson and an offensive explosion keep the Avalanche alive

Gamesmanship is always one of the more interesting subplots to follow during any playoff cycle. Coaches not tipping their hand about lineups, player injuries being kept secret, it’s all a game organizations love to play in the effort to protect what they view as vital information for as long as possible.

In the bubble environment where media is not allowed at practices or within any meaningful distance of the teams, it’s Christmas in August (and September!) for an organization like the Avalanche that does it’s best Iron Curtain impression with regards to the flow of info.

Thus it came only as a mild surprise when the Avalanche rolled out their Game 5 lineup down 3-1 in the series to the Dallas Stars and neither Philipp Grubauer (expected) nor Pavel Francouz (unexpected) was available to tend the Avalanche net.

Instead, it was trade deadline acquisition Michael Hutchinson, whose disastrous turn as Toronto’s backup during the regular season necessitated the Maple Leafs trading for Jack Campbell to play behind Freddie Andersen, who led Colorado onto the ice with their season on the line.

Given it was a back-to-back, this wasn’t the real surprise Colorado had in store. No, it was that Hunter Miska, who just joined the Avalanche last week when Grubauer got hurt in Game 1, who joined Hutchinson on the ice. Francouz was listed as “unfit to play”, a designation that could mean anything from amputation to mild illness.

Regardless of where Francouz landed on that spectrum, it was Michael Hutchinson manning the cage for Colorado in Game 5. Following a 6-3 Avs win to push their season to Game 6, it’s easy to remember Andrew Hammond winning Game 5 against Nashville two years ago when facing elimination.

The big difference, however, was Hutchinson was spotted a 5-0 lead in the first period and Hammond had to steal the game for the Avs that night in Nashville. Colorado’s offensive explosion came at the expense of Ben Bishop, who was the Dallas response to gamesmanship as they kept their starting goaltender under wraps like Colorado did.

Bishop got lit up and pulled, however, as he gave up four goals on 19 shots. For the Avs, their approach didn’t change based on the goaltending situation.

“Same situation as for Bishop,” Pierre-Edouard Bellemare said. “We had Hutch in the net, we trusted him. I don’t think we put too much thought on it. We just decided that last game’s start was going to produce itself. We just came out and showed up. In this situation, it could be tougher for him to stay in the game when he faced three shots. We trust the goalies we have behind us. They’re all good goalies. If we start the way we started, it should be easier for them.”

For the 30-year-old Hutchinson, this was his first career start in the postseason and his club absolutely needed him to step up. Before getting to the result, though, there was plenty of appreciation for the hard work Hutchinson put in along the journey to get here.

“I’m real happy for Hutch,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said. “I mean, this guy, since the day we got him, he’s come in every day and went about his business. He’s a real quiet in the locker room, just a great human being. Talking to him last night, telling him he was going to start, I just wanted him to be relaxed and go be himself, have a fun night, a good night. He’s a confident guy, he’s working real hard. He’s a zero maintenance guy in our room. He’s been skating with the big group and also with our extra guys, hasn’t complained at all. I just really like this guy’s work ethic and demeanor.”

That cool demeanor was reflected by Hutchinson after the game, who insisted there was no additional pressure just because Colorado was facing elimination.

“The way I look at it, there’s no pressure, just opportunity,” Hutchin said. “And it was a really good opportunity. For myself to go out there and play and have fun, I’m looking at it from a more optimistic point of view. At the end of the day, there’s no pressure. We just have to come out and work hard and battle for everything. That’s the fun part of hockey.”

It’s certainly more fun when your team jumps out to a 5-0 lead and produces more goals than the other team had shots on goal during the first period, as was the case tonight (5 to 4). That made Hutchinson’s job a little easier, though certainly not less significantly less stressful.

“It’s always fun as a goalie when you’re watching the play down at the other end,” he said. “For the most of it, we were firing and pucks were going in for us which was very fortunate. I don’t think that takes any pressure off of you.”

The whirlwind nature of it how this came to be is the stuff of one-day legends, the games that stick out and people laugh as they wax nostalgic about their favorite underdog stories.

Hutchinson no doubt won fans over today as he succeeded by simply not imploding and giving back all of a five-goal lead. Some, sure, but as long as it wasn’t all, the Avs can live to fight another day.

Wednesday, in fact, where there’s a real chance Hutchinson is once again the man in Colorado’s net as he tries to stave off the clock striking midnight on what has become a fairy tale story.

TAKEAWAYS

• There was some chatter on twitter about this and I’ll open the forum to the comment section on this one. One of my least favorite parts of hockey is a team getting blown out and actively trying to goon it up to either “send a message” or try to draw penalties or whatever. The Blake Comeau penalty for rocking Sam Girard during Colorado’s sixth goal celebration of the night was a perfect example of a situation where a guy isn’t being cheeky, it’s not veteran leadership, it’s just a guy who is mad he’s getting his ass kicked and physically taking it out on somebody. It’s the opposite of sportsmanship, which is a moving target for us all, but it just seems completely unnecessary and I hate that kind of stuff. Where Corey Perry takes an extra jab at a goaltender or goes swan diving at the first hint of contact, that’s all stuff within the context of “hockey gonna hockey” but the Comeau cross-check felt egregious and plain dirty. Am I just being uptight on this one? Would love some thoughts from y’all.
• Let’s talk about some of the lineup choices here. Conor Timmins came in for Kevin Connauton, something I advocated for in my postgame piece after Game 4. Even with the predictable rookie jitters with the two penalties he took, I thought he held his own pretty well. We saw the upside he presents early in the game when he made nice plays with the puck to kickstart a breakout and defensively when he shut down all options for Tyler Seguin and then blocked his shot and kept him from competing for the rebound. That’s what he does well. He also badly lost a footrace in his own zone and had a miscue or two in his own zone with the puck. That stuff happens when you don’t play with guys in game situations very often. That’s the bad part. I don’t see how you put Kevin Connauton back in based on that game. The downside was stuff you were already getting with Connauton but the good stuff wasn’t happening with him. Looks to me like basic math favoring Timmins.
• Michael Hutchinson was the other lineup surprise. Pavel Francouz not even dressing, though? That was the shocker. If there’s something wrong with Francouz, it might help explain why he’s been SO poor in this series. If there’s not, it’s a strange message to send to him to not even dress him. This was a team that watched their starter go down 32 seconds into the first period and had to play Adam Werner for an entire game in Winnipeg this year. Granted, that went well, but they would’ve been forced to play Hunter Miska while facing elimination had Hutchinson gotten hurt. Something had better be wrong with Francouz, who got the “unfit to play” label attached to him. I don’t think Hutchinson was any good but the defense in front of him was outrageous and when spotted with a 5-0 lead, all he had to do was avoid complete catastrophe. He managed that but there still can’t be any real confidence in him going into Game 6.
• Ryan Graves went from regular season darling to being a real problem spot for the Avs right now. The effort is there. He’s out there working his tail off but his struggles clearing pucks and handling traffic in front of his own net have been a series-long problem and they persisted. He had the puck for several seconds on the PK right before the third Dallas goal and he botched the clearing attempt, then couldn’t tie up Benn in front of the goal as he made a nice play between his legs to score. Graves needs to tighten the screws significantly.
• On the flip side of that, I’ve been critical of Sam Girard but thought he was awesome tonight. That’s the kind of Girard performance I’m expecting eight games out of 10. He was moving his feet, hitting stretch passes, clearing the zone with ease and putting pressure on the Dallas structure in the neutral zone with his puck rushes. It’s a lot more subtle than what Cale Makar does but it was just as effective tonight.
• Speaking of, Makar has fully arrived in this postseason. It was a slow burn but he and Nathan MacKinnon have been Colorado’s clear-cut best players in this series. For my money, Makar has significantly outplayed Miro Heiskanen but it’s obvious these are two are the key pieces on their respective defenses. This could just be the opening salvo of a career-long rivalry that sees them go head-to-head regularly in the postseason.

POSTGAME AUDIO

Jared Bednar

Andre Burakovsky and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare

Michael Hutchinson and Conor Timmins