Mikko Rantanen’s mastery of Avalanche strikes again and 3 other takeaways from a wild shootout loss

The Colorado Avalanche suffered their first defeat of the regular season at the hands of, wow what a shock, the Dallas Stars in a 5-4 shootout loss. Let’s be real here. This game was awesome and there will not be many regular-season games that feel like this one did. The loss is disappointing, but if you care about the team’s process (you should), this was really encouraging.

It was Mikko Rantanen who ended the game in the third round of the shootout with a goal so naturally the lasting image is, you know, the former Avalanche franchise icon beating the Avs again and that feels pretty bad for everyone involved.

It also feels pretty bad that despite the Avalanche dominating long stretches of the game, they just couldn’t find a way to beat the Stars again. It felt very familiar to their postseason series loss. I guess let’s just start there.

Familiar formula strikes again for the Avs

I’m just going to give you the numbers that run down Colorado‘s process and you can see what a frustrating end result this is for the Avalanche. In 51:52 of even-strength time (using EV instead of 5v5 because of overtime):

• Shot attempts: 67-32
• Shots on goal: 28-17
• Scoring chances: 32-18
• High-danger chances: 14-8
• Goals: 3-4

As always, the final number is the most important and is exactly what we saw from these two teams in the postseason last year. The Avalanche won the territorial battle at even strength, outplaying the Stars to a meaningful degree, and it ultimately didn’t matter because Dallas cashed in what felt like all of their opportunities.

Hell, the area the Avs were awful in the playoffs that they won tonight was the special teams battle (Colorado’s PP finished 1/5 but looked great for three of those opportunities) and it still didn’t matter.

The one thing that was mainly different from the playoff series was the goaltending battle. Stars goalie Jake Oettinger was the primary reason the Stars were able to steal the game tonight, but his postseason counterpart in Mackenzie Blackwood wasn’t manning the Avalanche net. We saw a decent reason why Scott Wedgewood isn’t an everyday starter in the NHL as he went from two excellent performances to open the season to laying a little bit of an egg (this is debatable) tonight.

Ultimately, Oettinger was the star of this show and he made several highlight-reel saves in the final few minutes of regulation and overtime that allowed the Stars to get to the shootout, where the Avalanche are not set up to be good anymore (you know, with Rantanen gone and all).

I don’t have much else to add overall before I dig into some other stuff. It just sucks to sit through it again. Maybe next time will be different, right? RIGHT?

MacKinnon and Necas are finding their chemistry

Through the first two games, the Nathan MacKinnon-Martin Necas combination on Colorado’s top line was pretty good. Necas scored twice against the Los Angeles Kings to pace the Avalanche offense in Game 1 and added an assist versus Utah on MacKinnon‘s game-winning goal, but the overall dominance we’ve seen from MacKinnon’s line in the past was still missing.

That…was not the case tonight.

In 11:46 of 5v5 time, the top line for the Avs (including Artturi Lehkonen) did this:

• Shot attempts: 16-6
• Shots on goal: 7-4
• Scoring chances: 7-2
• High-danger chances: 5-1

MacKinnon and Necas both finished with one goal and two assists and each made a nice play on Lehkonen’s goal early in the third period that made the game 3-3. They were vibing on the kind of frequency you usually only find when guided by the power of horoscopes and deep-diving crystal energy. They look fantastic together.

Their speed and playmaking ability together is unreal and they probably should have scored the game-winning goal in the final portion of regulation but Necas was robbed by Oettinger with arguably his best save of the night (Necas also got robbed in overtime).

I mean, look at this nonsense:

Colorado’s first goal.

Colorado’s third goal.

Colorado’s fourth goal.

I mean come ooooooooooon. This is high-end hockey. The production is unreal with a three-goal night, but can they get a little help? About that…

That second line needs to start producing

This isn’t my overall point, but Brock Nelson‘s usage to start this season has been totally out of whack. He played 23:15 against the Kings, down to 18:51 versus Utah (that’s the sweet spot), and was back up to 24:01 tonight. To what end?

Nelson finished just 8/17 in faceoffs, including 0/2 in the defensive zone, but finished with just two shots on goal. Goal-scoring is his main calling card and he didn’t get that done again, but he wasn’t the only one. After tonight, the only point anyone on that line has recorded was Nelson’s assist on the fourth goal versus the Kings. Does that mean they’ve played poorly?

Certainly not tonight. I liked them early versus LA and thought they were awful against Utah. Tonight, though, was territorially dominant.

In just 9:33 of 5v5 time, this is what they did:

• Shot attempts: 18-4
• Shots on goal: 7-3
• Scoring chances: 11-3
• High-danger chances: 4-1

If you’re a keen observer, you’ll notice that Nelson’s line (alongside Gabe Landeskog and Val Nichushkin) created a lot of offense in not quite as much ice time as the MacKinnon line. That’s really encouraging and with the physicality they play with (Landeskog finished with five hits), they are a handful to deal with. That’s great, but Nichushkin making $6.125M is the cheapest player on the line. That means you need to get production, not just process.

It gets late really early when top guys don’t produce and given all of the problems the Avs have had finding a consistent second-line center over the last four years, you want to see some pucks start to go into the net.

If they play the way they did tonight, I imagine a lot of pucks will be going in. That’s easy to say from my seat. It’s about time it starts actually happening.

Sam Girard’s injury is going to cause problems

When the news came down this morning that Girard is week-to-week with an upper-body injury, it was particularly disheartening because it appeared the Avs might have found a strong second pairing behind Devon Toews and Cale Makar. Girard and Brent Burns were finding a rhythm and producing really strong results through two games.

Without Girard, Burns rotated partners throughout the game and it clearly caused some issues on the back end. Coaches want to be able to roll out defense pairings without having to tinker too much. The Avs like to occasionally sneak an offensive-minded guy like Makar or Sam Malinski out there for an offensive zone faceoff, but otherwise, the goal is to rinse and repeat.

That didn’t happen as the Avs tinkered all game. At even strength, Burns played 7:34 with Josh Manson (Manson on the left side), 4:31 with Toews, 2:12 with Makar (Makar on the left side), 1:10 with Malinski (Malinski on the left side), and just :55 with newcomer Ilya Solovyov.

Those 55 seconds with Solovyov proved costly as they had a defensive breakdown where Solovyov lost himself in the defensive zone and Burns was stuck trying to defend two Stars players right in front of Wedgewood. It didn’t go well and Nathan Bastian scored from inside the crease because he shook loose.

Burns, celebrating his 1,500th NHL game, had his worst night as an Av to date. He was on the ice for goals against while partnered with Solovyov, Toews, and Malinski. Just when it seemed the Avs were going to find stability on that second pairing, the chaos Girard’s injury caused back there leaves the Avs once again searching for creative solutions on the back end.

There’s no doubt Burns will have strong efforts in response (and his assist on the game-winning goal is a good look at the way he produces offense), but this was a tough look on the night he was being celebrated for his incredible longevity.