Second straight win over Penguins clinches playoff berth for Avalanche

As the Avalanche was locking down a 6-4 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins to secure their berth into the postseason, I couldn’t help but think about the team they share Ball Arena with, the Denver Nuggets.

You see, the Nuggets are having a pretty respectable season with a potential back-to-back MVP in Nikola Jokic and he’s lived up to every inch of expectation put upon him, but the story of their season has consistently been about who isn’t there.

Without Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., the Nuggets will ultimately look at this season as the ultimate missed opportunity with all of their guys in their prime and Jokic seemingly at height of his very considerable powers. They probably won’t go deep into the postseason and it will be forever looked upon as a “what if?” in Nuggets history.

Why was this on my mind as the Avalanche closed out the Penguins?

The Avs rolled into Pittsburgh fresh off the thrilling afternoon victory against these same Penguins last Saturday but with a little different lineup. Out was Valeri Nichushkin, in Bowen Byram with Kurtis MacDermid moving from the blue line to forward.

After the changes, Colorado ultimately walked into the game missing three of its top six forwards and one of its top four defensemen. Even with Byram back, it’s a lot to ask for him to play a major role, what with his grand total of 37 NHL games played before tonight.

It’s a group that has seen the following notable absences:

• Nathan MacKinnon has missed 16 games, rough a month’s worth
• Sam Girard has been out for what will be a full month this Friday
• Gabe Landeskog is on 19 missed games and counting
• Tonight was Nichuskin’s 19th missed game
• Nazem Kadri has only missed five games so far but isn’t expected back soon, so that number will continue to climb
• Byram’s return came almost three months to the day after he took a personal leave of absence to recover from his ongoing concussion issues and tonight was just his 19th game of the season (it was Game 70 on the season)

With that in mind, the Avalanche became the first team in the western conference to clinch a playoff spot. Their 106 points in the standings are just two ahead of the unbeatable Florida Panthers but a whopping 15 ahead of Minnesota and Calgary for the top seed in both the Central Division and the conference.

This Avalanche team sits third in goals-per-game and seventh in goals-against-per-game. It has the fifth-best power play and while the penalty kill is currently ranked 17th, it was ranked 31st on January 14 so it’s been a steady climb ever since.

While they may not have any major award winners this year, Cale Makar and Darcy Kuemper have made strong cases to be finalists for the Norris Trophy and Vezina Trophy, respectively. The talent and production has been too diluted for the Avs to have a serious Hart Trophy candidate and that’s kind of the point I’m making with all of this.

The Avs played to a 1-1 tie with this Penguins team, a team that cares very much about winning games still given the dog fight they are in for home-ice advantage in the postseason and a team that is finally mostly healthy (Jason Zucker is their only prominent injury).

This game meant something to Pittsburgh because they’re chasing the Rangers and because this is a team with a championship pedigree that wanted to show what it was made of against this Avs squad after such a hard-fought game back in Denver over the weekend.

Unfortunately for the Penguins, we saw that this game mattered to Colorado, too, and when that has happened this year, the results have been heavily tilted in Colorado’s favor. Every team will tell you they want to win every game but we see high-end teams scrape by against weaker teams all the time. The Avs have been no different this year, but they all get up for the big matchups. Those games always mean just a little more than the two points on the line. There’s something beyond the standings to prove.

In winning this home-and-home with the Pens, Colorado again showed what a force it is. The Penguins were the slightly better team in the first period but getting into the second period, the Avs sank their teeth fully into the game, built a 3-1 lead and really separated.

A strong Penguins push at the very end of the second period got the Pens back to 3-2 and gave them the momentum going into the third. It was closing time for Colorado.

Boy, did they ever.

A Josh Manson goal just a minute into the third period made it 4-2 and Colorado successfully shifted the game into a boring slog with very little action until the final five minutes when Logan O’Connor hit Darren Helm to convert on a two-on-one and make it 5-2 and essentially end the game.

The teams traded garbage-time goals, including Artturi Lehkonen’s first in Colorado as he scored an empty-net goal shortly after Andrew Cogliano made a great diving play to get the puck out, but all they served was to change the final score and hurt Darcy Kuemper’s numbers a little bit (he still finished a .911 save percentage).

Colorado closed like a team that is comfortable closing. You can be pressed about the two goals in the last 90 seconds and I’d understand, but Kuemper was so good once again that it was probably just a little correction of good fortune to see him give up a freebie or two at the end.

How they got there won’t look very impressive on the shot metrics because the Penguins had the run of play in the third period while the Avs were sitting on their lead and playing not to make mistakes (they were mostly successful).

If you’re trying to beat Pittsburgh, it starts with shutting down Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby. Their combined line today: 1 assist, two shots on goal. On the flip side, Colorado’s top line saw Nathan MacKinnon score two goals and Mikko Rantanen and Andre Burakovsky register two assists.

Colorado won the battle of the stars, the depth battle, the goaltending battle. It protected a lead against a high-end opponent. It did all of it without having key guys in the lineup. This may end up being another season of disappointment for Colorado, one we look back and ask “what if?”, but this group has checked basically every single box you could possibly want during this regular season.

They have 12 games left to try to get healthy and secure home ice, at least through the path to the Finals, if not all the way. Enjoy it while you can. This might be the best regular season in Avalanche history, no what-ifs needed.

TAKEAWAYS

• Byram’s first game back and I think it’s fair to say it was uneven. He looked at his best in the first period when he was attacking a bit more and making some plays with the puck. His ice time slowly dipped as the game went on but he still ended up playing a respectable 15:02. It’s a fine start against a very good team. It will be interesting to see how he responds in a back-to-back this weekend. He’s probably not quite there in terms of being in game shape so this is being thrown into the fire to get there. For tonight, however, it was just good to see him playing with the kind of confidence we already expect from him. He’s got that swagger.
• Andrew Cogliano didn’t get an assist on Lehkonen’s empty-net goal but he made the play there. A diving swat of the puck into the neutral zone and then he got up and went for a change. As he was coming off, Lehkonen hopped on and the Penguins rimmed the puck around the boards to Devon Toews, who chipped it to Darren Helm and he swatted it to center, where Lehkonen had just gotten onto the ice. Lehkonen made no mistake in scoring the goal from center. The camera cut to Colorado’s bench where Avs players were giving Cogliano big love for the play. These guys play for each other and Cogliano’s heart-and-soul approach has been an excellent fit in Colorado so far. He got overextended a bit tonight as he played a minute on the power play as well (someone has to with all these forward injuries) and ended up over 13 minutes for the game. That’s probably more than he’ll see if the Avs forward corps gets healthy and gets to ice their ideal lineup, but he’s made a strong case to stay in that lineup.
• So, too, has Helm, who had a goal and an assist to help ice the game as he scored the fifth goal and assisted on the sixth. He’s had a nice little burst of production recently while looking as effective as any other time this season. The battle for fourth line jobs has gotten pretty good. While Logan O’Connor’s goalless streak reached 42 games tonight, he assisted on Helm’s goal and created the entire odd-man rush with a blocked shot at the point and then won the race for the puck. Classic LOC stuff. That’s why, if I was in Jared Bednar’s shoes, I’d still have LOC in a healthy forward lineup. He’s still playing quality hockey.
• For my money, I don’t recall any Avalanche team in the last 10-12 years as physical as this group has become following the deadline additions. Adding in Kadri, Nichushkin, and Landeskog to that forward corps should only make this an even more miserable group to play against.
• Much-maligned J.T. Compher has played significantly better recently and he scored his 14th goal of the season tonight. For a guy so many (myself included) have pined for more from, he’s quietly picked up his game a bit. The question, as always, is whether he can keep up the quality play when the goals aren’t dropping.
• Kurtis MacDermid signed a two-year extension earlier today. Look for my piece on that signing tomorrow as I get into some of the different angles to the deal.