Takeaways from Colorado's preseason finale win over Stars

The Colorado Avalanche finished their preseason with a 6-5 Sunday evening victory over the Dallas Stars. The win means Colorado ends the preseason with an even 3-3 record. Instead of player grades for this one, we’ll just do a couple of takeaways from hopefully the last meaningless game the Avs will play this season.

• No Nathan MacKinnon today despite being listed on the initial roster. He was a late scratch from the lineup and whatever was bothering him that kept him from appearing during Saturday’s Fan Fest is clearly still lingering. Colorado has tomorrow off before they get back to practice on Tuesday. MacKinnon is expected to be a participant during that practice.
• Despite missing MacKinnon, the top line for the Avalanche finally got going a little bit as Gabriel Landeskog scored two goals. Both were deflections on shots from the point and the second one was especially fortunate but it was nice to see that line pot a few goals.
• Mikko Rantanen joined Landeskog in adding a goal as he notched Colorado’s second goal of the game. Following his game-winner against Minnesota, this was a strong finish to the fake games for #96.
• Speaking of strong finishes, Tyson Barrie notched a goal and an assist tonight and finished the preseason with five points in three appearances. As always, there were hiccups along the way but the production speaks for itself with Barrie. He looks primed for another 50-point season.
• The focus on the preseason has been secondary scoring and the fake games showed there’s plenty of reason for hope there. Tyson Jost is slated to open the season as the second line center and added two assists to go with his goal against Minnesota and finished with three points. He played another solid game today and simply looks like a different player right now. It will, of course, be pivotal he carries this momentum over to the regular season as teams begin to gameplan to shut him and his line down.
• On that same line, Alexander Kerfoot had a quiet day today but finished the preseason with four points off the back of his three-point outburst against Minnesota. He was centering Landeskog and Rantanen today and certainly looked a little overmatched both at center and against Dallas’ top line. He’s looked like an impact player on Jost’s wing and it certainly looks like that’s where he’ll call home for a little while this season.
• The third member of the presumptive second line is Colin Wilson, who scored a breakaway goal and added an assist today. He had a strong preseason overall and looks healthier than at any point in his disastrous first season in Colorado. In a contract year, he needs to take advantage of the opportunities he’ll get early on or he could be looking at an unexpectedly early end to his NHL career.
• Samuel Girard got his first real taste of what life is going to be like playing against top lines every night as he saw the majority of his ice time matched up against the Tyler Seguin line. They beat Girard and Erik Johnson up pretty badly but MacKinnon’s absence certainly played a role in that as well. Colorado’s top new pairing is going to be a work in progress as Girard adjusts to tougher competition than he’s ever faced before but given his talent and upside it’s a gambit sure to pay off sooner than later for the Avalanche.
• They ended up combining for the game-winning goal but Dominic Toninato and Sheldon Dries were on the fourth line next to fellow roster hopeful Logan O’Connor and they were Colorado’s worst line by a country mile. They got crushed at even strength and despite the goal none of the players managed to stand out individually. If Colorado were healthy, all three of these guys would likely be AHL-bound. Because of injuries to Sven Andrighetto (2-4 weeks) and Vladislav Kamenev (day-to-day), they might keep a couple of this trio around for a little while. Given the performance tonight, however, it would be hard to justify putting them into the actual lineup on game day.
• Matt Calvert continued to make a good impression on his new team as he added two assists and had yet another short-handed breakaway opportunity. If he ever starts scoring on those, he’s going to be a real handful for opposing teams. He was once again stuffed tonight, this time by youngster Colton Point, but he keeps finding himself in the right position. That’s good.
• I know it worked like a charm like last year but I’m not Carl Soderberg and Matt Nieto can get by being attached to the hip again this year. Nieto was terrible tonight but he had a very solid game against Minnesota so we can write it off. That said, there’s a clear skill disparity there and it gets even bigger by adding in Gabe Bourque to that duo. Bourque is a limited player who has done an excellent job maximizing his skills to continue justifying contracts from the Avalanche but he’s certainly no Blake Comeau and the longer the coaching staff tries to insist he is, the worse the Avalanche will be every time that line hits the ice.
• There’s a battle for the sixth spot on the Avalanche defense and Mark Barberio and Patrik Nemeth would seem to be the primary candidates competing for the job. Both played tonight as Nikita Zadorov stayed back in Denver as his “maintenance day” yesterday apparently carried over for another day (as did J.T. Compher’s, for that matter). Their ice time ended up being very close to even but Nemeth took a penalty in the third period that Barberio did not match. Nemeth was better tonight than last week but to my eye, there really wasn’t a better player between the two tonight. If I had to pick one, I’d reward Barberio’s strong performance against Minnesota two nights ago but I have a sneaky suspicion the coaching staff feels differently. It will be one of the developments to keep an eye on as the week moves forward and the Avalanche finalize their opening night roster.
• The preseason ends with a pretty terrible goaltending performance from every Avalanche netminder except Pavel Francouz. Given the heavy investment to the goaltending position, this wasn’t exactly what Avalanche brass had in mind. Good news: it’s preseason and now the slate is clean as they head into games that matter. Neither Semyon Varlamov nor Philipp Grubauer really showed well enough to separate. Now we get to the part where head coach Jared Bednar has to start figuring out the goalie rotation. Good luck!