The Avalanche offense roared back to life at the perfect time

I’ve been using this space lately to give some shine to what the coaches have to say after games and I think given the…oddities…of tonight’s Avalanche game, it’s another good time to do it.

When you have postgame quotes coming from Jared Bednar like:

“I just didn’t like some of our habits in the first period when it comes to defending. We handed them grade-A quality chances at five on five and handed them a couple more on our power play. We turned over some pucks and gave them some more chances. I just don’t think that can be acceptable and we had a chat after the first.”

And when he goes on to talk about his starting goaltender’s play, says this:

“If you look at it, I think [Hunter Miska] would like to make another save or two there in the first period but we hung him out to dry. That’s not something you want to do with a young goaltender coming in. If we had played like we did against the Kings, they wouldn’t have had as many chances.”

Do those quotes sound like they’re coming from the head coach of a team who just won 8-4?

But that’s exactly what they are as the Avalanche showed Hunter Miska faith in giving him another start while trying to find rest for Philipp Grubauer, who (now) leads all NHL goaltenders in ice time this year.

It was a somewhat controversial decision by Bednar given Miska’s four-start stint has progressively gotten worse but the idea is against the offensively-challenged Anaheim Ducks, it was as good a time as any to give it a try.

Four goals on seven shots and a 4-2 deficit after the first period later, the Miska experiment was ended (at least for tonight) and Grubauer played the final 40 minutes of the game, enough to push him ahead of Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy for most ice time among goaltenders.

Grubauer came in and stopped all 15 shots he faced while the Avalanche scored six unanswered goals to give them their first regulation win against the Ducks this season.

The first period was among the wildest periods of hockey we’ve seen all year in an Avs game as the Avs scored just a minute into the game, then watched the Ducks score on their first two shots of the game, only to have the Avs tie it, and the Ducks score two more, the last of which came on the extremely rare short-handed penalty shot.

Yet, the final 40 minutes showed, once again, the distance between these two teams right now. The Avs have dominated the Ducks all year in shots and chances but could not find a way to beat them in regulation.

One onslaught of offense later, all of that is behind them now. We talked last week about the dam breaking and, well, that’s exactly what happened tonight.

Seven Avalanche skaters recorded multi-point nights, led by Nazem Kadri (2G, 2A) and Devon Toews (3A).

It was another dominant effort for Team Process as the Avs shot chart and heat maps looked awfully familiar to their efforts against LA and Arizona last week. Here they are for a hearty chuckle:

The Avs deserved to house the Ducks in this game. That’s exactly how it ended up. It doesn’t always happen (as we’ve seen in the last week), but sometimes sports justice exists.

Colorado’s nine-game homestand is now seven games in and they are 5-1-1 heading into a huge two-game set this week against the Minnesota Wild, who won their fifth straight game tonight.

The Wild lead the Avs in the standings by one point and will be eager to put some distance between themselves and the Avs. It will be an important series for both teams as they get into the second half of their season series.

TAKEAWAYS

• It’s been a slow burn for me but I’m slowly coming around to the idea that Jacob MacDonald has played his way into a roster spot the rest of this season. His wild on-ice antics were fun and charming at first but were major concerns for me as the extremely structured NHL rarely is a place for mustangs to roam free, but here we are. Another dominant shot share from MacDonald and I’m really leaning into the idea that when Bowen Byram and Cale Makar get healthy, MacDonald will be hard to remove from the lineup. The question really becomes Erik Johnson because if he comes back, then it becomes MacDonald versus Ryan Graves and that conversation gets very interesting. I’m not sure that’s a thing that will happen this year so for now it’s not a big deal but right now it looks like Colorado’s pro scouting staff did some great work in targeting MacDonald. He has clearly outplayed Dan Renouf and Greg Pateryn and deserves to stick ahead of those guys. The biggest problem he faces is the lack of special teams assignments given to him. The 27 seconds of SHTOI per game doesn’t suggest a whole lot of faith there and would be his biggest ‘obstacle’ to a regular spot.
• I know some people are working hard to defend Hunter Miska’s poor play/results but we’re talking about historically poor statistics here. Among every single goaltender to start at least five games since 1990, Hunter Miska’s .838 save percentage this year with the Avalanche is the third-worst behind only David Goverde and Scott Gordon. You can look at defensive breakdowns and try to twist the results all you want but only two goaltenders with at least five starts have posted worse results in the last 30 years. With no caveats, Miska’s five-game performance is second-worst statistically in Avalanche history only to Roman Will, who stopped two of the three shots he faced in the only 18 minutes of NHL ice time he ever had.  It’s time to move on.
• Wish the duck was actually colored in but Anaheim’s reverse retro jerseys were a big hit in the Haefele household (all one of me approves). They were fun and whimsical, two things rarely associated with the NHL’s overall personality. They make me smile. The numbers could definitely use adjusting, though, because both broadcasts were struggling to identify players as easily as normal.
• Believe the Avs are up to 17 consecutive games holding opponents under 30 SOG now. I know some people roll their eyes but when you consider 15 teams average giving up 30 or more shots per game, Colorado ripping off 17 in a row in the 27 games they’ve played so far is really impressive team defense.
• I won’t harp on it but the power play at the end of the first period that resulted in two breakaways and one penalty shot for the Ducks is probably the worst PP I’ve seen from the Avs since the 2016-17 season. That thing was a true trainwreck of epic proportions. Miska had already been bad up to that point but my goodness were his teammates not helpful on that sequence.
• Major Dante from “Clerks” vibes from Grubauer tonight. He made a particularly sassy glove save and his glare screamed “I’m not even supposed to be here today!” as the shooter skated by.
• Nathan MacKinnon’s line at 5v5: 14 scoring chances for, 0 against. Wow.