The Avalanche took care of business against the dreadful Red Wings

There’s taking care of business and then there’s taking care of business.

Colorado came into today’s matinee showdown against former rival (forever rival?) Detroit needing to win to have an eight-point homestand and go into the All-Star break trailing the St. Louis Blues by just six points.

Two minutes into the game, Nikita Zadorov turned himself about like he was doing the hokey pokey and Dylan Larkin capitalized, stealing the puck and finding Tyler Bertuzzi for an easy tap-in goal in front.

The 1-0 lead was a shocking beginning to a game between one of the league’s better teams and the by far the league’s worst. In the opening moments, you couldn’t tell which one was which.

Then the final 58 minutes took place and it became pretty clear who was the superior team.

Colorado trailed by that one-goal deficit going into the first intermission after failing to score on over six minutes of power play time against the league’s worst penalty kill but they also killed off a four-minute penalty of their own and outshot Detroit 18-12.

It was a sloppy opening period but it seemed like if the Avs just kept the offensive pressure up, eventually they would beat Jimmy Howard.

Three minutes into the second period, the Avs were leading 2-1 and wouldn’t look back en route to a 6-3 win and a game that was almost sad to watch as these two rivals have traded places at the bottom of the league.

Nazem Kadri scored two goals to put him past last year’s season goal total already this year as he recorded his 16th and 17th goals of the season.

Nathan MacKinnon also added two and pushed his season total to 30 goals. It’s wild to look back on his early career and see MacKinnon failed to score 30 in a season his first four years.

Now, he has 30 goals.

At the All-Star break.

The gap between today’s two teams was on full display as Colorado just kept scoring and while the Red Wings took advantage of a couple of mistakes to pot three of their own, it was never really all that close.

The Avs finished with a 46-25 advantage in shots on goal and spent nearly the entire third period on cruise control as they glided into the break.

Now, the Avs finish the unofficial first half of the season second in the Central Division by the Blues and sixth overall in the NHL. They’re the second-best team in the Western Conference and are one of the league’s highest-scoring teams.

In fact, today was the 14th time in 49 games the Avalanche recorded five or more goals. They are, no surprise here, 14-0 in those games.

Now the break begins with MacKinnon headed to St. Louis as the lone Avalanche representative at the All-Star Game.

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• I’m not going to spend much time on the special teams here. I thought the PP created dangerous chances on most of their five opportunities and only occasionally looked lost. They scored the one goal that made it 1-1 and kind of took the top off and opened the door for the Avs to run away with the game. They did exactly that and built momentum off both their PK and PP. The units have been a struggle individually but we’ve talked a lot about them winning the special team battle and they accomplished that today so I’m giving it a thumbs up for the day and not worrying about the rest.
• Holy smokes did the Avs play well at even strength though. It was pretty obvious after Bertuzzi (booooooooo) scored to make it 1-0 who the more talented team was. Colorado responded by pouring on the shots on goal, pushing it to 12-5 before the Red Wings got their four-minute power play and registered a few shots. The Avs outplayed Detroit hard the rest of the way. Taking a 2-1 lead into the third period, they could have sat back and tried to play the Senioritis card knowing they were so close to the bye week. Instead, they outshot Detroit 12-6 and scored four more goals. Not a bad way to go about your business.
• I’m not going to come down on Pavel Francouz too hard for giving up three goals on just 25 shots because the first and third goals were defensive abominations. That second goal wasn’t great but it’s fine. It really just continues Francouz’s good fortune of backstopping games in which Colorado’s offense tees off. I’m not sure if the NHL tracks this stat officially but Francouz has to be among the league leaders in goals of support in his starts. Even when he’s played poorly, Colorado has found ways to win. He moves to 12-4-2 on the season. You don’t mind that from your backup one bit.
• Obviously Kadri was great. MacKinnon was spectacular. Cale Makar added two more points to his total because he’s a maniac. But the guy who really stood out to me the most today? Tyson Jost, y’all. I loooooved his game today. He was dangerous nearly every time he touched the ice. He was driving play, shooting pucks, attacking along the wall, disrupting breakouts, the WORKS. Everything you want from a bottom-six player, he did and did well today. Except finish, of course, but that is not the point. He played like a man possessed and this was one of his most complete games of the season, if not his career. The shot metrics back up the eye test as both said he kicked ass and he did. He got rewarded with a well-earned point when Matt Nieto finished off his pass in front in the third period to put Colorado ahead 4-1. He had five shots on goal, laid a good hit along the wall, and played well enough that I don’t even care a little that he lost all four faceoffs he took. He was awesome today. This was the kind of game that gives you pause on giving up on him at this age. If he’s able to tap into today’s player even half the time, he’d be a hell of a player. I just wanted to give him props because I’ve been a bit hard on him lately and today he was great.
• Overall, today felt like a very good reminder of just how far Colorado has come from being the team Detroit currently is. It was just three years ago the Avs were putting up a 48-point season (and still beating Detroit) and felt like they were miles from being a competitive team. Fast forward to today and anybody who thought the Avs were the “same old Avs”, well, today should have been enough to convince you these guys aren’t the Avs of old. This was a trap game with the Avs coming off the big, emotional win against the Blues. It was the final game before their nine-day break and against the league’s worst team. All the pieces were there for an emotional letdown. When they got down 1-0 right off the bat, it felt like worst fears realized. But this team bucked that notion and kicked Detroit’s ass the rest of the day. Pretty good response.
• For a five-game homestand that started 0-0-2, finishing 3-0-2 is an acceptable result. In the eyes of the points system, Colorado won four games, leaving just two points on the board. You’ll take a points percentage of .800 anytime you’re talking about a five-game stretch.
• Colorado has 62 points in 49 games played. If you assume a 95-point barrier to make the postseason, the Avs need just 33 points in their final 33 games to get there. That is certainly doable, especially against the league’s weakest schedule. No excuses. This has to be a playoff team at the absolute minimum. If the Avs replicate their current point pace the rest of the year, they will finish with 103 points. Might not be enough to win the division but if that doesn’t get second place, you just tip your cap to whoever does because that would be an exceptional season.
• That does it from us for the first half of the season but nothing will change in terms of content during the bye week. Podcasts and articles will continue to come out regularly and look for my Ryan Graves feature piece later this week.