The Avs beat Vegas and faceoffs - for a change - played a role

Teammates of Carl Soderberg all say the same thing about him: He’s freaky smart. He can finish crossword puzzles in minutes and he has a “Rain Man”-level mind when it comes to processing numbers. It may have come as something as a surprise, therefore, if someone had seen him try to answer the question: “Why were the Avs so bad at winning faceoffs last season?”

“I don’t know,” Soderberg said, after a fairly dramatic pause.

Do faceoffs really matter, though? Last season, the Avs were dead last in the 31-team NHL, winning just 44.2 percent of their faceoffs. Yet, they were a playoff team.

The year before? The Avs were second in the league, winning 53.6 percent of the draws. Yet, they were a 48-p0int team, one of the worst teams in modern NHL history.

All Soderberg knows is: He would like to up his faceoff-winning percentage from last season, which was 45.3.

“I think it’s always better to play with the puck first than the other team,” Soderberg said. “It may not matter as much in 5-on-5 (situations), but I think on special teams it matters a lot.”

In one area in particular, penalty kill, Soderberg knows he has to win more draws. He’s a lead PK guy, a guy who takes most of the faceoffs in his own end in those situations. The Avs were last in the league – by far – last season in defensive zone faceoffs in all short-handed situations (37.9).

Yet, the year before, he won 52 percent of his faceoffs overall – all for one of the worst teams ever.

“The numbers are a little weird,” Soderberg said.

On Monday night in Las Vegas, Soderberg was one of a handful of Avs veterans who played in a preseason game against the Golden Knights. Faceoffs weren’t a problem, as were the Golden Knights in general. The Avs won their first game of the preseason, 5-3, with Soderberg scoring one of the goals and winning 52 percent of his draws overall.

Soderberg had a big rebound season in helping the Avs get back to respectability, and then some. He scored 16 goals and 37 points, not to mention a solid defensive game, including the PK. He’s big, and Avs fans have seen how he can lug the puck. He’s not jet-quick, but has good edges and isn’t slow.

Despite being the oldest player on the team (33 next month) Soderberg retains a youthful visage and, more important, his enthusiasm for the games and all things life in general have been fully reinstored.

“I think we have a good bunch of hard-working guys,” he says. “I do think we want more as a team. But this is such a tough league. We know nothing will be easy.”

Soderberg scored the goal that gave the Avs a 2-0 lead against Vegas, as shown here from the Twitter feed of @sheng_peng

Soderberg stuffs it past Subban on PP, COL 2-0 pic.twitter.com/iUkvvNjZtf

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) September 25, 2018

Newcomer Pavel Francouz played the full game in goal for the Avs, stopping 29-of-32 shots. The Avs also got goals from Vladislav Kamenev (empty-netter), J.T. Compher, Scott Kosmachuk and Sheldon Dries.

The Avs did not send their top line, nor many top defensemen. So, getting a win against a Vegas team that dressed most of its regulars was a nice shot in the arm for an Avs team that had been outscored 12-1 in the first two games.

The Avs were outshot 32-28, but won 53 percent of the faceoffs in the game. Patrik Nemeth played his first preseason game for the Avs, after missing time from off-season shoulder surgery.