The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for the Avalanche's first week of the season

 

Wowza! What a start to the Colorado Avalanche’s regular season. Review the rundown of the highs and lows from the season’s first two games in this week’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

THE GOOD

1. Coach Jared Bednar earned his first two first NHL wins. Unofficially, including the rookie showcase games, the preseason games and the end of his Calder Cup winning run last year, he now has won 17 straight games. Bednar, may he never lose!

2. Granted it’s early, but is it irresponsible to celebrate the Avalanche winning their first two games of the season? After two straight years of disheartening opening night losses to the Minnesota Wild, especially last year’s ‘blow a good lead and lose’ debacle, starting out with wins against the Stanley Cup Champion (minus star Sidney Crosby) and a second round playoff team feels pretty good.

3. Colorado currently sits in second place in the Central Division as they continue to face the toughest competition on their schedule. It’s not everything, but once the schedule was released, many people were thinking the Avalanche could easily go 0-8 at the season’s start. They are also tied for fifth in the league with goals scored.

4. The Avalanche, whose power play struggled in the preseason, currently rank third among NHL teams, scoring on 44.4% of their power plays. Even more importantly, Colorado finally scored on their first 5 on 3 of the season, breaking a drought that goes back to the 2014-2015 season.

5. Colorado has improved their shots per game, elevating them to 11th place with 32 shots per game. Last year, the team ranked 25th, averaging 28.6 shots per game.

6. Hallelujah! The new systems work! Francois Beauchemin currently ranks 61st among blocked shot leaders, tied with Erik Johnson and Fedor Tyutin, with only 4 blocks so far. Remember last season, when Beauchemin led the league with 256 blocked shots, averaging 3.12 per game? Yeah, good times. Not.

Do we want defenseman who can block shots? Yes. We just don’t want to need them to sacrifice their body at the manic rate required by last year’s passive defensive scheme. Beauchemin tallied 46 more blocks last season than the second highest ranked player. Johnson ranked fifth, meaning the Avalanche had two guys in the top five for blocked shots, the only NHL team to accomplish such a feat.

7.Colorado ranks first in goals scored per match, averaging five per game. Who knew?

8. Center Nathan MacKinnon leads the team in points with four, followed by four players tied with three points – Erik Johnson, Joe Colborne, Tyson Barrie, and Gabriel Landeskog. Love seeing the defensemen pinch in!

9. Hats off to center Joe Colborne, who notched a hat trick in his first game with Colorado against the Dallas Stars! A former DU hockey player, fans celebrated his return with 199 hats tossed to the ice after he scored his third goal. Welcome back, and may this be the start of something great!

10. Veteran forward Jarome Iginla elevated himself to second in all time goals among active players when he tallied his 612th goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Only Jaromir Jagr has more goals (749). The puck also gave Iginla his 1,274th career point, tying Al MacInnis for 35th place among all time point leaders. And the puck goes to his son whose favorite number is 12.

11. For those questioning whether Captain Gabriel Landeskog could come through in the clutch, the team’s fearless leader managed to tie the contest with less than seven minutes remaining and then scored the game-winning goal in overtime. For those thinking batting the puck in the air was a fluke, the Captain showcases those kinds of moves frequently during practice.

If you want to see more of Landeskog’s mad skills, check out the video below.

12.For those watching the defensive pairings, veteran defenseman Erik Johnson seems to have found another gear and the pairing with him and Nikita Zadorov works well. Their combined speed drew two penalties in the game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Nice.

THE BAD

1. In both games, the Avalanche surrendered cheap goals early to end up down two goals in the initial minutes of the first period. While it’s great they were able to come back and tie it up by the end of the period in both games, the sluggish start needs to go bye-bye.

2. The Avalanche could work on their face-offs, as they currently rank 18th, winning an average of 48.9% face-offs to date.

THE UGLY

1. The Avalanche need to quit getting penalties in the first minute of the game and subsequently surrendering a goal in the first minute as well. Let this NOT become a thing.

2. Colorado’s penalty kill, which successfully shut out teams 23 times throughout the preseason, now places them 27th among all NHL teams. They have successfully killed penalties at a dismal rate of 55.5%. Ugh.

3. Who did Colorado irritate to get such a crappy road schedule this early in the season? The have four games in six days against east coast Stanley Cup contenders. Brutal.

4. And finally, whoever slashed Evgeni Malkin’s lip, kudos! Could not have happened to a better guy. It’s ugly and good.

WHAT TO WATCH

1. The Avalanche play the second half of their back-to-back game tonight against the Washington Capitals, starting at 5pm MST. Will Semyon Varlamov be able to rebound from his average opening night performance? Will the Avalanche be able to stay out of the penalty box for the first minute of the game? Will one of the veteran players get a night off? These and other burning questions will be answered at this evening’s contest.

2. Forward Mikko Rantanen, recovering from an ankle injury, started playing with the San Antonio Rampage this past weekend. Coach Bednar wants him to get up to speed on the systems while getting in game shape. Colorado has it’s next home game against the Winnepeg Jets on October 28th, likely the earliest chance to see him.

3. Veteran center John Mitchell continues to recover from his hip issue. While it’s unclear his status, he didn’t travel with the team for the road trip swing so it looks like he may be out for awhile.