The Good, the Bad and the Ugly from the past week with the Colorado Avalanche

 

The Colorado Avalanche backed themselves into a tight spot for the postseason, hit some personal goals, finally won a coach’s challenge and showed their weak underbelly in the past week.

THE GOOD

1. Captain Gabriel Landeskog continued to dig deep and put up points, as he notched two goals and an assist in the past week. The Captain has logged 14 points in the last 17 contests.

2. Other three point earners the past week included Blake Comeau with one goal and two assists and both Carl Soderberg and Mikkel Boedker contributed three assists apiece. Mikhail Grigorenko added two points with both a goal and an assist over the past four games as well.

3. Goaltender Semyon Varlamov played an outstanding game against the Washington Capitals as he allowed only three goals in a 47 shot barrage, including one power play tally. He earned a .935 save percent.

4. The Minnesota Wild lost their last three games so the Colorado Avalanche maintain just the slimmest of chances at the postseason. If Colorado somehow finds a way to win their last three games while the Wild lose their two remaining tilts, they can still earn a playoff spot.

5. While it may be difficult to remember after the bad taste from the three subsequent losses, but the Avalanche came out against the Nashville Predators and hit the net for three scores in the first period. The last time Colorado scored three goals in the first period was November 14th. Also, Nashville hadn’t lost at home since February 14th.

6. Some players hit benchmark numbers so they deserve some congratulations – Blake Comeau and Gabriel Landeskog scored their 100th career NHL goal, Jack Skille hit a career high of eight goals, Jarome Iginla hit his 20th goal of the season for the 17th year, both Gabriel Landeskog and Carl Soderberg passed 50 points for the season, and Matt Duchene overcame injury to tally his first 30 goal NHL season. Congratulations to all!

7. Coach Roy finally won an important coaches challenge in the Predators game which nullified a Nashville goal with an offsides ruling.

8. Mikhail Grigorenko managed to end the St. Louis Blues shutout streak when he scored with less than two minutes left in the March 29th game.

9. Goaltender Calvin Pickard came into the April 3rd St. Louis game and only allowed one goal on 25 shots, showing he learned how to stay on top of his game even when relegated to backup status.

10. Watching Matt Duchene, the team’s leading scorer, suit up and overcome an injury to contribute to a playoff push was good to see in a week with a lot more bad news than good.

THE BAD

There was so much bad and downright ugly the past week, for the sake of everyone’s mental health, only some of the lowlights will be re-hashed.

1. The St. Louis Blues seem to own Varlamov. In the March 29th match, Varlamov surrendered three goals on only 27 shots and he got pulled in the April 3rd contest after allowing three in net on only 14 shots. Both sub .900 save percent performances were highly out of character for him.

2. NBC Sports, at the beginning of the April 3rd game against St. Louis, reported Mikko Rantanen would be centering the fourth line for the Avalanche. Rantanen had been returned to San Antonio a full week before. Their inability to accurately report the team roster illustrated how little quality attention the national media pay the Avalanche.

3. While not news to anyone whose watched Colorado, the Avalanche have allowed the most shots against for the season to date with 2,009 so far. They are also dead last in shot attempts when they are within a goal or tied in the third period. The Avalanche rank fourth highest in defensive zone face-offs and are 29th in offensive zone face-offs. Maybe it’s time to revisit the defensive game plan? It would be nice if they could spend more time in the other team’s offensive zone than their own. It would also lower fans’ blood pressure.

4. Colorado’s penalty kill seems to have lost it’s magic as the team allowed four goals on eleven opportunities. Meanwhile, the power play managed one goal in nine chances. Just try not to dwell on the number of times they only got one shot off in the entire two minutes.

5. The Avalanche allowed an average of 37 shots per game this past week while only averaging 24.5 per game themselves. For those counting at home, Colorado allowed an average of 12.5 more shots against them than they were taking on their opponent. Didn’t some kind of famous hockey player mention something about missing 100% of the shots you don’t take?

THE UGLY

1. Tyson Barrie’s performance in the last few games has to come under some scrutiny. He registered one assist in the last six games with the postseason on the line. One point. Since scoring two points on March 3rd in a home win over the Florida Panthers, Barrie has registered just three points in 13 games.

2. Colorado has lost five of their last six games. It’s kind of hard to make the case for a Wild Card berth if the team can’t step up in the big games. And the April 3rd St. Louis game was so ugly, it was hard to watch. Even if they can’t make a playoff spot, it would be nice to see the players make it difficult for their opponents to beat them. That didn’t seem to happen this week and it was disheartening.

3. Anyone who believes the NHL Department of Player Safety is truly concerned about head shots and player safety gets to be an April Fool this year. How they could let Washington Capital Tom Wilson’s hit on Nikita Zadorov go without a suspension boggles the imagination. Watching the replay, Wilson clearly targeted Zadorov from across the ice, left his feet, and plowed his shoulder into Zadorov’s head. Zadorov suffered a concussion on the hit, a much more dangerous play than either Landeskog or Barrie were suspended for, and yet Wilson didn’t even receive a penalty. So perhaps only big market teams get these calls?

4. Francois Beauchemin leads the team with 1,918:07 minutes of ice time. While he is the wily veteran, maybe it would be wise to drop his per game average from 25 minutes a game to somewhere in the 20-22 range. It would be nice for him to have fresh legs should the team miraculously make the postseason.

5. Speculation about whether Matt Duchene should have celebrated getting his 30th career goal in the last five minutes of a disheartening loss, and whether Coach Roy should have commented on it, what did it mean when he did, etc. sounds a lot more like a soap opera than hockey. Only the guys in that locker room know what’s really going on in there, and that’s as it should be.

WHAT TO WATCH

1. Can the Avalanche show the character to make the last three games interesting regardless of whether they come out with a win?

2. How long will Zadorov be out and what does that mean for the newly created defensive pairings?

3. Will Nathan MacKinnon return to the ice before the season ends? And where is Eric Gelinas?

4. Can the Avalanche win their last three games and the Wild lose their last two?

5. Will young draft pick and Michigan Wolverine team captain J.T. Compher sign a contract with the Colorado Avalanche or will he return for his senior year of college?