"The puck wasn't my friend tonight": Sloppy Makar, Avalanche still complete comeback over Boston

During Colorado’s long wait between games two and three, the seasons managed to change from fall to winter and back to fall. Colorado, eh?

As the Avs sat around waiting for their next victim, the NHL continued on. In Vancouver last night, highly-touted defenseman Quinn Hughes finally scored his first NHL goal in his eighth NHL game.

The Canucks announcers lost their minds and referred to him as “the mighty Quinn”, which was a great song reference but crowning the kid for his first goal?

Adorable.

Meanwhile in Denver, the actual top young defenseman in the NHL outside Buffalo got back to work in tonight’s 4-2 win over the Boston Bruins. Cale Makar notched his third assist in three games, all on the power play.

By all accounts, including his own, Makar didn’t even play all that well.

“The puck wasn’t one of my friends tonight,” Makar said. “It was bouncing around my stick a lot but it’s just sticking with it. We talked a lot about being patient. We were just throwing it in areas and we were rushing everything. In the future, it’s just being patient and going with it.”

You certainly didn’t need any kind of fancy stats to see Makar was struggling with the puck tonight…but about those stats. Despite clearly not being at his very best, Makar ended the night with an Avalanche-best 19 CF, 8 CA, a  70.37 CF%. With Makar on the ice, the Avs outshot (attempts actually on goal) Boston 10-4.

As Larry David would say, “pretty, pretty, pretty good.”

His three points through three games have been unspectacular but he continues to register points on a power play unit that keeps on scoring. In the end, the score is what matters the most and the Avalanche find themselves 3-0 through the first week of the season.

“It’s so early in the season,” Makar said. “I’ve been on so many teams where we start like this and you can take so many ups and downs. I think for us it’s going to be trying to remain consistent. There’s still a lot of things we need to work on. We had a lot of turnovers tonight, just things we need to tighten up. I think for this group and how we’re playing, it’s a good start.”

Colorado didn’t get there without some bumps in the roads, however, as Boston scored goals that would have made it 3-1 and 3-2 but both were disallowed. The first was called back because of goaltender interference and the second the dreaded offside review but each went Colorado’s way, something that didn’t happen a lot last year.

“It’s a nice sigh of relief,” Makar said of the disallowed goals. “Obviously, we were pretty lucky. At the end of the day, we earned that win. Like I said, we’ve got a lot of things to work on. It definitely worked in our favor tonight, the hockey gods.”

Standing at the back of a team Makar repeatedly said had lots to work on was Philipp Grubauer. In his bid to prove himself a true starting goaltender, Grubauer has gotten better in each of Colorado’s three games and his 39-save performance tonight will only give confidence to the occasionally-shaky defense in front of him.

“[Grubauer is] the backbone of our team,” Makar said. “I think I saw a quote somewhere somebody said that. We go how he goes. He gives us so much confidence in the back, especially us D. If we can’t deflect a shot into the stands or something, he’ll be back there to stop it and we have the confidence he can do that.”

The Avs have a chance to open their season with four straight wins as the Arizona Coyotes come to town Saturday night looking to spoil the party in Denver. If Makar and Co. find their complete game, the rest of the league will be saying “Quinn Who-ghes?”

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• Another guy who looks like he’s stuck in second gear is Nathan MacKinnon, who super casually recorded another two points tonight, including his first goal of the season. His five points through three games won’t put him among the league leaders during small sample season but it’s a 136-point pace for a guy who hasn’t truly dominated a game yet. It’s coming.
• Colorado’s fourth line continues to be a strength of the team. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare scored his second of the season with Matt Calvert assisting again. That’s two points for Bellemare, whose career-high is 16 points.
• While the scoring is obviously great, the Avs would definitely like to see Bellemare contribute a little more in one of the areas he was brought in to improve: faceoffs. He won just six of 16 tonight.
• The other guy brought in to help in that area, Nazem Kadri, remains without his first Avalanche point but won eight of his 11 faceoffs. Had you swapped Kadri and Bellemare’s scoring, you would have thought nothing of it. Instead, we’re in silly season where oddities run rampant among the early-season results. Fun with numbers!
• It would be nice to see Kadri get that first goal, however.
• The guy who did get his first Avalanche goal and the game-winner tonight was Andre Burakovsky. And what an absolute rocket of a goal it was, too. Holy smokes. He played by far his best game as an Av so far and has two points through three games. Colorado’s pro scouts are going to look very smart if that guy is the one who shows up wearing 95 more nights than not.
• Tyson Jost filled in for J.T. Compher at the 3C spot and looked very solid again. I talked with a Western Conference scout after the game who simply said, “That guy’s breakout is coming. He is all over the place.”
• Despite not starting a single shift in the offensive zone, Jost’s Corsi numbers were very respectable at 13 for and 14 against.
• I typically save this space for Avs-specific notes but feel compelled to point out that David Pastrnak is incredible. He’s one of the league’s premier talents and is must-see on every shift. Thankfully the Avs only see that guy twice a year.

FANCY STUFF