Breaking Down: Avs/Caps, Game 17

The Avs have been in the position to need a bounceback game several times already this season. Unlike last year, they’ve been able to step up and win some of these. Promising. The Caps aren’t the powerhouse they’ve been in past years and have devolved to a bunch of grinders and a little skill but they still pose a challenge. They didn’t last night in a 6-2 Avs blowout however.

Team Stats

Straight up 5v5 the Avs were -1 in shot attempts but since the game was score effected from first intermission on that’s a little deceiving. SVA it ended up at 53% and I’d call that fair or even a little low. The first period was high-event but from then on it was suppression city.

No turtle there, and the Avs forced plenty of power plays. I’d call that controlling play.

Both squads are all over the map in Micah’s chart but when you look at which type of player ends up in which area of the map it also points to the Avs having control of the game. Nice job.

TOI

No surprise, EJ led the D in TOI with around 26 minutes and Sam Girard 2nd at 21:32. With Tyson Barrie out, Girard did the heavy lifting on the PP with over 6 minutes there alone. Big Z and Barbs were in the 17+ minute range and Miro edged Bigras out slightly for the #5 spot.

Mack, Landy and Big Carl led the forwards overall but Colin Wilson took the top spot 5v5, followed closely by Mack and JT Compher. Everyone played a fair amount, JB was rolling 4 lines, and even Kamenev was on pace for around 8 minutes at the time tragedy struck and he had to leave the game with a broken arm.

Individuals

– The Avs top line cleaned up, 12 points total. A hat trick for Landy, 5 points for Mack and 4 for Mikko gave them the 3 Stars of the Game.
– With as much disdain I shower on Wilson, I have to give him a shoutout for this game. His first goal of the year and was heavy on the forecheck all night.
– Sam Girard was a pleasure to watch all game. He’s got offensive vision and instincts that are off the charts. He’s got 2 assists in 3 games with the Avs so far and plenty of capacity to increase the pace.
– Big Z was also good, maybe even real good. He took the #3 minutes and ran with it. Should have had a goal but for a ridiculous replay misinterpretation by the officials. His 8 minutes in penalties were all pretty much after the whistle hijinks except for a soft cross-check where his stick happened to break. Usually 8 PIMs would indicate a problem but that wasn’t the case last night.
– In the not so good department, Chris Bigras and Andrei Mironov got caved in on shot attempts. They played 7:10 together and were a +4/-15. That’s bad, especially considering all the other Ds were pretty much even or better. Neither made a good case for sticking in the lineup when Tyson Barrie returns.

Burgundy Narrative Metric

– “Best guys being your best guys” gets a (+) deserves like 3 +’s actually
– Corsi gets a (+) …and it’s been a while
– Power Play gets a (+) 2 goals in 6 tries, stout!
– Turtle gets a huge (+) there was an opportunity to totally shell up for this one and they did the exact opposite. Well done.
– Varly% gets a (+) Didn’t have to be amazing for the Avs to win, but he was anyway
– Referee Oppression Index gets a (-) soft calls and the unforgivable blunder on Z’s non-goal were shameful. I hope they all got food poisoning and spent the rest of the night in the can.

Total: +4

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The Avs hit the road for a weekend b2b in Nashville and detroit.