Breaking Down: Avs/Jets, Game 57
The Avs continued a pattern of getting destroyed by mistakes last night against the Jets. After a dominant 2nd half of the 1st period by Winnipeg, the Avs held up well for the rest of the game but made errors that wound up in their own net while not capitalizing on their own chances. While it will be great to have Nate MacKinnon back in the lineup soon this isn’t something he’s going to fix.
Team Stats
The game started out pretty even but as soon as Mike Haynes said that Blake Wheeler hadn’t been scoring lately, he scored and that set off total domination by the Jets with a soft call on Compher leading into an 8-1 run right after. For the final 43 minutes of the game the Avs were +27/-24 with the help of some massive score effects.
The penalty kill had an uncharacteristically poor showing, stopping only 3 out of 5 chances but the real culprit once again was the godawful power play. It wasn’t awful in the sense that they weren’t generating scoring chances, they had 9 over the 5 PPs, but they couldn’t convert and gave up their league leading 11th shortie against. They are now 5 for their last 48 going back to long before Mack was injured. Like I wrote yesterday, this is not a Mack issue, this is a team issue and he’s not going to fix it.
TOI
The defensive regime went Barrie, EJ, Nemeth, Z, Girard, Lindy at 5v5 with Z and Girard swapped overall due to special teams time. It’s a little disturbing to see Zadorov’s TOI take a dive lately and it’s not helping the team much.
The forwards had weird usage thanks to being blown out and ineffectiveness from a handful of guys. Top 6 was Carl, Kerf, Comeau, Wilson, Landy, Nieto at 5v5 and overall it was Comeau, Carl, Landy, Kerfoot, Jost, Compher. Mikko and Wilson were both awful and got swapped after the first but that accomplished little. AJ Greer ended up 8th in forward TOI despite a 5 minute major in what could be his final Avs game for the foreseeable future.
Individual
– For the second time in his last 2 starts Jon Bernier was pulled and Varly fared no better. This time it was due to an injury so I’ll give JB a pass but it’s just further demonstration that Varly’s notso hotso when he comes in cold.
– It’s extremely rare that Mikko Rantanen has a flat out terrible game but this was one for sure. He was last in CF% and 11th in forward TOI. I’m going to give him props not only for breaking up the shutout but also taking one for the team and doing the post-game interview in the locker room.
– People will scoff but the 4th line was good without Yakupov. They held steady in their matchup and generated 5 SOG individually, more than any other line, while only giving up 1 as a group. With Mack returning we probably won’t see Greer/Toninato/Bourque together again for a while, which is a shame. I think with some time together that would end up being a stout combo. It also proves that whatever Yak does out there, the Avs don’t need it.
– Blake Comeau returned and proved his worth in the lineup. He was a +14/-8 and for the first time in a while the Soderberg line didn’t get buried. Yes, he was on the ice for both PK goals against but didn’t figure in the first and the second was 3v5. He led all forwards in CF% and iCF.
Burgundy Narrative Metric
– “Best guys being your best guys” gets a (-) Best guys were horrid
– Corsi gets a (-) and this nosedive is reaching tragic proportions
– Power Play gets a (-) another donut, another shortie against
– Turtle gets a (+) for score effect theatre
– Varly% gets a (-) and same goes for Bernie
– Referee Oppression Index gets a (+) Avs always struggle with active reffing and soft calls. I’ll give the stripes a shoutout for dealing with Fatso trying to kill them in the Greer fight tho’
Total: -2¾
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The Avs play the Oilers tomorrow afternoon.
