Breaking Down: Avs/Habs, Game #35
This wasn’t a must win game but in the back of everyone’s minds was the thought of falling further away from the top of the Central and into the clutches of the wildcard miasma. The keys to this one were don’t give up a boatload of goals and don’t give up a boatload of goals. Mission accomplished, for the first time in two weeks they held a team under 4 goals and took home a badly needed 2-1 victory.
Projectile Lineup
Alexander Kerfoot returned to the lineup after a battle with UBI and voila, instant viable 4th line. Grubi started, which should have been the call vs NYI, and might get the next one too.
Scratch: Dries
Injured: Barberio (UBI), Kamenev (shoulder)
Team Stats
The Canadiens are a high-volume and dominant shot share team so this was never going to be a Corsi win. Quality chances are a different story and the Avs killed them there. After a strong start, Z took a really bad puck over glass penalty and the pathetic PK offered no resistance. 1-0 Habs and from then on they controlled the shot board by an extremely wide margin. The 2nd period was dominated early by Montreal save for a goofball pass by Carey Price right to Mack that ended up in the net via Mikko. Captain Gabe scored the eventual game-winner 35 seconds into P3 and even though it looks like a turtle after it really wasn’t. Shot attempts favored the Habs but everything else was pretty even and high-danger scoring chances ended up 5-0 for the good guys in the period. Mack was taken down on a break with an open net but the refs refused to award the auto-goal and we left with the win anyway.
Tale of the tape was +35/-65 but high-danger scoring chances were +12/-4. Yeah, I don’t get it either. Shots on goal in all situations were 36-26 Montreal. Game pace at 5v5 was a blistering 130 shots per hour.
The power play got blanked 0-4 (which in reality was only two chances) and could barely enter the zone much less shoot a puck at the net. The Habs out-attempted the Avs 3-1 in 4 minutes of real PP time. Yikes. The PK was still bad and killed 3 of 4, now they sit in 24th in the NHL.
TOI
Top 6 forwards at 5v5 were Landy, Mack, Mikko, then a 4 minute gap down to Calvert, Carl and Nieto and same in all situations. Bourque was low forward at 7 minutes even at 5v5 and 9 minutes overall.
The defensive regime went EJ, Barrie, Cole, Sam, Nemeth then Z with just over 7 minutes due to injury. He left mid-2nd with what Avs PR characterized as LBI. No word on his status as of yet.
Individual
– Mikko continued his reign of terror at the top of the NHL scoring race with a goal and assist. Landy scored his 7th game-winner and 23rd overall which tied him with Patrik Laine for 3rd in the NHL. Oh yeah, Mack had 2 assists which puts him at 55 points for the year.
– Big Z’s injury and status is still unknown. Thankfully the roster freeze is a soft construct and the Avs can still call a D up from the Eagles on an emergency basis. Who they will summon is the big question. Mark Alt proved he was incapable of handling NHL play in the two games they were forced to use him in. Whether they like it or not they are going to have to use defensemen from Loveland over the course of the season, this is an opportunity to figure out who can help the team. Making the same dumb move because it’s easy is a mistake they really can’t afford to make.
– Alex Kerfoot’s return was a breath of fresh air. He immediately found the chemistry we’ve seen over the fall with Colin Wilson and that line was pretty stout even with Gabe Bourque.
Conversely, the Jost/Compher/Andrighetto line was a disaster. Not a surprise, they all play the same way and are all shooters instead of playmakers in general. Let’s look at how they fared on the shot board.
Hmmm, not too good. Jost and Sven were basically benched for the 2nd half of the game with 3 and 4 shifts respectively. Compher continued to play getting shifts with Kerf/Wilson but seemed to drag them down a bit. He and Kerfoot together are generally an oil & water situation. I think we’ll see a bit of a shakeup with these two lines on Friday.
– It was excellent to watch Grubauer take control of a game for the first time since he mauled Carolina. This is the type of performance he needs to make a regular occurrence to take and keep the starter job from Varly like the staff want him to do. I’m not on the bandwagon yet but he deserves a chance to be evaluated on his play rather than his situation replacing an icon like Varly.
Burgundy Narrative Metric
– “Best guys being your best guys” gets a (+) Yesss
– Quality vs Quantity gets a (0) quantity no, quality much yes
– Power Play Watchability gets a (-) didn’t have an answer for Habs PK
– The Dreaded Turtle gets a (+) looked sort of like one but it wasn’t
– Starting Goalie Battle% gets a (+) great game from Grubi
– Referee Oppression Index gets a (+) Props for making a quick and correct call on Landy’s goal, which apparently wasn’t very popular in the PQ. Punting the auto-goal for Mack was garbage but it didn’t matter.
Total: +3¾
Next up
A day off then back at it vs the hapless Hawks on Friday followed by a flight to Phoenix to play the dogs on Saturday afternoon.
Thanks as always to the NHL and Natural Stat Trick for numbers and visuals
