Breaking Down: Avs/Bolts, Game #8

With the cards stacked against them and playing a rested Tampa club while on the back end of a b2b I jokingly put forth yesterday afternoon that the Avs would probably play a consistent and very effective game. Sure enough they did in perhaps their best of the young season. Tyson Jost had his first career hat trick and Pavel Francouz was amazing in the severe 6-2 beatdown last night.

Projectile Lineup

Other than Frank getting the start there were no changes from Friday’s game vs Florida.

Landy – Mack – Mikko
Burky – Kadri – Donskoi
Nieto – PEB – Calvert
Wilson – Jost – Compher

Sam – EJ
Big Z – Makar
Graves – Cole

Frank
Grubi

Scratch: Barbs, Nichushkin, Kamenev
Injured: none

Team Stats

Tyson Jost scored just over 3 minutes into the game, then there were some penalties and sideways play for a while. With around 5 minutes left in the 1st Tampa started revving up the machine and went on a big 12-2 run and tied the game. Good road period. Colorado opened the 2nd by dominating for 6 minutes straight with a 10-4 shot run and 3 goals, including Josty’s 3rd of the evening. From there on it was score effect time but no real turtle until around 11 minutes to go in the game. Even so the Avs still outscored the Bolts 2-1 in garbage time.

Final tally was +37/-54 but it was +18/-20 at the time of Jost’s goal to make it 4-1 so lots of score effects. SOG in all situations also heavily favored Tampa 46-24. Numbers like these will displease the stat-grazers but when you shoot 25% and your opponent shoots 4.3% it’s going to skew everything. Game pace at 5v5 was a leisurely 108 per hour, again mainly because the Avs scored on a quarter of their shots.

Special teams really weren’t a factor. Both clubs only had one real PP, each in the 1st period. There was a penalty parade in the 3rd with back and forth calls, including a penalty shot, but nothing came of it other than a rare regulation 3v3 situation.

TOI

Top 6 forwards at 5v5 were Mack, Mikko, Gabe then a gap down to Kadri, Burky and Donskoi. In all situations it was the same with Mack at 20:36 and Donskoi coming in at 14:49. Colin Wilson was low man at just under 9 minutes 5v5 and just under 10 overall.

The defensive regime went Sam, Graves, EJ, Cole, Z then a gap down to Makar. Overall it was Sam (23), EJ (22+), Graves (20), Cole (19+), Z (18) and Makar (15). Some interesting notes, Girard took over the PP1 spot from Makar and Zadorov didn’t play special teams other than a token 4 seconds. Ryan Graves has earned the trust of the staff with his consistency and might soon become the top PKer.

Individual

– I was really glad to see Tyson Jost get rewarded for his solid play so far with the hat trick, especially after getting more or less benched for the 2nd half of the game Friday night. Early in the season I wrote that two important tasks the staff had were finding productive roles for Jost and Andre Burakovsky and it seems like both have settled into jobs they can do. Jost has been good and better yet consistent since moving to center in the bottom 6. If he ends up with 30-something points and able to drive play in that role it’s a win for everyone.

– Ian Cole is on pace to be +195 with 78 assists. Our good friend Evan from DNVR pointed out a couple times he’s stepped off the ice right before an opponent goal or stepped on right before the Avs score. Timing is everything. Seriously though, he had a good game and his first since returning.

– The Avs have 14 players on pace for 40 points or better. They won’t all get there of course but it speaks to a much more sustainable scoring distribution in the early season. With the top line struggling until late last night we’ve seen the Kadri line and then the Jost line step up when needed. Bellemare’s line has thrown in several times too. It’s not just the idea that any line can score, they’ve now proven that they can.

– Pavel Francouz was incredible at times last night and the fears that he might not be NHL-quality are gone for the moment. 44 saves on 46 shots including a penalty shot from perhaps the most dangerous shooter in the NHL, Nikita Kucherov. In around one-third of the time as Grubi has played, Francouz has let in less than one-quarter as many goals. After watching him all last season in Loveland I was pretty sure Frank could handle the work but I wasn’t expecting this. If he can keep this up then the staff can go with a more equitable split of the starts and keep Grubi fresh for the stretch and playoffs. Adam Werner has been fairly awesome so far for the Eagles and I wouldn’t be afraid of putting him in for a game if need be either. Great situation to have.

Burgundy Narrative Metric

– “Best guys being your best guys” gets a (+) great night for all
– Quality vs Quantity gets a (+) ignore this
– Power Play Watchability gets a (-) no damage done in 2:27, hooray
– The Dreaded Turtle gets a (+) if you outscore the opponent is it really a turtle?
– Starting Goalie Battle% gets a (+) Frank is a revelation
– Referee Oppression Index gets a (+) Cale Makar’s main contribution last night was taking out one of the refs early in the game so we settled into a nice laissez faire game for the most part.

Total: +5¾

Next up

Showdown with our good friends from St Louis tomorrow evening

Thanks as always to the NHL and Natural Stat Trick for numbers and visuals