From the Eagles Desk: Sublime To Ridiculous

The beloved Eagles played their best game of the season on Friday, gaining their first regulation win. It’s always tough to beat any team back-to-back but what we saw in the 1st period Saturday night was very disappointing. As we often see, the parallels with the Avs letdown vs Anaheim which was happening concurrently were many. Losing a tough game would have been somewhat expected but showing a lack of composure and preparation was a little baffling.

Injuries/Transactions

– Josh Anderson was sent to the Grizzlies in last week’s lone transaction then recalled on Sunday. Sasha Larocque was sent to Utah on Monday.

– AJ Greer began his 6-game suspension and will be eligible to return a week from Saturday in Cedar Park.

– Calle Rosen missed the weekend with an undisclosed injury

– Erik Condra missed Friday’s game but played Saturday, Ty Lewis played on the top line in his place

– Thanks to the Avs all getting injured at once Jayson Megna was called up on Tuesday. More than likely another forward will join him by the weekend

COL 4 – SJ 2

Goals: Joly, Henry (Connauton, Campbell), Nantel (Campbell, Henry), Tynan
Shots: +27/-35
PP 0/2, PK 3/3

Lineup
Lewis – Tynan – LOC
Joly – Bowers – Kaut
Dries – Shvyrev – Megna
Campbell – Nantel – Henry

Renouf – Alt
Lindholm – MacDonald
Connauton – Timmins

Werner
Miska

Scratch: Larocque, Bibeau, Greer (suspension)
Injured: Condra, Rosen

Best game of the season so far. The Eagles came out quick as usual but this time they capitalized with Joly and Henry giving them a 2-0 lead 3 minutes in. Nantel added some insurance in the 3rd after San Jose made it 2-1 and Tynan added the ENG to seal it. Adam Werner was fantastic all night saving 33 of 35.

COL 0 – SJ 4

Goals: none
Shots: +31/-31
PP 0/5, PK 2/3

Lineup
Condra – Tynan – LOC
Joly – Bowers – Kaut
Dries – Shvyrev – Megna
Campbell – Nantel – Henry

Renouf – Alt
Lindholm – MacDonald
Connauton – Timmins

Werner
Miska

Scratch: Lewis, Larocque, Bibeau, Greer (suspension)
Injured: Rosen

Full disclosure, I only watched the 1st period of this game which was plenty. Werner let in a couple baddies but the play in front of him was so poor and chaotic I wouldn’t fault him any more than the rest of the team. Four goals for San Jose and it could have been twice that with the amount of hideous turnovers, odd man rushes and complete lack of defensive awareness. They just never settled down. This is a toughie because the staff are going to want to move on from this quickly but they also have to make sure it never happens again.

Breaking Down: Week 4

Goals: +4/-6, season +17/-22

Shots: +58/-66 (46.8%), season +224/-220 (50.5%)

Shooting percentage: 6.9%, season 7.6%
Save percentage: 88.9%, season 90.0%
PDO: 95.8, season 97.6

The Eagles shooting percentage is still concerning and is costing them around a half goal per game. Breaking it down by period:

1st: 5.1% (PDO – 96.5)
2nd: 1.7% (PDO – 89.6)
3rd: 12.7% (PDO – 102.8)
OT: 40% (PDO – 140)

With all the insurance goals and whatnot the 3rd will always have a lot more volume. The Eagles always start pretty fast on the shot board, Friday night they capitalized which helps there. The real culprit is horrible production in the 2nd period, the dreaded malaise. Like I mentioned last week there’s no easy diagnosis for something like this but it’s got to be fixed. One goal on 60 shots is unacceptable.

PP: 0/7, season 3/32, 2 SHGA (3.1% adjusted)
PK: 5/6, season 23/27, 1 SHGF (88.9% adjusted)
Adjusted Special Teams Percentage: 92.0

Special teams are a net -2, given the penalty differential this should be around +1 so not good. The penalty kill is overachieving by quite a bit and still they’re falling behind.

Your scoring star of the week is Nick Henry with his first professional goal and an assist to boot. Honorable mention to Colin Campbell with 2 assists in his Eagles debut.

Overview

The Pacific Division is seeing some separation already. It’s way early but these things have a way of carrying through the season sometimes. Stockton, Ontario and Tucson are all over .800 points percentage, everyone else is below .600 with the Gulls still looking for their first point after 6 games. The odd thing here is that those 3 teams were the 3 that did not make the playoffs last year so who knows what this means. The Eagles are 1-3 in regulation and 3-0 after, which gives them a fairly solid standing in 4th place. San Diego took their coach from last year and a fair chunk of their lineup to the NHL so they probably won’t be competitive. San Jose, as we saw this weekend, is a young team that will improve as the season wears on. Bako is what the Oilers affiliate always is, an inconsistent vet team. Right now if I’m handicapping the final standings I think it ends up STK/ONT, a bunch of bubble teams including Colorado, then San Diego.

Nick Henry picked up his first pro goal Friday, along with an assist on Julien Nantel’s goal. His 3 points in 7 games are good enough for 6th on the team and leads the rookies (2nd year players too). I really wish the club hadn’t laid an egg Saturday because I think he could have built on that. The sad part is that he’s 6th, which reinforces the Eagles lack of scoring so far. Hustle Hank scored on just his 2nd shot of the season and he only has 3 overall, I’d like to see that total start rising now that he’s on the board.

The top 5 scorers on the Eagles (Tynan, Joly, MacDonald, Megna, Dries) have combined for 11 goals and 26 points. The rest of the team (the other 20 guys) have 6 goals and 21 points, 7 skaters are still looking for their first point of the season. This is very top-heavy. I get that the staff are desperate to produce goals any way they can at this point but this is not a long-term solution. Case in point, Megna’s callup means that 18% of the Eagles goal output is gone.

So with 18% of their offense now with the Avs and plenty of questions about why they never score on the power play or in the 2nd period, the Eagles fly to sunny San Diego to face the winless Gulls this weekend. Both a blessing and a curse, it’s a nice time for some of the fellows that have been lagging offensively to have a go but at the same time it’s scary facing an 0-6 team. No one loses all 68 and traditionally the Avs affiliate has not done well vs the Gulls. No pressure…

Next up

The next couple weeks are weird. Eagles fly to San Diego to play the hapless Gulls next weekend, come back to the BEC for a midweek set vs Ontario then fly to Texas to play the Stars on Saturday and the Rampage on Tuesday morning.

Thanks to the AHL for stats and standings and to the Colorado Eagles for the feature photo.