Breaking Down: Ok, We’re Good Again. Now What.

The Avs are now off until February but closing out the homestand with 8 points in 5 games was the proper way to show they aren’t last year’s team. Believe it or not, at this point last year the Avs had 10 fewer points in one more game played. Last year’s collapse started 5 games earlier than this year’s skid/aberration/troubles and continued through mid-February. This time it was easier to fix or easier to diagnose and the staff seemed to be quicker to get ahead of it before it became a serious issue.

This is a good time to look at what worked in the first part of the season and what issues are like to continue or crop up over the rest of the year. Things will change massively once the guys get back from the break. After a very light schedule in January, they will play 33 games in 64 days. Three sets of back-to-backs, one break of two days (after the first game at Philly) and one break of three days (bookending the trade deadline). That’s rough.

Projectile Lineup

Joonas Donskoi was close to coming back from concussion protocol last week but there wasn’t any reason to rush for the final game. Colin Wilson is still out for the foreseeable future with LBI. It’s been 5 weeks since Colorado made a callup from the Eagles, which was Anton Lindholm who was returned 8 days later. Emergency player Mark Barberio hasn’t dressed since December 18th.

This is what we saw Monday afternoon vs detroit and other than Donskoi’s absence is a fair representation of the last month’s lineups:

Attack
Landy – Mack – Mikko
Nichushkin – Kadri – Burakovsky
Calvert – Bellemare – Compher
Nieto – Jost – Kamenev

D
Sam – EJ
Graves – Makar
Cole – Big Z

Gardiens
Frankie
Grubi

Scratch: Barberio, Donskoi (concussion)
Injured: Wilson (LBI)

Team Stats

When I look at team stats I like quality (expected goals) rate, quantity (unblocked shots/fenwick) rate, overall game pace (shot attempts for & against per hour) and for lack of a better term, finishing ability (goals per expected goal). This works well for 5v5 offense or defense and special teams also.

The Avs have the 7th best record in the league, 6 points behind St Louis in the Central and 4 ahead of Dallas. Great spot to be in, comfortable but plenty still on the line. Their schedule for the rest of the season is busy but somewhat easy as far as quality of competition.

Where they have excelled over the season to date is 5 on 5 play. Using the metrics mentioned above, here is how they stack up offensively against the rest:

xGF/60 – 2.30, 14th
FF/60 – 43.57, 9th
Corsi Pace – 115, 5th
GF/xGF – 1.4, 1st

The Avs are high-event, generate shots fairly well but at the expense of a little quality and are the best finishers in the league. Some of this is skewed by score situations, which I’ll get into in a minute. This is how they look defensively:

xGA/60 – 2.17, 11th
FA/60 – 41.60, 16th
GA/xGA – 0.996, 8th

Superficially this says that they are ok at limiting quality, dead average at limiting quantity and the goalies save what you would expect. The hidden factors are that expected goals trail actual goals by around 30% league-wide so 0.996 is quite good, the fact that they are high event means the fenwick is fine and again, the score effects make all of this skewed a bit.

The main reason I don’t look at shot share (things like CF% or xGF%) is that it’s become fairly antiquated. They don’t line up with zone time like everyone thought 5 years ago and outside of a few outliers the team that trails outshoots the leader most of the time. Most stat providers have some sort of score effect algorithm they apply but it’s subjective and incomplete at best. What we need to keep in mind with looking at any of these rates is that the Avs lead games a lot, nearly 3 minutes more per game than any other club (22:54). When leading their CF% is 46.35. They also don’t trail in games much at all (10:04), more than a minute and a half less than anyone else. When trailing their CF% is 57.29. Just to round it out they spend the 5th fewest minutes per game tied (15:12) and have a CF% of 54.55 in that situation.

So basically what we have is a team that scores a lot and early then has to deal with the opponent pressing for nearly half the game. The major component of the variation between score states is in their own shot rates, which for unblocked shots goes from 39 per hour leading to 46 per hour tied to 51 per hour trailing.

It’s not pretty but we do have to examine special teams as well. The power play has been truly awful all year and Ray Bennett has been running through ideas for the 3rd or 4th time lately with no positive effects. It is not the personnel, it’s the system, and it sucks. They are in the bottom third of the league in any category you can think of and it’s a lost cause. The evidence:

xGF/60 – 6.05, 21st
FF/60 – 67.06, 24th
GF/xGF – 1.09

So while they’re standing around not creating dangerous chances on the PP, the quantity rate goes up only 54%, quality rate goes up 163% and their finishing rate goes down 28%. In a nutshell, they hold out for high-quality chances, don’t get them, and can’t finish them off when they do. Systemically they are passive, predictable and completely unimaginative. Coming into the All-Star Break they’ve gone 2 for the last 25 over 8 games.

The Penalty Kill is slightly better on paper but has struggled in the bottom half of the league all year. The main strategy is to play a passive triangle plus one and block a ton of shots.

xGA/60 – 6.48, 21st
FA/60 – 73.07, 17th
GA/xGA – 1.2

It looks like there are some personnel or usage changes that could help, limit Compher and Graves when possible and try to get Nichushkin and Donskoi (when he returns) more involved. Like the PP, I do think some systemic changes would be a better way to get this unit going. It definitely worked last season.

Bottom line here is that Colorado is a dominant team at 5v5 and gets hurt by special teams badly.

TOI

The top 6 forwards on average at 5v5 have been Mack (15:21), Landy (14:43), Mikko (14:30), Kadri (12:43), Donskoi (12:33) and Burky (11:48). No surprises there and other than Donny’s injury has played out recently as well. Tyson Jost has been the 12th forward and averages 10:33.

The defensive regime at 5v5 goes Sam (17:56), EJ (16:49), Big Z (15:53), Makar (15:50), Graves (14:56) and Cole (14:30). This has skewed differently of late with Ryan Graves moving ahead of Zadorov on the depth chart and playing top 4 and occasionally top pair minutes. Big Z is pretty much the 6th defenseman now.

Topics

Strategically, the goal for the next few months is to solidify their spot in the standings and tweak the lineup and roles for a playoff run. Tactically they need to work on defensive zone issues, the special teams and whether they will throw down for a rental at the deadline.

Tackling these in order, the 5v5 defensive zone issues are varied but come down to three key areas. Number one is forward support, which is chronically bad but works off and on. It creates a chaotic situation that makes the goalies look worse to the untrained eye while making the breakouts more difficult, which in turn makes the defensemen look like they’re turning the puck over all the time.

The breakout is the second key and aside from the forwards blowing off support the other problem is punting the puck while under pressure only to have the opponent reload quickly. This too is chronic, see a pattern? There is a gap between what the system is designed to do and what the Avs players can execute consistently. In tough stretches Coach Bednar always falls back on player blame for these issues and it’s not exactly fair. It’s a fairly high-risk, low-reward situation and for me that falls on the staff. There’s a difference between playing passive and playing conservative which is lost on this club. Limiting risk doesn’t mean playing slow, it means creating redundancies so that if player A doesn’t execute then player B is in place to step up. Most teams have these built in as a matter of course but either the Avs don’t or can’t make that work. Whether this is a fixable issue in season is debatable but they better try.

The third key is a lack of a true shutdown defenseman. At the end of November, Cale Makar and Nikita Zadorov were paired up to shut down Connor McDavid and the Oilers after an embarrassing loss two weeks earlier. They were fantastic and immediately broken up and put with other D’s until the present. It’s baffling. Z’s current job seems to be minding the store while Ian Cole takes point shots, and Makar does the same for Ryan Graves. While I agree that it’s not a role the club needs every night, not every team has a McDavid or a Kane, there were a few times during the December/January slide where it would have come in handy. This also brings up the question of would you rather use Zadorov to allow Makar to create more offensively or use Makar to allow Graves to shoot more from the point. That should be an easy one.

Which brings us to the juicy topic, what will management do at the deadline this year? For what it’s worth, barring another injury barrage like in the Fall they don’t really need anything. Hopefully throwing assets away on a useless addition like Derrick Brassard last year caused them to re-think that strategy. Last week the Avs player personnel staff were in Florida for Winter meetings. This is where they determine targets for acquisition along with what they can afford to give up. Looming in the background is Bowen Byram, who should be replacing one of the 6 regular defensemen next season unless something truly stupid happens.

My first choice is an upgrade on defense, and by upgrade I mean bring someone in and trade someone out at the same time. Not much point in adding someone that forces an established D to sit. Ryan Graves has taken parts of both Zadorov and Cole’s jobs and moved into the top 4. Lots of people like the idea of selling high but that just doesn’t seem likely. JB loves his game and he’s moving more towards core player than trade bait. Getting rid of Cole would instantly make the PK better but I doubt management sees it that way. He’s got a year left probably slots in as Byram’s minder/mentor next season. That leaves Big Z. He had a strong final few games going into the ASG but he’s hit the ceiling as long as everyone loves Graves with Makar. If the net effect is that there’s an opportunity for Byram to start on defense next October they can’t do much harm. My guess is they do nothing with an outside chance of moving Z.

Colorado was half-heartedly involved with acquiring Taylor Hall last month so there does seem to be interest in a forward upgrade. Rangers forward Chris Kreider’s name keeps popping up but he would be a marginal upgrade on Burakovsky at best and not someone they should be thinking about long-term at all. Upgrading Nieto, Jost or Kamenev sounds dumb and expensive, especially when Shane Bowers and Martin Kaut are turning the corner up in Loveland lately. My guess is they overpay for a veteran bottom 6er that everyone is going to want to kneecap after 3 games.

Good Deadline
– Still have all our 1st rounders, Bowers, Kaut, Timmins, Byram, Newhook & Annunen
– Added no long-term contracts
– One roster player in, one roster player out (if anything)

Meh
– Lost something good (not Byram or Newhook tho) but got a superficial upgrade
– Maybe took a little term or threw in a pick to overpay

Oh God No
– Overpay for a leadership vet with no roster player going the other way
– Any two of the things listed in “good deadline” are gone

Plenty of work to do and plenty to look forward to. Didn’t even mention anything about Mikko and Gabe looking horrible or how we’re not sure if Grubi’s the starter a month from now. 33 games in 64 days will reveal much, enjoy!

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