Avalanche vs Stars Game 6
[Music] Hello ABS fans. Here we go. Welcome to Mile High Sports. We are talking about the ABS and the Stars game six. I’m Sean Droar. That man on my left is Brendon V of hockey mountain high.com. Make sure you check them out for all the latest. Really proud to have Hockey Mountain High as part of our Miley Sports family and check out the podcast as well. Brandon, um let’s start this way. How you feeling about tonight or in general? Just tonight. Game seven, one game. If a win game set comes, it’s just just tonight. If they can clean up their um their game, I’m I’m happier about the fact that they have the first change. So, Bedner plays with the the first change a lot better than he does the second. So, it makes me feel a little bit better about that. Uh when you look at the way this game and the series, this game obviously is, you know, he’s going to be in Denver. That helps uh quite a bit. and that there is the ability to feed off the crowd, but there’s this idea that of course, oh well, they’ll feed off the crowd to play very well. You couldn’t have a bigger crowd uh impact than when Gabe Landisk came back for game three and the ABS lost that game. So, I I don’t know how much the crowd factors into it. If you look historically in the NHL, out of the what we call the four major sports, the home ice, home ice, home field, home court, whatever you want to call it, the home advantage in the NHL is the smallest of those four for for a lot of reasons. Obviously, you know, football, the crowds are massive and loud and and the noise can change what an offense does. The uh baseball, of course, the the stadiums are literally different. So, I mean, you want to know your your your curves, your angles in the outfield, all that sort of stuff. Basketball, you can have people standing in front of, you know, right in front of you on the on the court side heckling you. But hockey, there’s kind of a wall. Uh it it’s kind of separated to an extent, and that impact seems to be less than any other ones. But for the Avalanche, uh, this is win or go home time. And and in this series, I talked about it a little earlier today on on my high life sports today with Nate Lundy. My concern is this is a team that did not have Muriel Heskin as best defender. And they won’t tonight either, by the way. Um, they don’t they didn’t have Jason Robinson their leading goal scorer. None of their best defenseman. Don’t have their leading goal scorer. And here they are still beating a healthy Avalanche team 3 to2. And that leads me really to one inevitable conclusion. The Stars have outworked the ABS in this series. And even when the ABS have been up, uh, the Stars have continued to grind and outwork them, and now they have confidence that even if they’re down to the third period, they can knock Colorado off. Yeah, absolutely. And, um, it’s just the fact that they’re getting on the on the puck carrier a lot quicker than I think the ABS think they they are. It’s a fast game. Everybody knows that. But it it’s a matter of split-second decisions. And if you get that puck, you got to have your head up and you got to make that decision either to carry it or pass it off right away. And the ABS are catching it in their feet. They’re making sloppy passes and they’re they’re not making those they’re not able to make those decisions right away. a lot of giveaways uh for the Avalanche in this series, not only in the defensive zone, which of course are disastrous, but it’s sort of a a shocking amount of giveaways in the offensive zone. And Jared Bednar referred to this, of course, after their their really great game four win, the best I like I’ve said before, I think it’s the best game they’ve played all season long. They have simplified, they stripped down, uh and and they played a much better game. But when you when you look at the way that that this team has played and you look at the way that that they can play, uh they can beat the Stars, playing the Stars game, but they have to focus. They have to be clean. They can’t make those kind of turnovers. We look at the the the last loss and you had the fluky goal with the nine seconds in. You had the other fluky goal that the that Mackenzie Blackwood stops the shot. It goes straight up, bounces off his back and goes in. Those things happen. And the AS did fight their way back from that. But you look at the Miko Ranton goal that was started from a a giveaway in the offensive zone as the ABS are overpassing. Jared Bednar talked about this after the game four win. He made a point to talk about how well the guys were skating with the puck in the offensive zone. After the game five loss, Bedar talked about how they needed to go back in the offensive zone to doing what they were doing in game four. reading between the lines there, plus seeing what we’ve seen, the Dallas Stars want you to go cross-ize passes. They want you to do that. They want you to go back and forth. This is a team that leaves their sticks on the ice. They’re looking to break that up. And the goal that Mico Ranton had was caused exactly by that, a cross ice pass that the Stars intercepted and led directly to a goal. The ABS have to clean that up dramatically. And some of that has to do with with being more precise on their passing. And some of it, I think, Brennan, has to do with understanding this isn’t the time to pass at all. Yeah. And and that’s something that actually me and uh uh the other podcasts that I’m on talked about a lot. Uh Adrien Hernandez brought this up that the the stars are they’re they’re expecting the pass to to Kale Mar and what team isn’t whenever they play play the Avalanche? So TA Devonte needs to take advantage of the fact that okay they’re going to be drawing in one or two players on Kale Mar. They’re going to be going in for the double coverage and then Taz needs to step up and get those shots himself and uh draw those players away from or not draw them away but take advantage of the offensive opportunities himself. Yeah. which of course once the Stars realize that they’ll do that that will free up Mard because then they won’t be able to bracket him as much and and that’s one of the things that I’ve looked at more than anything for the ABS in this series and we talked about it uh on one of the previous postgames we’ve done or pregame we’ve done we did it live when we were at number 38 in Rhino as well for me um it it I I understand that not all shots are created equal I understand the avalanche look for great shots I get that but I’ll give you the numbers that I gave people uh earlier today on on my life sports today went back and looked at the number of games that Jake Oner had to make 35 or more saves and and I went over this year in the regular season and then went out over his playoff career. This year in the regular season, even when he had to make 35 saves, his record was six and five. Okay, now there are a lot of goalies that if you had to make 35 saves or more, they don’t have winning records. But still has winning record with that and that tells you how good that he really is. And I think everyone understands that the ABS certainly should. if they didn’t at this point or last year when they got knocked out by the Stars. I mean, they’ve got to know that. So, with that being said, I went back and looked at his entire playoff career against teams that are ostensibly better, right? But he’s had to make 35 or more saves over the course of his entire playoff career, three and five. That to me doesn’t seem like a surprise, but it shows that even Otter is mortal. And you can take his entire play your career, you can take this year, you can put them together, that’s nine and 10. If you want Jakeer to to at least not take over the game, the way to do it is pepper him with shots and even better than crash that net and get the rebound. Part of the reason the AS made the trades they made, Brandon, to get Charlie Coyle, to get Brock Nelson, uh, was to get bigger and stronger up the middle so you could start having more net front presence guys. Getting Landisk back helps that too. But the Avalanche for most of the season had two. Valarian Nushkin when he was on the ice and Artur Lechinan when he was on the ice. Now you have a bunch of guys. This team has to be more aggressive. Stop being fancy. Try to punch it in from six inches away. Well, and then the I think Lanny is still trying to get used to that fact that he can go to the front of the the net. He’s still trying to make the adjustments. And I mean, nobody can blame him. It’s going to be what, his third game back, fourth game back. So, uh, plus the the two in Loveland. And even in Loveland, he he rarely saw the front of the net, which that’s actually how he got one of his his only goal up there was by being in front of the net, but um he I think he’s trying to adjust to that. Uh I don’t think we’re really seeing much in thekin doing that lately. But Arturi on the other hand, he’s been doing it almost it seems like every shift. But um he the the Avalanche can’t rely on the fact that it’s only Art Turrey Lechinan. Uh Nutritionkin needs to get in front of the net. He’s always been that guy that’s done it. He’s always been the big body. For some reason, like we see on the screen, he’s only a point got one point and he’s plus one in the series. For some reason, he’s just not playing up to his capabilities this series. They’re shutting him down and they’re pushing him away from the net. Does this have a little bit to do with the fact that and it’s it’s a good problem to have, but when Landisk God came back, obviously there’s a lot of line shuffling and and uh Nichushkin this year has had to shuffle lines maybe more than most players. He’s been on the top line, he’s been on the second line, he’s top power play, he’s been on the second power play. This is a guy that also does plays big- time penalty kill minutes as well. I is some of this the the shuffling back and forth because now Landiskog is on that that second line as well. So now when you’re talking about the trying to get some synergy between lines, it was great to get Lannisog back. There is not a downside to it. But has this shuffling kept some of the ABS from being able to to be on the same page as their linemates? I don’t think so because uh you look at who Landiskog’s been well Landis Gogg’s been playing with Nelson and Nushkin as Drew got bounc bounced down to the third and and leaning and now is back on the top. Yeah. And Nelson’s still trying to find his way for for the most part it seems like. But Nushkin’s been he’s been used to to bouncing up and down. So and the Leafs just uh clenched the series. Oh, look at that. Look at that. Toronto fans are all uh all worried about the inevitable choke. Toronto is going to be on fire for the next to wait for the next round to uh to find a way to to mess that up. Uh obviously that’s that’s a big one for the Maple Leafs. You know the Florida uh that I can’t wait. I can’t wait for that. That’s going to be a good one. Can’t wait for that series. That that will be a ton of fun. But yeah, if you don’t if you don’t think the lines are a concern there of shuffling it and look, I get it because you we are talking about a lot of veterans, right? guys know where they’re supposed to be. So, with the Chushkin, do you think it’s more something the Stars are doing or is it something Nushkin needs to do to adjust? I think they’re shutting them down. They’re they’re uh the Stars are they’re double teaming when they need to. They’re they’re taking they’re keeping their sticks on the ice. They’re taking away the the the passing lanes and they’re getting on players uh when they actually they’re getting on them a lot quicker than most people think. They they really are cuz it like I said earlier it’s hockey is a faster game than most people think and you you get split seconds to think and that’s about it when and let’s let’s go back a little bit uh to look at Kale Mar because Kale Mar’s had a at least you know for Kale Mar he’s had a bad series uh two assists both on the power play that’s not really knocking the assists you know down in value but power play assists are easier to at the Diva Strength two power play assist minus three in the series. Um I believe nine uh specifically stated giveaways which is um uh right second on the team behind only Josh Manson who’s had 12. He hasn’t played like Kale Mar. Is this more of a Mar situation where he’s just seems to be a little offkilter or is there something in particular the stars are doing? You you pointed out that they are trying to make sure that Mar can’t get shots off. Is there anything he can do to adjust or is it as simple as like you were saying a guy like Devont Taves needs to understand look they’re going to leave me open I need to take it and and even if you’re not getting those to to go in the the net every single time that you’re taking it that defender has to to move a little bit further away from Male Mar to account for you. Yeah. I think they they need to work with the the other defender and they should have been working on that over the last 24 48 hours in the last couple of practices to try and get that puck to the other point and and draw into the other slot but other side of the slot. But who knows if they are because they’re so used to to having Kale draw down. But uh it’s a it you know you got to change something in game six. Yeah. Uh yeah. And and uh do you worry at all about uh Mackenzie Blackwood. I mean we talked about the fluky goals. He ended up getting pulled from the game. Although I look at it as the same situation that kind of u that Jake Odinger did that it it looked like the game went sideways. And I think Jared Bednar um if not outright just punting accepting the reality that you know this isn’t going to be a game that that Blackwood’s gonna stop everything and lead us lead us to the victory on this. We’re trying to give him some rest, give him some breaks, but this is his first playoff appearance. This his first playoffs ever. So do you worry about how Blackwood is going to play? And is there anything in the first period that you’d see where you’d say, “I’m not worried about it. He’s good.” Or, “Uhoh, I am a little concerned.” Well, he I noticed uh in the about the first second period of the last game that Dallas was taking advantage of the low shots and they were they were shooting low so he was having to kick them out. Mhm. And uh I always like to think of Henrik Lungquist is the classic player that you can think of who always kicked out and it left a lot of rebounds and left your defense out to dry. Well, last game was a classic example of that. He wasn’t able to eat those rebounds up because he was too busy kicking them out. So, if he if he can work on trying to eat the puck up instead of kicking them out, I think it’s going to do a huge difference. Wedgewood I didn’t think played that bad. No. So, he he didn’t allow anything actually if I remember correctly. You’re right. But um under the circumstances he played great. But um I’m not worried about Blackwood. I don’t think anybody should be. This is like you said, this is his first playoff experience. So need it be. If they do get eliminated, knock on wood. It’s good experience for him. The ABS defense can help with that too because you mentioned this earlier in the series that the ABS have to be way more conscientious about knowing that that rebounds are going to come period no matter where they’re shooting because this is a team that that does go right at the net. So, when you’re talking about the ABS defense, especially since they’ve had a lot of a lot of defensive zone giveaways, they have to be a lot more conscientious on clearing the puck and getting it out of the zone, but not looking for the big cross ice pass to get it out of the zone. Probably have to find a way to either make a short pass or skate it out of the zone yourself. That seems to be a change that the ABS probably have to make because they haven’t really done that all series. And it’s left the Stars with a lot of opportunities. Uh Blackwood quite frankly has been better uh than most goalenders in keeping them out, but it feels like the Stars have had a ton of high danger chances in part because the ABS defense wasn’t being as careful at cleaning up the mess. Well, I hadn’t I hadn’t checked after the last game, but if I I I remember that they had 33 through five games and I I think eight of them no uh six of them or eight of them had scored. Wow. Wow. No, but he had like a a 900% or a save percentage through five games. So, you can’t really argue that it’s a bad like he’s he’s doing really well on the high danger chances, but they’re getting too many and now they adjusted. So, now they were just they were just shooting the puck from far away and they were making the advantage of getting those rebounds as he’s kicking him out. So, the defense needs to look for those. Yeah. And it it’s an adjustment in the way you have to play. And as a a defender myself, you’ve got to be looking more towards the slot. You’ve got to move yourself more towards the slot and and face more towards the slot rather than looking more towards the play. And you got to be ready for that. But, I mean, I I don’t play in the NHL, so Yeah. But but from what you’ve seen from the Avalanche, we know they can do it. Uh what what do you think when you’re talking about mid-series adjustments? Uh do do you think the Avalanche are going are going to make those or do you think they’re just going to kind of keep doing what they do and play their game? Well, you have to make you have to make some adjustments because if you don’t, you’re going to eat the dust. So, you’re going to be golfing by Saturday. So, uh Jared’s got to make some some type of an adjustment. Uh hopefully it’s with, you know, squiggling with a little bit of the lines or, you know, making the adjustments uh with McKenzie Blackwood that he’s going to be hopefully hopefully hopefully hopefully the defense can try and push those pucks a little bit more. But um I mean th those are the adjustments I would be looking for. But that’s that’s me. Well, in the end, it’s all about, you know, whether you’re going to do it or not. There’s not a lot of room to talk anymore. We’re getting ready for for the ABS Stars game six. Like I’ve said it before, the Avalanche, this is a tough one. I know the Avalanche play their game. They love skating. They love passing. They love highlight real goals. They love tic-tac-toe. They like getting opponents demoralized by these beautiful goals. And I respect that. But the Dallas Stars understand they’re in a Western Conference with the Avalanche, with the Oilers, with the Golden Knights. Uh they they understand that they’ve built their team to stop those high-flying teams and they do it very well. So the Avalanche, I think, is stuck with a very difficult decision. You can play your game, which the Dallas Stars are customuilt to stop and you’re probably going fishing soon. Or you can play a way you don’t want to play, but you’ve proven you can play in game four and you can win. So the ABS have to look themselves in the mirror and say, “How bad do we want this? Are we willing to play our game and maybe end up packing it in or are we gonna play hockey that we know that can beat the Dallas Stars, but it’s not our particular favored style?” And that’s something the ABS are going to have to look themselves in the mirror and decide uh all night, every period, every shift, how bad do you want it? Because we know exactly how bad the Stars do. As we pointed out, they don’t have their leading goal scorer or their top defenseman, and they’re still leading this series. The ABS will love their back against the wall. We’re going to hand things off, of course, because the Nuggets have their game as well. You see that Denver logo? That’s because Zack Mikos and Ryan Black will be right back here soon enough to break down the ABS game as well. But, uh, Brennan, thanks so much. I hope we’re getting a chance to do this again on Saturday. Fingers crossed. We’ll find out. The ABS, uh, it’s up to them. They’re at home. Their backs are against the wall. No Heskin, no Robertson. You’re at home. No excuses. Force game seven. We’ll see if the ABS are up to it. Thanks so much for watching My Life Sports.
Shawn Drotar and Brennan Vogt of Hockey Mountain High preview tonight’s win or go home Game 6 for the Colorado Avalanche. Will the Avalanche feed off the home crowd at Ball Arena to force a Game 7 back in Dallas?
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