Brock Nelson Needs More Than Good Process | Avalanche Review Game 9

Brock Nelson Needs More Than Good Process | Avalanche Review Game 9

You knew a regulation loss was going to happen eventually, but did they have to do it in the most frustrating way possible? ABS lose the Boston Bruins 3 to2. This is another loss where the underlying numbers for the ABS are actually pretty good for the most part. There’s a lot of good process here that you can be happy about if you want to find that silver lining and and something that I find confidence in that makes me not worry that the abs have real major problems outside of maybe the power play to worry about here. Nonetheless, this is still a game that feels more like the ABS let get away from them than Boston actually winning, and that sucks. The first 14 minutes and 15 seconds of this game were great from the Avalanche. They were dominant, outshooting Boston 10 to one in that stretch and just looked like they absolutely had everything going for them, including scoring the first goal of the game. If you’re new here, you might not know this pet peeve about me, but if you’re broadcasting a hockey game, don’t miss the faceoffs. It’s the start of possession and important thing to see. missed this one here, but the ABS won it, so that’s cool. Macar has the puck high in the zone, and the ABS are working a good setup offense off of the faceoff. A little work down deep. It’s a little sloppy from Nous, but Macar is there to collect it and keep the play going. McKinnon down low. Look at how fast that happens. McKinnon has the puck, twirls, and instantly to the middle. It’s a ridiculously good pass, and he knows Linen is there. Boston has cheated deep heavily to cover McKinnon. So when this pass gets through, Lucky has the world to work with this and he finishes nicely short side. A lot of negative notes in this one. None for the top line. Multi-point nights for both McKinnon and Lechin. Good to see them show up especially after McKinnon I thought struggled for the last couple of games. Looks great. Even NIS who unfortunately lost his point streak in this game looked good with the puck all night long. Lechin five shots on goal. McKinnon three shots on goal. Nas also added a shot. So nine shots from your top line of 33 total. You’re just shy of 30% of all of your shots on golf coming from that top line alone. It was an absolutely great start. You were feeling really good about this team. And then the ABS make two mistakes in 40 seconds. Boston with a little dump and chase hockey. There’s no real problem here. This puck’s going into the corner and the ABS should be just fine. Oliffson deep in the zone playing F3 here decides to challenge the puck carrier and we see the ABS defensive structure kind of fall apart because Josh Manson is the last guy into the zone ultimately in the F1 position here and we see Josh Manson’s defensive instincts kick in. He’s thinking, “Oh god, I’m a defenseman. I need to get to the front of the net.” But with the F3 super deep and the other two forwards on the opposite side of the ice, Manson has to go get this guy. You have to challenge the puck carrier here. It creates a bunch of chaos in part because the ABS double team down in the corner. So Burns is also not back to defend and all of this discombobulates the ABS defense. Still, the initial chance skitters off of Burns stick to the corner and Wedgwood does a good job to stop this initial attempt. But from there, Wedgewood has to find a way to reset or at very least keep himself in control from the beginning. As Manson kind of shields the view, Wedgeward slides off of his post. Can’t really hold himself together and can’t even get himself in a position to control a puck. So, a puck gets shot into him, off of him, and into the net. That’s on nobody but Scott. This is literally 30 seconds after the goal for Boston. They go for a pretty simple breakout here that’s actually poor. I don’t even mind read here. He’s making the right decision, trying to jump on something and keep a puck in the zone that could give the ABS a good offensive opportunity. You just can’t misplay this puck. And that’s exactly what he does. That misplay gives Boston a clean twoon-one, nearly a threeon one. If you’re going to make that step up, you have to execute the play. So Lov decides to play the puck carrier on this one. You’d like to see him take maybe a slightly better angle to not get worked like this, but he’s able to get moved around. The pass comes across. Yeah, nothing you can do there as a goalie. Any goal that goes in the net from behind the goal line is on the goalie. Full stop. I don’t particularly care about the other defensive breakdowns there. Now, the second goal, yeah, that’s on Sam Molinsky. That pairing together was frankly really bad tonight, they consistently made the big mistakes. And while not every single one of them ended up in the back of the ABS net, it was just too rough around the edges to feel good about it at all. pairing didn’t even play 10 minutes together in this entire game and still managed to be the worst pairing on the ice by a significant margin. And that’s not to say the other pairings were particularly good either. The ABS defense struggled with the big mistakes all night long across the board. I say that, but actually looking at the numbers, I think that’s a little bit harsh. The ABS only gave up four high danger chances at five on five across this entire game. That is ultimately really good defense. But to compound big mistakes on top of each other regardless of who’s at fault within a one-minute stretch, you just can’t do that at the NHL level. So despite outplaying Boston for threequarters of the first period, the ABS find a way to lose the period and they also lose momentum. The second period turns into a bit of a slog. While the ABS do get the better of possession in the second period and they even earn themselves a couple power play opportunities, they do absolutely nothing with it. We’ve discussed the power play to death for being this few games into the season and I don’t think I need to tell you anymore about it. It just has to start scoring. And while we’re in the category of things that just have to start scoring, it’s the ABS second line. Literally one game ago, I was sitting here being extremely optimistic about that second line because of how good Val Machuskin has been. And it looked like Brock Nelson took a step forward in the previous game. And then he comes out tonight and just does not have what the ABS need. It isn’t for lack of opportunities. Nelson had three shots on goal himself. And that line was great when you look at the possession numbers. But the puck just needs to go in the net sometimes. Far too many could have been dangerous chances seem to just die on Brock Nelson’s stick and the shots he did get off just weren’t that competitive right to the logo of Swayman. Needs to be better for Nelson. Two points in nine games for a second line center, particularly one making $7.5 million is not good enough. I’m not ready to be in the room where the ABS missed on a second line center again just yet. We still have a ways to go for this season to ramp up, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later for Nelson. Bit of a sluggish second period where the ABS get the better of possession but fail to score isn’t the worst thing in the world. A one-goal game going into the third is a place you actually feel pretty confident in the ABS in. And then the backbreaker mistake. 10 seconds left in the period. 11.5. You can’t be making mistakes in moments like these. These are truly crushing. It’s how you lose games. My dog thinks this is a terrible play. That’s how bad it is. Dumped in puck. Now, this is fine. The puck’s there. You see, it’s pretty straightforward. All Manson has to do is follow in. Maybe he goes around and you chase him out or whatever. Fine. Not a complicated play. Instead, I don’t know if Manson just misreads the puck bounce or tries to get real cute, but he decides to go the opposite way. I just don’t understand why. It’s just unnecessary. Maybe it creates the opportunity for a big hit or a big play, but you just don’t need that. Again, 7 seconds left in this period. Just don’t do anything boneheaded and we’re done here. Well, if Manson’s play isn’t boneheaded, Wedgewoods certainly is. Wedgewood just gets completely baited here. He sees the player cutting in trying to go in behind the net. The player immediately circles the millisecond Wedgewood looks away. And this is a problem, not necessarily because Wedgewood got fooled, but if Manson is going to go to that side, and by now Wedgewood has clearly seen Manson going to that side, he has to stay on this post. You have to trust your defenseman if he’s going to take the play head-on like that to stop any wraparound or immediate opportunities. You cannot give up this near side because hockey players are pretty good in the NHL. They can pull up and stop and find that. And Wedgewood is too late to react and it’s in his net. you are literally 10 seconds away from getting out of that period and feeling like you’re in this game. Instead, stupid mistakes. That puck can’t go in. It just can’t. It’s two straight games for Wedgewood that are pretty rough around the edges now. And if you want to write that off because the ABS offense just simply didn’t do enough. Totally fair. I’m not going to argue with you on that one. But, uh, I don’t know. Maybe start Trent Miner. I’m just saying you’ve seen a couple of bad games out of Wedgewood in a row now. maybe recognize you made the wrong decision there. I do not believe this game’s problem was lack of effort from Colorado. At least they worked. They dominated possession all the way through the game. They got the better of it. But it is certainly lack of execution. At five on five, they had 14 high danger chances and only managed to score on one of them. That’s a conversion rate on high danger chances of 7%. The best teams in the league are converting high danger chances at closer to a 20% to 25% clip. The AS have to do a better job of finishing. They just have to. A good process is great, but for the first time this year, it was completely destroyed by the major mistakes. And mistakes happen every game. I’ve said it all season so far. They’re going to continue to happen. But they can’t all end up in the back of your net. And you can’t keep making them in crucial moments. Two mistakes consecutively flips this game on its head. And when you feel like you still have a chance to get back into it, you then make another one with 10 seconds left to go in a period. It’s the recipe for losing a game you probably shouldn’t. Here is the last second goal for the AS. Great tip by Lechin off a nice play by McKinnon. Credit where credit’s due. Again, that top line was really good. I’m not that upset that the ABS lost. Disappointed? Sure. But you’re not going to win every game. Even in the process is good. You know, you’re not going to win every game. Hockey is just too volatile for that. What I am upset with is that the AS didn’t lose this game because they got outplayed. They lost this game because they created their own problems. At least with the big glaring power play problem, you can say, “Hey, we can tinker with this. We can try new things. We can put new players on it. We can switch the systems.” Problems that essentially boil down to poor execution are the reason for all three goals against them. And all you can say there is do better. And the same is true of the offensive side. Look, you can’t play perfect defensive hockey to win every night. The ABS aren’t going to be able to win 2-1 every night. This game is a perfect example of that. You need your offense to step up and help you win games. It’s hard for me to be too mad about the third and fourth lines doing that. They’ve produced enough. You’re not asking those guys to produce every night. It falls back to that second line. One that I still believe is good. You can see the pieces come together at times where you can get it to work. Not just work, but excel. But if they can’t do it consistently, you can’t keep going with it. I’m usually a bit more patient than most. I’m willing to run this out for another five games with this second line. But if they have a couple of more goose eggs through that stretch, your hand is going to be forced. A brutal way to lose a game, too, where the Gavs felt like they were in it and had to chase hard the entire night. You end up stacking up big minutes on some of your best players, and then you have to go play backtoback tomorrow. That’s bad. A win tomorrow would keep the ABS at a 750 points percentage through the first 10 games of the season. I can’t be mad at that. even if they lose tomorrow, that’s still 13 points out of a possible 20, which would fall into the category of good, not great. And to end things on a positive note, because while there are issues that are starting to become real proper issues, not just things you can ignore, the ABS once again kept this game close. If their worst games are close losses, you’re still pretty okay with that. You can’t get into the habit of losing and this is technically three losses in a row. So, you got to fix some things, but still in a fine position for Colorado. I’m not upset at the big picture, but I am absolutely frustrated with this game. That’s the end of this game video review. Thank you for watching. I am Rudo and just puck go

A frustrating first regulation loss for Brock Nelson and the Colorado Avalanche. Lehkonen and MacKinnon connected for two goals but there would be no other offense converted for the team. Process will eventually lead to results but sometimes in the moment you need to just score.

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