Victor Olofsson Has The Prettiest Shot In Colorado | Avalanche Review Game 11

Victor Olofsson Has The Prettiest Shot In Colorado | Avalanche Review Game 11

Well, would you look at that puck go net ABS win over the New Jersey Devils 8 to4. There is a lot to get to in this game, so forgive me if I speed through a couple of sections here, but as far as the offense is concerned, the ABS pretty much solved all of their problems in this game. Everything went well on that side of the puck. And in the beginning, middle, and end of that conversation is the power play. Less than 90 seconds into the game, the man advantage gets the ABS on the board. ABS power play. And just take a look at it here. They’re operating with Victor Olison out high for points in this. This is more so just a full rotation of everyone on the power play for the ABS. A lot of movement and it looked good tonight and they were rewarded. Olison moves this down to McKinnon. McKinnon with the fake slapper initially to Nichushkin on the far side. It’s not a very good pass, but it’s good enough to be controlled and keep the abs in possession, not being their own enemy here. Mar works it back to McKinnon again, who’s eventually going to work down low and do a little give to Marty and get out of his way. This is a decent setup and maybe you’re starting to get a little long in the tooth with not shooting this puck initially. A little give and go with Nachushkin. And finally, the clock hits zero. Someone’s got to shoot a puck and Marty does so beautifully after getting it back from Kale. And that is a big bomb. A shooting nature is a scoring nature. He’s at a ridiculous 31% still on the season, which means he needs to shoot the puck more. He’s not going to keep up that rate, but you see him put pucks like this in on a pretty regular basis this season, even if most of them are coming at five on five. He is an extremely high-end shooter. I think this is partially why we’ve been so frustrated with the ABS power play and that it hasn’t been good. Your best players just got to shoot the puck more. The more they do that, the more pucks will end up going in. It’s exactly what happened tonight. Nous with the first one is nice. Good to see him get back on the score sheet after a couple of games off of it. And the ABS are off to a much better start than last time. And that start would get even better just a few minutes later thanks to your fourth line. Fourth line, make sure you take care of your defensive end first. A puck hits in deep. There’s a scramble for a puck. Wedgwood does his job. Makes a save or two. And you see the ABS are not letting rebounds beat them. They’re crashing the net. They’re going to win these pucks and they’re not going to let New Jersey get anything free. The puck springs free and the ABS get on their horse. Spartico in particular just off to the races. All three New Jersey players were down deep battling for that rebound. So when the ABS get it, they have an oddman rush just by default. Brinley a great job to get the man to commit to him and then getting the puck through anyway to create a clean twoon-one opportunity. And really, it’s a one-on-one opportunity as Kelly did a nice head check, recognized Bardikov was alone on the opposite side of the ice. And now Bardikov is essentially on a breakaway here. He doesn’t do anything fancy. He just picks his spot and he beats him with the shot. Working from your own end out. It’s just A1 stuff there. And then a beautiful finish from Bardikov. When did everyone on the Colorado Avalanche become a sniper? So Colorado out to a quick 20 lead. They’re in the driver’s seat of this game. And I will say as far as possession is concerned, the first period ended up being the ABS weakest. Getting up two goals early, New Jersey tried to surge and push back and did a lot of good possession things through the second half of the first especially. But the reality is while the ABS maybe weren’t doing the best job of possession, they weren’t giving up too much that was really all that dangerous to New Jersey. At least not in the first. But after a handful of games where it feels like the ABS struggled their way through the first periods or even if they played well, they couldn’t manage to win the period, the ABS do it and get a two nothing lead after one. And then the second period comes along and this game just goes absolutely off the rails. And I know I just talked up Marty Nous being an elite shooter, but after the second and third period of this game, I genuinely think Victor Olifson might be the best sniper on the team. Early in the second, the ABS lead gets extended. New Jersey gets the red line, dumps in a puck. The ABS go back and get it. And Molinsky with the initial battle. Here’s a place where I think Landis God doesn’t get enough credit for the little details. This puck is chipping up the boards. A missed puck here. You could end up in a puck battle. You could get into a weird situation, but Landy gets his stick on the puck and just knocks it out to open space to where the ABS can collect it and get on their horse. Maybe a little bit of an overcommit for the hit by New Jersey here, but that’s because Landy makes a good play. So, the ABS are on a three-on- situation. clean off the bat and some pretty questionable defending from New Jersey gives Olivesson way too much space and Olivesson with a beautiful shot. I mean that’s bar down money. Just walk in, pick a spot and score. And now to a certain extent you do need imperfect goalending to be able to find the right spot. But Olivesson goes bar down there. You cannot place the puck any more perfect than the way he shot it. And one of those goals in a game would be nice. You love to see it. You know, Olifson’s a good shooter, and one of those was going to come eventually, but there was a lot more than just one from him in this game. More power play opportunities for the ABS. I know this sounds weird to say, but that means more goals. It’s a five on three, so there is more space here, but this might be the moment the ABS realize the power play is hammer time. McKinnon with a feed fakes the shot initially. They work the puck back to him and he lets it rip. It’s not his best shot. It miss high, but he was willing to shoot the puck. And they just run it back immediately. No overthinking, no overpassing. Get the puck, shoot the puck, you’re gonna score. The season has been going for about three weeks now, and this game pretty quickly started to feel like every single goal the ABS deserved for those three weeks all came out. Some of that is the ABS high quality play, great puck movement, great shooting and finishing ability, which we’ve seen some of here and there throughout the season. And some of that is just the inevitability of pucks going in the net eventually. On a percentage basis on that power play, at least for the forwards, Nathan McKinnon is probably the worst percentage shooter. And yet, his shot is still really, really good and can beat a goalender if they slip up for a second. The pummeling continues as just about a minute and a half later, the fourth line strikes after the power play again. My goodness, was the ad transition game on display in this one. Brent Burns the one to break this puck out. You see New Jersey, this weird unison threeman charge up the ice and all turn and give it up at the same time. Leaves a pretty distinct opening up this near side of the ice that Burns recognizes, takes advantage of and gets him into the zone. From there, Colton does a great job beating up the other side. New Jerseyy’s just chasing the puck a ton and the abs are stretching him out through the neutral zone. It’s Parker Kelly streaking in this time and what a backhand move. Marstrom just gets cooked. And look, I can sit here and break down all the mistakes from the New Jersey defense on all these goals. And don’t get me wrong, there absolutely are some, but I’m not a New Jersey Devils show. I’m a Colorado Avalanche show. So, I’m going to look at the ABS taking advantage of those mistakes and all of the positives. And Parker Kelly is not the guy who I thought had that in the bag of tricks. I mean, sure, maybe Markstrom didn’t play it great, but the next shootout we have, you got to consider throwing that guy out there, right? The ABS have a five-goal lead, and you are extremely comfortable here. I mean, teams come back from a fivegoal deficit in the NHL maybe like once a decade or something. The ABS absolutely let off the gas. Make no mistake about it. They get up by five and they kick it into cruise control pretty much immediately. This is not uncommon. This is not abnormal. And to be honest with you, I don’t even think it’s that bad of a decision. With a lead like that, you start trying to save your legs. The NHL season is a long one and you don’t want to burn out. Take those opportunities where you can get them. The problem is the ABS win a little bit further than cruise control. They pretty much shut the engine off. From the halfway point of the game to 4 minutes and 12 seconds later, the ABS give up four goals. All right, a lot of New Jersey goals to get here, so I’m just going to go pretty quick. New Jerseyy’s able to get the zone and the ABS are unable to win this puck battle, which allows an extended possession back to Burns. This puck should still be out of the zone. Burns got to make a better play, do a safer flip, whether it’s off the glass, potentially rim to his pairing maiden Manson, something. But he shoots it, it bounces off a stick and takes a pretty tough bounce for the ABS out into a space where they’re never going to be able to recover it. New Jersey gets to it and then it’s a great shot. New Jersey collects a puck in the neutral zone and accelerates up the ice. Initially, it shouldn’t be all that dangerous. The ABS have guys back, but as a puck gets worked in, the ABS end up kind of chasing this play and you end up with some awkward defense. It’s a pretty big overcommit from Olifson to get down deep in this corner. The ABS have four guys ready to cover stuff here. So when this puck slips through, there’s a ton of space up high that gets worked into. Wedgwood makes a good save on the initial shot though, gets a piece of it, it just springs up into the air. Puck’s up in the air. I honestly can’t even see it. It’s somewhere in this area. They’re awkward to defend. What can you realistically do sometimes, especially when it bounces right out to Douggee Hamilton? Really smart play from Douge to glove it down into open ice where he can just flick the puck into the open net. When you have a multi-goal lead, your only real goal is to not give up any oddman rushes and high danger chances. And initially it looks like it should be okay here. You have a threeon-ree situation developing, but it’s the later stuff that happens. A fourth man is coming in and you do eventually see Nas coming in to help back check, but the coverage is an absolute mess here, right? Nes is coming down to chase the puck carrier, but Lechanin is also committing to that puck carrier. You’ve essentially left the far side of the ice completely uncontested. Macar is tracking back, at least for the man going to the back post, but this is pretty dangerous. You don’t want to just leave a guy wide open here. Not good things are going to happen. And to be fair, pretty fortunate bounce on a guy just trying to corral a puck that skips off of him and goes right to his teammate. But because of the poor backing, because of the poor taking of men, there is no twoon-one 3 ft in front of your net. That’s bad and it’s going to cost you. I don’t want to sound like a broken record here, but this is the ABS making the same mistake essentially that they just made and it coming back to bite them. You have a multi-goal lead. You do not need to be aggressive. You do not need to be giving up oddman rushes. You should be focusing on calming this game down, especially since you’ve given up three goals in quick succession here. Instead, Josh Manson goes for an unnecessary I don’t even know if I’d call this a pinch, but he just doesn’t need to get aggressive here. He needs to back off, keep this steady, and not give up anything dangerous. Instead, he gets halfway committed to this aggression, tries to bail out, loses an edge, and now it’s a disaster developing a clear threeon two down the ice. Uh, the coverage here is once again not awesome. I don’t love what Olivesson does here. What’s he supposed to do, though? He can’t just give a lane to the net. Burns has to take the offside guy. This is why you don’t give up oddman rushes and it’s a beautiful play from the Devils to be fair. I’m not going to sit here and sugar coat it. That is obviously very bad and you don’t like any of that from the Avalanche. Yes, New Jersey made some good plays and I have less problem with the first two goals. A bit of a bad bounce on a stick for the first one and the second one is a great play from Douggee Hamilton to find that puck and put it in. You got to tip your cap sometimes. But the third and fourth ones are pretty alarming. When you have a lead like that, all you really need to do is play sound quality defense. And even if some bad breaks go against you, you have the cushion that you don’t have to worry about it too much. Scoring five goals means a couple go in. Ah, whatever. You still have a multi-goal lead. You’re not worried about it. But you watch the almost entirety of that difference get erased in four minutes. Especially the last one where it’s a terrible pinch and you give up an oddman rush. With a two-goal lead, there’s just no reason to make poor decisions like that. You have the lead. You don’t have to push that offense. So, I don’t want to marginalize this. There is stuff you have to clean up there. And you cannot be okay with giving up four goals across four minutes. But also, if you’re going to have a stretch where you give up four goals in four minutes, when you look up at the scoreboard and you still have a lead after that, it’s a good time to do it. It is okay to outscore some of your problems, especially in the regular season. The ABS did that in this game. So, I’m looking more at that as a positive. Obviously, go to work. Don’t make those mistakes in the next game you have a big lead in. But, it’s fine. The ABS got the job done at the end of the night. And what helped them do that and ultimately stem the bleeding of that really rough four minutes was another power play opportunity. And what is happening? Why can the ABS suddenly not miss? I’m telling you, the ABS mindset has changed. Check this out. The ABS set up their get in the zone play. And I don’t have problems with this. Nathan McKinnon is one of the best in the world. He goes in deep, gets it up the wall, the ABS are now set up, right? Once the puck gets back to the point, you are properly set up in the offensive zone, or at least you have the time to properly set up. 137 on the power play clock for this setup. Look how little time this takes. Macar gives it to Olivesson once. Olison goes back. Mar is going to go over to McKinnon. And McKinnon is unloading at 132. 5 seconds. They were set up in the zone for 5 seconds. and they take the shot. No 30 seconds of nonsense. Just shoot the puck. It’ll go in. It’s kind of like the ABS have stopped looking for the perfect play and after they get set up in the zone, they shoot the puck pretty quickly. Who’d have thought that would work. It was a bit of a weird game for the ABS top line. They actually weren’t great at five on five for large portions of the game. They got pretty dominated in possession, especially through the first two periods. And you saw on the third goal against the ABS pretty much directly at fault the poor defense from the ABS topline forwards. But that goal retains the multi-goal lead for the Colorado Avalanche. And they are the same place at the start of the second period where they end it up by two. Sure, it reads six to four instead of two to zero. Maybe not as bad as it seems. Yes, they do not want to give up four goals in a period, but when you’re up five to nothing again, there is some stuff that is human nature, right? You’re going to let off the gas a little bit. They need to find that gas pedal again faster next time. get that goal to stem the bleeding or the momentum changing play or whatever you need. Maybe after they give up one or two, but still abs in the driver’s seat and you get into the third period and any hope of New Jersey finding whatever that was in the second period again and getting back into this game is completely crushed by yet another power play goal. There’s a bit more setup to this play, but check out this sequence. First of all, good movement along the near wall from McKinnon and Nas, but you’ve had that at times this year. The bumper play has started working significantly better with Val Nachushkin on this unit. Nachushkin finds a good opportunity here that doesn’t quite connect, but the ABS are able to collect and get possession again. Olivesson up to Mar to Olivesson. Use the space. Good quick puck movement. No one’s standing around not really accomplishing anything. McKinnon has now transferred over to the opposite side of the ice. You have to respect McKinnon. He opens up room for Olivesson who’s able to get to the dot. And with Olison’s shooting ability, you now have a goal. That’s two shots in a matter of 10 seconds. Again, shooting the puck on the power play. It’s borderline unbelievable. It took 11 games for Olison to score a goal this season. That shot is way too good for that. The third period was absolutely the end of the rope for New Jersey, especially with that goal going in. New Jersey only mustered three shots on net in the period. By the way, the ABS put up 13 for 42 total in this game. So, it’s not even like the ABS went into the bag and went mega turtle. Yeah, they had a really bad 4 minutes where they fell asleep, but the other 56 pretty darn good. All right, here’s the part you’ve been waiting for. With a couple minutes left in the game, Victor Olivesson converts the hat-tick. The ABS seem to sneaky consistently get a play like this every single game. New Jersey being a little bit casual about their breakout here, taking time, and they just don’t get their heads up right. And Jack Drury reads the play, steps up, and takes a puck away to create an opportunity for the ABS. He streaks in, recognizes Olivesson isn’t being covered very well, and is coming down the middle of the ice. And this guy going for the hattick with another beautiful shot. It’s certainly been a while since we’ve watched a hat trick that pretty. plenty of hat-ticks in A’s land over the last handful of years, but they often involved an empty net, maybe a cheap or easy goal. All three of those are beautiful shots from Victor Olivesson, just beating dudes clean. And I think what might be most impressive about this hat-tick for Olivesson is he did it with everybody. His first goal was assisted by Landiskog and Aon. His second goal comes on the power play, so Macar and McKinnon pick up the assists. And then this last goal is off of a great play from Jack Drury. He’s fit in well all over the ABS lineup all of this season so far. And now the puck is finally starting to go in for him. And it’s not just a hat-tick. It was a fivepoint night for Olivesson. The majority of the ABS goals involved him. Particularly on the power play. Let’s hope this was a little bit of a monkey off the back game. If you’re a bad team, you’re not scoring eight goals in the NHL. You’re just not. The ABS are a team that is not going to go on many more four-ame losing streaks this year. You shake off a little bit of the nonsense that’s been happening and you know you can pump teams offensively. Abs are good. That’s all you got to say. That is the end of this game video review. Thank you for watching. I am Rudo and you knew a gold explosion was coming at some

Victor Olofsson scores a hat trick of beautiful goals, while the Avs PP goes 4 for 6 as Colorado scores 8 total with MacKinnon, Kelly, Bardakov, and Necas all getting in on the action.

Colorado Avalanche VS New Jersey Devils Game Review

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