The Colorado Avalanche Are Sick Sick | Avalanche Review Game 26

The Colorado Avalanche Are Sick Sick | Avalanche Review Game 26

Going into this game, we knew that the ABS were sick. And we also knew that the ABS were sick. After this game, we now know that the ABS are still sick even when they’re sick. ABS win over the Vancouver Conucks 3 to1. Sounds like a handful of guys on the ABS actually had some kind of bug going through them. It didn’t seem too serious, but Scott Wedgewood would leave halfway through this game. It’s unclear if this was a little bit of a bug or if there was a bit of an injury going on. Bedar did say it was precautionary. So thankfully it seems whatever’s going on with Wedgwood isn’t too serious. And if that’s your biggest negative from the game, then yeah, the ABS were sick. The first period of this game was competitive. The rest was pretty much dominance from the ABS. Vancouver came out hot. They tried to push the pace and not fall behind early to the ABS like so many teams have this year. And they managed to do it. obligatory every video annoyance of mine that the broadcast missed the faceoff leading to a goal. Yeah, I’m mad about it. Vancouver won the faceoff and they get possession and set up their breakout initially. Nothing too crazy here. It’s a pass that gets disrupted in the neutral zone and you feel like you should be okay. But the problem is very simple here with Gerard committing to the puck carrier. Parker Kelly is on duty to cover defensively in his own zone here and he just gets outsgated. just gets beat out. Simple as that. So when the pass comes through, Molinsky is taking the puck carrier. Maybe in a perfect world, he covers the passing lane, but he’s expecting Parker Kelly to be a lot more competitive than this. It’s not there. And then a nice drag to the backhand is in the back of your net. Vancouver pretty much had one play that was functioning against the ABS, and that was cherrypick a little bit and just try to use speed to get an oddman rush going down the ice. And admittedly, it worked a handful of times, not just on that goal, but a few more times throughout the first period where the ABS would get caught or make a bad decision and create a good opportunity. Wedgewood would be up to the task, though. And it’s important to note that the ABS corrected that issue eventually. By the time the second period started, the AS were doing a much better job of keeping Vancouver’s deep forwards in front of them and not giving up those oddman rushes nor high danger chances. There were, of course, a few still because it’s hockey and even the worst teams are decent. But whether it was Wedgewood in net for the first half or Blackwood in net for the second half, the ABS goalies would not give up another one on the few opportunities they had to stop. The other issue the ABS faced at least in the first period or honestly for the entire first half of the game was it started to feel like one of those games where the ABS weren’t finishing again. Whether it’s quality goalending from Kevin Lankin or the ABS inability to finish, they really did have a number of opportunities that you feel like could have ended up in the back of the net that didn’t. Vancouver’s defense is frankly not all that good unless your name is Quinn Hughes. And I do want to give the ABS power play credit in this game. They only got one and they didn’t score on it, but it looked good, generated some quality opportunities, and importantly turned the momentum a little bit. The first six, seven minutes of this game, Vancouver felt like they were in control of the game. The power play flipped that momentum and the ABS were in control of the game for pretty much the rest of it. As mentioned, the ABS did seem like they were going to struggle to score in this game, but they ultimately get a little bit of a gift from Vancouver at the end of the first. Vancouver flipped in a puck here, and it’s a good job by Minsky to corral it and then ultimately get it up and out of the zone. Nas also does a good job. Malinskio is going safe high off the wall, but Nas collects it and gives a proper breakout to the abs as Taves gets through the neutral zone, gets them across, and then you get to play some real offense. Nachushkin with the initial rush down the wall gets Vancouver honestly puck watching pretty bad. You’ve got five guys all staring at the puck here as he curls and gets the puck back out high. You recognize that Vancouver has also gotten a little bit deep for Molinsky sitting up at the point and he just fires this puck immediately. Shoots it in as fast as he can. Kind of a weird spot. This is Devontaves in the netfront area. Does a good job to get his stick on it for a defenseman. That’s pretty good. The initial shot doesn’t go in, but that deflection is enough to create a big juicy rebound because it doesn’t come in clean for Lanin. And wouldn’t you know, Nathan McKinnon, Johnny on the spot again gets to tap this one home. It’s simple solid hockey from the ABS putting pucks to the net and getting to the right places and you get rewarded off of a juicy rebound. But I do think it’s a little bit more than that from Nathan McKinnon. On the one hand, Nathan McKinnon is absolutely getting pretty lucky this year with pucks like that, bouncing to where he happens to be and getting some pretty easy goals. You don’t get to 22 goals in 26 games without a few that look like that. But it’s not just all luck. We haven’t seen Nathan McKinnon score a ton of goals like that in his career. And he even has some interesting goals like a tipin this season. That’s not coincidence. Nathan McKinnon is doing a much better job of getting to the right areas of the ice when playing off of the puck this year. And it’s a funny skill that you might not notice has gotten better with Nathan McKinnon because he so often is the man with the puck, carrying the puck, doing the puck work. But as that off-the- puck work has started to click to the next level, Nathan McKinnon has become just even more of a demon in the NHL. Anyway, I just wanted to shout that out because two things can be true. It can be lucky and good work both at the same time. Especially for a guy who we know was sick in this game. I think there was another factor that helped change the tide of this game too is the ABS ramped up the physicality a lot. You had the usual suspects like a Josh Manson laying hits, but you had a bunch of other guys too. Nathan McKinnon laid a few bombs. Devon Taves had some big hits. Up and down the lineup, the ABS added a physical edge. So, it wasn’t just them dominating the puck at five on five, but it was hard for Vancouver to get anything going in any fashion. It’s 1-1 at the start of the second period. The ABS do have to kill one power play for Vancouver. They do a good job of that and go right back to rolling over them. After outshooting Vancouver 14 to8 in the first, they outshoot Vancouver 12 to five in the second. And this is where the ABS dominance gets fun. At five on five, most teams are pretty dominant when they’re playing from behind. and they’re going to get the lion share of the chances. At even strength, good teams are going to get more opportunities. The ABS dominate there, too. And only the best teams dominate when they have the lead. The ABS do it in all three sections. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let me show you the ABS getting the lead. Burns is going to rim this up the wall here. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I got to say, lazy for check from Vancouver here. This puck gets rimmed right to you, and you just aren’t ready for it. You don’t have your stick ready to intercept it. You’re not ready to make a play. What’s the point of even forchecking if you’re not going to put the effort in here when the puck comes right to you? Just kind of weird bad from Vancouver there. A good little puck win from Ross up the wall is what really springs this. And Vancouver somehow overcommitted on a dumped in puck for what was easy ABS possession. I don’t really understand. That’s not the point. Landisk gets this puck and he’s off to the races. Not the fastest guy of all time here anymore, Landy, but does enough. And Nelson, great job. Stretches the leg, make sure he stays on sides with those long legs he’s got. That matters because Landy fires it across to him, barely on side, and all of a sudden it’s a breakaway for Nelson, and he finishes blocker side. And that is why the ABS paid Brock Nelson, because he’s a good enough skater to get himself into open space, and he’s a good enough shooter to finish plays. But more importantly, Gabe Landiskog. Wow. There’s a very real argument that Gabe Landoskog was the AB’s best player in this game. And I’ll get to that in just a minute because Vancouver is about to commit another no- no, giving Nathan McKinnon another goal in the last minute of a period. A pretty low percentage play from Vancouver ends up on Manson’s stick and he’s able to collect it and get to the wall here and uses his legs pretty effectively. Covers a lot of ground with his legs to get into the neutral zone. Something I’ve wanted to see more of, especially from the ABS depth defenders. He gets the red line before kind of chipping it along. It gets a little bit messy as he dumps it in, but the ABS are able to find a puck. McKinnon’s able to work it away from its current spot, and it gets a bit squirly. It’s not clean, but Landy then jumps on it, and Landy just goes to work. He doesn’t do anything fancy. A kind of desperate play from Vancouver. Opens up space for Landy to curl back. McKinnon immediately recognizes the spot he needs to take, and Vancouver isn’t able to adjust or adapt. Landy recognizes the play at the same time to get it to McKinnon, and McKinnon just fires one, and the ABS have a two-goal lead. It only takes a few plays to turn a bad shooting night into a pretty good shooting night. Yes, the ABS ultimately finish the night with under 10% shooting as a team, but you look at that Nelson goal and the McKinnon goal there, and those are both nice finishes. Those breakthrough plays are what separate what could be a dangerous close game going into the third period to the ABS having an insurance goal. And all of that is set up by Gabe Landisk. both goals he gets the primary assist on and it’s more than that. He consistently outworked everyone on the ice to maintain, get, keep, do whatever he wanted with the puck. I cannot talk up Gabe Landiskog’s game enough. This is not just, oh, a guy came back from an injury and is still a functional NHLer. This is the version of Gabe Landiskog that is a true asset to the Colorado Avalanche. He’s playing a power forward role in a way that not a lot of guys around the NHL can do. And you know, every time Nathan McKinnon gets to play with him, he seems like the happiest player on the ice. So that’s fun, too. By the way, if Nathan McKinnon even scores a goal once every other game for the rest of the season, that would be a 50goal pace. That’s how ridiculous Nathan McKinnon’s goal scoring has been so far this year. If he keeps going at the rate he’s going, it’s going to push 70. And here’s a short list of stats that Nathan McKinnon leads the NHL in. goals, points plus minus points per game, even strength goals and points and shots on goal. The ABS have frankly broken hockey. The NHL is seeing some of the most parody it’s ever seen. And we can have a talk about that. We probably will on a podcast pretty soon here. But despite that being true, there’s really only one team anywhere close to the Colorado Avalanche in the standings. Hilariously, it’s the team in the ABS division doing it because of course the central division is Thunderdome, even when half of it sucks. But we are legitimately talking about one of the greatest regular seasons ever. And the underlying metrics have never ever been this good. Just for fun, if the ABS lost every single game remaining in overtime, that’s 56 games, they would finish with a 100 point total. That’s silly. The ABS are silly. Have fun, laugh, and enjoy it. I am also silly because my hair color is about to change. But that is the end of this game video review. Thank you for watching. I am Rudo and honestly, thank you for over $1,000 donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Super cool organization, super generous of you guys, and I absolutely am willing to dye my hair for

Despite illness, the Colorado Avalanche still put together sick plays to defeat the Canucks, including multipoint nights from MacKinnon and Landeskog, and another goal from Brock Nelson.

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