Jack Drury And The Third Line Is Colorado’s Secret Weapon | Avalanche Review Game 2

Jack Drury And The Third Line Is Colorado’s Secret Weapon | Avalanche Review Game 2

I think it’s fair to say that was not the ABS best game, but it was good enough to get the job done. ABS win two to one over the Utah Mammoth to move to two and 0 on the season. For the ABS as a whole, that was maybe a B minus, C++ level game. There were some standouts though, and first and foremost is Scott Wedgwood. That was the A+ game from Scott Wedgwood. Yes, I know the one goal he gives up on the power play isn’t the best as it sneaks through him, but he played fantastic throughout that game. That’s the only goal he gave up. still has not given up a goal at five on five yet this season, by the way. Without a goalie performance like that, the ABS probably lose this game pretty handily. And instead, we’re talking about a win here. So, full credit to Scott Wedgewood behind this no matter what. The first period of this game was actually quite good from Colorado. I enjoyed a lot of it. At the very beginning, it was maybe a touch slow, but the ABS quickly built into it and played a solid period overall. still a lot of puck sloppiness and a bit of fast and loose defense at times, but their offense came alive pretty quickly and generated a ton of good chances. While they failed to capitalize as effectively on those chances as they did in the LA game, they would still manage to score the first goal of the game thanks to their third line. Goal opportunities don’t always have to be built on a super fast breakout up the ice. You see Olivesson here flip a puck out to the neutral zone. Colton battles for possession and maintains it in the neutral zone and the ABS are able to reset a possession here instead of just streaking up the ice and being gone. They know how to do it in multiple ways. Once they do get this setup though, Sam Gerard leans into that ABS special breakout and is able to rip one up and off of the boards through to Olivesson who is caught in behind the defense here and catches the ABS breaking out. Olson starts this by creating it’s essentially a twoon-one pretty early commit on the slide, but it does force Olivesson to be on the clock. He has to make a decision with his puck. He decides to go for the sauce pass over and across to Drury. It’s perfectly executed just the right amount. Drury actually makes a great play to corral this and instantly one-touch it back to Colton who’s a third man in and has come in and created an oddman rush situation extended for the ABS here. Really highlevel offensive play for a guy battling to play 3C and trying to show he has that offense in the bag. And then Colton puts a great finish on it to put the ABS up one. I feel like I could talk about this goal for like an hour. There’s just so much good stuff to get into. That is elite level hockey. That’s the type of stuff that you see first lines do, not third lines. And it’s great to see all three third line players involved in that. The third line is something that could become a big strength for them this year if things go well and it looks like that. And it’s a really good sight to see it start this early. Maybe most importantly out of that goal is seeing Jack Drury’s ability to chip in and be effective offensively with that beautiful one-touch to be the primary assist on Colton’s goal. Drury is the big question mark at 3C for the ABS and being involved in plays like that makes you believe he has the offensive acumen to do it all season long. By the way, Drury still great at the other things he does. Very good along the boards again tonight, very hardworking defensively and won 15 of 21 faceoffs. So good in the dot, too. Colton may have been the AB’s best skater in this game. Obviously scoring the goal you just saw, but also had multiple good defensive plays, was working hard up and down the ice, forcing the pucks to go the right direction, which helped the ABS third line to be the best possession line in the game. And he did all of that in just over 10 minutes of play, too. Very impressive depth work from the ABS that set the ABS up with a 1-0 lead, and it would be the same score at the end of the first. It was a good period for the ABs. It did feel like maybe they left another goal on the table, though. They had seven high danger chances in the period and only finished one. And then you have the second period. By far the worst period so far for the Colorado Avalanche. Now, I’m not going to try to twist this into a good thing, but if your worst period of the season is giving up a single power play goal and nothing else on the scoreboard, that’s not so bad. On the offensive side, however, the ABS puck management just completely disappeared and their offense went with it. The ABS mustered just four shots on goal in the second period and they had two power plays during that time, too. The power plays were downright awful. The first two power plays did nothing. Zero shots on goal through both of them. But hold your tongue on that because we’ll talk about the power plays in the third, too. Particularly, the ABS top six struggled through that second period. Both of your top two lines got smoked in the possession battle through the second period and honestly through the majority of the game. And it just felt like the ABS struggled to accomplish anything through the second period. Utah was pushing the pace and controlling the pace and the ABS didn’t really have a counter punch for the period. Despite that, they survived at five on five in large part thanks to Wedgewood, but also from your good work in the bottom six. I already talked about the third line, but your fourth line was also effective in this game. They didn’t get the offensive production, but they were at least keeping even or better in the possession battle. So, it kept you from spending all night in your own zone. The ABS however take a penalty late and it does come from that fourth line in Parker Kelly and they do give up a power play goal for the second straight game. Power play face off that the ABS are going to lose. Faceoffs only matter when they matter. It is very quickly collected by Utah and a fast one-time from Gther as he slid out. Gets it off quickly. Does look like it’s coming towards the mass of Wedgwood but it finds a way to just slip under his seven hole there. Is that a little soft from Wedgwood? Yeah, you never want to see a puck go seven hole, but also just a setup play from Utah that gets executed and ends up in the back of your net on a power play. A classic don’t take a penalty in the first place if you don’t want that to happen to you. That happening late in the second, it’s 1-1 going into the third and you’re in a dog fight. Missed opportunities and maybe a little bit of a lack of consistent effort from your top guys have put you in a situation where you are no longer winning this game, but it is still very much a game. And the ABS came out in the third period and answered that bell. They draw a penalty early in the third and after some rough power plays early in the game in a critical game situation, the ABS get the job done. A team’s not respecting your drop pass. Cool. Just skate it. That’s still Kale Mar. He can still do his own entry just fine on his own. He gets in and drops it to Nas. And the AS push forward aggressively on this power play entry here. You’ll see Macar as a defenseman is going to go all the way in behind the goal line. Nas is going to skate the puck in deep and Landy is going to dial down the center to go right to the middle. And Utah has to respect this. They can’t just let these guys hang out in dangerous areas of the ice undefended. But you’ll notice that none of these players is named Nathan McKinnon. So when Macar gets this down in the corner and looks up, that guy who usually enters the zone as your drop pass guy is now the last man in Nathan McKinnon. And he has all the space in the world to get to the top of the circles. And Utah’s not going to be quick to cover him. so he can find the soft spot, pick his spot, and snipe to get the ABS the lead. I don’t think any of the players on the ice for that goal will tell you that they had a great game. But that’s a crucial play and a crucial moment. It’s the exact power play that the ABS struggled to be effective on last season and why everyone was so frustrated with it. You’re going to have good power plays, you’re going to have bad power plays. That’s the way it goes throughout the course of a season. But so often the ABS fail to score. Third period critical close game situations, those power plays came up empty far too often. And in the first real one of those situations this year, they capitalize on it immediately. It doesn’t take an incredibly complex play. It just takes effective quality hockey and then Nathan McKinnon puts a superstar shot on it and the ABS are going to win the game because of that. The ABS spend the rest of the third playing solid hockey. They do take a penalty to try and make their lives a little bit harder, but we’ll call it a questionable call at best. And they managed to kill off that penalty to keep them in the driver’s seat. They do fail on a later power play opportunity to potentially seal the game away, but they do get the job done in the end. And while it wasn’t pretty by any stretch, when you have a hot goalie behind you and you do the necessary work defensively to not give up an exorbitant amount of chances, you’re going to get away with it. After taking the lead in the third period, the ABS gave up just six shots on goal in that period at five on five. There was some special teams squirreliness for sure, but it didn’t cost them. And while your top players ultimately score the game-winning goal, this is absolutely a game carried by your goalending and your depth. They did all of the heavy lifting to put the ABS in a position to win this game. And thankfully, the Stars finally showed up and got them over that last bit of the finish line. In the game one review, I said the ABS were going to have to play some games this year where it doesn’t look pretty and they’re going to have to grind it out. And that’s kind of what this was. It is a waste of time and energy to worry about a slow or bad game from your top players because they’re your top players for a reason. You know, they’ll bounce back and play better going forward for the majority. And to be honest, when it came down to it, when it was important, I thought the power play looked good. Even the second power play in the third period had a lot of good movement and created a lot of good chances for the ABS. They gave themselves a decent chance to extend that lead and finish this game even if the puck didn’t go in the back of the net. The first two were bad, no doubt. The second period was a mess of a period for the Avalanche and they need to clean that up. We’re not sitting here saying they’re perfect and nothing is wrong. But even when you have a poor period, even when you have issues in your game, the ABS are still winning to start this season. And that feels so much better than losing to start the season like they did last year. The ABS have a really deep bag of tricks this year and we saw a few of those come out to play in this one whether it be their third line or their goalending. But either way, a win is a win. They’re 2 and 0 and this season has gotten off to the right start. That’s the end of this game video review. Thank you for watching. I am Rudo and that third line pretty talented. Keep your eye on it.

The Colorado Avalanche improve to 2 – 0 thanks largely to the third line of Drury, Colon, and Olofsson carrying the team and scoring the only 5v5 goal of the game. It is ultimately MacKinnon’s PP goal that lifts the Avs over the Utah Mammoth as Wedgewood played another great game in net.

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