The sky isn’t falling as the Avalanche look to take a 2-0 series lead
Jun 2, 2022, 7:14 AM
You wouldn’t hardly know it from all the local hand-wringing on television, radio and the internet, but the Colorado Avalanche actually won the opener of the Western Conference Finals over the Edmonton Oilers while scoring a whopping eight goals in the process.
An unidentified injury to starting goaltender Darcy Kuemper, and the bizarre nature of the game’s finish — which watched the Oilers mount a spirited comeback, only to lose 8-6 — obscured the fact that the Avalanche thoroughly out-skated, outshot and outplayed the visiting Edmonton squad while dealing with their most lackluster defensive performance in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Colorado moved to 9-2 in the postseason while leading all teams with a 4.64 goals-per-game average. They lead all postseason teams with a 35.5 percent success rate on the power play, and have 53 fewer penalty minutes than any of the other three teams remaining. Most NHL fans would be delighted with those numbers from their team, let alone holding a 1-0 lead in the conference finals… but then again, most teams aren’t the Avalanche.
Posited by The Athletic in the pre-season as the most talented team they’ve ever previewed using advanced metrics, the Avs’ nearly effortless romp through the regular season showed that their numbers didn’t lie. Head coach Jared Bednar was so confident in his team that Colorado threw away their chance at a second-straight President’s Trophy and put things in cruise control for the season’s final weeks, prioritizing health over regular-season wins. That choice was vindicated in the Avalanche’s opening-series sweep over the speed-bump Nashville Predators, and a six-game series against the St. Louis Blues in which Colorado was never seriously challenged. Only a shoddy showing on defense kept the Avalanche from an out-and-out laugher to open their current one.
Are there concerns? Of course. Kuemper’s “upper-body” injury — whether it’s due to the eye-area injury he suffered against the Predators, a concussion or something else — immediately conjures up visions of Michael Hutchinson, Andrew Hammond and other goaltending ghosts of playoff failures past, but the truth of the matter is that Pavel Francouz isn’t a major downgrade.
Moreover, neither Kuemper nor Francouz will be confused with Rangers goaltending sensation Igor Shesterkin or the Lightning’s multiple Cup-winner and future Hall-of-Famer Andrei Vasilevskiy; the Avalanche were never going to win the Stanley Cup due to their elite goaltending, anyway. That’s not to say that Kuemper’s injury isn’t an issue if it lasts, but it’s hardly an insurmountable one, given his dubious playoff history.
Devon Toews — despite having a pair of assists — and Josh Manson had nightmarish defensive performances in Game 1, with both men regularly caught off-guard and flat-footed by Edmonton’s speed, specifically their top line. Manson, added at the trade deadline, was somehow minus-4 in a game in which his team scored eight goals. Had they been even a little bit better, that game would’ve been a blowout for the Avs. Toews, however, is one of the NHL’s best all-around blueliners, and Manson’s been solid for most of the postseason; there’s little reason to believe both men will be surprised a second time.
Bednar said as much after the game. “I thought our guys did a nice job getting above pucks, shutting down the rush,” he explained. “There are areas of our checking game that I really liked. There’s a couple other ones that I didn’t that we’ll look at and talk about. But no helpless feeling from me there.”
There shouldn’t be; for the majority of the game, the Avalanche dominated, easily lining up high-danger chances one after another and chasing 40-year-old goaltender Mike Smith from the game after making him look like he’d been stuck in the spin cycle of a washing machine. Only an excellent performance by 33-year-old Oilers backup Mikko Koskinen kept Colorado from scoring in double-digits. The dreaded Edmonton top line of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evander Kane were solid offensively — scoring a pair of goals — but the trio was a combined minus-3 on the night.
In contrast, the Avalanche’s biggest stars all played it. Cale Makar was the best player on the ice with a goal, two assists and a plus-3, while Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Gabe Landeskog each had a goal and an assist. Nazem Kadri had a goal on a game-high nine shots.
The Avalanche’s extraordinary depth was on display as well, with J.T. Compher scoring a pair (though his second deflected off his body from a Makar rocket) and Andrew Cogliano adding one of the easiest goals he’s ever scored off of a brilliant feed from former Denver Pioneer Logan O’Connor. Not a single Avalanche forward had a negative plus-minus on the night.
In the end, Game 1 wasn’t really as close as the final score made things look. While the Avalanche do have a legitimate problem holding leads for some reason, at least they regularly have leads to hold; a much more enviable position to be in than Edmonton’s. “We would prefer to not have an 8-6 game,” MacKinnon said, slyly understating the obvious. “We were up 7-3. We’ve got to find a way to get the momentum back a little bit as they push.”
Don’t expect Game 2 to be the funhouse mirror of a hockey game that Tuesday’s was, but there’s little reason to believe that the Avalanche won’t outshoot — and likely outscore — their opponent once again. They’re simply the deeper and more talented team, and if they can continue to limit McDavid, Draisaitl and Kane, this could be a quick series, no matter who’s in net for Colorado.
Nobody should have expected things to be easy for the Avs in the notoriously fickle Stanley Cup playoffs, where you can throw regular-season records out the window. You either win, or you don’t — and when you do, there’s not much value in nitpicking, because each game becomes a story unto itself. Just ask Francouz.
“We all know what kind of players are on these two teams, and we didn’t plan to play such a game,” the Avalanche’s likely Game 2 starting goalie said. “But we’ll take this win for sure, and we’ll move forward.”
Fans should, too. Game on.
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Shawn Drotar (@sdrotar) is the on-air host of “Sandy & Shawn;” weeknights from 9 PM-midnight on 104.3 The Fan, as well as the host of “The Fan’s Nuggets Postgame” and “The Fan’s Avalanche Postgame,” both starting immediately after each game’s final horn.
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