By Maeve Hushman, Staff Writer
The Avalanche played three games after the season opener and dropped all three. They lost 5-3 to the St. Louis Blues, 6-3 to the Washington Capitals, and 4-1 to the Florida Panthers. This left them with a 1-3-0 record and a goal differential of -6, placing them 29th in the league and 6th in the Central.
In earlier articles, I noticed some issues as well as strong points. Here is what I saw in this three game slump.
The things to fix:
In both the Capitals and Blues games the Avs had a slow start. They came out of the gate with half the intensity and energy of their opposition. It allowed both the Blues and Capitals to get early leads up on the Avalanche. In the Blues game they managed to rally halfway through the first period and match the Blues work level. They could not manage that against the Caps, going into the second with a one goal deficit after very lackluster play. The defense was pretty horrible, especially by the Avalanche’s high standards specifically in the Capitals game. All of the issues I witnessed in the preseason game against the Knights surrounding puck possession reared their ugly head in that game as well. The Avalanche are a team loaded with offensive talent but if they can’t get puck possession that is nullified. There is a lack of urgency I noticed in their play, with wide, across the ice passes left uninterrupted as well as dropped passes, turnovers, and offensive opportunities for the Caps left undisrupted.
In the Panthers game, there wasn’t a slow start. The Avs came out of the gate hot but they started to take their foot off the gas after the middle of the second period, they were out shot 23-12 and 9-8 in the second and third period respectively. So maybe the real issue isn’t so much just slow starts but playing a full 60 minutes. Even if you are an offensively dominant team and can mount impressive comebacks, that is a big risk and sometimes it isn’t enough if you only play one or two periods well. Trust me, as this Leafs fan knows all too well, relying on the ability to outscore is risky at best.
Their lack of defensive presence in front of the net is becoming a theme. At first, it didn’t look to be too much of a problem in the Caps game, since the Caps weren’t storming the net. However, the biggest red flag was when Darcy Kuemper had to shove a Caps player out of his crease. The goalie shouldn’t have to do that, a skater has to defend their goalie and net front. There were two goals in the Caps game that were scored because the net front was completely unprotected. It happened again in the Panther’s game with two goals being scored in tight to the net or as the result of a screen. That simply cannot happen, the other team is going to go to the net front for scoring opportunities and to screen the goalie; the job of the skaters then is to remove and monitor their presence.
The issue of frequent odd man rushes is also starting to become a pattern. There is usually at least one odd man rush per game but the amount the Caps had in their game against the Avalanche seemed exorbitant. One of the Caps goals even came off a three on one. If these opportunities continue, it will be a real issue for the Avalanche’s success. One reason for the large amount of odd man rushes posited could be a reluctance to backcheck due to the defenses propensity to generate offense. However, most of the Avs offensive-defensemen are usually pretty defensivably responsible so it doesn’t seem like that is the whole story. There were a lot of brutal turnovers and dropped passes as well which are not blue-line only problems.
Finally, the powerplay is not working. At first, I attributed their lack of power play success to the absence of Nathan MacKinnon (that is obviously a problem for other reasons) but MacKinnon was in the Caps and Panthers games. Even with him in the Caps game, the power play could not gain sustained zone time until they were playing 6-4 and they didn’t score a single power play goal in the game against the Panthers. They have to fix the power play to get long-term success, especially if they continue to rely on offense to win these games.
Now people might say, Maeve these are the first 4 games of the season, why are you hitting the panic button? First of all, I’m not hitting the panic button. Every team has their rough patches and I have a lot of faith that the Avalanche will bounce back from this. Second, Stanley Cup habits and building Stanley Cup habits starts in game one. In game one, they looked good but against any team with a comptant defense so far, this team’s weak spots really showed. Stanley Cup habits start now and for the Avalanche it is Stanley Cup or bust. So can they build those habits? I definitely believe they can.
The positive:
On a more positive note, even after slow starts the Avs were able to recover and get back in the game, specifically in the Blues game. The ability of the Avalanche to push the pace is such an asset their speed makes them impressive and difficult to defend without a quality blue line.
There were efforts by certain players that really stood out.The bottom six and penalty kill looked really good. JT Compher’s short handed goal was incredible in the game against the Capitals. Logan O’Connor is a consistent bright spot. He is strong on the forecheck and a hard working forward in general. He had some good chances in both the Caps and Panthers games.
The penalty kill being good is also a very positive sign especially as the power play struggles. It means the team can take more risks in breaking up plays. Now, I am not saying take lots of penalties (in the Panther’s game they took far too many), I’m just saying that certain defensive moves will have less risk to them if you can consistently kill off penalties. The Avalanche did take a lot of penalties in their game against the Panthers but some of them were suspect calls to say the least.
Johansson played a very good game as well. I was very critical of his performance in the Avalanche’s preseason game against Vegas but he did a very good job in net for them against the Panthers. This is a positive sign since Francouz is still out with an injury and the Avs need a solid backup goalie to ease Kuemper’s workload.
It really isn’t all doom and gloom, the Florida game shows an incredible ability to bounce back. They didn’t start slow, and they had corrected a lot of the issues that I noticed before. For the most part they adjusted their game after making mistakes especially in the first half of the game. Girard broke up an odd man rush and Makar prevented a chance in tight to the net, but the Avalanche were stopped up by a good performance from goalie, Bobrovsky, and bad puck luck with the top scorers hitting the posts frequently, not to mention some truly nonsensical calls by the refs. Watching the first one and a half periods of this game was watching the Avalanche as advertised. That level of play confirms that the Avalanche are still the Stanley Cup favorite team the roster implies.
Conclusion:
While a three game losing streak is not ideal, it is important to remember that Toews, Nichushkin, and Francouz will be returning the line up and that they lost some significant depth pieces in the off season. It is a new season and the Avalanche have not played teams like the Panthers and Capitals in at least a year because of the COVID divisions. This team has plenty of time to sort out any issues, and better it happens now than in the playoffs. For now, they play their last game of this three-game road trip against defending Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning on October 23rd. Hopefully they can end the trip on a high note.