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First game went rather poorly for the Avs, who ended up losing 5-3. What's worse, both Philipp Grubauer and Erik Johnson got hurt, and Matt Calvert was unable to go after warmups. Those are three huge losses right there, and even though Johnson refused to leave the game (also took a cheap shot from Jamie Benn after the initial collision that started it all) him having to play through injury is what has been his biggest hindrance as a player over the course of his career. When he's full healthy, as he was in this tournament up until the other night, he's a force.

Nikita Zadorov all but sealed his fate with a lazy, careless, dumb performance as well. He was directly responsible for two big breakdowns that led directly to goals against. If EJ hadn't gotten hurt earlier Bednar would've pinned his rear end to the bench. Ian Cole also with a subpar performance.

Pavel Francouz also wasn't great in relief. Let in a bad goal off a rebound and then got beat clean glove-side to put the game away. He needs to be better because it looks like Grubauer is out for a very long time, maybe the rest of the playoffs.

Also, the Avs may have gotten a little careless playing such an inferior opponent in the Arizona Coyotes. Mistakes and easy plays they got away with in that series will most definitely not fly against the Dallas Stars. I expect they will bring it a lot harder in the next game. In the Round Robin they outplayed Dallas, but also Dallas had not yet hit their inexplicable offensive streak that they've somehow found during the first round.

Also, Nathan MacKinnon may or may not be the best player in the league, but I don't know of any elite player who has ever put in more effort. Dude was singlehandedly trying to win the game for Colorado and nearly did with two big goals of his own.

Anyway, game two is gonna be kinda late.

The only bit of good news is that Joe Pavelski didn't score 18 goals against the Avs like he usually does, but somehow former Av Blake goddamn Comeau scored one off a lucky deflection.

Bednar needs to own some of that. Putting Girard and Makar on the same pairing....is questionable to say the least.

Did he even do any pre-series video watching? They did this against the Flames and were obviously looking to tie up down low and use the points.

Looks like Dallas did its homework....pressure the Avs D as it's really their only weakness. Cup runs are made of adversity. Francouz is more than capable of winning this round especially against Khudobin. Now next round against the Knights is going to be different.

I will be expecting an entire Avs team that is ready to play for game 2. If not we will be talking about something different soon.

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Actually he only puts together the "Turn and Burn" pairing when there's an offensive zone faceoff, and he rolls out MacKinnon and Rantanen on the wings and uses Kadri to win the faceoff a lot of times. He knows what he's doing. That pairing can get in trouble sometimes but it's the two most talented defensemen on the team. When they're able to gain control of the puck and keep it in the zone, it works wonders. Against the Flames in last year's playoffs they were practically toying with the opposition with their deft puck movement and ability to skate and weave with ease. If they lose control of the puck and have to play in their own end, problems arise. I commend Jared Bednar on being a coach who doesn't like to play it safe. If it were Babcock I'm sure he would've had Cale Makar stuck on the third pairing and 2nd unit power play for nearly the entire season, and he would've used Girard with the biggest and slowest guy on the team he could find. Also, he would've played Zadorov into the ground.

If any Avs defensemen were a problem, it wasn't those two guys, it was Cole, Graves, and Zadorov. Losing EJ, who had up until then been phenomenal in the Bubble, is huge, because he's the only guy who can play against the big boys AND supply some slick skill. Zadorov was insanely bad in this game. Again, two of the five goals scored were directly his fault. Another was off a horrible giveaway by Cole. And I'm pretty sure Graves got burned a bunch of times, and one of those times it ended up in the net. The guy who should get the least amount of flack is Graves as he's a third pairing guy who's being asked to play a major role. But Zadorov and especially Cole need to be better. They're veterans who are earning big paychecks. This is when they're supposed to step up.

Hmm yeah not too sure I am drinking all of that kool aid on Bednar.

I'd like to see some analytics on these last 2 games. Is there anyone out there breaking these games down? Any links?

https://www.milehighhockey.com/2020/8/2 ... ake-game-2



Not sure if I am willing to throw that much dirt on it but if they can't pull out of the tailspin its definitely going to need to be looked at. Pretty sure Graves had decent numbers before Makar even came around.

Girard was a -3 last night and he has not been good with the increased responsibility since EJ went down. Makar was a -1. Leaning on young ones while Dallas plays a pressure D approach is a recipe for disaster IMO (think Reilly/Barrie). I am not sure I would excuse that pairing so easily (more like turned and burned). But Dallas is poking at a weak point on the Avs and Mackinnon's knee it seems.

What bothers me the most is that Dallas depth players are clicking. They are rolling everyone with consistency and getting results. A good team of Vets like the stars knows that taking away time and space is key. Add that to the already obvious button pushing approach and the Avs are going to need to dig deep.

Calvert is a huge character loss.

Bednar leaned on his horses last night and that didn't work....so I guess we'll see where he goes from there. If this continues to evolve into the Nathan show only then they can forget it. Its gut check time and this is where championship teams are made or broken.

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Totally shocked about the Stars. Offensively challenged all season and loads of dysfunction at the coaching and management levels, yet somehow they've come together during this restart.

Nice to see Radulov being a big game player. Still one of my favourites to watch.

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I think it's more a result of bad goaltending from both Calgary and Colorado than it is their offense suddenly coming together. They went 1-2-0 in the Round Robin. Also, just plain, dumb, stupid, idiotic luck is helping, as that Radulov goal will attest.

Yes, you can always get the analytics on this site of any given game.

https://www.naturalstattrick.com/



Basically, the Avs completely dominated in period 1 but only managed one goal. In the 2nd frame, they were great...right up until that penalty. Then within 10 minutes of that, everything that could go wrong, did. Then they just looked gassed in the third and Dallas was perfectly fine sitting back and disrupting the Avs' attack in the NZ.

The top line was good as usual, but that 2nd line is simply not producing, and really, they're not creating any solid scoring chances. Bednar basically promoted the 4th line to serves as a de factor 3rd line, and put Nichushkin with Bellemare and Nieto. I thought that was a reasonably good checking line, though two of those guys are being asked to do a little too much. It was the "new" 4th line of Namestnikov, Jost, and Compher that was a complete and total disaster. Even in 9 minutes of ES time, Compher was abysmal and whenever he was on the ice, the Avs got completely caved in shot-wise. I don't know what his problem is, he's played nervous as hell in this series and it makes zero sense. He's bobbling pucks, making bad reads, and doing absolutely NOTHING on the forecheck. This whole disaster started when he made a really bad clearing attempt behind his back going into the defensive zone, which led to a turnover, which led to Girard's "slashing" penalty. If Calvert gets healthy, it's readily obvious who should sit.

But bottom line, doesn't matter who the coach is, Barry Trotz channeling Toe Blake could not get the Avs to win if that's the goaltending they're gonna be getting. Frankie needs to pull his head out of his ass, and do it fast.

As for the defense, yes, Graves was never meant to be a top-pairing guy. He just happens to gel really well with Makar most of the time. He's looked out of his depth in this series. I believe he's keeping the seat warm until Bowen Byram gets up to speed, which won't be until next year at the earliest.

Girard has been good but Ian Cole has been terrible and as a result SG is getting hammered by Dallas's forecheckers. They don't need to worry about Cole because he's unable to do anything offensively.

Zadorov played better in this game, but it's hard to imagine him playing worse than he did in game 1. Connauton was fine. In fact, he led the team in ES shots with 7. Can't ask for more than that.

Bednar is a good coach. He took a team that had just finished dead last by a country mile and finished the worst in every possible category and turned them into a contender in three seasons. They have the fourth lowest payroll in the NHL, and finished top-five in both team offense and defense. This despite the fact that their goaltending is not elite (certainly not right fucking now) and their defensive corps is still a work in progress with two guys 21 and 22 years old playing the most minutes. In addition, the Avs had to deal with 2/3rds of the top line missing significant time (Rantanen hardly played in the regular season) and injuries all throughout the lineup all goddamned year long. They still managed to finish the truncated regular season 2 points away from St. Louis for first place in the Western Conference. I don't know what more you can ask from a coach.

Obviously it ain't like he doesn't have a very talented roster, and I'm not trying to give him all the credit. A ton goes to Sakic and the rest of the organization as well. But two really bad games, no matter how important, doesn't unravel all the good work they've done up until then.

I'd say this offseason the two biggest priorities are getting a good scoring winger, address the situation at third line center, and add some more meat to the bottom six. Much as I truly love Matt Nieto and believe he's a sorely underrated defensive forward, these playoffs prove ya gotta have big guys who can knock the living shit out of the opposition and score some ugly goals in the process. Logan O'Connor should be exactly that type of winger, but they need more. I'd be fine if they moved on from both Jost and Compher. Neither of those guys is big enough or skilled enough to really make an impact when it matters the most.

Good reads sir. Thank you. Not willing to wave the towel yet....one more and we can but with all that's being exposed it doesn't look good.

Bednar did well with every last drop of blood from this team over the past couple of years...it was just this season that management threw him a bone and added some depth he could play with. I am not saying he isn't a good coach but he's not above reproach.

I guess I really didn't expect this but it is playoff hockey against a bunch of tough vets. I don't consider Dallas to be a better team than the Avs...so I am just looking for answers. The great thing about this team is that they are young and can be built upon relatively easy.

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Oh I don't think any bench boss is above reproach. I'm STILL mad as hell at Joel Quenneville for putting in Karlis Skrastins (God rest his soul) for the final game of the season and literally costing the Avs the playoffs that year. I've always maintained that coaches are pretty interchangeable. IMO only two (Quenneville and Trotz) are truly elite. Cooper might be there too, but I'm not sure. There are also some in that tier of "really good" like Boudreau, Gallant (who of course both got fired this year), Green, DeBoer, and Tortorella. The rest IMO range from mediocre to bad. I'd say Bednar is probably in that upper echelon, maybe not elite but likely really good. It might be that he fails to get them to the next level, and that's fine. It happens. As it stands I still think he's the best possible guy for the job as of right now. If there's anything I question in terms of staffing, it's the assistants. Bennett installed a very effective power play (though he could stand to make adjustments quicker when it doesn't work) but I just don't like the penalty kill at all. Nolan Pratt seems to have the defense doing about as well as could be expected, given that EJ is out, Graves is playing way above his head, and Ian Cole is probably about 70 percent healthy right now.

Unfortunately, it just doesn't bode well when your starting goaltender goes down, the backup is humming at a frigid 0.875 save percentage, and your third-best defenseman, the only guy on the back end with size and skill to match up against Dallas's big bodies, goes down in a heap. Also, I don't know why but whenever Matt Calvert isn't in the lineup, the complexion of this squad changes. I hate this term, but it's like their "mental toughness" goes out the door with him whenever he's gone. Avs are running into shit luck right now and not enough people are stepping up to fill the void. Bless Nathan MacKinnon, he's trying to singlehandedly will this team into the next round, but he can only do so much.

Bottom line, this was the worst possible matchup Colorado could have drawn. I'd have even preferred Vegas to this. I guess the Flames kinda/sorta got their revenge on the Avs by shitting the bed in that final game. Touche, Flames.

That's weird. Isn't Landeskog supposed to be that guy how you're describing Calvert and why they made him captain so young?

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Gabe isn't as fiery a leader as you'd expect him to be. He certainly played a much meaner game early in his career but if anything he's curtailed his more temperamental aspects, especially after he got suspended for cross checking Matthew Tkachuk in the back of the neck. If anyone is pure fire and brimstone, it's MacKinnon. What Calvert does to give the guys focus and drive, I'm really not sure, but it sure seems to be absent at present. It certainly doesn't help when your goalie lets in such a horrible goal that it completely demoralizes the entire team. That was really when they went from playing nervous to just plain checking out.

That's what I mean, I thought that Landeskog was the focus and drive type, not necessarily the fiery leader.

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Avs become the first team in NHL playoff history to enter the third with a 2-goal lead, blow it, and then get it back.

Frankie continues to struggle, I don't know what the hell his problem is. But they apparently did not let another blown lead ruin them this time. Rookie Logan O'Connor took Joonas Donskoi's place and did well, or so I was told.

I refused to watch this game because it shouldn't have been played. Not necessarily me tryin' to be all woke and what not but after seeing the strikes in the NBA and WNBA, and later some MLB games, the Avs and Stars had a chance to be on the right side of history by simply standing down and allowing the games to be postponed. Instead they played, had a ridiculous "moment of reflection" before the Bolts/B's game, and then when the league received backlash for it they did nothing at all for the Avs/Stars tilt.

What followed the game were some seriously awkward and bad comments from guys like Landeskog, Kadri, Seguin, and Bednar. Not great, Bob. Ultimately, the NHL and the players got together and decided to postpone games until the weekend. A day late and a dollar short, but better than nothing.

I read that it was the Canucks of all teams who really led the discussion regarding the postponements. Knowing what I've read about Horvat, Pettersson, and Boeser, that doesn't surprise me. Ryan Reaves said it was guys like Kevin Shattenkirk who reached out to get the conversation started as well. I'm glad at least some of them get it. The HDA's public request to postpone the games made that a no-brainer.

Avs FINALLY get *adequate* goaltending en route to a 6-3 win that was way more stressful than it should've been. Colorado completely caved in Dallas in the first period, getting as many goals (5) as the Stars had shots. Avs got one more for good measure but Dallas swung momentum completely the other way and the Avs absolutely COULD NOT stay out of the goddamned box.

Michael Hutchinson was by no means great, but the Avs didn't need great, they just needed better-than-shitty goaltending, which is not what Pavel Francouz was providing. But Frankie wasn't even available as the #2 goalie, so it's very possible he's been trying to battle through something this entire time. Hunter Miska, the 4th string guy who started the year in the ECHL, was the #2 guy last night.

Defenseman Conor Timmins, who missed over an entire calendar year of hockey after he was drafted, made his NHL playoff debut alongside Sam Girard. Apart from a bad over-the-glass penalty, he was reasonably solid for a guy who, according to him, was told during warmups that he'd be playing.

This narrative is going almost exactly like it did two years ago, except that time the Avs were the lower seed and it was the first round against Nashville: Colorado lost their starting goalie, the backup was nowhere near adequate due to injury, they got in a 3-1 hole, and so they leaned on the #3 guy acquired via trade (at the time, it was Andrew "Hamburglar" Hammond) and got the unlikely win. Of course Hammond got ventilated in Game Six and the Avs were eliminated, so I'm hoping that's where the similarities end.

We're back!

Game Seven folks. And it's a matinee affair thanks to the resilient Vancouver Canucks.

The MacKinnon vs. Heiskanen show. Amazing players

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I heard Mackinnon is on pace to break Gretzky's 47 points playoff record if the Avs go deeper, albeit in more games played as would include the round robin. He has 25 points in 14 games played, Grezky did 47 in 18 games. Still an amazing accomplishment if it happens.

If the Avs pull this off with a third stringer in nets, it will be legendary.

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