The Colorado Avalanche lost for the second time in two nights, this time a 3-1 decision to the St. Louis Blues. If you read my piece from last night, you can probably skip this one because it’s going to be a lot of the same stuff.
The Avs scored first when a defenseman got Colorado on the board, this time Devon Toews. From there, the offense failed to beat the goaltender, this time Jordan Binnington. The defense and goaltending was a little worse than last night in Nashville, and voila, you have another loss to a team that isn’t going to make the playoffs this year.
I’m pretty annoyed by all of this, so let’s talk (vent?) about it.
The Avalanche offense isn’t very good
This season doesn’t make any sense to me. At the start of the year, the Avs were injured like crazy and playing a ton of AHL guys in their forward corps. Despite that, the Avs were still 7th in the NHL in goals-per-game at 3.33 through the Christmas break. The problem was, of course, horrible goaltending that was getting lit up consistently.
Now, we’re talking about a script that has started to flip. We all knew the trade of Mikko Rantanen, the club’s leading goal-scorer, was going to have an impact on the team’s offense but the hope was that they could produce a decent version of that while being more well-rounded with the addition of Jack Drury, as well.
Since the Christmas break, the Avs have dropped to 12th in scoring at 3.09 goals per game. It’s not a huge drop, but it is meaningful, especially given the goaltending has stepped up and the 2.48 goals they have allowed in that time is 5th-best in the NHL. Their points percentage is still 7th-best in that timeframe, but the offense is having too many nights where the lights go all the way out.
Since Rantanen was traded on January 24, the Avs have scored two or fewer goals in six of ten games. They are 1-5 in those games and 4-0 in the games they’ve scored at least three goals.
It was already an issue before the Rantanen deal, but the offense is crying out for more goal-scoring help. I know Val Nichushkin has been on the shelf, but there’s a real problem when we’re talking about Nichushkin being the difference between a functional offense and one that isn’t.
The Avalanche are in the middle of a retool on the fly and the focus has been on the second-line center spot (again) and getting an impact defenseman after watching Josh Manson’s game go through serious regression this year. The strength of the team, in theory, should be on the wings.
With Martin Necas, Artturi Lehkonen, Jonathan Drouin, and Nichushkin, the Avs have a solid group of wings in their top-six forwards, but the problem has been health. Whether it be Rantanen or Necas, that group has spent almost no time healthy this season as they have alternated injury issues.
Going down the lineup, Ross Colton’s hot start has faded into a distant memory as he has five goals and two assists in his last 32 games. Miles Wood has been both injured and ineffective, a pretty bad combination, and Logan O’Connor has zero points in his last 13 games. Joel Kiviranta is having a career year and yet he has five points in his last 23 games.
Juuso Parssinen has added five points in 22 games since being acquired from Nashville. That deal was weird when it happened and it’s still looking pretty weird, to put it kindly. The last goal scored by a forward not on Nathan MacKinnon’s line was Kiviranta, who scored the fifth goal of a 5-0 shutout against the Blues back on January 31.
The Avs only have two more games in the month of February. Can their forward corps get shut out from scoring when Nathan MacKinnon isn’t involved for the entire month? At this point, why would you believe otherwise?
That crazy part is that the lineup has actually shown better balance lately. Their minutes distribution and goal generation has been better, but it’s running through the defense. Their lone goal again tonight came from a defenseman, as it did last night in Nashville. Through six games in February, Colorado’s forwards are outscoring Colorado’s defenseman, but only just at 7-6.
It’s great the Avalanche defense is chipping in. I’ve talked for the last several years about how their defense corps is really their “second line” but it’s gotten way more pronounced than it ever should be. There needs to be more help from, you know, the actual forwards.
Anyway, this isn’t so much about tonight’s game in St. Louis because it has been a continuation of a lot of the same stuff we’ve seen going on for a while now. The Avalanche offense just isn’t very good on the whole.
They created five high-danger chances tonight at 5v5. On the season, they are third in the NHL in generation scoring chances on a per-60 basis, but they are 16th in creating high-danger chances. They don’t make enough of the Grade-A looks that help teams overcome the kind of quick-strike mistakes that have sunk the Avalanche defensively this year.
Tonight was a great encapsulation of those problems. They had a 1-0 lead and a power play to extend their lead. The power play managed zero shots on goal and the Blues built momentum from there, scoring three straight goals to flip the game heavily in their favor.
Trailing 3-1 in the third period, the Avs kicked up their energy some and put a few shots on goal, but they created zero high-danger chances and scoring chances finished at 6-6 in the final frame. It was a perfect third period for the Blues and one that raised more questions than it answered for the Avalanche.
I’m not going to get into a lot of the details on why I thought Mackenzie Blackwood wasn’t great tonight or why I thought Oliver Kylington showed why he should be a mainstay in this lineup right now. It doesn’t matter.
The offense scored one goal. Colorado’s top players didn’t dominate. The depth ghosted again. Even if the Avs made a big move for a guy like Brock Nelson, do any of us believe this team is one player away right now?
I’m a hostage of the moment right now, but it sure doesn’t feel like it.
