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Avalanche fall 6–4 to Columbus in home opener

  
avalanche fall
Alexander Georgiev loses track of puck for the second time against columbus.

The Colorado Avalanche welcomed fans back into Ball Arena for the first time this year, but had a less than stellar performance to showcase. After allowing two goals on his first three shots faced, starting netminder Alexandar Georgiev saw an ugly five-hole third goal allowed in the second period. Coach Jared Bednar Avalanche fall 6–4 to Columbus in home opener Avalanche fall 6–4 to Columbus in home opener had seen enough and pulled the plug on Georgiev for the second time in as many games. Young backup Justus Annunen allowed the first shot he faced in, and a bad defensive breakdown in the embers of the second period saw the Avalanche skate a five to three deficit into the final frame.

For a moment there was hope, as Ross Colton brought the Avalanche within one with the net empty and more than a minute remaining on the clock. However, the officiating decided that the game would not be headed to overtime because of a highly questionable call against Casey Mittlestadt, which iced the game. Columbus scored an empty-net goal on the ensuing power play, punctuated by Nathan MacKinnon shattering his stick over the bench whilst screaming at the officiating crew before storming to the locker room.

For only being the second game of the young season, this was about as ugly a loss as you can get for a team with Stanley Cup aspirations. In the cinematic-inspired format of the good, the bad, and the ugly, we will analyze the key takeaways from tonight’s losing efforts.

The Good

Ivan Ivan Scores first career point

How about some palette cleansing positivity for Avalanche fans? Rookie Ivan Ivan looks right at home, centering the fourth line and played a standout game in the losing effort. Ivan recorded his first point, assisting MacKinnon’s power play goal, and beneath the surface played among the best game of any Avalanche skater. Looking at the advanced analytics shows you just how good the rookie was. Check out the names he is lining up with at the top of this chart.

MVP

Nathan MacKinnon received his MVP trophy from fellow MVP (of the NBA) Nikola Jokic to start the festivities this evening. He then became one of the lone bright spots for the Avalanche on the ice. One goal and one assist doesn’t do justice to the back checking, highlight reel effort from the reigning MVP. MacKinnon was all over the ice and in a game where his goaltending supported him, this would have been a win because of Nathan MacKinnon.

The Bad

The Josh Manson and Sam Girard pairing

As you may have deduced from the chart in the above section, it was a terrible night for the Avalanche second-defensive pairing. Manson was arguably the Avalanche’s best defender in the opener against Vegas, but came crashing down in the home-opener and was easily the worst. The pair was minus two on the night and while goaltending let the Avalanche down, the two goals against that weren’t on the goalies were firmly on the Manson/Girard duo.

You can see here Annunen making two saves to bail out the rush, but both Manson and Girard being out of position leads to multiple follow-up chances that eventually become the game-winning-goal.

 

Failing to cover their man in front of the net, selling out for checks and pinches, leading to odd man rushes, and lacking defensive zone awareness. The second-pairing rollercoaster needs to climb back up next game.

The Ugly

Goaltending

Critics frequently target Avalanche fans for their excessive criticism of starting goaltender Alexandar Georgiev. Even after a Hindenburg style performance in net tonight that saw Georgiev pulled in the second, coach Bednar responded in the post-game presser by saying,

“I get that there is a level of frustration, but Georgie is our guy. He is our starter.”

While you can appreciate the sentiment of a head coach trying to get behind his locker room, we need to face facts. Here are the expected goals comparison for this game (per NaturalStatTrick).

We can dig deeper into the statistics. In the season opener against Vegas, Georgiev allowed five goals on 16 shots, prompting the coach to pull him and resulting in a save percentage of .688 with an expected goal against of only 1.20. Tonight, Georgiev got pulled by the coach after giving up three goals on nine shots, resulting in a save percentage of .667%. Was the defense worse tonight? Nope, actually they were better only allowing an expected goal against of 0.74. Turning less than a goal against into three goals is bad, but turning in an identically terrible effort two games in a row is a call for change. As Rita Mae Brown famously said in her novel, Sudden Death (1983),

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Starting Georgiev has become that insanity.

Backup Justus Annunen had a rough night in his own right. Against Vegas he gave up two of the four shots he faced, and he gave two more goals tonight in a larger sample. Standards shouldn’t be the same for these two, as one of the hardest things you can ask of an NHL goaltender is to come in cold in the middle of a game that is already going against you. The first goal Annunen surrendered was bad, but the bad you honestly expect from a young goalie who didn’t get to warm up. The second is from the clip above and is solely the fault of a defensive breakdown. As the game went on and Annunen warmed, he improved quite a bit.

Annunen finished with a .846 save percentage and allowed two goals on 1.13 expected goals against.

The obvious choice for Colorado is to have Justus Annunen start the next game against the New York Islanders. We will see whether coach Bednar is adhering to the same definition of insanity we all are then.

The Avalanche welcome former legend Patrick Roy and his New York Islanders to Ball Arena Monday night, October 14th, at 7:00pm MT. Coverage will be provided by Altitude.

 

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