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Game recap: Colorado Avalanche beat the Blues in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs

  
Game recap: Colorado Avalanche beat the Blues in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs
Picture courtesy of David Zalubowski/Associated Press

The hype was strong! Nearly 8,000 fans were allowed back into Ball Arena to watch this first game of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Colorado Avalanche received some good pregame news. All of their injured players except those already on LTIR would be back for the game, apart from Bowen Byram still on concussion protocol. Nathan MacKinnon, Brandon Saad and Connor Timmins all returned from injury.

Period one

Head Coach Jared Bednar rolled the Avs on short shifts early to get the nervous energy worked out of the players. Starting his first playoff shift for the Avalanche, Alex Newhook played smart hockey.  Philipp Grubauer made some strong early saves, while a Vladimir Tarasenko shot rang off the post with a ding. Passing for the Avalanche became a problem, with the St. Louis Blues easily jumping passes.

Nazem Kadri registered the first shot on goal for the Avalanche at around the 14-minute mark in the period, illustrating the extent that the Blues had control of the early part of the first period. Watching the game, you knew it was not going to take much for that to change, however.

At 10:47 in the first, Gabriel Landeskog had a fight with Brayden Schenn for taking Mikko Rantanen off his feet. There was no penalty called on the hit on Rantanen. The crowd at Ball Arena went wild.

The Avalanche went on their first power play of the night with 5:56 remaining after Ryan O’Reilly was called for tripping MacKinnon. In what was going to be a theme for this game, as Robert Bortuzzo knocked down Rantanen at the end of the power play—with no penalty called.

At 15:15 in the first, Cale Makar scored a power play goal to put Colorado up 1–0. While the Blues dominated shots in the earlier part of the period, the tables eventually turned, with the Avs outshooting the Blues 15–1 over a later stretch.

At the same time, the Avalanche defensive corps put their bodies on the line to support Grubauer. The Blues could not do anything offensively, as the Avs shut them down.

Peter McNab from Altitude TV commented at the end of the period that Colorado was taking it to St. Louis.

At the end of the period, the Avalanche had 18 shots and the Blues just five.  The other thing making the difference was the Avalanche going 56.5% in the faceoff circle.

Period two

Devon Toews did not start the second period. Panic ensued for a moment with the thought of another Avalanche player injured, but 30 seconds in, Toews returned to the bench seemingly ready to continue. The Blues’ Justin Faulk was called for slashing Sam Girard, and the Avalanche went on the power play at 19:00 in the period. However, the Blues’ penalty kill shut the Avs down, allowing zero shots on goal.

There were several instances where the Blues seemed to get away with non-calls on obvious penalties, but welcome to playoff hockey. JT Compher took a high stick, for example, with no call. At the same time, the Blues had a bit more control of the action early in the second than at the end of the first period.

Marc Moser of Altitude TV commented that the Blues were more structured at the beginning of the second. However, by seven minutes into the period, the Avalanche had already added another five shots on goal.

Ryan Graves was called for delay of game at 12:50—the first penalty the Avalanche had taken all game. While the Avalanche were on the penalty kill, they had two good shorthanded opportunities. The penalty kill was strong, including several key saves by Grubauer. The Blues did manage to put two shots on the net, though.

The one thing the Avalanche were doing this period was generating lots of shots on the net. Many close shots by both Rantanen and Kadri did not go in thanks to stellar effort by St. Louis netminder Jordan Binnington. Halfway through the period, the Blues called for hooking Andre Burakovsky, which provided yet another chance for the Avalanche to score on the power play.

There appeared to be some shenanigans at play when Faulk slid the net off its moorings with no one else in the play. It seemed like the Blues were starting to figure out they had to do something to change the arc of the game. The Avalanche did not score on a power play, a missed opportunity. They did generate two more sots on goal.

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The Blues were pushing hard trying to score when Grubauer ended up out of his crease. No problem. Graves saved the day with an amazing intervention. That’s teamwork!

The Blues’ Jordan Kyrou evened the score with 3:23 remaining in the second period after Kyrou appeared to hold Kadri’s stick—which was let go by the referees. Up until this point, it looked like the Avalanche were chasing the Blues in this period.

Fans that bought a ticket to this game were getting their money’s worth. Tyson Jost took off on a breakaway and came close to scoring another goal for the Avalanche, but the puck ended up caught in the back of Binningtons pads.

At the end of the second period, the game was tied at 1–1, the Avalanche with 32 shots and the Blues with 16. The Avalanche still won 52.3% of the faceoffs, with the Blues appearing to do a lot of clutching and grabbing.

Period three

While the Avalanche did not have the terrific second period fans have been used to in the regular season, they were certainly not out of the game by any means. The Avs continued to look like the stronger team. At 19:30 in the period, that was proven when MacKinnon buried one after a pass from Rantanen, making the score 2–1.

Valeri Nichushkin had an amazing breakaway opportunity four minutes into the period, but yet again, it was stopped by Binnington. Landeskog had another perfect chance to score off a Saad feed, but this too was stopped.

Graves took his second penalty of the night at 14:28 in the period. To describe the penalty kill: Nichushkin strong, Grubauer even stronger. The Avalanche successfully killed the penalty.

With 11:42 on the clock, MacKinnon took a high stick with no call. Maybe this motivated the Avalanche, because only 12 seconds later, MacKinnon let a snipe shot go, and Landeskog deflected it. Avalanche lead: 3–1.

With that goal, Landeskog registered a rare Gordie Howe hat trick—a fight, an assist, and a goal—not in that order, of course. Halfway through the third period, it was clear the momentum has shifted back to the Avalanche.

With a little under 10 minutes left to play, the Avalanche had put 42 shots on goal. Binnington had been given a workout in game one by the Avs. The third was another period of play where the top line of Landeskog, MacKinnon and Rantanen and the defensemen mounted significant pressure and chances off rebounds with no score.

And while Grubauer did not see as much action as Binnington did, he was coming up strong yet again at the other end. Grubauer got cut down by a Blues player, and no penalty was called, something he was not happy about. Then, Graves performed his second super sliding save of the night to stop the Blues from getting back on the scoreboard.

With 1:50 left on the clock, the Avalanche had amassed a huge 49–23 advantage in shots. And with just over a minute to go, MacKinnon scored yet again to make the final score 4–1 Colorado.

Third star — Cale Makar

Second star — Nathan MacKinnon

First star — Gabriel Landeskog

What’s next?

With Game 1 in the bag, the Avalanche get a day to look at the mistakes they made and work on those before coming back to Ball Arena for Game 2 Wednesday night.

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