Colorado's Defense Needs A Map | Avalanche Review Game 63

0:00let's play a game with this one. I'm gonna look at every goal, like I always do, but this time I'm gonna look and see if the closest player to the goal score was a defending player or was it the goal tender? Abs lose to the Edmonton Oilers 4-3. Okay, the elephant in the room here, I will talk about the goalie interference Nathan McKinnon thing, but I want to be clear that despite that, the abs did a great job of losing this game all by themselves. A bad goalie interference called did not make the abs abandon the middle of their own defensive ice repeatedly all game long. That isn't to say it didn't have impact on the game, tiring the abs legs out having to kill a major penalty and removing one of the best forwards in the NHL from the third period, but the abs issues in this game do not stem from the Nathan McKinnon thing. This game actually started immediately for the abs as they get another first minute goal on the season. An interesting situation, but maybe the one right call the refs got here, that puck comes out of the zone pretty clearly, but Edmonton puts it back in themselves, so everyone's on side. You're all good to go,

1:02Nelson gets it over to Colton, Colton takes his time with this one, but ultimately let's it go, it hits a stick on the way in and it goes in the net, hit a stick on the way in. Obviously, the closest player is not the goal tender. A bit of a fortunate bounce, maybe, but you absolutely take those. Unfortunately, the abs seem to never be able to get away with anything, Ross Colton would get hurt later in this first period by taking a puck to the upper body, he's listed as an upper body injury now, that sucks. The abs post Olympic break continue to have a discipline problem. They took four penalties in this game, which is not an obscene amount, but when you're talking about the Edmonton oil or power play, that is the best in the NHL, it's a problem. On the first time of asking, Edmonton shows you why. Edmonton gains the line with some good pace here. Manson maybe gets caught a little bit high, but he's helping to seal, and if we back this up, maybe a couple of seconds here. Brent Burns is initially in the middle of the ice. This is Manson's half, just to be clear, if you're playing this Manson's on that side, so Burns'

2:05responsibility is the other side or at least the middle of the ice. And look, right now, Burns checking he's going to see Jack Dury as a guy coming back going down the middle. I think there's some case to make that Burns does expect Jack Dury to stay coming down the middle and help defend there. Burns' read off of that is to just completely give the middle of the ice and go help a side of the ice that is already covered by Josh Manson. A bit of a weird decision. Nonetheless, if Burns still executes, he can still intercept a pass and keep the puck from getting to the dangerous area. But a weird extreme committal to that side of the ice when really you only have two threatening players. Burns just takes the other guy while Manson takes his guy and you don't have a problem here. To be fair, if Jack Dury kept moving his feet, maybe you don't have a problem either. But a band of things post to the middle of the ice is not smart. And then this goal goes in, yeah, you better believe Mackenzie Blackwood is the closest ab to that player. This one in a vacuum is almost forgivable to me. Burns is expecting Jack Dury to go with his

3:09man down the slot. So he at least thinks someone is covering the middle and isn't completely abandoning it for no reason. Still bad, but at least there is an explainable one here. Also, it's a penalty kill. Sometimes you just have to make decisions. Burns tries to make a play. He fails to intercept the pass and you get scored on. Stuff happens. And on the silver linings category, the av's power play is also working into this game. I know they're just coming off of a horrendous game when it comes to special teams, but scoring here on a power play, I do think it's starting to become something that's happening a little bit more consistent for Colorado. Av's have already shot a bunch on this power play and they keep doing it. Nature gets this down to McKinnon and McKinnon says, you know what? I'm just going to go in here and throw a puck on net. It creates a rebound. It creates chaos. Nelson is there. He gets it out to an area where Nature's can get to it. Nature's takes his time, picks his spot and McKinnon jumps out of the way and you have a power play goal. Again, multiple oilers between him and the goalie, so not all that close. One,

4:09Marty natures continues to prove he absolutely has to stay in that half well spot. Indefinitely, the av's power play has been significantly better there. Two, that's a sequence with multiple shots on net and the av's have been shooting the puck more on their power plays. There are good things happening here. Not as good as Edmundton's power play, but good things are happening. So a bit of a rocky period, but if the av's get out of here up to one, you feel pretty good about it. Oh, less than a minute left in the period. The defense's brains just turn off. Brent Burns going back to collect a dumped in puck. He's awfully casual with it, but that's fine. He's got time. He's got space. You don't really need to worry about this, except for that he's on his backhand. And he tries this weird pitch fork flip move up the wall that I guess is intended for Cadre, but at this point, Cadre's momentum is already carrying him up and out of the zone. He's expecting a hard rim or potentially some sort of play to Manson or something to make a quality breakout. It's not a quality breakout play to start. That's really not the big problem, though, because after this flip, Brent Burns just actively skates after the puck. No thought to

5:16what the next play is, what the next plan is. And as Cadre's momentum carries him away, we know the av's. They like to fly the zone. That's the problem in and of itself. But Manson is now in a tough spot because there's no way he's getting to that puck and there's no way he's doing anything competitive with it. So he turns up the ice and realizes, oh, there's a puck here on an Edmonton Euler player's skate. I have to go get it. This is my guy. Again, my half of the ice in this situation. Remember Brent Burns came around from the other side and is now on the opposite side of the ice. Brent Burns continues to just float up the wall. He doesn't recognize, hey, the Euler's are collecting this puck. Maybe I should take a guy. He doesn't recognize that the abs have a problem of an ice sheet here. And as he continues to float, his guy just skates away from him. Burns also decides a chase after this puck that Manson was already him to jump in on this play. That is about as far away as you can get from defending a player in your crease. I mean, that's got to be eight, nine feet is the closest player other

6:16than Blackwood who's obviously closer. Just obscene. And of course, Blackwood gets beat. I have no explanation for what Brent Burns is doing on that play. None of it. Yes, the abs forward cores also flying the zone. You would like to see at least one of them stay back and be able to competitively help defensively. I've railed on Brent Burns enough the last couple of games. This one is not changing any of my thoughts. I don't think I need to go any further than that. So it's two two after one. At least offensively you felt like the abs have played pretty decently, even if they're having some defensive struggles. But then you get into the second period and things get kind of weird for the abs. It feels like two teams trying to play really, really fast, but not executing on it. And we know both of these teams are fully capable of playing that style of hockey, but a lot of things just weren't clicking. I just don't understand the abs lack of willingness to get to the front of their own net. They seem to just let Edmonton go there and then forget about them. Oilers carrying a puck out of their own zone. I'm a little bit surprised just how much

7:17KL McCarr gets burned on this play. He's not ultra mega fast, but is by no reason a slow skater and would be considered a fast skater. He plays for the avalanche. It just seemed for whatever reason Edmonton had more legs than Colorado in this game. And I don't know why. Now ultimately this doesn't mean a ton of the initial play kind of flames out. The problem is look what's happened again. Why is Devon Taze behind his own net here? Back it up. This play plays out. Taze plays initial good defense. Puck goes to the corner. And instead of marking a man here, now to be fair, we could put that on KL McCarr. Maybe you're saying McCarr needs to stay with the net front guy because nature is going to come out. But if that's the case, then Devon still needs to stay with his back door guy. I just don't understand where Devon is going on this play. He does nothing effective. And he has defense as a whole doesn't do a ton effective. Frankly, as another goal gets scored right in front of your goalie. I don't want to get into the goalie interference conversation on this one either because I already have one of

8:20those to talk about. And we all know it's nonsense. So let's just move on. Right. So end of the second period. Nathan McKinnon play goalie interference. Let's talk about it. But I see here is Nathan McKinnon a pass coming his direction attacking a puck. Darnell Nurse makes an initial good defensive play and gets his stick on that puck. The thing is, as McKinnon's crashing in, McKinnon also gets his stick on that puck. There was a legitimate potential play offensively to happen here. Now, obviously, as it plays out, there's a ton of contact. Nurse runs in a McKinnon. The McKinnon very clearly barrels into the crease and runs into Ingram. The result is obviously extremely unfortunate. You never want to see a gold tender get hurt. And that sucks for the oilers. I hope Ingram is okay. I hope there's nothing serious that comes out of this. However, when we look at this play, the question I ask is what is Nathan McKinnon supposed to do? And I understand this play has now blown up across the hockey fandom and pretty much everyone's seen it. And you very likely have

9:21already made up your mind on what this play is or is not. So I'm not expecting to change anyone's minds here. But when you look at the play, Nathan McKinnon sure looks like he's trying to get out of the way or at very least there is intent to get out of the way up until Darnell Nurse runs into him. When that happens, it very clearly sends Nathan McKinnon off course and it barrels into Ingram because of it. I really don't understand how this could possibly be a five-minute major if that's the case. When you continue to look at this frame, I think it's fair to assume there could be some contact coming. Nathan McKinnon is almost certainly going to run into Conner Ingram's stick, which is not illegal as far as a goalie interference penalty is concerned. That's not one. There's a decent chance he might clip Conner Ingram's block or two. That sure. You could justify a two-minute goalie interference. I'm open to that. But there's just no way Nathan McKinnon is running Conner Ingram through if Darnell Nurse doesn't crash into him. It's just not Nathan McKinnon's fault that Darnell Nurse made the play that he did. Again, the result is unfortunate, but penalties are not assessed

10:25because of the result of the play. Penalties are assessed because you committed a penalty. The league has long been a disaster in the way it calls penalties and frankly all of the whistles surrounding goal tenders. It desperately needs a fix. We've been asking for some of these things for years. It's not going to happen clearly. So we just have to live in a world where the rules are made up when a goal tender is involved. Throwing Nathan McKinnon out of that game is still crazy to me, though. Anyway, that happens. You get to the third period. The abs PK-4. It struggles actually do a great job killing off what ends up being about four minutes of five on four time because of the major. And the abs actually even get this game back to tied in the third period. Probably my favorite play from this game from the abs. Spartacov gets it in deep, goes in the corner, a puck battle in the sues and the abs end up winning it up towards the half wall here. Good hard work to get possession. Nuke gets it out to safety from Alinsky. Melinsky throws this puck to the middle where Nuke has found the soft spot. Edmonton, this time, maybe not doing a great job. Still, you know, players closer to him than the goalie,

11:26but at least you find a soft spot and Val puts a great redirect on this. That's just perfect. Great play from Nechuskin. A great redirect really well put together in the type of goal the abs do need to score more of. I really like seeing that. Giving you the abs total, the abs score three goals and the goal tender was closest to the shooter on none of them. I mean, it later, Nick Walu's control of his stick hits a guy in the head. That's a high stick. They call it every time. Penalty, you just can't take. Just want to emphasize how deep the oilers power play forces the abs to play. They've completely collapsed here and the high part of the zone is essentially the top of the circles with how deep the abs get pushed back here. The abs need to take note of how aggressively Edmonton gets pucks deep and keeps them in deep and plays with the puck in deep, whereas the abs play entirely out on the perimeter for so much of their power play. That's a different gripe, though. On this play, an initial miss shot is able to stay in Edmonton possession and we've seen tades aggressively attacking McDavid and the puck here. The problem is both of his forwards are

12:29not involved on this side of the ice. So when he commits to this and McDavid gives a beautiful little give and go play, not good. That's Connor McDavid with a clean lane to the net on the power play. Just complete abandonment of the net front area again and McCars in an impossible spot. Does he step up and defend McDavid? Then the back door plays open. Does he stay with the back door? Then McDavid is charging your net. He's just screwed here to be fair and McDavid. Editing Ruto here. Who's actually closer here? I just gave it to Blackwood that he was the closest, but there's probably an argument that Valor Cale was closer. Maybe it was only three of the four goals. I don't know. Capitalizes on the abs miss play. On the one hand, that's Connor McDavid. Sometimes he's going to torture you. On another hand, stop taking dumb penalties. We've already talked about that. On the third hand, all four of Edmonton's goals, McKenzie Blackwood was the closest abs player to them on the ice. You just completely abandoned the top of the crease. Now I don't think McKenzie Blackwood was great in this game, particularly through the first 25 minutes

13:33he gave up three goals on nine shots. Some of those shots are really good and you're asking Blackwood to make a tough save there. He failed to do so. I do want to put that in there, but very, very clearly help your goal tender a little bit and cover the dangerous area of the ice. On all four goals, there is a guy left alone in the middle of the ice right in front of the crease. Brent Burns is doing that. Okay, that's tough. Your top pairing is doing it. Your penalty kill is doing it. You can't have that. So while I'm not overly concerned about this being a problem going forward, the fact that you did it four times in a row in the same game is not good. My bias definitely feels like you want to see the abs catch some better breaks here, but also at a certain point you have to look in the mirror and the abs need to do a better job of doing the right things to win hockey games. This game was in reach and extremely winnerful for Colorado and they just made too many big mistakes. I'll leave it there. That's the end of this game video review. Thank you for watching. I am Ruto and no one will ever understand goalie interference.