Series Talk: 2020 Avs Playoffs | Round 2: Dallas Stars

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Honestly, what LOC showed us in these playoffs leaves me to believe the possibility is there for him to become a 3rd liner.


He showed some offensive ability that I really did not think he had.

 

[Cousin Eddie]

Compher has to be like LOC+, high motor guy with some agitating and a dash of skill. He’s been coasting a lot.

LOC looks exactly like the type of player without the puck I expected Compher to be when he was coming into the league.

 

[larueskee]

To be fair to Bednar, when you have a 3rd line that's as dysfunctional and anonymous as ours was this series then you're forced to overplay your top lines. On D we were also pretty unfortunate to lose Johnson in game 1 against Dallas as that forced everyone else (especially Makar) to cover EJ's minutes.

I would like to add that there seems to be pressure at times to get one player a point to extend a point streak. There are some fans that want to see a certain player lead the playoffs in scoring. I see it on many boards regarding many star players. Once your playoff is done though, you ain't scoring any more points. To win a championship you have to sacrifice for the team. If that means letting the grinders get some work in when you have a comfortable lead at the cost of missing out on some powerplay time so be it.

 

[MarkT]

LOC looks like our next Calvert. A high energy, fast, physical guy who can chip in with some offense. Ideal on your 4th line but would actually do well in a middle 6 role if given a shot to be the complimentary guy on the line. If it happens next season. Calvert-Bellemare-LOC will be a sight to behold.

 

[Richard88]

LOC looks like our next Calvert. A high energy, fast, physical guy who can chip in with some offense. Ideal on your 4th line but would actually do well in a middle 6 role if given a shot to be the complimentary guy on the line. If it happens next season. Calvert-Bellemare-LOC will be a sight to behold.

Is it still safe to assume that O'Connor will be resigned for a minimum contract - i.e. a 5% increase on his current $832k salary to $875k? Or has he earned a little raise above that?

 

[Metallo]

LOC looks exactly like the type of player without the puck I expected Compher to be when he was coming into the league.

Yeah if Compher would play like LOC he would be really valuable.

 

[MarkT]

Is it still safe to assume that O'Connor will be resigned for a minimum contract - i.e. a 5% increase on his current $832k salary to $875k? Or has he earned a little raise above that?

$832k is his base salary. He also had a $92k signing bonus and a $212.5k performance bonus for a total of $1,137,500 and a cap hit of $925,000. I wouldn't be surprised to see him got a small raise on that given that he's arbitration-eligible.

 

[The Kingslayer]

Compher has to be like LOC+, high motor guy with some agitating and a dash of skill. He’s been coasting a lot.

Thats what the Avs were expecting from him plus offense when they signed him to that deal. I bet they are regretting it a little now.

 

[crue7]

Ok, if this is true, you have to fire the medical staff for allowing him back on the ice in period 3 of game 6. Not like they have been keeping people healthy anyway, but that is a dangerous decision to let him back. Screw "pride", it's up to the medical staff to say "NOPE".

They probably let Donskoi play through a serious injury as well. It was probably Donskoi himself who decided to NOPE after being embarrassed to overall help his damn team. Same with Frankie! You don't nope out of games and call a 3rd/4th string out of nowhere. He was probably injured way earlier.

Bednar listens to medical staff on availability, players lie because “playoffs” but medical staff actively ruined us by saying certain players were “good to go” when they clearly weren’t. Having someone on one leg isn’t going to help us win. Medical staff absolutely should be shit-canned

I know I’m reaching here, but if Daters twitter post holds true, I really have no doubts in what I’ve said.

 

[crue7]

Honestly, what LOC showed us in these playoffs leaves me to believe the possibility is there for him to become a 3rd liner.


He showed some offensive ability that I really did not think he had.

That pass to Belly on that rush is something that makes me excited. Knew he was a gamer, but I didn’t know he had that capability in a high pressure situation. That offensive ability is impressive.

 

[missionAvs]

Ok, if this is true, you have to fire the medical staff for allowing him back on the ice in period 3 of game 6. Not like they have been keeping people healthy anyway, but that is a dangerous decision to let him back. Screw "pride", it's up to the medical staff to say "NOPE".

They probably let Donskoi play through a serious injury as well. It was probably Donskoi himself who decided to NOPE after being embarrassed to overall help his damn team. Same with Frankie! You don't nope out of games and call a 3rd/4th string out of nowhere. He was probably injured way earlier.

Bednar listens to medical staff on availability, players lie because “playoffs” but medical staff actively ruined us by saying certain players were “good to go” when they clearly weren’t. Having someone on one leg isn’t going to help us win. Medical staff absolutely should be shit-canned

I know I’m reaching here, but if Daters twitter post holds true, I really have no doubts in what I’ve said.

To be fair, we don't really know how much leeway or pull the medical staff has in these types of situations. Not saying that they might not have some blame but a lot of the prognosis behind injuries in sports often times comes down to initial treatment then trying to see how it plays out and if it doesn't then reassess. Players have a big say on that last phase because at the end of the day, it's their body which they have control over. It's the medical staff's responsibility to make sure they explain any consequences as clearly as possible. There's some things like concussions that coaching staff and the like pretty much defer 100% to the medical staff but something like the Landy situation is more fluid probably.

As far as Frank is concerned, until we see something about an injury, I'm of the mindset that he just sucked ass, lost his confidence, and should just gtfo. He's one of the primary reasons we're not in the conference finals right now despite all of the other injuries and I'm still pissed off because of it. Smh, what a wasted year...

 

[Pokecheque]

Seems to me there had to be something there for them to put the #2 goalie in the press box and use the #4 as the backup. It couldn’t have just been poor play that would prompt them to use nearly every last bit of goaltending depth they had left by the second round unless something was seriously wrong with Frankie.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Yeah, medical staff in hockey(Sports in general for that matter) work a hell of a lot different than your typical medical protocol.


Anytime a player is injured in hockey and they go to the locker room, first thing they look at is whether it's possible to get the guy back on the ice. If its a cut to the face, broken nose, even things like minor sprains or separated shoulders... The first thing they are doing is seeing what if anything, can be done to get the player back into the game. Especially in the playoffs. And the players are pushing that same mind set. First thing the players almost always ask is if they can get back into the game.


So I dont think the medical staff deserves any blame at all for Landy. Guaranteed they went in, tried to patch up the cut, stop the bleeding or control the bleeding and then had Landy go put some weight on it give it a test run to see if he could go on it. Obviously he couldn't go, and likely after the game when they looked at it again it had probably swollen up or started bleeding again, or they were able to take a better look at it and saw that it was deeper then originally expected and that's when they realized it was more serious then originally thought.


But ya, in game like that 100% they're going to do what they can to get him back on the ice and Landeskog would be in that exact same mind set.



When I saw a couple games in Calgary last year, they had a feature in the pregame about the Calgary medical staff and that was what they were talking about, any time a player came into the dressing room with injuries the first thing they did was assess whether they could get the player back in the game.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Seems to me there had to be something there for them to put the #2 goalie in the press box and use the #4 as the backup. It couldn’t have just been poor play that would prompt them to use nearly every last bit of goaltending depth they had left by the second round unless something was seriously wrong with Frankie.

This is my thinking as well. If it wasn't an injury and it really was Frankie just being awful/No confidence thing, I would have imagined they would at least used him to back up Hutch.


The fact he didn't even back up is what leads me to believe he may have been injured or hiding an injury and finally told the team after game 4.



Who knows, and we likely never find out either. Just leaves us to speculate endlessly

 

[Pokecheque]

Yep. They’re unlikely to ever tell us what happened, just like Rantanen two years ago.

 

[Ceremony]

Ok, if this is true, you have to fire the medical staff for allowing him back on the ice in period 3 of game 6. Not like they have been keeping people healthy anyway, but that is a dangerous decision to let him back. Screw "pride", it's up to the medical staff to say "NOPE".

They probably let Donskoi play through a serious injury as well. It was probably Donskoi himself who decided to NOPE after being embarrassed to overall help his damn team. Same with Frankie! You don't nope out of games and call a 3rd/4th string out of nowhere. He was probably injured way earlier.

Bednar listens to medical staff on availability, players lie because “playoffs” but medical staff actively ruined us by saying certain players were “good to go” when they clearly weren’t. Having someone on one leg isn’t going to help us win. Medical staff absolutely should be shit-canned

I know I’m reaching here, but if Daters twitter post holds true, I really have no doubts in what I’ve said.

After EJ's two attempts at returning in a game where he just left immediately despite the puck being in our zone, in a game where we were already being outskated and outhit, are you really surprised?

 

[crue7]

After EJ's two attempts at returning in a game where he just left immediately despite the puck being in our zone, in a game where we were already being outskated and outhit, are you really surprised?

We speculate, because that’s all we can do lol. We have no idea haha

 

[Pokecheque]

I hope people don't get expectations too outta whack with Logan O'Connor. He is a big, speedy, physical, grinding winger, which is exactly the type of player you need to match up against teams like Dallas. But he is not a perfect replacement for Nieto. His play away from the puck won't come even close to Nieto's, but he should make up for that with the fact that he can hit harder and shoot better, offensively he should be more productive. But I'm not expecting anything more than a high-end fourth liner.

Calvert - Bellemare - O'Connor should be a fantastic fourth line next season.

 

[Foppa2118]

Ok, if this is true, you have to fire the medical staff for allowing him back on the ice in period 3 of game 6. Not like they have been keeping people healthy anyway, but that is a dangerous decision to let him back. Screw "pride", it's up to the medical staff to say "NOPE".

They probably let Donskoi play through a serious injury as well. It was probably Donskoi himself who decided to NOPE after being embarrassed to overall help his damn team. Same with Frankie! You don't nope out of games and call a 3rd/4th string out of nowhere. He was probably injured way earlier.

Bednar listens to medical staff on availability, players lie because “playoffs” but medical staff actively ruined us by saying certain players were “good to go” when they clearly weren’t. Having someone on one leg isn’t going to help us win. Medical staff absolutely should be shit-canned

I know I’m reaching here, but if Daters twitter post holds true, I really have no doubts in what I’ve said.

If it's not a concussion, or a life threatening cut/injury, players are going to try to play through the pain in the playoffs. That's just part of hockey culture.

Guys play through torn ACL's and MCL's. It's a weird injury that varies so much from person to person. Sometimes guys can play through it. Then they just have surgery when the season is over. EJ has done it before, and he tried to play through it again, but couldn't.

Landy probably had his cut glued up or stitched up, and tried to see if he could play though it, but either the cut opened up, or the pain was too much, so he just sat on the bench like EJ and tried to pump up his teammates.

 

[Pokecheque]

This is a great breakdown of the series from one of the best stats guys in the business.

So it turns out that it wasn't just special teams and bad goaltending that did the Avs in, it was also the Stars taking away cross-ice passes, which the Avs' offense really depends on, especially on the power play. Not surprising the Avs struggled against Dallas in the regular season if this was the playbook then too.

Also, I don't know if this is a result of the first 3-4 games making Zadorov's numbers look even worse than they were in the latter part of the series where he got a bigger role and seemingly looked better, but the big Russian got absolutely SCORCHED in terms of zone entries, which is supposed to be a strength of his.

 

[Foppa2118]

The Avs definitely struggled with passing in the Dallas series, but a lot of that was just from unfocused players not bearing down on their passes.

Mikko and Landy struggled with this at times, and so did some of the other guys. It definitely made their job harder than it needed to be to create offense.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

I dunno.


Yeah Dallas probably did a good job at limiting thag stuff...


But the Avs scored 29 Goals in a 7 game series and like 27 of those were at even strength. While they gave up 28 Goals against, only something like 18 of those were at even strength.


They certainly did enough to win the series offensively in spite of what the numbers might suggest.


The PK and Goaltendinh are to me two things that really, really stand out.

 

[Richard88]

This is a great breakdown of the series from one of the best stats guys in the business.

So it turns out that it wasn't just special teams and bad goaltending that did the Avs in, it was also the Stars taking away cross-ice passes, which the Avs' offense really depends on, especially on the power play. Not surprising the Avs struggled against Dallas in the regular season if this was the playbook then too.

Also, I don't know if this is a result of the first 3-4 games making Zadorov's numbers look even worse than they were in the latter part of the series where he got a bigger role and seemingly looked better, but the big Russian got absolutely SCORCHED in terms of zone entries, which is supposed to be a strength of his.

Those zone exit graphs illustrate how fortunate we are to have both Girard and Makar, very impressive.

Our D group as a whole will also be even harder to play against once we replace the two zone-exit weak-links in Zadorov/Cole with Byram/Timmins.

 

[crue7]

If it's not a concussion, or a life threatening cut/injury, players are going to try to play through the pain in the playoffs. That's just part of hockey culture.

Guys play through torn ACL's and MCL's. It's a weird injury that varies so much from person to person. Sometimes guys can play through it. Then they just have surgery when the season is over. EJ has done it before, and he tried to play through it again, but couldn't.

Landy probably had his cut glued up or stitched up, and tried to see if he could play though it, but either the cut opened up, or the pain was too much, so he just sat on the bench like EJ and tried to pump up his teammates.

I was just heated atm. Clearly we don’t know a damn thing about anyone’s health lol it’s all speculation but that’s what’s pisses me off. Avalanche have always been KBG.

Hard to blame me when we’ve heard nothing about anything besides untrustworthy Dater talk about speculation and nobody else is offering anything else but advanced stats.

 

[Grigowski]

it wasn't just special teams and bad goaltending that did the Avs in

No, but when your Goalie lets in 3 Softies per game and your special teams shit the bed, you normally wont win a f***ing playoff game. Even if your stats are on a high note. It´s a miracle we made it into game 7.