I genuinely think you are just looking for defensive faults if you came away from last night sour on the D performance. Here's the shot heat map at 5 on 5:
At 5 on 5, we allowed 11 total scoring chances, 6 high danger chances and had an expected goals against of 1.17. In all situations, those numbers are 16 scoring chances allowed, 8 high danger chances allowed and an expected goals against of 1.77. Those are remarkably good numbers against a team who was a top 5 offense last year and is expected to do it again this year. To provide some context, the average expected goals against per game in all situations last season was 2.66 and the lowest was 2.27. The average number of scoring chances allowed per game last year was 26.72 and the lowest was 22.99. The average high danger chances allowed per game last season was 10.88 and the lowest was 8.55.
We allowed significantly fewer opportunities than the league's stingiest teams last year and did so against a great offensive team. We practically eliminated half the ice at even strength. Look at the slot and in front of our net. There is one location where the Avs got multiple shot attempts and that area is shaded very lightly. That heat map and the underlying low numbers indicate an incredibly strong defensive game. The forwards played a large part in that, but you can't accomplish those numbers if 3 of your D are shaky. Dunn and Krug each had a couple gaffes, Faulk and Parayko each had 1, and Bortz took a dumb penalty. That's about it and it is exceedingly rare to play a perfect NHL game as a D man. Those gaffes happen in a 60 minute game, especially when you have D who actively push play forward instead of playing more passive. Those handful of gaffes were drastically outweighed by the number of times our D won races, stripped pucks, beat a forecheck, cleared rebounds, clogged passing lanes, skated out of trouble and connected on outlet passes.
Of course the Avs got a few good chances. You are never going to completely eliminate their good scoring chances and you are always going to need your goalie to play well to avoid allowing 3+ goals to the Avs. But let's not pretend like Binner was lights out. We are in great shape if he plays like that consistently this year, but that is also how you expect an average or above average NHL starter to play.
I'm not reading too much into 1 game. This could be our ceiling and other teams catch up to us as the season goes on. This could be a one-off. We could look even better as the season goes on. Trying to extrapolate from 1 game is silly in the NHL, but last night was a great performance. I still have concerns that the D isn't good enough at defending when the other team has the puck in our zone, but last night we demonstrated that we
can be extremely successful by limiting the number of times the other team has the puck in our zone.
