Colorado Avalanche on a 13 Game Lossless Streak

[BrindamoursNose]

They should along with giving one to the team that ended Buffalo's streak.

You want to give a trophy for losing?

Now I understand why this thread is a thing

 

[Chips]

I don't think anyone was expecting them to be leading the league in shots and shots against, as well as goals scored and goals against.

I don't know how sustainable their play is, but what they are doing is really unheard of.

They’ve got three top 10 Dmen league wide this year by some metrics in Makar, Toews (great pickup, way cheaper than you’d normally pay for that kind of help) and Girard

GSVA is the Athletics favorite. Girard and Toews were 2nd and 3rd the last update a few days ago; Makar at 10th* (shoutout Adam Fox who jumped way up to 1st!)

*if fluctuates a lot and is partly impacted by TOI; Makar was 2nd well on his way to jump to #1 before his injury, he’s on his way back up. Girard and Toews had been lower, but they both played approaching 25 min a night with his absence and did pretty darn well which gave them the opportunity to show what they can do, and they jumped up


it’s impressive how young two of those guys are, and how small all of them are in a league that’s always emphasized big physical Dmen


Anyways, Dmen playing a disproportionate amount of the game time to forwards any game, that’s pretty crazy depth. It’s gonna be tragic when they lose Grubauer at the end of the season and we’re denied a fun playoffs for a very deserving team.

 

[oxenfree]

Beyond the forward depth, the trio of Makar, Girard and Toews are just absolutely caving teams in right now. Think three prime Erik Karlssons statistically, just utterly dominating both ends of the ice in ways we haven't seen defensemen ever do consistently. They have a new Make-a-Wish AHLer slotting into the 6th spot every night while Byram is out and it hasn't made a lick of difference on the backs of those three.

They can basically have two #1 dmen and an elite #2 dman on the ice for the whole game if they want to. It's like everything Dave Poile ever dreamed about coming true.

 

[SimpleJack]

Beyond the forward depth, the trio of Makar, Girard and Toews are just absolutely caving teams in right now. Think three prime Erik Karlssons statistically, just utterly dominating both ends of the ice in ways we haven't seen defensemen ever do consistently. They have a new Make-a-Wish AHLer slotting into the 6th spot every night while Byram is out and it hasn't made a lick of difference on the backs of those three.

They can basically have two #1 dmen and an elite #2 dman on the ice for the whole game if they want to. It's like everything Dave Poile ever dreamed about coming true.

That’s a fantastic trio but it’s not like the league has never seen a trio of defenseman of that caliber before on the same team...

Unless when you said “we” you were meaning just the Avs franchise.

 

[Ocoee]

Where is Damien Darhk now? The guy who argued over multiple threads the Sabres had some ties instead of OT losses.

 

[Arto Kilponen]

That’s a fantastic trio but it’s not like the league has never seen a trio of defenseman of that caliber before on the same team...

Unless when you said “we” you were meaning just the Avs franchise.

I think 2001 Blake-Foote-Bourque trio was better.

 

[Miri]

I think 2001 Blake-Foote-Bourque trio was better.

well, maybe, but 2001 is long gone, so we have to endure with what we have now

 

[avsfan9]

Is there a trophy for this

Yes.... the presidents trophy I think. But we don’t want it. First place team rarely win the cup

 

[Plural]

Yes.... the presidents trophy I think. But we don’t want it. First place team rarely win the cup

They win it more than any other position.

 

[Sauce12]

Am I doing this right?

Avalanche Colorado on a 15 Game Lossless Streak. This would be correct.

 

[Cousin Eddie]

They have a #1 caliber defenseman on the ice at all times pretty much. I don’t know if playing those guys this much is a recipe for long term success (Toews played 30 minutes last night which is literally half the game. 29 the game prior) as I fear these guys might wear down but when you have at least one of Makar/Toews/Girard on the ice at all times and a large portion of the game with 2 of the 3, you’re going to control play.



Don’t know how much people care about these metrics but they currently have a 59.98 xGF%. An NHL team had never been that high since the stat has been recorded.

 

[Nihiliste]

Divisional play makes it hard to know how good teams are. Their team D isn’t going to look as good against Point/Kucherov/Stamkos or Barkov/Huberdeau or Matthews/Marner or Mcdavid/Drai or Aho &co. Vegas and Minny are good and the Blues should be good but no team in the division has that kind of game breaking firepower or a really good PP

 

[Cousin Eddie]

Divisional play makes it hard to know how good teams are. Their team D isn’t going to look as good against Point/Kucherov/Stamkos or Barkov/Huberdeau or Matthews/Marner or Mcdavid/Drai or Aho &co. Vegas and Minny are good and the Blues should be good but no team in the division has that kind of game breaking firepower or a really good PP

Definitely a good point. They haven’t really faced a true game breaker this year. They’ve done good against other teams top players for sure (Mark Stone 2 points in 6 games against the Avs) but they haven’t faced a Mcdavid or Matthews yet.

 

[Islay1989]

Definitely a good point. They haven’t really faced a true game breaker this year. They’ve done good against other teams top players for sure (Mark Stone 2 points in 6 games against the Avs) but they haven’t faced a Mcdavid or Matthews yet.

Kaprizov 1G 3A in 7 games being -7

PS

I don't think playing against superstars will be a problem, the problem might be teams that have superior center depth, especially bottom 6. Every decent team in the division has dreadful center depth so guys like Jost or Bellemare aren't really challenged going against better pivots.

 

[Hasbro]

 

[TruePowerSlave]

Divisional play makes it hard to know how good teams are. Their team D isn’t going to look as good against Point/Kucherov/Stamkos or Barkov/Huberdeau or Matthews/Marner or Mcdavid/Drai or Aho &co. Vegas and Minny are good and the Blues should be good but no team in the division has that kind of game breaking firepower or a really good PP

At the same time I would argue those teams haven't faced a team as good as the Avs this season.

The Avs are easily one of the top defensive teams in the league, they would do just fine.

 

[ASmileyFace]

The lack of inter-divisional games is driving me crazy right now. Not having test piece games against teams like Tampa, Toronto, Florida, ect.. this season makes me so sad. The only team Avs fans really get fired up to play anymore is Vegas. Sure we don't like the Wild or Blues, but they are same teams the Avs have beat up on for months now. If the Avs go all the way, they will likely have to go through some combination of Tampa/Carolina/Toronto/Edmonton but the playoffs are a long ways off and anything can happen before then. But for the next few months we've got 20+ games of playing teams like Arizona and LA ugh...

 

[flyfysher]

The lack of inter-divisional games is driving me crazy right now. Not having test piece games against teams like Tampa, Toronto, Florida, ect.. this season makes me so sad. The only team Avs fans really get fired up to play anymore is Vegas. Sure we don't like the Wild or Blues, but they are same teams the Avs have beat up on for months now. If the Avs go all the way, they will likely have to go through some combination of Tampa/Carolina/Toronto/Edmonton but the playoffs are a long ways off and anything can happen before then. But for the next few months we've got 20+ games of playing teams like Arizona and LA ugh...

I understand and sympathize with your point. However, we should be grateful there are any games at all. If there’s a COVID-19 outbreak then the season and POs could go out the window. Look at what happened to the Canucks.

That’d be the irony. Avs look like they have a great chance to win the SC. But an outbreak here or there could result in canceling the POs. Hopefully it doesn’t happen but at this point I am not taking anything for granted.

Avs-Bolts would be a terrific series.

 

[Hasbro]

The lack of inter-divisional games is driving me crazy right now. Not having test piece games against teams like Tampa, Toronto, Florida, ect.. this season makes me so sad. The only team Avs fans really get fired up to play anymore is Vegas. Sure we don't like the Wild or Blues, but they are same teams the Avs have beat up on for months now. If the Avs go all the way, they will likely have to go through some combination of Tampa/Carolina/Toronto/Edmonton but the playoffs are a long ways off and anything can happen before then. But for the next few months we've got 20+ games of playing teams like Arizona and LA ugh...

 

[JoemAvs]

They have a #1 caliber defenseman on the ice at all times pretty much. I don’t know if playing those guys this much is a recipe for long term success (Toews played 30 minutes last night which is literally half the game. 29 the game prior) as I fear these guys might wear down but when you have at least one of Makar/Toews/Girard on the ice at all times and a large portion of the game with 2 of the 3, you’re going to control play.



Don’t know how much people care about these metrics but they currently have a 59.98 xGF%. An NHL team had never been that high since the stat has been recorded.

I am a fan of Bednar but I really think he is screwing up badly right now..
He keeps overplaying our top guns because he doesn't trust his lesser players enough. Has been somewhat a pattern for him and I hate it.
Same thing goes for Grubi to a certain extent.

The Avs are really good. It shouldn't matter if we drop an extra game or two or even three over the rest of the season because we played Johansson a bit too often and significantly eased the workload of our Ds (especially Toews and Girard).
IMO Sakic should adress that. Avs don't need any trades (aside from maybe a Reimer level backup if Francouz really is not going to return and if Johansson doesn't improve in his next few starts). They just need to sit down Bednar and tell him that while winning remains obviously the goal that he has to do a better job of managing the icetime. 30 minutes last night was completely unacceptable for Toews...

So while I really enjoy this streak and how well the Avs are playing, I am concerned about how they are doing it.

 

[not a troll]

They’re peaking too early. They’ll run into a rash of injuries soon enough.

 

[SuperJoe]

They’re peaking too early. They’ll run into a rash of injuries soon enough.

You're right, it's not like they have the fifth most man lost games due to injuries.

 

[PromisedLand]

Donskoi has been a revelation this season in this stretch. Someone explain to me what did Donskoi do to get ready for this season?

 

[Islay1989]

Donskoi has been a revelation this season in this stretch. Someone explain to me what did Donskoi do to get ready for this season?

Not getting his brains scrambled like he did last season was a nice start. Shooting 30% also helps.

 

[PAZ]

Donskoi has been a revelation this season in this stretch. Someone explain to me what did Donskoi do to get ready for this season?

Never got injured and decided he would pick an opportune time to go on his yearly hot streak.

I'm still not convinced this is the real Donskoi until he continues this play for an entire season. The production is going to slow down, it'll be interesting to see if the rest of his game does as well.