GDT: Colorado Avalanche vs Anaheim Ducks: Flying aVs Edition

[Foppa2118]

Cole also got injured fighting Sam Bennett last year after he flattened Mark Jankowski.

Dater and some others have theorized that Z hasn't been the same since breaking his jaw, but I don't think that's the issue. I just think Z's lost all confidence. He's been buried on the third pairing for a while now and just doesn't want to throw his body around. I'm still perplexed as to why he wasn't kept up with Girard, but that ship appears to have sailed.

Yeah that's not it. Zadorov played his best hockey this year immediately after he broke his jaw, and EJ went down with his lower body injury.

Hard to tell what it is. Something is different, because every other year he's been here, he's played his best hockey at this time of year down the stretch. That's not happening right now for whatever reason.

My belief is that it's a combination of a lack of focus (which has always been the main issue for him) and perhaps Bednar's tough love approach reaching it's limits and causing him to give up a bit on trying to get back into Bednar's good graces. Possibly distracted by where he may be traded in the offseason, similar to Jost's confidence being affected by trade rumors earlier in the year.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

I really wish Getzlaf wanted to try for another cup. Can you imagine Nuke-Getzlaf-Kaut? That would be such a pain to play against.

I'd go with Calvert-Getzlaf-Nichushkin That would be an absolute handful for a third line and fully healthy, we'd be able to roll lines more evenly and reduce the workload on MacK.

 

[Frobbo]

I have been a fan of Z over the last two years but his play since the broken jaw has been sub-par, even for him. When he isn't engaged physically his effectiveness overall drops a lot. Not just for him individually but also in terms of providing something the team only possesses in small doses elsewhere. I believe his play last night was abominable. The choices he made in his d-zone coverage were perplexing at best. Those who thought others were at fault are correct only in the sense that they needed 100 % coverage in their own end to make up for his mis-steps.

Just as importantly he didn't respond in kind to the Ducks physical play. Had he bounced a few forwards it may have resulted in a backing off of Anaheim's approach. I can be just as upset at this as his misplays. It isn't like he is going to be able to skate like Makar at his size so he needs to use what he does possess (size) in order to be effective. He hasn't for a couple of months now.

I am curious if it was BOTH of these reasons why he was benched by the coach.

 

[PAZ]

With regards to the bolded, how do you figure? This is where awareness comes into play honestly. Jost puts the puck on net on his last chance and stops up right in front of Miller and that's game, we're going to SO. I'm not even pinning this loss on Jost but that wasn't good puck management at the end. He himself admitted as much after the game. Nevertheless, moving on to the next I guess.

As I alluded to, it's what led to our 2 on 0. I believe it was Silfverberg who streaked down the side and shot it wide. He missed, and the puck went careened off the corner of the boards out of the zone, giving Jost + Girard a 2 on 0. So unless Jost was simply trying to make the game go to the shootout, it makes sense to try and cut to the net with the time remaining. Jost had a higher chance of ending the game with that play than Rakell did, but Girard decided to deflect the puck with a second to go instead of doing a million other things.

 

[Gobbily Goop]

As I alluded to, it's what led to our 2 on 0. I believe it was Silfverberg who streaked down the side and shot it wide. He missed, and the puck went careened off the corner of the boards out of the zone, giving Jost + Girard a 2 on 0. So unless Jost was simply trying to make the game go to the shootout, it makes sense to try and cut to the net with the time remaining. Jost had a higher chance of ending the game with that play than Rakell did, but Girard decided to deflect the puck with a second to go instead of doing a million other things.

In response to the poster that you quoted, guys aren't thinking like this on the ice though so we shouldn't even be holding them to this kind of standard. Paz, you're right about there being a sacred rule concerning missing high and wide being a breakout pass for the other team but that isn't even necessarily the case with the Silvferberg play that you're referring to. Silvf was passing the puck across the crease where he had a guy streaking backdoor that he wasn't able to connect with thus resulting in a two man break for our guys. Even with the break the other way it was still a high percentage play for Silvf and worth taking since if executed on it would have ended the game; I want my guy going for the high percentage play every time.. With the 3 on 3 you see a lot of guys protecting the puck and curling back out of the zone to regroup and protect the puck because the margin for error is so high in 3 on 3 OT which is exactly what the NHL was looking for after implementing the new structure. Even then, eventually you're going to have to take a high risk; high reward opportunity to end the game. For us to imply that Jost should have thought about the repercussions of not executing on a breakaway in the dwindling seconds of OT over putting together whatever he felt was his best opportunity at capitalizing is just us overanalyzing something that happens so fast and in a matter of seconds. We're all sitting here talking about G's "2 on o" and harping on Jost for not getting up in the play however if we apply that same set of logic that we're applying to Jost's failed breakaway shouldn't we be applauding Jost for not jumping into the play for fear of an odd man rush the other way?

I see G catching a lot of flack for that last play too and while I think he definitely could have controlled his gap a little bit better I think it's also important to to give Rickard credit where credit is due. Him winding up that fake slapshot puts G in a little bit of a pickle. He can step up and try to close the gap but he also has to know that if Rickard gets a read on that he's going to step to the middle of the ice in an attempt to get right around him. It's the only reason that he's winding up from that far away in the first place.. G opts to keep him in front of him before letting his gap get a little too big and tries to recover by AT LEAST getting a stick on it which he was successful in doing. It's kind of crazy for us to rag on him for that since he's really just playing the percentages at that point.. I'm a bozo, and definitely not a math guy but i'm sure we could all agree that the probability of the puck deflecting off of his stick and going wide is much higher than the probability of the friggin puck riding up his blade and going bar-down.. You see this all the time on a PK. Hard to be mad at him for that.. Trust me, Rickard knows he got lucky there. If anything, be mad at Francouz for not doing a better job of cutting down the angle. But even then, between Jost, Girard, and Francouz we're talking about guys who have been in the league for what, 3 or 4 years at the max? Jost and Girard being 21 years of age? I give guys on my NHL 20 Be A GM mode more of a grace period during their development than you guys are giving these guys who are playing at the highest level.. If G's play there at the end on the Rickard goal is going to get you guys all hot and bothered I don't know how you make it out of any NHL game with any positives lol.

Cheers fellas. Looking forward to mañana.

 

[Foppa2118]

I think if G had a do over he'd probably just let Rakell take the shot. He had a brain fart there deciding to play it like he or any other defenseman would play it under normal circumstances.

He didn't quite angle his blade properly, but he got a bit unlucky that it deflected right into the top corner like that, instead of into the corner or over the net.

Ordinarily the D man is trying to deflect the puck out of play, but again, I think if G had a do over, he'd realize that it's probably better Francouz makes that save there and burns the last few seconds off the clock, rather than have it go out of play with potentially a few seconds left and have to deal with a D zone face-off at the end of the game.

 

[a mangy Meowth]

In response to the poster that you quoted, guys aren't thinking like this on the ice though so we shouldn't even be holding them to this kind of standard. Paz, you're right about there being a sacred rule concerning missing high and wide being a breakout pass for the other team but that isn't even necessarily the case with the Silvferberg play that you're referring to. Silvf was passing the puck across the crease where he had a guy streaking backdoor that he wasn't able to connect with thus resulting in a two man break for our guys. Even with the break the other way it was still a high percentage play for Silvf and worth taking since if executed on it would have ended the game; I want my guy going for the high percentage play every time.. With the 3 on 3 you see a lot of guys protecting the puck and curling back out of the zone to regroup and protect the puck because the margin for error is so high in 3 on 3 OT which is exactly what the NHL was looking for after implementing the new structure. Even then, eventually you're going to have to take a high risk; high reward opportunity to end the game. For us to imply that Jost should have thought about the repercussions of not executing on a breakaway in the dwindling seconds of OT over putting together whatever he felt was his best opportunity at capitalizing is just us overanalyzing something that happens so fast and in a matter of seconds. We're all sitting here talking about G's "2 on o" and harping on Jost for not getting up in the play however if we apply that same set of logic that we're applying to Jost's failed breakaway shouldn't we be applauding Jost for not jumping into the play for fear of an odd man rush the other way?

I see G catching a lot of flack for that last play too and while I think he definitely could have controlled his gap a little bit better I think it's also important to to give Rickard credit where credit is due. Him winding up that fake slapshot puts G in a little bit of a pickle. He can step up and try to close the gap but he also has to know that if Rickard gets a read on that he's going to step to the middle of the ice in an attempt to get right around him. It's the only reason that he's winding up from that far away in the first place.. G opts to keep him in front of him before letting his gap get a little too big and tries to recover by AT LEAST getting a stick on it which he was successful in doing. It's kind of crazy for us to rag on him for that since he's really just playing the percentages at that point.. I'm a bozo, and definitely not a math guy but i'm sure we could all agree that the probability of the puck deflecting off of his stick and going wide is much higher than the probability of the friggin puck riding up his blade and going bar-down.. You see this all the time on a PK. Hard to be mad at him for that.. Trust me, Rickard knows he got lucky there. If anything, be mad at Francouz for not doing a better job of cutting down the angle. But even then, between Jost, Girard, and Francouz we're talking about guys who have been in the league for what, 3 or 4 years at the max? Jost and Girard being 21 years of age? I give guys on my NHL 20 Be A GM mode more of a grace period during their development than you guys are giving these guys who are playing at the highest level.. If G's play there at the end on the Rickard goal is going to get you guys all hot and bothered I don't know how you make it out of any NHL game with any positives lol.

Cheers fellas. Looking forward to mañana.

Why do you lurk when you have such quality content to contribute? More please.

 

[avsfan09]

For the record, I don't think I know the game of hockey particularly well.

I don't know many things myself.

 

[missionAvs]

As I alluded to, it's what led to our 2 on 0. I believe it was Silfverberg who streaked down the side and shot it wide. He missed, and the puck went careened off the corner of the boards out of the zone, giving Jost + Girard a 2 on 0. So unless Jost was simply trying to make the game go to the shootout, it makes sense to try and cut to the net with the time remaining. Jost had a higher chance of ending the game with that play than Rakell did, but Girard decided to deflect the puck with a second to go instead of doing a million other things.

All I'm saying is that Jost getting that puck on net and forcing Miller to freeze would have been an infinitely better play than what he ended up doing. Of course this all led to the rush up ice where G also botched the coverage on Rakell and Frank misread the angle of the shooter. Again, I'm not implying blame to any one player but it's absolutely frustrating as all hell to watch a team with so much talent (even when injured) squander so many OTs off of dumb plays. MacK's done it, Landy's done it (looking at that OT SHG that bounced off him earlier in the year), and now you can add Jost and G to the list.

Yeah mistakes happen, I get that, but when you're chasing a team like the Blues, who don't seem to lose lately, and you're trying as all hell to catch them in order to be spared one of either them or Dallas, every point matters. We need to start winning some of these OTs.