GDT: GAME LI: Canucks @ Avalanche...wait...there's hockey again?

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Yeah blaming Bednar to me is the lazy way out. We're losing so blame it on the coach.


Fact of the matter is we're actually playing good hockey. We're losing because of god awful goaltending and a roster that just isnt that strong. When you look at the goals we give up 95% of them are stemming from either very poor goaltending or some very dumb decisions from players that are simply playing too high up the lineup(Look at the Cole pinch against Vancouver on Saturday night for example A of this).

 

[henchman21]

Bednar is a part of the problem and his shelf life is getting close to expiration... the issue really lies in way too much reliance on one line, and when they can't produce at absurd levels the Avs don't win. Then the complete goaltending mess this team has (I was at this game and it was utterly pathetic to see live). Then Bednar... he's a part of the issue, but there are significant roster issues that are a bigger problem.

 

[CobraAcesS]

Bednar is a part of the problem and his shelf life is getting close to expiration... the issue really lies in way too much reliance on one line, and when they can't produce at absurd levels the Avs don't win. Then the complete goaltending mess this team has (I was at this game and it was utterly pathetic to see live). Then Bednar... he's a part of the issue, but there are significant roster issues that are a bigger problem.

That is a novel ideal. You mean it can be more than one thing instead of either or?

 

[Bender]

There have been defensive breakdowns for sure, and aggregate numbers sure don't tell the whole story, but you just can't justify having a save percentage being that low. Wouldn't you say that this team is playing far more defensively sound hockey than some earlier editions of the Avalanche and that the talent is also better, but the goaltenders are playing about as poor as we've ever seen an Avalanche goalie do?

Other teams make mistakes as well, it is impossible to play perfect hockey night in and night out, and given that the team needs to play a virtually perfect game with no defensive breakdowns in order to win, getting wins is almost an impossible feat. Let's take the Ottawa Senators as an example, they play a brand of hockey that throws caution to the wind, they are all offense all the time, their defenseman are being played in roles they have no business playing, their forwards (notable exceptions like Stone notwithstanding) provide little if any defensive support and structure, yet their goalies all put up stats far better than their Avs counterparts did over the last couple of months, with their starters Anderson, Nilsson, and McKenna having save percentages of 90.5%, 92.25 and 89.7% respectively. Nilsson, a journeyman, has a save percentage 8% higher than our two guys have combined for since the start of December.

I'm not contesting that our goaltending has been sub-par...what I am contesting is the perception that they are the only problem and that we'd be fine if they were even average.

I don't remember many games, (although there certainly have been a few for sure) where the 'weak goals' that they've let in, have been the deflating 'oh no, if only he hadn't let that one in' kind. To me, it seems like the weak ones are always the goals that make it 3-0 or 4 to 1 or 5 to 2 where the game is already handily out of reach. We just never seem to give our goalies 2-0, 3-0, 3-1 leads to work with and we always seem to be down in the vast majority of games since the start of December.

Blaming Bednar lol.

He has legit turned this team into a team that completely shelters our goaltenders while still managing to score goals at a top 10 rate.

I don’t agree with some decisions (splitting the top line up and playing Barbario in any situation) but Bednar has done everything within his authority to make the best out of what he has.

Sorry but if you can't see how horrible Cole has been and the double standard that exists with that player as opposed to the one that exists with a guy like Nemeth or Zadorov then I just can't help you. I'm telling you, that stuff doesn't fly with the players long-term. That same crap used to happen with Beauchemin (and I used to call-out Bednar on it ALL THE TIME that season) during Bednar's 1st year, it happened last year as well with Comeau and it's happening again with Cole. Now it's one thing to bench a star player like MacKinnon or Rantanen but Cole shouldn't be above reproach especially the way he's played the past 2 months. He should have sat at least once, to send a frikkin' message but he only seems to do that with players he doesn't like.

You want to believe that's even adequate coaching, that's up to you but I'm seeing a team that played extremely well for 2 months and then the exact same roster has been playing like dog-shit for 2 months.

Yeah blaming Bednar to me is the lazy way out. We're losing so blame it on the coach.

Fact of the matter is we're actually playing good hockey. We're losing because of god awful goaltending and a roster that just isnt that strong. When you look at the goals we give up 95% of them are stemming from either very poor goaltending or some very dumb decisions from players that are simply playing too high up the lineup(Look at the Cole pinch against Vancouver on Saturday night for example A of this).

Well I am super lazy and to be fair, I rarely know what I'm talking about. We probably should have traded for Erik Karlsson like you suggested, that would have solved all of our issues.

Proposal: - Your Team's best offer for Erik Karlsson

That package is only slightly different to the one the sens actually got.

 

[the_fan]

I've completely lost interest in watching the Avs this year. Not only the team has been horrible, but their schedule also has been horrible. So many days off and after a long 9 days off, they played a game and still have to wait 2 days before playing again. Such a dumb schedule maker

 

[Foppa2118]

You guys can correctly criticize the goalers as much as you want, but again they didn't lose that game yesterday. Too many high quality scoring chances for opposing teams. For example, who the hell gave Boeser that much time to pick his shot and rip it? Not sure how that's Varly's fault there, no goaler would've saved that.

Thank you for saying this. Both Varly and Grubauer have not been good enough the last month or two, and have given up some bad goals, but this was not one of those games. All five goals were off grade A scoring chances, mostly from mistakes and sloppy defense, that led to five pretty damn good shots.

First goal was a terrible pinch from Cole that wasn't even close to working that led to the 2 on 1 chip goal.

Second goal was a laser from Boesser off a cleanly lost face-off by Compher with a two man screen in the slot.

Third was from some sloppy defense by Mikko. He knows the Canuck player is skating behind the net with the puck, so why isn’t his stick in the passing lane? It’s up in the air until the last second, and he tries to block the pass with his foot before it gets by for the one timer.

Fourth goal was a perfect back door shot pass redirect.

Fifth goal was a pass through the box on the PK that Dries let get through him, and a beautiful top shelf finish by Goldobin.

There are losses recently that can be pinned on goaltending, but this loss was on the players for their mistakes, and the coaching staff for changing up the lines that were working, and not finding a way to counter the strategy the Canucks successfully employed.

Goaltending has not been good enough this year, but a lot of the time it's just the other goaltender outplaying the Avs goalie. Not that the Avs goalie is playing bad. This was one of those games and it's happened a lot this year. I think it's a result of opposing goalies getting motivated to shut down the self proclaimed "best line in hockey." If they shut them down, they will most likely win because no one else can score.

 

[Foppa2118]

Watched this game late.

This is the second time the Avs have lost due in part to Bednar changing the lines and the team having a poor start. He finally had two good lines with the top line and Soda/Compher before the break, and what does he do coming out of the break? He breaks both up.

I think Bednar’s a smart coach, and he’s not really to blame for all this team’s problems, but he’s not solving them either. I’m also really starting to question his line making skills. How on earth did you think putting Hands of Stone Wilson, and Never Played With Nate Kerfoot, with MacKinnon was a good idea? When you need wins bad, you put your best player with those two?

To go along with that theme, he puts Compher who’s played mostly right wing since he broke into the league, with Calvert and Nieto who don’t take faceoffs, for a non icing defensive zone draw. Compher loses it clean, which leads to Boesser being wide open for the shot in the slot on the second goal. The last guy you want to give time and space to.

Cole has really regressed. The more his beard starts to look like Zanon, the worse he gets. He’s making mistakes that lead to goals seemingly every game. His bad pinch 90 seconds into the game that led to the 2 on 1 goal wasn’t even close, and he had no one back to cover for him. Just a terrible decision to start the game.

Another mistake by the coaching staff IMO is their over use of Cole. He’s playing way too much and has for a while now, yet they won’t adjust. He played nearly 22 minutes in this game. They need to reduce his minutes and give them to their big horse in EJ who always plays well with big minutes.