Well, apart from an abhorrent first period, I thought they played okay.
I'm a little concerned that Bednar & Co. need to take a good, long look at their gameplan and make some adjustments. His system depends on short, quick passes from the D to the forwards to move it out of the zone, yet I'm seeing in the case of some of these teams with speed are sending guys in aggressive and creating turnovers. In the CGY game it was a Z pass to Nieto that led to the GTG, in the third of this game it was Kerfoot with, I believe, two horrid attempts at a pass leading to scoring chances against. If they're going in fast with a "blitz package" they might want to just chip it up past the D and let their speed up front create the occasional odd-man break, and at the very least, force them to back off a bit, at which point you can use the usual system. There just needs to be more variety in how they move the puck out of the zone. It's unfortunate that Nemeth is incapable of doing anything other than flinging it down to the other end of the ice and Cole just fires weak clearing attempts right into the opposition's pads. If Barberio gets his head screwed on straight he can teach everyone how to do it, he's an expert.
The second line is doing everything right except scoring. At the very least they need to shoot it more. Way, WAY too much passing going on there. Just put it on net and at least make the goalie work a little harder.
I really wasn't mad about Landeskog's play except for what has to be the worst-ever shift he's ever had in an Avs uniform where--tired or not--he was beaten down the ice by 80-year-old Cody McLeod, who promptly created a scoring chance and then Landy committed an idiotic penalty. If I'm Bednar and I want to get him fired off/enraged Hartley-style, I make him watch that shift over, and over again.
It was just one game, but I FINALLY saw the Vlad Kamenev everyone's been talking about. He was fantastic last night, and I thought the 4th line was really good. I was a bit concerned that even though they swapped out right wings, the third line still kinda sucked. I just don't know what's going on there, this was Calvert's worst game in an Avs uniform thus far, and I actually thought Bourque played relatively well, creating space and letting the two guys on the line who actually knew what to do with the puck handle it.
Anyway, I'm not panicking, nor am I really angry, but I am a little frustrated because we know this team can play dominant hockey, yet there have been long stretches in a few games now where they just fall asleep as a whole. That's concerning to me--motivation should not be an issue here.
Lastly, I don't know why it's a continuing problem for the Avs to get a proper one-timer off but maaaaan I've watched the Avs for their 20+ year history and I can count on one hand the players they had on the roster who could reliably get it on net with power off a one-timer. Mikko, for all his immense talent (and I thought he once again played fantastic) doesn't really have a good one, nor does anyone else really. I just don't get it, the Rangers had at least two guys who could pull it off last night.