My thoughts:
1. Huge win. Avs played a really good game on the road, doubling up the Blues in shots and eventually got their reward for being the far better team. It would have been a travesty to lose this game or series against this Blues team considering how much better the Avs are. Clearly the only way the Avs were ever going to hang on to win a round 2 elimination game was if they scored with just a few seconds left.... you just know that if Helm had scored with 1-2 minutes left the Blues would have tied it up again haha
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2. Depth scoring. Compher finally decided to show up, nice timing. The 3rd line had a weak game overall I thought, with 35.71 CF%, but overall in the series they were good and so it's nice to see them get some offense going.
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3. The 4th line were excellent all game, and series. They repeatedly had some very good shifts with extended OZ time at good times in the game. Really nice to see Helm get rewarded with a clutch goal as he's been great, especially the last two games.
4. Kuemper.... The first half of the game was absolutely brutal. Overplayed his position to the left on the Faulk goal, then overplayed the Kyrou 2-on-1.... and then looked like Miska with that ridiculous flopping around on the chance that Manson saved on the line. He also almost let that soft Toropchenko floater get by him but got bailed out by the post. He redeemed himself with some big saves in the 3rd period though, but that game was not a very encouraging game from him.
5. Rantanen.... needs to wake up and stop making weak plays on the puck.
6. Jack Johnson.... flashbacks to Nemeth and Graves, woof. He got benched right after that terrible mistake, and rightfully so.
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7. Penalty kill came up huge in this game. Not sure if it's a result of the Blues not having Krug or Perunovich, or the Avs adjusting, but it does feel like the Avs PK'ers got to loose pucks and won battles a lot more the last couple of games.
8. Erik Johnson with 6 hits in the game. He had a really nice series overall.
9. Bowen Byram played great after Girard went down. He leads all Avs Dmen in Corsi in the playoffs, and has 6 assists in 10 games.
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10. Avs have gotten PPG+ scoring from their best 5 players, along with solid production from their secondary scorers. Ideally Burakovsky and Aube-Kubel can get going a bit more though, and hopefully Compher can continue scoring into the next round.
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