GDT: Round 1 Game 3: Colorado @ St. Louis *Fight Night* 9:30 ET / 7:30 MT

[Avs71]

Don’t always love Graves, but love this.

Berube will probably whine the Avs are getting all the game pucks.

 

[Metallo]

Don’t always love Graves, but love this.

Berube will probably whine the Avs are getting all the game pucks.

Is it really for Newhook? He already had is 1st goal puck. How many pucks does he need?

I think its more a puck for the whole team. Maybe they have a board with 16 places for game pucks after wins or something.

 

[Metallo]

Don’t always love Graves, but love this.

Berube will probably whine the Avs are getting all the game pucks.

Graves is an all purpose D, seperating the man from the puck and the puck from the man.

 

[Garavar]

I know Newhook’s goal was a proverbial layup, but, the Avs certainly made missing open nets an art form this season (but, still secured the President’s Cup).





Have a day, kid! Soak it all in.

There was actually less daylight than some of the open nets Rants missed. He should take notes from Newhook.

 

[Cousin Eddie]

Don’t always love Graves, but love this.

Berube will probably whine the Avs are getting all the game pucks.

Perhaps he should mix in a win

 

[Ceremony]

Don’t always love Graves, but love this.

Berube will probably whine the Avs are getting all the game pucks.

A modern-day Chris Pronger.

 

[Northern Avs Fan]

This was the version of Ryan Graves that I’ll be sad to see go to Seattle in the expansion draft. Also, I thought Nemeth bounced back well and that effort will probably keep him in the lineup over Byram.

I really think this team should run this group down the middle of the ice while Kadri is out:

MacKinnon
Jost
Newhook
Bellemare

Compher isn’t a centre and generally gets caved in while he’s in that role. Newhook deserves more ice-time and I think he can handle the 3C role. He’s had 4 points in 9 games while basically getting no ice-time.

 

[SoftMittsHardSticks]

In the playoffs, Graves has twice as many points as Makar, and is scoring at over a ppg pace. Expose Makar?

 

[SirLoinOfCloth]

This was supposed to be the tough one. If ever the Blues were going to mount some sort of series saving effort, this was to be it. But as predicted they chose to go overtly physical instead of concentrating on puck possession and scoring. You can't win games by having the most hits, you still need to score goals. But they neglected that, wore themselves out and the Avs just did their thing, were patient, capitalized on their chances and cruised to a relatively easy victory.

The blues are a sorry team at the moment, they were never contenders and they never stood a chance in this series. Time for them to just accept they cannot skate with the avs and start to retool or rebuild because they are not it and they are not even close. They are a playoff bubble team if they play at their absolute peak, that's a bad place to be as youre not going anywhere any time soon.

Sorry, Blues. You got out skilled, out coached, and out played and everyone except you and your fans expected exactly this.

Bring on game 4. Go Avs.

 

[NOTENOUGHJTCGOALS]

The league wide conspiracy in favour of the Aves with the BS covid protocols for Perron are too much for the Blues to overcome. Its a sad day for clean skilled hockey.

 

[dahrougem2]

Man, when Ryan Graves doesn't do dumb **** on the ice I actually really like him. Big, physical, skates, can actually make a pass, bomb of a shot.

I know he'll never change because if he got rid of the dumb parts of his game he'd be a top pairing defensemen making 6-7M/season.

That said, I can't even complain anymore when I think back to how much of a win the Graves/Bigras trade was.

 

[Islay1989]

Don’t always love Graves, but love this.

Berube will probably whine the Avs are getting all the game pucks.

What kind of a clown do you have to be to try to keep a puck?

 

[Peter Peckerwood]

What kind of a clown do you have to be to try to keep a puck?

It starts from the top down. What do you expect from a Berube coached team? He was a tool when playing and is teaching the Blues how to play like him. He had no skills...just physicality. He has his players mostly play like he did. They have some skilled guys, but Perron is like Burakovsky, IMO...probably a notch above. ROR is a good upper echelon center. Schwartz is possibly in decline, Tarasenko just can't keep healthy/recover.
They're in an odd place. Their left wing is dicey. It will be interesting to see what they do in the off-season.

 

[the_fan]

Don't they usually get the puck right after a goal is scored? Someone should have picked it up after Newhook scored

 

[dahrougem2]

What kind of a clown do you have to be to try to keep a puck?

Ask Rasmus Andersson

 

[Gigantor The Goalie]

Don't they usually get the puck right after a goal is scored? Someone should have picked it up after Newhook scored

Theory is the puck isn't for Newhook but just the winning puck and they're looking to collect all 16

 

[NOTENOUGHJTCGOALS]

Man, when Ryan Graves doesn't do dumb **** on the ice I actually really like him. Big, physical, skates, can actually make a pass, bomb of a shot.

I know he'll never change because if he got rid of the dumb parts of his game he'd be a top pairing defensemen making 6-7M/season.

That said, I can't even complain anymore when I think back to how much of a win the Graves/Bigras trade was.

I also enjoyed Nemeth today. Some very nice physical plays to cut off the Blues forechecker with his body then sweep the puck away.

Graves and Nemeth are like your party members in a video game where you don't care if they take damage and die every mission. Part of their job is to make sure the important teammmates don't take damage.

 

[the_fan]

Theory is the puck isn't for Newhook but just the winning puck and they're looking to collect all 16

Hopefully they don't come up short, because I don't think they would want to keep 14 of them or 15

 

[Avs9296]

Nemeth was actually good on the PK last night. So props to him for that. 5 on 5 he needs to stay limited, but that's ok.

Makar needs to work on taking the puck off the boards in his own zone. He usually tries to go with his feet and it bounces off wildly sometimes as it did with the lone St. Louis goal. It's not the first time that he struggles in that one aspect. Small things but it's definitely something that he'll work on and get better at I think.

Jost is legitimately turning into one of my favourites now. I never thought I'd say that. But he has an extra gear that he didn't have before, and he's a lot stronger than he was in years prior too. Add in confidence now that he never had and you have a really good 2 way 3C for a long long time.

-If Nuke has even decent NHL hands he'd be the best player in the league bar none. Dude does so many things well without the puck and is so fast and so strong but his hands are laughable sometimes. Still love him though. He's our Shjon Podein.

The fact that we won 5-1 with our top line AWOL is a good sign for the future and speaks to the depth.

I thought Soda looked like ass in the first 2 periods but looked better and was using his big frame in the 3rd. Belly and Newhook were pretty good. Newhooks positioning is very good. Smart player.

Toews was good. G and Makar not so much last night but not worried about them going forward.

 

[John Mandalorian]

Seriously, why is that knob who coaches them complaining about not getting every call when he has a better excuse rooted in reality - injuries? It looks pathetic.

Yeah, it's part of gamesmanship but he's been doing this from the beginning. If it was going to work, it would have happened already. So sad.

Why not just say he's proud of his guys for competing hard with so many of their teammates missing due to injury?

 

[avs1dacup]

Don’t always love Graves, but love this.

Berube will probably whine the Avs are getting all the game pucks.

Stay classy, St. Louis.

 

[PowerMac]

This was supposed to be the tough one. If ever the Blues were going to mount some sort of series saving effort, this was to be it. But as predicted they chose to go overtly physical instead of concentrating on puck possession and scoring. You can't win games by having the most hits, you still need to score goals. But they neglected that, wore themselves out and the Avs just did their thing, were patient, capitalized on their chances and cruised to a relatively easy victory.

I mean they were a lot more competitive this game, they had more puck possession and scoring chances though I thought the avs had more high scoring chances despite the shot totals but the ice wasn't nearly as tilted as the previous games. Grubaur should get a ton of credit for making the game a lot easier than it would've been.

Can anyone honestly say Girard's performance has been good in these playoffs or even in the games before he got hurt. There is a world of difference between him and Makar and it boggles my mind that people were trying to equate the two's importance to this team. He gave up several Neutral Zone turnovers and had one that led to a high quality scoring chance. He keeps not being able to keep the puck in the offensive zone. I don't know why they use him as some kind of offensive dynamo defensemen when he really doesn't have that much offensive skill, whenever he shoots the puck it's just an easy grab for the goalie that allows the other to team to get relief from all the av's pressure. He was able to pick up an assist though when the blues player fell down by himself and get the puck to Landeskog.





Gotta give credit to Graves, the goal was just by chance by he capitalized on it. When he gets it on the net at least his shot is good enough to get a rebound and not be an easy grab for the goalie, so he should to get it on net more instead of trying to snipe corners. Didn't notice him on defense too much which is a good thing. Nemeth also had a very strong game and actually brings some much needed physical play to give the blues a little push back. Still would like to see Timmins out there more though, I think he is probably our 2nd best defensemen at running offense from the blue line. Makar is obviously more dynamic but Timmins has really good iq to make the right plays to run the offense from there. He was able to take some hits without problems which is good.

I don't know why the love affair with Compher, he played 2 and a half more minutes than Jost and didn't really do anything other than the ENG maybe that's why Bednar has him out there in for his pool skills. The 2nd line didn't really get any offense going all night as expected, Burakovsky was able to pick up a point finally when he was playing with Saad. Jost's line should have got a lot more play, really neat chip shot from on the goal to flip it over Binnington. Most guys would have probably just shot it straight into him. Saad really solid again, I don't know why people said he lacked defense.

Newhook has been gaining more and more confidence. Why is Bednar so reluctant to give his young players a bigger role, it really is a waste to have him play on the 4th line. Unless you're somebody the organization made a big investment in like a top 5 pick or a prized prospect you got in a trade. You're basically relegated to marginal roles. I remember even during the 48 point season, Bednar refused to give his younger players much opportunity so they can at least get some development out of that season and kept playing his soon to be out of the league vets. He even said something like he'd like to get the young players in there more but couldn't take their side over the vets.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

Girard has looked rough. Was in obvious pain on the bench too.

Makar has been rock solid defensively. They haven’t even needed him to be dynamic offensively yet.

 

[littletonhockeycoach]

It starts from the top down. What do you expect from a Berube coached team? He was a tool when playing and is teaching the Blues how to play like him. He had no skills...just physicality. He has his players mostly play like he did. They have some skilled guys, but Perron is like Burakovsky, IMO...probably a notch above. ROR is a good upper echelon center. Schwartz is possibly in decline, Tarasenko just can't keep healthy/recover.
They're in an odd place. Their left wing is dicey. It will be interesting to see what they do in the off-season.

That goalie interference challenge was moronic. I believe Steve Ott was behind it and actually behind most of the Blues tactics and strategy. Berube just goes along with what Ott proposes.

I don't believe Berube can even spell strategy. He's a poor man's Ted Nolan.

 

[Richard88]

Blues brought their best game and still couldn't muster much of a fight.

Not the best Avs performance, but I thought the following things were great:

- Grubauer
- Active sticks in the slot
- Blocking shots
- The PK

I also liked how the Avs just kept motoring along in the game even when St. Louis were throwing hits. It would be easy to shy away from playing the Avs style when they're getting beat up, but I thought the Avs did reasonably well in continuing to push forward rather than turtling. That said the performance wasn't all that great and improvement will be needed to close out the series and then beat Vegas.