Very tough pill to swallow. Vegas was probably one of the only teams that was going to knock the Avalanche out, but it's disappointing the way it went down.
No big epiphanies here, but my thoughts...
- Brutal series by Burakovsky, Girard, and Landeskog. Burakovsky was on pace for 68 points in the shortened regular season, but he was so bad in this series you weren't even expecting him to do anything; it was almost like he wasn't on the team for a few games there. Landeskog had 13 points in 10 games this post-season, but this isn't rotisserie fantasy baseball: 0 goals, 2 assists, -7 in the last 5 games of the series. With Girard, the wheels started coming off early in the series and is just got worse from there; he was a -9 the last four games. Girard played like an $8M defenseman in the regular season, but didn't even live up to his $5M salary in the post-season.
- The biggest difference in the series to me was each team's second line. Smith (1+3), Karlsson (3+3), and Marchessault (5+2) owned Colorado both offensively and defensively. Saad (4+1) obviously had a great series, and was the only Avalanche player scoring at some points. But he was quickly moved up to the first line to try to get MacKinnon going, which really hurt Colorado's balance. Which brings me to...
- Bednar. Bad series. Nemeth looked like he was playing with a pool noodle rather than a hockey stick, and Bednar wouldn't take him out. The Landeskog-Compher-Nichushkin line was a bad idea. I'll admit they had a couple good chances in Game 6, but we all knew how things were going to turn out; Compher had one assist in the series, aka the same number as Alex Newhook (who was healthy scratched and playing 5-6 minutes per night) but on talent alone should've been given a crack at center. Also, the Saad-Jost-Nichushkin line was doing really good things. When the Bednar blender happened, Jost ended up with Burakovsky and O'Connor. Moving Saad to the MacKinnon line was robbing Peter to pay Paul, except Saad never really jelled with MacKinnon and Rantanen.
- The Avs lost the series in Game 3 & 4, no question. But IMO, they were clearly the better team in Games 5 & 6. But due to a combination of bad individual plays and shaky goaltending, here we are. After nearly stealing Game 3, Grubauer cost Colorado Game 6.
- Kadri. What a Jabroni. This guy was supposed to be the final piece and solve the #2 center woes. After a regular season in which he struggled, I was curious to see if he'd redeem him season with another 10+ goal post-season. Instead what Colorado got was an 8 game suspension. I just don't know how the Avs bring him back. Regardless of how this series shook out, Colorado had to go to war with the best team in the West without it's 2C due to an idiotic play.
Basically the drama in a nutshell. One little thing: We were the better team in Game 1, 5 and maybe 6. But shit the bed in game 2 (although we won), 3 and 4. And then Graves, Captain Avalanche and his fellows vom Sweden sealed our fate in game 5.
I said if before game 5: The team who takes this game, wins the series in 6.... We lost due to one of the most stupid decisions a player could make and which i have ever seen in OT and made a few mistakes in Game 6 again (although they gave it all). We lost the series in Game 3 and 5. When you can hold a lead in the 3rd just for once, you derserve to go out. And you need your best players and leaders to show up every game and your coach to adapt his gameplans.
Vegas had their leaders, they had their depth buying in, they had a coach who was able to adapt and outcoach ours and they were able to hold the lead when it mattered most. So thats why they play Montreal and we go on summer vacation. Simple as that.
It is what it is.... and it sucks. But life will go on.
