Uh boy...
Missed the first two periods, sat down for the third just in time to watch them blow yet another lead and turn in yet another weak OT effort.
So, here's the deal.
1. This team is not built to survive mediocre-to-bad goaltending. Few teams are. But the Avs have some giant, gaping holes on defense that have been mitigated for the most part due to Cale Makar's stellar play, a much better defensive effort and makeup up front, really outstanding goaltending, and scoring coming in bunches from everywhere in light of injuries. Virtually all of that good fortune has dried up and has left the big deficits on this team exposed. I guess you ride out the goaltending--nothing more you can do--but I still think they either need to address the deficits on defense and perhaps up front as well, or just ride it out entirely and hope to hell they get hot again. But then they will have to live with the possibility of no playoffs.
2. Erik Johnson is clearly not a top-four guy. I'm beginning to wonder if he's even a bottom pairing guy. In addition to being outskated on a regular basis, he's being outmuscled. I get that there aren't any pristine options at present but they have to do something different.
3. Ryan Graves was okay as the top pairing LD for a while but now that Makar has come back to earth his flaws are very much exposed. His outlet passes are horrific--he was pinging them off skates a bunch in the third (don't know if that was happening in the other two periods) he's not suitable for that role any longer. Not sure what you do there either.
4. Special teams are not anywhere close to acceptable. I am not at all on-board with a head coaching change, but I'm said before and I'll say again that I've been dicey of Nolan Pratt. But that still feels like a knee-jerk reaction to a bigger issue--again, the defense just isn't good enough. Two top-pairing guys and four bottom-pairing guys is simply not adequate for a team calling itself a contender. Unless they're not a contender and just another bubble team. I dunno...I don't exactly know what the answer is there.
In conclusion, if this team is content with Erik Johnson and Ryan Graves as top-four defenders and Andre Burakovsky as their third-best winger, then we'll just have to all close our eyes, click our heels, cross our fingers, and hope to hell they just find another hot streak to go on. Nothing they can do about the goaltending--they're just gonna have to figure it out on their own. I'm not gonna sit here and say they need to do whatever's necessary to bolster the lineup, but I feel like SOMETHING has to be done. If they sit and wait and let this be just another transition year I think that'd be a terrible waste.