Avalanche Hold On Despite Horrible Third Period

The Avalanche and the St. Louis Blues met for the third time this season when they faced off in Denver this afternoon.

Their last meeting in December ended in an overtime victory for Colorado with last-minute goals by the defensive core. This game would turn out to be a little different, as the Avalanche dominated most of the game.

Let us take a look at what the Avalanche did right throughout the game.

First Period 

Colorado came out in the first with a lot of speed. In fact, they looked more energized than they did throughout the game against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday. What were the Avalanche doing right? They were pushing the puck through the neutral zone hard and doing it up the wall. In some games, the Avalanche have had issues going right through the middle. Both goals were off of rebounds as Alex Newhook and J.T. Compher followed up the shot on goal and found success.

Second Period 

The Avalanche became a dominant force in the second period. Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon hooked up on a stretch pass to get Evan Rodrigues his 11th of the year. Colorado was able to make their zone entries and then keep the puck in the zone with sustained pressure. They had so much pressure in the zone that they were getting into goaltender Jordan Binnington’s head. He came out to fight a couple of the Avalanche players in the corner after a little scrum in front of the net. The Blues ended up scoring on the resulting power play from the scrum. 

Third Period

Not much went right for the Avalanche in the third period. They struggled on their zone entries and even to get a shot off on the net. It took almost nine minutes into the period for Colorado to get their first shot as St. Louis turned on their forecheck and wouldn’t let anyone into their zone at all. Even a bad Ben Meyers turnover led to Ivan Barbashev’s goal. The only thing that the Avalanche did right in the period was that they held the lead and Matt Nieto got his first goal since coming back to the team.

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Conclusion 

The Avalanche will head into their All-Star and bye-week break with a win. They are now 5-1-0 in their last six games after, let’s just say, a bad start to the new year.

One thing has become obvious in the last few games though, the Avalanche are struggling to play 60 minutes of hockey. The last three games have shown that Colorado has issues playing in all three periods of a game as they can not get the puck into the zone in each game. One thing is for sure, the Avalanche are in a playoff position right now (by the skin of their teeth) and for their sake hopefully, that does not change,

Quotes From Players

Evan Rodrigues on the Avs’ depth: “It’s been huge for us. That’s how you have success in the league. Look at any team who is at the top of the league, they have three, four lines that score. Our D are contributing and I think we are just kind of firing on all cylinders right now.”

Cale Makar on today’s mindset: “We wanted to set the tone, make sure we go into the break with the right mindset. You definitely don’t want to go in losing two in a row. I felt like our team was very ready [today]. Guys were rolling. I felt like the Cogs (Colorado C Andrew Cogliano), Newy (Colorado C Alex Newhook) and OC (Colorado RW Logan O’Connor) line has been playing well the last few games for us.”

Jordan Binnington on joining the scrum: “I just felt like the game could use some energy. I just try to do everything I can to win. It’s been a tough stretch. Just trying to find away like we’ve said over and over again. The positive is we had a good last 25, 30 minutes I would say. We really had character and played hard. We were playing together and backing each other up. That’s positive and hopefully, we can bring that moving forward.”

On the boos from the fans: “I love it. It’s a fun atmosphere. That was loud, 18,000 people hating on you, I don’t mind that.”

All quotes provided by Avalanche PR