GDT: Avalanche vs Stars, Round 2, Game 6, 5/17/24 @8:00PM MNT: I don't wanna golf yet!

[littletonhockeycoach]

For all the peeps blaming Girard for being the reason for the OT goal last night, remember that EJ was the reason why we lost to Wild back in 2014 due to Niederreiter's GWG. Yet, he nearly got zero blame because everyone "loves him."


Without Nuke, we could've beat Dallas and I still believe that, but there was no chance we were going to beat the Panthers or the Rags out of the East or even make it out of the WCF.

As I recall, MacKinnon ended up flat on his back on the ice after being unable to get a stick or pad on the puck coming across to a waiting Duchene.

MacK was maybe 50% effective defensively last night and in some games the number would be trending to zero.......

He needs to take a queue from Joe Sakic and learn to play defense. (Joe was quoted way back that it was something he didn't like doing and it was really hard work.)

 

[BaconNater]

Duchene really getting his revenge on the Avs.. by getting bought out by a mediocre team who didn't want him so he could ride passenger on an already stacked team

 

[Ceremony]

Because NHL TV is stupid I knew we lost this before I watched it because there wasn't a game listed for Sunday. I'm glad. If I'd watched this game not knowing we were going to lose I would be in a very bad place.

At least... nah. Might take a while.

 

[Vaslof]

True. But more that if Parise's stick blade didn't get caught momentarily in Oettingers (?) pad in the OT, he would have had the game winner. It was that close.

Still would be one game left after that win, but yeah we were close enough that nobody should be saying we had no chance. Though we did not get eliminated by bad luck, but by bad play.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

At the end of the day, I don't know even know if sober Nuke makes that large of a difference in the series. Dallas had a plan designed to suppress the Avs and they executed their plan better than the Avs executed theirs.

Even as a fan, it's still too early for me to say exactly what should be done. But I have been thinking a lot since last night about how long a road we've traveled with the core and coach.

They were brought together by Roy's abrupt departure, put on a brave face, went out and got absolutely bitch-slapped in every barn in the league included their own for an entire season. Then the playoffs. Then the second round series curse. Then the cup. Then our true curse.

Spoiler: The True Source of the Curse

The dent. It's the damn dent I tell you!!!!!

And everything has gone wrong since.

 

[the_fan]

At the end of the day, I don't know even know if sober Nuke makes that large of a difference in the series. Dallas had a plan designed to suppress the Avs and they executed their plan better than the Avs executed theirs.

Even as a fan, it's still too early for me to say exactly what should be done. But I have been thinking a lot since last night about how long a road we've traveled with the core and coach.

They were brought together by Roy's abrupt departure, put on a brave face, went out and got absolutely bitch-slapped in every barn in the league included their own for an entire season. Then the playoffs. Then the second round series curse. Then the cup. Then our true curse.

Spoiler: The True Source of the Curse

The dent. It's the damn dent I tell you!!!!!

View attachment 873012

And everything has gone wrong since.

Nuke alone may have not made a difference and we still lose to Dallas, but if we had Nuke, Landy, Trenin, LOC I think we win the cup.

Teams simply don’t win cups with that many key players out. You need almost a full lineup to go all the way. Even if you’re a deep team, you can’t win it all if you have more than one key player out.

Stars didn’t have Hintz, and if they lose Johnston too, no way they can win the cup. They might get by with only Hintz being out, but one more key player and they’ll be done

 

[dahrougem2]

At the end of the day, I don't know even know if sober Nuke makes that large of a difference in the series. Dallas had a plan designed to suppress the Avs and they executed their plan better than the Avs executed theirs.

Even as a fan, it's still too early for me to say exactly what should be done. But I have been thinking a lot since last night about how long a road we've traveled with the core and coach.

They were brought together by Roy's abrupt departure, put on a brave face, went out and got absolutely bitch-slapped in every barn in the league included their own for an entire season. Then the playoffs. Then the second round series curse. Then the cup. Then our true curse.

Spoiler: The True Source of the Curse

The dent. It's the damn dent I tell you!!!!!

View attachment 873012

And everything has gone wrong since.

There will always be what-ifs but a top six of

Nichushkin - MacKinnon - Drouin
Lehkonen - Mittelstadt - Rantanen

Is a hell of a lot harder to contain than one with Parise and no Nichushkin.

The Avs put 4, 3 in one period, and 5 up on Oettinger and the Stars in half the games this series while never once having their full top-six lineup.

End of the day, you gotta play with who you have but he absolutely would have made a difference. Dude wasn't leading the playoffs in goals based on luck.

 

[The Kingslayer]

This season sucked. Only positive from this is Mackinnon possibly getting the Hart. Heh. Mackinnon in elimination games. Brutal. A blemish on an otherwise solid career so far for him.

DeBoer is a very good coach and he is a major reason the Avs lost. Not the only, but a big part of it. Sometimes you have to tip your cap.

3-0. Pete owns Jared.

 

[the_fan]

Bednar won the cup, DeBoer hasn’t, and it still remains to be seen if he’ll win one.

 

[Muffin]

We needed to find a way to take game 2 or 3 to OT and probably take at least one of them and this is a completely different series.

We had a PP to tie game 2 late in the game and couldn't do it. Needed to score 1 goal in the third in game 3 and couldn't do it.

 

[AllAboutAvs]

PDB is a good coach but I don't think he has this THING over Bednar. Like in everything else 3 is a very small sample size.

 

[Balthazar]

PDB is a good coach but I don't think he has this THING over Bednar. Like in everything else 3 is a very small sample size.

It's not 3 games though, it's 3 series. It's a big sample.

Bednar won the cup, DeBoer hasn’t, and it still remains to be seen if he’ll win one.

It's possible that Bednar is a better coach than DeBoer in a vacuum but DeBoer has the upper hand when they face each other.

One thing that is crystal clear is the Avs can't play their style when they face him.

 

[the_fan]

It's not 3 games though, it's 3 series. It's a big sample.

It's possible that Bednar is a better coach than DeBoer in a vacuum but DeBoer has the upper hand when they face each other.

One thing that is crystal clear is the Avs can't play their style when they face him.

Dallas was healthier than us. It wasn’t the coaching. We were missing too many key players to get passed them. As I mentioned in my other post, you need a healthy roster this time of year to go far and we didn’t simple as that. Just look at the players we were missing and don’t tell me we couldn’t beat Dallas if we had them

 

[AllAboutAvs]

It's not 3 games though, it's 3 series. It's a big sample.

Two of those times were game 7s and the other is game 6 so it is really only 3 games difference. He didn't beat Bednar 4-0 each times.

 

[Heyduke]

PDB is a good coach but I don't think he has this THING over Bednar. Like in everything else 3 is a very small sample size.

19 games is not a small sample size.

 

[the_fan]

Dallas has 4 lines the coach can trust to put out there because they’re defensively responsible lines, all 4 of them. Avs on the other hand didn’t have that because we had guys like LOC, Trenin, Nuke and if you want to count Landy out. All those guys not only would help offensively, but they’re all good defensively as well. That’s the only reason we lost the series because we didn’t have those guys. It’s not rocket science.

 

[AllAboutAvs]

19 games is not a small sample size.

See my last post just above yours.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

I just saw a clip on youtube from after the handshake line.

The look in Cogs eyes as they were waiting to skate out and give the crowd their final salute. I can't believe how hard it hit me. I have no idea if he's done or not, but he sure left it on the ice and I could not be happier that he has been a part of the Avs and such a large part of helping the Avs calm down and concentrate on the task at hand in '22.

 

[GeoRox89]

I just saw a clip on youtube from after the handshake line.

The look in Cogs eyes as they were waiting to skate out and give the crowd their final salute. I can't believe how hard it hit me. I have no idea if he's done or not, but he sure left it on the ice and I could not be happier that he has been a part of the Avs and such a large part of helping the Avs calm down and concentrate on the task at hand in '22.

One of my favourite memories from the 22 run was him lifting it right in front of the guys and the whole team cheering like crazy and more than they did for any other player

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

It’s not like Dallas bottom 6 did a lot of scoring. Duchene scored that OT winner but that was his 1st goal and like 2nd point of the series. The difference between their bottom 6 and ours is that they have more defensively responsible players and you can put them out there in any situation against anyone, which makes a difference even if the point production isn’t there.

There’s a pretty big difference. Seguin and Duchene were third liners for them when they were healthy, then you have a guy like Dadonov and even Marchment.

 

[Golden Foppa]

If he gets reinstated and they are stuck with either letting him play or buying him out, let him play and if he regains his goal/game form trade him to a team that wants to sell its soul and let him wreck their playoff run and recover some assets in the process.

Not ideal, but in the end the contract is gone, he is gone, and the guys in the room just have to tolerate him for a couple months or so.

I personally don't think he'll make it this far without hitting stage 4, but if forced to either play him or buy him out they could sell high if he starts playing well again.

Buy out isn't an option. Can't take a 3M cap hit for 6 years.

6 months of cooling off might be enough time to pull this off without destroying the locker room.

 

[the_fan]

There’s a pretty big difference. Seguin and Duchene were third liners for them when they were healthy, then you have a guy like Dadonov and even Marchment.

Yeah, the difference is Dallas rolled 4 lines because they’re all defensively trusted lines even if they don’t score in bunch. Avs on the other hand had to heavily rely on top 2 lines because Bednar couldn’t really trust the 3rd 4th lines defensively.

That’s why we saw Avs being out of gas late in the game going into OT while Stars kept rolling 4 lines and were fresher and that’s why we lost. Imagine if we also had 4 lines Bednar could roll the whole game and kept top guys like Nate fresher, specially late in games.

Edit: and I know I’m saying the same thing as I said in the other post. Here I am just repeating myself

Hopefully we get Landy back next year, LOC will be back, figure out Val’s situation and maybe have a healthier team going into playoffs with better bottom 6.

Our 4th line was Duhaime-Wagner- Cogs

That’s just not good enough specially when we also don’t have a defensive 3rd line and guys like Colton and Wood didn’t provide enough offense. So basically our 3rd and 4th lines were non existent other than Wood OT winner in game one

 

[Freaky Styley]

I really wish Kovalenko was dressed in Wagner's place last night. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference but at least Kovalenko can give you a bit of a mystery box when you know exactly what you're getting with Chris Wagner.

I hope this result 2 seasons in a row to deeper teams finally quiets the Rantanen apologists and the high end skill vs. depth debate.. Rants probably had his best game of the year last night but that's way too little too last

 

[Nzap]

Because NHL TV is stupid I knew we lost this before I watched it because there wasn't a game listed for Sunday. I'm glad. If I'd watched this game not knowing we were going to lose I would be in a very bad place.

At least... nah. Might take a while.

Yeah that was idiotic, but at least I realised it already in round 1.

But so stupid, I mean they even have "next game" in the column to the right you could not default remove??
It was like the entire website was done by someone who has zero idea what a customer actually wants and needs for a streaming service like this.

I was there blocking the screen with my hands to avoid spoilers.
And I managed perfectly aside from "maybe" slightly seeing there was a game 6. Still was not 100% sure so could enjoy our comeback in game 5.