3.
Truly a tale of two games and two outcomes, two endings, two types of performances for the
avalanche.
This past week, these two home games here, a 6 to 3 victory over the New Jersey Devils
followed by a 4 to 3 loss to the Seattle Kraken.
I think it's really interesting to see the kind of the wave of play the avalanche are going
through right now.
They obviously, they go by 10 game segments.
Their first 10 game segment, they were 7 and 3, their second 10 game segment.
They're currently one and one going into another home game against the St. Louis Blues
on Saturday tomorrow, probably when you guys are all listening to this.
I am recording this Friday night, but the way that I look at it is the first six game
segment, 6 and 0.
The last six games, 2 and 4, and it's just trying to figure out exactly what's going
on there.
Of course, this is Air of Dean, Malheye Sports, you're listening to Hockey Mountain, hi,
you're go to avalanche podcast.
Similar to last Friday and kind of a weekly cadence now, I'm going to be plugging in an interview
I did with Sean Drotarn, Sandy Cleff, over at Malheye Sports Radio earlier this afternoon.
So, going over a lot of things, talking about that Seattle game, you're going to hear me
touch on several points about how the avalanche, despite the loss seem to be kind of slowly figuring
things out.
You know, this reminds me of the 2022 season when they started 2 and 4, but in those first
couple of weeks or in those first couple of months, they were figuring things out.
Nasem Kadri got his game back after a tough 2021 season, things like that.
So, some of the highlights you'll hear me talk about is Val and the Chushkin, starting
to chip in more offensively, the defense, still trying to figure out those combinations.
Jared Bedner being dead set on the Joe Hanson, the Chushkin pairing, which you'll kind of
hear my thoughts on that, some pretty interesting conversation there.
I don't want to just kind of reiterate all the points I make there because then you'll
be listening to it twice.
I do want to touch on a couple of things, number one, the New Jersey game was a lot of fun,
but I want to touch on two things specifically that I want to give my thoughts on.
The first is, I wrote about this, but after the game against the New Jersey Devils, I was
talking Miles Wood and obviously a lot of the media was talking Miles Wood, given the
performance he had.
After he finished his media presser, all the media started walking out and heading toward
the dressing room to talk to Jared Bedner.
Before I did that, I kind of stopped dead in my spot and took out my phone and I wanted
to tweet something that Miles Wood said.
And by the time I finished tweeting, I'm about, you know, two minutes behind all the other
reporters walking to Jared.
So I was the last one in the room and as the media was pouring out, Chris McFarland was
kind of waiting on the outskirts of the big pile of media and cameras and Katie Goths
and altitude cameras and all that and or not altitude, sorry, the local news stations.
It was a national television game.
But as soon as they started to pour away, McFarland who was waiting on the outskirts kind
of came in and gave and gave Miles Wood a fist bump and congratulated him and said, good
job on the game and they just kind of started to have a conversation about how like, that's
the performance I want to see and then, you know, after that, I didn't really hear much.
But I think that was really cool.
Like I genuinely, genuinely love that.
The only other time I've seen that is when Georgiev was in the middle of his hot run last
year in February or whatever it was, March, Chris McFarland came in and went out of his
way to shake Georgiev's hand before heading to his office or to where, you know, the coach's
room is.
And I just love the respect he has for his players.
And it was almost as if McFarland was chatting with this guy and it was like this feeling
of like, this is why we gave you six years.
This is why I've been scouting you for a few years and this is why I wanted you so badly
and did everything I can to bring you here on July 1st.
That was awesome.
The second thing that stuck out to me this past week is the Ryan Johansson, Josh Manson,
a story that, you know, we've all kind of no one love now about Johansson going out
of his way, talking to other leaders on the team like Jack Johnson and other guys and
basically saying we want to create this shirts for Lana, the mom strip for Lana shirts
that were handed out during the mom strip in that home game against the Blues followed
by the road game against the Vegas Golden Knights.
So, you know, we got to talk to Josh and he said that it was Johansson's idea he came
and found him and kind of told him this is what he wants to do and he obviously before
doing it wanted Josh Manson's blessing and Josh gave him his blessing and it went
from there.
We never had a chance to talk to Johansson when that happened the day it did at Family
Sports but the next day was Morning Skate against the Devils and I pulled Johansson aside
very quickly and asked him about it because I thought it was just such an incredible story
and Johansson said things like that kind of travel through the grapevine quick.
This is a guy that was traded to the avalanche in late June, early July time frame and I think
it was June actually was before July 1st so this is a guy that was traded to the avalanche
in June and then sometime in August, Josh Manson's mom passes away whether he had met and
talked to Josh in person at that time yet or not is anybody's guess I don't think he
did but this is a guy that's been on the other side of those of games for you know several
years now they had that crazy series in 2017 between the national predators and Anaheim
Ducks Ryan Johansson versus Andrew Cogliano and Josh Manson when I asked Josh about it in
preseason he was like oh it's a total war just an absolute war and we've already talked
about it but Johansson gets traded to this team and I could not be more blown away by just
his demeanor and his personality like I didn't know Josh Manson or sorry Ryan Johansson
at all before the trade like in terms of like in person I know a little bit about his game
from watching quite a few of his games over the years I had no idea I had nothing about his
personality and he has exceeded the expectations that I didn't even have for him is kind of the
best way to put it so when I talked to Rijo about it he kind of said that you know things travel
through the grapevine quake and over the summer I heard about it in August so again traded to the
abs in June Manson's mom passes away in August new teammate has barely even like built that
teammate rapport with him yet especially not on the ice or even training camp or anything
and he still went out of his way that when you know this this mom's trip came to be and the
dates were announced you know and the team started to learn about it he went out of his way to say
I got to be a part of this and I got to do something for Josh and talk to the other veterans
and then when I asked about getting the shirts made he actually gave me a fun tidbit which I'm
actually going to follow up with him on here in the next couple days at one of the morning's
gates or practices he said that he has his own clothing brand so he was able to get that quick
turnaround to get those shirts made so stay tuned on that because I'm genuinely interested in
learning more about Rijo Hansen having his own clothing line or clothing brand and and being
able to do what he did for Josh Manson so just an incredible story there like I said the
avalanche are two and four in their last six but you're going to hear in this interview why it's
probably not the end of the world after all they are eight and four there's you're starting to kind
of learn a little bit about what this team is definite holes on the roster you're going to hear
me talk about the D in the pairings there you're going to hear me talk about kind of the top six
and how Jared's trying to make sure he gets that fixed here soon with all the line juggling
and combination mixes that he's doing so catch that interview hope you guys have a wonderful
Friday night Saturday morning Saturday afternoon Saturday night whenever you're listening to this
and I'll be sure to catch up with you guys here soon thanks for listening enjoy the interview
this is sanny kuth and chandrotar on mile high sports
less than a minute to go here it off for larson back in a red desperate bunches well coach straight
wants to reverse direction gave it up shot safe from the customer I can't believe it all of
your strand far shot of the crease the puck goes right to him for a second of the game
and with 31.6 left the cracket of gun on top four three oh I did not see that coming at all
mean I thought as a whole I made knots the way I wanted our team to compete that's you know it was
we played hard we weren't perfect now I'm never going to be um but I thought we didn't
show those of course we're the voices of mark mojure right crossed on altitude and jared bednar
after a great game great job but dandy baley to assemble all of that uh I I do think they played
pretty well they did lose by that score four to three they weren't able to to get the equalizer
in the last half of a minute but they actually came surprising close on a couple of occasions joining
us now to talk about it is mile high sports top hockey writer our main avalanche writer his name
is araf d you could follow him on a twitter at run right araf that's a a r i f uh host of the rock
you pop me the hockey map high podcast of course so so araf thanks for joining us uh appreciate it
we'll get into the game the first thing uh to ask though uh artillery lekkenden goes hard into the
boards both saying tonight talked about it even on the broadcast kind of kind of more lousy luck
than dirty taken to the hospital uh what is the latest on lekkenden there hasn't been any
updates yet the avalanche were off today uh variety i'm losing track of my days so i'm sure
we'll hear something morning skate uh best case scenario and and i don't mean best case in the
terms of it's gonna have the same lingering issues but best case scenario in my opinion the best
case would be if it ends up something like what we saw last year with kehl mccar when he took that
Jeff Carter hit and it was questionable yeah but it ended up being that thing where it's like
he's on concussion protocol he just has to pass the concussion test seven to ten days and i'll
come back yeah because i think that's what he where look at it is yeah so that would be best case
scenario obviously i'm not talking about what ended up happening with kehl and then he got hit by
a blues player later like that's a different story but i'm i'm willing to wager it's something to
do with concussion protocol just given the way his head went into the boards uh like you said just
that completely unfortunate unlucky play i love that jared uh jared knows how to kind of balance
you know stick enough for his guys with being honest because he was very very clear with me when i
asked him about the kagliano hit that he took from Vince Dunn and how it's a check from behind and
it should have been a penalty and blah blah blah blah and then when somebody else asked him about
the lekin and hey he said olexiac did nothing wrong it was he did he didn't and good for mark
rye craft on the telecast mark rye craft on the on the telecast uh be meeting back on the same thing
on the notion that was initially expressed that it might have been uh a dirty hit it was not in any
way shape or form it was unfortunate but it's it's hockey people get hurt just like people get hurt
i think we're we're now in this kind of realm of uh any injury that looks serious
well it has to be a cheap shot that is connected to it and this in no way was a cheap shot
it just is something that happens in hockey and i mean the
uh seattle uh kid ebberley missed the game because in practice the other day
someone ran a skate blade uh over his leg and hopefully that's not very serious um
these deals with skate blades now uh you know they got to put neck guards out there i i don't
know how they get it done but it has to be done quickly in any case i am i alone with bednar
it sounds like you and shawner with me on this i actually thought the avalanche played a good game
and losing leckinan for whatever reason losing leckinan is a big blow when he's playing on the top line
with mckinan and retinan and actually all three are having very good games and by the end you know
mckinan was uh i think probably their best player last night but retinan was quite good uh
nishushkin got a little more ice time once leckinan went out and i thought he played well
and i thought you know defensively they were fine uh gold tending was not great but i think all
in all they played well and sometimes you just lose i wholeheartedly agree i mean look we know
the crack and play the avalanche tough they always have uh especially last year even in the regular
season not just the playoffs uh and it's kind of stretched until now we saw kind of uh a vintage
and vintage for all the wrong reasons type of game for the avalanche yesterday from last season
where injuries kind of decimate the depth even though it was one guy this time injuries kind
of decimate the depth and you end up with mckinan retinan and the two skin your top body forward
playing big minutes in the car and case playing big minutes and pretty much they're the only ones
that are going so it was very similar in that sense uh Seattle also scored the first goal which
they did every single game of the seven games series last year they also did it and again the
avalanche won four to one on our prober 17 so it was very vintage in that sense but i do agree they
did not play a bad game i think the biggest takeaway you can get from a game like that is i recall
back to when the avalanche beat the carolina hurricane earlier in the season to improve to five
and oh they obviously ended up going on the road beating the islanders and going six and out
but i asked Jared i said you know how do you keep doing this you you added three or four
new players actually this year with six new players to your forward group and you started five
and oh you did the same thing in 2020 they year they added cadre burky uh the two skin and don
scoy they started five and oh and he said we're winning but we're not at our best and we have
we have another gear and i'm probably just being hard on my guys i probably have a higher standard
but but he's like that's how i genuinely feel and what i saw yesterday because what we saw
early in the season was the true skin wasn't entirely there offensively he's still a great two-way
player so when he's not scoring he's still pitching in but he was missing something offensively
Nathan McKinnon he had nine points in his first ten games he wasn't dominating the games that he
did like he did against the devil and against the Seattle crack and so we're seeing him kind of
get a little bit better we're seeing the defense start to pitch an offensively after outside of
everybody's kind of had a slow start so in the same way that that Carolina win in those first five
games were victories at a time where you're expecting more out of the avalanche what i saw yesterday
was a loss from a team that is starting to take those strides to reach their maximum potential
that's what we've been seeing the last two three seasons the avalanche don't go off to ten and
oh ten and one starts like the golden nights do they take a month or two to figure it out and then
they start flying now they don't have to wait too long to get things back in order they will take
on the blues or they beat not all that long ago with the i've imposed without in net he was in that
last night but the truth of the matter is it's a it's a very good start for the abs eight before you
really don't want to look at it that this happens in a long season you can play a good game and
still lose that sports at the same time they're two and four in their last six games and that's not
the way the avalanche think of themselves nor given their talent they probably should what do you
think over these last half dozen games are missing that they haven't been able to put on display
in the first chunk of the season i think honestly the biggest thing is they're still trying to figure
out their combinations yeah uh what i what i've noticed from the team is and you know what it's an
82 when you're this good you can take the time to figure things out that's what we last year so
top they were out of a playoff at game 40 and they had no more time to test things out they had
to just roll with micken and ran it i don't expect that to be the case this year you're going to
need the time one of the things that i love that Jared is sticking with because we know he's open
to trying new combinations and i agree with his with his uh with what he's trying to do here is he is
hell or high water he's keeping the chew skin and joe handsen together as much as possible
obviously like an injury aside but he's keeping them together as much as possible because without
landestog we know there's a little bit of a hole in the top six we spoke uh all three of us when
i was on your guys' show before the season began we talked about drew end as a guy on the top line
if he doesn't do well to tar will get a shot if he doesn't do well saying to you and i said you
know what let's give bros cult in a shot they haven't gone there yet but the more the story is they
know they have a combination a duo and micken and ran in that's going to crush it no matter who
you put as their third guy which now is legging it before the injury they're trying to create
that pair on the second line if they can get 12 and 13 joe handsen in the chew skin to be that
second pair and maybe that goal yesterday will help out because we're starting to see vows to play
a little bit better and we know joe handsen is a playmaker despite having one ss he's got five goals
it's very strange if they can get 12 and 13 going and 29 and 96 going well now you feel a little
bit better about the fact that you got to plug and play legging in on one line maybe is drew end
maybe is the tar maybe you give a corner a shot maybe you give cult in wood it doesn't matter
you have two duos that you trust so they're still trying to figure that out the defense we're
still seeing a lot of jarard with manson biram with manson jarard with biram we're still seeing a
lot of jack johnson with manson jack johnson yeah we're seeing a lot of that and i i will follow up
because that's not necessarily a sore spot but i don't think it's ideal that biram and
jarard are paired off together i don't think it necessarily helps either one of them
but this is my opinion and i'd like your reaction to it i just don't think johnson or manson
is playing well enough right now to put on the second defense tab and i think they're kind of
forced to play jarard and biram together because the other two guys are
johnson's 11 12 minutes of game max manson is not playing well and he's maybe 15 i think they
just stretch him out a little bit last night 1546 that was a little heavy for him
um and and i know jarard and biram i think are together because they're third and fourth and
ice time and if you put one of them back into third tandem you can't play one of the two as much as
they want to play him that what do you think about that you you think they'd rather split them up
if all things were equal and manson and johnson were playing a little better they
they'd split those two up put biram with either manson or johnson and put jarard with the other one
yeah i i wholeheartedly agree that that's probably part of the reason i had gared about it a
couple weeks ago if it was because you know he's not seeing enough from manson on the second
parent he kind of brushed it off i think he's just kind of he switched the question more to
talking about the positives of jarard and biram i think what jarard needs to get back to because
he hasn't done this before he's done it confidently i just don't think he's doing it confidently
right now is having pairs for certain situations macarons tades play together on the pk they play
together on the on on at even strength if you were to put them together on the power played by all
means they would crush it there as well defensive zone offensive zone neutral zone three on three four
on four five on five you put macarons tades together they'll figure it out what they got to get
back to what jarard got to confidently get back to and having that confidence means you got to
have that confidence in manson and jack johnson which is what you and i are kind of high
optimizing right now that he doesn't have right is you have a defensive zone draw and it's birams
turn to go up put out biram and manson you have an offensive zone draw there's a minute ten seconds
left in the second period and you guys are pressing and it's birams turn to go up yeah put in biram
and jarard start to play it more situational it's kind of similar to yeah it's kind of similar to
the forward units i mean the second line winger yesterday was riley tufty yeah riley tufty played
at even strength obviously with with val and joe hamson for a majority of the game most level
like an injury happen yeah until i'm told a like an injury having but he wasn't that top six
but riley tufty played fourteen ten logon o'connor played fifteen eleven miles wood was a little
bit behind him so despite logon o'connor being a third liner despite uh he's getting pretty heavy
minutes for a third liner isn't he yeah yeah but it's evidently so yeah he 100 percent the guy
starts every season just on a tear and then as one of as one of my close friends said that the 52
goal scoring drought this year for logon o'connor is going to hit different after that and his
short hand is free he had but the more the story is despite riley tufty being the second liner
there were still situational shifts i can't recall any off the top of my head but obviously
logon o'connor plays more on the pk i'm sure if there was a shift in the defense of his own where
the avalanche but figured it might be better to have o'connor there digging the puck out with
in the true skin they probably went that route instead it's the same thing with the decore i think
they need to get more back to when you have those you know there was there was those that time where
it was uh it was pison berry and sam jarard when jarard first was traded here it was jarard with
i want to say it was jarard and ej and then it was berry into dooroff but then the avalanche would
have these like offensive pushes you know they're down three to two with eight minutes left in
regulation and it's they face off in the offensive zone it was screw it let's put out
mechanic right and in landestog and let's put jarard and berry back there knowing very well
jarard and berry is a terrible defensive unit on the defensive side but we need to score here so
if they can get back to trusting manson and trusting jack johnson separately to play
in those kind of situational shifts then it makes sense where you know nothing is better than when
the ads have the they have the pressure in the offensive zone and jarard and biome are cycling
the heck out of the puck with the offensive unit you're not going to get that at a jack or
Josh like that's not what they're here to do so they can get back to having that confidence
in those guys to play a more situationally i think it would be better for them it would be
better for biome for jarard and obviously for jarard he is ervedine the lead writer for the
avalanche on mile high sports dot com and the host of the hockey mountain high podcast you can
check that out over a mile high sports dot com on the app or anywhere you get your podcasts
so make sure you give them a follow on social run right araf that's araf thanks for the inside
obviously we'll take a look at this for the abs you know you start six and oh and then the next
six you go to two and four it's not as if things are bad on the whole but they're not trending
in the direction you'd like to see them we'll find out what they do Saturday before they get another
crack at the same crack in on monday night thanks erved thank you i appreciate you have me on
all right thanks so much ervedine joining us uh the avalanche put it out we'll be back at it on
Saturday night against the saint louis blues and uh you have those great starts and then things get
wobbly now for the abs there's still eight and four everything looks perfectly fine there's no panic
go right above the low started out three you know uh it's if it's not panic it might be close at
least seems that maybe there's a little acting out of panic up in bolder we'll talk about the buffs
and the never broncos with our friend from cbs news colorado just in adams next on all these sports