Hockey Mountain High, your go to Avalanche Podcast presented by Superbook Sports JJ Dres
here, Air of Dean following the 3-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken in game 1.
Of the playoffs here in ballerina, post game, watching the crew clean up the pom-poms.
Hopefully Leaf Blower guy doesn't show his ugly little face for those of you who remember
last year.
But, Air of Rough Night for the Avalanche, just frustrating it seemed from the player's
standpoint, couldn't really get anything going.
I guess what went wrong for Colorado tonight and what do they got to fix for Game 2 to
make sure to turn this into a real series here?
The big word for me for tonight's game is frustrations.
It seemed like the Avalanche couldn't generate much in the beginning, then that Devon Tave's
turnover happened and it led directly to the Elitovin in goal.
And then the frustration started to mount, even after the Mikorantin in goal from the
Nathan McInan set up, even after that play, the Avalanche just weren't generating the
same type of chances, especially coming out of the first intermission that you would expect
from them.
And, you know, after a tough goal on the first goal on the second one, Giorgiev did mention
and it was why it was a weird goal that his skate had gotten caught in the ice when he
was trying to get over for them shot.
And that was the second goal and then from there it was kind of all downhill.
It just seemed like they were frustrated when they were trying to generate opportunities.
Seattle did an excellent job of shutting them down and just nothing was working.
The execution wasn't there.
That was the word that both your bedner and Nathan McInan used.
And it seemed like the type of game that you can literally chalk it up to and there's more
to it.
You have to practice.
You have to come out stronger.
You can't just ignore this game and pretend that things are going to change unless you
change something, but you can also generally chalk this up to it just wasn't our night.
Yeah, I'd like to think so, right?
But you look at the last three games they played in regular season against Seattle and
then you look at tonight and in all four of those games, the Avalanche failed to score
two goals or more, right?
They have, they only scored one tonight and we saw that over and over.
So I'm starting to believe there's a trend here.
I'm starting to believe that Seattle knows how to play the Avalanche.
I mean, we talked about it with Peter Bond Sunday about just how stubborn of a team they
are and you saw it.
The Avalanche tried to get pucks deep.
Seattle was the one coming out with them.
Seattle was the one starting their breakout.
So every time the Avalanche would chip it in, they really had a hard time winning those
battles and those are the battles you need to win, especially in the playoffs to generate
your offense.
That's what the Avalanche have depended on all year long.
Is that four check in those battles in the corner?
Seattle wasn't giving them anything.
They weren't giving anything on the blue line either.
The abs would move the puck up and there was a guy right on top of them, whether it was
Kayle McCar, Nathan McKinnon.
Their defending was exceptional for the Avalanche's offense today because we knew the Avalanche
weapons that they have and Seattle didn't let them really do too much tonight.
The way that I see it, the three games in the regular season, it's a very valid stat,
but it's also hard to really let that carry on into the playoffs because in the first
game that these two guys played, it was the third game of the season.
It was back in October where there's no feel to the team yet, especially the Avalanche.
They have been traditionally a slow starting team under Jared Bedner the last couple seasons.
Then the other two matchups they had were the second leg of a back-to-back both times.
The Avalanche really didn't have their feet.
They didn't have it going.
They obviously won the one in Seattle, two to one in the shootout and then lost the one
here in Denver in overtime, in a three-on-three overtime where they lost the face-off and
didn't touch the puck.
It's hard to really take the season series and the fact that they weren't able to score
goals into consideration, but what you can take into consideration is Seattle picked
up some things along the way in those three games on how to defend the Avalanche.
What you saw today was a master class in the crack in doing everything they can and giving
their best effort and putting their best foot forward, as you like to say, to shut down
the Avalanche.
If there's something to hold onto for the Abs coming out of this game, and look, the
Road Team won six of the first eight games in the playoffs.
Boston won at home, Carolina won at home.
Ever since those two games ended, the Road Team and the underdog, as I say, has won every
single game.
But if there's something that you can pick up from this if you're the Avalanche, that
was about as good a game as Seattle can play.
That was nowhere close to as good a game as the Avalanche can play.
So if the Avalanche could ramp up their effort, which we've seen them bounce back several
times here in the final 41 games of the regular season, if they can find a way to ramp up
their effort and the Seattle crack and even play as good as they did today, it would not
be enough to stop the Abs.
Yeah, it's just a matter of the Avalanche, I guess, turning it up a notch, right?
Turning it up to 11, turning it up to playoff level hockey.
And I don't think that's what we saw from the defensive group tonight, right?
I mean, a lot of Manson errors, you saw the Devontaves turn over.
Tough night for Josh Manson.
It felt like the defensive group, aside from Bow and Briarum, who I thought was phenomenal,
and Kayle McCar early, it seemed like there was more to be desired there from the defensive
guys tonight.
Yeah, absolutely.
Kayle McCar was incredible.
Bow and Briarum, you saw him kind of ramp it up into playoff level.
Devontaze is such an interesting cat.
This is a guy that in his entire first season with the Avalanche was exceptional from game
one to the very last game in the playoffs when they lost to the Vegas Golden Knights.
Last year, regular season, exceptional the entire way, playoffs, exceptional the entire
way, but during the playoffs, he would make these bone-headed mistakes.
And we talked about them many times sitting here in this radio booth after the games last
season.
He would make these weird bone-headed mistakes in the playoffs that were unlike him.
They were very unlike him in the sense where usually he was a safe player, but there were
these mistakes that were way out of his realm of what he does, and we saw that again tonight
on that first goal.
So I'm not sure what it is about the playoff hockey where Devontaves is both the incredible
player he is and can have those kinds of plays.
And we saw it today and it led to the first goal and it just seemed like the Avalanche
couldn't get much going after that.
Yeah, and just like the Kraken were able to frustrate the Avalanche on the Kraken's defensive
side of the puck, they were also able to make some noise on the offensive side, right?
Credit to some of the goals that they were able to score.
I guess they were turnovers, but the pressure was there, the aggressive forecheck from Seattle
was there, and the young guys came to play.
I mean, it was kind of, I guess, from a league standpoint who wants to see this Seattle franchise
succeed, it was good to see the guys show up for them that showed up.
It's funny how they make it work.
I mean, Morgan Giki scored a goal.
Alex Weinberg scored a goal, and Ellie Tolvenon scored a goal.
Weinberg is kind of a little bit more of a veteran that's been around a little bit.
Tolvenon and Giki, these are two young guys that don't have a lot of experience, especially
Tolvenon as a waiver wire pickup.
Just big goals for a couple of young guys there, and then obviously Alexi acts a veteran, Schwartz
is a veteran, and Schultz is a veteran.
Those are guys that had the assist for them.
It's really interesting and fascinating how Seattle has bounced back this year and how
they found a way to kind of be as good as they were after being a 60-something point
team last year.
And Buddy's, who's a Red Wings fan, joked and texted me halfway through the game saying,
how do these expansion teams keep getting so good?
Can the Red Wings take a year off and come back as an expansion team and will that make
them a good team?
Because that's ultimately what you're seeing.
So it's hard to be surprised at this point after what Vegas did in their first year and
what they've been since they became an expansion team in 2017-18.
And the crack in what they've done all season this year, there is nothing about this series
that says the Avalanche are playing a measly expansion team.
They are playing a very well-rounded, good hockey team where the Avalanche are on paper
and in the standings, a better team than the crack in.
They just need to show it.
I guess I'm looking at the stat sheet here and I see one player from the Seattle Kraken
that did not register a shot on goal.
I see one, two, three, four, five, six from the Avalanche that didn't record a shot on
goal and a lot of those names are in the depth.
I'll read them off to you.
That's crazy.
That's a good stat.
Alex Newhook, no shots on goal.
Logan O'Connor, no shots on goal.
Josh Manson, Sam Gerard, no shots on goal.
Ben Myers, no shots on goal.
Matt Nieto, no shots on goal.
So obviously a little bit more you'd like to see in contributions from the depth of
the forward lineup too.
Yeah, I think this is such a silly sentence to say with all the start power they have.
But there are no passengers in the playoff.
You have to have six incredible defencemen and 12 incredible forwards to win a Stanley
Cup and then the guy between the pipes.
They badly missed Andrew Kogliano and Darren Helm.
If you remember last year against Nashville in that first game, Andrew Kogliano kind of
had like a holy shit.
This guy's good moment.
And then I think he got injured in that series and missed a couple games against Nashville
too where we were like, wow, like we can't wait to have him back in the second round.
So he was badly missed.
It seemed like Ben Myers just looked completely out of place.
Obviously he only got six shifts, four minutes and 49 seconds.
That Nieto wasn't really a factor much.
He wasn't really generating and you know, those are two guys that didn't have a shot
on goal.
So if, and it's a big if because injuries have been an if the entire year with this team.
If Kogliano and Helm could step into the lineup in game two and give you a bottom six that
has Kogliano, Hellman, O'Connor, and Eller, and New Hook, and Malgin, well you can now
fiddle with the lines any way you want.
You can give Kogliano and Helm, sorry Kogliano and O'Connor to Eller.
You can give Kogliano and O'Connor back to Helm like last year, Malgin and New Hook and
Shift to wherever you kind of see fit.
You can play New Hook at center, you can play Kogliano at center or you can keep it Eller
and Helm.
So I think just adding those two guys and taking out let's say Nieto and Myers will really
bolster the Avalanche's bottom six and give them an opportunity to kind of compete with
this team that you're seeing on the Seattle crack inside.
That's an incredible stat.
And they only had 30 shots but 17 of 18 skaters had at least one.
That's pretty crazy.
A lot of guys had one shot and then Ryan D'Nato had three, Ellie Tolvenin had four, Wenberg
had three and Dunne and Gord had three, everybody else was two and then one up and down the
lineup.
That's a pretty crazy number.
I'm really like surprised to see that.
Indeed indeed.
There you go putting the if in airf again.
Let's talk about Arturi Lekenin, right?
You talked about the energy that Kogliano brings, Arturi Lekenin freaking brought it tonight.
If the rest of the team can match the level of play that we saw from Lekenin, I mean everybody's
going to be okay but hard on the forecheck, hard on the body, throwing some big hits around.
Yeah.
I really enjoyed watching Arturi Lekenin tonight.
He was one of the shining I guess pieces in a otherwise disappointing night.
Yeah.
He was great to see him kind of throwing his body around and he's just such a relentless
no quit type of player and this is why the Avalanche acquired him.
This is why they gave him a four year contract and this is why he scored four game winning
goals last year and the two biggest ones, the series, Klinchers in the third and fourth
round.
Well, two of the three biggest ones if you include the cadre one but the thing with Lekenin
is that line with him in Conference Nichushkin couldn't generate much today and they were
on the ice for two even strength goals.
So they all finished a minus two and judging by the comments that Jared Bedner had post
game about potentially splitting up, Renton and McKinnon, I could see that being a possibility
and given the way that Lekenin played, hey, maybe you throw Lekenin up there with McKinnon
Rodriguez and let Renton and Nichushkin play with Comfer, you know, Comfer and Renton
and gained a lot of chemistry this season.
When McKinnon was out, Comfer was the one centering and setting up Rentonin.
So I think Lekenin has earned an opportunity to kind of jump up and play with McKinnon a
little bit, spread the wealth on those two lines and really let him shine with Nathan
a little bit.
Yeah, because even when, you know, the game was on the line and the abs had to shorten
the bench a little bit and start riding those two lines, it didn't feel like that second
line of Nichushkin, Comfer and Lekenin was really generating.
There was not much.
Evan Rodriguez was pretty good.
I will give him that.
He had six shots on goal.
He was generating a lot.
He was finding, finding out ways to get the puck on goal, especially there was, I think it
was the second or third period.
I think it was the third period.
He literally, like right off the face off, put a shot on goal three seconds in at 1957
or 1956 to whistle blue.
The avalanche had a face off in the offensive zone, which they won and were able to generate
another opportunity just because of Rodriguez's hustle.
So he was great.
Seeing Miko and Nate kind of do their things, some points of the game, I don't want to say
they were perfect.
But it really gives you the ability to say, let's take Nichushkinin and Lekenin, let's
throw one of them up there with Nate.
Let's bring Rentonin down.
Spread the wealth and let's get both these lines jelling and going.
Yeah.
A couple posts hit too that really stuck right by everyone.
He was right there.
Yeah.
And then Miko Renton late in the game too, could have really generated some momentum,
which the avalanche were able to carry throughout the night.
A little bit of momentum here and there and just unable to get one pass Phillip Grubauer.
We'll get into the goalies in a second.
Yeah.
The best portion of the game that I saw the avalanche play was following the Nathan Miko
Renton and Gull with right around seven and a half minutes left in the first period until
that final buzzer of the first intermission.
Well, the buzzer of the first intermission, not the final buzzer.
Those seven and a half minutes, eight minutes of action seemed like the best the avalanche
were the entire night.
But then they came out flat in the second period and the game went completely downhill
from there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I felt like they had a little bit of it towards the end of the second, but I don't
feel like it really carried over into the third, which was unfortunate because you felt
the goal coming from the avalanche and then that dreadful buzzer to end the second period
hit.
So yeah, I hope not too many of you guys are down bad in your betting accounts, especially
if you have it in Superbook.
I hope you're trying to beat the book this year and win that money in 2023 like we've
been talking about.
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Let's get into the goaltending conversation.
Alexander Gorgev and his first playoff game for the Colorado Avalanche.
I don't think he was terrible.
You said that second goal probably something he wants back.
Philip Grubauer, the winning goaltender tonight.
But I don't necessarily think he outplayed Alexander Gorgev.
Just the team in front of him was the difference tonight.
And he said exactly that.
We just talked to him postgame.
He came in for a press conference.
Surprise one.
We got ambushed.
Jared Bedner finished his press conference and stepped off the podium and walked out
and while JJ and I and a lot of the media were collecting their backpacks and laptops
and things to walk out.
Crack and PR walked in and said, well have Philip here in just a moment.
And then literally you look up and Philip Grubauer was standing right there.
So it wasn't Philip here in just a moment.
It was, Philip's here.
Let's talk to him.
So we just sat down and said, hey, we're going to talk to our old pal.
And yeah, so Philip was very, very complimentary of his team.
He said that they made his job easy and this is nothing against Grubauer by saying that
he didn't outplay or outwork or give is nothing against him.
It's simply put.
He didn't have to.
The Avalanche didn't test Grubauer the way they should have.
He didn't need to make any big saves because he didn't face a lot of good opportunities.
There was no breakaways.
There was no two on ones.
You can't look at anything other than by room hitting a post because even McKin and hitting
a post late what with two and a half minutes left in a three one game.
Not even two and a half.
It was after the PK.
So the by room play where he hit the post on that tight angle just tried to beat him right
in that little corner.
There were nothing else.
There was no like, oh, that Rodriguez breakaway or that Nichushkin.
There was nothing like that because the Avalanche didn't give him much to do.
Yeah, I didn't see many bodies from the Avalanche around that net.
And that's credit to the Kraken defense and their defensive structure.
Any time there was potentially a loose puck, Philip Grubauer would smother it and there
wasn't really an Avalanche jersey around.
So yeah, absolutely.
The group in front of them definitely got the job done tonight.
And I mean, Nathan McKinnon's comments on on Philip Grubauer post game were interesting
as well, right?
I guess break those down for us because you were there.
I was over talking to Kale and Bo.
And Nathan McKinnon was asked if, you know, he, I think the question was phrased as,
Philip Grubauer had a great night.
What did you see from him?
And McKinnon said nothing and then just passed.
And he's right.
He's not saying that just to be snarky.
He's not saying that he's sure.
He wasn't being like, you can, look, McKinnon's always frustrated after a loss.
McKinnon's frustrated after a win sometimes.
Like that's just the kind of guy he was.
But he was very cordial today.
He gave us a lot of good answers.
He said a lot of good things.
He was remember last year when they lost to St. Louis and McKinnon was trotted out and came out by himself without Landis Gog and said we're fine.
We got this after game two.
We're going to go to St. Louis.
We're going to steal one.
Hopefully steal two, which they did.
It was that McKinnon today.
And, you know, we've made a lot of jokes about McKinnon throughout the regular season that he's kind of tough to talk to after games.
Sometimes he gives you good quotes.
Sometimes he doesn't.
And it doesn't matter if it's a winner loss.
It just kind of matters on if he feels like it that day.
When the playoff comes around, this is a second year in a row.
I've noticed it with McKinnon.
He goes out of his way to make a concerted effort to be more cordial, to be more respectful and not, you know,
respectful and not let things get to him.
And that's what you want to see from a leader like that.
That's why he is who he is.
Well, we're Patrick Waugh's favorite two words to use.
Even keel.
Even keel.
Right.
And McKinnon is even keel.
You see here.
You see the avalanche still carrying that even keel.
I mean, it was a strength of theirs last year in the playoffs.
And yeah, that was exactly Bowen Byron's message.
Like, it's just getting one.
A lot of hockey still to be played in this series.
And, you know, yeah, Seattle was stubborn, but so were the avalanche.
And so still plenty of time to bounce back.
Nothing to panic about.
But, yeah, it stings to be down one in your home ice and just, you know, having the whole world now suddenly
start to question whether the avalanche can get this series done.
Yeah, I mean, game two is where it's at.
And this is something that despite me making two predictions on the series, and one of them I said,
Abs in five, because when you have a team that's a straight up contender versus a team that's a straight up underdog,
betting the contender, the team that you expect to win in five games is such a safe bet.
I want to say sweet, but I'm just going to give the road team one game just to kind of maybe.
So that was a prediction I made with Yumi and Peter Bond.
And today on the radio with an yellow pair of Malhi sports, I said, I wouldn't be surprised if I see a sweet
because I'm going to be a little bit more ballsy and not take that five game safe bet.
But the reality is, look, predictions are predictions.
It is what it is.
But the reality is whether the series goes four or five or six or six, if it goes four, it's disaster for the abs,
but whether they win in five, six or seven, if they win, because those are not the three options.
It's not supposed to be as easy as it was a year ago.
It really isn't.
And this is something that I keep reiterating because I think we were so spoiled with what the avalanche
were last year.
Now, we often think this is how it's supposed to go every single time.
You're supposed to win these games outright easily and quickly where the reality is, a team like Tampa Bay last season
had to go seven games in the first round.
They swept and destroyed Florida and then they trailed to nothing to the New York Rangers losing both of the first two games on the road.
So I'm not trying to set everybody up for if the avalanche lose game to Don't Panic, granted I won't because the series ain't over until it's over.
But it's not supposed to be as easy as it was a year ago and game one tonight proved exactly that.
It's the same reason why the Vegas Golden Knights were destroyed five to one by the eight seated Winnipeg Jets.
It's the same reason why the Devils who came in to their series feeling high and mighty against the lower seated Rangers lost five one and the Devils have to rebound.
And Lord knows Toronto's got a rebound or that city's going to burn after their seven three lost to Tampa Bay and Toronto is the home team and the team that's expected to be there.
And the team that's expected to win that series.
So a lot of road teams have to have to bounce back because the last six games have all been won by the road team.
Sorry, a lot of home teams have to bounce back because the last six have been won by the road team.
Seattle only gave up two power play opportunities and the avalanche weren't able to capitalize on either.
We'll see how that changes.
You know, I know the refs kind of let some things go.
I wouldn't say they were terrible by any means, but I would expect probably a different game out of different refs in game two.
I would expect them to see if the avalanche get more power play opportunities and if they can actually capitalize on them because I think that would be a big difference for them throughout the rest of the series.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's the power play is going to be a big thing for the avalanche and we'll have to see kind of what they can do with it because that will be a game changer for this team with the star power they have.
Right on.
Well, we made it 21 minutes here with no leaf blower guy in sight.
So thanks everybody for sticking with us.
Here we are late night after this tough game to watch for avalanche faithful, right?
So thanks for listening to our podcast and our small little breakdown.
We'll be back after game two, of course, to do another one.
So any closing thoughts after tonight and we can wrap it up for the day.
It's almost midnight.
Let's wrap her up.
All right.
Yeah, I'll be right back in this building tomorrow night.
8.30 tip off for the nuggets.
Oh, nice.
Hopefully I'm awake in my seat.
If you see on TNT or ESPN, whatever channel it's on, some guy sleeping in his chair, it might be me.
So yeah, if you made it this far in the podcast, bless that pretty little heart of yours.
Let's make hockey for everyone.
We out you.
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