Where do I even begin?
What was one of the most fascinating days or nights I should say I've ever seen at
ballerina in the Jared Bedner era in the way that he ripped his team for what he called
Pissport Execution.
I want to get into that, I want to get into that Blues game just a little bit because
obviously we all saw what happened and I think it's better to talk about the fallout
of the game rather than what we saw during the game because what we saw during the game
is a team that's just not playing well, not cohesive as a unit, doesn't seem to have
that chemistry and it's things that need to be fixed.
I want to chat about the fallout of that.
I also want to mention just right off the bat that Yoel Kiviranta has signed a one-year
deal with the Colorado Avalanche, the PTO from this past offseason.
It's a $775,000 deal, two-way contract, so that's another forward option the Avalanche
are going to have.
Obviously, big for them to have that option because we saw with Leckin and Cagliano being
out that the Avalanche are going to start to get tested.
It was only a matter of time.
It was inevitable that injuries will arise and when you mix those two with the combination
of Thomas, to Taran, Jonathan, Drew, and not given you much, Granted, Drew, and looks
better than to Taran right now in my opinion.
You need more options.
You need more bodies, Yoel Kiviranta.
He was brought in on a PTO for that reason and that's where they are with him.
But again, I want to go into the Jared Bedner thing and I want to read some of these quotes.
You guys have probably all seen them.
You've heard them.
You've read them by now, but third period was a joke that was the worst period of hockey
I've ever seen from our club.
We're getting outplayed.
Goaltender is getting outplayed by their goaltender.
Four words are getting outplayed by their forwards.
D are getting outplayed by their D.
First three goals.
They're all routine coverage for me, soft and loose and we gave them the opportunity
thinking our goalie was going to save it.
He didn't.
It's in the back of our net.
It's three nothing.
So, you know, that's a mixture of the third period and the situations there and that's
a mixture.
Those are not quotes one after the other.
Those are just segments of quotes that he said throughout his press conference last
night, Saturday night.
And it just kind of, you know, outlines his frustration.
He went back to the third period later on.
The third period is unacceptable, unexplainable.
That's why it's a blowout.
We stopped playing.
It looked like we didn't make it past 10 feet.
It looked like we couldn't make it past 10 feet in the third period, giving up augment
rushes every five seconds.
Every rush attack they had ended up in a scoring chance again.
It's not good enough.
Guys quitting and not doing what they're supposed to be doing, feeling sorry for themselves.
I also had a quote from Josh Manson.
I got him one on one.
I thought this was going to be the quote of the evening until the Jared Bedner presser.
I had tweeted that Josh Manson gave me a really good quote while walking to the Jared
Bedner presser.
And Manson said, it felt like we gave up.
It just didn't feel like we had that fire at the end.
I think that's the most disappointing thing, no matter what the score you want to see
a little jam, it just felt like we lost it too easily.
And Jared, you know, continued on the third period, you're at five one and you're still
trying to tick tock to pass in the pass in the phone booth at their blue line to hope
to maybe get a scoring chance.
Why not just kick it in below the goal line and go to work?
So we give up two or three more greatest scoring chances on breakaways and turnovers.
How many breakaways did they have in the third period?
Three?
Two of them ended up in the back of our net.
I mean, seriously, they're all from little turnovers at the blue line.
I'd feel better coming out of this game if it was four to three than what it ended up
being.
I just don't get the overall frustration, the fragmentation of the group, the quitting
on the work ethic.
That's what happens when you do that.
Sometimes you have a bad night and things don't go your way, but I just do not understand
not just laying it on the line and at least doing what you can do to play with some pride.
So what we're seeing right now are the avalanche are at odds.
They are frustrated in certain aspects of their game and it's leading to a culmination
of each player kind of feeling sorry for themselves being frustrated, trying to do too much.
I made this point yesterday off the record.
I was talking to J.J. Jerez in the press room after the game and this is a point that I
want to make here.
Last year when the avalanche were struggling, they were struggling and it's not simply
this.
There was a lot going wrong when they were 2017 and three and they had that loss to the
lowly black hawks last year.
But for the most part, their good players played good throughout the season.
JT Comfort was always on his game.
We saw what Val and the Chuchkin did early on in the season before his injury.
When he came back, he still was pretty good in terms of points per game.
Our Tury Leckon and put up a good amount of points.
Miko retten and blasted his career highs.
Nathan McKinnon blasted his career highs.
Kael McCarthy was over a point per game at a Norestrophy finalist.
Devon Taves still put up points.
When healthy, Bowen Byron still put up points.
Sam Gerard ended the season really, really well.
Evan Rodriguez came in and did a pretty damn good job.
JT Comfort blasted his career highs.
The good players were good last year.
The problem with last year was in the grand scheme of things and again, this is a blanket
statement.
It doesn't apply to every single game last year.
But the main issue they had last season in 2022-23 was their depth.
When the top guys were playing their best, sometimes it still led to losses because the
depth wasn't there.
This year, the issue is, their best players don't feel like their best players that time.
And that's what the issue is, is that a lot of their best guys, like Nathan McKinnon
to me, doesn't look like he's having a great season.
It doesn't mean he's doing a terrible job, but he's not the same dominant 40 more points
than games played last year, 111 points in 71 games.
He doesn't seem like that guy.
Miko Renton has got nine goals in 13 games.
Pretty damn good pace, but doesn't seem like the same dominant guy he was a season ago.
And these are the things that are kind of sticking out to me.
The best way to put it, the good players that played always played good last year.
That's the very dumb down version of saying, this year, their best players aren't always
being their best players, and that's the problem.
They're not giving their all, and it's leading to what Jared is calling these frustrations,
these fragmentation of the team that are kind of quitting on themselves and feeling sorry
for themselves.
Whatever it is, it's something that's got to get cleaned up real soon.
You know, I thought one of the more fascinating quotes that I got from Jared today, Sunday,
or practice, where he kind of continued on that same rant from yesterday.
And the funny thing is, even an upset and live it and pissed off Jared is still a very
well-spoken, articulate guy.
And we genuinely are very fortunate to have that kind of a coach here, because he really
paints a good picture on how he's feeling.
That many other coaches in the NHL, quite frankly, they just don't do.
They do a lot of what Nathan McKinnon does, where he gives you one word answers, like today
I asked Nathan McKinnon what he thinks is going wrong, and he said, I don't know.
And I tried to follow it up and get a little bit more from him.
And you know, asked him if there's, you know, x, y, and z are certain issues.
And he said, maybe that maybe who knows, like he just doesn't, you know, a lot of coaches
do that when they're frustrated.
And understandably so, I'm not trying to bury Nathan McKinnon, but understandably so
when these people are frustrated, they don't give you much.
Jared does a really good job in an articulate manner of really painting a good picture.
And that's what I like about it.
So what he told me today, I asked him, if this was the time to have a wake up call in terms
of roster decisions, line combinations, things like that, you know, if is he the type of
coach that would rather do that, or is he the type of coach that would rather double
down on his guys and say, I'm going to put you out there the same lines because I know
you can do better, go do better.
And he said, you have to balance it.
Obviously right now he would like to make some changes.
That's where I think the go out, keep your rant assigning comes into play.
It at least gives you another option to put into the bottom six where you can start to
bring up guys from the bottom six and not really alter the bottom six.
Curtis McDermott had a line up, have more guys up there or down there, so on and so forth.
So that was the first part of my question.
I then followed it up with my favorite part of the question was Ross Colton had a lot
of success in Tampa Bay playing the wing.
Do you and have you thought about bringing him up into the top six in a wing position?
And how much does it affect you that you don't have the depth that center to do that
right now?
And before I can even finish the question, he said, I've thought about it.
The problem is we don't have centers and that's just the reality of the situation.
Last year the avalanche had comfort Rodriguez and new hook.
Keep comfort out of it, comforts the center.
They had Rodriguez and new hook at any given time and obviously Ben Myers who he shouldn't
have been playing in the top six or in the third line role anyway.
That kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier about this team having depth issues.
But last year when they had new hook and Rodriguez, whenever they had issues in the top six
and they wanted to switch things up, they can shift one of those guys into the top six,
put Rodriguez with Miko and Nate knowing very well, you can have Alex new hook center the third line.
Or you can put Alex new hook at a left wing spot with JT Comfort or something and try to mix
and match knowing very well, you have Rodriguez to cover for him.
There was a lot of different ways you can manage having players that play the wing that can shift to center.
They just don't have a lot of that right now.
It's part of the reason why they shifted Freddie Olivesson from a from a winger to a full time center.
It's part of the reason why they shifted Ross Colton from a winger to a full time center granted.
Colton's a little bit different.
He was brought in to be a center that's something he's played naturally in the past.
But he's also a player that can play the wing and help spark your top lines.
And I think that that's something they want to be able to do.
But in order to do it, you got to bring up Freddie Olivesson to the third line.
And then the fourth line, who knows?
In my humble opinion, the OL Kibiranta at least gives them an option.
Not that he's played a lot of center, but at least gives you another option that you can throw down there.
I also think a healthy Andrew Cogliano.
You know, he's day to day right now and a healthy Andrew Cogliano would really change things up.
Because if you can have a healthy Andrew Cogliano centering a line with, let's say, you know,
Logan O'Connor, not that you get to take him off of his line, but Logan O'Connor and OL Kibiranta, for example.
If he can center that kind of a line or center Thomas Tatar and OL Kibiranta with Cogliano in the middle,
that gives you at least the ability to bring up Freddie Olivesson to play with Miles Wood and Logan O'Connor.
Is it ideal? No.
But at least then you can say Ross Colton scored 20 goals with the Tampa Lightning playing with their top guys in the top six.
Let's put Ross Colton with Miko and Nate and just see what the hell they can do together.
And then you can put obviously Joe Hanson and and Tufty with the Chushkin.
Eventually, when Leckon ends back, you can play him with the Chushkin.
Granted, that's still weeks away.
But it gives you options and I think that's the biggest thing because I remember during the off season before the Tatar signing.
I always said, I said it on the podcast when JJ was still on this podcast.
I always said that if Ross Colton, not Ross Colton, sorry, if Jonathan drew and doesn't work out and live up to expectations,
which right now it's still up in the air.
He's kind of leaning more toward no than yes, but, you know, there's still a chance.
We'll see.
If Drew and doesn't live up to expectations, you have this kind of Swiss Army knife in Ross Colton,
who's centering the third line who you can bring up to the top six.
He is a very, very, very capable top six winger.
Let's see what he can do with these superstars like he did with the Tampa Bay superstars.
The problem with that is, so then the Tomas Tatar signing happened.
Tatar kind of became that Swiss Army knife.
Third liner playing with Wooden Colton that you can call up to the top six.
And we saw the avalanche do it and he clicked with Miko and Nate for about two and a half periods.
And then just went completely down a hell.
Tatar is giving you absolutely nothing right now.
But now you're stuck in a situation where you want to be able to bring up Colton,
but you can't because of the lack of center depth.
And I'm just really curious to see where it goes.
I'm genuinely curious to see what the signing of YoL Kibi Ranta does for the roster on Monday
before they come back home for the home game against Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday.
These are not going to be easy games.
Seattle just beat you.
You've beaten them, but they're starting to pick it up.
Vancouver just lost, yes.
But they just lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, yes.
But they are on a complete heater.
They arguably have the heart trophy winner, the Norris trophy winner, and the Veson trophy winner,
you know, all on their roster, clicking at the same time.
Not that they've won those awards, but they're surely looking like candidates.
And that's your Demko Elias Pederson and Quinn Hughes.
You also got JT Miller playing out of his mind.
Philip Huronick really fitting really well in with Quinn Hughes.
A lot going well for that team.
So these are not going to be easy games.
You've got to find a way to make it work.
I'm really excited to see what they do with the lineup.
I'm really excited to see if Kibi Ranta comes in.
If Cogliano can slot to center of his healthy, if Ross Colton gets a top six opportunity,
even if it means doing Val with Miko and Nate and taking Ross Colton and sticking him
with Ryan Johansson and Riley Tufty or Ryan Johansson and Tomas Tatar, Jonathan Drew
and or whatever they decide to do there.
I think getting Ross Colton onto the wing and into the top six is the type of big wake-up
call this team could use right now to just spark.
Not that Colton's the difference maker, but it's, you know, not that he's the end or
be all kind of guy.
But it's something that's enough of a change to spark the team to kind of let him know
that enough is enough.
We need a change.
So we'll see where that goes.
Of course, I forgot to say it earlier, but this is AirFd and you're listening to Hockey
Mountain High.
You go to Avalanche Podcast, presented by Malhigh Sports, presented by Superbook Sports
as well.
Thank you for hanging out with me.
I will chat with you guys.
Hopefully after that Seattle game, maybe after the Vancouver game, we'll see how these
next couple games shake out.
But that's all for me.
Enjoy the rest of your weekends and hope you enjoy this podcast if you're listening
on a Monday morning.