Game Two Recap: Colorado’s defense steps up in Game Two victory

All the pressure was on Alexandar Georgiev after a dreadful Game One to show he still belonged in an NHL net, and his teammates knew it. They also knew they hung him out to dry too many times in Game One.

For the first 15 minutes of Game Two, it looked like both those struggles might continue - but the Colorado Avalanche saw their goaltender needed a little help to snap back into form and stepped up in a major way. Team defense, led by excellent work in all three zones by Avs stars Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, and Devon Toews, powered Colorado to a 5-2 victory that didn’t look particularly competitive once Colorado took the lead in the second period.

Let’s get into the details!

FIRST PERIOD

The Winnipeg Jets came out strong - stronger than they did in Game One - and dominated play for the first half of the period, taking a 1-0 lead on a David Gustafsson rebound tally that Georgiev looked lost on.

First, Georgiev struggled to corral the dump in and then turned it over up the wall, and though he did recover to stop the initial shot the turnover started a scrambly sequence that never quite settled down until the puck was in the net.

From there, though, Colorado’s skaters came to their man’s defense - the top line took the next shift and got on their cycle game, leading to multiple shot attempts that skittered wide. The third line duplicated their effort, with a couple of nice pinches from Jack Johnson keeping the play alive and dangerous.

Winnipeg was able to get into the offensive zone on a 3-on-1 after Sean Walker went for a big open ice hit and missed, but Toews made the defense look easy with a little poke check to break up the zone entry and turn play back the other way.

After another calm, clean zone entry denial by Toews on what could have been a 3-on-2, the third line got the puck in deep and Miles Wood threw a puck on net with Ross Colton and Joel Kiviranta crashing. Colton ended up with an interference penalty on the play, and no replay was shown to clarify what exactly he did to earn it.

On the penalty kill, Colorado nearly got a gift from Hellebuyck after he misplayed a clear right to Yakov Trenin, but Trenin wasn’t able to get his bad-angle shot attempt to go. Georgiev made a couple of good saves and Josh Manson snuffed a possible back-door play with a sliding pass breakup at the near post to finish off the kill.

Shots were 6-2 Winnipeg at that point, with 9 minutes left in the period, and Winnipeg kept pressing for another tally. Adam Lowry drove the zone and edged out Caleb Jones trying to circle behind the net, but lost an edge. From the ref's angle, it must have appeared that Jones’ stick caused Lowry’s fall, as he was sent off for tripping.

On their second power play of the night, the Jets only managed one dangerous setup. Gabe Vilardi got a puck down low and tried to pull it around Georgiev to bury far side but Makar poked the puck away for Toews to clear, and on the Jets’ next zone entry Nino Neiderreiter hooked Josh Manson while he was going for a loose puck and got sent to the box himself.

Skating 4-on-4, neither team was able to do anything particularly dangerous. Colorado then couldn’t get a shot to go on the power play, but it looked good and sparked the offense to a dominant end of the period. by the end of the period, shots were 15-12 in Colorado’s favor, Chances 17-12, and expected goals 2-1. They just had to keep pushing, clean up the bad pinches (ahem Josh Manson ahem), and find a way to beat Hellebuyck.

SECOND PERIOD

The Avs came out strong, riding their excellent finish to the first-period bounceback after trailing by one at the break and ultimately winning the second period 4-1 on the back of strong defensive work in front of Georgiev that sprung offense on the other end.

They got the game tied on a lucky bounce - Ross Colton tried to pull an offensive zone draw back to the point but the Winnipeg center’s stick forced it toward the middle of the ice, where Miles Wood blasted it home through Hellebuyck’s five-hole. Hellebuyck couldn’t track the odd bounce and had no idea Wood was even shooting til the puck was by him.

Jared Bednar was toying with his lines to get some more offense and on a shift with Casey Mittlestadt on the wing next to MacKinnon and Rantanen an offensive zone draw trickled through Makar but in the ensuing chase, Kyle Connor got his stick up high on Cale and cut his lip. Connor went to the box, and the Avs went on a four-minute powerplay.

They looked dangerous throughout, even though Makar had to get some repairs so Toews ran the top unit, but just couldn’t beat Hellebuyck. Both powerplay units created chances and pounced on rebounds, but the biscuit just refused to basket.

A big penalty kill like that will give the defending team life, and though the Avs clearly focused on eliminating the pinches that plagued them in the first period, they got beat by one. Walker jumped up to create a 3-on-1, but the last forward into the zone got lower than him as the puck turned over so Walker couldn’t recover in time, and on a two on one Vilardi threw a puck toward the far post that Scheifele somehow reached with one hand around Johnson and tipped up over and outstretched Georgiev.

That finish was magic, but the Avs got a little magic to go their way too as Kyle Connor picked up a Manson defensive zone turnover and beat Georgiev cleanly, but hit the far post. This play would end up turning the game, as instead of going down 3-1 Colorado marched to the other end of the ice, MacKinnon fought through an uncalled to recover the puck he lost and send it out to Makar, who fired a wrister that Artturi Lehkonen tipped up over Hellebuyck’s shoulder to tie the game.

Moments later, Hellebuyck misplayed a dump-in, Trenin poked the puck away from him to Cogliano behind the net, and Cogs fed Zach Parise in front. Hellebuyck dove to stop his first try, but Parise picked up his own rebound and calmly buried it on the second try to take the lead.

With that goal, 39-year-old Parise became the second oldest Avalanche to score a playoff goal behind Ray Bourque who did it as a 40-year-old in the 2001 Cup run. An auspicious stat, and good company for Parise to be in for sure.

But the Avs weren’t done there - after a net-front scrum put the game back to four on four, MacKinnon fed Manson as he was released from the box for a breakaway and the big defender deked out Hellebuyck to extend the lead to 4-2.

The Avalanche scored three goals in the last six minutes of the period and extended their shot lead to 9-22 while doubling up the Jets in scoring chances 33-17 (16-8 high danger). Oh, and they racked up an expected goals differential of 4.25 - 1.56 — a pretty good period!

THIRD PERIOD

The Avalanche played a phenomenal third period to close out the win, playing excellent team defense in every part of the ice while staying dangerous offensively. They fully avoided the unnecessary risks that plagued them in Game One and the first period of this contest and only gave the Jets one real odd-man rush - but Georgiev stood tall on that and every other chance that came his way.

Winnipeg tried to push for offense but couldn’t really get any space in the neutral zone to break in as Colorado played suffocating defense for nearly twenty whole minutes. The biggest play of the period may be an unfortunate one, as chasing down a waved-off icing, Walker got dumped by Namestnikov on what appeared to be a clear slew foot.

Brandon Duhaime got in on the scrum to defend his teammate, and he and Logan Stanley ended up with penalties though everyone on the broadcast agreed the initial Namestnikov play was dangerous and should have been a penalty. Walker was pulled by the concussion spotter and did not return.

Duhaime got himself back in the box a little later for laying out Gustafsson while the Winnipeg forward was just trying to forecheck on Manson and was called for interference. It was not a smart play and gave the Jets their best chance to claw their way back into the game, but Georgiev turned away a Vilardi shot off the initial draw and the penaltykillers never let the Jets get set up again.

That was the last real push for Winnipeg, as they couldn’t establish possession to pull their goalie until there was only 1:50 to go. Trenin picked up a puck off a block and nearly banked it into the open net off the penalty box doors but it went just wide for an icing, and moments later MacKinnon blocked a Connor. Cale broke the puck out to Val who got around Morrissey on the far wall and backhanded it into the empty net to cap off an excellent road playoff win.

Shots ended up 32-30, chances 39-28, high danger chances 19-12. Expected goals were 5.38-2.47, and was really cool and good a million to zero. Go Avs!

TAKEAWAYS

Georgiev stepped up, didn’t he! Love to see it, and I love even more to see the guys in front of him clean up their play. Georgiev didn’t have to make many excellent saves, but that’s the point - he just needs to be good for this team to win and tonight he was not only good, he was better than the Vezina winner in the other net.

Nichushkin looks healthy, finally! He was a beast in all areas of the ice and both special teams. Rantanen does not, however. They’ll both need to be going at the same time for this team to make a deep run.

If Sam Girard comes back only for Sean Walker to miss time, Caleb Jones is going to need to up his play. He was not good tonight and didn’t crack 10 minutes of ice time. With Sam Malinski healthy again in the AHL, you have to wonder if he might get a callup if Walker can’t go.

I was surprised Joel Kiviranta got more ice than Brandon Duhaime in Game One, especially considering his limited usage down the stretch in the regular season, but Kivi made plays out there tonight and I liked his game. The underlying stats agree - he posted the best numbers in all the categories I looked at, while Duhaime posted the worst. Guess Bednar knew something I didn’t! The second-best player on the Avs, according to the metrics? Jack Johnson. Take from that what you will.

Upcoming

The series shifts to Colorado for Game Three Friday night at Ball Arena in front of what should be a crazy fun crowd. Puck drop is at 8:00 p.m. MT.