“Make the next save, have a short-term memory”; How Phillip Grubauer overcame a shaky start to steal two points in Florida

SUNRISE, Fla. – Philipp Grubauer does not hang his head, ever. You can score a goal on him. That’s gonna happen in the game of hockey. But he’s not going to stew over it. Not gonna keep replaying it in his mind as the game continues on in front of him.

Make the next save. Have a short-term memory. Don’t have any rearview mirrors. Lots of goalies always try to tell themselves that, but Grubauer’s mind is forged with a steely discipline that just does not malinger over anything bad. Even when he plays a great game, you’d almost never know it by looking at him in the dressing room. Whatever happened, happened and there is absolutely, positively nothing that can be done to change that.

It’s all about “what’s next” with Grubauer, as we saw in Friday night’s wild 5-4 Avalanche overtime victory over the Florida Panthers at BB&T Center. In the first period, Grubauer allowed three goals on 17 shots, and by the time the game was 34 minutes old, the Panthers had four on him.

But from there? Grubauer was an absolute wall of denial to Florida shooters. Grubauer snatched dangerous pucks out of the air with his glove, like he did against Aleksander Barkov in the third period. He made a couple of other highlight-reel saves in a third period in which the Avs were outshot 12-7. He stopped all four shots he save in overtime, and none were particularly easy.

Finally, his teammates allowed him to hang up his sweaty equipment for the night, when Nathan MacKinnon ripped one past Sergei Bobrovsky at 3:03 of OT, to keep the Avs unbeaten in regulation still on the season (6-0-1) with a date slated for 24 hours later in Tampa.

The stat sheet may not show, but don’t be fooled: Grubauer stole this one.

“That was probably the most chances we’ve given up in any one period, the first period, of any game this season,” Grubauer told Colorado Hockey Now. “I don’t think our third period was our best, either. But, we found a way again. We found a way to score at the right moments and keep the puck out. You’ve got to just put it behind you once you get scored on. Gotta try and make the next save and come up big for the boys.”

Grubauer finished with 40 saves, his high on the season. The Avs were very ragged defensively in periods 1 and 3. They simply were too easy to skate against, entering the zone seemingly at will at times after turnovers and other sloppy play.

Jared Bednar, in fact, is not a happy man at the moment, with the way his team is playing defensively.

“Loose. That’s what it was – loose,” said Bednar, when asked to describe that game. “To be honest, I didn’t like too many players on our team early on. But the second period, things started to come around. I thought the Kadri-Donskoi-Burakovsky line, and the (fourth) line gave us some life. Scored some timely goals. But we’re mismanaging the puck. Like, we were just too stubborn with the puck, with turnovers that led to scoring chances against, penalties against. We needed Grooby to make some saves for us late, and he was really good in the third again. It reminded me of the Boston game. I didn’t like his start; I thought he was fighting the puck a little bit, but when we needed him to make a save for us, he did it.”

MacKinnon won it despite entering the day as “questionable” by Bednar, because of that hit he took in Wednesday’s game at Pittsburgh. He did not take the morning skate, but he was out there for the pregame skate and said he had no doubts throughout the day he would play.

“I was a little bit gassed right before I shot it,” MacKinnon said of his winner. “But it’s great. Just shows the reslience our team has. We’re a very calm group, confident group. Obviously, it’s easy to be confident with our record, but I think we are. Gabe (Landeskog) said after the first that if we could get that next one it’s a big difference between a three-goal (deficit) and a one-goal. They tightened up a little bit, I think, after we cut it to one. Luckily, I finished it in OT.”

Grubauer, who will get the night off in Tampa Saturday (Bednar said it is a “good possibility” that backup Pavel Francouz would start against the Lightning), now has five wins on the season. He didn’t get his fifth win last season until Nov. 23.

“It’s nice to win the game, but a lot more work ahead,” he said.