Avalanche Sunk By The Kraken: Player Grades

The Colorado Avalanche were just not on their game tonight. The Seattle Kraken came into Ball Arena and outplayed, outshot in a lot of aspects of the game. The new third line (Alex Newhook, Evan Rodrigues and Andrew Cogliano) did find their groove as Newhook and Rodrigues started to attack the net a lot more. The Avalanche were sunk by the Kraken and it was a bad night, I break down the player grades here:

Nathan MacKinnon (C): MacKinnon was shut down by Seattle tonight, only getting two shots on goal. He got himself four hits, having to play a bit more of a physical game than he was used to. The best thing that MacKinnon did tonight was that he was 74-percent from the dot and held the team up on face-offs tonight. 

Artturi Lehkonen (D): Would not give up on the forecheck. This is typical for him but he looked like he was especially on it tonight. Unfortunately, he wasn’t productive in any other way.  

Mikko Rantanen (C-): Rantanen had zero luck. He was losing races to the puck and couldn’t win the physical battles at all. He did get three shots on goal though. 

Val Nichushkin (A): Had his head up and was looking for the passes down low. This led to getting Grubauer to slide across the crease with his pass to Evan Rodrigues and a goal. Once again had his head up looking for a pass that gave the Avalanche a short handed goal, scored by Bo Byram.

Evan Rodrigues (A): Was a lot more aggressive on the offensive side of the puck tonight. In his first couple of shifts he generated a few scoring chances that he has not done previously. He finally got his first goal as an Avalanche, getting a nice pass across the slot and shooting it on a diving Grubauer.

Alex Newhook (C+): Has been crashing the net with the puck. He has missed on a couple of wide open nets but the chances are coming. He took a penalty that led to a Seattle goal, and also took a late offensive penalty that wiped out hopes of a comeback. 

Andrew Cogliano (C): Other than his penalty, he played a serviceable game playing a lot on the penalty kill tonight. 

J.T. Compher (D): The only stats he had for the night were that he landed two hits and that was it. Other than that I really did not notice him at all. 

Logan O’Connor (B-): Did a poke check up the boards on the penalty kill that gave Val Nichushkin the puck and led to a Bo Byram short handed goal. Great play to help tie the game.

Jayson Megna (D): He played ok, but did not play a single shift the entire third period.

Dryden Hunt (D): Showed some speed and grit early on, but not much after that and by the time the third period started, he was planted firmly on the bench.

Martin Kaut (F): He had a play where Pavel Francouz was trying to ring it around the boards to him and he waited for the puck, causing a turnover and a goal.  Had he come to the puck it could have prevented the turnover. He consistently was turning over the puck the entire game. In fact , by the second  period he had been demoted to the fourth line. He would later sit the entirety of the third period. He finished the night at a minus-1 and just under six minutes of ice time. 

Kurtis MacDermid (D): Had a great fight in the first period against Jamie Oleksiak. There was no clear winner in the fight but it sure got the crowd into the game. Got beat coming around the corner that led to the go-ahead goal. There was no move to push the forward outside of the dots at all. 

Cale Makar (C) : Was making a lot of sloppy passes the entire game. Unfortunately the offense had a lot of issues getting set up in the offensive zone because of this. Corsi was only 11-22.

Bo Byram (A): Kept the puck in the zone and brought it in low to pass it to Val Nichushkin leading to a Rodrugues goal. Followed in on a rush with Nichushkin and got the pass from him at the top of the face-off circle for a one timer goal and to tie the game. 

Josh Manson (C): He played a serviceable game tonight. He had one takeaway and three shots on goal, but was quiet for most of the night. 

Sam Girard (C): He was quiet most of the night as well, only getting three shots on goal and finishing a minus one overall. 

Erik Johnson (B-): Was strong on the penalty kill. Even though he and Andre Burakovsky are friends, EJ gave him a nice welcome back with a few hard checks in the corner. 

Pavel Francouz (B): Francouz was looking fantastic to start the game. He held the team in the game for most of it but couldn’t hold on with the goal that slipped through his five hole when MacDermid got beat around the corner. He ended the night with a .921 save percentage.