Avalanche Turning Point: What Happened on That Icing? (+)

In the Turning Point, we’ll take a look at one moment in the previous Colorado Avalanche game that changed the momentum in the game, whether in a good way or bad way.

Up 2-0 halfway through the second period, everything appeared to be just fine for the Avalanche. Until it wasn’t.

This game’s turning point came on what should have been an easy icing call on the Canucks. When you take your foot off the gas for even just a second, you give opposing teams a chance to crawl back. That’s what happened here.

Toews Lets Up

After a TV timeout and an offensive zone face-off lost, fatigue is not a factor. The Canucks rip the puck around the boards, and it gets past Makar for an icing.

This is easy, right?

Okay, maybe not.

For whatever reason, Toews lets up. He has a massive lead on Jack Studnicka and all he has to do is continue skating and the icing gets called, or at the very least, he gets to the puck first.

Toews is a great skater, but even great skaters will have a tough time recovering if they let up against another player coming at them full speed. That stall by Toews is enough for Studnicka to not only catch up, but get the inside positioning, which forces the linesman to (correctly) negate the icing.

Makar Turns it Over

Despite losing the race, Toews still manages to tie up Studnicka so he can’t go anywhere. Cale Makar gets back and wins a battle against his forward to gather the puck.

Unfortunately, after Makar gets possession, he tries to spin away from his guy and hands it right back to Studnicka. And because Toews had to let go of Studnicka when the puck vacated the area, the Canucks forward now has some space to maneuver.

Toews Penalty

I went or the close up here to show that Toews does, indeed, get his stick into the hands of Studnicka. It’s pretty slight, but it hits the hands, and with the refs calling things as tight as they were against Vancouver, you knew they were going to call this one too.

No team will ever play mistake free hockey. The problem for the Avalanche lately has been additional mistakes on top of the original issue. It’s one thing to lose the race for an icing, it’s another to take a stick infraction against a player who is no danger in their current position.

The Canucks would score on the ensuing powerplay, and score an additional two goals in the final eight minutes of the second period, as the Avalanche kept piling up mistake after mistake.

Toews Replay

I thought it would be interesting to just show the close-up replay of the icing situation. When you watch the replay live, you can hear someone on the ice yell “Icing!”. You can also see the linesman who dropped the puck for the face-off put his arm up for the icing.

When skating back, Toews appears to take a look at the referee near the Canucks boards, doesn’t see an arm up, and slows down a bit. He then seems to realize that’s not the linesman, and starts to book it again, but by then, it’s too late. The linesman on the back side is clearly racing to see if it should be an icing or not.

None of this excuses him slowing down. At the very least, he could have gotten to the puck first even if he didn’t think it was an icing. This was just something I noticed on the replay.