Avalanche Game 37 Plus/Minus: Sticking With It, Big Dogg With An Attitude

As with every game, you take the good with the bad, so time to take a look at the pluses and the minuses in the game against the Sharks for the Colorado Avalanche.

+ Sticking With It

That game was a slog, which is probably why this isn’t going to be a super long piece. At no point did it ever really feel like the game was in danger for the Avalanche, but the Sharks just kept hanging around, despite generating very few chances offensively. Kudos to the Avalanche for sticking with it and finally breaking through late in the game to take the lead. I wouldn’t exactly call this a fantastic win, given the competition, but a win is a win and this team just needs to get keep stacking victories. They out-attempted the Sharks 61-28 at even strength, so the game wasn’t particularly close other than the fact that the Avalanche couldn’t break away.

– The San Jose Sharks

Holy cow this team is bad. Really bad. I can’t even name half their defense, and their forwards can barely enter zone with possession. Talk about a team that is truly right at the beginning of their rebuild. There are going to be some lean years in San Jose, and they could really use a guy like Macklin Celebrini, who played for the San Jose Junior Sharks as a teenager, to kickstart things.

+ MacKinnon With The Attitude

When you are finishing out the most dominant individual calendar of your career, you’d think there’s plenty of reasons to be happy. Instead, the Sharks got angry Nathan MacKinnon, and a few defensemen paid for it. Mario Ferraro felt his wrath in the first period, and never returned to the game.

In the second period, Ty Emberson (who?) thought it would be a good idea to step on MacKinnon at the blueline. He took the worst of it by far.

pic.twitter.com/vRToWmSSoe

— Amber Lotus 🪷 (@AmberLotus21) January 1, 2024

In fairness, it’s a good hockey play by Emberson. He took a massive hit but he got the puck off MacKinnon’s stick, so that’s a win for San Jose.

But that had to hurt.

Not only does he take the big hit, but MacKinnon turns around and gives him the old Ric Flair “WOOOOOOOOOO” on his way back into the play. Nate Dogg has some bark right now, and other teams are paying the price.

+ Mikko Rantanen

He should have had a heck of a lot more goals than he did last night (one), but he couldn’t find the back of the net. It was the Sharks, so I’m not sure how much you can take away from having all those shots, but the one thing I noticed is that Rantanen wanted the puck on his stick. He’s been quick to get rid of the puck lately, so him wanting the puck on his stick to try and make some plays was a welcome sight.

– The Powerplay

When the Avalanche scored on their first powerplay and made it look relatively easy, I thought it was going to be a blowout. That did not even come close to happening, and part of the reason why is the powerplay failed to take advantage of their opportunities. And the Sharks made sure to give them a lot. Colorado had six powerplays in total, including a 5-on-3 in the second period, but couldn’t break through. The game-winning goal came on a delayed penalty, so I guess that kind of counts, but this game probably shouldn’t have been as close as it was given the penalty discrepancy.

– The Lone Sharks Goal

How in the heck did Tomas Hertl get so wide open?

Also, can the Avalanche steal Hertl? He’s got three goals in his last two games at Ball Arena. Seems like he likes playing there…

+ Alexandar Georgiev

Games like this are more of a mental battle than anything for goaltenders. You sit in your net and do nothing for 90% of the game while your team controls the puck, and then have to be ready when the other team inevitably gets an opportunity. He wasn’t tested much at all, but another game with only one goal allowed, so I’m counting that as a win.

+ Nichushkin’s Post-Game Interview

When I saw Valeri Nichushkin was going to do the post-game interview, I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. And then you see the interview, and it makes sense.

Nichushkin understands the #1 rule – leave them wanting more.

“I wanna say one thing, Happy New Year everybody! Thank you friends!”

Oh stop it Val ☺️#GoAvsGo pic.twitter.com/dYk0jKXxiC

— AltitudeTV (@AltitudeTV) January 1, 2024