Avalanche Breakdown: Dominant Defense Leads To MacKinnon Magic (+)

Jared Bednar challenged his Colorado Avalanche squad to buckle down in their own end after an ugly effort against the Dallas Stars. 41 scoring chances in the first 40 minutes of the game will certainly anger any coach, especially at this time of the year.

It’s no surprise that for the 48 hours after the loss, Bednar didn’t even talk about offense with his team. All the focus was on putting in the work in their own end to clean up some of the “absurd” mistakes they made against the Stars.

Whatever he said certainly caught the attention of his team, as the Avalanche responded with a dominant defensive performance, allowing just eight shots on goal during 5-on-5 play. That dominance in the defensive zone allowed Nathan MacKinnon to create some magic at the other end of the ice.

Goal #2

The Wild actually get possession of the puck because of a Devon Toews turnover, but it doesn’t ultimately end up mattering because of how quickly the Avalanche recover. After the puck is turned over, the Avalanche quickly get four guys back to outnumber the Wild, limiting what they can do with the puck.

When the puck goes below the goal line, Toews attacks and makes life miserable for the most dangerous player on the Wild, Kirill Kaprizov. Nathan MacKinnon drifts over to provide a bit of a double team, and that’s okay, because none of Kaprizov’s outlets have drifted to any dangerous spots. When the puck goes to Zuccarello, everyone resets to cover their guy. You’ve even got Lehkonen covering a bit below the hashes to make sure the slot is protected.

The puck eventually comes around to Bogosian, the least dangerous player on the ice. He has two options – dump it down low, or send a prayer towards the net. He opts for a soft prayer towards the net, and MacKinnon just easily gets in front of it. Makar wins a battle to get it to Drouin, and the rest is history. The key to this shift is that, even though it started with a turnover, everything was kept on the perimeter until they could get the puck back. That’s how you defend.

Goal #5

Sean Walker has had a tendency to pinch in the neutral zone, and he got caught just a bit here. The Avalanche luck out though, because the puck gets past Hartman. When Hartman catches up to it, Sam Girard immediately attacks him and pins him to the wall, limiting everything he can do. At this point, the Avalanche are able to get numbers back, so there’s no real danger.

When the puck squeaks loose, Artturi Lehkonen recognizes it and gets his stick in the right position, blocking the attempted pass to the point. He then bodies the Wild forward off the puck, and taps it to MacKinnon, who has already entered turbo mode. Poor Jake Middleton was screwed from the beginning here.

Two moments that could have led to danger, but a full team effort didn’t allow anything bad to happen, and ultimately, the hard work in the defensive zone paid off at the other end of the ice.