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10 Observations

10 Observations: Mittelstadt Finds Right Linemates, Ends Scoring Slump

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DENVER — What an incredible bounceback for the Avalanche. They needed Casey Mittelstadt to get things figured out and he did. His linemates were a big reason why.



The Avs won the first of three straight games against the top teams in the Central Division, defeating the Dallas Stars 6-3 at Ball Arena. They even had two players reach a big milestone in the process.

10 Observations

1. Mittelstadt ended an 18-game goalless drought on New Year’s Eve. I remember talking about that being a big goal given that Valeri Nichushkin also got injured that night. The team needed Mittelstadt to pick up the slack. He didn’t. And instead went another eight games before scoring against Dallas. Hopefully this is the one that breaks him out of this rut.

2. On that note, moving Mittelstadt to a line with Jonathan Drouin and Artturi Lehkonen was the right call. That trio was excellent late last season before Drouin suffered an injury in Game 82. They combined for 10 points against Dallas. If they can keep playing as well as they did today, it’ll allow Bednar to load up Nichushkin on the top line with MacKinnon and Rantanen when he’s ready to return. Which might be during this homestand.

3. Drouin and star defenseman Cale Makar both scored their 100th career goals and they were both downright beautiful goals in their own way. I’m always fascinated by Makar’s ability to fire a sifter through traffic. There were 11 bodies between his shot and the back of the net. As for Drouin, that toe drag before the shot had a lot of swagger in it.

4. Both players scored goal No. 99 against the Buffalo Sabres on Jan. 2. Those were the two goals that evened the score at 5-5 late in the third period. Neither has scored since before they each tallied their 100th just 7:59 apart during the Avs’ second-period outburst.

5. You can always tell when Jared Bednar is happy with the power play by how soon, if at all, he sends out the second unit. On their first chance, the top unit was called back to the bench with 45 seconds remaining after Dallas sent the puck down the ice. But on the second chance, the top unit stayed on the ice when the Stars cleared the zone with 47 seconds remaining. Bednar liked what he was seeing and let them continue to dig away at the drought.

6. The third PP opportunity saw them finally get rewarded. Before the goal, I loved the movement of the players. Nobody was stationary. Drouin was flying around and making nice passes and setups. He was a magician in this game.

7. I’d like to think that the PP goal was the hockey gods giving the Avs what they deserved after the officials missed a clear delay of game penalty for puck over glass. The Avalanche were denied a 5-on-3 for 1:55 but made up for it by scoring twice. Makar’s tally was followed up by a goal from Lehkonen just 1:25 later.

9. By the time the second period was over, the Avalanche were already at 27 shots on goal. That was already more than they had against Edmonton (25), New York (26), and Winnipeg (22), and just as many as they had against Minnesota.

9. Puck-over-glass penalties are not reviewable. Officials can get together and talk about it but they can’t go back for a second look on the iPad like with other reviews. The T.V. in the pressbox showed a replay on Altitude that made it look very clear. I thought it was a missed opportunity by the Jumbotron operator to have that queued up in the arena and available for 18,000+ fans to see while the officials were huddled. Would it have swayed their decision? Maybe. But those are the things you should always be ready for.

10. Not even 10 minutes later, the operator queued up a replay showing that Logan Stankoven’s goal was offsides. They showed the replay before Bednar’s staff even officially made a decision to challenge the play. They did, and the goal was waived off. Job well done.

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