Friday Feels: Powerplay Woes

Colorado has to convert on the powerplay to regain the lead over Dallas

Well, this series sure hasn’t gone quite as I expected. If you listen to the MHH Lab podcast, you know the Jason Robertson injury shifted my prediction to a 5 game Avs victory lap over the depleted Stars. My logic was simple: without Robertson, the Stars forward depth advantage was no longer as big and their defense without Miro Heiskanen wasn’t good enough to slow down Colorado’s big guns.

What I failed to factor in was that the Avs big guns might just not come out firing. It’s been perplexing to watch Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar miss passes, whiff one timers, and turn pucks over with the regularity they have through three games. The powerplay specifically has been absolutely terrible, not only going 0 for 6 in game three but also looking lethargic and disconnected even on their successful opportunities in the first two contests.

The rest of my logic has proven right, I think – Dallas actually only has one bottom six goal (two if you ignore who Dadonov was skating with when he scored) and their defense hasn’t been able to control possession. They’ve led for literally 62 seconds, and the underlying metrics show Colorado controlling the play for the vast majority of all three games.

But that doesn’t matter if you can’t score, and you can’t score if you aren’t creating dangerous opportunities for yourself. The metrics do look pretty good for possession, but Dallas is outchancing Colorado through three games 95-86 fueled by 44-33 lead in high danger chances. They’re losing that battle despite playing generally pretty well because when they’ve struggled for stretches (3rd period of Game 2, 1st Period of Game 3 most notably), they’ve been absolutely terrible at chance generation not just mediocre or even bad.

There is reason for optimism in these stats, though — 33 high danger chances through three games is exactly in line with Colorado’s season rate of 11.34/60, and in the regular season they scored on 20% of those chances. So far in the playoffs, they’ve converted 2% of their high danger chances. TWO PERCENT! That’s unreasonably inefficient and over the course of an 82 game season would absolutely normalize to closer to their 20% rate.

The trouble is, there isn’t a whole regular season left for this statistical anomaly to correct itself. They have 4 games left at maximum, and they can’t just count on a statistical rebound to get their offense going – they need to find a way to generate more chances immediately to keep this series alive.

In my opinion, that means simplifying the offense to put more shots on net and generate rebound chances, which may not be the pretty high danger chances you picture from highlight reel goals and saves but are just as dangerous on the stat sheet and more likely to work in a tight checking playoff battle. With Gabriel Landeskog back in the lineup and looking like nearly his old board battlin’ self, Artturi Lehkonen digging out pucks at his normal high level, Charlie Coyle using his big body effectively, and Dallas giving big minutes to Cody Ceci, Liam Bichsel and Alex Petrovic, the whole top 9 should be able to win in the dump and chase game if they’re willing to commit to it.

The powerplay should try it too, frankly, as Dallas has totally shut down the Avs blue line drop pass on zone entries. They’ve been letting MacKinnon slip into the zone but then circling behind him to cut off the drop pass and get clears, and it doesn’t seem like Colorado has adjusted to that at all. 0-6 on the powerplay in Game 3, including four minutes bridging the end of regulation and start of overtime, says it’s time to make a serious change to that unit’s strategy.

Ultimately though, there’s no amount of strategy that can overcome the lackluster play of Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar. That duo absolutely has to find their A game (or even B, tbh) in Game 4 or the Avs will be going back to Dallas on the brink of elimination.

FRIDAY FEELS

I’ve said all I want to say about the actual games, because outside of the OT finish I’ve been feeling nothing but joy since the start of Game 3. This was such a beautiful moment:

And this really cracked me up. I love the Rantanen quip but even more it’s just great to see Gabe joking around with the refs because you rarely get to see these players as people in a workplace – that was so the same conversation you could have around the watercooler with someone who was out for a couple months on sabbatical or something. Love it.

It feels like the Avs have to win this series and go on a deep run because they spent a lot of future assets on this playoff roster, but even if they don’t I think I could be happy with the season just because I got to see Gabe play again. For everything he’s done off the ice to get back here, Landy is a real life hero.

Now we just need him to be a hero on it again, too.

PREDICTIONS

I said on the pod Val would score a powerplay goal in Game 3 or 4, so he better get one next game since this baby was 4 on 4:

My 5 game series win prediction is shot, and with Heiskanen likely back I feel this thing actually going the full 7 now. Here’s how I think the week plays out:

Saturday Game 4: 5-3 W
Landy and Nuke both score on the powerplay, Cale racks up 3 assists

Monday Game 5: 2-0 W
MacKinnon scores the only real goal. The empty netter comes from the fourth line.

Thursday Game 6: 4-3 OTL
The powerplay sputters again. Jamie Benn and Mikko Rantanen each put up 2 points.

Game seven will be Saturday so I’ll give a more detailed prediction next week. Or maybe the powerplay doesn’t sputter in Game 6 and I’ll be talking about Round 2 against the Jets!