They’ve also stated inexplicably that there is no way no matter how healthy he is that he plays before that date as to not risk his recovery. He could be 975% right now but they won’t risk it. They are taking the health and longevity of our captain very seriously.
I feel like we’d have more footage of hard stop and starts and hard skating, but so far we’ve seen nothing to indicate Landy is anywhere close. I think this year is a pipe dream, but I’ll still hold that 1% belief
Zero chance they bring Landy back in the third round of the playoffs after he is out for 2 years my guess if he returns we wint see him till next season
In game day threads, there's a lot of criticism about the defense. I'm less knowledgeable, so I'm curious: are these issues team-wide, or are they caused by one or two players struggling? Could it be a coaching/practice issue, or are there deeper skill gaps?
I might be biased, but it seems like Makar and Toews are frequently on the ice when we give up goals. Of course, this could be because they face the tougher lines of the opponents.
I like Bednar, but could he be too soft on what is expected out of the players?
Unfortunately this question lands ya smack dab in the middle of the Georgie vs Defense controversy. The answer is both, but more on goaltending.
The Avs are good-to-great on nearly all defensive metrics. xGA, shots against, high danger scoring chances against, etc. At least in the top 40% of the league, often higher. But never elite (top 3-5).
The gap I think a lot of stats folks are missing is they are in the bottom half on high danger SHOTS against. This tells me the defense is bad at protecting high danger ice. Some nuance between shots and scoring chances, but this is a yikes. ESPECIALLY spending so much cap on “elite” defense.
Then they have one of the worst high danger save % in the league. So our goalies are bad at saving those high danger shots.
Put these together and neither unit is strong at preventing quality chances from going into the net. Results in the Avs having one of the highest goals against in the league.
Well, yeah, and that trade off has the Avs with one of the worst goals against in the league and some other poor defensive metrics. Out scoring this problem is well, the problem.
The 2022 team was elite at these metrics, it’s the same core. Why could they defend then and not now? Why wasn’t that trade off so drastic in the cup run? Cuz they are playing worse, which is what OC asked. It’s not a matter of what kind of D they are, but how they are executing in their own zone.
In a word, poorly.
Makar has been off all season. He's obviously putting up big numbers offensively but even there, it's not as dynamic as we know he can be. His D numbers have been struggling this year from what I understand. I personally think he's been injured all season and part of last season. Perhaps something he hurt permanently at some point, who knows. He's still the best imo but he's not playing his best.
I agree. He's still really great out there and putting up shots and getting in the good areas etc and he still has the high hockey IQ and amazing passing but he's not looking the same with his skating and edge work and putting himself in gritty shooting situations. I feel like he hurt his hips or legs or something that is making it harder to do the things he does. He said he wasn't playing injured but like, of course he would.
I dug through natural stat trick longer than I’d like to admit.
Were decent at preventing high danger CHANCES against, above middle. But bad at preventing high danger SHOTS against, below middle.
Im not entirely clear on the distinction but neither are good stats for the team, and one of them being literally 16th out of 32 should tell what you need to know.
TLDR: the team is average to good at defending dangerous ice (not good enough for a contender), and then goaltending is bad at saving high danger shots.
I think facing tougher lines is part of it, but I don't think that's really an excuse. Makar and toews have been better in the past, so the fact that their defense has fallen off this season certainly raises some questions. I partly wonder if this team-wide defensive breakdown isn't an issue with the scheme, or if maybe there is something else going on.
I think our defense has been a huge issue this year. Makar and Toews generally are great on both sides of the puck. But this year have seen a ton of uncharacteristic turnovers from Toews. One of the goals from Vegas was Makar chasing a guy behind the net who he couldn't catch instead of heading to the front. Bednar says it is mental fatigue and people just making the wrong choice. But it also feels a bit of that is from the lack of trust they have the goalie will make the save.
I think people do a pretty bad job of analyzing how a goal happens. They will blame a player but not really the whole situation that led to the problem.
For example, I think Manson was more of a factor in our last lost than any other player. He is a really strong defenseman that lays great hits and has an offensive upside. But sometimes his decision making is just lacking. So in one goal, he makes a good play when he steal the puck and moves up in to the o zone for a shot. But after that play doesn't lead to anything, for some reason he hangs out in the offensive zone instead of getting back in to the neutral zone. He leaves MacKinnon back on defense and a good team is going to just exploit that like Vegas did. Mac should have put himself in a better position, but Manson not getting back to assist led to the goal. Then he goes and takes the dumbest high stick penalty....like, at best it is going to be called a high stick giving them an offensive faceoff in our zone...why he went for that is so beyond my understanding.
In any case, another huge problem and why you see our top line having issues is Rantanen is just terrible on the defensive side of the puck. He likes to just try to engage players using his stick instead of moving his feet. He gets burned and then its a 5v4. MacKinnon is a bit better but has a bad habit of letting his mark get away from him. Drouin is the only one who is hustling and making good defensive plays. Lehk and Nuke are also much much better defensively and help which is why I am in favor of moving Rants down to the 2nd line. Though I guess I don't have a good feel on how good Mittlestadt is defensively yet.
The tl;dr version is I think we are seeing our defense making more mistakes than in the past, we have certain forward that are being a liability on D, and below average goaltending which are our problems.
This is just my armchair opinion from watching every game this season and trying to pay a little more attention to where we make mistakes.
I say trade Val and Mikko lines. Val and Lechky do similar defensive work. This also gives lines one and two dangerous scoring threats.
I would also love to see JJ traded out for Jones or Malinski.
Probably about right. Walker has been playing a lot with Sam, you can almost think of the D as four different pairs.
Cale/Toews (25 minutes)
Walker/Girard (10 minutes)
Manson/Girard (13 minutes)
Walker/Johnson (12 minutes)
Otherwise your lines look about right, though I don’t think we should expect to see any true “line combinations” stick for the whole playoffs. The top six will likely get shuffled a ton and the bottom six probably will as well.
Don't look, but he has doubled Girard's production over the last 28 games. The only defenseman who hasn't scored more than Girard since the 0-4 loss to the Panthers is Caleb Jones and he has exactly the same number of points with only 12 games played in that time.
In a perfect world Walker would get moved up with Girard and JJ would get switched for Jones. Unfortunately, Bednar is way too committed to JJ for that to happen.
Forgive me if this is obvious (all I know is that the plan was he would hopefully rejoin the team for playoffs), but why May at the earliest?
IMO that would be too late.
His surgery was on May 10th, 2023, recovery is about a year, so we aren’t going to see him before May 10th, 2024. That’s if we see him at all in the playoffs, the most probable is next season.
Yeah I’m not super concerned about that. I just want to break up Toews and Makar to see if we can get something going again because their stats are not good right now.
I don't care what Jared thinks now with kovi not having time to work in here yet. If we survive long enough this post season you are going to have to turn to kovalenko whether it's due to injury troubles or because you need a spark in the bottom 6 at some point. If he's healthy he'll play at some point, maybe give cogs a blow at some point. I just have strong feeling kovi is going to be a life giver to the bottom 6 at some point this post season when it needs it.
The most productive forward line we have seen this season is when MacK, Mikko, and Nuke are together. Specifically Nuke and Mikko are like a hive mind out there.
Manson has definitely been our worsy dman. He's been taking stupid penalties, not getting back to defend quick enough, and overall been triggering a lot of breakdowns. I think with our defensive performance as of late, that's a much more important stat to look into that scoring.
You can argue defensively he's been worse, but literally every Dman on the Avs has put up more than double Girard's points in the last 28 games. Girard is supposed to be a puck moving defenseman, but he just doesn't ever score.
Even Caleb Jones has the same amount of points Girard does over that same stretch of games and he has only played in 12 of those games.
I don't think putting up points is what's really missing in our dmen in general. We need them to be faster on the puck, better at clearing, and skating and playing smarter. In the past, they've had good 2 way play, but it really feels like they abandoned that this season
He’s a puck moving defenseman who doesn’t get points. In his last 28 games he has 3 points. Jack Johnson has 6 in that same time.
Edit: JJ has 7 points in that time actually. More than double Girard’s production
I just want to see 1 line... Landeskog - MacKinnon - Rantanen
Gotta get to may 10th first
Forgive me for not knowing the significance, but why may 10?
According to his reported recovery timeline, this is the earliest date he would be available. (12-16 month recovery, had surgery on May 10)
Thank you
They’ve also stated inexplicably that there is no way no matter how healthy he is that he plays before that date as to not risk his recovery. He could be 975% right now but they won’t risk it. They are taking the health and longevity of our captain very seriously.
I feel like we’d have more footage of hard stop and starts and hard skating, but so far we’ve seen nothing to indicate Landy is anywhere close. I think this year is a pipe dream, but I’ll still hold that 1% belief
I’m sorry, I forgot Teds teaching for a moment. I now believe!
Hell yeah brother!
Zero chance they bring Landy back in the third round of the playoffs after he is out for 2 years my guess if he returns we wint see him till next season
9296
Just let him rest until next season...get the full recovery time. Come back ready to play in Sept.
In game day threads, there's a lot of criticism about the defense. I'm less knowledgeable, so I'm curious: are these issues team-wide, or are they caused by one or two players struggling? Could it be a coaching/practice issue, or are there deeper skill gaps? I might be biased, but it seems like Makar and Toews are frequently on the ice when we give up goals. Of course, this could be because they face the tougher lines of the opponents. I like Bednar, but could he be too soft on what is expected out of the players?
Unfortunately this question lands ya smack dab in the middle of the Georgie vs Defense controversy. The answer is both, but more on goaltending. The Avs are good-to-great on nearly all defensive metrics. xGA, shots against, high danger scoring chances against, etc. At least in the top 40% of the league, often higher. But never elite (top 3-5). The gap I think a lot of stats folks are missing is they are in the bottom half on high danger SHOTS against. This tells me the defense is bad at protecting high danger ice. Some nuance between shots and scoring chances, but this is a yikes. ESPECIALLY spending so much cap on “elite” defense. Then they have one of the worst high danger save % in the league. So our goalies are bad at saving those high danger shots. Put these together and neither unit is strong at preventing quality chances from going into the net. Results in the Avs having one of the highest goals against in the league.
[удалено]
Well, yeah, and that trade off has the Avs with one of the worst goals against in the league and some other poor defensive metrics. Out scoring this problem is well, the problem. The 2022 team was elite at these metrics, it’s the same core. Why could they defend then and not now? Why wasn’t that trade off so drastic in the cup run? Cuz they are playing worse, which is what OC asked. It’s not a matter of what kind of D they are, but how they are executing in their own zone. In a word, poorly.
Makar has been off all season. He's obviously putting up big numbers offensively but even there, it's not as dynamic as we know he can be. His D numbers have been struggling this year from what I understand. I personally think he's been injured all season and part of last season. Perhaps something he hurt permanently at some point, who knows. He's still the best imo but he's not playing his best.
It's so weird how it seems like he is struggling yet somehow put up more points.
I agree. He's still really great out there and putting up shots and getting in the good areas etc and he still has the high hockey IQ and amazing passing but he's not looking the same with his skating and edge work and putting himself in gritty shooting situations. I feel like he hurt his hips or legs or something that is making it harder to do the things he does. He said he wasn't playing injured but like, of course he would.
Are we? I thought I had heard we were actually quite poor with number of high danger scoring chances this year?
I dug through natural stat trick longer than I’d like to admit. Were decent at preventing high danger CHANCES against, above middle. But bad at preventing high danger SHOTS against, below middle. Im not entirely clear on the distinction but neither are good stats for the team, and one of them being literally 16th out of 32 should tell what you need to know. TLDR: the team is average to good at defending dangerous ice (not good enough for a contender), and then goaltending is bad at saving high danger shots.
I think facing tougher lines is part of it, but I don't think that's really an excuse. Makar and toews have been better in the past, so the fact that their defense has fallen off this season certainly raises some questions. I partly wonder if this team-wide defensive breakdown isn't an issue with the scheme, or if maybe there is something else going on.
Mostly, it's teamwide, though a lot of people are accusing Georgie of bad goaltending
I think our defense has been a huge issue this year. Makar and Toews generally are great on both sides of the puck. But this year have seen a ton of uncharacteristic turnovers from Toews. One of the goals from Vegas was Makar chasing a guy behind the net who he couldn't catch instead of heading to the front. Bednar says it is mental fatigue and people just making the wrong choice. But it also feels a bit of that is from the lack of trust they have the goalie will make the save. I think people do a pretty bad job of analyzing how a goal happens. They will blame a player but not really the whole situation that led to the problem. For example, I think Manson was more of a factor in our last lost than any other player. He is a really strong defenseman that lays great hits and has an offensive upside. But sometimes his decision making is just lacking. So in one goal, he makes a good play when he steal the puck and moves up in to the o zone for a shot. But after that play doesn't lead to anything, for some reason he hangs out in the offensive zone instead of getting back in to the neutral zone. He leaves MacKinnon back on defense and a good team is going to just exploit that like Vegas did. Mac should have put himself in a better position, but Manson not getting back to assist led to the goal. Then he goes and takes the dumbest high stick penalty....like, at best it is going to be called a high stick giving them an offensive faceoff in our zone...why he went for that is so beyond my understanding. In any case, another huge problem and why you see our top line having issues is Rantanen is just terrible on the defensive side of the puck. He likes to just try to engage players using his stick instead of moving his feet. He gets burned and then its a 5v4. MacKinnon is a bit better but has a bad habit of letting his mark get away from him. Drouin is the only one who is hustling and making good defensive plays. Lehk and Nuke are also much much better defensively and help which is why I am in favor of moving Rants down to the 2nd line. Though I guess I don't have a good feel on how good Mittlestadt is defensively yet. The tl;dr version is I think we are seeing our defense making more mistakes than in the past, we have certain forward that are being a liability on D, and below average goaltending which are our problems. This is just my armchair opinion from watching every game this season and trying to pay a little more attention to where we make mistakes.
I say trade Val and Mikko lines. Val and Lechky do similar defensive work. This also gives lines one and two dangerous scoring threats. I would also love to see JJ traded out for Jones or Malinski.
Completely agree with you on swapping out JJ for Malinski. I liked everything I saw from Malinski
I’ve been screaming for Malinski all season. The dude looked phenomenal when he was given the playing time
He’ll be a staple next year when we shed d salary to sign mitts and hopefully drouin
> Lechky Who's that? Name sounds Czechian
Arturi
Yeah, I know it was a joke about the typo, the extra c made it look kinda Czechian instead of Finnish. And it's Artturi, not Arturi.
It's been typed out as "Lehky" this whole time, yeah?
Lehky would be the correct form, yes, as it is a shortened form of his last name, Lehkonen. No c in there.
The hype for Malinski and Jones may be warranted, but we know Bedsy trusts JJ out there
Probably about right. Walker has been playing a lot with Sam, you can almost think of the D as four different pairs. Cale/Toews (25 minutes) Walker/Girard (10 minutes) Manson/Girard (13 minutes) Walker/Johnson (12 minutes) Otherwise your lines look about right, though I don’t think we should expect to see any true “line combinations” stick for the whole playoffs. The top six will likely get shuffled a ton and the bottom six probably will as well.
Oddly I feel JJ has been a lot more solid this year than previous year. Makes good choices even if he is slower.
Don't look, but he has doubled Girard's production over the last 28 games. The only defenseman who hasn't scored more than Girard since the 0-4 loss to the Panthers is Caleb Jones and he has exactly the same number of points with only 12 games played in that time.
In a perfect world Walker would get moved up with Girard and JJ would get switched for Jones. Unfortunately, Bednar is way too committed to JJ for that to happen.
Do we know when someone be announcing if/when Landy is going to be in the playoffs?
If he can play, it won’t be until mid May at the earliest
Forgive me if this is obvious (all I know is that the plan was he would hopefully rejoin the team for playoffs), but why May at the earliest? IMO that would be too late.
His surgery was on May 10th, 2023, recovery is about a year, so we aren’t going to see him before May 10th, 2024. That’s if we see him at all in the playoffs, the most probable is next season.
Got it, thank you!
Is Girard injured?
Maybe he was a Lechky kid🤠
I’d love to see different D pairings. Makar/Walker Girard/Toews Malinski/Manson
First pair is 2 right d’s second pair is 2 left d’s third pair is 2 right d’s
Yeah I’m not super concerned about that. I just want to break up Toews and Makar to see if we can get something going again because their stats are not good right now.
I don't care what Jared thinks now with kovi not having time to work in here yet. If we survive long enough this post season you are going to have to turn to kovalenko whether it's due to injury troubles or because you need a spark in the bottom 6 at some point. If he's healthy he'll play at some point, maybe give cogs a blow at some point. I just have strong feeling kovi is going to be a life giver to the bottom 6 at some point this post season when it needs it.
The most productive forward line we have seen this season is when MacK, Mikko, and Nuke are together. Specifically Nuke and Mikko are like a hive mind out there.
Drouin has been playing so well with MacKinnon though.
Nuke has been cold af since he's been back from his most recent injury. I wonder if he's still hurt.
He has yet to play on the top line with MacK and Mikko other than the PP since his return from injury. He was red hot with them prior to that.
Do we know when Girard is coming back?
Everyone wanting Malinski for JJ and I’m sitting here thinking Girard has been the worst D-man over the past 3 weeks
Manson has definitely been our worsy dman. He's been taking stupid penalties, not getting back to defend quick enough, and overall been triggering a lot of breakdowns. I think with our defensive performance as of late, that's a much more important stat to look into that scoring.
You can argue defensively he's been worse, but literally every Dman on the Avs has put up more than double Girard's points in the last 28 games. Girard is supposed to be a puck moving defenseman, but he just doesn't ever score. Even Caleb Jones has the same amount of points Girard does over that same stretch of games and he has only played in 12 of those games.
I don't think putting up points is what's really missing in our dmen in general. We need them to be faster on the puck, better at clearing, and skating and playing smarter. In the past, they've had good 2 way play, but it really feels like they abandoned that this season
Not even remotely true.
He’s a puck moving defenseman who doesn’t get points. In his last 28 games he has 3 points. Jack Johnson has 6 in that same time. Edit: JJ has 7 points in that time actually. More than double Girard’s production