Pre-Game Talk: Blues vs. Avs -- Round 1 Discussion
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mw2noobbuster
Registered User
I actually like the Blues' chances here. We just seem to match up better against the Avs' top-line and depth than against Vegas. I'll say Blues in 6 or 7.
Linkens Mastery
Conductor of the TankTown Express
Blues in 7, But, Honestly, I don't care as long as the Blues upset them.
Also if the Blues don't win I want Patty to threepeat or the Canes to win it all.
Also if the Blues don't win I want Patty to threepeat or the Canes to win it all.
Bobby Orrtuzzo
Ya know
It's been fun. I'm rooting for them, but expecting very little. Avs in a short series if I had to put money on it.
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Vladys Gumption
Colt55
I think the Avs ultimately win this series, but I think we match up better against them than Vegas. So I don’t expect us to get our doors completely blown off every game.
If we want a chance to win then we’re going to play to play lockdown defense and get some 2019 Binnington.
If we want a chance to win then we’re going to play to play lockdown defense and get some 2019 Binnington.
It’s nice to have all the pressure on the other team.
Celtic Note
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Brian39
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I picked Avs in 6, but I won't be surprised by any outcome except a 4-0 Blues win. We match up pretty well against the Avs, especially in comparison to how we matchup against the Knights. I'm expecting the Avs to comfortably win once or twice with the rest of the games being close affairs. That was the recipe for success vs Boston in 2019, but it leaves little margin for error.
We need Parayko and Faulk to be at or extremely close to the tops of their games. We will not contain the Avs top line without both of them doing heavy, heavy lifting and the Avs secondary scoring is good enough that our middle pair needs to be playing very well too. We need them to play a similar minute share as Petro/Parayko did in 2019 and both are going to see a healthy share of the Avs top line. The Avs possession game is too good to fully glue one pairing against their top line in Colorado. We need one of Faulk/Parayko on the ice at even strength for 80% of the game and both of them need to be playing well in that role.
ROR has to be the best player on the ice.
The PP doesn't need to keep up the ludicrous 40% pace it has been at for the last 5 weeks, but it has to be dangerous. 1st round officiating is a hell of a lot closer to the regular season standard of play than the Cup Final standard of play. Colorado might be the best "subtle interference" team in the league and our PP has to be good enough to make them pay when they get caught. We are screwed if the Avs can run constant pick plays without concern that our PP can burn them when they get caught.
Binner needs to keep playing like he has been since the start of April. He's been .921 since then and I'd say that most of his bad looking statistical games in that stretch were more on the team than his poor play.
I think we have a good chance of winning the series if those 4 things happen and probably a coinflip chance of winning if 3 of the 4 happen. But it is a tall order to make 3 or 4 of those things happen.
We need Parayko and Faulk to be at or extremely close to the tops of their games. We will not contain the Avs top line without both of them doing heavy, heavy lifting and the Avs secondary scoring is good enough that our middle pair needs to be playing very well too. We need them to play a similar minute share as Petro/Parayko did in 2019 and both are going to see a healthy share of the Avs top line. The Avs possession game is too good to fully glue one pairing against their top line in Colorado. We need one of Faulk/Parayko on the ice at even strength for 80% of the game and both of them need to be playing well in that role.
ROR has to be the best player on the ice.
The PP doesn't need to keep up the ludicrous 40% pace it has been at for the last 5 weeks, but it has to be dangerous. 1st round officiating is a hell of a lot closer to the regular season standard of play than the Cup Final standard of play. Colorado might be the best "subtle interference" team in the league and our PP has to be good enough to make them pay when they get caught. We are screwed if the Avs can run constant pick plays without concern that our PP can burn them when they get caught.
Binner needs to keep playing like he has been since the start of April. He's been .921 since then and I'd say that most of his bad looking statistical games in that stretch were more on the team than his poor play.
I think we have a good chance of winning the series if those 4 things happen and probably a coinflip chance of winning if 3 of the 4 happen. But it is a tall order to make 3 or 4 of those things happen.
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Brian39
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I like Dom's data work a ton, but I think his analysis/interpretation of that data is sometimes lacking. I think that past/current data has much less predictive value in hockey than he does, so I'm not surprised that he looks at the underlying metrics and comes to the conclusion that it will be stunning for the Blues to win a single game in the series. With that said, he is absolutely correct that this Avs team is exceptionally good. They are one of the best 5 on 5 teams the league has seen in the last decade by pretty much any metric. There is debate about how the COVID alignment/schedule impacts these numbers, but you can't deny that their comparative advantage over the Blues is gigantic.
At 5 on 5, they are 1st in CF%, FF%, SF%, GF%, xGF%, SCF%, and HDCF%. They are 58% or higher in every single one of these metrics. Most impressively, their xGF% sits at 60.8%, which is a staggering 5 point edge on the #2 team in the league. There is a larger xGF% gap between the Avs and the #2 team than there is between the #2 team and the #14 team. That is stunning. Natural Stat Trick goes back to 2007/08 for these types of metrics. This is the first time that any team has finished the season above 58% in xGF% at 5 on 5. I think that this is a result of our crappy division, but it is just undeniable that this team is incredibly good at 5 on 5. Vegas got the benefit of playing against the same crappy division and finished 7th with a 53.29 xGF%. Minny was 13th with a 51.21 and we were 26th with a 46.09.
Meanwhile, we are bottom 15 in every underlying metric and are bottom 10 in most of them.
As I said in my last post, I think we match up against the Avs pretty well. In terms of current ability, I'm not sure that there is a better 1C to task with shutting down MacKinnon than ROR. We have played Colorado pretty well at 5 on 5 this year (although our actual results have outpaced the underlying metrics by a healthy margin) and Berube's style is a good counter to the strengths of their blue line. Stylistically, I think our system is the best counter to the game the Avs play. I think that the underlying metrics hold less predictive value than Dom does, but the Avs absolutely should be big favorites in this series.
Edit: Dom's statement about this series perfectly demonstrates my opinion that his analysis/interpretation puts way too much stock in metrics. He says that "If the Blues somehow beat the Avalanche, I may just have to delete all my accounts. I will never recover from that." Hockey is far too unpredictable for this statement to be remotely sound. In a low-scoring-event sport like hockey, no one should ever have that much confidence in their predictive models over a 7 game sample. Moneypuck has our chances of winning at 15%, which is the most lopsided series their model has seen in 5 years. And those odds are almost identical to the odds of correctly guessing the outcome of rolling a normal 6 sided di. No one should ever stake their professional reputation on those odds and doing so is an indication that your interpretation of the data isn't all that great.
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Thallis
No half measures
The matchup article might be the most scathing thing I've ever read about the Blues.
BlueOil
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i can't disagree with much of what dom's article says, but it does seem there's an understanding context given to the concerns presented about the avs and little context given to the concerns about the blues. again he's not wrong with his stats or how lopsided it is, but he's certainly favoring the avs in how he presents some points.
Bobby Orrtuzzo
Ya know
One was started by Dizee, who’s blocked by like 1/4 of this board lol
It’s very simple:
We win the series or we batter the AVs and they fall apart in the second round. They may beat us but make them remember and fear us.
We win the series or we batter the AVs and they fall apart in the second round. They may beat us but make them remember and fear us.
According to analysts I shouldn't even watch, or better yet just give Colorado a free pass into the 2nd round, or better yet Chief should show up to Monday game and just wave the white flag and surrender.
Wonder what happen last time a team was this lopsided. Thinking Columbus and Tampa from couple years ago. Not saying that the Blues will do it, but this team is getting severely overlooked. It will be a better series than expected.
execwrite1
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TheDizee
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i like it, we always play better as a underdog and with less pressure on us. look how many series we win where we dont have "home ice" whereas how many we lost when we had it
Binnington and ROR always play beast mode when they have chips on their shoulder and ROR wants nothing more than to make the Avs f*** themselves.
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