I haven’t had a lot of luck over the years in Denver so I’ll take the blame.
Martin did not have confidence and did not exude the vibes of a winning goaltender from the get go. When he was getting picked apart in warmups he was getting emotional, you could see him getting frustrated and looking to the heavens when some got past him. Usually a confident goalie could give two shits about what gets past him in warmups. Dude needs more action if we’re going to use him, he’s nowhere near a groove.
The Avs are icing a minor league forward lineup, essentially the entire bottom six. That should’ve been a walk in the park, but the X factor mattered last night. Mack and Makar are champions. They’ve played like that since the day they arrived, whether they had success early or not. Those two can carry a team with Individual play and can bend bad games to their will. We had no answers for either one. The first period we scrubbed the floor with them, the crowd was embarrassed and had no idea what hit them. They are clueless about the Canes. The group I was with had the air let out of them.
Then the ice tilted and the big dogs showed up. That’s the power of superstar talent right there. It wasn’t even pretty, it was forcing the game to go in another direction by any means necessary. We had no answer for either of them, it was like they were in our minds and playing Jedi minds tricks. Mack winning/stripping a puck by pure will and making Ghost jump in the wrong direction in person was like Mcdavid on Reilly with the crossover dribble, only it was will vs pure skill.
Third period was a slog. We came out ready to tie it up but they slowed it down. Necas couldn’t get free in the third.
I saw one play with Aho all game. Stripped a puck along the boards and fed Necas for a chance. That’s it. Most invisible game I’ve seen from him live. Slavin looked tired and slow, a few of his plays ended up in turnovers. Ghost didnt have a great night.
Martinook looked like an all star and was all heart leading the way. My friend who mildly watches the Canes was blown away by him. He deserved to be on the first line. KK was battling, I gave him an internal thumbs up, and I’m generally over him. Forward group played like they could make the perfect play to score/win, when Staal’s line has shown all season what actually works.
They talk about the size of the dog in the fight being irrelevant compared to the size of the fight in the dog. That’s Mack and Makar. I really like our team this year, more than I’ve liked us in two or three years. We play this system really well so far. We still don’t have that fight. Not enough anyways. Martinook can’t do it alone.
One game, the streak had to die. Now go prove it wasn’t a fluke and we’re really that good.