Not many players do but Mikko can atleast show that he cares. Hes giving me Draisaitl vibes right now. Leon started the season not giving a f*** and in alot of ways he still is. Last night was the first time I seen that German move and skate like Hamas had his parents. Mikko needs to just start exerting his size and strength on people.
Avs motto has always been to take risks and buy low on talent players. Sometimes it just doesn't work out as it did with this move. It's okay, but what's more frustrating is that there have been games where Colton looks great, Wood looks great, Drouin looks great, MacKinnon looks great, RyJo looks great, and others, but it isn't coming every night. Drouin looks great for two games and is invisible for the next 9. MacKinnon looks great for 3-4 and disappears for the next 7. Over and over again with everyone else. Huge time consistency issues so far this season.
I personally don’t care much about the PP. it’ll level out with the talent here and when we are talking about playoff success, 5v5 matters so much more. I’m terrified at how bad the Avs are at simple defending in space.
Seriously. We've all seen Rants take over a game and become Jagr-Rants before. He has it in him. Or he did at least, once upon a time.
I hate to be this guy, but that's great.
You’re being generous on 3rd liner. We’ve seen this story in LOC before… when he’s overplayed, he will disappear as the season goes on… and he’s being overplayed like he never has before.
The Avs desperately need a 2nd line. Bednar doesn’t know what to do right now because the RyJo experiment hasn’t worked out. He’s blending lines trying to find some consistency, but without a legit 2C, it’s hard to do. I was very optimistic thinking RyJo would make a good 2C, but with each game, that experiment is less and less likely to work.
The defensive issues are deep. At one point in the first Toews was getting chased behind the goal line by a lone forechecker. He kept the puck for as long as he could but no teammate helped him, he ended up passing the puck to Drouin who was already under pressure and in a bad spot (in the slot). Drouin turned it over immediately and the Avs got lucky that the Flyers didn't score there.
3 or 4 games ago when someone asked Bednar about ice time Bednar replied that there's nothing to say that RyJo should play more than Colton.
I don’t think there was anything to see… it was do you think he can rebound and play like he’s 26 again? Avs took that risk and it just isn’t there. The cheap route at center has to come to and end.
Easy schedule + Makar played like prime Bobby Orr for a while. Outside of that we've been playing like a middle of the pack team.
Depends how you look at it… only two teams have played games than the Avs. Vegas and Columbus. Point percentage the Avs are 10th and would be third in the division. Avs have also played a bottom 5 strength of schedule so far. So take your pick.
They’re only 5 points ahead of middle of the pack and that’s because couple of teams that were supposed to be good, haven’t been good like Tampa, Carolina
