GDT: Game 9: Avs @ Hawks | 6:30 PM MT | Nobody Watches Baseball Where I'm From

[Avs71]

MacKinnon lost all that weight he put on the summer before. And seriously? Questioning his contract already?

This is more embarrassing than the EJ contract talk in the summer.

 

[AvsGuy]

He trains with Crosby every summer.

Does he add 13 pounds of muscle every summer?

MacKinnon lost all that weight he put on the summer before.

Alrighty. It's a theory anyways as to why his dominant first season and playoffs is a fairly distant memory now.

 

[Avs71]

Does he add 13 pounds of muscle every summer?



Alrighty. It's a theory anyways as to why his dominant first season and playoffs is a fairly distant memory now.

Probably has more to do with the fact he had no responsibility, and was the 6th or 7th best forward on the team at the time.

Now it's key on MacKinnon/Duchene and the Avs are toast.

Seriously though,

Landeskog-Stastny-MacKinnon

To having Iginla/Grigorenko constantly on his wing.

Let's see him find some chemistry, and revisit this at the end of the season.

 

[tigervixxxen]

Pretty much to go from a rookie with no expectations playing on a team having a miracle year to now having to carry a team. It happens to every young player that has early success that they have that slump or whatever it's called. He's still 2nd on the team in points, a positive possession player and shooting 4%. We all wish he was scoring that big goal to win games but y'all are making it sound like he's verging on worthless.

 

[The Abusement Park]

I know I'm likely in the minortiy here, but I'm absolutely thrilled with the way the avalanche have played to this point in the season. I see nothing to indicate they will be anything less that a bubble team this year.

There are a lot of areas that the avs need to improve for sure. They have mental lapses, particularly on defense that are costing them right now. That being said, they have an outrageously low shooting percentage over the last four games. It will normalize as it always has historically in the NHL.

What I do see however is a team that's not afraid to shoot the puck, which is nice to see. The structure of the team is day and night compared to last year right now and the attack zone time is way up.

And let's be real guys: we knew this team didn't have a lot of wing depth going in.

We are seeing Zadarov come into his own, Rants is getting lots of play time. Varly has been a little disappointing, but I don't think he's going to play sub .900% hockey forever.

What I see is a team with some holes to fill but developing the way I'd hoped in what was called a development year by many on this board. They playing the right way and it will pay off as the year continues.

I'm not I'd say thrilled, but I can actually see improvements in the system defensively. Our PP is still a tire fire, and our cycle play needs some work, but I don't think this whole sky is falling reaction is really necessary. Now if this play continues into January and further into the season, that's another story.

 

[Iceberg]

MacKinnon should be on the RW playing with a two-way, playmaking center. Unfortunately we don't have someone capable of playing that role as a 1C.

 

[The Kingslayer]

MacKinnon should be on the RW playing with a two-way, playmaking center. Unfortunately we don't have someone capable of playing that role as a 1C.

Mikko Rantanen going to be that guy just you wait and C I think im one of the few that maintain that I liked Mack better as a winger. I dont hate him at C but I like him alot more on the wing.

 

[Cousin Eddie]

I'm not referring to his contract, I'm referring to the weight he gained after training with Crosby that whole summer of 14-15. To me, he's never had the same jump or elusiveness since. It didn't do any wonders at all for his playing style.

What? He has not lost a step at all and his very noticeably stronger on the puck. He's a bull.

Also the whole 13lbs of muscle crap is likely bull too. He probably added 12lbs but I'm positive there were a few chicken wings and beers tossed on top of that during the offseason. 12lbs of pure muscle in a few months is nearly impossible. Considering he lost almost all of that weight a couple of months into the season shows even more so that it wasn't all muscle. Definitely a very impressive offseason of training but this whole 13lbs of pure muscle crap needs to be put to rest.

I'm blown away by how much everyone is hating on Mackinnon right now. He's the most important player/prospect/employee/executive member that the Colorado Avalanche has and it's not even close. He's the one driving the play right now. He's our #1C. He's the present and future of this team. Two games ago he was on pace for a career high 70 point season and now he's a dumb black hole and the cause of all our problems.

You guys are amazing.

 

[SaltySkywalker]

I'm tired of the flip the puck off the boards down the ice pass. It either gets intercepted, iced, or leaves the receiving player fumbling the puck while being attacked. And why are we allowing so many odd man breaks/breakaways? Are we pinching inappropriately? Are we too slow? Naturally Varly can't stop a thing on those odd man breaks either (Hossa is phenomenal though).

Way too many mental lapses that I just don't understand. It feels like every time we get scored on, the team and/or varly goes into this scared mode. You almost always can expect goals against in spurts. With the first two games being an exception, I don't feel like this is a team that can ever come back from multiple goals down. I mean, of our 5 losses, we've been shutout 3 of those...

I know it's early and in reality, we've started out with a better record than past seasons but it just feels like the same ole Avs. I'm not advocating a complete blow up of the core but I am really beginning to question the make up of this team. Way too many lazy, heartless players, way too many slow and aging vets just coasting, and ultimately, way too many dumb players. I literally think Rants is the only player on our team with above average hockey IQ. Absolutely sucks that he does not have any points yet as I feel that is the only line that has been worth a damn. I know it will come for him but we need more players like him.

I seriously hope we roll Picks a bit more and see if he can handle the load. I've always been a huge Varly supporter but I just do not feel comfortable in his ability. That first goal was brutal...your looking straight down at the puck on your glove side and you can't cover it? Clearly he didn't "see it" in time but like...c'mon man.

That's it for my rant. Sorry to add more misery to these miserable GDT after a loss (usually steer clear for that reason). It's not all doom and gloom but man, it's tough to be excited after some of these performances and going into a game against a team that has DOMINATED us the last 2-3 years.

 

[Freaky Styley]

Mikko Rantanen going to be that guy just you wait and C I think im one of the few that maintain that I liked Mack better as a winger. I dont hate him at C but I like him alot more on the wing.

Ya I'm in favour of moving Mack back to the wing to kick start him. Something like

Landeskog - Soda - Mack
Grig - Duchene - Rantanen
Don't care. Although with Mitchell waived we only have Colborne at C in the bottom 6.

 

[SaltySkywalker]

What? He has not lost a step at all and his very noticeably stronger on the puck. He's a bull.

Also the whole 13lbs of muscle crap is likely bull too. He probably added 12lbs but I'm positive there were a few chicken wings and beers tossed on top of that during the offseason. 12lbs of pure muscle in a few months is nearly impossible. Considering he lost almost all of that weight a couple of months into the season shows even more so that it wasn't all muscle. Definitely a very impressive offseason of training but this whole 13lbs of pure muscle crap needs to be put to rest.

I'm blown away by how much everyone is hating on Mackinnon right now. He's the most important player/prospect/employee/executive member that the Colorado Avalanche has and it's not even close. He's the one driving the play right now. He's our #1C. He's the present and future of this team. Two games ago he was on pace for a career high 70 point season and now he's a dumb black hole and the cause of all our problems.

You guys are amazing.

Yeah, it is a little ridiculous. However, who gives a **** about pace in the first 10 games of the season. Artem Anisimov leads the league right now in points...not to mention Mack was on ppg pace through the first 30 games last year and then nearly disappeared (I get it, he was hurt, blah blah blah).

I'm not too worried about Mack, but no way he's gonna turn into a superstar (hope I eat my words) like a lot of us thought/hoped. Just doesn't have the IQ, IMO. Unfortunately, I think he will follow a similar path to that of Duchene.

 

[Bender]

They're already turning it around.

If you cant recognize that this team is player systematically better hockey right now then they were last year, there's really nothing left to talk about.

Just because the results aren't there 9 games into the season doesn't mean anything at all.

They're 9 games into a brand new coach playing a brand new system. Not to mention the fact this coach is also just 9 games into his NHL career. The fact that we're 1 game away from a .500 club still, despite the difficult schedule we have had, and everything else factored in, is actually a very good start.

Back in September and early October, people on these boards insisted repeatedly they'd be happy to come out of October and the start of November as anywhere close to a .500 team.

That's exactly what we've done so far. People are upset because we've lost two straight and had some struggling times through those two games(Although quite frankly we were probably the better team tonight, and should've deserved a better fate).

If the team can play like it did tonight on a consistent basis, they will win hockey games a lot more then they lose.

Agree with 90% of what you're saying. The only thing I am not fully on board with is how they are playing compared to last year. I think they DID do that for the first 4-5 games and it was really noticeable but ever since then, we're only seeing fleeting glimpses of this new system/structure. Is that because the players reverting back to old habits? I don't know.

To me there isn't much that they are doing differently on the breakouts, zone-entries and in the offensive zone in the past 4-5 games than they had been doing last year. The forward support to break out of the zone as a 5-man unit has been sporatic...they are still dumping the puck in too much to get line changes and giving the opposition the puck and when they do get it deep and manage to gain control, they are too predictable when they send the puck back to the point for a shot-on-goal.

That's my very general view of how they are playing right now...and I feel it's a lot different than the first 4 games of the season almost as if they've reverted to playing how they did last year.

One thing that I am finding is super-weird and I'm not sure I've seen that in the NHL before. It's happened so many times, it can't be just a coincidence. What the **** is up with the D-man caroussel that seems to be happening every period where D-men are paired up with different partners throughout the periods??? They never seem to stay with their same partner and seem to get mixed up all the time? Is this something that's going to pay off in the long-term, I'm not sure what's going on with that.

Your other points are bang-on though. I wasn't thrilled with the results of last night's game but the play of one Mikko Rantanen had me smiling from ear to ear. He was phenomenal and if this is just a sign of things to come, we are in for a treat between now and the end of the year. Crawford made like 5-6 ridiculous saves, not good saves, ridiculous saves and kept them in it early and Varly failed to do that for us. Some nights are like that...it's frustrating but it happens.

We have been on the road for 6 of 9 games ALL against some extremely tough opponents so for us to be 4-5 isn't all that bad. We will have to win our share of home games though and beat the weaker teams that we should beat.

For me, the light at the end of the tunnel was near the end of the game when Bednar finally put Iginla with Soderberg and Colbourne and essentially out of the top-6. We can only hope that he'll keep him out of the top-6 from now on.

The Comeau-esque penalty Iginla took against Hartman infuriated me to no end and was completely unacceptable...and then he tried to goad him into a fight. Iginla is playing like a frikkin' jackass right now, I don't give a crap about his hall-of-fame career...KNOW WHERE YOU ARE AT dude and frikkin' retire like Brett Hull did when he realized he couldn't do it anymore!! (Better yet, maybe Sakic can convince you that you have a 'concussion' so we can put you on LTIR until the trade deadline and then we'll ship you to Calgary)

 

[AvsGuy]

Probably has more to do with the fact he had no responsibility, and was the 6th or 7th best forward on the team at the time.

Now it's key on MacKinnon/Duchene and the Avs are toast.

Seriously though,

Landeskog-Stastny-MacKinnon

To having Iginla/Grigorenko constantly on his wing.

Let's see him find some chemistry, and revisit this at the end of the season.

Pretty much to go from a rookie with no expectations playing on a team having a miracle year to now having to carry a team. It happens to every young player that has early success that they have that slump or whatever it's called. He's still 2nd on the team in points, a positive possession player and shooting 4%. We all wish he was scoring that big goal to win games but y'all are making it sound like he's verging on worthless.

These are fair. It doesn't happen to every young player though, and I was hoping MacKinnon was one of those young players.

MacKinnon should be on the RW playing with a two-way, playmaking center. Unfortunately we don't have someone capable of playing that role as a 1C.

Yes, 100x yes. Don't we?

 

[The Kingslayer]

Alot of bad stuff from last night mixed with some good. Anyone else notice last night how Kane and Toews werent running wild 5 on 5? They got their points naturally but they werent making a complete fool out of us like they normally do and I think thats because of Z and EJ. Toews did walk EJ in the first but beyond that I didnt notice those guys all that much when EJ and Zad were out against them.

 

[The Kingslayer]

MacKinnon should be on the RW playing with a two-way, playmaking center. Unfortunately we don't have someone capable of playing that role as a 1C.

RNH for Tyson Barrie . RNH was Macks centre at the World Cup and they looked damn good together. I joked that Todd Koala Bear was showcasing RNH to us by playing him with Mack...but now I dont know. They really did look good together. RNH is almost a clone of Casper. I would feel better about trading Barrie if I knew that we have someone that remotely resembles him in the pipeline. Im not sure we do but others will prolly know more.

 

[SaltySkywalker]

We have been on the road for 6 of 9 games ALL against some extremely tough opponents so for us to be 4-5 isn't all that bad. We will have to win our share of home games though and beat the weaker teams that we should beat.

Yeah but it's not like playing at home is of any advantage to us. And beating the weaker teams is the problem. I'm seriously done buying tickets to games, driving down to Denver, only to get shutout...oh but, but we won shots on goal and the corsi! Landy literally promised the fans in his postgame presser the other day that the other game against Nashville would never happen again and I just lol'd.

 

[Bender]

Yeah but it's not like playing at home is of any advantage to us. And beating the weaker teams is the problem. I'm seriously done buying tickets to games, driving down to Denver, only to get shutout...oh but, but we won shots on goal and the corsi! Landy literally promised the fans in his postgame presser the other day that the other game against Nashville would never happen again and I just lol'd.

I understand your frustration. My point is that out of the 9 games we've played so far, only Arizona and Winnipeg were non-playoff teams last year. Also, it's generally harder to win on the road than at home regardless if it's like that for the Avs or not.

So we are not 4-5 after playing against non-playoff teams half the time...our schedule to start the year has been brutal. Let's see how we do on the back to back this weekend.

 

[IndustryLeech]

So, ummm...we are 26th overall, and only Vancouver has scored less goals than us. Wonder what people who were ripping me about my predictions pre season are thinking now? As I said, top 3 pick this year. Dump Stuart, Varly, Iginla, Mitchell and others - acquire some YOUNG strong talent. Trade Beauchemin away - too old and slow.

That's when we make a move.

Hopefully they are saying the sample size is far too small to make a proper evaluation.

 

[Pokecheque]

Pretty much to go from a rookie with no expectations playing on a team having a miracle year to now having to carry a team. It happens to every young player that has early success that they have that slump or whatever it's called. He's still 2nd on the team in points, a positive possession player and shooting 4%. We all wish he was scoring that big goal to win games but y'all are making it sound like he's verging on worthless.

Agreed. Just because he's not doing everything right doesn't mean he's doing nothing right.

 

[a mangy Meowth]

Agreed. Just because he's not doing everything right doesn't mean he's doing nothing right.

Well I guess we should all just buck up and be happy that MacKinnon is doing some of the little things the right way

 

[AvsGuy]

Well I guess we should all just buck up and be happy that MacKinnon is doing some of the little things the right way

Sorta how I feel. This is not his sophomore season. It's no skin off my back as a distance fan, but people who pay money to watch these guys perform were a sold a lot of hype on this kid - intangibles or whatever aside, 50 point seasons littered with missed opportunities aren't going to cut it.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Agree with 90% of what you're saying. The only thing I am not fully on board with is how they are playing compared to last year. I think they DID do that for the first 4-5 games and it was really noticeable but ever since then, we're only seeing fleeting glimpses of this new system/structure. Is that because the players reverting back to old habits? I don't know.

To me there isn't much that they are doing differently on the breakouts, zone-entries and in the offensive zone in the past 4-5 games than they had been doing last year. The forward support to break out of the zone as a 5-man unit has been sporatic...they are still dumping the puck in too much to get line changes and giving the opposition the puck and when they do get it deep and manage to gain control, they are too predictable when they send the puck back to the point for a shot-on-goal.

That's my very general view of how they are playing right now...and I feel it's a lot different than the first 4 games of the season almost as if they've reverted to playing how they did last year.

I think the reason why it seems like we've lost some of the systematic structure from before is one big thing, and that's that they're still learning.



I think the first couple of weeks, the Avs had basic understanding of what was expected from Bednar in the new system, and what the plan of attack was regarding each of the three zones.

They took that basic understanding and applied just that for the first two weeks of the season. They showed to be very competent with that system and generally put together some solid games.



Then, during the week off we had. They went through a lot of long hard practices. And I think it was during this time that JB and the coaching staff attempted to expand on the systems they had used in the first couple of weeks. They started going into a lot more detail, started focusing on the finer details and all that good stuff.


What happened was that the Avs forgot about some of the core ideas and strategies to the system because they were so focused on the new parts and the finer details. A good example of this I think was in the Chicago game on one of Zadorov's half pinches, where he kind of froze at the blue line looking very indecisive about what to do, before finally pinching when it was to late resulting in one of the many odd man rushes that the Hawks had last night.


I thought that was a pretty obvious example of what's going on right now that's causing the issues we're seeing.


It's just a learning process and the Avs players are having to learn an entire new system, then relearn that system again once finer details were included into it, and then continue relearning it as the system gets more fine tuned to the way JB wants it to be run.


This was exactly why I expected the Avs to struggle a tonne out of the gate this year. And it's why I'm not really surprised at the record we have right now(If there's any surprise it's actually a positive surprise that we aren't worse off right now).


It'll take time for them to fully adjust from last year to this year. But I like what I've seen so far, and if they keep going in this direction I believe they'll be an entirely different looking team by January month. Whether it's enough to be a playoff team or not I dont know and I suspect not. But I think we're gonna finish on an extremely good note this year and next year is when I expect to see us start doing some real damage in the league.

 

[The Abusement Park]

I think the reason why it seems like we've lost some of the systematic structure from before is one big thing, and that's that they're still learning.



I think the first couple of weeks, the Avs had basic understanding of what was expected from Bednar in the new system, and what the plan of attack was regarding each of the three zones.

They took that basic understanding and applied just that for the first two weeks of the season. They showed to be very competent with that system and generally put together some solid games.



Then, during the week off we had. They went through a lot of long hard practices. And I think it was during this time that JB and the coaching staff attempted to expand on the systems they had used in the first couple of weeks. They started going into a lot more detail, started focusing on the finer details and all that good stuff.


What happened was that the Avs forgot about some of the core ideas and strategies to the system because they were so focused on the new parts and the finer details. A good example of this I think was in the Chicago game on one of Zadorov's half pinches, where he kind of froze at the blue line looking very indecisive about what to do, before finally pinching when it was to late resulting in one of the many odd man rushes that the Hawks had last night.


I thought that was a pretty obvious example of what's going on right now that's causing the issues we're seeing.


It's just a learning process and the Avs players are having to learn an entire new system, then relearn that system again once finer details were included into it, and then continue relearning it as the system gets more fine tuned to the way JB wants it to be run.


This was exactly why I expected the Avs to struggle a tonne out of the gate this year. And it's why I'm not really surprised at the record we have right now(If there's any surprise it's actually a positive surprise that we aren't worse off right now).


It'll take time for them to fully adjust from last year to this year. But I like what I've seen so far, and if they keep going in this direction I believe they'll be an entirely different looking team by January month. Whether it's enough to be a playoff team or not I dont know and I suspect not. But I think we're gonna finish on an extremely good note this year and next year is when I expect to see us start doing some real damage in the league.

This seems actually really accurate. There seems to be spurts of every game where they've looked really good, really structured and the promise is there. But they just need to get used to playing a different style of hockey and get rid of those bad habits. Hopefully those spurts of progress can get increased more and more throughout the season.

 

[dahrougem2]

If MacKinnon doesn't hit at least 65 points this season, I'll be pretty disappointed.

 

[5280]

I think the reason why it seems like we've lost some of the systematic structure from before is one big thing, and that's that they're still learning.



I think the first couple of weeks, the Avs had basic understanding of what was expected from Bednar in the new system, and what the plan of attack was regarding each of the three zones.

They took that basic understanding and applied just that for the first two weeks of the season. They showed to be very competent with that system and generally put together some solid games.



Then, during the week off we had. They went through a lot of long hard practices. And I think it was during this time that JB and the coaching staff attempted to expand on the systems they had used in the first couple of weeks. They started going into a lot more detail, started focusing on the finer details and all that good stuff.


What happened was that the Avs forgot about some of the core ideas and strategies to the system because they were so focused on the new parts and the finer details. A good example of this I think was in the Chicago game on one of Zadorov's half pinches, where he kind of froze at the blue line looking very indecisive about what to do, before finally pinching when it was to late resulting in one of the many odd man rushes that the Hawks had last night.


I thought that was a pretty obvious example of what's going on right now that's causing the issues we're seeing.


It's just a learning process and the Avs players are having to learn an entire new system, then relearn that system again once finer details were included into it, and then continue relearning it as the system gets more fine tuned to the way JB wants it to be run.


This was exactly why I expected the Avs to struggle a tonne out of the gate this year. And it's why I'm not really surprised at the record we have right now(If there's any surprise it's actually a positive surprise that we aren't worse off right now).


It'll take time for them to fully adjust from last year to this year. But I like what I've seen so far, and if they keep going in this direction I believe they'll be an entirely different looking team by January month. Whether it's enough to be a playoff team or not I dont know and I suspect not. But I think we're gonna finish on an extremely good note this year and next year is when I expect to see us start doing some real damage in the league.

I hate to quote this whole post again but I'm on my phone......I am pretty much expecting (hoping) our season and future will turn out like you say in your last paragraph.