Pre-Game Talk: Week of Make a F***ing Save, Damnit! vs NYI (Mon 7PM); vs BOS (Wed 7:30PM); vs ANA (Fri 7PM); @ SJ (Sun 6PM)

[RECKLESS]

Book it and mark my words, Avs win Boston next game.

Day off. Re-set. Welcome an east-coast heavyweight (this I mean literally, biggest boys of the league) to altitude, and f***ing skate around them.

 

[henchman21]

Book it and mark my words, Avs win Boston next game.

Day off. Re-set. Welcome an east-coast heavyweight (this I mean literally, biggest boys of the league) to altitude, and f***ing skate around them.

Given how soft the Avs are, this is more scary than hopeful.

 

[S E P H]

Is this bad? It feels bad.

It's definitely a mixture of Georgiev being horrific and Avs playing rubbish defence in front of him. I just point this out due to the Dallas Stars and LA Kings goalers being in the top 10.

 

[henchman21]

It's definitely a mixture of Georgiev being horrific and Avs playing rubbish defence in front of him. I just point this out due to the Dallas Stars and LA Kings goalers being in the top 10.

To me, last night was the first truly bad game the team had defensively and they weren't horrific... just bad. All situations, the Avs sit 10th in xGA/60. That's roughly where they should probably be.

I honestly think it is undersold on how horrific the goaltending is. The Avs' GAA is 6.67. Their xGAA is 2.68. Which means they are 3.99 per game over expectation. The next worst in the league is Edmonton at 2.25. Excluding the Avs, there are only 7 other teams giving up more than 3.99 per game period. 5 of those are practically tied with it at exactly 4. Meaning only 2 teams have an actual GAA materially worse than what the Avs are giving up over expectation. Washington and Edmonton are those two teams.

 

[Ceremony]

At what point do we write off the season?

 

[RECKLESS]

Given how soft the Avs are, this is more scary than hopeful.

Was my initial thought and I watched the Boston-Florida game last night. That Bruins team over there sure is big n nasty, but given the schedule and them travelling to Denver we have at least the decent possibility to counter.

I guess what I'm saying is
I WANT TO BELIEVE

 

[The Moops]

At what point do we write off the season?

I did after the first pre-season game

 

[henchman21]

Was my initial thought and I watched the Boston-Florida game last night. That Bruins team over there sure is big n nasty, but given the schedule and them travelling to Denver we have at least the decent possibility to counter.

I guess what I'm saying is
I WANT TO BELIEVE

At some point, the Avs will come up with a big win. Might as well be against Boston!

 

[The Moops]

At some point, the Avs will come up with a big win. Might as well be against Boston!

Even teams like Boston will have let down games once in a while. Might as well be against us

 

[RockLobster]

At what point do we write off the season?

 

[S E P H]

To me, last night was the first truly bad game the team had defensively and they weren't horrific... just bad. All situations, the Avs sit 10th in xGA/60. That's roughly where they should probably be.

I honestly think it is undersold on how horrific the goaltending is. The Avs' GAA is 6.67. Their xGAA is 2.68. Which means they are 3.99 per game over expectation. The next worst in the league is Edmonton at 2.25. Excluding the Avs, there are only 7 other teams giving up more than 3.99 per game period. 5 of those are practically tied with it at exactly 4. Meaning only 2 teams have an actual GAA materially worse than what the Avs are giving up over expectation. Washington and Edmonton are those two teams.

I understand the analytics show the Avs' defence is a lot better than we think it is, but I just can't come to that conclusion. It has been awful since the Cup win and some of that is losing personnel as well as players being overplayed along with our system being adjusted to by opposing teams. Our defence doesn't excuse Georgiev because we agree that he is mentally broken, but I've noticed a ton more dangerous chances against him, especially off the rush than what Kuemper or Francouz have had to deal with. Most of those chances are happening when teams cycling against us.

 

[Anders Cain]

Given how soft the Avs are, this is more scary than hopeful.

Last night I was like f*** this in skipping the next game...


I wont. But the angry thought was there lol. I've missed watching only a handful of avs games in the last 10 years.. Even thru the terrible post cap years where everything was bad and arnason was top line center lighting up Edmonton and only Edmonton.. I can't help myself lol

 

[henchman21]

I understand the analytics show the Avs' defence is a lot better than we think it is, but I just can't come to that conclusion. It has been awful since the Cup win and some of that is losing personnel as well as players being overplayed along with our system being adjusted to by opposing teams. Our defence doesn't excuse Georgiev because we agree that he is mentally broken, but I've noticed a ton more dangerous chances against him, especially off the rush than what Kuemper or Francouz have had to deal with. Most of those chances are happening when teams cycling against us.

I think it is human nature that when things go wrong, we start seeing the bad more than the good. Pointing that out more and latching onto it. Then when things are going good, you ignore a lot of the bad. Just take the winning streaks from last year... there was still plenty going wrong, it was just covered up by some puck luck and hot streaks.

I just fail to see a team that has these stats is abysmal defensively.

SA/60 27.33
CA/60 46.67
SCA/60 23.33
HDCA/60 11
xGA/60 2.68

Certainly there have been mistakes and lapses. Those happen all the time. All of those numbers though are an improvement on the last two seasons' teams. Maybe more surprisingly for people, they are actually better than the Cup team's numbers. Last night wasn't good, but the first two games were spectacular defensively. You can point to errors, but any game you can do that.

I don't think this team is perfect or playing perfect defense. As whole though, if the defense plays at this level (I don't think this holds personally), the expectation should be a lot of wins. Coaches dream of ~27 shots and 11 high danger chances. That's dead puck era danger.