After a tightly contested match up between the Colorado Avalanche and Edmonton Oilers in early march, Friday’s match up was a highly anticipated rematch between the Western Conference Final foes of a year ago.
Edmonton was fresh off an embarrassing loss to the Dallas Stars on Wednesday while Colorado was on the second half of a back to back after defeating the Minnesota Wild on Thursday. Alexandar Georgiev was between the pipes for Colorado while Stuart Skinner got the nod for the Oilers.
Edmonton Goal 1
The Oilers recover the puck, going D-to-D across the top before Darnell Nurse takes one of his better shots solely designed for a tip. Both Ryan McLeod and Corey Perry are out front, along with their respective defenders creating traffic in front of Georgiev. Georgiev sees enough to be moving in the right direction, but doesn’t see the tip or have the urgency to get fully back to the post, which allows the perfect deflection from Perry to find its way in.
Colorado Goal 1
Skinner makes the first save on Cale Makar through traffic, putting the rebound in a manageable spot. As this happens, all five Oilers collapse below the face off dots as Nathan MacKinnon grabs the puck. He’s able to find Jonathan Drouin in the high slot for the one timer. Skinner rotates to be square but doesn’t gain any depth and might be slightly off angle to the blocker side. Connor McDavid and Brett Kulak are originally a bit of an obstruction, but there’s a sightline on the release, and looks to be a rare time where Skinner just missed.
Colorado Goal 2
The Avalanche had zone time for about the last 1:45 of their powerplay, including multiple big saves from Skinner. The Oilers clear the puck and get a change, but their goalie was visibly out of breath from my viewing in the rink. Artturi Lehkonen moves the puck to Ross Colton who is able to beat Mattias Ekholm clean around the outside, which is an extremely rare occurrence. Colton is then able to cut to the middle around Adam Henrique while Evan Bouchard is defending the back door. With a bit of traffic from Lehkonen and Henrique, Skinner bites hard on the shot fake, to the point where he’s down and out when the shot finally comes.
Edmonton Goal 2
Ekholm’s point shot misses after it’s partially blocked by Makar, but Georgiev goes down with most of the defenders going to the short side. McDavid is able to recover the puck behind the net and directly move for a wrap around. Devon Toews jams his stick on the post which prevents him from executing a poke check. Meanwhile, Georgiev is late getting back to the post, which allowed McDavid to bank the puck off the bottom of the pad and in.
Edmonton Goal 3
Oilers get a 3-on-2, with Leon Draisaitl drawing Samuel Girard to him, opening the middle for Ekholm. Lehkonen is able to catch Ekholm from behind, tying up the big defenceman. Georgiev isn’t able to cleanly cover the first contact, with the rebound then bouncing off Lehkonen’s leg and through the five hole. The initial glove skate contact is outside the crease with Ekholm’s right skate, but the contact with the glove and the follow through with the left skate appear to occur inside the crease before the puck goes through the five hole. I thought this was coming back for goalie interference, but after the last week I officially have no idea what goalie interference is.
Edmonton Goal 4
Mcleod takes a slap shot from high and outside in the zone with a clean line of sight for Georgiev. However, the Colorado netminder muffs it, with the rebound bouncing off Evander Kane‘s pant leg and in. Not much can be done on the follow up, but that puck needs to be caught clean.
Edmonton Goal 5
Zach Hyman drives down the outside, winning a puck battle against Toews to set up a 2-on-1 at the net front. McDavid goes to Bouchard, but it’s partially broken up by Makar, leading to a decision from Bouchard to put it back to the middle. Georgiev slid on the first pass, but when he tries to get back to the middle, he doesn’t get much rotation, counter rotating and pushing out towards the slot rather than back through the crease as McDavid puts the floater past him.
Edmonton Goal 6
Oilers end up with a rush chance off a somewhat broken transition up the ice. McLeod takes Jack Johnson away while leaving the puck for Kane, who’s driving wide on Lehkonen. Kane gets to the bottom of the circle and fires low. Georgiev is using what’s sometimes called a “Panda” for his post integration. There are multiple benefits to this post integration, which allows the post side skate to be outside the post while sealing the short side, but it also doesn’t allow the goaltender to be square to the release. This costs Georgiev here, as the puck gets through his five hole, and is able to bounce between his pads before going in. Not a good goal again.
Summary
Friday night’s game was great for the first 35 minutes, before some lucky bounces swung the momentum Edmonton’s way. The Oilers were able to target Georgiev’s post integrations multiple times, while some misplays of the puck by the Colorado netminder led to some lucky goals. I can definitely see why Avs fans are starting to call for more starts for Justus Annunen, but the rookie will need to face some tougher competition before he can fully take over the starting job. Skinner was a bit shaky early with the goals against, but was able to settle in and make a few key saves in the second period before the Edmonton offence took over.
