The Hockey PDOcast - Blackwood's Impact in Colorado, and Evaluating the Avs at the Midseason Mark

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Meghan Angley and AJ Haefele to talk about the impact Mackenzie Blackwood has had in Colorado since arriving, the team's offensive profile amidst all of their early season injuries up front, Nathan MacKinnon's change in approach, and evaluating where the Avalanche are at now at the midseason mark. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitra Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Megan Angley. Megan, what's going on? Not too much. How are you? I am good. And the reason why I'm good, beyond it being a Friday and the weekend being here, is we're reuniting the Aves Dream Team. We've done this a couple times. Everyone always loves it when we get the band together. So we're going to do so again for the first time this season. Also joining Megan and I is our pal, AJ Hathley. AJ, what's going on, fellow? Just living the life, brother.

Living the life. Very exciting. So I knew I had to do an Ave show. Obviously, they're playing really well. They're 12, 3, and 1 since early December. I did, I've been off for about a week or two. I went to Mexico. Before that, I did a big show where we went through the Bear versus Bull case for every contender.

Unfortunately, I feel like we left the Ave section TBD. partly by design because I feel like we haven't really seen the full version of this team. So I felt like it was kind of unfair to evaluate them at the time. Part of it was just time constraints and we just sort of ran out of time. But I knew that we'd circle back to it and do the full deep dive treatment here. And that's what we're going to do. AJ, I'll let you kick off here. I think the natural starting point for us in talking about the abs at the midseason point

and the season they've had so far is what this teams look like since McKenzie Blackwood's arrival, the impact he's had on the team, both from a goal prevention and save-making perspective, but I think also just what it means within the grand scheme of the team structure. I think it's been well-documented, kind of the strain and the relationship between the goaltending and the team, the lack of faith, and then kind of how that bleeds into your team's play.

And so we've seen all of that. It's looked like an entirely different team now that they're actually getting saves. And I feel like we've at least gotten, kind of an answer to the question of like how much of it was defensive struggles in front of the goalie and how much it was the goalie just being unreliable and not making saves because mackenzie blackwood has stepped into this environment and has looked phenomenal so far yeah i think you know some of this is obviously i'll put i'll put the majority of the onus on alexander georgiev unfortunately there's just no way around that and you know to a smaller degree used to son it as well but that's i think a very different conversation But the symbiotic relationship between defense and goaltending, I think, made it so that you could not just say it was only Alexander Georgiev, because once the team started to really give in on the idea that they were done with Georgiev, that they didn't believe in him. And they started selling out to block every single shot that they could, which left all kinds of other opportunities. available, I think it just hurt everything around to them. And you see they're still giving up scoring chances and shots on goal.

They're giving up more shots on gold now than they were before. But you have a goaltender that's not giving up a lot of rebounds. You have a goaltender that is that they just have confidence in, right? And so it's always going to be impossible to say how much was Georgi, how much was the defense. But it's really easy to look at the difference between wed, Wood and Blackwood and what Georgie Evan Annen were doing before

and say, it's the goalie, stupid. Like, it's, the goalies just, they came in and they started stopping pucks and let's be honest here. The 940 save percentage that McKenzie Blackwood has right now was not going to continue. Otherwise, he's

going to win a Vesna trophy easily. But the, just the, the ability for him to come in and just not make a mess of things. He's not given up three goals in any of his starts. It's earned. He's only had one or two goals in all of those 10 games where you look at and say, that wasn't a very good goal. Like, he really needs to make that save. And to be honest with you, I don't care if he gives up a bad goal every single game. If he's limiting it to one or two every night, that's what you want

from your goaltender. That's exactly what you want. And not being down one or two goals in the first 10 minutes of every game. I mean, it's just the difference is enormous in how the avalanche are able to play the game because they're not chasing games every single night five minutes into the game anymore. It's just, it's astronomical the difference. And then you get into the culture difference, which surely Megan can speak to a lot better than I can at this point. You know, being in and being around them from what I've heard, you know, the conversations that I've had, but Megan has lived it up close and personal, that's got to be very different at this point. Yeah, Megan, what sticks out in my mind is that it was after a recent game, maybe two games

ago or so, I saw the Nathan McKinnon interview where he was about as frank as he ever going to hear Nathan McKinnon or any NHL player where typically you're never going to hear anyone say anything bad publicly about a teammate and not that he did, but expressed a clear enthusiasm about the level of goaltending they were getting and the comfort they had in knowing the McKenzie Blackwood is going to make a save. And I thought that was pretty telling. You can certainly see it just by the play on the ice. But I feel like just that sound bite in and of itself spoke volumes. A lot of the players and coaching staff are trying to tip toe and be careful in how they talk about this. But there have been moments where there is a slip like Nathan

McKinnon talking about the difference being that they're getting saves. He said there were parts earlier in the season that he felt the team was playing well. And there's a lot of truth to that. Everyone knows what happened in the opening 10 game segment. They go, oh and four to start, and it was a bit rough. But the 10 through 20 game segment, at least defensively, what the team was doing was pretty strong. The power play was clicking at that point. And so Nathan McKinnon and Company has a point that there were things that the team was doing well at this point that deserves to be rewarded and they weren't getting the results.

And to AJ's point in the Giorgiv on in an era, when you look at the 13 losses around that point in time, only about two had come from four or fewer goals. And so they were pretty high event games in terms of the goals being allowed and a lot within the first period, putting the team behind the eight ball early in games, leaving them chasing night after night. And so the way that McKinnon has talked about the significance of getting saves or the way in which Jared Bednar has talked about the improvement on the past. penalty kill, it always comes back to goaltending because process-wise, what the team has been doing on the penalty kill, even to start the year in the absence of Natchewski and Lackinen, has been good. They just weren't getting the results because they weren't getting the saves. And so seeing the PK trend upwards kind of slowly, when you look at the total picture, it's still pretty lowly ranked. But when you look segment by segment, it is trending in the right direction. It all links back to goaltending. And there's a huge cultural shift. in the locker room at practices. Players are joking with each other across the room, and they're loud and they're talking and they're just staying in their stalls hanging out. And so to that end, it's definitely a significant difference.

Yeah, AJ, I thought you made a good point there. I went back in preparation for this and I watched all of McKinsey Blackwood's safe so far in his avalanche tenure and all the goals against. And the only one that really stood out to me that was like one of those quote-un-unquote he should have had it or he probably would regret that one, was the Capocaco goal right off the face off against the crack? And the other ones were all either around the net, off the rush, lateral movement.

Maybe there were a couple where he sort of, you know, stopped the initial one, let the rebound go in front of him. Guy wasn't boxed out, and he could argue that he could have done a better job handling the rebound, but there's still in tight scoring chances. And I feel like just eliminating a lot of the hallmarks that had plagued this team previously, which was the soft ones from the outside. that the goalie really should have, limiting the horrible rebounds

that get kicked out right into the front and then are tapped back in. I feel like Blackwood has done such a good job of shoring those up that all of the extra saves he makes that are remarkable are Carra Carra gravy, right? And he's made a bunch of those as well. I think I'm no goalie technician,

by any means, but just watching his lateral movement and in particular when he extends the left pad and how much of the net he takes up, like he's been so solid so far. And so you put all that together and it's just an entirely different framework, I think, for this team to work with. yeah he he looks like a tight end in net like the the man is gigantic the first time he put on in

a navs jersey and and was out there a morning skate you could just see like his waist is at the cross part the guy's enormous and that alone is a nice change from alexander georgiv who's an undersized schooltender who played small in net and with blackwood you just don't have that same issue and the the controlled manner in which he plays you know this is not a chaos monster you know he is he understands what he's doing and he's he's intentionally putting rebounds into certain places as best he can and the defense is responding to that not just going well i hope the first one hits him and then we'll figure it out from there it's a much healthier relationship between defense and goaltender right now mgan i'm curious for your take on this because once they acquired them

I believe he played the four games, obviously played really well, as AJ said, he hasn't given up more than two goals in any of his games so far. I believe he's given up 15 total in his nine starts. He has the four games, and then they make that long-term extension commitment to him, right, 5.25 for five years. And at a first blush, it sort of seemed like not an overreaction, but it seemed quite sudden based on how short he'd been with the team. I figured when they acquired him that they were beyond just trying to salvage this season. while their star players are playing this well and throwing them a life raft, I felt like they were going to use it as an opportunity

to evaluate them internally, see how he fit, and then obviously as an impending UFA, deal with that decision in the off season. Instead, they got four games of them, and we're like, you know what, we're sold. We like this. We want to sign up for five more years. It's not that massive commitment when you look.

It's like, I think the 16th or 17th highest paid goalie by AAV next season, but for this Aves team, which historically has not really committed a lot, lot of resources to goalies. It does represent a pretty drastic change, I guess, in terms of operation and how they view the position. How much of it was just the fact that he came in, he played well, and they were like, all right, we just don't want to deal with the alternative of what we've been dealing with recently and how much of it was something else, because it

obviously represents just an entirely different philosophy, I guess, compared to the way they've acted the past couple of seasons. It is a philosophy change. And I think that it's, born from the cautionary tale of the goalie gamble no longer working for them. They had been a little bit frugal in that before, but it had worked for them. And that goalie gamble had paid off, you know, going Darcy Kemper, Frances Grubauer era. And I think there was a hope, too, in early years that Francesos would still be a backup option through this year. And I think that's what forced the timeline up on Eustisanin and put a lot of pressure on Georgiev to be the starter. as we talked about, you know, in the segment games 10 through 20, that already was threatened,

that Georgiev was unseated as the starter. And so I think the cautionary tale was we don't want to take this kind of gamble again because it did cost the team in a big way in terms of morale and the overall vibe around the team. I think, though, it wasn't really sudden or based upon the early results of Blackwood because Chris McFarland was transparent when they completed the trade that they didn't bring Blackwood over just to play hockey for a few months. And the extension was already on the table at that point in time. I think that this is a goaltender that they've been watching and have been familiar with. He's played well opposite of the abs now for a little bit that those early results

probably didn't matter much. I think they were already moving towards a philosophy switch and what they were going to do in net and prepared to commit a little bit more to that position because the Georgi of Gamble had failed in. kind of a big way. AJ. I also think that when you look at the assets that they've spent over the years, from the Gruberr deal to the Kempir deal to the Georgiev deal and then to Blackwood,

you're talking about multiple second round picks, a first, a third, a fifth, like, and Nikolai Kovolenko, a top nine NHL ready forward here that they drafted and waited six years to get in the NHL. I think they were just, they just, we won off this ride. they said okay we're we don't want to continue to do this and then you look at the money and there's certainly a little bit of sticker shock when you look at the 525 that they gave him just comparative to what they gave philip grubauer and then alexander kiorgiyev when they traded for them but it was really when you total when you add all of it up it's like you're talking about they will no longer be sacrificing those trade assets every couple of years to fill this position. And all for the cost of like a third line forward-ish, it's about two and a half, three million dollars difference between what their tandem

will be next year with Blackwood and Wedgwood and what they had with Yorgiav and Annen and their comfort level and the results that we've seen so far, obviously, it's night and day difference. So that organizational shift that Megan is talking about, about has absolutely happened and I just think you look at what they've been paying into that position and they're just saying we would rather use we would rather pay the extra aav every year and use those assets to fill other roles on our team because this we're tired of this this sucks and obviously blackwood I mean I I didn't mean to present it as he played four

good games because he's played really well dating back to last year yeah for San Jose even before that when New Jersey, really the complicating factor was all the injuries he had and the uncertainty there, not the actual talent and ability in when he was on the ice. So there is all of that. I mean, he's been remarkable, as you said, 940, say percentage, goals against in the game, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1. I mean, it's been remarkable the night and day shift where when at the time of acquisition, they have an 866 team say percentage, which is 10 points behind 31st place. They're giving up 3.5 goals against.

and that's entirely shifted. I guess the final point I have on this is just stressing, like, how unique a circumstance, I guess this is, and forgetting what we just said about the organizational shift, because we talk all the time about how in-season goalie acquisitions are so rare from a meaningful perspective, right? Because it's not as easy as just plucking someone from a different situation, especially on a bad team where they're making a bunch of saves in relatively low-stakes environments and saying, all right, all of a sudden now you're going to play high-pressure hockey

and you're going to play the same, we rarely see this. And for a guy to just step in this seamlessly and play as well as Blackwood has right out of the gate is a remarkable story. It's so unprecedented in a way. So I think that's really cool. And I think that's why this was worth exploring this much. Either you have any other notes on Blackwood or the goalie situation, or do you want to kind of move out from out from the net and talk about the offense a little bit? I'm solid.

Yeah, me too. You're good. Okay. So my question for you, AJ, is how we, evaluate this team's offensive performance so far because they're seventh in the league in goals per 60 all situations so they're top 10 uh they're top players whether it's mcannon ranting and mccarr or all amongst the league leaders in scoring yet if you look a little bit further they're tied 19th and five on five on five goals this season with the blues just ahead of the minnesota wild with nathan mckinan on the

ice they're scoring three point three goals per 60 which is good as you'd expect in all the other minutes without Nathan McKinnon, regardless of whether McCar is out there or not, they're all the way down to 1.9 goals per hour, which is obviously quite poor. And that represents a massive shift in environment. How much of that is just as simple as saying what we said off the top where it's like they've had so many absences, so many key players, both from a quantity and quality perspective in and out of the lineup, that it's almost impossible to evaluate or get a clear picture of what this team looks like when the top line isn't out there and how much of it is explained by what we just said. that the goaly impact of they had to change the way they played a little bit and take fewer risks

offensively because they had to compensate for that uncertainty. How much of it is a combination of both? How much of it is still a bit of a lingering concern? We can talk more about middle stat and his individual play. But I think there are still some questions for a team that you'd think, all right, offense is already solved. And they certainly have the firepower at the top of the lineup. Yet the overall package in terms of scoring hasn't necessarily been commensurate with what you'd expect. Megan, I'm curious.

Have the abs had their preferred top nine forwards healthy through one game this season? I'm not even sure they've really had the top six fully healthy between Jonathan Durenne being a player that's in nine games. But maybe that boils down to a couple of games that Doren has been in the lineup and it's been a complete top six. but you're absolutely right. They've at least established what the O.C. Kelly Kivirontal line is, so I think that completes like the top nine picture a little bit, but that still begs the question, have they had a complete top six?

Jonathan Duran, I think, is such a key part of this conversation, but the concern around the middle stat also a part of it. Yeah, I ask because like there was like that one day of glory where it seemed like the abs were actually healthy, and then Val-Natushkin got hurt and didn't return to the game and is now out, and Jonathan Druin is in and out of the lineup, and sometimes Ross Cold is the center, and sometimes he's a wing, and KC. Medlestad sometimes is good, and sometimes is Casper. And it just seems like their top nine has been in flux from day one of this season.

I mean, we watched, what, like eight games where Casey Middlestat was centering a line with Nikolai Kovalenko and Ivan Ivan. and it just now seems like a long time ago, but it has been large chunks of this season where they're not even close to being healthy at their forward core. And, you know, Miles Wood, his injury, his long-term injury, has allowed YOL Kivironta to kind of secure a spot in the avalanche lineup, even when he does come back.

And yeah, you're right about that third line that they've got with Kivironti, and Kelly and Logan O'Connor really solidifying itself is one of the best defensive lines in the entire NHL. But if we're being honest, that's a fourth line. And their suppression is elite and is absolutely something that Colorado should lean on. But their scoring is not good. And we should really be looking at that as a fourth line in an ideal world. You know, we live in a cap world where they're going to have to make some. choices, but, you know, getting Uso Parson in, that should, that should help a little bit.

You want to give him a little bit more skill. If you put him on a fourth line, he's probably wasted. If they get all these, they get all the forwards back and Jonathan Duran is in the lineup on a regular basis, Ross Colton might be able to drop down and play with Parson in on a third line, and you're getting really close to an interesting third line there that can give you more offense than what the, the Kelly line has done so far. But I think that's your problem. really good fourth line that has been your third line for two months now. You have a second line

that has been in flux. You have a second line center who was pretty solid for 20 games and has been pretty bad since then. And your top line just keeps doing what it does. And that's, that is created a big vacuum of, of goal scoring for the avalanche beyond those top guys. You also have, you know, we've talked about for years, you know, Megan, I know you and I have talked about for a long time how their defense has kind of served as a second line scoring effect for a long time. And Kail McCar has obviously been special, but beyond Kail McCar this year, Devon Taves had a really slow start. Sam Gerard was really good early on, but has slowed since.

Sam Malinsky has not given them any offense whatsoever. And we're talking about Josh Manson offensively these days. Like it has not been, I know that they've been, they're leading the NHL in scoring from their blue line, but so much of that. comes from Kail Makar. And it is just such a different feel to the team this year that that balance of their scoring on the defense has not been able to pick up the slack behind Colorado's top line as it has in the past.

Yeah, I was going to say the craziest stat of this season is they've already used 33 different skaters in 43 games. That doesn't include the six goalies as well. I was watching the game against the Panthers and the broads. podcast was noting how I think the Panthers were at like 21 or 22 skaters at the time and just that disparity between the two. So that's kind of where I'm at in terms of the offensive profile. There's still second and ozone time, first and cycle chances, tied with the stars for first and rush chances.

I think they do strike the fear of God into opposing defenses. At the same time, though, it's almost impossible to get a clear picture of what it would look like at full power just because we're at the 43 game arc and we haven't really actually seen that yet. In AJ's rate that the third line is more of a fourth line, Jared Bednar has described it as the fourth line in the 2022 cup run. He's likened it to the COGS helm O.C. line. And that's great if you're talking about a fourth line. But it is tough to hear him talk about the third line in that way. And it's because he's talking about the consistency and the ability to bring energy momentum and where teams down shift by shift.

But to AJ's point, they don't really provide any scoring punch. And that is the trouble then that this is still kind of a. three-line team and that third line is truly meant to be more the fourth line. And so I think from the forward side, that's where it's not really a balanced attack. And then to Aege's point about the back end, Devon Taves hasn't really been fully healthy. We're only now beginning to see the Devon Taves that were used to. There were on characteristic mistakes earlier in the year. And I think some of that was health and some of that was the goaltending situation, having an impact on how the team executed defensively in front.

And then Josh Manson being a difference maker offensively is funny because he hasn't been healthy for a good amount of this year too and he's still trying to get back up to game speed. So I do think that is another area of the lineup that's different this year from years past. But it does seem to be trending in a better direction as being able to provide more offense than we've seen, especially from players like Gerard, who I think lately has cooled off, but I can expect more from in the future. Yeah, it was strange that Kale McCar put on a 42 jersey for that Minnesota wild game the other night because I'm certainly not used to Josh Manson making the types of plays he was making that one offensively. I'm going to talk a little bit quickly here about middle stat.

We sort of referenced it earlier. I think in his defense, as you said, AJ, I thought the first 20 games are much different than maybe the past 20, 25 games or so. He's probably been the biggest sort of, I guess, casualty of all the guys in and out of the lineup because I believe the stat is he's. He's played with 11 different forward linemates for at least 35 minutes this season at 5-on-5. It's been a revolving door trying to find a fit for him. And then when guys like Lekinen or Natchushkin are out, they just load up the top line and he's left with players who probably aren't as talented, as his linemates should be at least in an ideal world. Now, at the same time, last 24 games, one goal, seven assists. Out of 372 forwards this year with 300 minutes played, he's 349th in shot rate.

Never going to be a high-volume shooter. but there's been large stretches where he hasn't really been involved and he's kind of just being doing cardio out there for the most part. Now I thought that one shift in particular in the recent game against Minnesota was exactly what we saw from him towards the end of last year, right? The puck protection, the playmaking, setting guys up, it's just been few and far between. How do we evaluate the season he's had because he was so good last year in the postseason?

And then now these past 20-25 games, he's looked like the player he was more so earlier in his career in Buffalo. and I think that's a bit alarming. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt once they get healthy and he's actually playing full time with legitimate top six players. But we haven't really seen him be able to carry a line the way I think the avalanche probably hope they would

when they acquired them and obviously when they gave him the extension that they did. Yeah, he had 18 points through 19 games and had 43 shots on goal. Like for a second line center, I am pretty good with that. That all sounds pretty good to me. I don't have any issues there.

But in the 24 game sense, as you mentioned, eight points and 18 shots on goal, what is that? He just disappeared. And what doesn't make sense is that his nosedive coincided almost identically with Arturi Lekinen and Valenachushkin both getting back to Colorado's lineup. So he was doing, he was scoring and there was quite a bit of power play scoring going on to boost those numbers. But scoring is scoring. We're talking about trying to get goals out of somebody other than Nathan McKinnon's linemates here.

Casey Middlestat was able to give him that before he got help. And then the help came and he's just disappeared since then. And we have seen signs of life from him the last week or so. It, you know, he scores the game winning goal on New Year's Eve against Winnipeg. I thought his game against Florida was excellent. He was all over the place. I loved that game for him, dominant. And if we can see that a little bit more often,

then I think Colorado is going to be just fine. But he really is a tale of two seasons so far. And, you know, we always think that the most recent thing that has happened to us is most likely to continue and the most important thing. So it feels like it's never going to get better. But if he can find a middle ground between, you know, a middle ground between what he was at the. start of the season and what he has been since then, I think the avalanche will be just fine.

I think they will be just fine, especially if they can get healthy and there's a little bit more consistent help around him. And he's not having to, he's never going to be a heavy lift guy. He's not a play driver. He never has been in his entire NHL career. Asking him to be that isn't going to, isn't going to, if that's the ask, you're going to be disappointed. And too frequently for me,

he was playing himself into the perimeter. There's like a 10-game stretch where every time he touched the puck, he would immediately skate to the corner, skate to the wall, pull up, and then look to do something else. He was never in the middle of the ice. You go and you look over the last five or six games. He started finding himself into the middle of the ice. He started working hard again.

He started moving his feet. He's starting to get out there a little bit more. And it is paid immediate dividends for him. As we all know, perimeter players don't succeed in the NHL for a reason. You have to be able to play in the middle of the ice, especially as a center. And when Middlestat does that, he's good. He's effective. He's not a world beater, but he's a good second-line center.

When he's relegated himself to playing on the outside and trying to let everybody else do it around him, and he's making cute little plays instead of using the playmaking acumen that we know he possesses, when he gets into the bad habits, he's brutally bad. He's awful to watch. And he's completely ineffective. But when he is playing the game the right way and he's committed to it and he's getting to the middle of the ice, he's just a rock solid second line center. We've seen Casey Middlestat thrive in the dangerous areas of the ice to include below the goal line as well. And it is because of that playmaking acumen seeing Jonathan Dren back in the lineup really punctuated what has been missing from Casey Middlestadt's game.

And it's because Middlestat can get passes off from. below the goal line or inside ice because he has such a high IQ. And so I think that part of his game has taken a hit. And interestingly, alongside what AJ is saying, some of his best hockey came when he was playing with inconsistent linemates, like the likes of Kovalenko and Cal Ricci. He was feasting on that power play when he had the opportunity there. And AJ's absolutely correct.

His game seemed to wane when Lackena and Nitchhkin were back in the lineup as more regular options. But we've seen middle stat work well. very specifically with Arturi-Lakidan. So it is a bit puzzling, and it does seem like something between what he was doing well at the start of the year that brought him success was just operating off of instinct, because on a nightly basis, his linemates were going to change. So he couldn't really dwell on playing to what his linemates did. Well, he just sort of absorbed their strengths in game and operated off of pure instinct.

I think this back half of his tale of two seasons has struggled because he's in his head way too much. He's overthinking and so he's holding on to the puck for too long. He has really dropped in just shooting the puck generally. I think AJ mentions the perimeter play too. Another concern from Bednar has just been generally moving his feet. But AJ shouts out that Florida game. It was one of the best possession lines with Ross Colton for a reason. I think that there's that capability in middle stat and the line that he's

on. I think Ross Colton is a very good influence on him. And I think together the path to both of their games getting a jump start again, Bolton was great when he came back early December, but his game quieted off a little bit too. I think they're the key to getting each other back on track. And having seen the success of Middlestat post-trade deadline and then in the playoffs, and then at the start of this year, I've actually seen more good than bad that I want to hold out hope that Casey Middlestat can return to that player. But there is a little bit of work to do to getting him there. And I think a lot of it rests in just rebuilding that confidence and also not thinking too much.

I think that's really been a huge struggle on this game lately. All right. Let's take a break here. And then we come back. We'll jump right back and we'll close out today's conversation about the Colorado Avalanche. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey Pedyocast with Megan Angley and AJ Hathley. Megan, I want to talk a little bit about Nathan McKinnon season.

And now prefacing this with the acknowledgement that his personal standard he's held to is right up there at the top of the league along with Connor McDavid and the very few select few. And he's leading the league in scoring by seven points. He's on pace for 130 points this season. He's playing over 23 minutes a night, which we haven't seen a forward due since Ilya Kowicz in the early 2010s for the Devils. Yet he's got six five-on-five goals this season after 36 last year. His shot rate has dropped at a point where he's taking about or attempting 5.5 fewer shots

per 60 than he did two years ago. And it was punctuated. I know he scored most recently against the Wild off a nice shot where he kind of cut to the outside. But he had this sequence which I think AJ highlighted on Twitter where there's this mad scramble against the Blackhawks. The puck comes out to him at the left dot. he's got an open cage with Petter-Mrasic and true Petter-Marsik

fashion completely out of the picture. And instead he opts for this cross-ice pass back in a traffic and it doesn't obviously result in a goal. And it feels like for whatever reason this entire season really, he's come out with a very pass-first mentality, but in fact to the point where it's been a little detrimental, I think, of just passing up looks. He's still certainly going to get his,

and I wouldn't be surprised at all, to see him having a goal-scoring barrage to bring his season total to where you expect it to be. but it's been a bit of a different, I guess, approach that he's had this year. What do we make of that and kind of, is there a particular reason behind it? Or do you think it's just randomness and he's kind of taking what the defense gives him? He scored 51 goals last year. It's a bit of an adjustment.

How do we sort of parse the fact that his sort of decision making, I guess, has looked quite a little bit different than it was last year? I think I hate to take the angle of goaltending, but I want to incorporate it a little bit. But I think in seeing that his shooting percentage right now is trending as one of the lowest we've seen in a while. And I felt that this was another case of doing the right things process wise but not being rewarded. But I felt like to when it was at its worst in particular, it was during some of these tough stretches of hockey where they just weren't getting the goaltending that they needed. And I think this was detrimental to everybody playing in front of the goaltender.

I think that it changed the way a lot of players made decisions. And I think that players like McKinnon, who take on a lot of ice time and a lot of opportunity, latent games, they're relied on very heavily because of who they are, I think that that allows pressure to mount a little bit and makes them feel like they need to be more than just the goal score. Like McKinnon probably felt like he needed to carry the results of this team on his back almost single-handedly. And so I think some of that pressure will influence decision making and sometimes lead to bad decision making or deferring to your teammates or being unselfish to sort of redistribute maybe some of the responsibility. And I think this is something that hopefully in the back half of the year, as this part of the team has been alleviated and getting some support with goaltoning that we see Nathan McKinnon just sort of return to, as you allude to last season's Nathan McKinnon, because it is otherwise. little bit puzzling to see that. Obviously, the production results are still there one way or another, but I would like to see the dominant 5B5 goal scoring Nathan McKinnon of years past.

I do think, though, he's finding other ways to make a difference, in part because it was demanded of him early this year when the team was struggling. But fortunately, now that he is getting more support around the team, hopefully he can just resume being Nathan McKinnon. Yeah, that sounds good. I honestly honestly I have no I really don't know me it's so weird to me the shot rate disappearing the way that it has watching him on the power play where he just doesn't shoot anymore he's the first 15 games of the season it was fun because he would get the he would get the puck

and he would one touch it into the guy in the bumper spot and that guy was ross cold and he scored a bunch of goals before he got hurt and we're now 43 games into the season and he's still doing that and teams have long, long adjusted to Colorado's game plan there so that Nathan McKinnon is still doing it. He's just not, he's not shooting on the power play anymore. The cross-ice pass to Miko Ranton is regularly cut off. He's giving it out to Kail McCar and saying, all right, Kail McCar, you go do it then. And Kail's trying. With McKinnon, it just, I really wish I had an answer.

the 5-5 goal scoring being down as it is is one thing, but watching him on a power play where he just doesn't want to shoot bucks, I'm confused more than anything. He regularly has opportunities to. Obviously, I, you know, tweeted out that screenshot of him not shooting into a net that was vacated by Peter Morazick the other day in Chicago. He never even looked at it. I went back and watched the video.

He never looks at the net. He doesn't even leave. not even looking at it and he passes it through traffic to nobody and does not result in a it's it's a mess i don't it's so weird to be like frustrated with the guy that's leading the NHL and scoring by like a wide margin but we also know that empty net uh empty net goals have greatly boosted those totals for both him and miko rancid in this year and without without them having all time great seasons against an empty net their scoring wouldn't look anywhere near what it would what it does right now

I really, I'm confused by it, to be honest with you. I don't have a great theory as to why Nathan McKinnon has decided I'm not going to shoot very much anymore, which is compared to himself, not compared to the league. He's still shooting a ton compared to the league, but compared to his own rate, his own shot rates of the previous several seasons, it's, it's almost like he's being stubborn and just being like, I don't want to shoot anymore. And I don't know why. well yeah no it's it's the lowest it's been for him personally since 2016 17 which was his fourth year and kind of that nade year before he went super sad and never looked back and so i think it is bizarre because it looks kind of purposeful it's almost like he took up personally that everyone made such a big deal of nika kutrov and connor macdavid hitting 100 assists last year and he's like all right well i'm gonna do that again just to prove that i can and so he's actively pursuing passes that sometimes aren't even there in lieu of good shooting opportunities it's it's strange and i

don't really know what to make of it. It could just be an entire blip because sometimes when guys shooting rates drop, it's because they're struggling physically or because they're not getting open. And that's clearly not the case here. And that's, on the one hand, what makes it perplexing because it seems like an active choice on his part. On the other, it provides reassurance that if he decides to just change his decision-making and he probably will because he's such a good smart player, the shots and the goals will

come accordingly. So I don't really know what to make of it either, but I did think it was a very interesting development because watching these games, it does feel, Megan, like he's passing up opportunities that are there just for the sake of making a pass to set someone else up. Yeah, I don't like to create Nathan McKinnon theories. He scares me a little bit. And I've overheard other media trying to ask him about this very thing and they didn't get very far. So I'm trying to basically he'll point to like, well, you see the numbers. You know what's happening and we don't know what's happening. Nathan, none of us do. I love that. All right.

Quick note on Devantase, because I think Megan mentioned this before we went to break. I have noticed that, and I think part of it was physically, that he's just bounced back from whatever was alien, because obviously the play that sticks in everyone's mind is the highlight real overtime goal against the Sabres, where he invented fashion picks someone up one-on-on-one, creates a turnover, then skates it down and scores. There was another play that really sticks in my mind in that Panthers game where I believe it was Carter-Prehagie. It might have been Anton Laudella, I'm not sure, but someone tried to take him out wide off the rush one-on-one. And he essentially just put it into it immediately and knocked them down, took the puck, sent it going back the other way. And those are the plays that we've become accustomed to seeing from him the reason we all fell in love with this game. And after a bit of a blip by his standards, where it had it dropped off a little bit, there were a few more blown coverage, there's a few more one-on-one mistakes where he was getting beaten.

That is completely solidified as well. And I think that's incredibly encouraging as well, because obviously his partner, Kilmacar is playing at an all-time level right now. And so if Taves is back physically as well, all of a sudden that makes it just so much more dominant. I think with Taves, too, in talking about Nathan McKinnon and what his possible trouble has been, I think a lot of the team changed some of their decision making because of goal-tending. A lot of the defensemen specifically, there's the first Buffalo game that comes to mind because of how Calvin Dahan started that game and how Calvin Dahan finished that game. He started that game making tough decisions, getting caught in no man.

landsland and being partly responsible for goals against, obviously, goaltending rough to start that. Wedgwood comes in. Kevin Nahon is not only cleaned up the defensive mistakes. He's contributing offensively. That, I think, tells a really interesting story about even Taves season. I think a player like Taves, who also carries the brunt of responsibility as the top pair D playing alongside a Kelmikar, in his own end, I think, is making decisions to try and overcompensate for a lack of trust.

not only in goaltending too, but what everyone else is doing. And so instead of playing as a five-man unit in your own end, I think that players like Taves were trying to be a hero. And because there were physical limitations and not being healthy, that would lead to being a little bit late to an assignment, just a couple strides too delayed there. And Taves is such a smart player that those are the uncharacteristic mistakes that people maybe allude to when they talk about how he started this year.

But I think probably getting a little bit more health in the health meter, helped. But I also think that having more trust and confidence in goaltending and also your teammates to understand how Jared Bednar's system is supposed to execute has allowed him to sort of return to the game that serves him best. AJ, you got any notes on Taves? I want to write a love letter to my dear? Watching him, oh man, do I need to write another one for the internet to tweet at me for the next five years? No, watching, watching him early in the season, you know, one of the things

that I've loved about Devon Taves for the last few years is how aggressive he is in getting up the ice and helping create offense in transition. And he wasn't doing much of that early in the season. He wasn't part of the rush. He wasn't stressing defenses. He was just kind of, well, I got the puck out defensively and now I'm going to let them do it. We know that he was hurt for much of the early portion of the season. He started to get healthy. And I don't think that any coincidence that as he was he was pretty injured early on he missed a bunch of games seven points in 21 games is not devon taves over the last several years that's not the guy that we have seen and him putting up 13 points in the last 18 games a lot more of a lot more indicative

of a guy getting actively involved in the rush and look i think i think when you know it's it's kind of cliche, but the best defense is good offense, right? And with him pushing the offensive side of the puck a lot more than he was, that just means the abs have the puck more, which means he's not doing as much defending, he's not spending as much time in front of his own goaltender who he doesn't trust, and all of it just kind of works together and you see a sudden flip of, okay, now Devon Taves is getting healthier, now he's playing in front of goaltending, in front of two goaltenders that he doesn't, have issues with. And he's joining the rush.

He's an active participant in the offense again. And we're just seeing the complete player that we've become accustomed to seeing since he got to Colorado much more often than the shell that we saw at the start of the year, where defensively, he was still pretty good. But the all-around guy was nowhere near what we have seen over the last several years. Really interesting stretch coming up for the abs, right? during this 12, 3 and 1 segment where they've made up a lot of ground, particularly in Minnesota.

There are three points behind the Wild now, five points behind the Jets in the Central, same number of points as the Stars, but the Stars do have three games in hand. But you look at the upcoming schedule at Winnipeg on Saturday, then a homestand against the Oilers, Stars, jets, and Wild again. Megan, I think this is going to be a really insightful stretch

in terms of where they stand, getting a better view of this team, whether they can keep it up, because obviously ever since they got black, what we talked about off the top, how it's been different in terms of both the process and the way it looks and the results. They've had wins against the jets,

the wild, the panthers, and the devils during the sequence of games. But I feel like this one as kind of like a barometer of where they stand with the other Western Conference elite is going to be a really fun one to watch for us. It certainly is. The aves have created whispers of concern around playing down to weaker opponents,

and this upcoming stretch doesn't, really have any. Everyone, even a struggling rangers team, feels like a measuring stick game for the abs. And I think the abs have been good at getting up for those games. And I think they've also been improving their home record here lately. And so those are things that I'm looking at for them to continue, especially because we're never probably going to see a very complete version of this avs team. But this feels like as close to complete as we've seen it this year, even with a Juerrein coming in and out of the lineup, the Chushkin is expected to return here very soon. Gerard is day to day. It's still pretty close to complete.

You know, I've grown a new appreciation for gratitude and injuries in that sense with the abscess here. AJ, I'm going to let you plug some stuff here on the way out, let the listeners know whatever you want on the checkout, and then Megan, you can go after that and do your plugs. Yeah, I mean, I'm still hanging out over at DMVR sports. I don't do the pot every day anymore, but I'm writing twice as much as I used to. So that's, you know, DNVR Sports. DNVR Avalanche is where I'm hanging out and doing all my work. So that would be the good place to find me.

And I'm Megan Angley, and I'm hanging out at Gorilla Sports these days. So Gorilla Sports YouTube channel, girlasports.net for some written content. Awesome. Well, both you keep up the great work. It was so fun to get together again for one of these and get the band. back together. I really like what I've seen from this team over the past month or so. They're playing some really good hockey and the coverage both of you do on a daily basis just helps enhance that experience of following them so much. So hopefully they're going to give us reason to get back together

again in a couple weeks or a couple months, whenever in the second half of the season and do another one of these roundtable shows between the three of us. Hopefully people dug our deep dive of the abs here today. I don't think I ever actually brought this up on the show before, but I was also supposed to do a show about the abs in early December while they were in town with Calvin Dahan and we'd set it up and everything and then he got sick right before and so we had to scrap it for a later date but I really want to have him on because he's a hilarious guy and I think he's got some really cool insights from all the teams he's played on and the way he sees the game and everything he's experienced playing the defense position we were chatting

about doing it and he couldn't believe at the time that I wanted to have someone on who just had the one assist or whatever that he had and he kept talking about about how he was so snake bit and i was like see you're getting the hang of it that's pedio baby and then sure enough he popped up for a couple multi-point games right after that and so now we definitely have to make that happen but that's all from us today uh and for this week it's so good to be back it this week with the three shows we did in rapid succession here to close out uh after the extended time off thank you to everyone for your patience and for sticking with us and hopefully you're happy that we're back uh we'll return sunday with the usual sunday special with our pal thomas

strands. Hope everyone has a great weekend. And thank you for listening to the Hockey P.D. Ocast streaming on the Sports Day Radio Network.