For about 58 minutes, the Colorado Avalanche played a fantastic game at Canada Life Center in Winnipeg.
The problem for the Avs? The best team in the NHL to date was the opponent, and Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck looked a lot more like a two-time Vezina Trophy winner than he did the last time the Avalanche saw him.
Gabriel Vilardi scored 66 seconds in, and that was enough for the Jets to fend off the Avs in a 1-0 game Thursday night. Alexandar Georgiev easily had his best game of the season. The offensive stars all played well, but couldn’t beat Hellebuyck.
This was definitely Colorado’s best performance in a loss this season, and arguably one of its two or three best overall. Still, the Avs are now 6-8, still haven’t defeated a team that participated in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs and will come home to face the second-best team in the NHL, the Carolina Hurricanes, on Saturday night at Ball Arena.
Here are some observations from one of the best games in the NHL this season:
1. The opening minutes of the game were kind of a mess for the Avs. Gabriel Vilardi scored on the first shot of the contest on a 2-on-1 pass from Mark Scheifele. Josh Manson tried to play the puck and keep it in the offensive zone near the right point, but he couldn’t handle it, which led to Scheifele collecting it and blowing by him.
Samuel Girard was the lone guy back and it was definitely not the best 2-on-1 defense of his career. Scheifele got Georgiev to square up for a potential shot, then the goaltender lunged across and was on his stomach by the time Vilardi calmly flipped the puck past him. In hindsight, it looked like Georgiev might have had enough time to just slide across in his butterfly stance, which might have given him more of a chance to make the save.
The Avs also gave up a breakaway on the next shift, and it looked like an ugly night was brewing in The Peg.
2. Then it got better. Georgiev had the best game of his season from that point forward and finished with 27 saves. He had a couple of scramble-y moments, particularly near the end of the first period while Winnipeg was on the power play. But overall, everything looked better. He made routine saves look routine. The Avs played pretty good defense in front of him.
Georgiev did make some progress after a terrible start before Thursday night, but it was tiny steps. This looked like real progress, after the opening sequence. The capper was a side-to-side save on Nikolaj Ehlers in the third period.
3. Speaking of progress, the Jets had the best power play (by percentage) in the NHL coming into this game. The Avs’ penalty kill yielded a lot of shot attempts (10 in four minutes, but only one or two of them were dangerous). Given that Colorado began the night 29th on the PK at 68.6 percent and the competition, it’s hard to argue with the results.
4. Cale Makar played 25:16, and it didn’t look like whatever was bothering him two nights prior was an issue. He played 29 seconds in the final 30 minutes against Seattle and didn’t skate Wednesday, but everything looked pretty normal. The Avs also tilted the ice at 5-on-5 when Makar was out there, and he killed a 2-on-1 for the Jets midway through the third period.
5. Colorado didn’t earn a power play in the first 58:50, but did get one for the final 70 seconds and the Avs got their chances. Mikko Rantanen was furious that there wasn’t a call in his favor on multiple occasions. Logan O’Connor appeared to get hauled down at one point early in the third period. Artturi Lehkonen got high-sticked and it wasn’t called. It happens, but the Avs still probably are not going to be happy about it.
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6. The Avs created 16 scoring chances, per Natural Stat Trick, when the top line was on the ice at 5-on-5. Every player on the roster was in the black when it came to scoring chances. Combine that with Georgiev’s performance, and Colorado will take this effort eight days a week.
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