Colorado's relentless attack stifled the Ducks' winning streak. Discover how the Avalanche's dominant play and defensive structure led to Anaheim's defeat.
With first place in the Pacific Division on the line and hopes to extend their winning streak to six games, the Anaheim Ducks hosted the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night at Honda Center.
Colorado entered play on their second game of a back-to-back, having won four of their previous five games, and at the top of the overall NHL standings.
With Troy Terry and Mikael Granlund still unavailable, Ryan Strome served as the team’s lone healthy scratch. Here’s how the Ducks lined up to start this game:
Kreider-Carlsson-Gauthier
Killorn-Poehling-Sennecke
Viel-McTavish-Harkins
Johnston-Washe-Moore
LaCombe-Trouba
Zellweger-Gudas
Mintyukov-Helleson
Lukas Dostal got the start for the Ducks, his seventh in a row, and saved 21 of 26 shots in this game. In Colorado’s crease stood Scott Wedgewood, who stopped 27 of 28.
“They (Colorado) play a complete game. They go four lines deep. They trust all their lines that they play the right way,” Joel Quenneville said of the Avalanche after the game. “Technically, they’re strong. They did a good job of preventing us to get inside in their end, and that might have been the difference.”
Game Notes
The Avs were without one of their better forwards, Artturi Lehkonen, in this game, but they run as cohesive a system as one can find in the NHL, so they didn’t skip a beat with him out of the lineup. Colorado had a unique ability to both clog the neutral zone, especially along the boards, and retrieve pucks before cleanly and efficiently breaking them out of their end, making establishing any semblance of a forecheck a gargantuan undertaking for Anaheim.
Colorado dictated game flow in every situation after the first few shifts, and they carried that until the Ducks made a “too little, too late” push in the third period. At 5v5, the Ducks accounted for 51.11% of the shots on goal and 47.87% of the shot attempts, but just 43.97% of the expected goals. The Ducks couldn’t open seams or get to dangerous rebounds.
D-Zone Coverage/Dostal: When pucks moved laterally high in the defensive zone, Dostal, who is typically a world-class puck tracking goaltender, had a difficult time with the layers of moving screens Colorado sent his way in this game. As the play shifted sides up top, the new strong-side defenseman was often caught in “no-man’s land,” where he couldn’t challenge or block the shot and couldn’t pick up one of the multiple opposing forwards at the crease.
These aren’t new areas of concern for the Ducks in defensive zone coverage, but Dostal is usually spectacular enough to paper over many of their issues. Today, he was just human.
Leo Carlsson: Carlsson is continuing to display how effective he can be at full health and is using his speed to drive opposing defensemen back towards their low slot, which opens up east/west lanes high in the zone.
Even if those lanes aren’t present and he can’t change pace or cut back to the middle, he’s finding ways to get shots off, and with the speed of the Ducks’ attack, they’re able to get to pucks first a lot of the time. It’s like a new approach to establishing a forecheck while also generating a rebound and potential immediate scoring chance.
Radko Gudas: Gudas has done well to play within his skillset this season, contained and keeping plays in front of him. In this game, he was a step slow to read how plays were developing, affecting how quickly he reacted and attempted to get into position. He and his entire blueline had a difficult time sorting which of the multiple opposing netfront forwards each other would cover, and by the time they did, there was an established screen or flurry at the crease.
The Ducks will look to iron out these issues immediately, as they’ll be right back at Honda Center on Wednesday night to host the New York Islanders.