First time I’ve gotten MLK day off so we went to the game and sat in the lower bowl. After remembering how fast the NHL game is these days and trying to keep up I had a few observations. Minnie works the neutral zone trap (NZT) to perfection to the point where my avid hockey fan spouse commented how boring the game was and we should have spent our money elsewhere. What team has won the Cup playing the NZT in the past decade so why can’t the Av’s beat it? The new found second line was MIA yesterday and the defense made their usual mistakes leaving Blackwood out to dry. Three incredible saves by Blackwood followed by no uptick in the Av’s play was disappointing. What I did see that goes unmentioned is Rants laying on the ice complaining about a non-call while the puck is moving the other direction. MAF was daunting him throughout the game which seemed to get into this head, and finally followed by a punch to Rants head causing a dive that would make any South American soccer player proud. I wonder if the negotiation of Rants contract are causing issues amongst the team? I certainly don’t think he is worth a $14M cap hit. Maybe this team just can’t string together back-to-back wins because of the parity within the league and they are just too worn out from all the travel. Let’s hope Nuke comes back soon.

You can add the loss of Kadri to the loss of net front presence. Guys like Wood and O’Connor are willing to go to the front of the net, but they lack scoring ability. The Avs could really use a big middle 6 center. Getting a J.T. Miller or Brock Nelson seems unrealistic, but the lack of center depth continues to hurt the club, as well as guys who can live in the paint, like Landeskog and Nichushkin.

Agreed and of course a big part of the problem is that they’re still missing an entire line of NHL players in Wood, Nichushkin and Landeskog.- 2/3 if you’re not comfortable including Landy. This club losing the vast majority of it’s net front presence (13 and 92) for vast swaths of the past 2 and a half seasons has probably been defining for it over that time. It’s just terrible luck but if things can somehow all come together by April no one will want to play them. Thankfully they’ve done enough up to now to be squarely in the playoff race. I don’t want to know how things would look if C-Mac hadn’t taken the drastic action in net.

The depth scoring cannot be counted on. The 4th line never seems to play if the team is behind. Parssinen, Innala, and Ivan had 8,7,5 shifts respectively. The 3rd line plays a 4th line game and, unfortunately, scores like one.

Manson got bailed out by Blackwood on a horrible misplay in the first as well. Awful game by him.