Colorado Avalanche: Tyson Jost Breaks Team’s Power Play Drought

Rookie center Tyson Jost broke the Colorado Avalanche’s power play drought with his toe-drag special last night.

The Colorado Avalanche have not been good on the power play. As I noted in a previous post, prior to Tyson Jost‘s power play tally last night, the team hadn’t had a power play goal in 17 attempts.

Well, rookie Jost ended that drought in grand fashio. His goal came early in the third period with many of us Avalanche fans recommending that Colorado should decline the power play — they’d already given up two short-handed goals and numerous other chances to the Buffalo Sabres.

Well, the Avalanche didn’t decline the penalty of Sabres defenseman boarding Carl Soderberg, so they went on the man-advantage.

It all starts with fellow rookie J.T. Compher setting up the power play. He gets the puck to captain Gabriel Landeskog, who skates around the back of the net to get it to Mikko Rantanen. Rantanen dishes it to power play quarterback Tyson Barrie, who takes the shot:

Side rant: NHL.com uploaded the wrong video for Tyson Jost’s power play goal. However, you can see it also in the recap video below at the 2:31 mark:

Anyway, Tyson Barrie takes the shot, which caromes off of a Buffalo Sabres player right onto Jost’s stick. He pulls the puck towards him then releases a perfect wrister complete with a toe drag.

Indeed, the shot was so perfect that Altitude TV analyst Mark Rycroft broke down the play on the tele-prompter, exhorting aspiring hockey players at home to practice the shot just that way. He added, “If you have hands like Jost’s, you might just make it to the NHL.”

Despite such high praise for his shot, Tyson Jost was characteristically humble about his goal:

"“A lucky bounce is what we were due for. It was nice that the puck came right to me, and it happened to find the back of the net.”"

Yes, when you have skilled hands and a perfected shot like Jost does, the puck will, indeed, “happen to find the back of the net.” By the way, lost in all the humility is the fact that this was Jost’s first NHL power play goal. It’s his fifth goal of the season and 13th point.

Random photo to show you also what you need to do to improve your skating power (aka, the Flying Josty)

The goal would have been the game-winner, too, except fellow rookie Samuel Girard did an oops (3:46 mark, NHL.com sucks):

Yep, as far as I know, that’s Sam Girard’s first NHL own-goal. Let’s hope it’s his last as an Avalanche. Anyway, Evander Kane shows his real character (lack of) in celebrating that goal like he just won the Stanley Cup — or, you know, did anything to even score that goal. He was credited with said goal because he was closest to the goal-scorer.

Next: Landeskog Fights Schenn

In any case, the Colorado Avalanche return home for a single game (against the Montreal Canadiens) before heading up to face the Winnipeg Jets. Jost got a goal against the Sharks last time the team was at home. Let’s hope he gets a little goal-scoring mojo going.