On Saturday, November 8, the Colorado Avalanche were in Edmonton to take on the Oilers in their two-game Western Canada outing. It turned into a completely lopsided victory for Colorado, as they won 9-1. Not only that, but holding a team who has Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to just one single goal is pretty remarkable. Something I found pretty neat, as well, is that they did it against both of Edmonton’s goaltenders—Stuart Skinner and fomer Avs goalie Calvin Pickard. Skinner allowed the first five while Pickard let in four of his own. It was a complete dominant game, and it has ended up being the highest-scoring game of the season for a single team. It also caught the eyes of NHL insider Elliotte Friedman, who chimed in on it on his 32 Thoughts podcast.
Friedman made it clear (as if the Avs didn’t themselves) that Colorado wanted to humiliate the Oilers. When you talk about not letting your foot off the gas pedal, what we witnessed on Saturday is exactly that. When it rains, it pours, and the Oilers now know that after that embarrassing loss. In fact, it was this quote that raised my eyebrows and thought, “right!”
"“I was still in our green room, so I was able to watch both of them. And I watched the last minute of Colorado-Edmonton, and the Avalanche absolutely wanted that tenth goal. They went hard after that tenth goal. They had a breakaway chance, and then they got the puck, and instead of ragging it or shooting it back down to their own end and just lazily passing it around a couple times, they kept on trying to shoot. They wanted to score. They were up 9-1, and they wanted to win by more.”"Elliott Friedman
Friedman also came to the conclusion that the Avalanche wanted to score even more goals, specifically the 10th goal of their own. In his own words, Friedman said the Avalanche wanted to “bury” the Oilers. That’s a very good sign for a playoff team.
To me, it makes sense for the NHL to implement some rule about additional players on the game day roster. In the case of a 9-1 demolishment, there was no need to have the Avs’ stars out there anymore. However, there are only 12 forwards (three per line). The NHL should absolutely modify the rules.
Nathan MacKinnon, Parker Kelly, and Jack Drury each had two goals of their own, while the other three goals were scored by Cale Makar (2), and Gavin Brindley.
The fact that the Avalanche clearly didn’t want to let up against the Oilers was proof that they were completely on their game and were hungry for even more. That’s the type of fighting effort and attitude you want to see every single time this team hits the ice.
The Colorado Avalanche need to fight like this throughout the rest of the season to succeed
Too often, teams have a tendency to lay back and stop trying as hard after going up by a certain number of goals. Their comfort level reaches an all-time high, causing them to lose a little bit of focus and sometimes even losing a lead.
That also tends to fall on the weight of a team’s goaltender. However, now that the Avalanche have two reliable goalies behind the skaters, it doesn’t feel as scary as it once did. We have enough firepower up front to keep a lead. Unfortunately, though, that’s just not going to happen night in and night out. Each opponent is different, as we witnessed on Sunday night against the Vancouver Canucks.
That game ended up being a lot closer (5-4 Avalanche victory). Both games ended up consisting of over 10 penalty minutes, and MacKinnon had one power play goal.
Not every matchup is going to be easy. In fact, the majority of them won’t be. You will have some nights where it will look easy for the opposing team, and you will have nights where it looks as if virtually anything will go right for you. That’s just the nature of sports. Sometimes you’re at your best, and sometimes you’re not.
Once they start getting into the tougher opponents (such as the Winnipeg Jets), I want to see this effort again. I understand that it’s not reasonable to expect it every night (especially on a back-to-back), but if we get to see it more often than not, this team is going to go far.