Avs Game Analysis: Back In Driver's Seat
Beatdown of Dallas, Wild loss swing division momentum back to Avs
I spent Saturday afternoon playing in the driveway with my two kids. My daughter was really into riding her bike around the driveway while my son wanted to do what he always wants to do and that’s pass the street hockey puck back and forth.
It’s one of those really lightweight thin plastic pucks that usually suck and end up rolling on their sides and never staying flat. Ours is orange and actually works on our driveway; a newfound perk in our new home.
At one point, the kids both made their way down our long, sloping driveway toward the street to look at a puddle or a fallen tree branch or a crack in the driveway. I don’t remember (kids like to do and look at stupid things). From a slightly elevated position, I tried to sail the puck down in their direction. It went about 60 feet before dropping out of the air and onto the lawn. I blame the wind and not my weak attempt at something athletic.
About nine hours later, Mikko Rantanen did on the Ball Arena ice in front of 18,000 what I hoped to do in front of three people and a beautiful chocolate lab in my driveway as he buried the empty netter from 100-plus feet bardown to seal Saturday night’s 5-2 win against visiting Dallas.
The Stars have the name, but the Colorado Avalanche have the stars. It was the Rantanen and Nathan MacKinnon show in this Central Division Showdown with the pair combining for three goals and six points.
Mikko’s empty netter complemented his three-assist night, setting up Mack for two goals, while also factoring into both of Colorado’s empty netters in the final minute.
“I thought we had a really good team effort tonight,” Jared Bednar said. “Start to finish, full 60, competitive, detailed, very disciplined with the puck.”
This week gave us perhaps the two most important games of the season for the Avs. They failed the test on Wednesday night with a 4-2 home loss to the now-first-place Wild, but bounced back in a big way against Dallas.
The star power of Mikko and Mack was on display early as the Finnish forward dug out a puck in the corner and slipped a perfect pass across the slot to a waiting Nate Dogg. MacKinnon slammed home the puck that had begun to slightly roll right before getting to home, blasting it into the net with a tremendous amount of force.
That set the tone for the night. Everything the Avs were going to in this game was going to be done with force.
(Also: how is MacKinnon that wide open on the backdoor? Everything is bigger in Texas, including blown defensive zone coverages, apparently.)
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