Closing the book

Final thoughts on the 2022 Playoffs, Makar helping Byram, adjustments not working against the Avs, etc.

It’s fitting that the Avalanche had this run with the NHL returning to ESPN. They were at their peak in the 90’s and were on national TV all the time. Kids like got to watch Patrick Roy, Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg all the time even though we were on different sides of the country. Just seeing those maroon jerseys with the weird blue on the shoulders brings back early hockey memories of watching NHL 2night or the random midweek game they would have on ESPN2 (although the blue helmets instead of black kind of put a damper on that).

The 16-year reign of NBC Sports/Versus/OLN really put the 90’s into perspective, which is silly because this is the NHL after all. You shouldn’t have to dig around to find playoff games on TV and pray that you can watch the games if you’re at a restaurant or a hotel. Not to slight NBC’s work. They did the best they could with broadcasting a league that shut itself down for an entire season. It’s just that you had to already be in the know to find NBC Sports or whatever weird channel playoff games were broadcasted on. ESPN had similar problems during the regular season, shuttling off hundreds of games to their exclusive streaming service, but the playoffs are always going to be what sells in this sport & they got this part right. Mostly because they hit the jackpot with how good the post-season was.

The playoffs are always a grind. I always feel like I need to step back by the Conference Finals because you’ve been forcefed so many games & most of them are a slog by that point. This year felt different. Superstar performances by the likes of Connor McDavid, Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Nikita Kucherov with support players pitching in as always. We saw a goalie duel between the two best in the world and the Finals came down to the two deepest teams in the league. We don’t have to wax poetic about defensive systems, intangibles or anything else. It was just two well constructed hockey teams trading punches like it’s supposed to be.

This felt like a long time coming for the Avs. It’s only their second year where they’ve dominated in the regular season, but ever since MacKinnon took off in 2017-18, their window of contention has opened and they’ve steadily made the roster better to build around him. Then Mikko Rantenen started to breakout, Sam Girard held the fort down until Cale Makar shattered every expectation set for him. They turn Tyson Barrie into a cost-controlled Nazem Kadri, Val Nichushkin and Andre Burakovsky are brought in on cheap-ish deals to shore up their depth, keeping their top two lines anchored while young players like JT Compher figured things out. Nikita Zadorov didn’t fit in with their style of play, which led to him getting dealt instead of re-signed and he was replaced with Devon Toews (who was obviously getting traded from NYI and the rest of the league just let him go to Colorado so they could build a juggernaut of a top-four).

All the pieces were perfectly aligned this year with Kadri, Nichushkin & others about to hit free agency, so it made sense to go for it all this year. They climbed the mountain and did it with relative ease, losing only four games in the entire playoffs. The Lightning left a similar path of destruction in their Cup run last year and even they were taken to seven games by the Islanders in the Conference Finals. The closest thing Colorado had to a scare was in the first period of Game 6 when Tampa took an early lead. They erased it and executed whatever hockey’s version is of a full-court press after they got the lead. It was nothing but impressive to watch if you’re a hockey fan. Whatever disadvantage they had in goal became null & void.

Final Thoughts from the Playoffs

The Byram Breakout

Bowen Byram had an outstanding Final and was arguably the Avs best defenseman. There is a lot of him that is an unknown because he’s only played 69 NHL games, 20 of which coming in the playoffs. What we did see, however, was him crush second pair minutes and provide some secondary offense to help keep the Toews-Makar pair together.

Makar still got his points, but he was getting some extra attention in this series, mainly when the Avs had any sustained possessions. He had only two scoring chances and four scoring chance setups at 5v5 all series, which is pretty good but a step down from the 10.35 per 60 minute clip he was averaging during the playoffs. Makar is too quick & deceptive to shutdown, so you have to do your best to keep him in check and the Lightning’s way was limiting him to point shots & defensive zone play.

Makar had to expend a lot of his energy defending or breaking the puck out of the zone in Game 6. Which is what Tampa wants him to do, except he’s the best in the NHL at this and they have to expend just as much energy chasing him down. With their best checking center hurt and Brayden Point on the shelf, it puts even more pressure on that top line to score whenever they have a shift. This is where Byram comes into play. Even if Makar & Toews aren’t scoring or creating offense on their shifts, they’re usually setting up the Byram pair for success by keeping the play in front of them. We talked about this in the last newsletter. Byram had the puck on his stick A LOT in Game 3 but needed to be a little more efficient with the puck to capitalize on it.

This is exactly what happened in Game 6. He had his best game as an NHLer, setting up MacKinnon’s game-tying goal, creating 13 of Colorado’s shots, setting up 9 of them, being a force in transition and allowing only 4 Tampa zone entries on 10 targets. It’s the all-around game you want from your second pair after your heavy lifters do the tough work. It kind of reminds me of how Vegas uses Shea Theodore as the all-offense guy behind Alex Pietrangelo. You have one guy doing the grunt work & the skilled second pair guy feasting on the “easier” minutes where you mostly have to worry about the play in front of you. Maybe he can be the heir apparent when Devon Toews moves on?

Out of Adjustments

The takeaway I got from Game 6 is that Colorado was “adjustment-proof” with how well they were playing. Tampa Bay bounced back after the first two games & found some things that worked, most notably flipping the puck out of the zone for breakouts instead of trying to create 3v2s up the ice. You pretty much have to forecheck the Avs if you want to beat them and even then it’s hard to keep them in check. St. Louis could only do it for one game where they played perfect defense.

Having Andrei Vasilevskiy basically gives you a 1-0 lead before the puck even drops, so adjustments are easy for a team like the Lightning. The problem is that the most they could do was play the Avalanche to a draw in terms of scoring chances (while being at a disadvantage in terms of possession), so it’s more of an uphill battle than it was against a team like New York or Florida. Games 4, 5 & 6 were the type of low-chance count games that Tampa usually wins but they ran into the same problem that they’ve caused for other teams in the playoffs, nobody (aside from their top line) could score a goal.

They were flipping pucks out, but the Avs were getting them back, their fourth line forechecked the Avs hard but couldn’t create any offense. Makar was kept under wraps but then comes Bo Byram to pick up the slack. Your top line is still going to get their 4-5 chances a game and while Darcy Kuemper had his struggles, he isn’t going to let in 3 of 5 every night. Eventually playing the game of chance adds up, which is what the Bolts usually force on other teams.

Anyone Can Succeed

I had a theory last season that any defenseman can succeed in Colorado with how insulated that roster is. Apparently someone in their front office took to heart because they signed Jack Johnson & traded for Kurtis MacDermid this off-season. Johnson has often been miscast as a shutdown defenseman or a top-four guy in his career and Colorado signed him to be a third-pair guy, becoming a regular after Sam Girard broke his sternum against St. Louis.

The only thing I remember Johnson doing was scoring that ridiculous goal opening night against the Blackhawks and he was kind of just “there” any other time I watched Colorado. He didn’t touch the puck much and got to his usual spots to defend entries or the front of the net. If you told me the Avs brought Ian Cole back I would have believed you.

There is always this big Twitter freakout when a team signs a guy with poor underlying numbers to play a depth role and if this run taught me anything, it’s usually not a big deal if the rest of your team is insulated well enough.

Non-Finalist Standouts

When was the last time a player who didn’t make the Final lead the playoffs in points? McDavid played only nine games in the final two rounds and still led the post-season in points by four. Usually a team being dragged along by their best player is out in the first two rounds. McDavid’s playoffs were special. His Game 7 performance against the Kings is still the highest single Game Score of the playoffs.

Most of it was powered by his offense (10 shots, 6 chances, 17 setups, 10 controlled zone entries) and it’s rare for one player in hockey to carry an entire team like that. At the same time, the rest of the Oilers roster just had to play their opponents to a draw to get through the first two rounds & they did that. Tougher sell against Colorado, especially with McDavid only having one game where he came close to this level. It’s a tough ask.

Another great performance that will probably be forgotten is Jake Guentzel against the Rangers. There are some very good forwards who didn’t have 8 goals for the entire playoffs and he did that in seven games. Definitely one of the best single series performances in recent memory.

New Stats

Before the playoffs I asked if there are new stats fans & subscribers are interested in me tracking & one of the most common responses I got were “turnovers that lead to a shot.” Basically a way to look at failed exits with consequence or who is getting the most results on the forecheck. It could also be a way to look at turnovers of consequence in all three zones.

What do the results say?

It’s a mixed bag. Some of the players at the top took a beating from an on-ice goals & xG perspective (Klingberg & Duncan Keith especially), but Hedman is a pretty big outlier. Even if you remove the Colorado series, he’s still in the top five. Maybe it’s a testament to how Tampa recovers after turning the puck over? Also a little surprising to see defensemen dominate this stat even if they’re the ones who have the puck under duress the most.

What about turnovers forced?

Boy, that Stars-Flames series was a mess…

Playoffs are going to bring a lot of small sample size noise & this looks like one of those cases. Probably a stat I’ll shelf for later. General forechecking stats seem to paint a more accurate picture here, which is only looking at exit disruptions & recovered dump-ins.

Val had the playoffs of his life and he is going to prove value to any team even if he doesn’t get to 10 goals in a season for the rest of his career. I also like MacKinnon & Kucherov at the top reminding you that the best players are usually good at everything.

Goalie Musical Chairs

Darcy Kuemper is more established than Jordan Binnington was when he won the Cup. Still, it has been odd to watch his career rise from afar. He was part of an endless goalie carousel with the Minnesota Wild that included Ilya Byrzgalov, Matthew Hackett and Niklas Backstrom. A back-up on the depth chart to all of those guys and his career got saved when he went to Los Angeles for a cup of coffee before being shipped off to Arizona. Colorado got him because they lost their Vezina finalist starter & needed to pay for the last decent to good goalie available. His season mirrored his career, playoffs included and eventually he came out on top. Shaking off a rough start to Game 6 & making the key saves on Kucherov & Palat to seal the deal. He might be the first goalie to win a Cup after becoming a starter in his 30’s. I’m too lazy to wiki Tim Thomas’ stats at the moment.

Setting a higher standard

Makar rightfully won the Conn Smythe. Two of the three highest rated games in the playoffs by my Game Score stat were from him (one of which being a series clinching game). Still, I kind of felt like MacKinnon’s level of play was being glossed over because he didn’t have McDavid-like numbers. I guess when you’re routinely having games with 7+ shots & 5+ zone entries, it’s easy to take it for granted. The only time I felt he got a lot of attention was after his hat trick in Game 5 against St. Louis. It was his best game of the playoffs, but his entire run was pretty special. Of course the rest of the team was there to supplement him, which is why this Avs run was so dominant.