MacKinnon, Avalanche are a tough match
The San Jose Sharks were in for their biggest challenge of the young season this week as they tried to slow down Nathan MacKinnon and the Colorado Avalanche last night and Thursday night.
MacKinnon leads the Avalanche (3-3-0) with eight points in six games as he’s averaged 21 minutes and seven seconds of ice time per game. Together with Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen, who have five and seven points, respectively, they may form the most dangerous forward line in the West Division.
“Everybody talks about their big line and obviously that’s important,” Sharks coach Bob Boughner said Tuesday morning, before their evening game. “The way they generate their speed through the neutral zone, we want to track and back check where we’re pushing them outside the dots to try and give our defense a better chance to gap and close the line and not give them easy entries.”
Boughner, though, also said the Avalanche have plenty of ways to hurt opposing teams, including an active defense corps led by Cale Makar, Devon Toews, Samuel Girard and rookie Bowen Byram.
“What a lot of people overlook or maybe generally is how active their defense is, and not just Makar and Girard. They all jump up into plays. For us, it’s not just our first forward coming back tracking, it’s the two guys underneath that got to make sure they don’t get beat up the ice, and try and eliminate their defense from jumping in on the offense. That’s what really gives teams a lot of trouble and buys time for them in the zone.”
The Sharks’ top two defense pairs of Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Brent Burns, and Erik Karlsson and Mario Ferraro, saw a lot of MacKinnon’s line at even strength Tuesday. Burns and Vlasic were on the ice quite a bit against that line when the Sharks and Avalanche in the 2019 playoffs. MacKinnon, Landeskog and Rantanen finished with six goals and eight assists in that sevengame second round series won by the Sharks.
The key for the Sharks will be staying out of the penalty box. The Avalanche have been struggling to score 5-on-5, with just seven goals in six games, but have the league’s seventh-best power play right now. Colorado has scored on 10 of 29 opportunities, including five goals in their Jan. 15 game with the St. Louis Blues.
“We’re going to have to utilize our top four,” Boughner said. “We don’t have the last change, we don’t have that luxury, so we’re going to have to have two sets of defense ready to play against these guys.”