If Ivan Prosvetov hoists a Stanley Cup in Burgundy & Blue, I’ll shave my head. And my chest. Not necessarily in that order.
“We’ll see, we’ll talk about that,” coach Jared Bednar told reporters Saturday when asked about his goaltending options after the Avalanche’s hair-pulling, maddening 8-4 matinee loss to the Florida Panthers, the defending Cup runners-up.
“We’re in a stretch (where) there (are) no easy games coming up. There (are) no easy games, period. But especially the stretch we’re in, like that’s only two (down) of the top opponents we’re going to face. We’ve got another four straight with the top opponents of the league. So (Alexandar Georgiev’s) played nine in a row, played in (Saturday’s) game, (which) makes it 10. So we’ll see.”
We’ve seen enough, Coach.
Bednar’s Avs have now given up at least eight goals in a home game twice since Nov. 11. That’s already as many times as an opponent put up eight on Colorado at Ball Arena over the previous 14 seasons combined.
In other words, they’re a goalie away. Probably two, if we’re being honest.
Your move, Joe Sakic. The Avs, at present, have the look of half a contender, and the half that’s pulling the weight — that’s scoring in bunches — isn’t sustainable over a long, grueling postseason grind.
Neither is Georgiev’s workload. After Saturday’s relief appearance for a struggling Prosvetov, Colorado’s No. 1 net-minder is on a pace to appear in 68 regular-season games — three shy of Craig Anderson’s club record of 71, set in the spring of 2010. The stopper’s career high is 62, reached last year after Sakic brought him over from New York.
Context, Part I: Darcy Kuemper made 57 for the Cup champs in ’22. Patrick Roy appeared 62 times for the ’01 champs and another 39 for the ’96 title-winners. Saint Patrick averaged 59.8 regular-season appearances for the Avs, yes. Georgiev is not The Wall.
Context, Part II: Over the NHL’s last six non-COVID-impacted campaigns, no Cup champion net-minder started more than 58 regular-season games, and the average start count checked in under 50 (49.3). Likewise, those champs required an average of five playoff starts per postseason run from their respective backups or “1B” options in the crease.
If the Avs had to turn to Prosvetov in the spring, he’d probably turn to jelly.
Who’da thunk the Avs’ most painful absence come early January wouldn’t be Gabriel Landeskog, but Pavel Francouz?
Yes, Saturday’s scoreline proved deceptive on several fronts. Some of the penalties were curious, to put it kindly. The final margin was padded with a pair of empty-net goals for the Panthers over the game’s final four minutes.
The Avs basically and confoundingly took the first 15 minutes and the last seven off, which is bad practice for a pacesetter and worse for a pacesetter with a capacity crowd at its back.
Despite taking their own fans out of the game early, the hosts “won” the second period, 3-1, and did so with the ruthless speed and efficiency of a potential champ, finding the net twice in 52 seconds and three times over the stanza’s first 4:35.
For 20-ish minutes, the Avs brought back all those 2022 goose bumps, all those feels. A three-goal outburst erased a 3-0 deficit with a fastball (Cale Makar’s wrister), a knuckler (Josh Manson’s squibber past a prat-falling Sergei Bobrovsky) and a chef’s-kiss, power-play deflection by Val Nichushkin, parked like an Aurus Senat in the crease, off a frozen rope from Makar.
Having yanked momentum back with both mitts, precedent says the never-say-die Avs put the plucky Panthers away from there. Only four minutes later, Prosvetov somehow misread a low liner by Oliver Ekman-Larsson from just west of Wheat Ridge, giving the Panthers a goal soft enough to swaddle a baby in and a one-goal lead again. A few seconds later, Bednar brought out the hook.
As a benchmark for Lord Stanley, this one was a kick in the teeth. Or a jab, in the case of Joel Kiviranta, who took a nasty high-stick from Florida’s Aleksander Barkov halfway through the opening stanza.
“I didn’t like some of the first four goals and I certainly didn’t like the fourth one,” Bednar told reporters. “It’s not like we gave up a ton of scoring chances in the first. We needed a save.”
They rarely came.
Miss ya, Frankie. And more by the day.
