Monday Morning Ramblings featuring the Avalanche and the Predators

The Colorado Avalanche are one of the top teams year after year.

Since they won the cup in 2021-22, The Avalanche only have 1 playoff series win in 3 years.

They were eliminated in round 1 (by the Kraken in 2022-23), in round 2 (by the Stars in 2023-24), and in round 1 (also against the Stars who last year joined forces with former Avalanche winger, Mikko Rantanen).

During the regular season, they are consistently amongst the top teams:

In 2024-25 - 8th best record in the league differential 102 pts and +43 goal differential

In 2023-24 - 8th best record in the league differential 107 pts and +50 goal differential

In 2022-23 - 7th best record in the league differential 109 pts and +54 goal differential

With generational cornerstones like Mackinnon and Makar, the Avalanche are a model of consistency and a handful to deal with for the rest of the NHL.

The Avalanche lead the league in shots on goal (958), dominating in mid range shots where they rank first (with 306). They aren't too shabby at other distances either, ranking 4th in high danger shots and 3rd in long range shots.

This year they have kicked it up a notch, they are projected to finish with 136 pts on the season, and a ridiculous goal differential of +138.

Only twice in the last decade has any team surpassed +100 goal differential in one season. The Boston Bruins in 2022-23 (+128 goal differential) and the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2018-19 (+102 goal differential). Can the Avalanche sustain this historic pace and shatter these elite performances? Let us take a look:

Their expected goal differential is +37.4, which is less than their actual +49 through 29 games. Even at that expected goal differential the Avs would likely still be in top spot in the league, since the next best team differential is +27 (Dallas Stars).

The Avalanche are 10th in the league in goals for above expected, but 5th in the league with a goals against above expected, meaning the bulk of their success is coming from exceptional goaltending and defense.

Coming into the season, we thought that Mackenzie Blackwood was the starter and Scott Wedgewood the backup, but an untimely injury to Blackwood left Wedgewood as the season opening starter.

The Avalanche rode Wedgewood hard. He started the first 9 games of the season, going 5-1-2. He is a career 0.908% goalie who is playing at 0.920% this season, posting a remarkable 13-1-3 record. Even Team Canada's management has taken note, and added him to the pre Olympic drug testing program.

In an auction league where I was unable to draft goalies, I took Scott Wedgewood and Alex Lyon at $1 each, and actually led the league in goalie points early on. As soon as I heard news of Blackwood's imminent return I tossed Wedgewood to the curb.

That turned out to be a mistake, as Wedgewood has continued his strong play, boasting an 89% ownership on Yahoo, and 85% on Fantrax. In his last 8 complete games, Wedgewood has a save percentage of 0.913% or better in 7 of them.

Since Blackwood's return on November 1st upto and including December 2nd when Wedgewood left due to injury, Blackwood played in 7 games (6-0-1, with 2 shutouts) while Wedgewood played in 8 games (6-0-1, with 1 shutout). This split could be due to Blackwoods fragility health-wise (the coaching staff wanting to slowly ease him back into a regular schedule) or the stellar play of Wedgewood (the coaching staff found no excuses to keep Wedgewood on the bench) or a mix of the two.

In the last game he played, Wedgewood stopped 10 of 11 shots, but was forced to leave the game (vs the Canucks) early because his back tightened up. Coach Bednar insisted that it was nothing serious.

Bednar also didn't put any faith in Trent Miner, starting Blackwood in back to back games this weekend against the Rangers and the Flyers. The Avs won both games by an identical 3-2 score. Blackwood posted save percentages of 0.923% and 0.920%, stopping 47 of 51 shots this weekend.

T.Miner was sent down yesterday, indicating Wedgewood's imminent return.

Wedgewood sits 9th in the league in GSAx (+11.0). How does he compare to his confrere Blackwood? Blackwood is 24th amongst goalies with a +6.3 GSAx. Since Blackwood has played fewer games, GSAx/60 would offer a better comparison, where Blackwood (0.662 GSAx/60) has a slight edge on Wedgewood (0.615 GSAx/60).

Blackwood, a career 0.906% goalie is playing at 0.920% this year. As the 'wood' duo returns to their baseline, the Colorado Avalanche wont get as many easy multi goal wins as they are getting now.

The mirror image of the Avalanche (a productive team that should regress a bit) is the Nashville Predators (an unproductive team that should improve). According to NHL EDGE stats, only the Carolina Hurricanes have more offensive zone time and fewer defensive zone time than the Nashville Predators!

Nashville also has the 5th best Corsi % in the NHL. Their -26 goal differential is the league’s 2nd worst mark (St. Louis Blues are at -27), however their expected goal differential is only -8. If we isolate that further to 5v5 expected goal differential, the Preds are actually +1.25!

Overall, they have the 2nd lowest goal differential above expected in the league.

Why the stark difference in expected production and actual production? Because the Preds have the 3rd worst shooting percentage in the league and the 4th worst save percentage – giving them a league worst PDO (96.99) in all situations.

Nashville players have a subdued value that can't get any lower.

This includes Juuse Saros (9-10-3, 0.893%), one of the league's few workhorses (4th highest minutes played this year), who has seen his save percentage drop for four consecutive seasons (0.919%, 0.906%, 0.896%, 0.893%).

I can't imagine fantasy GMs being enthralled with the production Saros has provided so far, you can try to see if he can be pried loose for pennies on the dollar.

Let's look at the advanced stats to see which Preds skaters can expect an improvement:

Josi (935) and Marchessault (947) are suffering from low PDO.

Stamkos (6.1%) and Marchessault (6.8%) have a low 5v5 shooting percentage.

Skjei (29.2) and Marchessault (44.4) have low overall IPPs.

More specifically on the power play, Stamkos only has a 28.6 IPP, while Marchessault is at 33.3 IPP.

Forsberg has a low secondary assist percentage (22.2%).

Marchessault seems like the biggest bet to rebound.

Another big reason for the decrease in production that we have seen from these fantasy relevant players is that Forsberg, Marchessault, Josi, Stamkos, and O’Rielly have all seen a drop off in the percentage of power play time. Whereas last year, these 5 were heavily used as the top PP unit, this year Coach Brunette has been experimenting with personnel distributed across two split units:

Forsberg is down from 70.9% last year to 53.7% this year

Marchessault is down from 71.1% last year to 55.1% this year

Josi is down from 72.0% last year to 59.8% this year

Stamkos is down from 71.9% last year to 59.8% this year

O'Rielly is down from 65.0% last year to 51.4% this year

If this power play trend continues, we need to lower expectations for these five players for the remainder of the season.

Streamers take note! The Rangers have a 5 game week coming up. From Monday December 15 to Sunday December 21, New York has an extremely favourable schedule, 3 home games and 2 away games against weaker opponents: Ducks, Canucks, Blues, Flyers, and the Predators.

This includes two back to backs, so J.Quick will likely get at least 2 games. If you were trying to capitalize on nabbing the top PP defenseman after the Adam Fox injury, you are not in luck. The Rangers have been running a 5 forward powerplay that includes A.Panarin, M.Zibanejad, JT Miller, W.Cuylle, and V.Trocheck.

This is bad news for someone like Alexis Lafreniere who has failed to crack the 5 forward top PP unit. Lafreniere did however, crack the 6 forward empty net unit, and picked up a secondary assist on Panarin's game tying goal on a point shot in the last minute of the 3rd period vs the Avalanche. The Rangers lost that game in overtime, thanks to Nathan Mackinnon's highlight reel backhand goal.

In case the Rangers do switch it up and toss in a defenseman on the power play, will it be B.Schenider, V.Gavrikov, or S.Morrow that will get a prime opportunity to mooch some points?

Well, the 2nd PP unit is currently C.Sheary, J.Brodzinski, A.Lafreniere, N.Laba, and S. Morrow. Based on that it is likely Scott Morrow, acquired from Carolina in the K'Andre Miller trade, who will get first crack if they choose to promote a defenseman to the top power play unit.

We will end on a creepy stat: Since Halloween, John Gibson (2) has twice as many wins as Freddie Andersen (1)!