The qualifying round has come to a close and the Colorado Avalanche (one of our adopted playoff clubs) have their first-round opponent locked-down in the Arizona Coyotes. After what was an excellent showing in the round-robin games, the Avalanche will now square off with an underdog (pun intended) that surprised quite a few people with their qualifying-round victory over the Nashville Predators.

Before we break down this best-of-seven matchup, let’s take a look at the two sides’ respective performances in the first round of the return-to-play format. While they obviously had very different end-goals on the line in the early going, neither side missed a beat from where they left off in March.

Round-Robin Performance

Aside from losing a hard-fought overtime effort against the Vegas Golden Knights in their final game of the round-robin, Colorado looked fantastic in their return. Following a 2-1 victory over the Western Conference-leading St. Louis Blues, the Avalanche went on to dominate the Dallas Stars by a score of 4-0 just two days later.

In a head-to-head showdown for the top seed in the West, they gave Vegas all they could handle in a back-and-forth affair, tying the contest with 1:02 remaining in regulation time. Unfortunately, they were unable to close the deal as Alex Tuch sealed things with the game-winning tally in extra minutes.

Over their three round-robin games, the Avalanche didn’t really struggle in any particular area. Of the 24 teams to qualify for the expanded format, fourth in even-strength xGF/60 at 2.85, and eight in overall goal-differential.

Interestingly enough, despite allowing the fewest actual goals per-60 at five-on-five (.50 to be exact), their rate of expected-goals was much higher at 2.46 (the sixth-highest mark in the tournament). Part of the reason for the disparity was the strong performance of goaltender Philipp Grubauer. As a team, Colorado benefitted from the highest even-strength save-percentage of any other squad at 98.41-percent.

In terms of GSAx, Grubauer was above-average, despite his defense being rather inconsistent in front of him. If he can continue to play at the rate we saw in the round-robin, the Avalanche will be even more difficult to beat than they initially appeared.

Examining the advanced metrics, the usual suspects had the best underlying impacts, though there were a was a surprise of sorts on the back-end. Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon led all forwards on the team with relative xG percentages of 16.23 and 9.49, respectively. On defense, it was Ryan Graves who posted top marks in that area at 12.68-percent, which was considerably higher than his closest blue line contemporary (Erik Johnson at 3.70).

Series Preview

While many pundits admitted that the Coyotes and Predators were more evenly-matched than it appeared on paper, very few predicted exactly how Arizona would prevail. While Nashville absolutely dominated the xG share in the series (see above chart), it was starting goaltenders Darcy Kuemper and Juuse Saros who had the greatest impact (for better or worse).

For the Coyotes, Kuemper was sensational. His .933 save-percentage was even better than the career numbers he posted during the regular season. Despite his team having the third-highest xGA/60 mark in the tournament thus far, his presence helped make up for a very lackluster defensive effort from his teammates.

On the other side, a strong argument could be made that even if Nashville got a “below-average” performance from Saros, they probably would have won the series. Unfortunately for them, he was absolutely abysmal. He ranked dead-last among his peers in GSAx rate which stood at -3.94, while posting a base save-percentage of .895.

That GSAx mark accounted for almost an entire even-strength goal-against per-game on its own. Goaltending performance is key in the playoffs, and expecting any team to account for an individual failure of that magnitude is a big ask. Unless Grubauer absolutely falls off a cliff in the next round, Arizona won’t be so lucky this time around.

It almost feels like a cop-out to say that goaltending is the key to the series, but in this case, it’s very true. The only path to victory for the Coyotes comes with Kuemper continuing to stand on his head, while Grubauer falters at the other end. If his performance even drops by a slim margin, his team is going to have a very hard time against a strong offensive possession and shot-generation team like Colorado (who by the way, ranked third among the 24-team field in opening-round Corsi-percentage at 56.09).

Prediction

Kudos to the Coyotes for advancing to the “actual playoffs”, but it’s not unfair to say that they were very lucky to escape the play-in round. Nashville is a flawed team that struggles to finish. Colorado does not fit that same description, and if Arizona doesn’t find a way to suppress chances-against in this series, they’ll likely face a swift exit.

I expect the Avalanche take this one in five games.

xG, Corsi, and Save-Percentage Metrics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick

All Charts courtesy of Charting Hockey