I'm starting to think the entire Pacific Division might be fraudulent.

Aves win over the Anaheim Ducks 5 to 1.

This ended up being a pretty comfortable win for the avalanche, but it could have been very different.

Early in the first period, the Aves take two penalties, and frankly, Anaheim should have scored on one of them.

They had a yawning cage to shoot at and simply missed. I think this is worth noting not because the abs screwed up and didn't deserve the fate they ended up with,

but because other teams make mistakes too.

Failures happen constantly in hockey. It's not about the failure itself, it's about the response very, very often.

And this time, the response to the ducks failing was the abs stepping up and putting themselves in the driver's seat. And at this point, I think it's safe to say that rumors of Keil McCarr's demise were greatly exaggerated. The Ev's second line was actually pretty quiet for most of the night, I thought, but it's plays like this where they feast. They get in on the forecheck, they cause chaos, they're able to force a turnover and create a possession for the abs that they probably shouldn't have had. Obviously, that's nice work from Brock Nelson initially, but Keal McCar just shows up and does what he does best. He drives the net, tries to get it to the middle. It does a good enough job to get it there, but chaos ensues puck bouncing around.

McCar locked in. Puck locked in for him. He sees it the whole way going around the net,

knows where it is, finds it, picks it up, recognizes that Anaheim's defense has collapsed here,

steps into the space, and just lasers one. That is vintage Kail McCar. Is it fortunate for Kail to end up with that puck where he does? Sure, but that's still just a superstar

player making a superstar play. Not one that you sit there and break down and look at how he

did this right or that right. You just watch it, you enjoy it, and you know it's something

not a lot of people can do.

The Ave scoring first is nice. The Ave scoring second is even better,

and then you realize it's scored on a power play, and yeah, we are back, baby.

Nate just on the half wall here, and McKinnon is down low off screen,

but when Nate just puts this down to McKinnon, look at how much Anaheim respects McKinnon. Down in the corner, they fully commit a man to

him while the puck is with him, Landy doing a good job distracting net front, and you have

your usual power play set up around that. Natchez and Makar are working back and forth here.

A couple of things. One, look at how

aggressive Makar is off of the blue line. For a lot of this season, the abs have sagged back

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