Oh, look over here. I'm the Aves best players, Nathan McKinnon and Kail McCarn. Depth. Aves win 5 to 2 over the Minnesota Wild in Game 4 to take a 3-1 series lead. This game was really impressive from the Colorado Avalanche for a number of reasons. I was going into this game content with the fact that I think the Aves' stars needed to show up and outplay Minnesota's stars. You You're still gonna need some of that to close out this series, but that's not how the Aves got the job done in this one. It was the Aves depth that showed up again and again, whether it was on special teams, whether it was in clutch time, or whether you just needed a big play. All the Depth guys for the Aves got it done. And while it took longer than you would like for the abs to get on the board, they really played very well for pretty much all 60 minutes of this one, or at least like 55 of the 60 minutes, I guess. They out shoot Minnesota 34 to 21 in the game. They heavily outchance them. Frankly, at 5 onon-5, Minnesota didn't even do anything all that

dangerous for most of the game. Just a really well-put-together hockey game by the Colorado

Avalanche. It did start a little weird, though. Josh Manchin gets a double-miner for

but-ending Michael McCarran. He did it. There was a questionable amount of how on-purpose it was,

but he did it. The abs do manage to kill off the first of those penalties, but Minnesota scores first on the second one. The second half of a double miner, abs are starting to get into tired leg territory, and they commit three players to this corner board battle, and they don't win it. That just creates problems for your penalty kill structure when you commit that hard and don't win it. You have to recover and get back out into space, take your men, and make sure everything's connected, and the abs just never really quite get there. You get these, I don't know that these are bad switches, but it creates a situation where you now have a forward in the middle of the ice, and you kind of just give up on challenging the high part of the zone, which gives a ton of room for favor to set up and get a one-timer off clean. And then you also aren't able to win the stick battle net front. This is a great tip, to be fair. It is a nice play from Minnesota. The a abs just get caught a little bit. Nice tip play. Don't take a double miner. That goal doesn't go in on you. Despite the aves outshot attempting Minnesota 19 to 6 at 5 on 5 in the first period, that would be the only goal that goes in. You have to get into the second period and get the abs on special teams to get the next goal of the game. The aves fail to score on their first power play opportunity, but also pick one

up on the second time of asking. This is how the ESPN captured the first avalanche goal live.

I'm staring at Quinn Hughes while Cadry is putting a shot onto the net. Do better. The rebound

comes out and Cadry finishes it. I'll show you here from another angle. It actually starts with a

face-off loss for the abs, but Marty Natchez is just the stronger

man and simply takes the puck away and then feeds Cadry on the opposite side of the ice.

The initial shot from Cadry is stopped, but the rebound springs out, and a yard sale from

Minnesota allows Cadry to recollect, and this time he picks his spot a little better.

The way that goal gets scored felt like it was coming for a long time in this game.

The abs hadn't put one in the back of the net at five on five, but they created a number

of high danger rebounds off of Walstead that they just hadn't quite capitalized on.

Good awareness from Cadry to be ready to get that puck back and put another one into the net.

And even on the special teams, it's the Aves' depth guys that are getting it done. Cadry is the Aves' third-line center, which I get is a pretty generous thing to have. But the aves are just built that deep. The rest of the second period did even up some. the abs are still getting the better chances,

but there would be no goals going into the back

of the net, and you're drifting into a really

weird portion of this series. We're heading into the third period of this game. The last

five-on-five goal scored was in the third period of game two from Minnesota. And you have to

go back even another period to get the last five-on-five goals scored by the abs. A weird five-on-five scoring drought. The thing, the abs are too good of a team to get kept off the scoreboard for that long at five-on-five. We've seen that all season long. And frankly, Minnesota's also probably too good of a team for that to continue. Does the Ave's second line count as depth? I think it does.

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