ReportWire

Tag: gavin brindley

  • Avalanche earn depth-charged 4-0 victory against Columbus, led by Trent Miner, Brent Burns

    [ad_1]

    It was Next Generation day at Ball Arena, which involves kids taking over key roles during the in-game fan experience.

    It turned into a day where the Colorado Avalanche stars took a back seat to some of the “other guys” as well.

    Brent Burns scored twice, Trent Miner collected his first NHL victory and shutout with 29 saves and the bottom-six forwards were all over the scoresheet in a 4-0 win Saturday afternoon against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

    “We got contributions from a bunch of different guys tonight,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “It’s how you win. If you want to win a lot, you’re going to win in different ways and different guys are going to be chipping in. That’s what our team has been doing a lot this year.”

    The Avs have now won the first two contests of this season-long seven-game homestand. Colorado is halfway through its home slate this season, and is 19-0-2 at Ball Arena. The Avs have also won 17 straight here, which is one one shy of the franchise record set during the 2021-22 campaign.

    Burns gave Colorado the lead at 13:58 of the opening period. Gavin Brindley took the puck off the wall after a nice pass from Valeri Nichushkin and to the net on a rush. During the ensuing scramble, the rebound of a sharp-angle Ross Colton shot kicked out to the inside edge of the right circle and Burns snapped one through all the traffic in front for his seventh goal of the season.

    His second goal of the game and eighth of the year came with Colorado’s fourth line on the ice. Brindley and Zakhar Bardakov collected assists as Burns’ perimeter shot went off the goaltender, off a Blue Jackets’ defenseman and trickled across the goal line.

    Burns is one of the great offensive defensemen on the 21st century, but his eight goals this year are already two more than his last season with the Carolina Hurricanes. He’s well-positioned to hit double digits for the 14th time in his career, and 15 for the ninth time isn’t out of the question.

    His two-goal game came two days after his defense partner, Josh Manson, scored twice.

    “I don’t think either shot was going at the net,” Burns said. “I wasn’t thinking about it. (Manson) even talked about it today, about how this game has a funny way of humbling you … we just talked about having a good game. It was lucky bounces, but it’s (also) forwards being in good spots.”

    Colorado’s recently formed third line produced the next two goals after Burns’ opener. Parker Kelly, up from the fourth line because of an injury to captain Gabe Landeskog, won a battle along the boards to the right of Columbus goalie Elvis Merzlikins. He got the puck to Jack Drury, who made a crafty little pass to Victor Olofsson for a backhanded shot and his eight goal of the season at 17:28 of the opening period.

    Olofsson, a shoot-first offensive player in his career, had gone 11 games without a goal, though Avs coach Jared Bednar has repeatedly praised his defense and all-around play in his first season with the club.

    Ilya Solovyov scored his first career NHL goal to give Colorado a 3-0 advantage midway through the second period. Olofsson led the offensive rush out of his own end, before leaving the puck for Kelly. His cross-ice pass found Solovyov, the trailing defenseman, and he buried a wrist shot from the left circle at 10:30 of the middle frame.

    It was the third straight game with a point for Solovyov. He had no goals and four assists in his first 25 career NHL games, but has a goal and two assists in his past three.

    [ad_2]

    Corey Masisak

    Source link

  • Avalanche places goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood on injured reserve

    [ad_1]

    The Colorado Avalanche has been one of the healthiest NHL teams this season, but it’s run into a mini-injury crisis.

    Mackenzie Blackwood was placed on injured reserve Friday with a lower-body injury, just the Avs are about to play three of the best teams in the Eastern Conference all away from Ball Arena. A team spokesman said Blackwood will be re-evaluated after this three-game road trip, which begins Saturday against Carolina and finishes Sunday at Florida and Tuesday against Tampa Bay.

    Blackwood, who is 13-1-1 with a league-leading 2.07 goals against average and second-best .924 save percentage, played Wednesday night against St. Louis. He made 12 saves in a 6-1 victory and spoke to the media afterwards.

    [ad_2]

    Corey Masisak

    Source link

  • As Jared Bednar tries new line combos, Avalanche keeps winning

    [ad_1]

    This edition of the Colorado Avalanche has been so consistently good that Jared Bednar, often a tinkerer when he’s looking for a spark, hasn’t needed to turn the line blender on very often.

    After starting 31 consecutive games with the same top line, the Avs’ top trio had a new look Saturday night in a 4-2 win against the Nashville Predators. Well, new to start a game, anyway.

    Bednar moved rookie Gavin Brindley to the top line in the middle of the previous game, a 6-2 thumping of the Florida Panthers. Brindley started a game there for the first time, bumping Martin Necas down to the third line.

    “Awesome,” Brindley said. “Playing with the best, if not one of the best players in the world. Pretty damn cool. I never thought that would come to fruition. Yeah, really cool.”

    NHL’s rash of overtime games needs a solution: Three-point games

    Bednar’s rationale was pretty simple: He liked how Brindley played with Nathan MacKinnon and Artturi Lehkonen the game before, and wanted to see it again. Part of the reason for the switch Thursday against the Panthers was Necas has been playing through an illness, and didn’t love how he was playing.

    It says something about how this season is going for the Avs that Necas still set up a goal and scored one, albeit one that was taken off the board because of an offsides challenge, against Florida.

    There are still 50 games left in this season, but the Avs have steamrolled their way to the top of the NHL standings. They have 53 points in 32 games, which is tied for the third-most in league history at this point.

    Bednar’s philosophy on building lines has a couple of core ideas. If he finds a line he really likes, he will stick with it for long stretches, and will likely to go back to at some point in the future. But, he also likes to tinker, and often says he wants every player to play with everyone over the course of a regular season.

    “It’s definitely a bonus,” MacKinnon said of the flexibility. “We might need different combos eventually. I think it’s good to switch things up sometimes. I thought all four lines played pretty good (Saturday night).”

    The past couple of Avalanche teams have given him good reason to shake up his lineup, either with slow starts to the season or in-season funks. The closet thing this group has had to an adverse stretch was a four-game losing streak that still involved collecting three points (0-1-3).

    So, after 30 overwhelmingly successful games, Bednar did a little tinkering. Brindley’s return to the lineup against Florida led to a few new looks. Ross Colton moved to the middle for the first time all season, centering the third line. Brindley slotted in next to him, playing with the third line for the first time.

    Jack Drury moved down to the fourth line, with Parker Kelly and Joel Kiviranta. A trio of Drury, Kelly and Logan O’Connor became of Bednar’s favorite lines last season, and they had an excellent playoff series against the Dallas Stars.

    Roster construction and O’Connor’s injuries has kept that line apart this year, but Bednar has said they will play together again at some point. And Kiviranta is a pretty similar player to O’Connor.

    Grading The Week: Avalanche need to avoid first-round dogfight vs. Dallas, Quinn Hughes in Stanley Cup Playoffs

    Drury took the demotion in stride against Florida, and then scored Colorado’s second goal against Nashville.

    “It’s easy. It’s part of being a pro,” Drury said before the Nashville game. “I’ve said this before, but there are so many good players (here), it doesn’t really matter who you are going out with. Any forward you go out with is going to be able to make plays and be smart. It’s easy.”

    [ad_2]

    Corey Masisak

    Source link

  • Avalanche sign goaltender Scott Wedgewood to one-year contract extension

    [ad_1]

    Scott Wedgewood didn’t need a full calendar year to show the Colorado Avalanche why the club should want to keep him around.

    Wedgewood signed a one-year contract extension Thursday morning worth $2.5 million, a source confirmed to the Denver Post. The 33-year-old goaltender is in the final season of a two-year deal he had originally signed with the Nashville Predators, and he would have been an unrestricted free agent this summer.

    Instead, the Avs now have the “Lumber Yard” tandem of Mackenzie Blackwood and Wedgewood in place through the 2026-27 season.

    “It’s just a place that my wife and I have felt at home with,” Wedgewood said. “A great hockey team. All those guys in the room, I owe them a lot of beers for putting me in this situation. It’s just been a good fit since I got here.”

    The Avs traded goalie Justus Annunen and a sixth-round draft pick to the Predators on Dec. 1, 2024, for Wedgewood. It was the first of many roster-overhauling deals that general manager Chris MacFarland made last season.

    Wedgewood’s arrival helped stabilize the goaltending position. The Avs were last in the NHL in save percentage before Dec. 1. They added Blackwood 10 days later and had the sixth-best save percentage through the remainder of the 2024-25 season.

    Blackwood missed the first 12 games of this season, rehabbing from an offseason procedure. Wedgewood has filled in as the starter and leads the NHL with 10 wins (10-1-2). His .913 save percentage is fifth among goalies with at least 10 games played, and his 2.26 goals against average is third.

    Wedgewood said the deal was almost completed Wednesday night, but his wife likely found out on social media when it was officially done Thursday morning because it was just before the morning skate at Ball Arena. His parents are also in town to help celebrate.

    “It’s a chance to play 30-plus games, a chance to be on a really good team, a chance of winning (the Stanley Cup),” Wedgewood said. “When you put it in that perspective, it’s probably the best spot in the league to be a 1A and 1B with (Blackwood).”

    The Avs also have Ilya Nabokov, a second-round pick in the 2024 NHL draft, under contract for next season. Nabokov, 22, was the KHL playoff MVP in 2024 and is expected to join the Avs in the spring after his season with Magnitogorsk ends.

    After back-to-back strong seasons as Magnitogorsk’s starter, Nabokov has struggled at times this year.

    “We’ve got Nabokov coming, we’ve got Blackwood locked in (through 2030), but Nabokov’s never played in North America or the NHL,” Bednar said. “(A) good prospect and has some growth that he still needs in his game.

    “When you get a guy (like Wedgewood) who wants to be here and fits in your culture and then performs like this on the ice, I think the natural progression is trying to get him locked up.”

    Nichushkin week-to-week

    When Gavin Brindley signed a contract extension Tuesday, his coach said he believes the 21-year-old can be a top-six forward in this league. Two days later, he is one.

    Valeri Nichushkin will miss at least a handful of games and is week-to-week, Bednar said Thursday morning. The club expects to have a better handle on his timeline early next week.

    “Nothing too serious, which is good, but serious enough that he’s going to miss a handful of games at least,” Bednar said.

    The Avs have had players missing with injuries this season, but the top-nine forwards all played each of the first 17 games.

    In the meantime, Brindley will move up to the second line Thursday night against the Buffalo Sabres and play next to Brock Nelson and Ross Colton. Brindley has been an early-season surprise for the Avs, earning more trust from the coaching staff while playing primarily on the fourth line.

    “Gavin Brindley — that’s how we (replace him),” Bednar said. “With Val, it’s power play, it’s penalty kill, it’s top-six minutes, it’s empty net when you need one and empty net when you need to keep the other team off the board. It’s a lot of different duties that we will split up.

    [ad_2]

    Corey Masisak

    Source link

  • Avs betting Gavin Brindley, fresh off two-year extension, isn’t close to reaching his ceiling

    [ad_1]

    On Sunday in Vancouver, Avalanche coach Jared Bednar showed his faith in Gavin Brindley.

    On Tuesday in Denver, the Colorado front office followed suit.

    Two days after Bednar moved the fourth-line forward to the first line in the third period and then sent him back onto the ice for overtime, resulting in Brindley’s first career game-winning goal, the Avs announced they signed Brindley to a two-year extension.

    That extension, which carries an average annual value of $875,000 and runs through the 2027-28 season, is evidence that Colorado believes the 21-year-old can emerge as a fixture in the offense over the next three years.

    “I think he can be a (first- or second-line) forward in this league,” Bednar said. “He plays bigger than his size, the motor, the relentlessness, the skill level and the brain to go with it is all there. His (ceiling) is really high. He’s being used in that (fourth-line) role because there’s guys I trust higher in the lineup, and who have played those roles before.

    “… (What he did in Vancouver), that’s repeatable from him. We’ll keep trying to move him up when he’s really going, or when other guys are struggling. If not, he just makes our team deeper and more dangerous offensively when he’s playing in the bottom six (forwards).”

    Considering where Brindley’s stock was just five months ago when the Avs traded for him, Tuesday’s announcement speaks to the strong impression he’s made in his short time in Colorado.

    The Avs sent forwards Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood to the Blue Jackets on June 27 in a cap-clearing move, and got Brindley and two draft picks in return. Taken No. 34 overall by Columbus in 2023, Brindley was coming off a poor debut in his first full professional season for the Cleveland Monsters of the American Hockey League. In 52 games, he tallied 17 points, including only six goals.

    That made him expendable in a trade that Brindley says “definitely put a chip on my shoulder.”

    “Coming off last year, not the best year for myself, I just got back to my game and got back to what I know works,” Brindley said. “I had a lot of different emotions after the trade. There’s positives and negatives to getting traded that young, but (in retrospect), it’s good to go through it early, experience that, experience the downs of last year, learn from it and get better and grow.”

    Brindley said extension talks between his agent and the Avs heated up over the last few weeks and came to a head on Monday. In 14 games entering Tuesday night’s showdown with Anaheim, Brindley had five points (three goals, two assists) while becoming a lineup regular. That’s in stark contrast to the previous two years, when he barely got a cup of coffee with Columbus (one game in 2023-24) in the NHL.

    Parker Kelly, who plays on the fourth line with Brindley, noted that Brindley “has done a great job of coming in and picking up what we’ve built here.”

    “Gavin’s been making plays and obviously we saw him get onto the top line (in Vancouver) and then he buries the game-winner in overtime,” Kelly said. “He was probably our best player throughout the majority of that game.

    “But where I’ve really seen his growth (on the fourth line) is his understanding of the game. … Sometimes he just needs to make the safe play, and he’s been doing a really good job of picking his spots, making plays when he can and being smart with the puck when he doesn’t have plays to make.”

    Brindley has also earned roles on both the penalty kill and the power play — he’s now on the second unit for the latter. That’s another indication of Bednar’s growing trust in the young forward, who would’ve entered restricted free agency this summer without an extension.

    “He’s a well-rounded player who is willing to learn and add to his toolbox to be able to get more minutes,” Bednar said.

    [ad_2]

    Kyle Newman

    Source link

  • Nathan MacKinnon has 2 goals and 2 assists in the Avalanche’s 9-1 romp over the Oilers

    [ad_1]

    EDMONTON, Alberta — Nathan MacKinnon had two goals and two assists, Cale Makar, Parker Kelly and Jack Drury also scored twice and the Western Conference-leading Colorado Avalanche embarrassed the Edmonton Oilers 9-1 on Saturday night.

    Gavin Brindley also scored, Scott Wedgewood made 23 saves and Devon Toews had three assists. The Avalanche have earned at least a point in six straight games to improve to 9-1-5.

    Connor McDavid scored for Edmonton. The Oilers have dropped three straight to fall to 6-6-4.

    Stuart Skinner allowed four goals on 13 shots before being replaced by Calvin Pickard, who made 17 stops.

    [ad_2]

    The Associated Press

    Source link