RALEIGH, N.C. – Having just stopped a career-high 42 shots, Philipp Grubauer made his biggest save Saturday when only a select few inside the PNC Arena’s hallways could see it.
Grubauer was still in full gear while standing alongside Altitude television reporter Kyle Keefe moments before a live postgame interview. Keefe’s salt-and-pepper hair was slightly disheveled from an air conditioning system so strong, it felt more like a breeze than a way to keep the area cool.
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Enter Grubauer. He took his glove, gently brushed down a few unruly strands and made an already dapper Keefe look even more stylish when the broadcast started.
As for the actual hockey portion of his afternoon, it was undoubtedly the best performance that Grubauer has enjoyed in his three starts with Colorado. Hindered by a poor defense in his debut, the 26-year-old German received more support from his blue line in a 3-1 win Saturday over the Hurricanes.
“I go by situation to situation. It’s not like after a first shot I go, ‘Wow, I am feeling it today,'” Grubauer said with a laugh and a smile. “You try to get that feeling in warmups and then take every situation to situation because you never know what’s going to happen.”
Carolina was going to keep Grubauer or any goaltender it faced busy. The Hurricanes entered the day averaging an NHL-high 42.1 shots per game. For those scoring at home, Colorado is 18th with 30.9 attempts.
Grubauer was active fending off a high volume of shots. Many of them came from concentrated areas, but the Hurricanes used a variety of ways to reach the net.
NaturalStatTrick, through its Avalanche-Hurricanes heat map, shows Carolina was able to launch shots from both faceoff circles and the high slot. Yet the busiest area came in front of or around the net in the low slot.
Each of those shots that came directly in front of Grubauer arrived with its own circumstance.
Hurricanes winger Micheal Ferland found an opening and got on a breakaway early in the first period. As Ferland started closing in on net, Grubauer tracked every his every move and gradually took away any angles, stopping the shot.
The Avalanche were on the power play when Nathan MacKinnon committed a turnover that forced a 2-on-2 rush for the Hurricanes. Warren Foegele slid a centering pass to Jordan Martinook, who got his stick on the puck but was turned aside by Grubauer.
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“Grubi made some unbelievable defensive stops. He was outstanding tonight. He was obviously feeling it, and that definitely helps,” Avalanche defenseman Tyson Barrie said. “I think guys were willing to block shots, get sticks in lanes and everything like that. They were committed to the defensive side of it. Carolina is a team that likes to shoot a lot. And when we needed Grubi, he was more than there. He was awesome.”
Like Barrie said, finding ways to disrupt the Hurricanes was another method the Avalanche used to extend their points streak to five games.
Colorado’s defensemen and forwards worked together to block more shots (23) against Grubauer than they were able to launch (22) against Carolina. Erik Johnson and Patrik Nemeth each had four blocks, while Ian Cole along with Gabriel Bourque had three.
Barrie, who also collected his fifth assist in five games, was able to get his stick in front of a few shots. There was a moment when Barrie’s twig partially blocked a shot from Hurricanes winger Justin Williams.
It created a temporary crisis. Williams’ shot was deflected, and it changed direction as it was coming toward the net. Grubauer, however, slid from right to left and snatched the puck out of the air.
“You look at these guys, and they shoot the puck a ton,” Barrie said. “They’re one of the highest-shooting teams, and we know that’s their game plan. You know Grubi’s got the first one. It’s the second one. It’s the rebounds and second opportunities we had to eliminate.”
The Hurricanes were only able to muster five rebounds, per NaturalStatTrick.
What further compounded those frustrations was the Hurricanes’ power play. Carolina came into the weekend with the second-poorest extra-man advantage in the NHL at 6.7 percent.
Colorado, on the other hand, has used the penalty kill as part of its team identity ever since coach Jared Bednar arrived three seasons ago.
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Bednar’s system was once again an annoyance with Carolina going 0 for 5 on the power play.
“I don’t think it was just specifically the penalty kill. I think he was great all night,” Cole said. “When you’re going down a man, you need to make saves when you’re playing against the other team’s five best players. He certainly did that. He did it all day. Five-on-five as well. It was a great job. He was very solid, very calm and made some unbelievable saves when he had to.”
Grubauer was 9 for 9 on the penalty kill, and his defense worked to make sure the Hurricanes were not receiving the greatest looks on net.
The Avalanche were fluid in short-handed situations. Bednar’s trusted core kept their shape but stayed organized to move as a singular unit. If the puck moved to the left, they did as well, which forced the Hurricanes to think twice.
Effective as it was, it frustrated most of the PNC Arena crowd to no end. At one point, enough fans grew so restless, they started booing during a Hurricanes power play.
One fan even yelled, “Justin! Shoot the damn thing!” to defenseman Justin Faulk. He got off a shot from the right faceoff circle only to be turned aside by Grubauer’s left leg pad.
“If it is as good as we’ve looked, then we certainly can be better. We still gave them a lot of looks,” Cole said. “But I think we did do a lot of good things as well. Like we’ve said before, it’s early in the season; there’s still a lot of adjustments to be made. There’s still a lot of wrinkles to iron out, but I think overall – when we get the job done against a team that’s scored a lot of goals and getting a lot of shots because they shoot from everywhere – we can be happy shutting them out there.”
Grubauer’s first start, a 5-2 loss at Columbus, was a result of being placed in compromising positions by a system that stretched Colorado’s defense. He still looked sharp while receiving more assistance in a 5-3 win against New Jersey at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.
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He stopped 11 shots in the first and denied another 14 in the second. Carolina kept pressuring, but Grubauer stayed in control throughout the third.
Right when it appeared he was marching toward his seventh career shutout, that’s when Ferland finally broke through. There was a scrum for the puck just to the left of the net immediately behind Grubauer.
Sebastian Aho was able to win possession and feed Ferland, who quickly flicked his wrists to sneak a goal past Grubauer with 2:33 remaining.
“If you give up a goal like that, you gotta make sure of that next save,” Grubauer said. “You don’t want to have them hang around and get another sniff and another sniff and give up a goal. You gotta make sure you stop the next one.”
Colorado has a game left on its East Coast trip, a Monday evening date against Philadelphia at the Wells Fargo Center.
Semyon Varlamov opened the four-game stint away from Pepsi Center with 41 saves in a 3-2 loss to the Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Grubauer followed up with 27 stops versus the Devils before his personal record-setting afternoon against the Hurricanes.
Bednar said Friday that he wanted to give Grubauer another start while allowing Varlamov a little bit more time to rest.
The result of that decision, aside from a win, is there’s a better feel for the Avalanche’s options in net. Varlamov is 3-0-2 with a 1.77 goals-against average and a .948 save percentage. And as Bednar knows, when Varlamov is playing that well, it usually means the Avalanche will benefit.
Grubauer improves to 2-1. His GAA goes from 3.53 to 2.68 while his save percentage rises from .891 to .925.
“I liked him tonight. That’s the best we’ve seen him now. I just felt like early in the game, we had some jump but we had some breakdowns,” Bednar said. “He made two or three, four big saves in the first period. I’d say two or three early on, first five, six minutes of the game and it gave us a chance to get our legs underneath us, settle in and tighten up. We were a little bit capitalistic tonight and I don’t like relying on our goalie that much, as much as we did tonight.
“We also did some good things. … He made some big saves for us. There’s no question.”
(Top photo of Grubauer: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)