Avalanche confounded by third period again in loss to Blues

HIGHLIGHTS

GAME RUNDOWN

Returning home after an embarrassing road trip that saw them lose in Detroit and then Chicago, the Colorado Avalanche were still trying to find positives in what has long been a season they’d sooner forget. With the St. Louis Blues in town fighting for a playoff spot, the Avs were eager to embrace a spoiler mentality and try to make life tougher on their Central Division foe.

Early on, they did just that as the Avalanche pounced all over the Blues, building a shot advantage and seizing the early momentum. For once, that actually translated into something for Colorado as John Mitchell buried a puck past Jake Allen at 5:32 to give the Avalanche a 1-0 lead. The rest of the period was Calvin Pickard and Allen matching great saves as Colorado took their one-goal advantage into the first intermission.

The second began with Colorado continuing to press the pace of play and pushing their shot advantage out to 19-11 but couldn’t solve the Allen puzzle in front of them and the Blues slowly crawled back into it. A dump-and-chase into the offensive zone ended in the game-tying goal when Patrik Berglund took a feed from Zach Sanford and one-timed it past Pickard at16:50 of the period.

The game began to take a significantly rougher tone as notorious Blues pugilist Ryan Reaves began taking liberties with Avalanche players and the feisty factor amped up quite a bit after Alex Steen stuck out the knee on J.T. Compher. For Avalanche fans, it was a familiar sight seeing a Mike Yeo-coached team knee one of their young up-and-coming players and the anger in the building was palpable.

Ultimately, little came of the consternation between the two sides and they went into the third period tied at one apiece with Colorado holding a 21-17 shot advantage.

The tie game didn’t last long as a Blake Comeau penalty put  the Blues on an early power play and the Blues capitalized just as it expired when Magnus Paajarvi tipped one past Pickard for the 2-1 lead.

The one-goal lead lasted just under four minutes as a broken play and apathetic, porous, embarrassing Colorado defense allowd Jaden Schwartz to walk in uncontested on Pickard and get a quality shot off. Pickard stopped the initial shot but Schwartz got two follow-up hacks at it and still no defender had arrived on the scene so he poked it in with ease and just like that the Avs were down 3-1 with only half a period to play.

With time running out, a Tyson Barrie slap shot richeted wildly off the back wall and a Johnny On The Spot Mark Barberio made a great read to get to the puck and just put it on net. With Allen failing to get across in time, Barberio found twine and suddenly it was a 3-2 game with just over four minutes to play.

A Berglund empty-net goal ended any Colorado aspirations of completing a comeback and pushed the game to its final score of 4-2, St. Louis.

THREE STARS

1. Jaden Schwartz
2. John Mitchell
3. Zach Sanford

PLAY OF THE GAME

Schwartz’s goal to make it 3-1 basically drove the dagger into the Avalanche and exemplified the kind of defensive breakdowns that cost them games.

TURNING POINT

Paajarvi’s goal just 5:05 into the third period cast the familiar shadow of negativity over the arena as the Avs were suddenly down early in a third period yet again. It was just so, so familiar.

BY THE NUMBERS

WHAT’S NEXT

Colorado returns to action Thursday night when the Edmonton Oilers come to town.