The Colorado Avalanche are in last place in the NHL. They know it, they hate it, and they don’t know their way out of it. Their 6-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs in front of an increasingly hostile home crowd featured all the hallmarks of this failing Avalanche team – poor goaltending, defensive breakdowns, and a complete lack of offense.
The loss was their eighth consecutive at home, fifth straight overall, and 12th in their past 14 games. To top it off, it was already the seventh time this season they have been shut out, a staggering figure when you consider some of the offensive talent on hand. This futility naturally leads one to wonder just what exactly is going on here?
“We’re just not very good offensively,” forward Nathan MacKinnon said. “From top to bottom, we’re just not very good.”
When talking about the NHL’s last-place offense, registering just 2.03 goals-per-game, it’s hard to argue with his assessment. When asked about the peculiar struggles specifically on home ice, he was again left searching.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” MacKinnon admitted. “We’re just not very good on offense, I guess. I don’t know. We need to make better plays. We need to want the puck. We did what we wanted to tonight. We wanted to put a lot of pucks and bodies to the net and I guess that didn’t seem to work, either, so we have to try something else.”
The offense, shut out for the second consecutive game and having produced just two goals in its previous four games, was gifted two lengthy five-on-three attempts and coming up empty-handed on both played a big role in how the game played out. Colorado’s first five-on-three came shortly after Toronto had made it 1-0 and equalizing the game there could have drastically changed the outcome.
“We had some good looks,” MacKinnon allowed.” Tyson hit the post…that’s just the way it’s going for us. I thought we had some good chances. I don’t know what to change on the five-on-threes. I thought we moved it around pretty good…but yeah. When you have two, you’ve gotta score one. That’s pretty bad.”
From the other end of the ice, the frustration was evident, as well, as goaltender Calvin Pickard, summoned in the second period after starter Semyon Varlamov allowed five goals on just 17 shots, felt the team in front of him was doing what they could to produce a better result.
“It’s tough. I don’t know how we didn’t score tonight, their goalie was fantastic,” Pickard said of counterpart Frederik Andersen’s 38-save shutout. “It seemed like we had some major breakdowns early on. They are a skilled team, you can’t give them much and they made us pay, but there was no quit, we were fighting for each other, hitting guys. Right after I went into the game, we played some good penalty kills and we fought right to the end. Obviously, it’s tough, we lost 6-0 on home ice, but what can you do? We just gotta push forward and we’ve got another chance to redeem ourselves tomorrow. You’ve got to think we did some good things offensively, but it’s a tough result again.”
The losses have piled up and already made what felt like such a hopeful season one of despair. For the players, they’re trying to focus on one day at a time and not allow themselves to get caught up in worrying about the hole they’ve dug for themselves.
“We’re saying all the right things,” MacKinnon said. “Hopefully, the break will help us. We just need to get one and, hopefully, we can build on that.”
There’s still a quiet confidence among the players they are going to break out of this extended losing slump and begin to string together some wins but seeing the light at the end of the tunnel remains a tricky proposition.
“When things go south, you kind of lose confidence,” Pickard told BSN Denver. “It’s tough, everyone is really pressing and one of these games we are going to erupt and we are going to break out of this, but we are only going to be able to do it together. It’s for sure coming.”
Is it, for sure, coming?
“Yeah for sure. First 10-15 games we were .500, did a lot of good things and a couple good teams beat us,” Pickard stated, reinforcing his confidence in his teammates. “We know we can beat just about anyone when we are playing our game. We just have to limit the big chances, the big mistakes and we will be right in hockey games.”
They’re trying to keep things simple in the room and focus on doing their jobs with the belief things will begin to turn around for them if they start cashing in on their opportunities.
“We need to score more than zero goals if we’re going to get out of last place,” MacKinnon said with an exasperated sigh. “Our power play is really bad. Our five-on-five is really bad offensively. Defensively, I think we’re better than what we’re playing, believe it or not, but we just can’t seem to bury anything and we have no chemistry. Hopefully, we can get that rolling after the break and rebound from there.”
Maybe the Christmas break will provide some relief for an organization that seems to have once again lost its way. For the Avalanche, it got late awful early.
