Avs-Bruins Instant Reaction: Avalanche lose third straight, first in regulation

Coming off back-to-back losses but still getting points because they came in overtime and the shootout, respectively, the Colorado Avalanche rolled back out East to take on the Boston Bruins. You might remember the Avalanche handling the Bruins with relative ease a week ago in a 4-1 win on home ice.

It looked like it could be a repeat of that as the Avs came out flying, scored the first goal of the game, and then proceeded to play loose defense and get another poor performance from goaltender Scott Wedgewood.

That’s how a team builds its first regulation loss of the season as the Avs dropped a 3-2 decision to the Bruins and head to New Jersey for another matinee game tomorrow to try to salvage two points on this quick road trip.

Avs Postgame Podcast

Scott Wedgewood needs a break

We’ve talked about it several times over the last week or so, but the Avalanche running out Scott Wedgewood every single game to start the year feels a whole lot like Avs head coach Jared Bednar refusing to learn from the past. We saw a similar situation two years ago when Alexandar Georgiev played basically the entire first month of the season, but that was a bit more deceptive because that was a schedule that featured several multi-day breaks in between games.

Because of the Olympic break this year, the schedule is much more condensed for everyone and it is most obvious early in the year. Instead of a slow ramp-up, everyone is playing quite a bit more out of the gate. That has made the injury to goalie Mackenzie Blackwood hurt a bit more as its made Wedgewood the starter.

Wedgewood has responded with mostly great play, but the cracks have been showing a bit more over the last week. He had his worst game of the year against Carolina two nights ago, giving up four goals in just over 13 minutes and getting pulled. Backup Trent Miner came in and stopped all 20 shots and it seemed like that should have been enough to give Miner the game in Boston today with the back-to-back against the Devils on the weekend slate.

Instead, Bednar went with Wedgewood again and paid the price. The Avs were dominating play until Viktor Arvidsson scored from behind the goal line by banking a puck off Wedgewood and in. The goaltender’s chaotic style had him sliding around a bit more than you’d like to see in that spot and Arvidsson took advantage of him. That goal infused Boston with life and immediately flipped the momentum.

The Bruins scored on a 2v1 rush just under 40 seconds later and suddenly were in the lead of a game they were being outshot 10-1 right before the Arvidsson goal. The Avs slowly regained the momentum during the second period but couldn’t score and then Wedgewood completely fell asleep with just four seconds remaining in the period and allowed a terrible goal to Morgan Geekie that made it 3-1 and turned the prospect of a comeback win from a mole hill into a mountain.

The Avs just didn’t have the juice for another comeback and their third consecutive and first regulation loss of the season followed.

The power play remains stuck

After a game in which the Avs power play finally broke through on its seventh chance of the game, you had to hope that unit was going to be feeling at least some confidence that things were moving in the right direction. To quote Lee Corso, not so fast, my friend.

Down 2-1 in the second period, Colorado got two power play chances and did not score. It wasn’t as if they didn’t create any good looks, because they did. Val Nichushkin had three great opportunities to score on the first Avs power play, but he couldn’t beat Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman.

The second opportunity also didn’t produce much and four minutes passed with the Avalanche having created a single high-danger chance, which has been consistent with that unit so far this season.

There was a 30-second power play chance in the third period and they actually had some shots on it, but you’ll be shocked to learn that it also did not score.

The Avs have been one of the league’s best 5v5 teams this season but the reality is that you are not going to win a lot of games if you are relying solely on 5v5 scoring. Every team needs to get some production with the man advantage and it remains inexcusable that Colorado’s work with the man advantage is operating as a car with no engine through nine games.