"A stretch like this sucks": Erik Johnson looks inward after latest Avalanche loss

DALLAS – A crash was always coming.

But after a 7-0-1 start, the Avalanche will wake up on November 6 and find themselves at 8-5-2 following their fifth straight loss, a 4-1 decision at the Dallas Stars.

“A stretch like this sucks either way,” Erik Johnson said. “I don’t care what our record was to start the year. It’s no fun to go through. We know what we’re capable of, we know we’re a whole lot better. We know we’re a good team. We’ve just got to show up and play.”

The Avs failed to do that again tonight as they gave up the opening goal of the game just 19 seconds into the contest. Sam Girard turned the puck over twice in rapid succession to set Jason Dickinson up for his first goal of the season and set the tone for another terrible first period.

A second Stars goal at 5:46 put the Avs down 2-0 and things would somehow fail to get worse despite the Avs giving Dallas four power plays and at one point being outshot 11-0.

J.T. Compher snagged his second goal of the season and seemed to give the Avs life with a perfect snipe that caught everyone in the building off guard in the final minute to salvage maybe Colorado’s worst period of the season.

Despite the late life, the Avs never fully recovered from a sluggish opening frame that put them in another hole.

“How many deficits can you play yourself out of,” Johnson began. “It’s losing hockey coming from behind like that. You dig yourself a hole, you’re going to have a tough-ass time winning in the NHL. What did we give up a goal five seconds into the game? Ten? We’re lucky it was 2-1.”

“We’ve talked enough. It’s time to go out there and do it right. We can’t lose games like this in a row. We got lucky last year and got away with it. We don’t want to rely on other teams losing when you’re losing, too. Five, six games in a row? What is that? You’ve got to be ready to go. It comes from us, playing the right way and getting ourselves out of it. We’ve talked enough. If we had the easy button, we’d press it and it’d be over but we don’t but we have to find our way out and play our asses off.”

The Avs seemed to bounce back and generate some chances in the second period but couldn’t solve Ben Bishop in net. The game took another turn when Radek Faksa scored his second of the night with what appeared to be a broken stick.

The Avs challenged, their second of the night following an unsuccessful challenge on the first Stars goal, and were penalized four minutes for their second challenge of the night was unsuccessful.

While the refs acknowledged to Colorado’s bench that had they seen the broken stick live, it would have been a penalty and the goal would not have counted, but  because the play was a penalty, not a regular stoppage, Colorado’s challenge under the “missed stoppage event in the offensive zone leading to a goal” rule was denied.

The result was not met with warmth from Colorado’s locker room.

“I guess we can play the puck with a broken stick now,” Johnson added. “It’s okay. I’m sure they’ll change the rule now that they got it wrong. We’ll see what happens.”

While there was certainly frustration over a galaxy brain-level call, Johnson added it certainly wasn’t the reason the Avs lost this game.

“We’re not making excuses,” he said. “We have to be better. That had nothing to do with how we played tonight. That’s just how the chips fell. Whatever you think the calls should have been, it was not good enough from us.”

While it’s easy to point to Mikko Rantanen and Gabe Landeskog being out with injuries as a catalyst for the sudden struggle to score goals, that’s simply Colorado’s lot in life right now. Those two guys are not particularly close to coming back and the Avs must find a way to stop the bleeding without them.

“No is going to feel sorry for us,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to just dig in and simplify and find a way to get better. There are no reinforcements on the way. This is what we have and this is what we’re going to deal with. It’s just keeping everybody positive just putting our nose to the grindstone and getting out of this thing.”

When I talked to Johnson this morning, there was naturally a more optimistic tone to his view of the team’s struggles.

“No one wants to go through losing streaks,” he said. “Adversity is good for a team to get through it and you find out what type of team you have and what type of guys you have. It does make you stronger along the way. No one wants to go through a long losing streak but I think you’d rather go through a struggle early in the season than late in the season. Obviously, you want to bank as many points as you can now but a little adversity isn’t bad. We’re sick of losing.”

Following the game, however, the frustration of a fresh loss was overriding whatever bigger picture zen he had mustered before the game.

“We’ve talked about it enough,” Johnson said. “It’s just about going out and doing it. There’s no easy button we’re going to press that’s going to get us out of it. Again, we weren’t ready to play and in a hole right away. We’ve talked about it at length. At the end of the day, talk is cheap. We’ve got to go out and play the right way and we’re not doing it. If we had an answer, we’d give it to you but we don’t right now. We’ve lost a handful of games in a row and the bottom line is we’ve got to figure a way out of it.

You think guys are ready to play but this is three or four games in a row now where we had mental errors to start the game. It’s not just one guy. It comes down to everybody. We’re all pros and you’ve got to be ready to play and start the game. Again, we were not.”

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• Colorado’s first period: Five shots on goal, four penalties.
• Girard’s two giveaways, the second a weak and panicky clearing attempt that went right to Dickinson, were uncharacteristic of Girard’s normal breakout prowess but a brilliant example of just how much this team is struggling in that area right now. Landeskog and Rantanen being hurt certainly impacts Colorado’s finishing ability but it has nothing to do with Girard just giving pucks away. Halloween is over. Free candy season is done with.
• Nikita Zadorov had kind of an odd night for a while there. He was playing pretty solid defense but having a rough night with the puck, including his cross-ice delay of game penalty in the first period. He also flubbed a scoring chance when he jumped into the play and immediately bobbled a tape-to-tape pass, killing the scoring chance. Up until losing his man on the backdoor of the fourth Stars goal, I thought Zadorov had been damn solid defensively.
• We saw some of the flashes of Nazem Kadri’s mean streak again tonight when he got into it in the first period. While on the PP, Kadri engaged in a scuffle with Joe Pavelski and Dickinson was stopped on a shorthanded scoring chance. Kadri was ultimately penalized when he ripped Pavelski’s helmet off and threw it towards Colorado’s bench, gladiator style. The ref responded with a thumbs down. Commodus would have been proud.
• Nathan MacKinnon looks like he has lost all joy in playing the game right now. He appears very tense and untrusting of his linemates, which are still rotating quite a bit. He had another 11 shot attempts tonight, eight on goal, but none of them felt like they were from dangerous areas. His quick snapshot is too easy for goalies to read when he’s not playing with any deception in his game and nobody believes he’s looking to pass.
• What is going on with Cale Makar’s stick? Is there a hole in the middle of it? It seems like every other game or so he just….whiffs on pucks completely. He struggled mightily in keeping the zone on the PP tonight. Between Girard’s lack of confidence shooting and Makar’s general puck struggles, the lack of Tyson Barrie’s steadiness is really showing right now as they live through the growing pains of two very young players.